Benton had a busy couple of days after the council meeting. For one thing, he had to make sure that the important tasks like the wood harvesting and wall creation were moving in the right direction.
Honestly, though, the villagers, now sect members, in charge of those operations were pure pros. There was nothing he could do to enhance the process because they knew a lot more about it than he ever would. After ensuring that production was happening and proceeding at the same rate as before the tide, he left them alone.
Likewise, he felt no need to oversee the workings of the Martial Pavilion. The twins, Ye Zan, and Kang Lin had lessons and spars and even mini tournaments arranged. And not just for the direct members of that pavilion. Granted, the members were practicing the most, of course, but somehow the four leaders had arranged for all the other sect members to spend a minimum of one hour three days a week on improving their weapon techniques.
That level of organization exceeded Benton’s expectations, so he left them alone as well.
He did have to spend a number of hours with Peng Zhen, the leader of the Contribution Points Store, but those meetings were about discussing what kinds of techniques Benton could offer and how many contribution points to charge and award for various items and services.
Pan Xiaolian had the Healing Pavilion well in hand since all their members were still in the Qi Gathering realm. Without fancy medical equipment or the ability to externally manipulate qi, all they really could do was diagnose any issues and feed the patient the appropriate healing pill. Since there were only the minor and major varieties available, the task was relatively trivial.
Still, all five of the doctors worked on improving their techniques, and Benton was sure that their diligence would pay off once they reached Foundation Establishment.
The Alchemy Pavilion was a bit trickier. Wan Ai, or more probably, Zou Tian, had found one of the newer members to oversee the Body Cultivation baths, and that process was proceeding along well enough. Without Wan Ai directly contributing to production, they’d reduced their peak capacity from a high of over forty down to the low twenties.
That was fine, though. The beast tide was over, so there was no longer a dire catastrophe hanging over their heads requiring sect members to rush through advancing. Twenty baths a day basically meant twenty Sect Points for Benton every three days, which was a fantastic return on investment. Combined with inducting fifty new members every month, he was swimming in points.
Wan Ai had turned her attention to pills, a move that Benton highly encouraged. The baths were important, but pills were crucial to the sect’s growth. Obviously, she wouldn’t be able to make any real cultivation pills until she reached Foundation Establishment, but every bit of practice and every lesson learned now would benefit her in the future.
He was so focused on investing in her ability that he almost bought Alchemy techniques for himself so he could teach her. At the last moment, however, he hesitated and instead sought Zou Tian’s advice.
“Master, that is the worst idea I’ve ever heard from you.”
Zou Tian went on to explain that Wan Ai was so introverted that it almost physically pained her to work closely with another person. Since Benton had given her a book and all the tools she needed to learn, she’d figure it out on her own. If Benton stood over her shoulder and tried to guide her, she’d be so nervous that she wouldn’t be able to concentrate.
Buying Alchemy techniques still might be a good idea at some point, but seeing as how his current use for it was suboptimal, he decided to wait until he had a justification to buy it.
Benton didn’t even bother checking on the forge. If there was one true expert in the sect, it was the blacksmith, Xun Wu. The very idea of giving him ideas to improve how his pavilion ran was laughable.
It turned out, though, that there was one pavilion that A, was staffed by very inexperienced people; B, had a very large and very important job that needed to be accomplished; and C, involved an area of expertise that Benton had already Mastered—Formations.
Poor Xiang Da was a smart guy and was trying his best, but the mission he’d been saddled with was far beyond his abilities. At best, the five members of the pavilion could sketch out a profound grade rank one array and power it with a beast core. Which was a measure of success that was entirely appropriate for their level of expertise—minimal.
In contrast, Benton needed the existing arrays for each of the former Righteous Rain Sect buildings to be studied, repaired if necessary, and modified to run on spirit coins instead of hooking into the power feed from that sect’s grand array. The members of his Formations Pavilion were months—realistically more like years—away from being able to perform that function.
Luckily, Benton, being a cheating cheater who cheats, was a Formations expert. Even for him, though, the job was not an easy one. From his techniques, he knew all the basic rank one, two, and three inscriptions, and he could modify existing ones to serve new purposes. If necessary, he could even create new formations. And sometimes those new and modified inscriptions bore little resemblance to the standard ones that he had learned.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Unfortunately, every other formation master had that same skill set, the ability to modify existing inscriptions and create new ones. Which made figuring out what an array did by studying it quite challenging.
A lot of the time, his intuition based on his enormous store of knowledge told him what was and was not dangerous, or he could piece together what a specific inscription’s likely purpose was from the surrounding ones. Sometimes, though, his only option was to copy the inscription onto a separate plate and test it to see what happened.
