Benton looked at his eleven council members. Though they’d been talking for a while, none appeared fatigued by the marathon session. In fact, they were all engaged as far as he could tell. That, he supposed, was an advantage to founding a sect in a society in which it wasn’t a common experience to conduct a meeting to schedule a meeting to set an agenda for a meeting.

“The next topic on the agenda,” Benton said, “is Body Cultivation. By taking three baths over the course of six days, one every other day, a cultivator can advance from one minor realm to the next or from no cultivation to the first. Advancing will make the cultivator stronger and faster and toughen the cultivator’s skin, muscles, and organs.

“You’re probably thinking, ‘Doesn’t Spiritual Cultivation do the same thing?’ Yes, it does, but to a much lesser degree. In a contest between a Bronze level body cultivator and an equivalent Qi Gathering realm spiritual cultivator, the Bronze will win nine times out of ten based on sheer physical might alone.

“Obviously, advancing everyone to the peak of Bronze before the beast tide would be a tremendous advantage. Claws and jaws will have a harder time penetrating. Our forces won’t get tired as easily and can defeat beasts on pure strength, not dissipating any of the limited amounts of available qi into the body.

“Sounds great, huh?”

Most of the disciples nodded, Yang Xiu vigorously. Only Zou Tian, Ye Zan, and Wan Ai knew there had to be a catch. The latter had to at least suspect exactly what that catch was.

“We have five tubs, and it takes about an hour to soak up all the energy in a bath. There is necessary prep that has to be done between baths, though. The water cannot be reused, and the tub must be thoroughly cleaned. Assume an hour for a mortal servant hired from the village to perform that task.

“Then, an alchemist must prepare the new water, herb, and spirit beast core mixture to get the tub ready for the next cultivator. That’s another hour minimum.

“Still, that’s not bad. Five tubs, one hour per bath, and two hours of prep time means we can get forty sect members per day into tubs, and since cultivators have to rest a day in between, we can do a total of eighty sect members every cycle. The Rising Tide Sect only has fifty-five members currently. So, no problem right?”

Wan Ai tentatively raised her hand. “This lowly one doesn’t know yet what all is required to prepare for a bath, but up to forty a day everyday sounds like … a lot.”

“Exactly, Wan Ai. No one, least of all me, expects you to be able to accomplish such a feat. You’ll get more efficient as you gain experience and we get you helpers, but at first, I’ll be surprised if you can prepare two baths a day.”

She cupped her hands. “Gratitude, Master.”

Benton really wanted to set the alchemy building up immediately and have her work there. Considering how terrified she was of being outside the village, though, that option wasn’t really viable. She was also going to need some help.

Hmm. Who to pick…

“Zou Tian, you are assigned the task of finding a vacant house in the village for Wan Ai’s use. Make sure it has enough rooms for her to have a workspace and to set up one private area for men to bathe and another for women. You’ll probably need to coordinate with the mayor.”

“Yes, Master.”

The boy was resourceful enough to get the job done, probably, and Benton didn’t have anything else for him to do.

“Wan Ai,” Benton said, “your goal for the day is to figure out how to prepare a bath. I’ll be giving you a jade slip in a moment. Study it. Practice whatever you need. Tomorrow morning, I just need you to tell me how many baths a day you think you can handle immediately. If you can’t, yet, that’s fine. Tell me when you might be able to.”

“Yes, Master.”

Speaking internally, Benton pulled up the appropriate System menu.

Please select a Body Cultivation Realm

Bronze

Silver

Gold

Platinum

Irridium

He obviously chose Bronze.

After confirming his choice, he selected Any Qi Aspect on the next menu. He would produce methods for his most talented disciples later. For now, he needed Wan Ai to focus on preparing herbs for the one that most of the sect would be using.

The subsequent menu was where things got interesting.

Please allocate 100 Body Cultivation Method Creation Points in the following categories:

Ingredient Flexibility

Physical Attribute Enhancement

Agility

Strength

Toughness

Vitality

With an inexpert alchemist, helpers who might never have held a knife before, and dried herbs of questionable quality, Ingredient Flexibility was, by far, his greatest concern. Otherwise, there was a good chance that the baths would do literally nothing, wasting time and materials. Having to run back to the city just to pick up more herbs would be ruinous.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

He devoted eighty of the one hundred points to that category. Once Wan Ai became better at her craft, he might create one more slanted toward enhancing other categories to replace it. He’d have to see the results first.

Any Body Cultivation method would increase each of the physical attributes. His menu just allowed him to pick a focus for extra enhancement.

Out of agility, strength, toughness, and vitality, he was seriously tempted to select a balanced blend of all of them. Each was important. Each was potentially lifesaving. Agility would help his disciples dodge attacks. Strength would improve their chances to one shot beasts. Toughness would prevent injuries. Vitality would reduce the chance of death and make them heal faster.

Would an even spread be better or a specific focus? If a specific focus, offense or defense?

He had a hard time deciding and eventually put ten into Strength and ten into Toughness.

Good enough, he hoped.

The final menu was his least favorite—choosing a name. Suppressing as grimace, he submitted one.

Name accepted.

Congratulations, Host, on the creation of the Ascending Torrent Body Cultivation Method.

Confirm creation of this cultivation method for 25 Sect Points?

As much as he’d wanted to, he couldn’t directly name it the Rising Tide method, so he chose synonyms. No one would notice. Probably.

Anyway, the name made him chuckle.

He confirmed his choice.

Body Cultivation Method created.

Host has 78 Sect Points remaining.

