The man on the other side of the unfortunate paladin handed a piece of paper to Karl.

"It’s actually really easy to use the blood contract, since it’s not a magical item. I carry a couple of copies on me. You just sign it with your blood and have the target sign it with theirs.

The Clans view it as the peaceful option as it guarantees that the victorious side won’t continue to seek vengeance on you, and the contracts says that they’re willing to swear an oath on it.

So, while it doesn’t stop the robberies and assaults, it does keep them from escalating too far. If either side attacks, the contract will cause backlash on them, so neither side can seek vengeance for some time.

And, it counts asking others to do it for you as an attack on your part.

That’s the genius of doing it through the System. It guarantees that the victim can’t call their Elders over to turn you into paste the moment that you spare their lives."

And that explained why it was both widely used and widely hated. Once you were forced to sign, you had to swallow your hatred for a period of time, and just accept that you’d been robbed.

It was basically adding insult to injury.

Now that Karl thought about it, those agreements could be the source of most of the tense relationships between groups. If they were waiting for a timer to run out, it would explain why they were all somewhat getting along, despite not getting along.

It would also explain some of the reason why so many disciples were attacked on their way here.

Just disciples of the other Clans, when normally they would attack any Immortal they found wandering the wilderness without protection. If they were headed to the recruitment, they were looking to bring in members, and that meant maintaining some sort of decent reputation.

If they went attacking recruit candidates, who were almost all young and newly adult Immortals, they would get a reputation for preying on the weak that would discourage any of the new Immortals from joining them, for fear of being turned into a slave for the Sect, or a training tool for the older disciples.

There was a lot that went into maintaining a Clan when they were all more than a little sketchy.

In Karl’s mind, that was one of the greatest advantages that the Darklight Host had. They were questionable in many ways, but they were not a sketchy group, or treacherous. If you made an agreement, they stuck to it.

The trick was making a good agreement with them when they had the World Dragon on their side.

Karl read through the agreement, and found that it really was a simple and open document, agreeing that you wouldn’t seek retribution, lead the other into harm, or take actions that would cause injury or death.

That was why they had left the Paladin a crappy spare sword.

If they hadn’t, then he would certainly have been in immense danger between where he was ambushed and the New Home compound. Enough that the System was likely to call it "deliberately causing him to be severely injured or killed".

They weren’t going to escort him to safety, that was for certain. So they left him a weapon and called it good enough.

"Do your groups have someone up in the sparring arena soon?

We only had a couple new members join us this time, and they’ve both finished their fights, so we’re just relaxing now. We’re not a large enough Guild to need to take in more than a few people a year," Karl explained.

"None directly. We haven’t finalized any, so we’re here to watch the fights, and then we will judge by their displayed skills whether they’re a good fit for our Sect.

It’s not so much about whether they win or lose, but how they handle themselves, and what skills they already show an affinity for. Take the berserkers, for example.

Both of them are Earth Magic users, which doesn’t suit our technique. But we also don’t specialize in berserker style combat. So, while they’re incredible fighters, we wouldn’t try to recruit them, as it would only lead to headaches on both sides."

"Oh, that makes a lot of sense. We don’t really have one defining sort of combat style, much like the New Home Clan. We just kind of go with the flow, and form nice balanced groups, then teach them a trade skill so that they’re not living off free cupcakes."

The men nodded, pretending that the reference made any sense at all to them.

Cara, feeling generous, as the Paladin’s story checked out, decided to explain. She held up two chocolate cupcakes, topped with green frosting and chocolate chips. Then, she handed them to the two closest Immortals and sat down, as they frowned at the food in their hands.

"Free... cupcakes?"

"They’re made with the mystic cooking skill, so they not only reduce hunger, but they also give a small magical buff. For someone with nothing else, they’re a real blessing."

The Paladin shrugged and took a bite.

He hadn’t gotten a good meal in a while now, since he was short on cash and out of gear. But the cupcake would have been welcome at any time.

From behind them, Karl heard a cheer, and saw that Swag was also holding up a cupcake in victory.

His luck was back on track, that was two in two days.

Now that he had his flow of lucky cupcakes again, he was confident that his next outing would be a successful one. And with that luck on his side, he didn’t hesitate to get his team together to head out adventuring.

They had only been back a day from a gathering trip, but he got cupcakes two days in a row, and that had to be a divine sign that he was supposed to use this chance to build up his wealth.