A pronounced silence filled the air after Falling Leaf’s mostly hollow criticism. The quiet was almost immediately replaced by a wave of noise as three nascent soul cultivators started peppering him with questions. The volume rose as they all tried to get their own questions answered first. Sen took a step back as three women drew closer. It felt far too much like a pack of hungry wolves moving in on a wounded animal for Sen’s liking. The only saving grace was that they spent more time casting increasingly annoyed looks at each other than they did looking at him. Even so, he wanted to put a stop to all of that because, well, he didn’t have the answers they really wanted from him.

Not that Ai or Zhi were paying any attention to three cultivators who were almost shouting questions at Sen. Nor were they watching Falling Leaf, who was looking at Auntie Caihong, Lai Dongmei, and Fu Ruolan as though all three of them had lost their minds. Sen could appreciate her reaction. She took for granted that he would, from time to time, do something that common cultivator wisdom said couldn’t be done. It wouldn’t occur to her that someone might want to replicate the feat. So, the bevy of questions being hurled at him would seem both needless and tiresome to her ghost panther mentality.

As for the girls, their entire attention was being taken up by the shadow wolf. They were showering the construct with attention. Petting its head, and telling it that it was a good dog, and explaining all of the things they were going to do together. At least that part of the plan worked, thought Sen. Now that he had done it once, Sen knew that he could do it again. That opened up some interesting options for both the immediate future and his long-term plans for the war. Before any of that, though, there was one more task he needed to take care of. One shadow wolf to protect the girls was good. Two shadow wolves would be better.

“Enough,” said Sen.

He said it loudly and firmly enough to halt the inquisition that the other nascent soul cultivators were trying to launch. All three gave him vaguely irritated looks, but there were also hints of embarrassment in their expressions. What he had done was impressive, but cultivators were known to kill to keep lesser secrets than how he had accomplished it. Demanding the answers they wanted was considered both rude and unwise, unless they were prepared and able to get the answers from him by force. He was quite confident that none of them were prepared to take the knowledge from him.

As for whether they could do it, that remained a murkier proposition. He knew Auntie Caihong was still more than strong enough, not that she ever would. Against Lai Dongmei and Fu Ruolan, on the other hand, he probably stood an even chance in terms of pure power. Not that he liked those odds. They were both much older and more experienced than him. Nor did he believe he’d seen all of their tricks. That would put him at an immediate disadvantage against either of them. Fortunately, he hadn’t considered it as a serious possibility, but it never paid to get too complacent about one’s allies. Their allegiance to him was not beyond question. Blindly assuming that everyone who behaved loyally would remain loyal was little more than begging for betrayal.

Before anyone could think to throw more words at him, he searched through his storage rings for another shadow wolf core. It took several long seconds because there were still so many cores, even after all the ones he’d used up defending the capital. He eventually found one and started the process over again. The first time had been slow because he’d been forced to feel and guess his way through it. The second time it went both smoother and faster. Even so, it wasn’t quite an identical process.

While his intentions were the same, it seemed the basic nature and intentions of this shadow wolf had been different from the first one. Sen didn’t know if it was a matter of the spirit beast’s age or disposition when it was alive, but a playfulness that was absent in the first wolf lurked beneath everything. Sen debated with himself about how to address that or whether he even could stamp it out. In the end, he decided not to even try. With other constructs that he meant for other purposes, he might try to impose more stringent limitations on them. For Zhi, he wanted something that had more personality. He did impose the same basic instructions on it that he had for the one he’d given to Ai. When the process was done, he asked the same question.

“Do you understand your purpose?”

The construct immediately went over to Zhi, who let out a noise that Sen interpreted as joy. It sounded like a scream mixed with the kind of high-pitched noise something under pressure might make. She threw her arms around its thick neck before Sen could even say anything to her. The shadow wolf construct hopped around a little bit in excitement before Ai’s shadow wolf gave it a sharp look. The second wolf immediately calmed itself. Sen considered the interaction in thoughtful silence for several moments before he spoke.

