Since Benton made his decision to reset his morals back to Earth normal, he felt a lot better about things. No more wanton killing. That step would be one he'd take only if there were no other choice. He also felt good about his enhanced ability to defend his sect members no matter what his enemies brought against him.
Without a pressing need to exact more vengeance on the Jade Chameleons and having his main To Do item—increasing his power and the sect's defenses by advancing to Nascent Soul—removed, it was time for Benton to reassess his short-term goals.
He wasn't entirely through with defenses as he still thought rebuilding the towers was a good idea. That task had slid a bid down the priority list, though. A much more important project was creating tokens for all the sect members. Right now, no one but him could enter or exit the main sect grounds while the Grand Defensive Formation was active, which meant that, in practical terms, he couldn't leave the array running. Tokens would grant access rights to the wearers, allowing him to keep protection active at all times.
Another important problem that needed resolved was the fact that Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town and the branch of the Rising Tide Sect located there were basically undefended. All they had was Fatty Ren who, admittedly, could fight a bit above his realm. In the end, though, he was only a Golden Core in the first minor realm. His palace had some minor formations protecting it, but the city walls had nothing.
Benton really needed to install a Grand Defense Formation there as well.
Additionally, the need for Qi Condensing Pills was starting to grow. The sect had inducted a lot of members recently. Previously, the cost of one third of a Shop Point per pill hadn't seemed like all that much, but multiplying that fraction by hundreds added up fast. Benton had actually delayed using the pills on a couple of groups already because he hadn't wanted to spend the points.
It was time for him to stop spending a limited resource—Shop Points—on something that he could craft himself. Once he purchased the necessary techniques using Sect Points to get his Alchemy to Expert level, he'd be able to produce all the pills he needed simply by using spirit coins to buy the necessary herbs.
Thinking about techniques reminded him that he also needed to buy a new Aura so that he could test how two of them worked together. Of course, those planned purchases conflicted with his intention to shift his focus from building his own power. He felt that the upgrades were necessary, though. After all, it would be a long time before he could rely on anyone other than himself to keep his people safe.
Long term, building his sect members up so they could take on those kinds of roles was absolutely his most important objective, though. One step for facilitating that goal in the short term meant spending more effort guiding the pavilions. For example, it was way past time for him to teach the members of the Formations Pavilion how to handle maintenance tasks. Though that didn't seem like a priority at the moment, those members were basically spinning their wheels without a practical application to focus on.
He also needed to find Jin LiJuan and get her a cultivation method and techniques. She'd been instructed to come find him after finishing with the pills, but he'd been so busy that she might not have wanted to disturb him.
Even more important for powering up his sect was obtaining the necessary materials to create the qi sources as those would become a true game changer.
Thus, Benton created his new priority list.
The first step was to maximize his time. For thirty-two Sect Points, he purchased an Aura associated with his Time Concept. Then, since he was already dealing with System stuff, he went ahead and bought what he needed to make him an Expert Alchemist—Knowledge of Herbs, Knowledge of Pills, three ranks of alchemy knowledge, three ranks of herb preparation, and three ranks of pill creation.
All told, he spent sixty-eight points to give him the ability to create the Qi Condensing Pills. Which seemed like a lot compared to the benefit. In actuality, though, he didn't just gain the ability to create those pills but also minor and major Healing Pills and a variety of other useful medicines.
Definitely worth it.
As he had hoped, his Time Aura allowed him to easily slip into a timestream that was accelerated relative to the rest of the world, effectively letting him move and work ten times faster than he would have been able to otherwise. Which his technique would have also let him do. Using the Aura had benefits, though. The first was that it was more efficient in qi usage than the technique. With close to two hundred ninety million qi available, though, that wasn't a huge consideration.
The more important benefit was how little concentration was required. Using the Aura was like treating Time as if it was a highly competent subordinate like Sun Hua. Benton could say, "Hey, speed me up." And Time would just do it. In contrast, using a technique was like directing a recalcitrant teenager who had to be supervised every step of the way.
Benton had previously been limited in what he could do while accelerated due to the amount of focus that had been required. With his new Aura, that restriction, while not completely eliminated, was greatly reduced.
His first usage was the creation of the tokens. The process was multistep, and he initiated it be deciding to use silver as the material for the tokens as it conducted qi decently without being as expensive as some of the more exotic materials. That choice made, he teleported to the forge and melted down seven hundred taels, enough to create around two thousand tokens at about a third of a tael each.
The harder part of the process was to come up with a design. He brainstormed for a while about how to best represent a rising tide. His first thought was a wave, but that iconography didn't quite convey what he wanted. So he ended up going with a boat floating on a peaceful body of water.
