Zou Tian stood anxiously outside the Trials Pagoda. With a new day dawning, soone needed to make use of the facility, and Yang Xiu had decreed that, barring soone with a specific need, she would choose the order of entry based on cultivation strength. She and Yang Ru, obviously the strongest mbers of the sect, had already had a turn, so the next logical choice was Wan Ai.
Who had promptly refused.
It had been funny watching his sweetheart, who never stood up for herself ever, squaring off against Yang Xiu and adamantly rejecting the choice. Wan Ai would work for each advance she received, “Thank you very much.”
Zou Tian would seek to change her opinion about that stance, but he’d have to approach the subject carefully. The Trials Pagoda was too big of an advantage to pass up, and as she was the lead alchemist, the sect needed her to improve as quickly as she could.
He suspected, though, that her main problem was fear. She didn’t want to be the first to fail and the attention that would co along with sothing like that happening to her.
Understandable. As he stood in front of the Pagoda, that fear was way, way too understandable.
Yang Xiu and Yang Ru had breezed through their trials. Of course. What were the chances of either of them failing at anything ever? They each had more talent in their pinky toes than Zou Tian had total, though.
Failure was definitely an option for him.
He’d tried to refuse the honor and had even had a good excuse. Both the expert blacksmith, Xun Wu, and his apprentice, Shi Long, were also in the seventh minor realm of Qi Gathering, and all three of them were anticipated to break through to the eight minor realm in a relatively close ti fra. The thing was that both of the other two were likely to advance before Zou Tian, a month for Xun Wu and a couple of weeks for Shi Long.
Therefore, Xun Wu deserved the honor based on being higher in terms of cultivation.
The problem was that Yang Xiu believed they needed martially inclined mbers to advance much more than they needed blacksmiths, and no one, not even Yang Ru or Kang Lin, could convince her otherwise. Maybe, if Xun Wu or Shi Long had fought for the opportunity, one of them could have changed Senior Sister’s mind, but neither of them seed to care one way or the other.
Which left Zou Tian stuck with accepting the honor.
With no small amount of trepidation, he entered the Pagoda and, as he’d been instructed, placed his hand on the white marble orb atop the pedestal there. Forewarned was foreard, so he wasn’t surprised at all with the blue screen that popped up in his vision asking him to choose one of three trials.
“Esteed Trials Pagoda, this lowly one wishes to take a trial to secure the chance of improving Foundation Dagger Essentials to Mastery.”
Selection to Improve a Technique requires approval from Sect Leader Chao Su.
Contacting Sect Leader Chao Su.
Sect Leader Chao Su says, “Make Kang Lin the next trial taker.”
Zou Tian didn’t know how to feel about that ssage. On one hand, he didn’t have to risk being the first failure that day. On the other, he had the added sha of being refused entrance by Master.
Was Master angry? He had to be. Why else would he refuse Zou Tian admittance in favor of soone who wasn’t even a mber of their sect?
He must have done sothing to make Master mad, but what?
It was with a heavy heart that Zou Tian trudged toward the village to tell Yang Xiu and the others about the ssage. He could only hope that he wouldn’t be ostracized too much.
Whatever it took, he swore he would climb any mountain, complete any task, overco any obstacle required to regain Master’s favor.
When Zou Tian was moving at top speed, the journey from the sect grounds to the village took a matter of minutes, no more than ten and probably less. On that day, he’d barely made it a quarter of the way once that much ti had passed.
He wished he had hurried when he spotted a blue reptilian creature flying directly toward him. It was about the length of his hand with an elongated body, fearso wings, and four limbs, each with claws.
After pulling his daggers from their sheaths, he took a defensive position.
As the creature drew closer, however, sothing odd stood out about it, odder even than its color, size, and the fact that it flew. No, the feature that drew his attention was the material it was made of. He would have expected scales or feathers or even fur. That thing, though, appeared to be made of … paper?
It dove right at him but not very fast. He easily dodged out of the way, trying to figure out if he should stab it or not. Instead of pursuing him, though, the creature just hovered in the air an arm’s length away at about the height of Zou Tian’s chest.
It didn’t seem too terribly hostile…
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Zou Tian stepped back. The creature followed, keeping the sa distance.
He reached out with his dagger and carefully, lightly, touched the weapon’s tip against the creature’s torso.
As soon as the tal made contact, the creature … unfolded. Literally. It turned from so sort of flying construct into a flat sheet of paper.
Zou Tian snagged it out of the air and discovered a ssage, one addressed to him.
Zou Tian,
Apologies for the brevity of my previous response. I wasn’t in a position to fully explain my position at the ti of the notification, so I hope this ssage finds you before you draw any incorrect conclusions.
Kang Lin is not a mber of the Rising Tide Sect. However, she is a mber of a sect that recently stood by my side in trying circumstances. She is also my disciple. Because of those two factors, I feel it is the right thing to do to include her in whatever rotation that you and the other council mbers have created for the Trials Pagoda, and as the sole remaining Foundation Establishnt cultivator that hasn’t had a chance to use the pagoda, that ans it should be her turn next.
