The next day Benton ran errands while the twins cultivated. His first stop was the Heavenly Transit Mercantile Association. Ma An had agreed to pick up the Orange Vigor Spirit Wood from the warehouse, but the city wasn’t exactly arranged with street names and addresses like one would expect on Earth. His men and carts had to be escorted to the correct location to pick up the load.
That task accomplished, Benton spent the rest of the morning and into the afternoon finding and talking to the woodworker, the alchemist, and the blacksmith that Ma An had recommended. Each agreed to the price and timeline that the merchant had suggested, so by the time the workday ended, Benton had deals in place to get his spears made. The finished product was expected in ten days.
After a dinner out with the siblings, the three returned to the warehouse where Benton guided his disciples in practicing their various techniques until, late in the evening, Zou Tian knocked on the warehouse’s door and was let inside.
The boy shook as he kowtowed. “Sincerest apologies, Esteemed Master Cultivator. This lowly one was forced to report your movements yesterday to the gang leader. He knows that the Esteemed Master Cultivator is in possession of a king’s ransom in city notes.”
The development was not unexpected. After all, the kid had been placed as a lookout for a reason, and Benton had told him not to risk his life by withholding information.
“What was his reaction?” Benton said.
“His eyes are filled with visions of treasure, but his greed is tempered with caution. He trusts that this lowly one’s reports of the Esteemed Master Cultivator’s power is accurate and, even if he didn’t, he would think that anyone carrying such a large sum of money probably has the means to protect it. This lowly one expects him to sell the information to one of the cultivator gangs in return for a portion of any treasure they steal.”
“How soon will the cultivator gang make a move? Tonight?”
“That would be this lowly one’s best guess, Esteemed Master Cultivator. They wouldn’t want to take the chance of their prize slipping away.”
“You did well. Thanks for bringing this information to me.” Benton handed the kid ten silver taels.
Zou Tian’s eyes went wide. Obviously, he’d been expecting punishment, maybe even death, not a reward.
“You do your thing and stay safe,” Benton said. “We’ll be ready.”
After the kid had departed, Benton turned to the twins. “You heard that?”
“Yes, Senior Brother,” the two chorused.
“And what do you think?”
They exchanged a look.
“I think we’ll be ready,” Yang Xiu said.
“You two have gotten pretty good at killing beasts, enough so that I have confidence you can take on any given rank two solo. I’d even be willing to pit the two of you as a team against a rank three without worrying too much.” Benton paused. “Killing cultivators, killing humans, is a different thing, though. If we stay here and face this attack, we can’t be merciful. None who trespass into this building tonight will be suffered to live.”
The twins exchanged another glance.
“We understand, Senior Brother … Master,” Yang Xiu said.
Benton hated, hated, hated that he was about to have his disciples face what was coming. It wasn’t even necessary. They could leave town. Hell, even relocating to a different portion of the city would be enough. They had enough money to rent rooms in an upscale, very secure inn. No one would dare bother them if they took up residence in one of the rich areas where the City Lord’s forces actively kept the peace.
But facts were facts. A cultivation world shared little in common with the world of his birth, one where the rule of law held at least a modicum of sway. Killing rival humans was a fact of life here. If the twins could not or would not kill, their use as the sect’s main combat team was worthless, and it was better to find that out sooner rather than later.
“I want our sect to value human life even more than a typical righteous sect,” Benton said. “If someone offends us accidentally, we will educate them and move past it. If someone deliberately disrespects us, we will punish as is appropriate. If someone stands nonviolently between us and our goal, we will remove them. But we will not kill.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
His voice was grim as he made the statement, and his disciples’ faces matched his tone.
“If someone comes against us with the intent to harm any one of us or to take what is ours, then, in my eyes, that someone has ceased to be human. We will end that someone.” Benton channeled his inner Sean Connery. “Here endeth the lesson.
“Now, let’s talk strategy…"
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Yang Ru fidgeted. He didn’t normally fidget, but if any situation warranted it, the current one did. The time was well past midnight, and he, his sister, and their master expected a gang of cultivators to attack at any moment.
And he didn’t know how to feel about that.
