Chapter 205
Yang Xiu was practically bouncing up and down as Master escorted her, Kang Lin, and Yang Ru into the Martial Pavilion. Kang Lin had been telling stories about the one at the Poison Claw Sect, and if the one Master procured could do half those things, Yang Xiu was going to be so happy.
From the outside, it was perfect. At five stories, it was taller than all the other buildings in the main area, and its blue paint and tiles matched the others perfectly. Best of all was its location—right next to the Administration Hall. It was the first pavilion any visitor to the sect would see.
As it should be as the most important one. And she was its leader!
Well, co-leader. But Yang Ru didn't count. He didn't really care about telling people what to do. For all practical purposes, she was in charge.
According to Kang Lin, no one in most sects got to lead a pavilion until they were at least fifty years old. That was practically ancient, more than three times the amount of time Yang Xiu had been alive. And she was already in charge!
"Of all the buildings, I spent the most time modifying the formations in this one," Master said. "I think the three of you will like what I've done with the place."
That really went without saying. Master really was the best.
"First of all, though," he continued, "remember that the arena is the proper venue for events with a large audience. There are places for sparring inside the Martial Pavilion, but there is only space for a fairly limited number of spectators."
"Yes, Master."
Before leading them inside, he showed them a room accessed from the outside that was located in the back of the building.
"Remember the coin slot that Jin LiJuan used to feed the shield during the beast tide?" he said.
They all nodded.
"This slot provides the same function for all the formations in the building. For the first several weeks, I want you to have someone keep careful track of how much qi you have to supply to the slot versus what arrays are in use for how many people, etc."
"Yes, Master."
With the boring stuff out the way, he finally showed them the inside the building. The entire first floor was completely open except for stairways leading up on each end, and there were four separate colored areas consisting of a square within a square that divided the space into quadrants.
He led them onto the blue area. "Kang Lin, I'm assuming you are familiar with the set up?"
"Yes, Master. This floor is for teaching, demonstrations, and public spars. Spectators stand in the outer painted area. The fighters compete inside the inner square, and the array prevents any qi or other attacks from reaching the people watching. The outer array can also be tuned to block noise and light from entering or leaving, creating privacy for the fighters inside, allowing only those in the spectator area to see or hear. It's also standard that the array prevents any injuries greater than a bruise and reduces the pain felt to a low number, usually around twenty-five percent."
"Excellent description," Master said. "One of the modifications that I made, though, is for the injury and pain arrays to be adjustable instead of just on/off. The pain can be set in five percent increments from zero to one hundred, and there are five injury damage settings from zero to one hundred in twenty five percent increments."
Kang Lin looked impressed.
"What?" Yang Xiu said.
"Our sect has arrays like that, too," Kang Lin said, "but only for the elite martial artists. Grandfather said that it was too expensive to let the normal sect members use it."
Yang Xiu and Yang Ru cupped their hands. "Gratitude, Master."
He smiled briefly before showing them the controls, pointing out which glyph activated which area and how to adjust the ones that were variable. Yang Xiu paid rapt attention, knowing that she'd want to be able to use the building to its fullest capacity.
"If we turn the pain to zero and injuries to zero, we can't hurt each other no matter what we do?" she said.
"Correct, assuming that the power of your strikes does not overwhelm the capacity of the array," Master said. "These can handle everything up to attacks powered by a Concept, so anything the three of you can throw at it should be fine."
Yang Xiu naturally had to test that, so after setting the arrays and having Master assure her that she did it right, she had Yang Ru attack her with his full strength. His bull rush, though de-powered by the relatively short distance the sparring square allowed, knocked her clear to the opposite side of the array. She'd taken many, many such hits in fights with her brother and, even after Master's assurance, had been expecting it to hurt.
"That was so weird." She rubbed her shoulder where Yang Ru had made contact before loosening the fabric of her robe to peek at the skin there. "That should have left a bruise, but there's not a mark. And I didn't feel a thing."
"Play around with the settings," Master said. "Each has a purpose. There is value in being able to go all out without fear of injuring each other. The other side of that, though, is that it's not a good idea to get used to the idea that attacks don't hurt because then the pain can really throw you in a real fight."
"Yes, Master."
The second floor held twenty one-on one sparring rooms, basically private rooms meant for working on martial arts and techniques with either an instructor or an opponent. The arrays were the same ones used for the inner squares on the first floor, so they spend much time going over those.
The third floor was similar to the first, a large open area. Instead of squares dividing it into quadrants, though, the flooring was all one color. What set it apart were the fifty dummies in assorted colors scattered about the area. Master once again let Kang Lin handle the explanation.
"Combat dummies. You can set them to the cultivation level you want down to the minor realm." She turned to the sect leader. "The maximum level is Golden Core minor realm one, Master?"
"Minor realm five," he said. "No Concepts, though."
"Impressive, Master," Kang Lin said. "You certainly believe in giving your sect members good training tools."
"Absolutely. Though these aren't quite as extraordinary as what I normally provide. These were the dummies used by the Righteous Rain Sect. I just enhanced them a little."
Kang Lin went on to explain that the dummies were tough, both in attack and defense, and could be programmed to use a variety of techniques and weapons. "I'm not sure what the relevance of the colors are, though."
"Qi element type," Master said. "I'll get you a list of what color corresponds to what element, but gray is neutral, meaning no element. I thought it would be good to be able to gain experience in what it feels like to go against elements that are strong against you and ones that are weak against you."
Kang Lin jaw dropped.
"Now that was what I was expecting," Yang Xiu said. "I bet the Poison Claw Sect doesn't have that feature."
"Not that I've ever heard of!" Kang Lin said. "It is a good idea, though."
"Don't be too impressed, though," Master said. "I'm not completely finished. Just like I still need to buy furniture, I want this place to have weapon racks with all the standard melee weapons available for the combat dummies. I'll also have to tweak their programming as we go so that they have access to appropriate attack and defense techniques to truly challenge you."
"Gratitude, Master."
The fourth floor was the analog to the second, consisting of private rooms, each with a single combat dummy. Master pointed out a big difference from the previous floor. While the dummies in the massive room were stationary, the ones in the solo rooms were mobile.
There were only fifteen of the solo rooms instead of twenty, though. The extra space was dedicated to two larger rooms holding multiple dummies.
"Group combat training, right Master?" Yang Ru said.
"Got it in one. You can configure up to twenty enemies and go in as an individual or with a team. Should be great for working on tactics as well as techniques."
Yang Xiu was very happy. The building met or exceeded all her expectations. She was sure that, with all the resources the Martial Pavilion provided, she could take her training to new heights. "What about the fifth floor, Master?"
"Kang Lin?" he said.
"Academic areas. A place to sit down and discuss strategies and tactics. Probably a large central hall to gather everyone for lectures or speeches. That kind of thing."
"Yep. The was what was there all right," Master said.
Was?
"Well," he said, "I did leave some of those areas. It's good to have a place to relax after a workout, discuss your spar with a friend, and have some tea or whatever. Mainly, though, I added some new functionality. Follow me and check it out."
Master was smiling wide as he welcomed them to the top floor. Whatever he did must have been something truly special. It didn't look like much from the outside, though. Just a hallway with doors leading off of it.
"There are five special combat rooms up here," he said. "One is for one-on-one sparring. Two are for solo fighting against combat dummies. One is for group sparring. And the final one is for single or group fighting against multiple dummies."
