Reorganizing the Water Manor

The Water Manor's official staffing should have included one Warden, three stewards, ten administrators, and fifty water soldiers. Yet even counting himself, there were only twelve people at present, leaving more than fifty vacancies!

This Water Manor was practically an empty shell.

The account books were even more shocking. Over the past three years, the regular tributes owed by the docks, markets, fishing villages, and the three great cultivation clans—the Wang Clan, Lin Clan, and Zhao Clan—along the upper and lower reaches of the Clear Sand River had been delinquent by as much as seventy percent!

Furthermore, the Water Manor's own expenses—especially cultivator salaries and formation maintenance—showed many signs of inflated claims and fraudulent appropriiation.

The storeroom inventory was even more pitiful. Aside from the spirit stones required to keep the formation running, along with some old low-grade dharma artifacts and talismans, it was virtually empty.

"Good. Very good." Xu Yuan closed the jade slip, a cold smile appearing on his face. "Senior Liu truly left this Warden a fine inheritance."

He rose and walked out of the main hall to the plaza before it. Eleven cultivators stood scattered about. When they saw Xu Yuan emerge and felt the pressure of a Foundation Establishment cultivator, they all lowered their heads, not daring to meet his gaze.

"I, Xu Yuan, as Warden, take command of the Clear Sand River Water Manor from this day onward." Xu Yuan's voice was not loud, yet it reached every ear clearly. "I will not pursue matters of the past."

The people below visibly breathed a sigh of relief.

"However," Xu Yuan's tone shifted as his gaze swept across them, "from today on, everyone in the Water Manor shall fulfill their duties faithfully and obey orders without fail. Any who neglect their duties, obey openly while