Benton smiled as he looked at Yang Xiu, cultivating blissfully as the harvesters worked. She’d hit Small Success with her perception technique the previous night and was drawing close to minor realm six.
Her brother was not doing as well. He still practiced with one of the mortal spears, and he’d hit a wall at improving his weapon technique. His cultivation seemed to be lagging as well.
Benton sighed. He’d hoped the boy would work through his issues on his own, but it was time to step in.
“Yang Ru, let’s go for a walk.”
Benton scanned the area and located a spirit beast he’d been tracking. It was near. Perfect.
“You’ve been struggling lately,” he said once they’d passed out of the harvesters’ hearing range. “Obviously, we both know the reason for that.”
Benton sighed. “I was probably too harsh on you. Do you know why I was so upset?”
“Because the lowly one disobeyed you, Senior Brother Chao. This lowly one brought dishonor upon this lowly one’s family name. This lowly one’s father would have been furious.”
“Wrong. I don’t care one lick that you disobeyed me… Well, maybe a little. It’s definitely not ideal. But the main issue is that, in disobeying me, you endangered yourself.” Benton paused. “Yang Ru, you are important to me. I don’t want to see you hurt. I definitely don’t want to see you killed.”
“Senior Brother Chao has invested many valuable resources and much time into this lowly one.”
“Wrong again. That’s not what makes you important. Even if you could never contribute anything to our future sect again, I’d still value you. You, Yang Ru, are important. I want you to grow and to flourish and to have a happy, fulfilling life. You can’t do any of that if you get yourself killed.”
Yang Ru didn’t respond.
“You’re a good kid. You really are. You love and protect your sister. You’re conscientious and a hard worker. You take your responsibility as a sect protector seriously. I couldn’t possibly have found a better person to be in your role. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, Senior Brother Chao.”
Benton sighed again. That response had been pure rote. He didn’t know how to get through to the kid.
“If you die or get hurt, who will protect your sister?”
“Senior Brother Chao will.”
“Sure. As long as I am with her, but I won’t continue doing missions forever. My place is behind a desk in an office, not out here killing spirit beasts. Right now, all I have to protect her is you, Wan Ai, Mistress Zhong, two babysitters, and eight children. If we take you out of that picture, are you okay with what is left?”
“No, Senior Brother Chao.”
“To be a cultivator is to take risks. It’s unavoidable. What I’m asking is for you to take a step back and determine if the risk is worth it. If a beast is about to attack your sister and you don’t think she can defend herself under those hypothetical circumstances, interject yourself and take the blow if that’s what you want. Just don’t do it for no reason when it makes no sense. Can we agree on that? Truly agree?”
Yang Ru paused before answering. “Yes, Senior Brother.”
“Good. I’m glad we had this little talk.” Benton pulled the System-wrought spear from his spatial ring and held it towards his disciple. “Here. I think this is yours.”
Yang Ru hesitated. “Are you sure, Senior Brother?”
“I am.”
He took the spear.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Benton said.
“It does, Senior Brother.”
“Great. Now kill the spirit beast that’s about to jump out and attack us.”
----------------------------------------
The next couple of days passed slowly for Benton. Yang Ru redoubled his efforts both in learning his spear technique and in cultivating, but it was again Yang Xiu who had the big breakthrough, hitting minor realm six.
Name: Yang Xiu Affiliation: Host's Disciple Age: 15 Cultivation: Qi Gathering - Minor Realm Six Qi Available: 87 Techniques: Foundational Archery Essentials - Mastery Foundational Spear Essentials - Small Success Peerless Peering and Perception - Small Success Spiritual Roots: A Qi Aspect: Perfectly smooth ice balanced on the razor edge of freezing and thawing
Not to be outdone, Yang Ru achieved the same feat on the last day before they left for their shopping trip.
Name: Yang Ru Affiliation: Host's Disciple Age: 15 Cultivation: Qi Gathering - Minor Realm Six Qi Available: 87 Techniques: Foundational Spear Essentials - Large Success Foundational Archery Essentials - Small Success Spiritual Roots: A- Qi Aspect: Low viscosity lava flowing down Mount Burning Thunder
It was good for Benton to see his Sect Points, now at twenty-two, going in the right direction. Unfortunately, less than a week was just too little time for any of his new disciples to advance to minor realm two, so he was faced with a decision—should he leave jade slips with the techniques for the children with Mistress Zhong and have her begin their instruction, or should he wait until he returned?