With his control of Gravity, it was quite easy to create a stamp and impress the design into molten discs of silver. Soon enough, he had two thousand tokens ready to be inscribed.
Yes. Two thousand. That he had to inscribe. Each.
There were definitely things about the cultivation world that were as tedious as life on Earth. Ugh.
Luckily, the formations weren't too complex since he had to etch them so many times. In the future, he'd want to figure out a way to have the tokens track contribution points, but at the moment, their function was a lot simpler. They served two purposes. One, most importantly, to allow sect members access through the GDF. Two, tracking the connection to the person wearing it.
The second part made the formation a bit more complicated. He'd have to physically present each token to its respective sect member and tie their individual qi signature to it. Which would be a big pain in the butt.
The advantage was worth it, though. For one thing, the token would only work for the associated sect member. If someone else stole it from them, they would not be able to get through the GDF unless they could somehow also replicate the member's highly specific qi signature.
For another, if the token were separated from the sect member or if the sect member died, a stone monitoring device that he was installing in the Administrative Hall would flash a light next to the sect member's name. Benton or one of the disciples could then rush to find the sect member, hopefully in time to render lifesaving aid.
Separate simpler tokens would offer temporary, much more restricted access for visitors.
It took a subjective while to get everything finished, but eventually, he was able to check "make sect member tokens" off his list. Next was distribution, so he had Sun Hua schedule a meeting of the entire main branch of the sect for the next day. His best guess was that attuning a token to a sect member would take somewhere between one and ten seconds, so he should be able to do everyone in less than an hour.
His plan was to basically get everything absolutely necessary complete at the main sect by the end the next day before teleporting to Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town. The tokens were crucial because, without them, he would either have to leave the GDF down while he was away, or the sect members would be trapped in or out of the sect grounds, whichever location they happened to be when he left.
The next step was to get Jin LiJuan settled. He teleported to her, materializing behind her.
She immediately spun, and seeing who had just appeared, cupped her hands. "Greetings, Master."
Benton returned her greetings and checked her cultivation. As expected, her qi pool had expanded by around ten percent after she consumed the pills he gave her. "I don't detect any ill effects from expanding your qi, so you're good to go for continuing to advance."
"Gratitude, Master."
"Looks like you're at Small Success with both Quiet Mind and your sword technique. Hmm."
The girl had advanced so quickly that her techniques were really lagging behind. Ideally, she'd be at Large Success at a minimum before he gave her any more things to practice. Benton was also unsure how her not having a qi aspect would effect Foundational Establishment level techniques. He expressed those concerns to her.
"I understand, Master. What should I do?"
"First, you definitely need a cultivation method. Unlike with techniques, any method should be fine for you to use, considering that your actual advancement is controlled by your bond. Currently, I can give you any of the ones used by Yang Xiu, Yang Ru, or Kang Lin."
Before she could open her mouth to choose, he cut her off. "The problem with those three is they are all focused on Foundation, which is totally pointless for you. So is Ease, really. I was hoping to save a couple of points, but I think I'm going to have to make you a custom one. That's a minor bummer, but it's worth it to maximize your available qi."
She looked totally confused, but he ignored it, instead bringing up the appropriate System menus. For once, the decision for the distribution of categories was a no-brainer as he dumped all one hundred points into Power.
Qi Aspect was more difficult. His choices were to make this cultivation method available for anyone to use or to make it exclusive to Jin LiJuan. As far as he could tell, it didn't matter one way or the other for her, so the only consideration was making effective use of his Sect Points. The more expensive option was to make the cultivation method usable by anyone. The question was—would anyone else want a method that was one hundred percent devoted to increasing available qi?
Yeah. Probably. That option would be attractive to most of his sect members who didn't feel like reaching Golden Core was a real possibility. Of course, he wasn't sure how the existence of the Trial Pagoda would effect those types of decisions.
In the past, he'd mentally thought of the vast majority of his sect as being able to reach the mid to late range of Foundation Establishment as their top end. The Trial Pagoda totally changed their potential, though. Was there any reason that all of them couldn't reach Golden Core?
Benton didn't see why not. It literally cost them nothing besides a day's use of the Trial Pagoda for them to attempt to overcome a bottleneck. For reaching Golden Core, anyway. Obviously, getting to Nascent Soul at a cost of five hundred Sect Points was unsustainable for large numbers of people, but for any realm lower than that, there was no reason for any sect member who wanted to put in the effort not to reach that high.
That decision made a Power-focused Foundation Establishment level cultivation method less valuable, so Benton created one just for Jin LiJuan.
Cultivation Method creation confirmed.
Host has created the Null Aspect Infinite Progression Cultivation Method for Foundation Establishment realm cultivators.