Benton produced the jade slip from his ring and handed it to Wan Ai. “There you go. Let me know if you have any questions.” He thought for a second about how timid the girl was. “I’m serious. Getting you up to speed on how to prepare for our more martially inclined sect members to use that cultivation method is one of my most important priorities. If your comprehension can be sped by asking me or anyone else a question, we are all at your disposal.”

“This lowly one understands, Master.”

Benton gave her his best grandfatherly smile before moving on. “Ye Zan, after giving it much thought, I think your guards should be the first to go through the baths. Yang Xiu and Yang Ru are so far along in their techniques and cultivation that the added power from the process won’t be a huge benefit. I mean, it will be a benefit but just not as large comparatively. Understand?”

“We understand, Master,” Yang Xiu said. “The decision is a wise choice.”

What Benton said had been the absolute truth, but he left out the part where he wanted to avoid creating the twins’ methods for as long as possible. The better Wan Ai became at preparing the baths, the lower he could set Ingredient Flexibility in order to make his heavy hitters even more powerful.

“By the same token, Zi Delan,” Benton said, “your group has too little experience. You need to be cultivating and learning weapons techniques. Body Cultivation would be a distraction, especially as you’ll need to adjust to your new speed and power with each new realm.”

“This one understands, Master.”

“So, Ye Zan, I’m going to leave it to you to figure out a schedule for getting all your people through the baths while keeping up with your other duties,” Benton said. “If you need help covering the positions that need guarding, you can draw some of Zi Delan’s crew, just make sure not to cut into their learning and cultivating time too much. You also have me, Yang Xiu, Yang Ru, and Zou Tian as support. Speak up if you need us.”

“Yes, Master. Of course.”

“We do have one bottleneck on Body Cultivation besides bath preparation,” Benton said. “Bronze minor realms one through three require one rank one spirit beast core per bath. We have close to three hundred of those. Bronze minor realms four through six require one rank two spirit beast core per bath, we have over four hundred of those. Bronze minor realms seven through nine require one rank three spirit beast core per bath. We have eleven of those.”

“Yang Ru and I will take the task of hunting for more, Master,” Yang Xiu said.

“That would be a help. Don’t spend all your time on that, though. And be careful!”

She smiled. “Of course, Master.”

That little scamp. He couldn’t help but grin.

“Next agenda item. My research leads me to believe that the Righteous Rain Sect was destroyed by demonic cultivators. That attack happened over twenty years ago. Less than one year ago, I know of another sect that was wiped out, and that one definitely was attacked by demonic cultivators.”

“But Master said that demonic cultivators didn’t band together,” Zou Tian said.

“Actually, I said it was difficult for such a thing to come about and that it’s the one thing that I fear more than just about anything else.”

“Yes, Master. Sorry, Master.”

“Right now, I’d put the sect’s three biggest risks to be, in some order, the beast tide, an organized attack by one of the big three sects, and those demonic cultivators. We’re working on our plan for the beast tide. I hope that our friendship with the Poison Claw Sect somewhat mitigates an attack by another of the righteous sects, but in any case, the best measures we can take are the same we’re taking against the beast tide. For the demonic cultivators, though, there is another method we can use to protect ourselves—Soul Cultivation.”

The entire council looked confused.

“I know,” Benton said. “It’s not something I’ve discussed before and not something many have even heard of. To the best of my knowledge, it’s not widely practiced. However, it just so happens that cultivating one’s soul in a similar manner to cultivating one’s spirit is a critical way to defend oneself from demonic draining attacks.”

“Do you have access to Soul Cultivation methods, Master?” Ye Zan said.

“Of course.” Benton said it like the question was a stupid one, like why wouldn’t he have top heaven grade scriptures for a type of cultivation no one had even heard of.

He almost laughed at the fact that not a single one of his disciples appeared to think it was weird that he did, in fact, have such a thing handy.

“We need to decide how much of a priority to give Soul Cultivation,” Benton said. “Any time spent on that type of cultivation is time not spent on other necessary tasks. The demonic cultivators might attack in a decade or never or tomorrow. I just don’t know.”

“Excuse me, Master?” Shi Long said.

It was nice to see him actively participating.

“Yes? Go ahead.”

“Does getting to the first minor realm of Soul Cultivation take about the same amount of effort as getting to the first minor realm of regular cultivation, Master?”

“The two are similar,” Benton said.

“Can Master give us a technique that will protect us even if we’re just at the first minor realm?”

“Yes. I see what you’re getting at. For just a tiny bit of effort comparatively, we can all have some level of protection.” Benton thought about it for a second. “Okay, here’s what I’m going to do. I’ll give jades slips for both the method and the technique to Peng Zhen. Charge twenty-five Contribution Points for each of them.”

The Soul Cultivation menu was brand new to Benton, and he didn’t know how much time it would take him to sort through his options. “Peng Zhen, I need to determine which Soul Cultivation method and technique will be best for everyone to use. I’ll find you either later today or tomorrow to get that to you.”

That way, everyone would have access to the protection if they wanted it.

There was a minor problem, though. All the guards had gained points from selling cores and spirit beast parts they’d hunted, but a lot of the other disciples hadn’t gained any yet.

“Everyone is going to be earning points with tasks for the pavilions soon, which is something that each pavilion head needs to track and get to Peng Zhen. In the meantime, let’s allow sect members to go negative solely for the purpose of purchasing that method and that technique.”

Peng Zhen cupped his head and nodded. “Yes, Master.”

Just as Benton was about to move onto the next topic, his spiritual sense spotted a fast-moving blip heading toward the village from the direction of the Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town. A cultivator.

What trouble was about to find them now?