Were it not for those factors, I think you would have made a fine choice for next up. I will in all probability be back at the village (hopefully!) before tomorrow and will happily approve your participation in a trial at that ti.
Please let the others know that I am well and that I will be returning as soon as possible.
Sincerely,
Master
A rather large weight lifted off Zou Tian’s shoulders as he read the note, and he felt greatly relieved. He hadn’t angered Master.
Zou Tian sighed. Whew.
Then it hit him. Kang Lin was almost as talented as the twins, and anything she lacked in aptitude, she made up in both knowledge and experience. The odds of her not passing her trial were basically nil.
There was still a good chance that he’d be the first to fail.
Great. Just great.
Benton took one final sip of tea and put the cup down. “Well, Friend Kang, this conversation has been very informative, but I really need to get back to my disciples.”
“Understood, Friend Su. Will you be heading directly back to your sect?”
Just as Benton was about to answer, a notification popped up asking for him to approve Zou Tian taking a trial to improve his dagger technique.
Not wanting to delay his response to Kang Ya-Ting, Benton almost reflexively agreed. At the last instant, it occurred to him that, politically speaking, it would be a good move to have Kang Lin use the pagoda, and since both his other two Foundation Establishnt disciples had a turn, she really should go next.
Keeping the ssage as brief as possible, he passed along instructions to do just that.
“Actually,” Benton said, “I have a couple of minor errands to run, which I plan to accomplish with all due haste, and then I need to stop by Vermilion Incomparable Rain Town. With any luck, though, I’ll reach the village by this evening.”
Hopefully. Maybe. His tasks in the city shouldn’t take long, but who knew how much ti it would take to recruit Fatty Ren and start a branch of the Rising Tide Sect there. Not to ntion that he’d need to go by the orphanage.
Still, he was going to push to be back in the village before the sun rose the next day.
The two finished saying their goodbyes, and Benton left the sect. No sooner had he stepped out of the gate, though, than he started reconsidering his all too brief note to Zou Tian via the notification. Benton had been in a hurry, and the brevity of his ssage had probably made his words sound too harsh. He hoped the boy didn’t take it the wrong way.
Well, there was nothing Benton could do about it until he reached the village…
Wait. He’d seen a lot of people using those ssage things that apparently could move between cities pretty darn fast. The devices hadn’t been for sale in any of the stores, but maybe he could borrow one from Kang Ya-Ting.
Benton would prefer not to, though. Not being able to take care of a task that was so trivial without help would eat into the mystique he was building.
A thought hit him, and he grinned. Why would he need help with sothing like that? After all, he was a cheating cheater who cheats.
“System,” he said internally, mindful of the people around him on the street, “can I purchase a technique to create ssage devices?”
Yes.
Aweso! Succinct, but aweso.
One he’d seen previously that had stood out in his mory had been in the form of a green origami butterfly. Which was cool. But he thought he might be able to do better than that.
“System, please create a technique to create blue origami dragons capable of delivering ssages to specific recipients at far distances. Please also imbue the creations with my Concept of Space so that it can skip a large portion of the distance between the sender and the recipient. Please purchase that technique to Mastery.”
Technique creation confird.
Host has learned the technique, Space Dragon Origami ssenger: Mastery.
Host has 760 Sect Points available.
Perfect. Benton Quickstepped to an alley, triggered his new technique, and penned a note to Zou Tian.
There. If the boy had his feelings hurt at all, that should assuage them.
With that bit of necessary business out of the way, Benton moved on to his errands, beginning with replenishing herbs for the baths. Since he no longer had to hide, he Quickstepped from store to store, buying all each location had. By the ti he finished, he figured he had enough for at least one thousand new Bronze baths.
More important, though, was obtaining enough herbs for fifty-four baths, twenty-seven each for Yang Xiu and Yang Ru. Now that they were Foundation Establishnt cultivators, he wanted them to advance to the peak of Silver Body Cultivation as well.
The big challenge for that realm was finding a qi source that closely matched their aspects, but since they could manipulate their qi externally, that problem was solved. All they needed was for an alchemist to mix up the correct herbs. Though those ingredients would be much more expensive, the actual process should be only a little bit more difficult. Benton felt confident that Wan Ai could work it out.
He spent forty more Sect Points buying a Body Cultivation thod for each of his two exceptional disciples and used the knowledge he gained to make sure he bought the right herbs.
As he’d expected, the higher quality ingredients required a higher quality store, which was actually a good thing. He was able to spend spirit coins instead of dipping further into his limited supply of silver.
That task accomplished, he quickly visited every street cart and restaurant he could easily access and purchased whatever als they had handy, most of the ti overpaying to avoid the lengthy process of having the cashier find correct change for him.
Finally, just as Benton was preparing to leave town, he spotted a candy store, and that jogged his mory. On his first trip so long ago, he had intended to buy so candy to give to the children, but that goal had completely slipped his mind.
As he walked out of the store having bought just about the entire stock, he smiled, thinking of the reactions the kids were going to have. Next stop, the Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town orphanage.
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