The next morning as the wagon creaked along, Benton focused on what he wanted to do with his two free Sect Points.

When he’d first been isekaied to the cultivator world and selected the Sect Leader System, he had been more than a little naïve, thinking he’d simply recruit sect members who would do all the fighting for him.

In reality, that idea hadn’t worked out too well. For one thing, sending the twins and his other disciples into danger while not being willing to brave the same himself simply didn’t sit right with him. For another, being stuck behind a desk while dealing with the sect’s administrative duties wasn’t the primary role of the sect leader. His actual role was to be such a powerful threat that no one dared pick a fight with his sect members.

Now that he’d reached Foundation Establishment, it was time for him to start growing into that role in truth, not just bluffing it.

His future was secure in that, as long as he survived, he could recruit more and more sect members, who would continue generating more and more Sect Points for him. He didn’t have to worry about bottlenecks. His route to Nascent Soul and then Nihility and beyond was assured.

If.

If he survived long enough.

That was the rub.

In Qi Gathering, techniques were useful but not crucial. His main use of points had been to reach Foundation Establishment, and he felt that was absolutely the right call.

There was a part of him that wanted to continue on that path. No one below Golden Core would mess with a cultivator at that realm. No Golden Core would mess with a Nascent Soul and so on. But such a path would leave him as a paper tiger, essentially doing exactly what he’d done at the Poison Claw Sect—bluffing.

He needed real power, which, as a Foundation Establishment cultivator, came from techniques. Advancing minor realms would make him slightly stronger and give him more qi to work with. Techniques would allow him to make use of that qi.

Obviously, his plan going forward had to be to buy the techniques he needed to gain that power. Once he had a powerful build developed, he could balance advancing in minor realm against increasing the stage of each of his techniques.

His powerful build would also form the foundation of all his combat skill for all his future major realms. Though neither he nor Su’s memories was entirely sure what happened at Golden Core, it was well known that cultivators continued using the techniques they learned at Foundation Establishment all the way through the next realm and, presumably, into Nascent Soul.

Of course, that practice might simply be because learning a technique required such a large expenditure of time and resources. It might be that Benton’s cheat System would mean he would end up tossing all he was planning to learn away.

He didn’t think so, though. His instincts, based on everything Su had learned in the Flowing Tiger Sect, were saying to create a strong foundation of powerful techniques before moving forward.

Thus, Benton’s immediate goal was to determine a build that would make him a dominate cultivating powerhouse.

Starting off, he had four techniques from the Qi Gathering realm, all at the Large Success stage—Analysis, Basic Archery, Basic Spear Combat, and Pill Basics. Of the four, the last could easily be eliminated from the need to advance for the immediate future. Until his disciples started reaching Golden Core and above, there was simply no need to gain more knowledge in using pills.

Analysis was trickier to eliminate, but after some deliberation, he decided that gaining incrementally more information about objects, even important ones such as pill, herbs, and weapons, wasn’t helpful to his immediate focus, which was martial might.

Advancing Basic Archery and Basic Spear Combat were definitely on the table, though, depending on how handy they’d be in conjunction with whatever external qi manipulation techniques he decided to take. Increasing the rank of either wasn’t immediately useful as Large Success made him capable enough to hold his own against most opponents. Only true martial experts would present any problems in that regard.

Which led him to his main question—what techniques could he create for himself that would make him unbeatable at Foundation Establishment and even allow him, if necessary, to punch up a major realm?

Obviously, being able to use four rare, cheat-like aspects such as void, space, gravity, and time was a good start. Being able to literally create any technique using those aspects that he could imagine was also a broken ability.

The trick was converting those two amazing characteristics into a form that allowed him to dominate on a real battlefield.

First up, void.

Benton had two ideas in his mind as to what void qi actually was. First, it was the stuff that filled his storage ring where the actual items he put in there wasn’t. Essentially, it was just nothing. A lack of something. And if that was what void qi represented, it would be somewhat useless. On the other hand, he also had a notion of void as being a substance that hated matter, kind of like how nature abhorred a vacuum. Void abhorred stuff.

If the latter were true, then void was more like antimatter than it was like nothing, meaning it might just be the most destructive form of qi available.

“System,” he said internally, “is void qi nothingness or does it abhor matter?”

Void qi can be either, depending on Host’s conception of it.

Okay. Well, that was a lot to unpack, but he decided it was best not to get sidetracked.

“System, I’m going to have some follow up questions about how the qi can change based on my conception, but we’ll leave that for some other time. For now, whenever I mention void qi, please give me the abhorring matter version unless I specifically state differently.”

Decision accepted.

Alright.

For some reason—maybe because he could see the size of his qi pool—Benton tended to think of a technique kind of like a spell. User inputs qi of specific amount X into spell Y to create defined amount of damage Z. Techniques weren’t exactly like that, though. The user controlled X instead of it being constant, meaning Z was also variable. To put it another way, Z always varied according to X.

“System, how much qi would be consumed if I wanted to fire a lethal bolt of pure void qi at an enemy fast enough that most Golden Core cultivators could not dodge it?”

Such a void bolt would require approximately 5,000 qi for an average cultivator of that realm.

Yikes. That was almost five times the size of his pool of one thousand one hundred ten, and the bolt wasn’t even guaranteed to hit a cultivator at the peak of that realm or one who was specced for evasion.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

“System, how much qi for the same conditions except against a foe in the Foundation Establishment realm?”

1,500 qi.

Getting closer.

“System, how much to simply create the qi bolt but not to propel it?”