On the face of it, his explanation didn't make it sound any different than the rooms on the floors below. Yang Xiu was sure that there was some surprise, though, or he wouldn't have been nearly that happy about showing the rooms to them.
He led them to the small sparring room first and had the two girls exchange a few punches with injuries and pain set at zero.
"The arrays work just like the ones downstairs, right?" Master said. "There's really no difference. We should probably just skip this floor."
Yang Xiu liked it when Master was being playful.
"Master," she said, "what is that big panel and what do the glyphs next to it do?"
"Oh," he said. "I totally forgot about that. Let's see."
Master hit a glyph, and suddenly the big panel came to life. A moving image of her and Kang Lin fighting appeared. He touched another glyph, and the images ran in reverse, reverting back to the start of the fight. Another made the images move really slow.
"I know that cultivators are good a visualizing a fight and remembering everything that happened," Master said with a grin, "but I thought this might be of some small use."
"It's amazing, Master," Yang Xiu said.
And it was. Contrary to what he had said, her memory wasn't so good that she could remember the smallest of details, and she didn't think any of the others had that ability either. The option of replaying the entire fight over and over again and examine each move in detail would be a huge benefit when it came time to consolidate gains.
Yang Ru and Kang Lin likewise expressed their amazement.
Eventually, they moved onto the next room, one of the ones set up for solo battle against a single combat dummy.
"Besides the playback screen, the combat dummies on this floor are much more advanced than the ones on the lower floors. For one thing, they're more adaptable, able to use any qi element the pavilion has available. They're also stronger, faster, and tougher. Their big advantage, though, is that they are programmed to remember previous fights against a particular opponent, and use information gained to progress their abilities. So each time you fight one of the dummies on this floor, its training you, but you're also training it, making it harder to defeat next time."
Yang Xiu smiled widely. A tough, progressive enemy that would learn her fighting style and improve based on it so it always gave her a challenge? Perfect. She just knew her skill with her techniques would improve very fast with the advantages her new Martial Pavilion provided.
Chapter 206
A/N 2/27/25: I added a status screen to Chapter 196. Just an FYI if you've been missing them.
The wolf cub followed Jin LiJuan into the Martial Pavilion. At rank two, it was the size of medium dog and continued to grow in size and strength each day after she fed it a rank one core.
In a way, it disgusted her. Beasts like it had killed her family. She wanted to see it dead, not getting bigger and stronger.
But as it grew so did she. At the current rate, she'd reach minor realm seven in less than a week. Eventually, she'd pass up Senior Brother and Senior Sister.
If she could find a way to keep tolerating the beast. A big if.
And even if she did gain that strength, it wouldn't truly be hers, gained by her own efforts. It would be borrowed. From a beast. From a filthy beast.
Her hands trembled, and she tightened them into fists.
When she realized what she'd done, though, she forced herself to unclench them. She had made a commitment to herself to try to tolerate the beast, and she was trying. Truly. But the last three days had brought her no answers. Neither trying nor succeeding was easy. Every time she looked at the wolf, she saw her family being torn to pieces. Hate overwhelmed her heart.
She sighed, at a loss at what to do. At least for the whole of the afternoon, she'd have something else to concentrate on, something that would hopefully take her mind, temporarily, off her problems—Kang Lin had arranged a tutoring session with Pan Jiang.
Jin LiJuan had studied the sword technique that Master gave her, and she was making progress. But no one else in the sect used a sword, so none of them could give her one-on-one instruction.
She was very grateful to Kang Lin for setting up the meeting with her sect brother.
Upon climbing the stairs to the fourth level with the cub bounding behind her, Jin LiJuan found the Poison Claw Sect member waiting for her. "Pardon, Esteemed Cultivator Pan Jiang. I hope this lowly one was not late."
"Not at all, Junior Cultivator. I came early, so I could explore your sect's new Martial Pavilion. Your sect leader installed some innovations that are quite interesting."
Outside cultivators always seemed impressed by Master, and she supposed that he did amazing things. Since he was the only high realm cultivator she had ever met, though, it all just seemed normal to her.
She cupped her hands. "This lowly one is grateful to Esteemed Cultivator Pan Jiang for taking time for instruction."
"Do you know why I'm doing it?"
"No, Esteemed Cultivator Pan Jiang."
To the best of Jin LiJuan's knowledge, the boy was an important member of his sect, even higher somehow than Kang Lin despite his lower cultivation realm. Why he would take the time to teach a lowly member of another sect was unfathomable.
"First of all, because I owe your master a debt. I acted like a complete idiot when I met your Senior Brother, Yang Ru. Your master could have taken my sword, which would have made my father so incredibly upset with me. So upset! Instead, your master gave me the greatest sword technique I've ever seen. I don't know if I can ever truly repay him, but my understanding is that he holds you in great regard."
Jin LiJuan frowned. She seriously doubted that Master had any more regard for her than for any other member of the sect and certainly not as much as Senior Sister and Senior Brother.
"It's true," Pan Jiang said. "Despite how he obviously considers Yang Xiu and Yang Ru his inheritors, you're the only one he refers to by a nickname."
Jin LiJuan tilted her head to the side, considering the statement. Master did call her Li'er, and she'd never heard him refer to Senior Sister or Senior Brother as Xiu'er or Ru'er.
Hmm.
"If such a great man considers you worth his time, why would this lowly one not?" Pan Jiang said. "In fact, I would prefer it if you dispensed with the honorifics or, if you can't bring yourself to do so, simply call me Senior Brother."
She cupped her hands again. "Yes, Senior Brother."
He grinned. "The second reason is because we are siblings in a sense."
Okay, now she was really confused.
"Martial siblings," he said. "You're using the sword technique that your master gave me."
"Apologies, Senior Brother."
"No. I think it's great. It's his technique to give, and there are no other students of the sword at the correct stage of development in my sect who use the Wood element. Teaching you will be good for advancing my own understanding." He paused. "I am curious about your qi aspect, however. Do you use Wood as well?"
"No, Senior Brother."
"Nature, then. I've heard a lot of the villagers here have attuned that aspect. That should be close enough."
"No, Senior Brother. Sorry, Senior Brother."
"But it's something related to Wood, right?"
She felt kind of stuck. Master hadn't said that her not having a qi aspect was a secret, but that seemed like the kind of thing that should be a secret, right? On the other hand, Pan Jiang was going out of his way to train her, and it would be disrespectful to lie to him.
"No, Senior Brother."
He sighed. "My family and generally my sect believe it to be an advantage to use a technique attuned to one's qi aspect even in the Qi Gathering realm. A lot of cultivators, including your master, would disagree with that belief, thinking that using neutral techniques is a better way to go. I would think that almost everyone would counsel you that using a technique attuned to a qi element that clashes with one's qi aspect is a really bad idea."
"I understand, Senior Brother, but I asked only for a sword technique. Master chose this particular one for me. I trust his judgment."
Pan Jiang opened his mouth like he was going to object but instead sighed. "True enough, Junior Sister. The next time I find out your master made a mistake will be the first, so this lowly one will not gainsay him. Let's begin."
He led her and the wolf cub to a small room. The only thing in the space was a wooden manikin, holding a sword.
"Attack the combat dummy," Pan Jiang said. "I've set it to match your speed and to defend only. Start slow and focus on performing your forms perfectly."
Jin LiJuan didn't understand how a wood manikin was going to defend or match her speed, but she supposed it was no different than hitting a tree, which was how she'd been practicing. Feeling a little silly, she stepped up the figure, carefully arranged her feet and body in the correct stance, and swung.
