As Benton watched the children eat dinner, he scanned each of them. Most of them returned messages such as:

System is unable to analyze target’s cultivation because the target’s spiritual roots are not finished growing. Repeat scan in 1.3 years.

The timeline varied from a month to, in the case of a little girl who Zhong Wen informed him was six, over seven years. That information tracked with Su’s memories. It was well known that spiritual roots did not stop growing until sometime between the ages of ten and thirteen, and since cultivating prior to that point was immensely harmful to the individual, no sect recruited anyone under fourteen.

Of the eight children with mature spiritual roots, none were special. All had some form of nature aspected qi, some combined with one other aspect and others not. He found one F, four E-, two E, and one E+.

Not a single one of them would be a candidate for a typical sect because, using the poor-quality cultivation methods available to most of them, achieving even Foundation Establishment with such a low talent was unlikely. Qi Gathering disciples were considered next to worthless, definitely not worth the expense of feeding, housing, and clothing much less providing cultivation aids to. Foundation Establishment wasn’t that much more valued.

All the resources of a sect were dedicated to one purpose—finding recruits with the potential to reach at least Golden Core and, though much more unlikely, Nascent Soul. The strength of a sect was measured by the number of members in those two realms.

Benton’s circumstances caused him to value the children differently. For one thing, the cultivation methods he could create were better, making it more likely that even these kids with low talent might make Foundation Establishment. That concern wasn’t really that important, though.

No, what really drew his consideration was that each one of those kids was a potential Sect Point generator. Every kid who even learned a method and drew in a single mote of qi, reaching minor realm one, was worth a point. If the child was even halfway diligent about cultivating, the kid would produce at least three points over the next month or so, and that total didn’t even take into account techniques.

Compared to the generation of a truly scarce and valuable resource like Sect Points, the expense of raising the children was nothing. If possible, he would find a hundred, a thousand, such kids.

Benton felt a little bad about essentially using them for his own gains, but he firmly believed the kids would benefit as well. It was a true win-win scenario.

When dinner was over and the children dispatched to do chores, Benton pulled Zhong Wen aside. “I’m impressed. You have the house running like a well-oiled machine.”

“A well-oiled machine, Honored Benefactor?”

“Just a turn of a phrase. Don’t worry about it. The point is that I think you’re doing a good thing here, and I might be able to help.”

“More food, Honored Benefactor?”

“Yes … and more.”

“Like what, Honored Benefactor.” She certainly still seemed skeptical of him despite his actions thus far.

Well, he could certainly understand her concern. He’d be skeptical of him, too.

Benton cleared his throat. “Well, you see … I’m a cultivator.”

She started to get down on her knees, but Benton grabbed her to stop her.

“None of that, please. Just keep treating me the way you were.”

“Y-yes, Esteemed Master Cultivator.”

He sighed. “Anyway, I want to form a sect, and I want these children to join.”

“Aren’t they too young, Esteemed Master Cultivator? None have yet reached the age of fourteen.”

“Let me worry about that. I just want your permission to ask, for now, eight of them to become my disciples.”

Zhong Wen clearly doubted the wisdom of accepting his offer.

“There are a lot of advantages to this arrangement. It might take a few weeks or months, but I’ll provide for everything you and they need. Food. Clothes,” He paused as a thought occurred to him. “Have you ever lost one of your charges to sickness?”

Her expression saddened. “Yes.”

“Cultivators don’t get sick, and if something does inflict them, they have access to healing pills. All these children will be likely to live past one hundred years old. Make that two hundred if they cultivate diligently.”

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“Unless they die at the hands of another cultivator.”

“True. The life of a cultivator isn’t always peaceful,” Benton said. “But neither is a mortal’s. How did all these kids’ parents die? Mostly beasts, I imagine. As a cultivator, they’d be able to fight back at least.”

“But—”

“No,” he said. “Stop a moment and really think about this. Right now, you’re worried if you’ll be able to find enough food to feed all these kids through the winter. You hope none of them come down with a fever and don’t recover. You fear a beast coming over the wall and attacking them.”

She sighed. “That’s all true, Esteemed Master Cultivator.”

“I am not going to promise that nothing bad will ever happen to these kids, but I will promise that it is not my intent to have them fighting battles for me. If the sect is attacked, then they’ll be defending their own lives as they defend the sect, but very few members of my sect will have to go out and fight other cultivators. Only the ones talented enough and who agree to do it will be called upon to do that. If I have my way, each of these kids will die peacefully in bed after a long, long life.”

She didn’t say anything for a while before finally sighing again. “You can truly do all these things you say, Esteemed Master Cultivator?”

