Lamont and his group were driven out of the Fifth Division. Those who remained, together with Bolands, Blood Spirit, and the others Han Shuo had brought, numbered fewer than a hundred-not even enough to form a single battalion of Divine Guards!
With fewer than a hundred people, managing the enormous Fifth Division properly was almost impossible. Han Shuo knew that his first task after taking over was recruitment: gathering new Divine Guards and rebuilding the Fifth Divine Guards Office!
With the Fifth Divine Guards Office's substantial establishment already in place, Han Shuo had assumed he would have no trouble recruiting suitable candidates. Only when he set about it did he realize that, vast though Shadow City was, recruiting genuinely suitable Divine Guards was no easy task.
Shadow City was large, but everyone with real talent already bore the stamp of a major family. Whenever powerful individuals from its subordinate cities and fortresses arrived, the major families sent people to invite them. Some truly talented individuals were even drawn away by the families' negotiators before entering Shadow City.
As a result, talented people never had a chance to reach the Fifth Division. They had already been divided up beforehand.
Although the Han Family had gained some recognition in Shadow City, outsiders saw it as a family whose fame depended solely on Celestial Pivot Pharmacy. A family that had risen through commerce surely could not compare in strength with Shadow City's ancient major families. Given identical terms, those people preferred to pledge themselves to the city's established families rather than the Han Family!
The Fifth Division had to be rebuilt, but it was desperately short of manpower, and Han Shuo was particularly demanding in this regard. He instructed Stassom and Bolands to select recruits on the principle that having too few was