The wood manikin moved!
In fact, it brought its sword up to block hers. Metal contacted with metal.
Clang!
Wow. That was amazing.
She advanced to her next form, and the manikin matched her. On the next, she sped up, but she wasn't fast enough to overcome her wood opponent.
At the end of the ten basic attacks—each of which had been blocked—she stopped.
Pan Jiang shook his head. "Junior Sister, what did I ask you to do?"
She thought back. "Focus on performing my forms perfectly, Senior Brother."
"Do you consider those forms perfect?"
Not even a little bit. She'd gotten too caught up in trying to get past her opponent's defenses.
"No, Senior Brother."
"Do it again."
Senior Brother Pan Jiang was a hard taskmaster. After she went through all ten forms again, this time making sure to perform each as well as she knew how, he made minute corrections on all ten of them.
Then, she went through the forms slowly again.
And he corrected her again.
By the time an hour was finished, she was sweating profusely and could barely lift her sword. She'd learned a lot, though. Much more than she would have been able to achieve on her own even if she'd practiced against a tree for a month.
"Let's take a break," he said.
"No, Senior Brother. I can continue. I swear."
He laughed. "No, you can't. The next time you lift your sword above your head, it'll pull you down to the floor. And while that would be amusing to watch, it would not be helpful to your progress. What is helpful is taking a little while to cool down and have some tea."
She thought about objecting, but if she really wanted to learn, she needed to start listening to people with more experience than her. Which wasn't easy. Listening to anyone wasn't easy. She'd even ignored Master when she ate that spirit beast meat, and that act had almost cost her everything.
Her stubbornness and self-reliance were both good traits to an extent, but she was beginning to realize that both could also become obstacles as well. When she chose to rely on herself when someone who knew more gave her advice, she was hindered instead of helped.
Pan Jiang led her to the fifth floor where some cultivation mats had been laid out in an open area, and there was a table with a tea set. "I'm given to understand that the sect leader will be acquiring more furniture for all the pavilions soon. Some cushions would make this a nice area."
Jin LiJuan nodded. She didn't really care about furniture one way or the other. Instead, she knelt on the mat and meditated on the forms she'd used against the manikin, locking in what she'd learned.
Unfortunately, she didn't feel any solidification of knowledge like the others described when they reached a milestone with the technique. That was okay, though. She'd keep trying until she reached it.
When she attempted to get up, though, her legs shook.
"Let's wait a while longer. Have some tea." Pan Jiang handed her a cup.
In a valiant attempt to follow her decision to listen to those who were trying to teach her, she calmly accepted the cup and sipped it instead of rushing back to the room with the manikin.
"Tell me about the wolf cub, Junior Sister."
She frowned. It was running around the space, playing.
"There's not much to tell, Senior Brother."
"Really? According to Senior Sister Kang Lin, your bond with it is quite extraordinary."
Jin LiJuan blew out a frustrated breath. "For now."
"I've heard about your unique circumstances," he said. "You're not having any luck improving your feelings toward it?"
"No, Senior Brother."
"Have you tried asking for help?"
"Master is too busy. I don't want to bother him."
Pan Jiang grinned. "Of course he is. He's the sect leader. You do realize, though, that you have other resources to draw upon besides him, right? You're probably the youngest person in your sect. There are a lot of people with a lot of experience who might be able to help."
"I guess, Senior Brother."
"You never know when you might be talking to someone who actually listened to a lecture from an actual beast tamer."
She looked at him with wide eyes. "You, Senior Brother?"
"Me."
In the years since her family had died, Jin LiJuan had closed herself off. Why count on someone else when that someone is just going to let you down by dying? Even asking Master to heal her had been difficult.
But that attitude was stupid. If Senior Sister had a problem with something, she'd go to her brother or Kang Lin for help in an instant. Trying to do everything solo when you had options was idiotic.
"Senior Brother, will you help me with my spirit beast bond?"
The question was not an easy one for her to ask, but the effort made her heart feel lighter.
Chapter 207
Jin LiJuan swallowed her pride, relying instead of the kindness of a relative stranger. "Senior Brother, will you help me with my spirit beast bond?"
"Of course, Junior Sister," Pan Jiang said. "Though I certainly do not claim to be an expert of the subject, it's likely that I know more about a typical sect's beast pavilion than anyone here except for your master. I would be happy to instruct you on the subject."
She cupped her hands. "Gratitude, Senior Brother."
"To begin, it is important to understand that your particular type of beast bond is rare," he said. "It's an unusual subset of the rarest type of member of a beast pavilion, beast tamers. Far more common are beast masters."
She had heard of neither of those terms, and despite herself, became a little curious. "Beast masters, Senior Brother?"
"You understand that eating beast meat has advantages for cultivators?"
She nodded.
"Most cultivators prefer a diet consisting solely of spirit herbs and beast meat, in a sense cultivating as they dine," he said. "Consuming mortal food is essentially a waste of time."
That made sense.
"For a small sect like yours," he said, "it's possible to fill the dietary needs simply by hunting."
Jin LiJuan had heard some of the ladies talking while she'd been assigned to process the beasts into their various parts. With all the killing during the tide, they had enough meat to feed everyone in the village a serving a day for years, and through the marvel of spatial storage devices, all that food would stay fresh long enough to be used.
Considering how many nights she and the other orphans and, really, a lot of villagers had gone hungry, having so much meat available was a blessing. She felt proud to have contributed in even a small way.
"What if your sect had thousands of members?" he said. "Tens of thousands? There aren't enough beasts in the wild to feed all those people."
Huh. She'd never thought about that.
"Thus, sects must either devote resources to raising and slaughtering beasts or purchase meat from a sect who does. The cultivators dedicated to such pursuits are called beast masters. They do not bond with beasts. Instead, they use techniques to exert control over entire herds."
Her parents had been farmers, having only a few animals to provide additional labor and resources, but the job he described sounded very similar to what various neighbors did with cattle and chickens.
"Beast tamers are a completely different animal." Pan Jiang chuckled.
She stared at him blankly, not understanding what was funny.
He shook his head and continued. "They are combat cultivators, like those in the Martial Pavilion. Though they are able to defend themselves with weapons, primarily they use beasts to fight for them."
"They bond with these beasts, Senior Brother?"
"In a sense," he said. "Your bond with the wolf cub is extremely rare, possessing both extreme benefits and equal dangers. You can grow in power rapidly, advancing with your bonded beast as it consumes resources, but you are tied to it. If it dies, you die."
She swallowed hard. No one had put the situation quite so bluntly before.
"Beast tamers form much lesser bonds. They work in partnership with the creatures, but experience neither the extreme benefits nor corresponding danger that you do."
"What am I, then, Senior Brother?"
Was she some kind of freak? An oddity to be looked down upon?
"Our sect would simply call you a bonded," he said. "Your path corresponds to that of your single beast."
"Do you know other bonded, Senior Brother?"
If there was a name for what she was, the situation must be somewhat common.
"I know of people like you," he said. "I know of even more people who have sought to become what you are and failed."
She tilted her head to the side.
"Imagine you are a powerful cultivator, one who intends on establishing what you hope will be a great family," he said. "Your first child is born. You love that child and have great hopes for him or her. But there's a problem. When the child reaches fourteen and is tested, the child's spiritual roots are trash. E tier. Or even worse, F tier. What do you do?"
