Benton met the twins the next morning at the gate. The three of them made a quick run clearing both sides of the road leading to where the Orange Vigor Spirit Wood grew and doing a sweep through and around it.

He killed many beasts, mostly rank twos, but didn’t use any of his new techniques. They required practice before being put into use, and he preferred to do such experimenting out of sight of his sect members, even the twins. Exhibiting Mastery of a skill the first time he showed it off helped build the mystique of an ancient elder that he was shooting for.

It didn’t take long before he could no longer sense any beasts within a half mile radius of the Wood, so he called the two siblings to a stop before heading back to the village. “I’ve got a whole list of things to handle this morning. We talked about you two supplementing Ye Zan’s guards here today in protecting the harvesters. I’m assuming you’re still planning on that, right? It’s a good place for cultivating, and the two of you are getting close to a breakthrough.”

Yang Xiu grimaced. “We were actually hoping we could start spear and archery lessons today, instead, Master.”

“Zi Delan’s crew and the other kids from Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town are all getting really close to minor realm three. Wouldn’t it be more efficient to do group lessons for everyone at the same time? If we wait four or five days and use the Qi Condensing Pills, in addition to getting both of you to minor realm nine, I should be able to get all of them to minor realm four. That way, we’d have a large group ready to learn weapon techniques from you at once.”

The two shared a glance. As their realm rose, the hours of sleep they needed decreased, so they typically used nighttime for cultivation. They probably didn’t like the idea of spending an entire day babysitting while not accomplishing any of their other tasks.

“How about this?” Benton said. “One of you cultivate here while the other hunts, and you switch out every few hours?”

“Yes, Master,” the two chorused.

They both accompanied him back to the gate where they met the six harvesters along with Ye Zan and a half dozen of his guards. Benton explained the plan of having just the twins accompany them today, and no one objected.

Relieved of his own babysitting duties, Benton planned his morning. He had four stops to make, one of which he was very much dreading. Unlike the previous night, he couldn’t make himself do the unpleasant one first. Instead, he went to see Wan Ai. When he got there, Zou Tian was helping her cut herbs.

“Greetings, disciples,” Benton said. “How goes it?”

Wan Ai glanced at Zou Tian, her eyes wide, and nodded her head in Benton’s direction, clearly indicating for him to take the lead in reporting to the sect leader. She had no such luck as he instead deferred to her. The boy was a really good kid, understanding that Benton was trying to get her used to taking a leadership role and urging her to do just that.

“These—”

Zou Tian cleared his throat.

“This one has prepared three baths, Master,” Wan Ai said.

“Three? That’s extraordinary. Great job!”

The girl brightened slightly at the praise.

“Were there any issues?” Benton said.

“Nothing these ones couldn’t handle,” Wan Ai said. “Zou Tian found villagers who can heat the water and clean the tubs, and with his help, I was able to learn enough of the herb technique to both prepare the herbs and combine them with the energy of a spirit beast core. This one would never have been able to do any of that without Zou Tian’s assistance.”

The boy had kept trying to shush her during that whole explanation, but she actually talked right over him.

Good for them. The pairing worked out a lot better than he expected. Which was a very good thing. Both him and the sect needed those baths to be ready.

“Well, great job. I’ll let Ye Zan know the first three of his guards can begin tonight.”

The girl cupped her hands. “Gratitude, Master.”

“Are you ready to have helpers sent over?” Benton said.

“This one has barely gotten the basics down, Master. This one wouldn’t know how adding more people would help at this point.”

On one hand, she made a good argument. Developing a procedure and scaling it up were both difficult tasks. Trying to do the two at once would be a nightmare. On the other hand, Benton knew she would try to avoid managing more people, and having other fully trained workers was crucial.

“Let’s see,” Benton said. “We’ve assigned four new sect members from the village to help you. They all have experience with herbs but only received their cultivation methods yesterday. It looks like you have all the menial tasks assigned to villagers Zou Tian hired, so they probably wouldn’t be much help for now. Besides, it would be great if we could give them several weeks to cultivate before teaching them a technique.”

“Yes, Master. This one agrees.”

