Benton really liked the whole knights of the round table thing he had going on, even if there was a clear king instead of everyone actually being equal. Lips were certainly loosening, and the disciples were starting to feel more comfortable around him and around each other.
That result was a win in and of itself.
But he still had a decision to make.
“Each of you made really good points,” Benton said. “Zou Tian, I always like hearing your thought process. You never disappoint. And Ye Zan, you struggled voice your opinion, so I appreciate your bravery. Xun Wu, that was an interesting choice, one I hadn’t considered. Thank you for that.
“In the end, though, there are considerations most of you don’t know. It is my belief that getting more people to advance as fast as possible is the best thing for the sect. To that end, I’ll be distributing the five pills to the people around this circle as discussed and give the final pill to the first person among the other disciples who reaches minor realm three.”
Benton studied each person carefully. No one seemed upset at all about him overriding all of them to make his decision. If he would have pulled something like that back on Earth, he guaranteed someone in the group would have been upset.
“Next topic. I introduced the twins to their weapons upon reaching minor realm two. For the rest of you, I’m going to wait until minor realm three—four for those taking pills. In retrospect, I think that the small amount of practice you’d get in that interim period isn’t worth the effort compared to how much easier it is to learn weapons with your stronger body, higher stamina, and bigger qi pool at the higher minor realm.
“All that to say, Shi Long, it’s time to pick a weapon.”
Benton pulled both a spear and a bow from his ring. Both were relatively poor-quality weapons compared to the red spears or what the twins used, but they should serve fine for training.
From Shi Long’s expression, the former weapon shop attendant knew exactly how inferior the equipment was.
“This is temporary,” Benton said. “No reason to give a fresh trainee a great weapon. In fact, I plan to give every spear wielding sect member one of the Orange Vigor Spirit Wood spears once they reach Foundation Establishment.”
Shi Long frowned.
“C’mon. The equipment isn’t that bad.”
“Please excuse this lowly one, Master, but what if this lowly one wanted to pursue a different weapon?”
Having to create a new technique definitely wasn’t optimal, as the spear and bow techniques were sunk costs and every sect member that learned either weapon returned pure profit. The least Benton could do was hear the kid out, though. He gestured for him to continue.
“This lowly one was thinking that using the hammer as a weapon might complement this lowly one’s blacksmithing?”
Hmm. Interesting point. In Su’s memories, the blacksmiths in his sect didn’t actually fight much, if at all, so he wasn’t sure what weapon they used. Unfortunately, with only thirty-six current disciples, Benton didn’t have the luxury of sparing anyone from combat training.
He turned to Xun Wu and raised his eyebrows.
“I don’t know, Master. I’ve never trained with a weapon, but it makes sense in theory. Swinging at a person and swinging at an anvil probably uses the same muscles and take similar skills as far as accuracy and strength.”
Well, that argument made way too much sense, unfortunately. Benton had no desire to force everyone to use either a bow and/or a spear. The downside was spending more points, though. He certainly didn’t feel flush with System resources by any means, but he had a lot of points coming in and more on the horizon. Certainly, some could be spared for what he suspected would be a benefit in the long run.
The question was to spend three, to make an individual technique for Shi Long; eight, to make a technique for all fire users since Xun Wu was also one; or ten, so anyone could use it.
Benton made a snap decision. If the hammer worked for Shi Long as expected, he’d encourage all blacksmiths to use one, but since blacksmiths were only slightly less likely to have metal roots instead of fire, it made sense to create a universal technique.
The System was the ultimate cheat, though, and Benton was able to tell it to create a technique that improved all hammer use, bettering its users both at the forge and on the battlefield.
“Fine, a hammer technique it is.” Benton handed the boy a jade slip with Hammer Time – Break It Down on it.
Another joke no one would ever get.
He sighed.
And he’d been so excited to go over forty points once again only to see the total drop back down to thirty-five. Ugh.
He felt like he’d done the right thing, though. And hey, he only needed three blacksmiths to master the technique to make a profit.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Benton sighed again.
He did get two of those points back the next day when Shi Long reached minor realm four with the aid of the Qi Gathering Pill and Small Success with the technique. Learning a technique for a weapon one already had experience with sped the process greatly.
Benton and twins began taking turns teaching Shi Long to internally manipulate his qi by taking him on runs through the woods, often having to sprint long distances to catch up with the caravan.
Three days later, Zou Tian reached minor realm three, triggering a whole new round of decisions for Benton. No council that time, though, as he felt decisions that solely effected an individual were best dealt with between him and that disciple.
