To be fair and more accurate, the family had two options to choose from. No one forced them to become vassals of the Black Bones sect.
They could have choosen to either give up their position as a cultivation family and the responsibilities that came with it, such as protecting the secret realm and its environs, or they could continue to do their work under a different master.
It is clear that they chose the latter. This makes them a cultivation family that saw the fall of the Jade Cauldron sect and the rise of the Sword Way sect. So despite being a family, they are older than the Sword Say sect.
They are older than the Sword Way sect, but they are orders of magnitude weaker than the Sword Way sect. However, as an ancient family, they are older and also stronger than the Dyson family.
The difference in strength between the Wade family and the Dyson family was evident in the number of people at the second mortal coil that they brought to harvest the secret realm.
The Dyson family only brought 19 people. The rest of their slot was sold to loose cultivators.
As for the Wade family, they had 31 people from their families. The remaining 9 people are loose cultivators.
On the surface, they have a difference of 12 people at the second mortal coil. But their differences would probably be more than this at a deeper level, such as the number of elders at the third mortal coil and the number of elders that are secretly at the fourth mortal coil.
Arthur doesn't know much about both families, but he is sure that the Wade family outmatches the Dyson family in every way. He also doesn't think that the Dyson family is not well. He can excuse their weakness because they are young.
Besides, there are still people doing poorer than the Dyson family. On the far end of cultivation families are those who shouldn't be called cultivation families anymore. The Roe family is the specific one he had in mind.
The Roe family doesn't even have slots to participate in harvesting secret realms anymore and has to buy the opportunity like loose cultivators.
The Roe family might have the same cultivation conditions as the bonafide and powerful cultivation families like the Wade family, but the only thing that they can use to compare to the Wade family is their history.
Arthur thought of these things as his gaze moved over the assembled groups and inspected them. As he did this, he realized that there were some differences in the arrangement of people compared to what he was used to for the past 20 years.
The main difference was the presence of too many people at the third mortal coil. There was still the same number of people at the second mortal coil, but the number of people at the third mortal coil was no longer 43.
Usually, 3 elders would come from each of the four sects, 6 elders from the sect hosting, and 1 elder would come from each of the 25 families. This would make 43 elder-level figures.
But now, an extra 100 people at the third mortal coil were coming from each of the five sects, while each family brought an extra 4 with them. This increased the usual amount of people at the third mortal coil by 600 to a total of 643.
These 643 people at the third mortal coil plus the people at the second mortal coil will make for a total of 7,643 people. This was an increase of 600 people, or an increase of 8.52% of people over the past inter-sect competition.
This was just the quantitative difference. In terms of quality, the difference was higher because each of the extra people at the third mortal coil was at least the second transformation of the third mortal coil and was thus worth at least four times a single person at the second mortal coil in terms of energy and potential.
Actually, it was the difference in quality that he noticed first. This difference was glaring to his eyes because the energy level of the crowd was higher than usual.
It was his attempt to understand the source of the difference that he remembered the inheritance ruins in the secret realm and how it led to the changes this time around.
Another thing that he noticed was the presence of Elder Calcetti. This shining elder was part of the group of elders from the Dyson family that came to try for the inheritance of the Jade Cauldron sect.
From what he sensed, Elder Calcetti didn't come to make up the number of people trying for the inheritance. Elder Calcetti seemed much stronger than the juniors that just reached the third mortal.
Arthur thought to himself, "It is understandable. He is older than them. Even if he had just reached the third mortal coil when I was born, he would have been at the third mortal coil for at least 42 years."
Elder Calcetti seemed capable of mobilizing more than one of the 8 life seeds within him at once. So even though he was at the third transformation of the third mortal coil, like Goldwyn, he should be stronger.
Arthur used should to describe the difference between Goldwyn and Elder Calcetti because even though Goldwyn can only use one life seed at a time, his foundation is more powerful and can double his power.
This is an example of the qualitative difference between the Blood Skull sect and others. Even other sects are in the same situation as Elder Calcetti, so it is not that Elder Calcetti is a subpar cultivator.
The disciples of the Blood Skull sect use their armament to forge their foundation. This makes them change more than others at the third mortal coil, which makes them become inhuman and more likely to lose their ability to reproduce. But in exchange, their lose grants them strength.