As Benton grew to trust his sect mbers’ abilities more and more, he got a lot better about delegating. It was the night before he was to Teleport the entire contingent to Sixth Flawless Flowing City, and he didn’t have a single thing he needed to do. Yang Xiu, with copious help from Sun Hua, had the logistics well in hand.
As was becoming one of his occasional habits, he summoned Yuan Yaozu for a chat. The Nascent Soul was the only person around he could really talk to, soone who understood the burdens of leadership and the lure of power. Soone with experience who ca from having lived a long life.
Benton chuckled. He was actually the spring chicken compared to that old man.
Their conversation ambled from topic to topic for a while before Yuan Yaozu brought up the subject Benton had been expecting.
“You should take with you.”
“Who would guard the sect?”
“No one. It doesn’t matter,” Yuan Yaozu said. “You’re the target.”
Benton sighed. “I don’t want to risk it. I don’t even like leaving the branch sect with only Fatty Ren to protect them.” Benton sighed. “I should have extracted a promise like yours from Duan Lan.”
“You’re unbelievable! If she were available, you’d have her sitting in Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town, wouldn’t you?”
Benton shrugged.
“All the information we have, the information Zou Tian dug up for us,” Yuan Yaozu said, “tells us that the Swift Blizzard Sect is fully allied with the Jade Chaleons. You know what that ans.”
“More people that I have to kill.” Benton let a bit more frustration seep into his tone than he intended.
“The Jade Chaleons have two Nascent Souls. The Swift Blizzards have four. Granted, my sect has six, but I’m apparently stuck here babysitting, and one is in seclusion. With you, that’s six of them versus only five on your side, and that’s best case scenario. When they ambush you, it’ll be six on one. If you let go, I’ll stick to your side like glue.”
“You’re just eager for your first fight as a Nascent Soul.”
Yuan Yaozu glared at him.
“I get it,” Benton said. “You really are worried. But you shouldn’t be. How easily do I handle you when we spar?”
“When you suppress my Aura? I might as well be a baby. But can you suppress six at once?”
That was actually a good question. He only had the four Auras, and he’d never tested if he could use a single one of them to suppress multiple opponents simultaneously. For that matter, he’d never tested if he could use multiple Auras at once.
Definitely sothing he needed to do that night, the latter part, anyway. He’d Teleport sowhere isolated and try to use two and then three and finally four at the sa ti. Being able to handle four, however, might not prove anything since he could split his mind four tis. Depending on how the testing went, he’d possibly need to a fifth one, which ant buying at least one more.
“I’ll think on that,” Benton said.
“Think fast. You’re leaving tomorrow, and if you get ambushed, I’m hours away even if you can get a ssage off.”
Benton laughed. “Actually, there’s no reason for you not to be re seconds away.” He pulled a handfull of one hundred thousand qi Teleport talismans from his ring. “Take these. I’ll have one of the kids co get you if I encounter trouble. Would that make you feel better?”
Yuan Yaozu cupped his hands. “It would, Sect Leader. Gratitude.”
Once the man eventually left, Benton recalled that it had been a long, long ti since he’d checked his gains, over two and a half months, in fact.
Body Cultivation was a consistent perforr as always, gaining him four hundred ninety-four points over the last seventy-seven days. Five hundred of those ca from sect mbers in the Qi Gathering Realm working on Bronze ranks. With the twins and Jin LiJuan having already reached the peak of Silver and Zou Tian leaving right after he reached Foundation Establishnt, there was only one sect mber actively pursuing Silver—Peng Hanying, the Ti aspected young man. The little guy earned fourteen points getting all the way to minor realm seven but his technique, specialized for him, cost twenty.
Spiritual Cultivation earned Benton a truly ridiculous number of points over the period. Most significant from a building the sect’s strength perspective were those cultivators using the Ti dilation rooms. The twins and Kang Lin reached the peak of the third minor realm of Foundation Establishnt, limiting themselves to that level due to tournant considerations. Wan Ai sped herself to the peak of Qi Gathering, also stopping there in deference to the category she planned to compete in.