"Teach them to cultivate, anyway, Senior Brother, as Master has with me and most of the other sect members. If I love the child, that is the only decision that makes sense."
He chuckled. "You have not grown up in a sect, and the Rising Tide Sect and its leader are not normal. A cultivator with such low roots, even one who is the child of a powerful elder, would be ostracized. Wasting resources on a such a person would cause a loss of face."
Her face fell. Was having low-tier roots that bad?
"In that case, there aren't many choices, and none of the ones facing the parent are good. One, send the child off with plenty of money to live a normal mortal life. Two, seek alchemical remedies, which are often quite expensive and most of which don't actually work. Or three, have the child become a bonded."
Ah.
"How often does this situation of a powerful parent having a low-tiered child arise, Senior Brother?"
"Often. Very often."
"Then, there must be many cultivators like me, Senior Brother!"
"Not at all."
She was very confused.
"You have to understand that the conditions required to become a bonded are difficult to replicate," he said. "Or mainly one of the conditions is difficult to replicate. First, it has to be done when the child has barely begun the cultivation journey, which is easy enough. Second, the beast, likewise, must be a low rank one, which can be easily found. Simply search out those newly born.
"The last condition ranges from difficult to impossible—the beasts qi aspect and the child's qi aspect must be extremely similar. It's not nearly enough for the two to simply have the same element. I have met dozens of cultivators who use the Wind element, but none of them have come close to matching my exact aspect.
"For a bonded, that closeness determines if the bond will succeed or fail, and if it succeeds, how much benefit the cultivator will get from it. Imagine an extremely weak bond. The cultivator only receives, say, one percent of the power of the beast. Even if the cultivator spends many resources getting the beast to rank seven, the small percentage would mean the cultivator probably wouldn't even reach the peak of Qi Gathering."
Jin LiJuan hadn't understood how lucky she had been. The fact that she didn't have a qi aspect meant that she matched perfectly with the wolf cub's, allowing her to gain the full benefit of the bond. It also meant she'd experience the full danger as well.
"Your options and potential are limitless," Pan Jiang said. "If you suddenly develop a liking for beasts, you could still become a tamer, using the cub and others to fight for you. You'd just have to understand that the rest of your menagerie would not give you benefits like the cub does."
She fixed him with a look. Adopting more beasts was not going to happen.
"Yeah. I didn't think so." He laughed. "Since you and the beast are always going to be at relatively the same power level—"
"Relatively the same, Senior Brother?"
"My understanding from Kang Lin is that the cub is a third of the way through rank two but that you're still at the beginning of Qi Gathering minor realm four. It seems as if you catapult three minor realms when it ranks up instead of advancing in lockstep."
She hadn't thought about it that way, but she supposed that was exactly what had happened last time.
Jin LiJuan cupped her hands. "Gratitude for the explanation, Senior Brother."
"I get the impression that you want to be a fighter, though, instead of settling into a profession?"
"Yes, Senior Brother."
"With your bond, sending the beast to fight for you is just as dangerous as you entering combat, so it makes sense for you to train hard and fight alongside it."
Part of her wanted to leave the beast behind when she fought, use it only for increasing her power. But that path would be stupid. The beast would always be as or more powerful than her. Not using it was dumb.
"Yes, Senior Brother."
"Good. I thought I'd have a harder time convincing you of that." He smiled. "In the coming days, we can arrange for you to spar, for the cub to spar, and for the two of you to spar together against an opponent."
"Gratitude, Senior Brother."
"Now we come to the crux of the problem, tamers and bonded treat their beasts as partners. There is mutual respect and understanding. Most of those relationships involve actual affection."
Jun LiJuan tensed. She didn't know if she could ever feel anything other than hate for it. At best, she aimed for acting neutral toward it.
"How do we get from the distrust, distaste, and outright hostility you feel to where you need to be?" he said.
That was what she wanted to know because, after days of racking her brain, she'd come up with nothing.
"According to the beast tamer that I spoke to, the keys are empathy and commonality," he said. "We'll start with the latter. What do you and the beast have in common?"
She looked at the creature. Beams of sunlight penetrated an opening, highlighting dust in the air. It pounced around attacking the motes. Playing. Being silly.
"Nothing, Senior Brother. Nothing at all."
"Really? I can think of two things off the top of my head."
She frowned. "Please instruct this lowly one, Senior Brother."
He looked like he wanted to reach out and tousle her hair. She was quite glad that he didn't.
"For one thing, you are both orphans," he said. "Not only that, but you were both present when your respective parents were killed."
Hmm. She hadn't considered that the cub was an orphan. It was true, though.
"For another," he continued, "you both desire power. That desire is his driving instinct. I think it may be yours as well."
Okay, so maybe she and the beast did have a couple of things in common.
"Seeing the beast advancements as a win-win situation is good. You get what you want by helping it get what it wants. It's a symbiotic relationship," he said. "If on the other hand you only see the beast as a path to power for yourself, the bond will not stand the test of time, and you will be left powerless or dead before your time."
"Master has told me all that, Senior Brother! It's not that I don't want to like the beast; it's that I can't."
Tears wanted to form, but she suppressed them with a force of extreme will.
"That's where empathy comes in," he said. "Put yourself in the beast's paws."
She frowned at him again.
"I'm serious. I want to you meditate. Imagine that you're safe and warm with a cocoon that provides for all your needs."
As instructed, she assumed a lotus position and visualized the situation.
"Suddenly, the cocoon is jostled. You're shaken. The cocoon cools. It no longer provides you sustenance. You're trapped, hungry and cold."
Jin LiJuan shuddered. Inside her deep meditation, she could feel what he described. The tight confines of the cocoon. The cold. The hunger.
"This goes on for days," he said. "You struggle to escape, but you can't. You don't know where you are or what happened. All you know is that you're going to die slowly, wasting away due to starvation."
She felt her heartbeat increase. Her breathing grew labored.
"Finally, though, as you're on the cusp of succumbing, light appears. The cocoon is cut open. Hands pull you from it. You're face to face with your savior, a cultivator. Jin LiJuan of the Rising Tide Sect."
Her eyes popped open, and when they found the wolf cub, she saw it in a whole new light.
Chapter 208
As an extrovert, Benton had always liked people, and he'd had a variety of relationships throughout his life on Earth. He'd been married, raised children, spoiled grandchildren, been taught and taught others in turn, mentored proteges, and so on. All in all, he felt he had a pretty good handle on human nature.
Sometimes, though, someone managed to truly surprise him.
When he'd first met Pan Jiang, Benton had pegged him pretty quickly as a standard arrogant young master, and every memory he'd gained from Su agreed with that assessment. By not taking the kid's sword and gifting him a technique, Benton had hoped, at best, to keep the boy from becoming a potential enemy.
It wasn't like Benton had held any real animosity toward the kid. Take a young man, raise him in an environment where everyone literally bowed down to him, give him everything he could ever possibly want, and oh yeah, grant him superpowers. Benton himself would have probably turned out pretty darn arrogant under those circumstances.
Benton's kind gestures had done a lot more than he'd expected. The scion had actually turned into someone who was actually a rather decent kid. His actions during the beast tide had proved him to be both capable and dependable. He'd not shirked a single duty, been brave in the face of danger, and listened to those placed in authority over him.
Benton couldn't have asked for a better ally.