“You’re also getting one of the former Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town orphans, but he hasn’t quite hit the third minor realm yet. In two or three days with the assistance of a Qi Condensing Pill, he’ll be at minor realm four and ready and raring to go to help you. I’ll send him over then.”

“Understood, Master.”

“The final helper is one of the original eight from the village orphanage. I’ll be giving her and the others their pills today, so she’ll be ready to learn techniques starting tomorrow. Please be ready to help her learn.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Great,” Benton said. “How are you looking for tomorrow as far as number of baths?”

The girl swelled with pride. “This one expects to have another five ready by then.”

“Fantastic! You really are a treasure. There is one issue we should discuss, however.”

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“Yes, Master?”

“You are at the very peak of fifth minor realm about to break into the sixth. Do you want to do that now or wait? I’m planning on giving you a pill once you reach that milestone that will propel you to the seventh realm in a day.”

She could then get to the eighth realm on her own, and he’d take her to the ninth with another pill. Honestly, that wasn’t the best way to do things as it was better to spread out the pill-taking more. That was why his practice was to give a pill to his disciples at the third minor realm instead of waiting until later when advancing took more time.

He was trying to balance speed versus foundation, though, so the big question really was how much would the rapid advancement hurt her base? His judgment from Su’s memories and from Pill Basics was that skipping through minor realms close together was suboptimal but not enough to impact her potential. Of course, he’d explain the positives and negatives before he gave her either pill.

Ultimately, it was her decision.

“Body Cultivation is too important for this one to take the time to advance right now, Master.”

“Your cultivation is important, too.”

“Maybe after this one’s two helpers are competent enough, Master?”

Benton frowned. That solution really would be best for the sect, but he hated for her to sacrifice her own advancement. Then again, they were only talking about a week.

“It’s your call,” Benton said.

There wasn’t anything left to discuss, so he said his goodbyes, and after leaving the makeshift alchemy lab, he visited Xun Wu, who was still sleeping as a part of his recovery from taking the Spirit Root Refinement Pill. Benton, allowed into the room by his wife in order to check up on him, scanned him.

Name: Xun Wu

Affiliation: Rising Tide Sect

Age: 41

Cultivation: None

Techniques: None

Spiritual Roots: A-

Qi Aspect: Fiery coal in the middle of the forge

Success! Not that he ever really doubted it, but it was still cool that his sect now had its third A rank member.

“He should be just fine,” Benton said to the blacksmith’s wife.

Xun Wu would obviously need a cultivation method and, as a top tier disciple, merited one specific to his qi aspect. Benton quickly whipped one up and presented both the jade slip and a rank one spirit beast core to her.

Leaving, he felt more than a little bit of trepidation. Neither of his next two stops were likely to be pleasant, especially the last one.

As expected, the next one didn’t go well. Peng Hanying was still at the guards’ house, having only taken the second of five pills. The poor kid had sweat literally dripping down his face. His forehead burned with fever, and he whimpered from the pain.

Benton hated that the kid was suffering even if it helped in the long run. Such was part and parcel of living in a cultivation world, though. One had to accept the good with the bad.

Yeah. Benton just had to keep telling himself that, and maybe, he’d eventually believe it.

If he didn’t trust the System’s quality and that the kid would come through just fine, he would have called a stop to the whole thing. He did ask if the kid wanted to stop and got a hard no in reply. Benton respected the kid’s resolve too much to pull rank on him.

Leaving him and his father with encouraging words, Benton headed off to his last and least favorite stop of the morning—the orphanage. If there was any task worse than delivering bad news to a child, he didn’t know what it was.

“Master, you came!” Mistress Zhong said upon opening the door. “I had expected you last night.”

“Apologies, Mistress Zhong, the villagers were ready for induction into the sect sooner than expected, and I didn’t want to come by too late and disturb the kids.” Benton paused. “I’m assuming you haven’t told her.”

“No. I thought the news should come from you, Master.”

“You’re right. Good call.” He paused, remembering another task, and pulled eight Qi Condensing Pills from his ring. “Before I forget, give these to the original set of kids.”

“Yes, Master.”

Benton glanced around, trying to think of anything to delay what was to come next, but he couldn’t figure out anything. He sighed. “Well, best get to it, I guess.”