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As much as he wanted points sooner rather than later, he felt it was much better for him and the siblings to introduce the kids to weapon training. Sure, the slips imbedded the technique in the minds of the qi user, but learning still required practice. A live instructor pointing out flaws could stop bad habits from forming. Not to mention that the kids wouldn’t even have any weapons to practice with until he returned.
Benton shuddered. Suddenly a vision of eight superpowered children practicing their techniques by stabbing each other with sticks popped into his head. Yeah. Better to wait. Much better.
The morning of that last day, the harvesters had pushed three large wagons, meant to be pulled by some sort of draft animal, to the site and filled each of them with Orange Vigor Spirit Wood. To their amazement, Benton promptly transferred all three wagons and their loads to his spatial ring.
Back at the village, he sent the siblings to the orphanage with instructions to wait for him there while he and Guang Yin went to visit the mayor’s house.
“Honorable Mayor,” Benton said once inside, “I have fulfilled my part of the deal, protecting your harvesters, and they have supplied three wagons’ worth of lumber. It’s your turn.”
“Of course, Esteemed Master Cultivator. Please follow me. I have the map laid out in my study.”
The mayor led Benton and the harvester deeper into his house. Once they were all standing around a table with a map being pinned down by various makeshift paperweights, he pointed at an area showing a small village. “That’s Prosperous Gray Forest Village.”
The mountain was at the bottom of the map, plan south, with the village lying to its northwest. The mayor traced his finger along a circular path following a road that skirted the mountain’s valley and tapped a location called Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town.
“This is where the Righteous Rain Sect used to be. They were our main trade partners for the Orange Vigor Spirit Wood until they were, as far as we know, all killed. Before the beasts got so burdensome, we tried sending wagonloads there for sale, but the town was in bad shape. The loss of the sect created a power vacuum, which quickly led to complete lawlessness. Many people wanted our product, but none wanted to pay for it. I wouldn’t advise trying there.”
His finger followed the road to another location almost due north of the village. “Sixth Flawless Flowing City is a seaport, and they trade with many sects. They should have a market for what you’re selling and will definitely have just about anything common that you’d need.”
He pulled out a scroll. “This has the names of three companies that I have records of us trading with in that city, but I have not had any direct dealings with them in more than a decade. I cannot speak to whether they are still in business or if they will want more of the spirit wood, but it has never been difficult to sell. I’m sure some old-timer there remembers the value.
“When trading with the Righteous Rain Sect, we charged one thousand silver taels per cartload, a steep discount due to the protection they provided us plus other reciprocal arrangements. Each one of the wagons the Esteemed Master Cultivator was provided holds close to twenty-four times as much spirit wood as a cart.”
Benton let out a low whistle. “Seventy-two thousand taels total?”
“At a discount. A steep discount,” the mayor said. “Taking into account, once again, that I’m not sure if the wood’s absence from the market has make it more precious or eliminated its usefulness. If it were me, I wouldn’t take less than fifty thousand for the load and would open negotiations at two-fifty.”
He clasped his hands behind his back like their business was done.
“Aren’t you forgetting something, Honorable Mayor?”
He shook his head almost imperceptibly. “Ah, forgive me, Esteemed Master Cultivator. The list of supplies for the town. This old man almost forgot.”
Yeah. Forgot. He had absolutely no belief that Benton would actually follow through on delivering the supplies.
The mayor rummaged through a desk and came up with another scroll. “This is everything the village needs, Esteemed Master Cultivator, and we would be eternally grateful for any of it that we receive.”
Benton reviewed the list. Various fruits. Sugar. Rice. Salted Fish or preserved meat of any kind. Cloth. Iron ingots. Etc. Exactly the kinds of things he’d expected to see.
“I’m surprised not to see requests for more luxury goods like alcohol or paint,” Benton said.
“If everyone in the village is fully fed, Esteemed Master Cultivator, then perhaps such things would be appreciated.”
“Alright. I’ll see what I can do,” Benton said as he stowed the map and the two scrolls in his spatial ring.