Thus, he had no qualms about putting Li'er's sword training in the boy's capable hands. Benton had, however, grown a bit curious over how that would go. After all, questions abounded. Would Li'er, not the most patient of kids, remember her manners? She'd been instructed over and over again prior to the session about how important being polite to her trainer was, but well, it was Li'er.
The other side of the trainer/trainee relationship was in doubt as well. Pan Jiang had picked up the sword technique quite well, but aptitude in doing something didn't always equate to the ability to teach others that thing. And the boy did have a reputation for being prickly. While Benton didn't think for a second that Pan Jiang would hurt the child, the whole session devolving into a shouting match remained a real possibility.
Benton couldn't help but do a bit of eavesdropping when the two of them met.
Things had gone well. Really well. Pan Jiang was a demanding but fair instructor, exactly what the little girl needed. Benton couldn't have been more pleased.
At least, that was what he thought until he heard Pan Jiang, of all people, the former arrogant young master, espousing the virtues of empathy to the cool, no-nonsense Jin LiJuan.
The whole situation blew Benton's mind, and his first thought was that it was a good effort on the boy's part even though it wasn't likely to produce any results at all. Except that it did.
Like the Grinch, Li'er's heart grew three sizes that day.
By the time she left the Martial Pavilion, she was showing actual kindness toward the wolf cub. She'd actually petted it a few times. Those occasions had been at Pan Jiang's explicit instruction but still!
Obviously, she still had a long way to go, but she'd taken a step. And while that single step might not seem like much, progress was progress.
Unfortunately, Benton didn't have time to devote all his attention to one single disciple. Others needed his guidance, starting with Xun Wu.
The previous day, Benton had a Qi Condensing Pill sent to the expert blacksmith, and he'd advanced to Qi Gathering minor realm eight. It was now time for him to enter the Trials Pagoda, but instead of heading to the Contribution Points Shop, Benton sensed the man entering the Administration Hall.
Soon, there was a knock on Benton's door.
"Come," he said.
Xun Wu entered. "Master."
"Xun Wu," Benton said, giving the blacksmith time to gather himself for whatever he had to say.
"Master, I don't think that advancing either of my techniques would make good use of the Trials Pagoda. I'm at least three months away from advancing to Foundation Establishment, and I will easily master both by that time."
"I see."
"Speeding my cultivation doesn't seem like a valid use, either, Master."
"Makes sense. What did you have in mind?"
"My aspect, Master. You said it was Fiery coal in the middle of a forge. Which will be great for controlling temperature, but that's only one aspect of blacksmithing. If I could add a fundamental understanding of metal to my aspect, that change would have the potential to truly transform my abilities, a worthy use of the Trials Pagoda."
"What specific change do you want to make?"
"Master, the addition that resonates with me is Fiery coal in the middle of a forge heating metal."
"Good. I like your reasoning, The language is simple and very straightforward. You fully understand how important that resonance is, correct?"
"Yes, Master."
"Then I approve."
Xun Wu looked confused.
"Is there something wrong?" Benton said.
"From the way Yang Xiu talked, I thought convincing you would be more difficult."
Benton chuckled. "Xun Wu, you're forty-one years old, married, and a father. Moreover, you're an expert in your profession. Yang Xiu, though I love her to death, is a teenager. You came to me with a clear understanding of exactly what you wanted to change your aspect to and a good reason for doing it. She came to me with a vague thought that it might be nice to change her aspect. Do you see where I'm coming from?"
The blacksmith grinned. "I do, Master. It's good to understand your reasoning."
They talked for a while longer as the two of them hadn't had many opportunities to interact one-on-one. Xun Wu gave a very informal report on how the Blacksmithing Pavilion was coming along.
They all really liked the new digs, but the array powered forges were taking some getting used to. When they learned all the ins and outs, Xun Wu was positive that everything they made would be of even better quality, and he personally couldn't wait until he reached Foundation Establishment in order to take his forging to a whole new level.
Between him, Shi Long, two other competent blacksmiths from the village, and a handful of apprentices at various stages of development, Xun Wu felt that they would eventually be able to be a good source of weapons and shields for the sect. Of course, that competency was a long-term goal. First, they all had to reach high enough levels of cultivation and learn techniques to externally manipulate qi.
That caveat applied to all the pavilions, though, and overall, the blacksmith pavilion was probably in the best shape of all the professions.
Just like with eavesdropping on Jin LiJuan and Pan Jiang, Benton couldn't afford to spend his entire afternoon talking with Xun Wu. A popup made it clear that other duties beckoned.
"Host's Disciple, Fatty Ren, has reached Flight of the Cultivator - Small Success.
Host is awarded two Sect Points.
Host has 681 Sect Points available."
Outfitting the Town Lord with a cultivation method and two techniques had required a relatively large outlay of fifty-six points, but the big guy had already returned six of those, reaching minor realm one in Golden Core and Small Success with the flying sword technique. Still, considering how long the major realms took to cultivate, it would be a long time before Benton saw a profit.
That was okay, though. Fatty Ren brought a lot more value to the sect than just Sect Points. Just having another Golden Core cultivator in the sect made Benton feel a huge sense of relief.
He dismissed Xun Wu and sent of message to Fatty Ren to come to the Administration Hall. The big guy arrived after a very short time.
"Greetings, Friend Su."
"Congratulations on advancing your technique! I thought it would take you another few days."
Fatty Ren smiled. "This lowly one is diligent, Friend Su."
"That you are, and I bet you're eager to get back to Vermilion Incomparable Rain Town."
"That I am, Friend Su. Ever since the old Town Manager was replaced, I've been taking a more active role in running things. It feels awkward leaving them on their own like this."
Shoot. That statement made Benton feel bad about the favor he was about to ask, but he didn't really have a choice.
"Could I maybe impose upon your kindness once more?" Benton said.
"Of course, Friend Su. What is it?"
"Could you stick around for another couple of days?"
The big guy's eyebrows went up, clearly asking why such a request was necessary.
"You see," Benton said, "I kind of forgot to get furniture the last time I was in Sixth Flawless Flowing City, and now my sect members are moving into basically empty houses and pavilions. I figure I could quickly run over there and, between tonight and tomorrow morning, get everything I need. If you stay here, I'll feel a lot better about the safety of my sect members while I'm gone."
Fatty Ren's eyes went wide. "No, Friend Su. That is a horrible idea."
"What? Why?"
"Don't poke the bear, Friend Su. You personally going to the city so soon after destroying the Jade Chameleon's sect branch will seem like a deliberate affront to them. Whatever response they have in mind will be hastened. Please consider giving them some face and send someone else. Like me. I can go!" Fatty Ren hesitated, considering. "In fact, I'm the perfect person. With the flying sword, I can get there and back quickly, and I'm not yet publicly associated with your sect. If I get in and out relatively quietly, the will no further loss of face to anyone."
The Town Lord had apparently picked up some knowledge of sect politics over the years, and Benton found the suggestion to be a good one.
"You don't mind?" Benton said.
"Of course not, Friend Su. I, a Golden Core cultivator, will fly there on my sword. Neither of those two things would be possible without you. Running an errand for you is literally the least I could do to begin repayment of my debt."
"There are no debts between friends, Fatty Ren, but I'll definitely accept your favor. Truthfully, that works well for me, too, as I'd prefer not to be away from the sect right now."
With that detail taken care of, Benton had Sun Hua prepare a list of furniture, weapons, and other items that the sect needed from the city. For payment, he created a stack of one-thousand-qi spirit coins using various elements, which Fatty Ren assured him was more than enough to pay furnish an entire sect much larger than Rising Tide.
