Kang Ya-Ting excused himself from the mysterious cultivator, Chao Su, as quickly as was polite, telling him to treat himself and his disciples to one of the various restaurants on the sect grounds—free of charge, of course.

The sect leader was in secluded cultivation back at the main sect mountain, so Kang Ya-Ting, not even sparing a brief moment for a word with his disciple, rushed out of the arena and straight to the elder who had been placed in charge of the Sixth Flawless Flowing City branch.

“Elder Dai! Elder Dai!”

“What has gotten you acting like a wet behind the ears recruit, Ting’er?” Dai Shuren shook her head. “Rushing in here like a fool.”

Kang Ya-Ting didn’t respond with words. He simply pushed the jade slip into her hands, and of course, her immediate reaction was to dive her spiritual sense into it.

Her expression took on the same expression he imagined his had when he’d done the same. “Where did you get this?”

He quickly relayed the story starting with Pan Jiang arrogantly confronting what he thought were trash wandering cultivators on the street to his inability to sense Chao Su’s cultivation to being manipulated into betting the Pan family sword to the results of the duel to the presentation of the gifted technique.

“Astonishing,” she said when he’d finished. “And this Chao Su just happened to be carrying this technique in his ring and was willing to give it away for nothing in return?”

“The odds against him having a Heaven-grade wood-aspected sword technique that was absolutely perfect for Pan Jiang are astronomical. Unless, of course, he’s got a whole library of techniques in that ring. Then having this particular one isn’t so strange.” Kang Ya-Ting knew that avarice was shining in his eyes, but he couldn’t help himself.

“And is it possible he’s really in the Nascent Soul realm?”

“It’s either that or he’s got an amazing treasure that hides his cultivation. I can’t know for certain which is more likely, but my guess is that he really has reached that high or higher.”

Elder Dai scoffed. “Higher? Really?”

“He certainly possesses the wisdom of someone of great age, belying his apparent youth, and in my experience, it is those of great age and the highest of cultivation levels who tend to gather amazing treasures. Besides, he’d have to be an idiot to display something like that jade slip and not have the ability to defend himself. And of all the things he may or may not be, I’d stake my reputation as an elder on him not being an idiot as one of them.”

“What do you advise then?” Elder Dai said.

“I want the contents of that ring. Really want it. But I fear that this is one of those decisions that can easily end up with the entire Poison Claw Sect becoming a smoking crater.”

“It’s a matter of risk versus reward, then. Trying to take his ring from him conveys a potentially high reward but at a correspondingly high level of risk. On the flip side, it costs us almost nothing to make him a friend of the sect, which gives us unknown future rewards but with almost no risk.” She sighed. “I’m going to have to defend whatever decision I make to the sect leader, and there’s just too little information. Let’s see what the sect’s internal arrays have picked up of this Chao Su’s conversations.”

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Benton hoped he’d done the right thing in gifting the sword technique to the Poison Claw Sect. The sense he'd gotten was that Kang Ya-Ting was an honorable man. For a cultivator, anyway.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Still, he couldn’t help but feel that his fate was hanging in the balance as Kang Ya-Ting did whatever he rushed off to do. Benton’s sense of unease was so great that he couldn’t even enjoy the excellent meal the Poison Claw sect was providing and not just because they had “poison” in the name.

Apparently, he wasn’t doing a great job of hiding his unease, either.

“Is Master okay?” Yang Xiu said.

Benton’s desire to protect the kids from his concerns warred with his philosophy that leveling with them would provide a better foundation for their future as sect leaders. He was also well aware that he had to be very conscious as to what he said. It was likely, almost guaranteed, that the sect had ways to listen in on their conversation.

“In some ways, we came out of the day in fantastic shape. Yang Ru dominated, and I was thoroughly impressed in every way.” He smiled at the boy, who uttered a pleased grunt in response. “We arranged for Zou Tian and Shi Long to accompany us when we leave town, which is a load off my mind since I’d promised that result to each of them. And Kang Ya-Ting is going to handle finding additional guards for us, so that removes a small burden from my task list and greatly eases potential strife with the authorities over the plan. Combined with having bought everything I wanted save for stocking up on pills, we’ve accomplished the vast majority of what we wanted here in the city.”

The twins tensed, knowing that a “but” was coming.

“But one of our goals was to avoid the complications that arise from drawing the attention of any major sects.” Benton gestured to the restaurant. “We have managed to fail that task most spectacularly.”

“This lowly one apologizes, Master,” Yang Ru said.

“Nonsense. It’s not your fault. When you encountered Pan Jiang, you followed my instructions perfectly.”

Yang Ru nodded.

“I don’t even think it was my fault for sending you two out alone,” Benton said. “I made the best decision that I could at the time.”

He paused for a moment, reviewing his thought process. “The likelihood of a sect member, of a stereotypical arrogant young master sect member at that, being in such a low rent area of town and happening to see you two was, as far as I could tell, negligible. It was just a thing that happened. Life is like that sometimes.

“Would I have rather we didn’t encounter him and that we weren’t sitting here right now instead of the warehouse? Yes. But I don’t regret our actions. We’re playing the hand we were dealt with aplomb. Deciding when to bluff and when not to. Placing the right bets. Now, we just have to know when to walk away and know when to run.”

Good old Kenny Rogers. Benton sure had been sad when he heard about the legend’s death.

Huh. Imagine him on a litrpg world. Would he be a gambler? A bard?

“Anyway, I’m just not too sure about how the sect is going to react to the value of the technique that I gifted them,” Benton said. “I obviously feel confident that I can handle anything they can throw at me if they try to compel me to gift them more treasures.”

Yeah. No. He didn’t feel confident at all, but the kids didn’t need to know that. And the Poison Claw Sect absolutely couldn’t know that.

“My main worry is that they know that I clearly care for the two of you,” Benton said, “and you two, while very talented and skilled for your age and realm, just aren’t quite ready to punch up as high as might be necessary. I fear that I might not be able to keep you safe, and leveling this place in retribution would be cold comfort if I had to bury one or both of you.”

There. He’d see what the sect made of that bluff. In for a penny, in for a pound and all that rot.

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Kang Ya-Ting and Dai Shuren stood in the branch sect’s array master’s pavilion. A recording replayed the conversation between Chao Su and his disciples word for word in high quality sound.

Sweat broke out on Kang Ya-Ting’s brow as he listened. Chao Su, for all that he seemed like a friendly guy, said exactly what was expected of an old monster who had no doubt he could make the heavens bend to his will.

“These disciples of his,” Elder Dai said, “they seem to be his weak point.”

“So, we what? Kidnap them? Ransom them for treasures? Taking advantage of an opportunity that falls into our lap is one thing. Measures such of those are on a whole different level of ruthlessness. We are a righteous sect.”

She sighed. “You’re right, of course. I would not be able to justify such actions to the sect leader for any amount of potential treasure. If we’re going to take from him, we’d have to be straightforward about it, and that just seems like too much of a risk. I mean, it’s possible that he’s lying, but if so, he’s doing a convincing job of it. As far as I can tell, it’s just as likely he is exactly what he presents himself to be.”

He nodded. "It's good that he ran into one of our sect members instead of a Jade Chameleon, huh?"

"You're right about that. I’ll authorize friend tokens for him and his two disciples.”

Kang Ya-Ting cupped his hands toward her. “Thank you, Shur’er.”