Strong, and without any reservations.
Take Medicine Elder, for example. He had been out of touch with the martial world for far too long. It seemed he had never founded a sect either; he was all alone.
And he was damn strong.
If you pissed him off, he was already a centenarian who had lived long enough. If he fought your family's top combatants to the death and took down a whole bunch of them, would that really be worth it?
Now, with three of the Five Old Men standing together, their deterrent power was comparable to a nuclear bomb in the Ancient Martial Arts World.
Moreover, the Five Old Men had always stood together. Don't be fooled by Nan Ji and Fishing Elder coming to mediate with smiles plastered across their faces, looking all amiable and eager to keep the peace...
That was because no one had fallen out yet. If you really squared off against Medicine Elder and spread out your formation for a fight to the death, just watch how those two reacted!
One of the Five Old Men was enough to leave a family unable to recover for decades, perhaps even condemn it to the status of a second-rate or third-rate family from then on.
Three of the Five Old Men?
They truly had the ability to completely wipe out a great family!
So, outward harmony did not mean there was truly an orderly respect between young and old, or mutual affection.
The new generation did not want to provoke old geezers who were practically in the grave; it simply was not worth it.
The old generation did not want to suppress the younger generation either, since that would trigger unrest.
Everyone gave one another some face. You respected the elderly, and I cherished the young.