Benton felt good about giving Fatty Ren the mission. It allowed the Town Lord to perform a necessary function for the sect, letting the members see his contribution. It gave face to the various factions, keeping the sect a little safer for longer. And it allowed Benton to remain at the main grounds, overseeing the little things that kept creeping up and making sure that everyone was safe from a surprise attack.
What Benton didn't feel nearly as good about was another popup notification that he received.
"Host's disciple, Xun Wu, requests to use the Trials Pagoda.
Requested Trial: Add or Modify Qi Aspect
Requested Modification: Add "heating metal" to Fiery coal in the middle of a forge.
Trial for adding or modifying a Qi Aspect requires payment of 50 Sect Points.
Allow Trial: Y/N"
Fifty Sect Points. Fifty! Benton knew that stupid Trials Pagoda was going to be a points sink. With a frown, he chose yes.
Chapter 209
A/N 3/3/25: That moment when you're trying to get a chapter posted and you keep adding and changing and deleting and revising...
Fatty Ren balanced awkwardly on the flying sword—his flying sword—as he made his way straight toward Sixth Flawless Flowing City, thanking his lucky stars that Sect Leader Chao Su had sought a consultation for a favor before simply departing to the city on his own.
That would have been a disaster.
When he had mentioned going there to, of all things, buy furniture, Fatty Ren had nearly choked. For a sect leader to do such a menial task on his own would be a huge loss of face. The new sect, like any sect trying to get started, began on shaky ground, and while it was okay for a leader to be a bit eccentric, it was not alright for him to act like a servant.
Sure, fly to the city to destroy something, to deliver vengeance, and while you're there, casually do some shopping. That was fine. It showed strength, like laying waste to an entire sect branch was just another thing to tick off a list.
But to go to the city for the sole purpose of shopping? Such a mission was beneath the dignity of a sect leader.
Upon hearing the plan, Fatty Ren had had to think fast, which was not one of his strengths. Luckily, the sect leader bought the story about not further upsetting the Jade Chameleon Sect by showing his face near the spot of their defeat.
The best untruths were the ones that had the benefit of being partially true. That lesson was one of the first ones Fatty Ren had learned in his old sect.
Of course, telling the truth was even better as it left no lie to be found out, but there was no way to give the sect leader the actual reason without sounding insulting. Maybe even without actually being insulting.
Things had turned out fine, though. Even better than Fatty Ren could have hoped. For one, sending a Golden Core cultivator, even a newly minted one, to run such an errand showed strength. For another, it allowed him to begin showing his usefulness as a sect member. The resources expended on him, from the cultivation method to the techniques to the flying sword to the opportunity to take the trial, were priceless, so the sooner he could demonstrate his value, the better.
He may not be as talented as Chao Su's top disciples, but none of them were Golden Core. None of them could make the trip so quickly.
Honestly, hearing the sect leader's plan to perform such menial task himself had shaken Fatty Ren's confidence in his new sect for a moment. But only for a brief moment. Between a Trials Pagoda that could push a cultivator past a bottleneck and top heaven grade cultivation methods and techniques, he definitely wanted to be a part of whatever Chao Su was building.
Still, the complete disregard the sect leader showed to decorum was cause for some concern, and Fatty Ren had to spend quite some time thinking about the reasons behind the move.
From the perspective of an old monster like Chao Su, what did it matter if some weak Nascent Souls thought you were strange for doing the shopping yourself? True strength was doing what you wanted when you wanted and not caring what anyone else thought.
An act that for anyone else would demonstrate weakness only showed Chao Su's strength!
The problem was that the other sects didn't truly understand yet just how powerful the sect leader was, and until they did, it would be much better to observe the rules. To play politics.
Fatty Ren was just going to have to do his best to watch out for any problems that may arise. After all, twenty years of being Town Lord had taught him some things about dealing with the Big Three.
The other thing that had at first shaken his belief in his new sect was when he'd been asked to recruit tras— been asked to recruit less talented people. After consideration, though, he realized that the sect wasn't as different from other sects as he'd believed.
Did the sect leader truly value a peasant with an F talent as highly as one from a noble background with a C or even higher?
No. No, he didn't. Not at all.
There were some sect members with low talent in leadership positions, but Fatty Ren was pretty sure that was just because the sect didn't have enough members with better spiritual roots yet. After all, every sect member who did have good roots was also considered a leader, exactly as he would have expected.
In fact, the whole letting E and F roots join the sect made a lot of sense. An established sect already had scores of Foundation Establishment cultivators doing the majority of the grunt work in each of the pavilions. The Rising Tide Sect needed those cultivators as well.
For most sects, even those just starting out, pouring any resources at all into E and F cultivators would be the height of stupidity. The vast majority of those people would only reach mid Qi Gathering at best. A tiny percentage would advance to Foundation Establishment, but the amount of food and pills and training time it would take to have enough people make the attempt would be ruinous compared to the small gains made.
None of those conditions applied to Chao Su, though. He had the Trials Pagoda and top heaven grade cultivation methods and techniques. It would not surprise Fatty Ren if literally every low talent sect member made it to the middle of Foundation Establishment and mastered several useful techniques over their lifetimes.
The sect leader was making logical use of his resources.
Fatty Ren was almost positive the kindly old grandfather persona was all an act to hide that he was a cultivator who was as shrewd as they came. Almost positive wasn't positive, though. Until he had proof, he'd treat all the sect members, especially Chao Su's favorites, like they were the most important elder in a Big Three sect.
Thinking about Chao Su's methods being taken to their logical conclusion didn't just reassure Fatty Ren that the Rising Tide Sect would be just fine. No. It convinced him that the sect would eventually dominate all sects on the continent, maybe even the world.
With no limit on the number of Foundation Establishment cultivators that could be produced, the sect would outproduce everyone, and that wealth would bring talented individuals by the drove. Providing top tier recruits with top tier cultivation methods and techniques and giving them access to the Trial Pagoda to propel them past bottlenecks meant that every D rank and above was more likely than not to advance to Golden Core. And the more Golden Cores a sect produced, the more Nascent Souls they ended up with, especially when bottlenecks were no issue.
Whether through luck of skill, Fatty Ren had found a really good thing. He just had to work to keep it.
Out of sight of the city well before he reached the city gates, he descended to the ground, stored his flying sword in his spatial ring, and walked the rest of the way while trying to figure a way around a particularly difficult problem—he had no idea where any shops were, much less ones where he could get the quality merchandise he needed.
He sighed. Though he'd been to the city many times, that had been more than two decades ago, and even then, he'd only visited other sects. Not for the first time, he wished that the Righteous Rain Sect had kept a sect branch in the city.
Their main grounds in Vermilion Incomparable Rain Town were so near that the elders had decided the expense of a branch wasn't worth the gain. Instead, they'd went all out in furnishing their main grounds and invited the representatives from the other Big Four Sects to visit there.
If not for their frugality, many more than five sect members would have survived that night.
Such thoughts didn't help with his immediate problem, though, which was how to find stores from which to purchase the long list of items requested by the sect leader. And not only that, but to find a way to convert spirit coins to silver taels where necessary.
Fatty Ren had only the vaguest notion where to begin, and that was a problem because he had promised to return to the village the next day. Which left him with only one solution—ask Kang Ya-Ting of the Poison Claw Sect for help.