He certainly didn’t consider himself to be an introspective person. Through most of his life, he’d simply obeyed his parents. When they told him to clean the house or help in the shop or whatever other chore was necessary, he did it without complaint. When they told him to go live with his uncle on the farm, he didn’t even consider refusing. When they told him that his job was to protect his sister if anything ever happened to them, he took that responsibility seriously.
Life had been simple. He was fed enough. Happy enough. Content. Up until when Fang Wei took a liking to his sister, anyway.
The moment Yang Ru found out that men had killed his mom and dad, he had never felt so helpless, so powerless. Sure, he was bigger and stronger than a lot of the other teens, but he could do nothing against grown men who wielded actual weapons, who knew how to use those weapons.
How could he fulfill the promise he’d made to protect his sister when he held no power?
It was the first time in his life he’d known true despair.
In that darkened warehouse as he stood impatiently waiting for their enemies to arrive, he knew that everything had changed. He had cultivation. Skill with his spear. Hours spent hunting and killing spirit beasts.
He was ready.
Tonight, he would show that he had power.
Master called him the tip of the spear. After their enemies had entered the warehouse, his job was to start the attack by charging fast and hard and, as his master had put it, end the first person he encountered with all due haste.
Normally, he’d be much more worried about his sister than himself, but they had constructed what his master called a sniper’s nest in the rafters using the materials from what had been the three tables. Master assured him that it was extremely unlikely that any trash cultivators could leap high enough to reach her, and the heavy wood planks surrounding her should protect her from arrows and other ranged weapons.
While Xiu’er sniped, his master would take care of the most dangerous threats among their enemies.
Yang Ru didn’t know much about such fights, but the strategy appeared sound. Of the three of them, he was the most likely to take injuries, but that was okay. Master’s healing pills worked like a miracle. Besides, pain or injury or even death did not frighten him. His only fear was that he would let his master and his sister down.
“Ware,” his master said. “They’re getting close.”
Yang Ru tightened his grip on his spear. Seconds turned to minutes as time dragged until, eventually, he heard scratching at the door.
It was barred with a single piece of wood.
Yang Xiu had asked why they were bothering with securing the door, and Master had told them that it would make the cultivator gang too cautious if it were left open. He wanted to kill as many of the men as possible inside, and for that, he needed them overconfident.
Metal scraped against wood. Thud. Something softly landed on the dirt floor near the entry.
Everything went silent for several long moments, and Yang Ru imagined the men at the door listening intently for any sign that anyone inside was awake.
Soft snoring came from the direction that his master waited, and for a moment, Yang Ru was quite confused. Surely, his master hadn’t actually fallen asleep? His master didn’t even snore!
Ah. A ruse. And it worked. The next sound Yang Ru heard was the gentle squeak of the door’s hinges followed by the shuffling of feet as one after the other their enemies crept inside.
The warehouse was too dark for him to see the gang members, so he couldn’t get an accurate count. He left that to his sister, who had a perception skill, and his master, who probably knew not only the position of each man but also his cultivation and everything else relevant about him.
Yang Ru’s instructions were to hit the group after as many of them entered as possible but before they started to disperse, so he did his best to track their movements via noise.
It wasn’t easy, though. They were all the way on the other side of the warehouse, and there were a lot of them. Were they all inside? Were they all together?
He really, really wanted to ask if it was time to charge, but his master had been clear. The timing was solely Yang Ru’s decision.
His master could have given a signal. Yang Xiu could have given a signal. But no, the person the least equipped to know what was happening was tasked with starting the attack.
Yang Ru saw the tactic for what it was. A test. Or as his master so often put it, an opportunity to learn.
He had no idea what the enemy was doing, but he’d been patient enough to show his master that he wasn’t being impulsive. Quietly, he removed an object from inside his robe and secured it between his palm and his spear’s haft. Time to move.
An image flickered across his mind, a glowing red flow of liquid rock moving down a mountainside. He’d of course never seen such a thing, but his master had described it so vividly that Yang Ru could envision the incredible sight.
How hot would rock have to get to melt? How heavy would a flowing mass of it be? How unstoppable?
Hot. Heavy. Unstoppable.
With those concepts in mind, he charged.