It all started when 7 young nobles suddenly woke up to the fact they were utterly dispensable and even undesirable to their powerful noble house - the Cin House.

—

There were four major reasons for noble families in a Boundless Profound World to have a very large number of sons specifically, not just large numbers of children, and some noble families even had a system of secret heirs.

The first was simple elimination by Heavenly Tribulations.

When their children tried to cross into Seven Profound Realms, it was expected to lose as many as a third to the trial of the Heavenly Daos - and truly unlucky families could even lose up to half.

The second reason was natural elimination.

Life was unpredictable, and accidents or other unfortunate circumstances often took the lives of a few heirs even long before reaching the Mortal Transcendence Realm, or perhaps even more unfortunately after being lucky to survive the first elimination by Heavenly Tribulation.

This was also allowing for so-called ’acceptable losses’, as some heir candidates might be targeted by rival noble houses or other adversaries.

There were also cases where a noble son might offend someone important and thus be exiled from the family early on, suffer an injury that prevents them from cultivating to higher realms, or simply be born with a condition that disqualifies them as an heir that becomes apparent either right away or when they grow up a bit.

Of course, a prominent cause of death for Young Masters of noble families among that natural elimination, was picking a fight with someone they shouldn’t have picked a fight with and die even if a bodyguard was present - a trend so widespread and obvious that it did not go unnoticed by noble families in general, so they tend to produce enough sons to account for at least one of them going down that route.

The third reason was conscious selection.

The Head of a noble family had to determine which heir had the right qualities, and thus was worthy of succeeding the position among those who were not eliminated by the first two reasons. It was the reason why most noble families did not really start their battle of succession until after the heirs passed their most vulnerable period, and entered the Essence Awakening Realm. From then on the Family Heads would begin testing their heirs, or have them compete.

These three reasons were common for all noble families everywhere.

Sons lost to the first two eliminations were not even usually counted, as the 1st son was simply the eldest of survivors, the 2nd son was the next oldest from the survivors, and so on. This was the reason the Imperial Family’s decision to start the count of heirs from the 3rd prince in this battle of succession was so controversial - since most would simply start from the 1st again.

Even City Lord Ko’s four sons were leftover from the 7 he sired, losing 2 to Heavenly Tribulations and 1 to an accident with a Demonic Beast he tried to hunt.

But the fourth and last reason mainly concerned bigger and more powerful noble families in particular, although other less prominent houses tried to follow this formula when possible as well - they needed more sons because for noble families, there were more uses for sons than only to succeed the family head position.

There were important key positions across the vast domains of noble families that had to be occupied by family members with close ties to the current family head, preferably brothers to keep tight control over the branch families with more distant blood ties to the main family, as well as the various properties and businesses, spheres of influence that a family controlled.

Not to mention, there were so-called talented prospects cultivated with the ambition of the entire family in mind - who were not intended to compete for Family Head position in the first place, but prepared for a greater goal.

Those were not even included in the count for many families, too important to even be counted among the numbered sons.

For example, with the anticipated Generational Wave and opening of a major Secret Realm, a talented heir was to be cultivated within the main family to try and produce a powerful member of the family that had a slight possibility of elevating the standing of the entire family.

But that happened not only during such opportune moments, as every generation produced their own prodigy within the family - it was just the chance of success was very slim, and 90% of all those prodigies failed to produce meaningful results, and 9% more produced only mild results that were nowhere near the grand ambition.

Those slim chances, however, did not deter the noble families from trying with each generation, spending those precious resources on cultivating a special chosen one that might have a chance.

The allure of that ambition was too strong.

If, by some chance or miracle, such a descendant obtained great benefits in the Secret Realm or other competition of prodigies, he could pull the family into a new age of prosperity by advancing into a higher Cultivation Realm than anyone in the vicinity, or obtaining some powerful ancient technique that becomes the family’s heirloom. Or, after distinguishing himself, if he entered a Great Sect, or under the wing of a greater noble family from a Great Dynasty, and happened to obtain a position of some authority there, the family could use that connection to rise instead.

In either of those cases, they could just become a more powerful noble family, or even displace the Dynasty that they serve under to become an Imperial Family themselves. Or the whole family could rise to be a noble family of a Great Dynasty. Of course, a noble family of a Great Dynasty would dream of ascending into a higher Boundless World instead.

But even those auxiliary positions for noble sons were not unlimited.

Talented prospects took a lot of resources pooled from the entire family to cultivate their talents, so even powerful noble houses could afford at most 2 of such prodigies.

And important positions within the family also had a set number depending on how affluent the noble house was, and how widespread their area of influence was.

Those who survived the first two eliminations, were not fit for the conscious selection of the next Family Head, and did not even fit either case for heir candidates useful to the family, were unofficially called by the derogatory term ’leftover heirs’.

Deemed without much use, and only consuming valuable family resources that could be spent on talented prospects instead.

This was the reason nobles didn’t just thoughtlessly choose the number of heir candidates to produce - but balanced it against all those considerations to not end up with too many leftover heirs.

Nobles had enough daughters to make marriage alliances with other noble families, Sects, or other important people - if leftover heirs were used in arranged marriages, they were usually sent to marry into a disproportionately more powerful family or organization, which effectively made them part of that other family or organization.