That answer came with its own problem, though. Fatty Ren was once again a representative of a sect. And sect members couldn't ask other sects for help without both losing face and obligating their sect to a debt.
The good thing was that acting as the Town Lord wasn't all that different than representing a sect. Though the Big Three had pledged support for him after the destruction of the Righteous Rain Sect, he still had some experience not accepting debt he didn't want to pay, so he knew the best way to avoid it was to make it seem like you were the one doing the other guy a favor.
He bypassed the line at the gate and, seeking to attract as little notice as possible, registered himself as a Town Lord. From there, he went directly to the Poison Claw Sect branch and asked for the elder. Given his status as a member of the City Lord's faction, he was quickly granted access.
"Greetings, Lord Fatty Ren. Welcome. And congratulations of your advancement to Golden Core."
"Gratitude, Elder Kang Ya-Ting."
The pleasantries lasted for a while as they each drank a cup of tea. Fatty Ren talked up the elder's granddaughter, not even having to feign praise as the girl had made a positive impression upon her visit to Vermilion Incomparable Rain Town. Kang Ya-Ting in turn discussed recent gossip, a lot of which involved the Rising Tide Sect.
Fatty Ren kept silent about his membership, and eventually the niceties wound down, with the elder got politely asking the purpose of the visit.
"This one is in the city to complete a mission for my new sect leader, Chao Su, and have come to you as a courtesy so that my movements do not generate further problems for you."
Kang Ya-Ting didn't appear surprised by the news. "Of course. This one appreciates the information. Best not to be taken by surprise by a move by our ally, the Rising Tide Sect."
Fatty Ren cupped his hands.
"May this one enquire as to the nature of the mission?" Kang Ya-Ting said. "The destruction of any additional part of the city is not imminent, is it?"
Fatty Ren chuckled. "This lowly one is newly ascended to Golden Core and does not possess nearly the power of the unfathomable Chao Su. So no, nothing as exciting as that. In fact, my mission is quite ordinary. The sect leader sent me to buy furniture and practice weapons suitable for those in the Foundation Establishment realm."
So far, so good. He'd framed the visit as a courtesy and only mentioned his task after being asked about it specifically.
The elder got a speculative look on his face. "When you checked in at the gate, did you do so as the Town Lord?"
"I did."
"No mention of your new sect affiliation?" Kang Ya-Ting said.
"None at all."
"And you came straight here?"
There were two ways for the Poison Claw Sect to play the situation. One, openly declare Fatty Ren's new allegiance and task, letting his status as a Golden Core cultivator convey the strength of the Rising Tide Sect. Or two, try to minimize Fatty Ren's presence in the town.
From the questions, Kang Ya-Ting had apparently decided upon the latter. Which was just fine with Fatty Ren even if he didn't completely understand the reason for the decision.
"I did not talk to a single person as I walked through the town," Fatty Ren said, "and I made sure to get off my flying sword well prior to reaching the city wall."
Kang Ya-Ting smiled slightly. "I was thinking. You're probably tired from your trip, and it would do my juniors well to experience purchasing items necessary for establishing a sect. A mutually beneficial arrangement might be for me to have my people do your shopping for you."
Another common feature of sect life was avoiding saying what one actually meant.
"If that is what the elder wishes," Fatty Ren said, "I take no issue with that plan."
Both sides ended up happy, and neither owed a debt to the other. Politics could be complicated, but they served an important purpose.
The end result was fantastic for him. While he ate, napped, and cultivated, juniors from the Poison Claw Sect took his spirit coins and purchased everything on the list he'd been provided. It was the easiest sect mission he'd ever completed.
Not that he'd tell Sect Leader Chao Su that particular detail.
Chapter 210
Benton's impression of Fatty Ren kept getting revised upward. The first meeting with the big guy wasn't all that great as he appeared to be lazy, sitting in his palace eating while someone else ran the town he was responsible for into the ground. That opinion worsened as it became apparent how corrupt the Town Manager was and how downtrodden the residents were.
Since that point, though, Fatty Ren had really come through. By all accounts, he'd performed well protecting the town from the beast tide and was taking a much more active role in administration. The care he showed for his Righteous Rain sect mates was a plus as well.
Where he really started to shine, though, was in how he handled the tasks set by Benton.
Given a month to recruit two hundred sect members, Fatty Ren had done it in a day. Then, he'd shown up on time for his Trials Pagoda access and easily passed, advancing his cultivation to Golden Core. He'd also taken only a few days to get his flying sword technique to Small Success when it usually takes cultivators at least a week of training to reach that milestone.
Finally, he'd volunteered to take on an annoying and time-consuming mission to travel to the city and buy furniture and other necessary goods, returning the next day having made great use of the resources at his disposal. Benton couldn't have been more pleased with either the items bought or with his newest sect member.
Diligent. Hard-working. Capable. That was how he now thought of the Town Lord.
Fatty Ren had practically blushed when told and, completely embarrassed, had beat a hasty retreat back to his palace in Vermilion Incomparable Rain Town.
The next three days passed very quickly for Benton. There was much truth to the adage that many tasks make time fly as, with his sect members starting to use all the pavilions, the arrays were getting constantly tested.
Luckily, nothing major went wrong. Which actually wasn't luck. Benton had meticulously tested any portions likely to suffer catastrophic failure. He hadn't done quite as good a job picking up all the minor issues, though.
One of the alchemy vents only pulled about half of the smoke out of the air, and one of the disposals got gummed up because the Void qi only reached half the drain. Pain inhibitors in several of the sparring rooms fluctuated randomly in certain locations. The fields in the Healing Pavilion had to be adjusted as the rapid stitching together of cuts made patients really uncomfortable. One of the forges would not maintain temperature, and Benton had a difficult time tracking down the problem.
And the list went on.
All in all, though, he had a lot of fun troubleshooting and even more fun teaching the sect members the ins and outs of the formations. By the end of that third day, everyone was pretty much settled in, and things were running smoothly.
Benton also took time to check the progress of the harvesters and the production of the wall. Since the end of the beast tide, the workers had prepared an additional six hundred thirty linear feet, bringing the total to one thousand three hundred seventy linear feet.
Nice. He was closer than he thought.
Depending on the exact configuration, the approximately five acres encompassing the main sect grounds required between eighteen hundred and two thousand linear feet of wall to fully enclose. At forty-five linear feet per day, he should hit the median of nineteen hundred in another twelve days.
Sweet!
Once the wall was finished, he could lay in all the formations, ones designed to stop cultivators for entering and shields that could stop even a Nascent Soul temporarily. His sect members would finally be safe—or at least as safe as they could be in a cultivation world.
That safety was still a couple of weeks out, though, so all he could do at the moment was to prepare himself for battle as best he could. He took a moment to review his gains.
Twenty-nine cultivators, including Peng Hanying, Pan Xioalian, and the harvesters, reached Qi Gathering minor realm six. Forty-nine more, the second group of villagers, advanced to Qi Gathering minor realm five. The fourth group of villagers made it to Qi Gathering minor realm two.
All combined, sect members advancing in Spiritual Cultivation gained him a whopping one hundred twenty-eight Sect Points.
Nice.
The set of twenty sect members using the Body Cultivation baths advanced through two minor realms, gaining him an additional forty points.
There had been a rush on Soul and Mind Cultivation methods after Benton had extoled their virtues. One hundred fifty-nine sect members had reached the first minor realm of the former and one hundred three of the latter, gaining Benton two hundred sixty-two points.