Host has 1,403 Sect Points Available.
Chapter 256 – Sending a Message
Benton handed Jin LiJuan a jade slip with her new cultivation method.
She cupped her hands. "Gratitude, Master."
"The next issue is what to do about techniques." He sighed. "I'd really prefer you got both your current ones to Large Success before giving you any more, but we need more information about how the fact that you don't have a qi aspect will affect things."
She stared at him, curiosity evident on her face.
"For cultivation methods and Qi Gathering level techniques," he said, "your lack of an aspect is a definite positive. Basically, it allows you to use any literally any one that you find. If you were in a normal sect, that would be a huge advantage. In our sect, though, it's only a tiny benefit, mainly to me."
She nodded.
"Depending on how your lack of an aspect interacts with Foundation Level techniques, it could be an absolutely broken benefit or it could be a possibly hefty net negative," Benton said. "We won't know until I give you a technique and see what happens."
"I don't understand, Master. Why would it be a large benefit or an equally large negative?"
He paused for a moment, trying to come up with the best way to explain it. "Kang Lin uses Lighting qi, right?"
"Yes, Master."
"When she triggers her shield," he said, "the qi used takes on the elemental attributes of Lightning as it protects her. The shield is stronger against elements weak to Lightning and weaker against elements strong to Lightning. It also shares some of the physical characteristics of Lightning."
Well, that last point was a bit iffy. If you tried to throw a rock through some kind of persistent lightning, not much would happen to the rock assuming it didn't melt or something. It definitely wouldn't bounce back like it struck a wall. It would if it hit a qi shield, though.
Benton shook off the mental distraction and continued. "The big question that I need answered is—if you were to use her shield technique, would the qi take on the characteristics of Lightning or would the qi generated be unaspected?"
From Jin LiJuan's expression, she had no idea why that was so important.
"Let's assume that you can generate any aspect that corresponds to a technique that you use," he said. "Let's further say that I give you a Water aspected shield. You'll be strong against Earth qi users, but facing a Wind qi user, you'd be at a disadvantage. If you were a normal cultivation, there wouldn't be much you could do about that vulnerability absent a talisman or defensive treasure. Your specific advantage in contrast to normal cultivators would be that you could also learn a Wood shield, which is strong against Wind. In fact, you could learn five different shields and choose which one to use depending on what element your opponent uses."
Her eyes lit up. She understood.
"That's the best case scenario," Benton said. "The worst case would be that any technique you use produces unaspected qi. In that case, you'd basically be neutral against all opponents. Which isn't the end of the world or anything, but the difference between using qi neutral to an opponent's element versus qi that is strong against that element is tremendous. Battles can easily be won and lost on that factor alone."
She cupped her hands again. "Gratitude for the explanation, Master."
"If you can truly make use of any element, we can abuse the heck out of that exploit," Benton said.
She needed to learn an aspected technique in order to find out how her qi reacted with it, and he was so, so tempted to create one for her that used Void, Gravity, Time, or Space. The problem was that anything really powerful using one of those elements would be complicated and, thus, difficult and time-consuming to learn. Considering that she was already behind where he wanted her to be with learning techniques, something simple would be best for the proof of concept test. It felt wasteful to use points to create something that no-one else was likely to use, though.
Hmm.
The vast majority of his sect members were Nature aspected. If he created a basic offensive technique and stuck it in the Contribution Points Shop, he bet a bunch of people would eventually buy it. Simple and easy to learn did not mean worthless. In fact, both those qualities possessed an intrinsic value to a cultivator.
After a moment's thought, he created Ensnarl, a crowd control skill that allowed the user to influence existing nearby plant material to grab an opponent. It wasn't super powerful as any Foundation Establishment realm cultivator could easily break a mundane plant. At the right moment, though, the technique could be a great distraction or a way to trip an opponent or deflect a blow.
Since the user wasn't actually creating anything with qi, the technique was very efficient. Benton set Power to ten to give it a bit of oomph but mainly focused on Ease, allocating the remaining ninety points to that category. Between that setting and the simplicity of the technique, it should be the easiest one to learn out of all that he'd created. He figured that it would be attractive enough to his sect members that he'd easily eventually earn a profit on his eight points.
He handed the jade slip to her. "Your primary goal should be getting your sword technique to Large Success but make this your secondary focus. Once you reach Small Success, I'll watch you demonstrate it."
All he really needed was to sense the qi coming from her as she practiced the technique, which she'd be able to produce a long time before she reached Small Success. Waiting until that milestone would allow him to judge things like her conversion efficiency as well, though.