Feeling like a kicked dog, Benton traipsed into the room being used for the convalescing Jin LiJuan. She was awake and immediately eyed him.

“Master! Do you know yet? Can you heal me?”

He kneeled beside her pallet. “Kind of. I found pills that can partially restore your cultivation. At best, you will be the lowest of the low in talent, an F-, and really not even that high as there are sure to be complications with your meridians and channels. Maybe even your dantian. You have to understand that what you did was very dangerous. You could have died.”

“This lowly one knows, Master. I thought about what I did a lot while I’ve been in bed, and it was all my fault. You told me you would come back. Mistress Zhong said that you were journeying far and that you were probably delayed by things you couldn’t control. But I was impatient. I was stupid!” Tears started streaming from her eyes.

His greatest weakness in two lives was a crying child.

Had he returned to the village as planned, she wouldn’t be in all that pain. The situation wasn’t his fault, per se, but he accepted some of the blame.

“Even if it’s not good cultivation, I can still cultivate, though, right?” she said when she’d recovered enough to speak. “You can fix me that much, right, Master?”

“The thing is, Li’er, the cure is expensive. Very expensive. I can speed the cultivation of thirty of our fellow sect members for that much.”

Her lip quivered, and she bit it. “I … see, Master. It makes no sense to spend so much on healing me when I have no way to repay the sect. It’s okay, Master. It’s okay.”

Benton’s heart broke seeing the girl so clearly trying to re-assure herself.

“You can still help the sect, Li’er, in whatever capacity you want. My sect is your sect. It’s your home. Its members are your brothers and sisters, okay? You will always have a place with us. You will be valued. Your life will be much better than you ever imagined.”

She gamely tried to smile, but it was as if her lips refused to move. “I’ll be fine, Master. Gratitude. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

Benton felt like she grabbed his heart in her hands and tore it to tiny shreds.

The entire council agreed that not healing her was best for the sect. Spending so much for so little in return made no sense. They had a good reason for making that decision.

But none of the council had to stare that little girl in the eyes and tell her they wouldn’t heal her.

Not couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

“Tell me why you ate the spirit beast meat,” he said.

“Because I wanted to cultivate, Master.”

“But why did you want to cultivate so badly?”

More tears welled in her eyes. “My parents, Master. The beasts got them. I wanted ... it's silly.”

“It’s anything but silly Li’er. It’s heartbreaking.”

“I just … I wanted to get back at the beasts, Master. I wanted to be strong and fast and powerful so that I could kill the beasts and so that no more little girls would have to lose their mommy and daddy like I did.”

“That last part is really sweet. Protecting people is good. I like that. Vengeance, however, feels like it should be good, but it isn’t.”

He paused. “If I heal you, I want you to promise me that you won’t pursue some kind of war against the beasts. No vengeance. Your mom and dad wouldn’t have wanted you to live a life full of hate.”

Benton couldn’t even begin to imagine what the little girl’s life had been like. Living in a village where starvation was a real danger, having her parents die to an animal attack, being put in a crowded orphanage that didn’t have enough resources to take care of her.

She had suffered enough.

Between the upcoming quest completions, making one Shop Point per new member, and eventually another two when they reached Foundation Establishment, he would find a way to afford it.

“Master?”

“I mean it, Li’er. Swear to me.”

“But … I don’t understand, Master.”

Benton looked in her little tear-filled eyes. “I have to hear it, Li’er. Swear.”

“I won’t kill the beasts, Master. I swear it. Only to protect, not because I’m mad.”

Good enough.

“Get as much rest as you can tonight and eat as much as you can stomach. You’re going to need your strength. Tomorrow, have Mistress Zhong take you to the guards’ house. The pills will be waiting for you there with instructions.”

“You can’t, Master. This lowly one isn’t worth it.”

“You are worth it, Li’er, and if I can’t do this for you, how could I consider myself worth anything? What even is an old man like me doing here?”

“Old man? Master is hardly older that Senior Brother Ru. You’re nothing like Mistress Zhong. She’s old.”

“Looks can be deceiving, Li’er, especially for cultivators. Now, you remember what you’re supposed to do tonight?”

“Eat and sleep a lot, Master.”

“Exactly.”