People only had so much time in a day to devote to an additional cultivation type, though, so they only spent two to five hours on it. Which meant it would take then another twenty to thirty days to hit the second minor realm. Still, with the nearly universal adoption, that was a lot of points to look forward to in a reasonable amount of time.
Techniques were coming along slower. Wan Ai reached Large Success with her dagger, and Zou Tian advanced to Small Success with his new Shadow Perception. Additionally, eleven other sect members experienced increases, resulting in a total of thirteen more Sect Points.
All told, the haul over the several days was a whopping four hundred forty-three points!
"Now that's a windfall," he said to no one in particular.
He had three hundred seventy-four points to spend on himself before reaching the floor he'd set. For the first time since gaining the System, he had more points to spend than he had things to spend them on.
Eight points brought him to the height he was currently allowed by the System in Soul Cultivation, Fulfillment minor realm nine. After that, he struggled to figure out what he needed.
Concepts were always good, but he already had twenty-three. He was better off just buying them on an as-needed basis.
As for the latest version of his Ultimate Juggernaut Combat BuildTM, he was pretty much set unless he could think of something else that would help him against Nascent Soul Cultivators. Between Aura Defense, a movement technique that maxed his speed, being able to basically teleport with Quickstep, and many powerful attacks, there wasn't much he could think of that would help.
Still, he dropped into meditation to consider the problem to make sure he'd given the issue the attention it was due. And he was glad he did when a singular thought hit him—Mind Stun.
"System, I should be able to use mind attacks now that I'm at the peak of the Myriad realm. How do I do that?"
"Host may purchase a mind technique for each attack type that Host wishes to perform. Mind Techniques in the Myriad Realm cost 16 Sect Points for Mastery."
Now he was cooking with gas. Sweet!
"System, I would like to purchase Mastery of Mind Techniques that allow me to do the following—Dual Focus, Mind Stun, Mind Crush, Telekinetic Push, and Inflict Fear."
"Creation of techniques confirmed.
Host has learned the technique, Dual
Focus - Mastery.
Host has learned the technique, Mind
Stun - Mastery.
Host has learned the technique, Mind
Crush - Mastery.
Host has learned the technique, Telekinetic Push - Mastery.
Host has learned the technique, Inflict
Fear - Mastery.
Host has 986 Sect Points available."
Benton almost burst out laughing at the notification. He'd purchased the five mind techniques most likely to be of use to him in the Myriad realm, and he still had nearly one thousand points available. The System was going to have to step up its points sink game.
Unfortunately, none of the techniques were as strong as an equivalent Golden Core level attack, but they'd still be of use, especially since Mind Cultivation was so rare. Most opponents would have little or no defense against him. Even Nascent Souls would have some vulnerability.
Due to that unique applicability and the added versatility, the techniques were a worthy addition to his combat build.
Dual Focus allowed him to split his mind and concentrate on two things simultaneously. When he reached higher realms, he'd be able to split his focus even more.
Mind Stun was the signature attack for a Mind Cultivator. It sent a spike of psionic energy, which completely bypassed qi shields, directly to the brain of an opponent, causing a brief disruption to their thoughts. Which didn't sound like much, but when used tactically, it could change the tide of a fight.
Mind Crush was similar, but the psionic energy sought to damage the opponent's brain physically. The problem was that cultivator's brains tended to be quite resilient, so many, many strikes would be needed to actually injure one of them.
True telekinesis wasn't available until higher realms, but Telekinetic Push channeled psionic force to create a push or pull on an object. The effect wasn't nearly as strong as doing the same thing with qi, but it had the very large advantage of not being stopped by qi shields.
Finally, Inflict Fear did just what the name suggested. The technique could literally cause an opponent to become afraid. Against a Golden Core or Nascent Soul cultivator, it wouldn't exactly terrify them into submission or anything, but the sudden onset of a foreign emotion could be a great distraction in the middle of a fight.
Yeah. He was definitely happy he'd thought about adding those techniques to his repertoire.
Feeling very pleased with himself, he pulled up his status.
Sect Name:
Rising Tide
Sect Members:
462
Disciples:
56
Sect Points:
986
Shop Points
285
Host Cultivation:
Golden Core - Minor Realm
Nine
Qi Available:
5,647,745
Host Body Cultivation:
Gold - Minor Realm Nine
Host Mind Cultivation:
Myriad - Minor Realm Nine
Host Soul Cultivation:
Fulfillment - Minor Realm
Nine
Host Techniques (Qi Gathering):
Basic Archery - Mastery
Basic Spear Combat - Mastery
Expert Golden Core
Cultivation - Mastery
General Mind Cultivation
Knowledge - Mastery
General Soul Cultivation
Knowledge - Mastery
Knowledge of Beast Bonding -
Mastery
Knowledge of Rank 1
Formations - Mastery
Knowledge of Rank 2
Formations - Mastery
Knowledge of Rank 3
Formations - Mastery
Nascent Soul Cultivation
Knowledge - Mastery
Pill Basics - Mastery
Host Techniques (Foundation Establishment):
Absolute Speed
Enhancement - Mastery
Aura Defense - Mastery
Automatic Reaction
Variable Shield -
Mastery
Chain Lightning - Mastery
Extreme Area
Temperature
Manipulation - Mastery
Folded Space Quickstep -
Mastery
Foundation Excavation -
Mastery
Healing - Mastery
Hydro Blast - Mastery
Illusion Detection and
Mitigation - Mastery
Illusion Illumination -
Mastery
Layered Variable Shield
Breaker with Void Finisher
Weapon Augmentation -
Mastery
Meditation - Mastery
Pause Time - Mastery
Perception - Mastery
Power of the Heavens -
Mastery
Rank 1 Formation
Construction - Mastery
Rank 1 Formation
Construction Acceleration -
Mastery
Rank 1 Inscription -
Mastery
Rank 2 Formation
Construction - Mastery
Rank 2 Formation
Construction
Acceleration - Mastery
Rank 2 Inscription - Mastery
Rank 3 Formation
Construction - Mastery
Rank 3 Formation
Construction Acceleration -
Mastery
Rank 3 Inscription -
Mastery
Seeking Speeding Arrow -
Mastery
Space Dragon Origami
Messenger - Mastery
Stealth - Mastery
Stone Shaping and
Construction - Mastery
Time Manipulation - Mastery
Variable AoE Gravity
Burst - Mastery
Variable AoE Shield - Mastery
Variable Spirit Coin
Manifestation - Mastery
Voice Amplification - Mastery
Host Concepts (Golden Core):
Anti-Tribulation -
Mastery
Earth - Mastery
Fire - Mastery
Gluttony - Mastery
Gravity - Mastery
Healing - Mastery
Ice - Mastery
Illusion - Mastery
Light - Mastery
Lightning - Mastery
Metal - Mastery
Momentum - Mastery
Poison - Mastery
Smell - Mastery
Soul - Mastery
Sound - Mastery
Space - Mastery
Temperature - Mastery
Time - Mastery
Tribulation Lightning -
Mastery
Void - Mastery
Water - Mastery
Wood - Mastery
Mind Techniques (Myriad):
Dual Focus - Mastery
Inflict Fear - Mastery
Mind Crush - Mastery
Mind Stun - Mastery
Telekinetic Push -
Mastery
Menu:
[Cultivation Method]
[Technique]
[Quest]
[Perk]-
[Advancement]
[Shop]
[Sect]-