Benton intently studied the walled village before him. Neither he nor Su had any experience determining population just from looking at one from the outside, but his best guess was something in the low thousands. It definitely wasn’t a tiny flyspeck, but he wouldn’t classify it as big enough to be a town, either.
He didn’t want to draw any conclusions until he’d gathered more information, but the state of the surroundings was beginning to paint a picture. For one thing, there was the proximity to the qi-filled mountain, about a week’s hike to reach the valley that circled it if he ran flat out. If Su’s memories were in any way accurate, that resource stood out enough that it should have attracted the attention of a sect, yet rank one and two spirit beasts roamed with impunity. An active sect should have kept them culled.
The condition wasn’t new, either. On the outskirts of the village, farms lay abandoned, many showing rotting decay from years of neglect. Others that exhibited less deterioration but more damage had walls around them, walls with gaping holes bearing signs of beast attacks.
To the west of the village, his senses picked up a source of qi or, possibly, a grouping of many sources close together that all emitted qi. Logically, it made sense for such settlements to spring up around the location of a resource, especially if there was a sect nearby that acted as the customer base for whatever the town produced.
Another thing that struck him as strange was the presence of cultivators inside the village, a half dozen of them. That number was way too few to constitute a sect but was relatively large to be wandering cultivators. And if they lived here, why weren’t they doing anything about the high numbers of spirit beasts plaguing the area?
The tug from the System had guided him to the village, though, and every fiber of his being told him that it was the fulfillment of his Advantageous Starting Location perk.
It had taken more than two months skirting the mountain to get to the village, and they’d only been able to move that quickly because they’d stopped hunting, increasing their movement time to seven hours per day and only fighting spirit beasts when it either couldn’t be avoided or would have resulted in too great a detour. Having chosen to concentrate on getting their primary weapon techniques to mastery, neither of the kids had advanced much on that front, but both were close to breaking through to the next cultivation realm.
He turned to his disciples. “I have high hopes for this place.”
“It looks run down, Senior Brother,” Yang Xiu said.
“Don’t look at what it is. Look at what it can be,” Benton said. “We need people for our sect and think about how life must be for those villagers. A rank one spirit beast can kill a mortal, and there are plenty of those and some rank twos nearby. I bet they’re mostly afraid to leave the walls. For proof, look at all the abandoned farms. If we can cull the beasts, they’ll surely be exceedingly grateful.”
“What about that mountain, Senior Brother?” she said. “You told us it was dangerous. Is it safe to build our sect so close to it?”
Benton encouraged such questions. He wasn’t so confident in his abilities to think he’d never make a mistake. It was good to have any potential flaws in his reasoning pointed out.
Stolen story; please report.
“There is some danger, yes,” he said. “As cultivators in the Qi Gathering realm, the beasts there are way too strong for us, and with the sheer quantity of the lower ranked ones we’ve been encountering, we can’t discount the possibility of a beast tide forming. We won’t always be Qi Gathering cultivators, though, and that place is the kind of potential treasure trove of resources that sects are founded to take advantage of. Once we form our golden cores, we’ll be glad we have it nearby.”
Before he started counting his unhatched chickens, Benton took a mental step back. When he’d had his Auspicious Encounter with his disciples, there had been a real chance of failure. If he had tarried, they might have died before he reached them. Or he might have flubbed his recruitment pitch and had them refuse. He’d been given an opportunity, not a guarantee.
“There is definitely reason for concern beyond just the dangers presented by the mountain,” he said. “We need to find out if there are any competing sects nearby that could cause us issues, and there are cultivators in the town. I won’t know their exact level until I see them, but they don’t seem very strong. Still, we’ll need to understand their purpose here and if they’ll be an obstacle. We’ll take things slow. Our goal at first is just to gather information.”
Another thought struck him. His disciples didn’t seem like the type to act like arrogant young masters, but it was best to make sure. “As future core disciples of my sect, I expect you to behave with dignity and decorum but don’t let your status go to your head. If we do decide to found our sect here, we’ll be working with these villagers for a long time. There are many ways they can either ease our path or cause us endless trouble. We need them to be on our side. Bow down to no one unless I tell you otherwise but treat everyone with respect. Understood?”
“Yes, Senior Brother Chao,” they chorused.
He and his disciples stood in the shade of tree several hundred feet from what looked like the village’s main gate, and there’d been no sign of anyone having spotted them. Something else had detected their presence, though. A peak rank two spirit beast was headed toward them. It was time to make their presence known.
They stepped into the sunlight and onto a wide area that was much clearer than the forest. Weeds and saplings covered the approach to the village, but there was gravel underneath all the vegetation. It had probably once been a nice path that facilitated commerce.
“Get ready,” he said and told his disciples about the approaching beast. “We’re going to get nearer to the gate, so they can see us fight.”
Revealing that they were cultivators right from the start felt like a risky move, but Benton thought his logic was sound. With the area so teeming with danger, no mortal was likely to make it to the village, so they’d assume they were cultivators regardless. Trying to hide it gained them nothing. Showing off what they could do, on the other hand, had the possibility of earning them respect from the outset. It should be a better introduction than just walking to the gate and demanding to be let inside.
Hopefully.
The three sprinted toward the gate, covering the distance in mere seconds, and halted about ten yards from the front. Their arrival finally drew attention from inside. A guy in a tower beside the gate called out something, but Benton’s attention was focused on the beast that was emerging from the woods.
A tiger.
The creature was, in a word, pretty. Or maybe majestic would be a better descriptor. It had white fur with striking gold stripes. Benton almost didn’t want to kill it.
Almost.
And it didn’t appear that Yang Xiu or her brother had any such qualms. No sooner had it appeared than an arrow landed in its eye. An instant later, a spear tip penetrated its other eye. Either hit would have been fatal.
The kids had gotten quite adept at harvesting cores. Even though they hadn’t gone out of their way to hunt spirit beasts over the last couple of months, avoiding them completely had been impossible. The disciples had still faced fights almost daily.
Benton stowed the tiger in his spatial ring and turned to the gate. If things went well, the village would figure prominently in his future. Given that he’d spent one of his precious points for the perk, he had to ensure things did go well.