About the Lineage's Cultivation Realms

When it came to the Lineage, my initial thought was to have Old Wang and his wife grow stronger and help the clansmen develop, while the clansmen helped gather materials. That worked at first, but after a while, everyone seemed to feel like they were being treated as babysitters. Without Old Wang and his wife and Qingshan's group, the Lineage would be unable to function. What I actually wanted was for the other clansmen to grow faster, so they wouldn't fall too far behind Old Wang—at the very least, they should be able to stand on their own. That way, there would be many more side plots, but then people would say I was padding the story. My focus is on writing about a dozen people, but the others still have to show their faces and do something. It's like writing about a dynasty: even if I'm not focusing on the Ministry of Works, I still have to mention who the Minister of Works is and what he has done, right? Besides Qingshan, Yingjie, and Meng Bin, the clansmen currently receiving focus include Qingfeng, Chuan Ming, One Blade, and the others. But I can't have all of them wait for Old Wang to provide all the resources they need to advance. I can only have them travel the world and seek out their own opportunities. But once I do that, there are multiple plotlines: the clansmen's strength and cultivation have to improve, and I can't simply skip ahead several thousand years and say they found some opportunity somewhere and directly reached the Fusion Stage or Mahayana. I have to flesh it all out, don't I? Having too many side plots is one problem. If nobody dies, that seems wrong too. But if too many people die, people say that if