The founding of Heaven-Clearing Academy held special significance for the Yang Clan.
As everyone knew, Canglan Continent was home to countless cultivator factions, but they ultimately followed one of three models: sects, dynasties, or lineages.
Each had its own strengths and weaknesses in development and governance.
For a lineage like the Yang Clan, the advantage lay in blood ties. They bound its cultivators together and gave them a stronger sense of unity.
And because of how a lineage operated, the cultivators under its rule were rarely as numerous or varied as those of a sect or dynasty, making the whole organization easier to manage.
Yet lineages also had a flaw they could not escape: the very blood ties that raised them up could bring them down.
Ancient, prominent clans such as the Dongfang Clan, Nangong Clan, and Xuanyuan Clan were exceptions. After hundreds or thousands of years, their numbers had grown large enough to sustain them.
Ordinary lineages struggled to grow into major powers. Their structure prevented them from taking in outsiders on a large scale; they could only bring unrelated clans under their sway and expand their influence bit by bit over the long years it took to cultivate them.
An open-minded lineage like the Yang Clan was actually quite rare on Canglan Continent.
Few cultivator lineages would accept so many outsiders while they were still finding their feet, as the Yang Clan had done. At one point, those outsiders had even outnumbered the clan's own members.
Even with that approach, however, the shortage of cultivators remained a problem for the Yang Clan.
One needed only to look at how every member of the Yang Clan had joined the fighting during the Great Competition of Two Daos.
With only a few dozen people, they could hardly measure up even