After the first explosion, he moved to the forest far away from the village for those tests.
He spent a couple of days of doing nothing but examining formations and testing inscriptions, leaving him bored out of his skull. The really bad thing was that he was barely halfway through the first building on his list, the Alchemy Pavilion. At that rate, it would be months before he got his sect running the way he wanted it to.
Midway through examining a particularly complex formation, he got an unexpected popup.
The Quest, Recruit Additional Disciple, has been completed. This Quest may be repeated. Host is awarded one Shop Point.
Host currently has 139 Shop Points.
What the what? How the heck had he gained a disciple? He certainly hadn’t recruited anyone recently, and there wasn’t a single induction ceremony conducted or pot of tea drank.
“System,” he said internally, “please identify new disciple and the disciple’s origin if possible.”
Host’s disciple, Jin LiJuan, has bonded an unnamed rank one spirit beast. The bonded beast of a disciple is automatically considered a disciple for the purposes of the Quest.
Interesting. Of all the people in the sect, Jin LiJuan would place exactly last in the list of people most likely to bond a spirit beast. She despised the things.
He supposed he should go check on her and see exactly what happened. If nothing else, it would be a great distraction from studying formations. But that wasn’t why he was going. That would be irresponsible.
No, the reason that he was going to find Jin LiJuan was that he needed to personally greet his sect’s newest member.
Yeah. He’d go with that.
If he remembered correctly, she’d gone with Yang Ru to the site of the fight with the rank eights. Decision made, he almost Quickstepped right to them, but another thought occurred to him—he knew literally nothing about bonding beasts.
From Su’s memory, there was a vague understanding that it was possible to do such a thing, and Benton had even thought about at some point adding a Beast Pavilion. As far as how to bond a beast or any information about how best for both the beast and the cultivator to advance, though, he was clueless.
“System, please create a technique to impart to me knowledge of beast bonding and purchase it to Mastery.”
Technique creation confirmed.
Host has learned technique, Knowledge of Beast Bonding – Mastery.
Host has 857 Sect Points available.
As soon as the knowledge flooded his mind, he Quickstepped near the site of the battle, reoriented using his spirit sense, and Quickstepped again to land right in front of Jin LiJuan, who was quivering under a stare from Yang Ru.
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Jin LiJuan considered herself brave, but there was no one in the sect as intimidating as Senior Brother. Master was more powerful, of course, but there was an underlying kindness to him that was apparent in everything he did. That trait and his general cheerfulness really undermined how scary he was.
Senior Brother, on the other hand, rarely said anything, letting his actions speak for him. And she had no idea how he would react to learning she’d bonded the wolf cub. If he decided to kill the beast despite her pleas, she was positive the end result for her would be terrible.
Before Senior Brother could speak or act, though, Master appeared. He seemed … amused.
That was good. Amused was much better than angry.
Still, Jin LiJuan was nervous. Considering how much trouble Master had gone through to heal her, she feared that any misstep on her part would cause him to kick her out of the sect. So she immediately kowtowed, burying her face in the dirt.
“Forgive this lowly one, Master. This lowly one was only trying to fulfill the oath.”
“Rise, please,” he said.
She tentatively lifted her head and stared at him.
Master seemed to be trying hard to contain laughter. “What oath exactly? And how, exactly, did fulfilling it lead to you bonding this cub?”
There was nothing for it but to explain everything that happened. How she’d nearly strangled the beast until she remembered her promise to him and how that vow left her with no choice but to save the beast’s life. About the cycle and how it felt important to her to complete it and what happened when she did.
“Well, Li’er, I have to say that you are definitely not boring,” Master said. “The wolf cub, which needs a name by the way, is now officially a member of this sect. I’ll spread the word that anyone harming it will be considered to have harmed a sect member and will be severely punished.”
“Yes, Master. Gratitude, Master.”
“Feed the cub exactly one rank one core every day,” he continued. “After a week to ten days, it should reach the peak of rank one. Once that happens, feed it a rank two. That should be enough for it to advance. Either way, bring it to me at that point for me to check its cultivation. Don’t worry about paying for the cores. We’ll work something out for the future, but I’ll foot the bill to get it started on the right path. Oh, and save its mother’s core for him. Obviously don’t feed it to him until he’s ready, but the core should belong to him.”
And with that, Master Quickstepped away.
Jin LiJuan looked up at Senior Brother hopefully.
He sighed. “You heard Master. I expect you to continue to do your duty while keeping that beast out of trouble. Understand?”
“Yes, Senior Brother. Gratitude, Senior Brother.”