“I can.”

“I guess there’s not much I can do to stop you anyway,” she said under her breath. Raising her voice, she continued. “You said you’re making eight of the children cultivators. What will become of them? Will you take them away? What about the other twelve?”

“If you don’t mind, I would have you continue looking after all the kids, and for now, I’d prefer they remain here. Eventually, we’ll set up a proper sect, but that’s going to take a number of months.”

“So, I’ll be paid?”

“Well, I’ll take care of your food and various other stuff, of course, but I was hoping you’d join my sect as well.”

“Me? I’m too old.”

“You’re only thirty-two,” he said.

She stared at him open mouthed, and he decided to ignore her shock at him being able to determine her age with such accuracy. As her presumable future sect leader, the more power he displayed, the better.

“You’re hardly old,” he said. “Sects prefer to take fourteen to sixteen year olds for a lot of reasons, but none of those really apply to this situation. The fact is that I am not prepared to take care of a lot of children right now. I need you.”

“What do you require of your sect members?”

“The main responsibility, especially at first, is to cultivate, ideally ten hours a day. We may have to adjust that for the younger kids down to about half, of course, but that’s the goal. Also in a perfect world, you’d spend several hours a day practicing techniques.”

“There’s no way I can do any of that,” she said. “I barely have chance to breathe during the day.”

Benton thought about it for a moment. “I imagine the thought of joining a sect and being fed would be pretty attractive for a lot of villagers. Are there any that you trust and could recruit to help you take care of the children?”

“Really, Esteemed Master Cultivator? I could bring in help?”

Benton hadn’t failed to notice that she’d dropped honorifics for much of the conversation when she’d obviously been displeased with him. “You have someone in mind?”

“I’ve been forced to find employment for the children as they get older since I just don’t have the space and resources, Esteemed Master Cultivator. There are a few who were taken in out of obligation more so than need. Two of them that I can think of are in such a situation who are hard workers and would be great with the younger children.”

“Sure. That sounds like a plan.”

Benton led Zhong Wen through the house and pointed out the eight kids who were ready to be inducted, asking her to gather them in the dining room. While he waited, he pulled up the Cultivation Method Creation Menu.

He obviously selected Qi Gathering for the realm but paused at the Qi Aspect. All the kids had nature, and the closer to their actual aspect the method was, the better. On the other hand, not every E-ranked and below person he recruited to the sect was likely to have the same, meaning he’d have to create more methods instead of having one he could use for literally everyone.

A quick test of the System revealed that selecting Nature as the Qi Aspect cost only twenty points compared to twenty-five for “Any.” A savings of five points wasn’t insignificant, not to mention that eight kids plus Mistress Zhong just getting to minor realm three would pay for the entire method and give him an additional seven points.

Besides, a part of him was thinking of these children as grandkids. How could he resist giving them a bit of a boost?

It was so going to hurt when he had to sink even more points into another method, though.

With the first two selections made, he needed to determine whether to emphasize Ease, Foundation, or Power. Of the three, the last was arguably the least important. Benton had no desire for these children to fight or labor for the sect, especially when in the Qi Gathering realm. If they could help with farming and the like, great, but their main jobs would simply be to cultivate, contributing by earning him points.

Ease, of course, was much more important. The kids were fundamentally untalented. Their cultivation was going to be slow.

Obviously, though, Foundation was even more important still. Considering their spirit roots, there was no guarantee that any of the kids would reach even the second major realm, and the fact was that a Foundation Establishment cultivator was orders of magnitude more beneficial to a sect than one stuck at Qi Gathering.

He set Foundation to seventy-five and Power to a mere five. That left twenty for Ease.

After waffling back and forth for a minute or so, he went ahead and confirmed it. The settings seemed much more like an art than a science.

Next came the worst part, the name.

“I’ll call it the Supreme Growth of Heaven Method,” he said.

Man, that sounded so totally and utterly lame. He hoped no one laughed when they read it.

With a wince, he pulled the trigger, committing a whopping twenty points for the creation of the method, leaving him with only forty-five Sect Points remaining. He needed to start earning them back fast.

As soon as the eight children had gathered, he said, “Kids, want to see a magic trick?”

They, of course, clamored for him to show them. He promptly made his tea set appear on the table out of thin air.

The kids oohed and aahed.

“Does anyone know how I did that?” he said.

“Magic,” a little boy said with absolute confidence.

“Not exactly but kind of. You see, I have a spatial ring. I’m a cultivator.”

The children’s eyes grew wide.

“And,” Benton said, “I want to make you cultivators, too.”