Benton led the siblings on a five-hour sprint to start the day, after which he fed them and let them cultivate for five hours. That was followed by another three hours of sprinting until it grew dark, and they set up camp.

He aimed to set a blistering pace.

Judging from the map the mayor had supplied him, traveling along the road to Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town and then continuing along it to Sixth Flawless Flowing City would take about two months. As the crow flew, however, he reckoned he could cut at least half that time off.

Granted, the road did make traveling easier. It was overgrown with weeds and even trees starting to break through the hard packed dirt and rocks, but the vegetation wasn’t nearly as dense there as in the forest.

The woods weren’t all that bad, though. He and the siblings were able to cut through even the thickest brush with ease. Besides, it was good training for the kids. The more practice they had dodging things coming at them at speed, the better.

The map, however, showed a large lake directly between the village and the city, so skirting the large body of water before taking to the trees only made sense. He estimated another three days on the road before they turned due north.

Near the end of the next day, something unexpected happened. He got a notification.

Host’s Disciple, Wan Ai, has reached Qi Gathering – Minor Realm Two

Host is awarded one Sect Point.

Host has 23 Sect Points available.

It wasn’t that it was Wan Ai who’d reached minor realm two first that was unexpected. She was, after all, far more talented than any of his other disciples save the two with him. No, the surprising thing was the timing.

Nine days. She’d only taken nine days to reach that milestone.

If he’d been thinking, he would have realized that, having no other duties than to cultivate, she’d be putting in a full ten hours a day. Still, even given that amount of work, she was early.

The rule of thumb was that an average sect member in the D+ to C- range should take about ten days to reach the second minor realm. That varied by the person, obviously, and all kinds of weird stuff like enlightenment could and did occur. Mostly, though, the yardstick held true.

Given that Wan Ai was just a D, he would have expected her to be over ten days, maybe even into the eleven range. Not nine.

He’d have to see how things bore out in the future, but it was possible that this was indicative that the cultivation techniques dispensed by the System were just far superior to what the average sect member had to work with. In Wan Ai’s case, a ten percent improvement in time could seriously add up over the course of her life.

Maybe he should have left techniques for her. Even if he didn’t want to give her a weapon technique yet, he could have at least created one for herbology for her to begin studying.

But how would she have leveled it? Without being an apprentice to an alchemist or even an apothecary, she had no access to herbs to identify.

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No. It made sense to wait until they returned. She’d need to start going on missions with the siblings as soon as possible. To do that, she’d at the minimum need to learn how to move by manipulating qi internally and get a weapon technique to small success.

Which weapon, though?

The spear almost always needed to be equipped in one hand. The bow could be strapped to the body, but in that case, it wasn’t ready if something happened fast. Wan Ai would need to have her hands free for harvesting spirit herbs.

Benton would have to create a dagger technique for her. He just needed to find one that could be used for cutting herbs as well as for defense. That, along with a bow, would allow her to assist from range as well as protect herself if anything got too close.

Yeesh. He’d already determined that she had to learn three techniques as fast as possible. He hoped she was okay with being pushed because he really needed her to advance. It was probably a good thing that she had these next few months to cultivate in peace.

Five days later, the next notification arrived, informing him that Xiao Rong had advanced, followed the next day by Zhong Wen and two days after that by Chang Xiaodun. The subsequent morning, Benton’s new little star, Wan Ai, struck again, advancing to the third minor realm.

Things, unfortunately, were not going so well for Yang Ru.

“Senior Brother, what is this lowly one doing wrong? This lowly one has been practicing with the spear diligently and meditating on every battle with every single spirit beast I slay, but I can’t reach Mastery.”

That was one of the times that Benton wished he had been transmigrated into a litrpg world. To get to Level X, one simply had to acquire Y experience points. Cultivation wasn’t nearly as straightforward.

“You are well ahead of my expectations, Yang Ru.”

He grunted, and Benton knew exactly what that particular sound meant. “Yang Xiu has already reached Mastery with her weapon, so don’t tell me that I shouldn’t expect to be there myself.”

“Mastery is obtained one of two ways,” Benton said, “either through a cycle of repetitive practice followed by meditation seeking perfection in every aspect of the technique or, in much rarer cases, gaining a specific insight be it from a battle or some other source of inspiration. You can’t control when inspiration is going to strike, so all you can do is put your head down and grind. You aren’t doing anything wrong, and there’s really no hurry. I’ll be super happy as long as you reach it prior to Foundation Establishment, and that’s a ways off.”

Yang Ru wasn’t exactly happy with that bit of instruction, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He went back to work, focusing on his thrusts.

By the time the trio eventually left the forest and discovered another roadway, one much less overgrown than the one between Prosperous Gray Forest Village and Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town, encounters with spirit beasts had all but ceased. That wasn’t to say that the road was well maintained or that they’d re-found civilization by any stretch of the imagination, but only weeds and grasses grew through the rocks, no tree trunks. Tree branches did stretch across it in many places, but the smoother path still sped their pace.

Another eight days into the journey, they started encountering scattered farms and hamlets, which increased in number as they continued on.

It was another two days before Benton received his next notification, Xiao Rong reaching the third minor realm. Since that brought him to his next set of ten points, he quickly increased his cultivation to the eighth minor realm.

Notifications followed over the next two days regarding each of the eight children reaching the second. And then, finally, on their thirtieth day after leaving the village, Benton got another notification shortly before the walls of the Sixth Flawless Flowing City came into view.

Host’s Disciple, Zhong Wen, has reached Qi Gathering – Minor Realm Three

Host is awarded one Sect Point.

Host has 36 Sect Points available.

Benton couldn’t be happier. He was about to begin his all-important shopping and recruitment trip and, back at the village, all his little point generators were plugging away diligently. Of course, he couldn’t get overconfident, considering that he’d already mentally allocated a lot of those sect points to body cultivation methods—twenty-five for a generic method plus ten for each of the twins left him in the hole.

Ugh. Easy come, easy go.

He set in his mind three words—recruitment, recruitment, recruitment.