Well, really in deference to Yang Xiu who coerced the girl into not advancing further since stopping would improve her chances in the tournant. Shi Long and Xun Wu also cultivated only to that mark for the sa reason.
The star earner among the individuals who accelerated their cultivation was Peng Hanying. Since he had no intention of participating in the tournant, he wasn’t limited by a category. After seeing the stress it put on the others, Benton did limit the young man to only five ten-hour sessions per objective day, though. Still, he blew all the way up to the third minor realm of Foundation Establishnt, equaling the twins and Kang Lin.
Though significant in power, they added only a paltry thirty points. Benton didn’t particularly mind, though, given his other massive gains.
One such source ca from a large contingent of Nature aspected villagers who were a part of the Martial Pavilion. With Yang Xiu’s endorsent, they made good use of Ti dilation rooms and qualified to attend the tournant. Thirty mbers who were in the first group of fifty inducted and twenty-seven who were in the second all advanced from the fifth minor realm all the way to the peak, earning another two hundred twenty-eight points for Benton.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Jin LiJuan got him sixteen points all by herself as she skyrocketed all the way to the peak of Foundation Establishnt under the guidance of the enthusiastic Leizhenzi. Benton grinned, anticipating everyone’s reaction when she showed up.
A number of cultivators reached Qi Gathering minor realm seven, including Huang Yimun and his fifteen guards; Xun Wu’s family; Zi Delan, his crew, and the orphans from Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town; the Healing Pavilion leader, Pan Xiaolian; and the six wood harvesters. Those forty-three points only felt insignificant in comparison to those that ca after them.
A huge quantity of sect mbers advanced to Qi Gathering minor realm five, including the seventy-five forr villagers in the sixth set of inductees, three hundred in the seventh set, the one hundred in the eighth set, and one hundred in the ninth set. The one hundred people Fatty Ren had recruited for his second set and the eight mbers of Benton’s new acting troupe all reached that mark as well.
All told, sect mbers reaching the fifth minor realm gained him a massive one thousand three hundred seven Sect Points. Which was completely, insanely aweso.
Finally, the tenth set of inducted villagers, the most recent one hundred, went all the way from joining the sect to minor realm four, amassing four hundred points for Benton.
Prosperous Gray Forest Village had certainly made him prosperous. He was actually kind of sad that almost all the people were already sect mbers. Only one hundred seventy-four remained to be added.
Overall, Spiritual Cultivation had added a whopping two thousand twenty-four points to Benton’s ever growing bottom line.
Since Qi Gathering minor realm four was the point at which the sect allowed mbers to learn techniques, Benton decided that minor realm five would be the point where they were encouraged to start cultivating either their Mind or their Soul. Ninety-five percent of mbers took him up on that endorsent, two hundred twenty-one choosing the forr type and three hundred thirty-one the latter. Unfortunately, he hadn’t made that decision too long ago, so none of them reached minor realm two yet.
Of course, five hundred fifty-two points was nothing to sneeze at, and he was guaranteed to get a similar quantity next ti he reviewed his status. Add that to the two hundred sixty-two points he’d gotten for the more experienced mbers reaching minor realm four with their respective thods, and the total for Mind and Soul Cultivation was a respectable eight hundred fourteen.
Finally, he looked at techniques. His sect mbers were still doing pretty darn aweso with the Trials Pagoda, though there were so failures that ti around. Which was to be expected. Not everyone excelled at the kind of outside the box thinking that the pagoda required. Still, he gained a nice seventy-four points from that source.
Making it still a huge point loser compared to the one thousand he’d spent so far getting Poison Claw Sect Golden Cores past their bottlenecks. Oh well. At least he was getting sothing back.
Interestingly, his distribution of the manuals had a much bigger impact on his mbers improving their skills than he would have ever imagined. Three tis as many advanced their techniques than calculations based on past performance would have predicted, giving him another two hundred sixty-one points.
