Change could only come through clashes between various powers behind the scenes, no different from negotiating a business deal.
That was the Brocade Continent's current situation. Every tradition in the cultivation world struggled back and forth between seeking change and clinging to the old ways, trying to find a balance.
They dared not stake everything on one throw, because the Visitors from Beyond the Heavens had not truly arrived yet, and many unrealistic fantasies remained. Nor did they dare leave everything unchanged, because those visitors would come eventually. And so they kept making half-hearted changes, moving forward through indecision.
Such thoroughly uncultivator-like ideas and attitudes arose because the Jinxiu Xiuzhen Realm was too entangled with the mortal world. Many of their ideas had yet to fully escape its restraints. They had not encountered the true universe, had not fully broadened their horizons, and had yet to realize what cultivation could truly bring them. They remained endlessly entangled with worldly powers; indeed, the vast majority of traditions did not even have mountain gates of their own, still living intermixed with human cities.
This state of affairs meant that, consciously or otherwise, they based their thinking on the historical changes of ordinary humanity. They believed that the bird that stuck its head out would be shot, and that strong swimmers drowned; that individual strength could not stand above the collective, and that something as important as the selection of True Disciples should naturally be weighed by all the factions.
They had not completely escaped the shadow of human imperial courts. Of course, they were in the process of escaping it, but progress was slow. The great upheaval of heaven and earth was an accelerator, a catalyst... for now, no one had realized this.
Thus, they believed they were doing the right thing.