Too bad he didn't have any other Nature users who had reached Foundation Establishment. It would have been interesting to compare her results with someone else at the same stage.
Oh well, maybe he could arrange those kinds of tests in the future.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"The good thing is that, since you don't have to cultivate nearly as much as everyone else, you have a lot more time to practice techniques. Be diligent."
"I will, Master!"
Such a good kid.
After a quick goodbye, he teleported back to his office and considered his next task. His overall goal was to accomplish everything on his To Do List so that he could turn his attention fully to acquiring materials for the qi sources. The biggest, most time consuming item left was obviously creating the Grand Defensive Formation at Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town.
The other big item was creating the hundreds of Qi Gathering Pills he needed. That task could wait until after constructing the GDF, but there was also the precursor activity of herb acquisition to consider. Those would need to be purchased in Sixth Flawless Flowing City. Which, on one hand, was no problem. He had plenty of spirit coins and could always make more.
Travel to, from, and inside the city was more problematic. After the twins had encountered trouble last time, he really didn't want to send them back there, and Fatty Ren's position was really too important for him to be used as an errand boy.
Benton really felt he should just go himself. It would be easy. Just teleport to the shops he knew and teleport back. He'd be in and out before the Jade Chameleons discovered anything about it.
Unfortunately, he didn't know enough about the etiquette of the situation. For all he knew, the City Lord might get ticked about him just teleporting in and out.
Benton sighed. The best course of action was to message Kang Ya-Ting for advice. Asking for help in that manner wasn't Benton's preference, but it was better than making a misstep that might lead to more people getting hurt.
He penned a quick message explaining the situation and requesting the elder's opinion on the best way to acquire the materials. The message, of course, included a blank page for the reply. The messages the Poison Claw Sect used were way too slow.
Sending one message reminded Benton that he needed to send others as well—a threat for the Jade Chameleons, warnings to the Emperor's faction and the Swift Blizzard Sect, and a notification to Kang Ya-Ting about the other messages.
The first one was the most strongly worded.
Chameleons,
You have attacked the Rising Tide Sect for the last time. Any future hostile act perpetrated by your sect will result in the complete destruction of your main sect grounds and the elimination of all your members who are at the Golden Core realm and higher. Do not test me.
Chao Su
Rising Tide Sect Leader
The second was much more diplomatic.
City Lord Luo Quan,
Greetings. As you have probably heard, the Jade Chameleon Sect sent two Nascent Soul cultivators to attack my Rising Tide Sect main branch. This incursion was unprovoked and resulted in damages to my sect grounds.
Fortunately, no one besides the two intruders were harmed.
Upon the advice of my friends at the Poison Claw Sect, I am not pursuing further vengeance on the Jade Chameleon Sect at this time. However, my patience grows short. If there are any future attacks, I will be forced to eradicate that sect and all their members at a higher realm than Foundation Establishment.
I have notified the Jade Chameleon Sect of this consequence.
Please be aware that any sect or faction that allies with the Jade Chameleon Sect for an attack on my Rising Tide Sect is subject the same consequences.
I appreciate your consideration of this matter and implore you to use whatever means you have at your disposal to discourage the Jade Chameleon Sect and/or any other entities for pursuing such a self-destructive course of action.
Sincerely,
Chao Su
Rising Tide Sect Leader
PS: Note that, as a matter of courtesy, I would have returned the bodies of the two Nascent Souls to the Jade Chameleon Sect for proper burial, but I was unable to do so because there simply was not enough of the former cultivators left.
The third message was the same as the second, except it was addressed to Mao Biya of the Swift Blizzard Sect. Finally, the fourth message was short and sweet, providing copies of the other messages to Kang Ya-Ting for information purposes.
With a small application of qi, all four messages were quickly dispatched.
Cool. Another item checked off the list!
Chapter 257 - Changes
New
Just now
Xiang Da's life had changed a lot over the last four months. Born to farmers in a small village in the middle of nowhere, he'd always been realistic about his chances of achieving greatness, as in he knew he had exactly zero chance. Not that he'd been unhappy. He had a wife and children and the prosect of a grandchild in the near future.
Like everyone else in the village, he'd been fearful about what the fall of the Righteous Rain Sect meant for them, and they had all been proven right to be afraid. Over a period of years, outside visits had dried up, and the number of spirit beasts prowling around had greatly increased until the villagers eventually became prisoners locked inside the protection of their walls.
Though they did their best to stave off starvation by growing crops in every empty spot where there wasn't a building, all of them knew that the available land simply couldn't support the nearly one thousand people inside.
The future appeared bleak.
One day, though, a cultivator and his two disciples had appeared. Xiang Da, like everyone else, had been apprehensive at first. Wandering cultivators, after all, did not have the most sterling of reputations.