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“What the actual—” he started before he took a sharp breath.

The second shadow wolf had also just taken in some environmental qi. It wasn’t quite as shocking as it had been when the first one did it, but Sen had thought that maybe it was a fluke. It was amazing and exciting. However, the implications of it were troubling. If these constructs could absorb environmental qi, were they actually alive in some fashion? He didn’t know since he’d never given any consideration to the requirements for taking in environmental qi. Since they were constructs and not made of flesh, would they live forever barring injuries that destroyed them? While Sen would be perfectly content if the shadow constructs could serve as guardians for the girls their entire lives, what would happen after?

He hated to even consider that Ai and Zhi would die someday, but that was the most probable outcome. Even if he won the war, age would likely claim them someday. If the constructs were still around at that point, what would become of them? He’d given the shadow beasts very specific purposes when he made them. If they could think, which it seemed that they could at some basic level, how would they react if or when the girls died? Would they dissipate? Would they seek some other purpose? Would they go mad? If the constructs could absorb qi, were they going to grow more powerful? If they were, would he be responsible for creating future monsters?

Sen had a sinking feeling as he realized that he’d fallen into the same trap that more than one cultivator had over the years. He’d spent a great deal of his time trying to work out a method to do something, but he hadn’t given much thought to whether he should do it. He didn’t have answers to any of those questions. The most he could manage were some educated best guesses. Worse, he couldn’t take the decision back. He’d already given the things to the girls. Still, if he couldn’t answer those questions, could he make more of the constructs in good conscience?

One of the pressing problems that had consumed Sen’s thinking in recent months was numbers. The number of human beings and cultivators versus the number of spirit beasts. It took years for a human being to grow enough physically and mentally to be useful on a battlefield. It could take decades to train a cultivator to be even nominally useful against spirit beasts, and it could take centuries for a cultivator to grow truly powerful. Every soldier lost, every cultivator killed, was a loss that could not be easily replaced.

Sen suspected that the spirit beasts had a similar problem, at least when it came to sapient spirit beasts like Boulder’s Shadow. Developing that self-awareness and strength was not something that happened quickly. However, the spirit beasts did seem to breed and grow faster than human beings did. And they could absorb the losses that would come from throwing their non-sapient brethren at Sen and his troops for a lot longer. This method is a way to help level that field, thought Sen. The constructs weren’t precisely disposable, but as long as the cores survived, he could theoretically remake them. Even if I don’t know the long-term consequences, can I afford to ignore this possible advantage? Sen asked himself.

He didn’t have any delusions that he could use this method to truly even up the numbers. Even if he did explain his method, it seemed unlikely to him that anyone else could make these constructs. At least, not ones that would function in the same way. He had relied on both his intuition and multiple qi types to create the bodies. That would make his method all but impossible for anyone else to achieve. There might be a way to replicate some of that using formations and alchemy, but it would probably prove so costly that no one would make more than one or two.

He also couldn’t really instruct anyone about the process he used to imprint his commands. It had something to do with his intentions, and that probably led back to his soul, but he didn’t understand the details. Without that information, any guidance he offered would be limited. That made him the bottleneck. He only had so much time in a day. Even if he could handle making the constructs in batches, it would probably take hundreds of years of uninterrupted work to even make a decent start. But even having some of the constructs on the battlefield would be valuable. No, he decided. Even if I’m making problems for the future, this is a weapon I can’t ignore. Not with the stakes so high.

“I see that the potential of this has already occurred to you,” said Auntie Caihong. “As well as the possible problems.”

Her expression was serious. Lai Dongmei and Fu Ruolan looked between him and Auntie Caihong for a moment before they evidently caught up to the conversation. Fu Ruolan frowned. Lai Dongmei’s expression was a more complicated mixture of hope, concern, and worry.

“I have,” said Sen. “And I’m going to do it anyway.”