If they were lucky, they showed potential which would allow such a leftover heir to be sent out into a position outside the family but maintaining their family connection. Like an heir being sent into an Imperial Army if there was expectation for them to reach a certain high rank, or sent to join a prestigious Sect if there was a chance of them achieving a position of at least an Elder. Since that kept the dignity of the family and was useful to the noble house.

But if they lacked such talents they were discouraged from taking such steps instead - no noble family wished to be disgraced by a scion of theirs, carrying the blood of the family head, serving as a lowly footsoldier in the Imperial Army, or lowest-rank Sect Protector of some minor insignificant Sect - it was basically inviting ridicule from other noble houses.

In many cases, it simply means banishment from the family as they are told to live their own lives.

However, depending on regions and specific customs of the specific noble families, the fate which awaited them was a lot darker.

In those families, the best outcome for some in privileged positions was to be sent out to live out their lives in remote villas in de-facto exile/confinement. The others were disowned with various degrees of severity, some stricter and overly prideful noble families opting to cripple cultivation or sever the bloodline of such ’failures’, and in extreme cases they simply quietly disappeared never to be seen again.

This was not only a measure to not suffer humiliation of having such a "disgrace to the family name" walk around, but also to avoid potential future disputes - there were cases when leftover heirs left to roam the world, harboring a grudge, and after extensive travel encountered some opportunity that allowed them to gain power, or rose through the ranks of some organization, to then come back and try to claim the position of Family Head which usually ended up with a loss of much of the family’s power in that struggle, sometimes even in the fall of the house entirely.

—

The Cin House of the 7 young nobles in question was ’lucky’ as 17 of their 21 sons of the Patriarch passed the first two eliminations - an unexpected by the family, very unusual and high survival rate both in Heavenly Tribulations and natural elimination.

2 of those survivors showed enough promise to be considered talented prospects of their generation.

That still left them with a rather unfortunate and unexpected abundance of 15 eligible sons excluding the prodigies.

The Cin Family expected that number to be around half, since they realistically had use for only 5 heir candidates in this generation which left a whopping 10 leftover heirs.

And by now the smarter and quicker heirs were already decided for each of those 5 spots.

Thus, it was already apparent which 10 were leftover.

Of those 10, only 3 showed enough talent to be sent out into the wider world. One to the Imperial Army, one to the Seven Extreme Swords Sect, and one of them even showed a talent for Alchemy which landed him in a prestigious position to be sent to the Pill Tower.

Leaving the 7, who suddenly realized the position they were in, since the Cin Family was one of those with stricter customs.

Two of them chose to run from that fate and tried to escape the city. It wasn’t something new or unexpected for the Cin Family, and both were quickly caught since this city only had one entry and exit point - the sky port.

Another chose to try and gain a position of being useful like the 3 leftover heirs who were going to be sent out into the world, try to use the little time he had before the battle of succession was over, to show he was capable, to prove that he was an asset to the family.

The 4th one chose to surrender to his fate, especially since his mother’s position as the First Wife allowed him a relatively peaceful and even lucky fate of being sent out into confined exile in a remote mountain villa or something of the sort.

The 5th and the 6th ones followed the idea of the 3rd one, but did so in an unfortunate way.

One decided to go into commerce and open a luxury merchant company which was struggling and drowning in debts - dragging the name of the family through mud.

The other’s business went well, but the business itself was considered lowly by the family as it catered to mortals rather than cultivators.

The last one, the 7th son, named Cin Shengqi, followed the idea of the first two, but in a way that his family did not anticipate - he ran, but not out of the city. He decided to try mingling with commoners and succeeded in disappearing within the city itself, melting into it so well it was like looking for a needle in an enormous haystack if the needle was sentient and was hiding, and the haystack itself constantly moved and shuffled.

Cin Shengqi ended up being employed by the Beastscale Trading House, or rather, he specifically saw an opportunity there.

He knew that store from when he was a carefree Young Master enjoying hunting trips with other young nobles.

And it just so happened that the Beastscale Trading House were looking for a clerk in administrative position - a simple number cruncher hidden away in the backrooms never seen by clients or almost any outsiders at all, after the owning Liu Family’s branch family relative occupying that position died without heirs while other branch family members were either already busy or not fit.

It was an ideal hiding place, since in addition to that hidden away occupation, the employees of the Trading House lived on store premises, and were provided meals and other means of life, which meant he didn’t have to go outside at all, with no risk of ever being spotted.

Cin Shengqi planned to wait out the storm there for a decade, perhaps even a century, and then quietly leave the city when no one would bother looking for him anymore.

The problem was that the 3rd of the 7 leftover heir brothers, Cin Shengsan, did find a way to prove his usefulness to the family. Or rather, their father - the Family Head - gave him an unusual opportunity. To prove his usefulness he had to go after the other leftover heirs.

Cin Shengsan had to, discreetly from the First Wife, convince the 4th leftover heir to try and run from the city so that his dream of being quietly exiled would not come to pass - saving the family the costs of keeping him in exile under constant guard. He had to find a way to completely dismantle the businesses of the 5th and 6th leftover heirs who refused to give up. And he had to find and capture the 7th, Cin Shengqi.

And the main condition was, he had to do all that without using the family’s influence - using only the connections he built himself along with a relatively modest budget.