Instead of bringing pain and speeding up the doom facing the village, the cultivator had improbably brought salvation. First, he'd delivered a load of Orange Vigor Spirit Wood to Sixth Flawless Flowing City and returned with a wagonload of food. Then, he'd founded a sect and stated his intention to have everyone in the village become cultivators. Finally, he'd staved off a beast tide that otherwise would have killed every man, woman, and child in the area.
Now, not only could Xiang Da exit the walls safely whenever he wanted because there was no longer any danger, but even if a beast were present, he could fight it as a cultivator in the fifth minor realm of Qi Gathering. And not only was he a cultivator, but he was one of the sect's leaders, the head of the Formations Pavilion.
His life had definitely changed.
The problem was that he felt unworthy of the position granted to him. His only claim to fame was that he was good at math. He could add four or five numbers together in his head and had the times tables memorized. Where most of the villages found percentages and fractions nearly indecipherable, he could figure them fairly easily.
Essentially, he had a head for basic math, making him better at simple computations than his fellow villagers. That ability did not make him a scholar.
The sects and the Emperor's faction had decreed long ago that all people on the continent were to be taught basic literacy and math, but the key word was basic. Most could read a decree sent out by one of the governing organizations and do basic sums. Peasants who showed aptitude were taught somewhat more advanced material. Had Xiang Da been born in a larger village, he probably would have been given the opportunity to study in the city in hopes of eventually working for a rich merchant or a noble.
No one searched Prosperous Gray Forest Village for people with such ability, though, so he was left a simple farmer until conditions had become too unsafe, requiring him and his family to move inside the walls.
Now, he was expected to learn Formations, a feat farther above his ability than percentages and fractions had been to the villagers he'd helped so many times. He was grateful for the opportunity, but understanding the complex mathematics behind formations was challenging for him and the other four that had been placed in the pavilion under him. The best they'd been able to do was to replicate simple arrays exactly as shown in the manuals the sect leader had provided.
All of them had reached Small Success in their Fundamentals of Math Knowledge technique at least, but given the time they'd been studying, they should have all made it to Large Success. They were failing in their task of learning, and they all knew it. To say that morale was low was a great understatement.
Thus, when the sect leader had appeared inside the Formations building in the evening of the day after his battle with the Nascent Soul cultivators, Xiang Da and his four failed students all expected to be definitely expelled from the pavilion and perhaps from the sect.
Xiang Da cupped his trembling hands. "Greetings, Sect Leader."
The four others quickly followed his example.
"You guys have been floundering," the sect leader said. "I've come to end that."
Xiang Da tensed. That was it. He was going to be expelled.
"First," the sect leader said, "I'll lead you through some basic lessons on math."
Huh?
"If you pay attention and meditate on what I teach you," the sect leader said, "it should speed your advancement to Large Success. Then, I have a list of arrays that need to be repaired. We're going to spend several hours working on those. I'll guide you through the troubleshooting process and how to actual fix them. Gaining practical experience should help you a lot with your understanding."
Xiang Da got down on his knees and kowtowed. "Gratitude, Sect Leader."
Behind him, his four students did the same.
"Hey," the sect leader said, "none of that is needed. Get up. Let's get to work."
What followed was a mentally intensive and often baffling lesson. One of the rooms in the Formations Pavilion Building had an array on one wall that let one make marks with a simple application of qi, and the sect leader used that to write out his thoughts. He walked them through the concept of an equation and—he stressed the importance of the next part—the idea that you could do anything you wanted to one side as long as you did the same thing to the other.
Xiang Da struggled to understand how or why such a fact was useful, and he wasn't given any time to either ask a question or truly consider the problem before the sect leader continued with his next pronouncement—that any number or expression divided by itself equaled one.
So many facts, thoughts, and formulas followed that. A line was governed by the equation y=mx+b. The area of a triangle was equal to half the base times its height. Pi. The hypotenuse of a right triangle was equal to the square root of the sum of the squares of its sides. Parabolas. Hyperbolas. Sine and cosine and tangent. Completing the square and the derivation of the quadratic formula. Multiplying and dividing terms with exponents.
By the time an hour was up, Xiang Da's head was swimming.
"By the glazed looks in your eyes, I think we're done for now," the sect leader said. "I don't expect you to understand any of this right now. Come back to these notes later, pick a formula, and meditate on it. As you do, the knowledge from your technique will guide your understanding, leading you to further revelations. What I've written here should be enough to get all of you to Large Success. Once you've all reached it, I'll come back, and we'll work on getting you to Mastery."
They were all too stunned at first to react, but finally Xiang Da cupped his hands. "Gratitude, Sect Leader."
