The large building, hastily but beautifully erected for the empire's important guests, hosted the three heirs of the greater clans. Built with solid blocks, reinforced with rock Ethra, and inlaid with metal Ethra, it was the best Black Rock could muster. They were proud of it.
Emi Cheng of the Cheng clan was utterly disgusted, though she voiced no complaints, not with them being guests of the venerable Highlord Varis and his esteemed sister. Instead, she played the benevolent lady to the peasants who dared call themselves cultivators and rankers of the empire.
She was astonished by how poor the borders of the wastelands were in terms of cultivation. The fact that they thought simply gaining an affinity and clumsily using projection techniques or roughly imbuing their weapons with Ethra made them cultivators shocked her. Again, she questioned why her clan was so invested in gaining the borderlands, why any of the great clans bothered.