“Is it time for this one to choose a weapon, Master?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. On one hand, I need everyone to be able to fight, but on the other, I need you to be a scout. Sticking a bow or spear or anything else in your hand isn’t nearly as valuable as you being able to use your natural talents, so maybe our best bet is to give you a shadow technique to begin with.”
“That sounds … logical, Master.”
Benton thought about it for a moment, and the more he considered the idea, the more he liked it, especially when he remembered the game he’d previously imagined using as a training method.
There were a lot of different kinds of techniques, and qi aspect played into each of them differently. One type were techniques that purely improved knowledge, such as Herbology. The technique would teach a disciple a lot about herbs, including how to care for them, recognize them, and harvest them.
Qi aspect didn’t flavor such an aspect much. Whether you had fire or ice aspected qi didn’t impact your knowledge of herbs, especially in the Qi Gathering realm where one couldn’t manipulate qi outside their bodies.
Similar to knowledge-based techniques were martial techniques. In the Foundation Establishment realm, a sword technique for fire-aspected cultivators differed greatly from one for those whose aspect was ice. But again, in the Qi Gathering realm, such differences mattered a lot less, though some advantages could potentially be gained depending on the cultivator and the weapon.
A technique like the one Benton was considering for Zou Tian was a different matter. He had the ability to externally manifest his qi and needed a technique to strengthen that ability and guide him in its use and that technique had to be incredibly specific to shadow qi. Thus, whether or not to make the technique widely or narrowly applicable was a no brainer. Benton was quite interested to see how good the kid’s aspect could manifest when he had a technique literally attuned specifically to him.
After using yet another three Sect Points, Benton presented Zou Tian with Hide Presence. At least the return on investment would be much quicker than with Hammer Time.
The next day, Zou Tian reached minor realm four and the day after that achieved Small Success with his technique, which was also phenomenally quick. Benton attributed the speed of the advancement to the boy’s natural qi manifestation.
As soon as Benton got that notification, he called both the boy and Yang Xiu to him. “Have either of you ever heard of a game called Hide and Seek?”
They both shook their heads.
“It’s a simple children’s game. One kid is the seeker and waits while all the other kids hide. The seeker then has to find the hiders. See, simple.”
Both disciples understood immediately.
“Remember, the idea isn’t to win the game; it’s to improve your technique. Zou Tian, if you are able to hide your presence so well that Yang Xiu can’t find you, you should narrow the area you hide in until she can. Yang Xiu, if you’re finding him easily, tell him how, be it smell or sound or footprints or whatever, so he can work on minimizing that aspect of his trail or presence. Understood?”
“Yes, Master.” It wasn’t quite the in-unison chorus of the twins, but it was close.
“Excellent. Get to it.”
Things were going great. Once Shi Long got a little bit better at his internal qi manipulation, it would be time for him to start sparring, both with the guards who were the best with their spears and with Yang Ru. Or maybe just with the guards until he advanced his technique a little better. Yang Ru wasn’t well known for his restraint, which mattered a lot more with a low realm Qi Gathering cultivator than with his similarly advanced sister or Benton.
And he needed to balance Zou Tian’s Hide and Seek training with the same internal qi manipulation lessons the others got.
Lots to do. Lots to do. Which was so much better than boredom.
Almost out of habit by that point, he pulled up his status.
Sect Name: Not Chosen Sect Members: 0 Disciples: 36 Sect Points: 37 Shop Points: 40 Host Cultivation: Foundation Establishment - Minor Realm One Qi Available: 1,110 Host Body Cultivation: Bronze - Minor Realm Two Host Techniques: Analysis - Large Success Basic Archery - Large Success Basic Spear Combat - Large Success Pill Basics - Large Success Menus: [Cultivation Method] [Technique] [Quest] [Perk] [Advancement] [Shop - LOCKED]
Considering he’d just used thirteen Sect Points on techniques he hadn’t planned on spending, thirty-seven wasn’t a horrendous number. And bonus, he’d reached his two hundredth point earned, which meant he’d made five since he’d borrowed six from himself. Only ten more Sect Points to go until he was out of the hole.
The forty Shop Points wasn’t bad, either. Maybe. Actually, he had no idea. One point might be enough for one pill or a dozen heaven-shattering weapons. Unlocking the Shop was another reason he couldn’t wait to found his sect.
Of course, his favorite part of his status was the number of disciples. He’d went from fourteen to thirty-six in a quite short amount of time. And the caravan was approaching Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town. If he could just pick up another fourteen disciples there…
He didn’t even care about talent level at all, just seeing that number go up, and fifty was so nice and even.
Benton sighed as he continued counting unhatched chickens, his new favorite game.