"It's dinnertime. Go grab something in the cafeteria. I'll meet you in an hour, and we'll work on those malfunctioning arrays." After that pronouncement, the sect leader disappeared.
Xiang Da turned to his students. "Did any of you understand any of that?"
"Not a bit," Yan Chen said.
"Me, neither." Xiang Da sighed. "All we can do is trust the sect leader. He told us that meditation will bring understanding."
"Must we go eat?" Yan Chen said. "I'd rather stay here."
Xiang Da agreed with that sentiment. He'd never seen or even heard of the formulas written on that wall, and he was sorely tempted to delve into each of them. But the sect leader had given implicit instructions.
"For now, we must do our best to forget all the mysteries that he presented to us on that wall," Xiang Da said. "Our duty awaits. After dinner, the sect leader will teach us how to perform maintenance duties on arrays. None of us have contributed at all to the sect yet, but that changes tonight."
The opportunity to actually do something positive for the sect and its members was a strong inducement, especially since the formulas weren't going anywhere. First, they'd learn how to repair arrays. Then, they'd meditate on the sect leader's lesson and advance their math technique, building their foundation to create arrays.
Another change was coming in their lives, and they couldn't wait for it to happen.
###
As the head of the Swift Blizzard sect branch in Sixth Flawless Flowing City, Mao Biya's life had become much more annoying since she learned of the existence of one Chao Su. His name was on everyone's tongue. Every conversation seemed to revolve around how best to deal with the man, whether to destroy him or try to curry his favor in hopes of gaining access to his resources.
She seethed as she read the message he had sent. One factor that angered her was that he kept referring to his bunch of trumped up peasants as an actual sect. The thing that truly incensed her, though, was the warning.
Just because he had access to treasures beyond the dreams of avarice did not give him the right to threaten her and her sect. From what she'd heard, he'd barely survived the attack from two Nascent Souls and that only because they attacked him near where he had formations prepared.
He wasn't nearly as powerful as he pretended to be. There was no conceivable way he'd be able to destroy even the weakened Jade Chameleon Sect, much less the Swift Blizzard Sect.
Chao Su needed to be taught a lesson, to be brought low. His treasures belonged in better, stronger hands. Too bad her sect leader was so risk averse.
Not that attacking Chao Su at his sect was a good idea. The Jade Chameleons had proven that. Never fight a Formations Master on prepared ground was a maxim for a reason.
She chuckled at the thought of what must have gone through the venerable Ye Zhengsheng's head when he realized that his opponent was that skilled with arrays. He must have died cursing the intelligence branch of his sect.
No, Chao Su needed to be lured out of his sect for the final confrontation. Teng Wuying was right. The tournament was the perfect place for an ambush. Though it stuck in her craw to acknowledge the Rising Tide Sect as legitimate even as part of a ruse, the threatening message proved the slimy Jade Chameleon's plan was the correct approach.
If her sect leader didn't agree, Mao Biya would have to go over his head to the council of elders, and if that didn't work, she'd go directly to her sect's Nascent Souls. The stakes were too high not to take action.
She fired off a message to Teng Wuying. It contained just two words—I'm in.
Chapter 258 - Taking Advice, Making the Right Choice, and Arranging Trades
Benton enjoyed his time spent with the members of the Formations Pavilion.
Just like with all his other members, they needed to reach Foundation Establishment to truly begin creating useful arrays, so it would be a long time before any of them were of great use to the sect. That fact didn't mean that leaving them to their own devices was a great idea.
In fact, their time spent in self-study had definitely been counterproductive. Not only had they not advanced their main knowledge technique, but they'd barely reached Small Success with their weapons, either. None of that lack of progress had been due to them not trying hard enough. They simply didn't have the background in math to make proper use of the technique to advance it, and because they'd spent all their time trying in vain to do just that, their other pursuits such as practicing with their weapons and studying the array manuals had suffered.
Truthfully, Benton hadn't meant to leave them so long without guidance. There were just too many other fires that had to be put out, and they kept getting pushed to the back of his priority list.
Now, though, he'd set them on the right path to advance their technique and taught them to do something useful in maintaining the sect's arrays. Not that they'd be able to fix every problem, of course. But they could fix most of the common ones, and the attempt to figure out the solution to other issues would increase their experience with arrays.
Yes. The evening had been a great success. He made a mental note to try to spend more time with each of the pavilions. A new day had dawned, however, and he was unlikely to have a chance to do that for a while. As always, other issues seemed to be more important.
First, he received a return message from Kang Ya-Ting.