The faces of both the mayor and the harvester basically said, “I doubt it.”
That was fine, though. Better to under promise and overdeliver than the other way around. If he showed back up with a bag of rice and a pound of beef jerky, that would be way more than they were expecting.
Benton quickly took his leave of the two men and walked to the orphanage.
“Mistress Zhong,” he said once he’d been invited inside, “I now have a better idea of the length of the journey. It’s looking like a minimum of three months. Maybe more.”
“We have survived on our own before you came, Esteemed Master. We will be fine.” Her face did not betray a hint of emotion.
To Benton, her detached façade was highly accusatory, but he honestly didn’t know if that was his own guilt at leaving the orphans alone before he had really gotten them established or if she really was thinking the same thing.
“Hey,” he said, “it’s not like I’m leaving you high and dry. I have a whole boar we haven’t even touched yet. I’m just a little worried about it spoiling before you can use it all?”
“An entire boar, Esteemed Master?”
That had gotten a bit of a reaction, at least. The meat of an entire wild pig in a food deprived village would be more valuable than the same weight in gold back on Earth.
Benton led her into the kitchen and pulled the boar Yang Xiu had killed so long ago from his spatial ring. “Still needs to be dressed and butchered, but you’re welcome to it if you think it will help.”
“Yes, Esteemed Master. Whatever we can’t use immediately can be traded for rice and vegetables.”
“Perfect.”
Benton hadn’t been great about removing the cores from all the beasts he’d placed in his ring, only having done it for about a quarter of them. He was dreading the time he was going to have to spend at some point doing just that. It was sure to be tedious.
He pulled a dozen rank one beasts from his ring, ones that had been de-cored. “And you know what to do with these?”
“Yes, Esteemed Master. Just as with the others you’ve graciously given us this past week, we are to use these to supplement the meals for me and the disciples. None of the regular kids can have any at all because, without the ability to do anything with the qi, ingesting it can harm them significantly.”
Benton grinned. She had it almost word for word.
There was one thing, though, that he had been reluctant to hand over to her. He’d started with six Minor Healing Pills and two Major Healing Pills. Each of the siblings still carried one of the minors, and Yang Ru had consumed one as well, leaving Benton with three and two in his ring.
It was difficult to part with them because they were such a valuable and rare resource. Though he was hopeful he might find some for sale in Sixth Flawless Flowing City, they were irreplaceable at the moment. A single bad fight could leave him needing all of them and more. But he couldn’t leave the children without such a lifesaving treasure.
“Speaking of significant harm, I also want to leave one of these with you.” He held up a minor healing pill. “Use it if one of the disciples gets ill or injured in such a way that you fear they will not recover without help. If one of the other kids is so ill or injured that death is imminent, you can also use it, but remember that I don’t know if a mortal can handle the qi contained in the pill. It might kill them just as easily as whatever else is affecting them.” He paused. “These are expensive and, at the moment, hard to come by, but I’d rather you use one of them than to have a kid, or you or one of your assistants, die, okay?”
Her eyes went wide. “Of course, Esteemed Master.”
Zhong Wen obviously had no idea what to think about dealing with a cultivator so frequently and becoming one herself. Half the time, she still acted like he would literally strike her down for the smallest error. In giving her those pills, it seemed like, for the first time, she began to believe he might actually have the best interests of the kids in mind.
“Now, one last thing.” He turned and called out toward the dining room. “Jin LiJuan, you can stop eavesdropping now. Come on out.”
The little girl had a very sullen look on her face as she stepped into the kitchen. “You told me a month, but you’re going away for three. Not fair!”
“I know, and I apologize, little one. It’s going to be just a little bit longer than I thought, but as soon as I get back, we’ll get you cultivating.”
She put her little fists on her little hips and took a deep breath.
“Jin LiJuan!” Mistress Zhong shouted. “If the next words out of your mouth are not ‘Yes, Esteemed Master,’ I will make sure you will not be able to sit on that bottom until he returns.”
Jin LiJuan huffed.
“Yes. Esteemed. Master,” she said through clenched teeth.
Benton chuckled at the little girls’ antics but was saddened at the same time given the reason for her acting the way she did, He and the siblings said their goodbyes and returned to the inn in preparation for departing the next morning.