To create an amount of void qi sufficient to kill an average Foundation Establishment cultivator assuming the bolt hits body or armor instead of a qi shield would require approximately 800 qi.

Now he was getting somewhere. That was at least an amount he could afford. The point about the qi shield was interesting, though. By the Foundation Establishment realm, almost all cultivators would throw up a qi shield, be it through a defensive talisman or from their own stores of qi, for any attack they couldn’t dodge.

From Su’s memories, elements that formed qi aspects acted similar to types in Pokemon. Greg had been into playing the game when he was younger, so Benton had gained a passing familiarity. Essentially, types were either weak against, strong against, or neutral against other types.

If a cultivator formed a shield of one element, the best way to penetrate the barrier was to use an attack of an element that was strong against the defending one. For example, two of the best elements for shields were accounted to be earth and ice. Fire was strong against ice and, thus, would penetrate it easier than attacking with an aspect that was neutral against that element. In contrast, fire was weak against earth, meaning the poor fire-aspected cultivator was going to have a long day trying to get through the earth-aspected cultivator’s barrier.

“System, what elements are void qi strong and weak against?”

Void, as held in concept by the Host, is neutral to all qi elements. It destroys matter exceptionally well but is an inefficient use of qi to attack shields.

Hmm. Void qi was great at killing people but suboptimal at taking out shields. Thus, Benton needed to hit first with a shield breaker and follow that attack immediately with void.

Made sense.

Cultivators could construct qi shields out of just about any aspect, though, and there wasn’t a single element that was strong against all of them. Quite the contrary, actually. What he really needed was to vary the element of the shield breaker based on the shield’s element.

“System, can I attach a small bit of qi to an arrowhead in a way that doesn’t damage the tip?”

Yes. Host may charge the tip of an arrowhead with a qi aspect for the cost of the qi attack plus 10%.

Great. Delivering a qi bolt directly would cost fifteen hundred qi. To deliver the same attack via arrow would cost only eight hundred eighty. Perfect.

“System, how much would it cost to deliver an attack aspected to a primary or common secondary element strong enough to overwhelm most shields of Foundation Establishment cultivators?”

400 qi.

Half as much as he’d spend on a lethal void attack. Awesome.

“System, am I correct in understanding that delivering that attack via arrowhead would cost the same ten percent, so forty qi?”

Yes.

Those responses were all great, but the plan Benton had just come up with hinged on the answer to the next one.

“System, can I layer a primary aspect on top of a void aspect on top of an arrowhead so that, when an attack lands, the primary aspect hits the shield and the void hits the cultivator?”

Yes, but the cost will add twenty-five percent to the total of the two qi attacks.

That response was good and bad, but he could work with it. An arrow layered with fire qi and void qi would cost fifteen hundred total, exceeding his current pool size. Of course, that pool size would grow as he ascended minor realms, but he still thought he could get that cost down some.

“System, how much would it cost to deliver an attack aspected to a primary or common secondary element strong enough to overwhelm most shields of Foundation Establishment cultivators, assuming the attack element was strong against the defense element?”

200 qi.

That answer was exactly what Benton had hoped. Using fire against ice or water against earth would take down a shield for half the cost of using a neutral element. Thus, if Benton could always guarantee to use an opposing element, the cost to one shot the average Foundation Establishment cultivator was reduced to one thousand two hundred and fifty qi. That amount was still more than he currently had, but he was going in the right direction.

Besides, he could always reduce the amount of void qi used. Even if it wouldn’t immediately kill his opponent, injuring them enough to put them out of the fight for a while was almost as good, depending on the circumstances.

“System, can I create a Foundation Establishment ranked technique that layers the metal tip of a weapon, be it arrowhead or spear tip, with void qi and a type of primary or secondary aspected qi that opposes the type of qi my opponent is known to use in defense?”

Host may create a Foundation Establishment technique that layers void qi and a specific type of qi declared at the time of technique creation to the metal tip of a weapon.

Creating a technique with a variable qi aspect was not considered by the Sect Leader System.

Calculating…

Calculating…

Calculating…

Sect Leader System authorizes the creation of a variable aspected techniques, but since such techniques have never been seen on this planet, creation will require fifty percent more Sect Points per stage.

For a moment there, Benton feared he had broken the System, but he was okay with the final answer. He was breaking the rules that everyone else used, so it made sense to be charged more for that. It was much better than not being allowed to do it in the first place.

He’d have to pay three points for Small Success, three for Large, and six for Mastery, so twelve total instead of eight. The higher cost was worth it, considering it boosted his offense and reduced his qi cost.

Next, he needed a delivery system.

“System, how much qi would it take to increase an arrow’s speed so that it’s so fast that a peak Foundation Establishment cultivator specced for speed and/or evasion can’t dodge it?”

25 qi.

Yes. That was why he liked bows. The mechanical aid of the weapon combined with his own strength already made an arrow pretty darn fast, so it took only a little bit of qi to make it even faster.

“System, how much to add a homing function to the arrow above?”

Qi required would double to 50.

Awesome. Fifty qi to shoot an arrow that couldn’t be dodged was exactly what he needed.

“System, is there any additional qi needed to attach the technique I asked about above to the powered, homing arrow?”

No. The total qi required would be the sum of the qi input into each of the two techniques.

“System, is there any problem creating a technique like I described to power the arrow and make it homing, giving me the choice to use either ability or both?”

Host may create such a technique.

Create technique?

“No thank you, System. I’m still thinking through my options.”