Three Pure Ones Mountain had stood for six thousand years and had over a hundred thousand people. Running it was no simple matter.
Six thousand years ago, when Patriarch Ge Hong founded the sect, there were only seven first-generation disciples. The master and his seven disciples discussed everything among themselves and settled it.
By the second generation, there were thirty or forty disciples. Even gathering everyone for a meeting had become somewhat difficult.
There were over a hundred third-generation disciples, and they were no longer very familiar with one another.
Then came four or five hundred people, a thousand, three thousand, ten thousand, thirty thousand, a hundred thousand. It was probably around the fourteenth or fifteenth generation that the number of disciples on Three Pure Ones Mountain finally stabilized at roughly a hundred and fifty thousand, and the sect stopped opening its gates to recruit disciples on a large scale.
By then, expecting masters to seek out disciples was no longer very feasible. Everyone entered through the general recruitment of registered disciples, and only after those registered disciples distinguished themselves would they be considered for acceptance as True Disciples.
The old practice of one person taking seven or eight True Disciples no longer occurred either. Most took one or two, three or four at most, while some preferred not to take any.
With so many people, master-disciple relationships alone naturally could not keep such a large sect running. Even passing orders down and coordinating everyone centrally was difficult.
Thus came a chain of sect leader-deputy sect leader overseeing a portfolio-mountain lord-deputy mountain lord overseeing a portfolio-advisory elder-direct-line disciple-True Disciple-registered disciple. With clear distinctions between ranks and orders passed from above to below, it facilitated management while also transmitting the Dao lineage.
Later, they discovered that this chain alone was still