Friend Su,
I understand your desire not to impose on the hospitality of my sect, but it is my strong preference that you do not come to the city yourself unless absolutely necessary. The messages you sent have unfortunately stirred up much talk. Your presence might ignite hostilities, and this old man doesn't think such is your desire.
It is a trifling matter for me to send a junior to collect all the herbs you need, and I can meet you at a time and place of your choosing outside the walls to deliver your goods. If it makes you feel better about me taking the time to perform this service for you, I can charge you a ten percent fee for procurement and delivery.
If you bring the Nature kernels, we can also trade for the Fire stones at that time. We also need to discuss possibilities for exchange of the other materials my sect has.
Your Friend,
Kang Ya-Ting
Benton laughed. The old guy sure like to play the angles. Still, ten percent was a trivial price to pay considering how much less time Benton would have to spend on the errand. And the point about trading for the materials for the qi sources was a good one as well. He fired off a reply stating he'd wait a mile south of the main gate at noon the next day.
With that task taken care of, Benton worked on creating greater spirit coins until it was time for his sect's assemblage. Once he'd sensed that everyone had gathered, he teleported onto the amphitheater's stage.
It only took a moment for his sect members to spot him and grow silent.
"Greetings, my sect members. Gratitude for gathering here this fine morning. I will be away from the sect for a little over a day, and while I'm gone, I want the Grand Defensive Formation to remain active. In order for you to be able to pass in and out of the gate, I've prepared a token for each of you." Benton held one of them up. "I'll need to present one to each of you in order to attune it to your unique qi signature. So please line up in an orderly fashion."
As his sect members quietly moved to form a queue, Benton continued. "Yuan Yaozu, a Nascent Soul and my newest disciple, will remain here in my absence. If there is any trouble, he can signal me, and I'll return in seconds. Please do not worry about your safety.
"While I'm away, Yang Xiu and Yang Ru will be in charge of the sect." Benton turned to his assistant. "Sun Hua, please assist them in the same manner you so ably have for me."
She cupped her hands.
As he'd predicted, he was able to attune all the tokens in a little over three quarters of an hour, and as soon as he was finished, he teleported to Fatty Ren's palace.
Man, he so loved teleporting. Quickstepping was similar, of course, but it was much more limited. Teleporting handled longer ranges easier, was more qi efficient, and was instantaneous. One second he was standing in the amphitheater and the tiniest fraction of a second later, he appeared in Fatty Ren's throne room.
So cool.
"Sect Leader!" the Town Lord said. "Welcome."
"Fatty Ren, good job on getting that induction done for me," Benton said. "That should be the last time we need to do something like that. From here on out, you are free to recruit anyone you want, but there is no requirement to add any more members."
"Understood, Sect Leader."
"Good. You're probably wondering why I'm here."
"Yes, Sect Leader."
"The as yet still undeclared war with the Jade Chameleons is heating up," Benton said. "I had to kill two of their Nascent Souls when they attacked me the day before yesterday."
Fatty Ren's eyes went wide.
"On the plus side, a cultivator from the Poison Claw Sect used the Trial Pagoda to advance to Nascent Soul, and he'll be helping out with protection for the next century as payment."
Somehow, the Town Lord's eyes went even wider at that news.
"Anyway, I'm worried about protection for you and your town," Benton said. "What do you think about me using the wall to create a Grand Defensive Formation? I can create tokens that your guards can use to escort people in and out, and I'll give you several contingency rings for you and your people. All you have to do is break one of them, and I'll teleport to that location as soon as I possibly can."
The request for permission was not perfunctory. Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town was owned by the Emperor's faction, not by the Rising Tide Sect. Not only would the creation of an array hinder movement in and out of the town, but its existence might rile up the higher nobles.
Fatty Ren cupped his hands. "Gratitude, Sect Leader."
"So no issue with me creating the formation, then?"
"No, Sect Leader. It might create minor political and/or logistical issues, but nothing I can't smooth over or deal with."
Good. Benton trusted Fatty Ren to understand the situation with the nobles and handle it. As long as he didn't think it was too big of a problem, Benton was willing disregard the potential for conflict.
He tossed the Town Lord five of the rings. "Distribute these as you see fit, but I recommend you keep one of them. I'll get to work on that Grand Defensive Formation and will get you the tokens when I finish."
Benton didn't accelerate time for the entirety of the next twenty hours as even the relatively less stressful nature of the Aura still impacted his concentration, but he did for most of it. He also didn't replicate the GDF he used on the main sect grounds exactly because it would be much easier for spies to examine his work at the town walls than it would be at his home. He saw no reason to make it more convenient for his enemies to gain important information about his primary defenses.
