After this incident, the dozen or so fellow disciples who loved challenging the veteran pavilion masters to sparring matches spoke up one after another in the massive group chat.
“Actually, a senior sister warned us before, but we thought private sparring wasn't a big deal.”
“You can tell someone a thousand times and they won't learn, but let them experience it once and it sticks to their heart. After suffering such a massive loss, we won't dare to act on impulse ever again.”
“Fortunately, you all cleaned up the mess in time. Otherwise, how would we have fought in the Outer Pavilion Competition five years from now?”
Once the matter was settled, Jiang Yao sent a message in their small group chat: “There's a question I've never been able to figure out. Our pavilion master transitions are more frequent than those on the other twenty outer peaks, changing once every ten years. After a transition, due to the transition period, we always seem a bit weaker during the first quinquennial Outer Pavilion Competition. The competition rankings have a huge impact on the handyman disciples in the pavilion. Since it has such a significant impact, why is it that the handyman disciples under the abodes don't show any dissatisfaction?”
“Could it be because we are in the Foundation Establishment stage and it was arranged by the sect? Even if they're unwilling in their hearts, they wouldn't dare show it in front of us,” Wen Xuan speculated.
“Unlikely,” Jun Luo said. “Each pavilion manages five to six thousand handyman disciples. Even if it's to train us, the sect wouldn't joke around with the futures of so many people.”
Gu Ningyun stroked her chin. “Perhaps we will have to find the answer to this during our tenure.”
...
After half a year of adjusting, Gu Ningyun and Wen Xuan had become familiar with most of the pavilion's affairs, finally giving them time to do something else.
On the outer peaks of Xiaoyao, the positions of Head and Deputy Pavilion Master actually came with a monthly salary.
For those who had just taken office like them, the monthly salary was standardized.
A Head Pavilion Master's monthly salary was twenty mid-grade spirit stones and 1,000 sect points.
A Deputy Pavilion Master's monthly salary was eighteen mid-grade spirit stones and 800 sect points.
At the end of every year, Governing Peak would inspect and review the management performance of the pavilion masters and Abode Masters for that year to adjust their salaries for the following year.
There were three main assessment categories.
The first was the daily assessment.
A portion of the yields from the spirit herb gardens, spirit plant gardens, spirit fields, and spirit vegetable gardens under the abodes had to be delivered to various peaks on time according to the sect's requirements. The remaining portion could be managed by the pavilion itself.
If the portion required by the sect was not fully delivered, the assessments of everyone from the Head and Deputy Pavilion Masters to the corresponding abode heads would be affected.
If a task was not completed, the compensation for the disciples responsible for it would also be reduced accordingly.
If the yield met the sect's requirements and was delivered on time, handing over any excess would not earn extra points, as the sect had no use for the surplus anyway.
The second was the strength assessment.
On the outer peaks of Xiaoyao, the Outer Sect Disciple Promotion Competition was held once every three years, and the Outer Pavilion Competition was held once every five years.
In the Outer Sect Disciple Promotion Competition, the more handyman disciples from a pavilion who successfully promoted to the outer sect, the more bonus points the pavilion master would receive in their year-end assessment.
In addition, the pavilion master would receive extra rewards, the generosity of which scaled with the ranking of the number of promoted disciples.
In the Outer Pavilion Competition, the higher the pavilion's ranking, the more bonus points the pavilion master would receive in their year-end assessment, along with similar extra rewards.
The third was new disciple training.
For their twelve outer peaks, the assessment scores and extra rewards for the pavilion masters' new disciple training were handled by the New Disciple Training Department.
For the other twenty outer peaks, the assessment scores and extra rewards for the pavilion masters' new disciple training were handled by the Outer Sect Disciple Management Department.
During her half-year as pavilion master, Gu Ningyun had gained some understanding of the Outer Sect Disciple Management Department.
The Outer Sect Disciple Management Department was at the same level as the New Disciple Training Department, and its administrative halls were also located on Governing Peak.
However, the New Disciple Training Department was responsible for disciples with single or dual spirit roots, like Gu Ningyun and her peers.
The Outer Sect Disciple Management Department was responsible for all handyman disciples in the External Sect, as well as the outer sect disciples who had promoted from being handyman disciples.
Accordingly, due to administrative needs, the members of the Outer Sect Disciple Management Department were far more numerous than those of the New Disciple Training Department.
The reason the two departments assessed the pavilion masters' new disciple training separately was also because the new disciples they trained were different.
The new pavilion masters trained formal disciples, while the veteran pavilion masters trained newly admitted handyman disciples under their abodes.
Gu Ningyun and Wen Xuan flipped through the past records and found that the Outer Sect Disciple Promotion Competition was in two and a half years, while the Outer Pavilion Competition was in four and a half years.
These two competitions were of vital importance to the disciples under their pavilion, and for the pavilion masters and Abode Masters, they also made up the bulk of their assessments and extra rewards.
After some discussion, Gu Ningyun and Wen Xuan decided to visit the abodes first to see if there were any areas that could be improved overall.
Afterward, they would carry out targeted training based on the assessment criteria of the two competitions.
Once they agreed on the plan, the two of them spent five days thoroughly visiting all twenty abodes.
Based on their observations and communications with the Abode Masters, stewards, and handyman disciples, Gu Ningyun and Wen Xuan discovered an area that could be improved.
It lay in the sect's basic tasks, specifically the cultivation grounds such as the spirit plant gardens, spirit beast gardens, and spirit vegetable gardens.
A portion of the harvest from these cultivation grounds was delivered to the dining halls of the outer peaks directly under the outer pavilions, providing daily meals for the disciples on those peaks.
The original outer sect disciples of the outer peak belonging to their Songyue Pavilion—which was Gu Ningyun's batch of disciples—had already promoted to the inner sect three years ago.
Over the past three years, this portion of the allocation had gone unused by the outer peak, so it had all been stored in the Songyue Pavilion storehouse. It served as internal pavilion resources that they could freely allocate.
In addition, many harvests from the cultivation grounds accumulated over the years were also stored in the Songyue Pavilion storehouse. By now, the quantity was substantial, almost equivalent to ten years of harvest from Songyue Pavilion's twenty abodes combined.
The storehouse of Songyue Pavilion was actually a storage bracelet, which was currently in the hands of the Deputy Pavilion Master, Wen Xuan.
After learning about the accumulation in the storehouse, Wen Xuan went to check the records of resource usage from previous years.
She found that these storehouse resources were mainly used as a backup in case of emergencies when the sect tasks could not be fully delivered.
In other aspects, they had barely been touched.
Upon discovering this, Wen Xuan clutched the storage bracelet, her eyes nearly splitting with frustration. “What a waste! What's the point of just letting resources sit there? Turning them into strength is the right way!”
Gu Ningyun shared Wen Xuan's view. After some discussion, the two of them issued their first reform measure.
First, they would keep one year's worth of resources in the storehouse for emergencies, and divide the remaining resources equally into twenty portions.
Each Abode Master would receive one portion of the resources and arrange for the abode's stewards to sell them, converting them into the pills and spirit stones needed for cultivation, before returning them to Wen Xuan on an abode-by-abode basis.
At the same time, Wen Xuan also compiled a corresponding pill purchase list based on the cultivation needs of the disciples in each abode.
Doing so would allow them to judge whether there was any embezzlement based on the quantity of resources returned by each abode.
Once they verified that there were no issues, a portion of the retrieved pills and spirit stones would be returned to the Abode Masters as compensation, to be passed on to the stewards responsible for the resource transactions.
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