The biggest gain ca from all the mbers going to the tournant who made copious use of the non-aspected Ti dilation rooms, which were always in use. The twins and Kang Lin, after maxing their cultivation, also used the Ti dilation rooms to bring all their techniques to Mastery. The rank and file combined with the Foundation Establishnt disciples gained him one hundred eighty-six points.
All told, the category added a very nice four hundred seventy-one points after subtracting out the cost for various new techniques Yang Xiu had convinced him the kids absolutely had to have for the tournant.
When he added everything up, he’d increased his bank of Sect Points by a stupendous three thousand eight hundred and three.
Of course, so of that was offset by additional spends. He’d bought six different acting related techniques for the troupe… Well, acting and film-related qi technology related techniques, anyway. That cost him twenty-four. And still needed to buy at least one Aura…
Benton decided to get that decision out of the way and Teleported to a remote area. Two simultaneous Auras were, as far as he could tell, impossible without using his Split Focus technique. Using that, though, he could use all four at once.
From his experint, he realized two things. One, unless he had a specific purpose for advancing a Concept into an Aura, there was no reason to buy a fifth. He couldn’t use that many at once until he advanced to Nihility and was allowed to upgrade his Mind Cultivation. Two, he still had no idea if he could suppress multiple Nascent Souls with a single Aura.
Bumr. He’d need the Jade Chaleon Sect’s help for that one. Not that asking for such a minor favor was a big deal. They owed him. Hugely.
Even if he couldn’t subdue more than one per Aura, that still didn’t seem like an issue. He would only neutralize four out of the six enemies. So what? He would simply tank hits from one, kill the other, and then kill the other unsuppressed one. Easy Peasy.
Benton pulled up the changes in his status:
Sect mbers:1,317Disciples:57Sect Points:7,001Shop Points:765
He sure had a massive total of Sect Points, and his sect was thriving. His only regret at the mont was how he was keeping the branch sect at arm’s length. Fatty Ren and he had talked about sending crafters to the main grounds, but Benton had always pulled back on it at the last minute.
The Town Lord probably thought Benton didn’t appreciate those mbers, but that wasn’t the reason. He was trying to keep them safe. His thinking was that, if everyone thought he didn’t care about those mbers, no one would target them.
Hopefully, the Jade Chaleons would go through with the ambush against him, and Benton could finally put the matter of the sect war to rest. Then, he wouldn’t have to worry about attacks and could finally integrate the two parts into a whole.
That left only one big concern for the future. Well, both a hope and a concern, really—with the Trials Pagoda, any of his sect mbers could presumably advance as high as cultivation went.
That realization was great from the standpoint of his sect mbers leading long and prosperous lives. He and the sect would have truly made a huge difference to each of them. Imagine, the weakest F- Qi Gathering minor realm one cultivator who joined the sect next month had a real shot of becoming a Celestial Being.
No one in the Big Three, or the forrly Big Four, even counting the Emperor’s faction as well, had reached even Nihility in recorded history. That rank was reserved for myths and legends who lived on far shores over treacherous seas.
The thought of elevating what all those stodgy sect cultivators considered to be talentless trash to the very pinnacle of cultivation felt like a valid use of his second life.
That was the hope portion of his realization, which left the concern.
The only problem imagining making thousands and thousands of his sect mbers into Celestial Beings was that overcoming every single bottleneck cost points. Just getting from the peak of Golden Core to Nascent Soul cost five hundred. What about minor realms in Nascent Soul? How much would the price escalate to reach Nihility?
He hadn’t done the math, but he was almost positive that very few of his sect mbers could earn him enough Sect Points to pay for all their future bottlenecks. Even the twins might need help just getting to Nascent Soul.
Essentially, every point he spent ant that one of his sect mbers might not reach quite as high later.
It was great that so many more of them would experience long, long lives, but at the sa ti, his managent of points being the reason for any of them not reaching higher was a bit of a bumr.
Hmm. Maybe there was a way to put Sun Hua in charge of points spending…
Reviews
All reviews (0)