Still, as a Formations Expert, such obfuscation was relatively easy. By that point, creating a GDF was more tedious than challenging, and when he was finished, he was glad he had completed the important task. Even though he wasn't as personally connected to his sect members at the branch, they were still his people. He hadn't realized how worried having them be relatively unprotected had made him until the relief hit him when he inscribed the last bit of the final array.
The next step was to create tokens. At first, his idea had been to make ones just like he had for the members at the main branch, connecting each individually, but even with the use of his Aura, he was growing short on time to make his meeting with Kang Ya-Ting.
Benton could have, of course, simply returned after picking up the herbs, but as long as he was putting off creating official membership tokens anyway, there was no real need for them in the short term. All Fatty Ren really required was a way to get people in and out of the array without shutting it down.
That simplified version was super easy to construct and took Benton almost no time. When finished with the task, he teleported back to the palace.
"Greetings, Sect Leader." Fatty Ren was much less surprised that time, probably because of the men Benton had noticed watching his progress.
Benton tossed the Town Lord a pouch filled with the simplified tokens. "These are honestly going to be pretty easy for one of our enemies to steal but do your best to keep track of them. I'll return within the next couple of weeks to create another Grand Defensive Array around your palace. At that time, I'll also give each of the members here a personalized sect token that will track contact with their qi signature."
Fatty Ren face took on a quizzical expression.
"I'd do all that now," Benton said, "but I'm out of time. My priority for the last day was simply to give you a defense capable of pausing any enemies long enough for you to summon me. What I created should be fine for that purpose as long as you're careful with those tokens."
"I see. Gratitude, Sect Leader."
Benton hid a frown. In retrospect, maybe he should have just protected the palace from the start instead of the entire town. His spiritual senses told him, though, that, while the sect members all had moved into the palace, they frequently visited various shops and houses. He'd have hated for an attack to catch them out and about and unable to get back to the protection of the GDF.
The fact was that he simply didn't have time to build both at the moment. Neither solution was perfect, but he felt pretty good about his decision to protect the extents of the town instead of only the palace.
With his resolve firmed, Benton said his goodbyes and teleported to a location about a mile south of the Sixth Flawless Flowing City main gate. He was a bit early, so he remained on the ground until he judged it to be noon, at which point he summoned his flying sword from his spatial ring and rose into the air to wait for Kang Ya-Ting.
Benton did feel a little silly for using the device, but others in the city had seen him fly with it. He didn't want changes in his behavior to give any information to anyone who might be watching.
Luckily, he didn't have long to dwell on it as Kang Ya-Ting flew to him a few minutes later.
"How much do I owe you?" Benton said after greetings had been exchanged.
Kang Ya-Ting held up a spatial ring. "Enough herbs for two thousand Qi Condensing Pills, five hundred Minor Healing Pills, and one hundred Major Healing Pills. That's a lot of herbs."
Benton didn't respond. The elder had been the one to volunteer his service, after all, and he was getting paid for work that he surely had pawned off on his juniors.
"I paid just under fifty greater spirit coins for the whole lot," Kang Ya-Ting said. "With my ten percent commission, that's sixty to you."
Benton probably could have bargained a bit, but the savings simply didn't matter. Compared to spending Shop Points, such a low number of easily obtained greater spirit coins just wasn't worth worrying about.
"Gratitude, Friend Kang," he said, cupping his hands.
After extracting the required amount from his spatial ring, Benton used Gravity to levitate the coins to his fellow Daoist and retrieve the ring with the herbs stored in it.
"Do you need the ring back?" Benton said.
"Nope. I included it in the price."
Of course he did.
Benton grinned. "Well, gratitude to you once again. And the Fire stones?"
"Also in the ring."
"Perfect," Benton said, extracting five Nature kernels from his storage and floating them over to the elder. "Any thoughts on what your fellow sect elders might want for the Shadow core and Ice lotus?"
Kang Ya-Ting grimaced. "Nothing easy. What do you have?"
"How about this? I can use that metal you acquired for me and some other materials I have lying around to produce a variety of swords. There's that auction coming up. We can try to set up a three-way trade between me, your elders, and the auction house."
"That might just work, Friend Su. Even if it doesn't, there might be other materials there that you want to purchase." Kang Ya-Ting paused. "And on that note, the troupe that you requested departed the city a couple of days ago. They should be arriving in your village in a little over a month."
Ah. The troupe. Benton had almost forgotten about the arrangement he'd made for another Poison Claw Sect elder to use the Trial Pagoda for advancement in return for the Fire plant material he needed to create a qi source.
"Excellent," Benton said. "I believe that the friendship between our sects is turning out to be quite mutually beneficial."
"Quite!" Kang Ya-Ting agreed.