Chapter 736: Family Matters

With their children growing large enough to become adults, it was time for them to make more decisions. Ling and Jiao knew of Sage’s obligation to rebuild the Lang Clan and now that they’d made it this far, there was still something very important to cover: the new Lang Clan’s rules. When he was a child, the clan had been plagued with problems. If they didn’t have any difficulties, then would they have been destroyed so easily? Not only had their strength declined to a low level, their morality and behavior was also greatly lacking. The Clan would still be around now if it had not fallen so far on both fronts. If their attitudes weren’t so polluted then they could refrain from starting trouble where there was none, while if they were strong then it wouldn’t matter who they provoked.

The dream of any person creating a long lasting organization would be for the rules and guidelines they lay down to be carried down for thousands of years and create a long line of leaders that exemplified their own values. The problem was that rules on their own had no morality, they were neither kind nor cruel. There is a reason that most groups try to create a culture for their members to follow and live by, because the rules can only reinforce or protect that culture. They can’t instill values or teach people to be good, especially since most rules were a guide on what -not- to do, rather than what one should do.

“I think it’s important that we not only have punishments, but rewards as part of the new Clan’s rules. To that end, I think it would be most beneficial to follow what most Sect’s do and have clan points to track contributions. If there isn’t an established system for handing out benefits and resources, then won’t it become something purely based upon emotion? Whoever is in charge of the clan might just funnel all resources to their favorite descendant rather than to those who earn it.”

“Isn’t it a waste to give resources to those with bad attitudes or those who care nothing for their own kin? What’s to stop it from turning into a pack of -capable- villains?”

“Jiao is right. How can a set of rules instill the correct attitude and morality? Can’t they still just twist the rules to get what they want? How will that stop them?”

“I don’t disagree with you, but even if we create an extremely complicated set of rules to try and account for every situation we won’t be able to think of everything. Also, as time passes, I’m sure there will be some rules we make now that will seem silly or ridiculous. So, we also need to create a separation of power as well as a way to change the rules in the future.”

Sage didn’t hesitate to take a page from Earth and steal some of the key concepts from more successful governments. Jinxi Po was even a good example of this sort of idea at work. The more limited a ruler’s power was, the less amount of damage they could cause upon their own subjects. On the other hand, it was also a limit to the amount of good they could do as well. Given this was a clan, it was also a given the head had great power, but Sage instituted something similar to the Chong Clan by creating a council that had a vote in all important matters. The head had full control in wartime and also over all minor matters, but there was a list of things that had to be decided by council votes and a few situations in which anything could be decided by a vote, though at a cost. There was also a strict set of rules on who could be council members and how the votes would be divided.

For the clan point system, there should be a fixed amount in circulation to prevent inflation as well as methods to reclaim points from the deceased and limits on how much could be transferred or inherited. It was intended to be a personal merit system after all, not a form of currency. Different levels of rewards would remain constant in the rules, but as time passes the value of the reward for a given number of points could change as could the determination of different degrees of difficulty that rewarded those points. So the base reward for turning in the corpse of a tier 5 beast would always be the same, but the bonus for a more difficult tier 5 would vary based on what could be considered ‘difficult’ at the time. If a new method was invented that made a certain type of Demonic Beast drastically easier to defeat, then it would not be worth as great a reward.

At the beginning of these long discussions with Ling and Jiao, Sage was thoroughly enjoying himself. It was certainly entertaining to be playing out a little fantasy as a founding father of a nation, but that novelty quickly wore off. It was quite entertaining to lay out a bunch of general ideas on how things should be, fantasizing about some sort of utopian dream. There was a lot less to be excited about when you were taking those ideas and trying to record them down in a way that properly conveyed your meaning yet also tried to cover for abusive reinterpretation.

This annoying situation is why lawyers were created. How horrible. Hmm, wouldn’t this be easier with an immortal judge or something? Well, that’s not perfect either, since they would still have a mentality from whenever they were born, right?

For a moment, Sage started to wonder if he could acquire some sort of immortal being that could carry on a certain culture or tradition for eternity, but that felt a bit draconian. Wouldn’t that just end up with a clan that was still using swords when the rest of the world were using guns? It was a drastic example, but it was only a situation that he had to be wary of.

I would have to create some sort of system to constantly monitor the culture and mindset of those in the clan in order to strike a balance between the values of the clan and the values of the time. If I combine the Memory Sphere library into a single database, could a spirit or something watch over it and learn from the people who use it?

Sage was reminded of his time on earth and the project he was working on before his death there. His own work was related to the improvement of artificial intelligence, and it made him wonder about the rumors he’d heard in this new world. Beyond magical devices were things known as ‘Artifacts’, which were said to have ‘Artifact Spirits’ within them. He never had access to the more detailed knowledge about Artifacts while he was part of the Holy Flame Sect and the Timeless Master’s library didn’t contain that much information about professions beyond the basics. It only had a few technique sets related to professions so detailed knowledge of other professions was severely lacking.

He had access to some pretty detailed information about Weaving for example, but only the basics of Tailors. Unfortunately, Blacksmithing was one of the areas in which the Timeless Master’s Library was inadequate. It was also a shame that he thought of this topic now and not back when he was at the Holy Flame Sect and could try to learn more about it.

Oh well, I’ll just have to chalk it up to one of those things I’ll look into later on.

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