BWFoster78

Chapter 137 – First Blood

Ye Zan stared over the village wall at the forest surrounding it. There was no sign of any beasts yet. Not that he expected to see any. Master had said it would be at least two hours before the first ones arrived and that was almost an hour ago.

Villagers and sect members were still slowly making their way to their assigned positions. Which frustrated Ye Zan more than a little. He got that most of them weren’t any type of soldier, but he would have preferred to have everyone rush to t...

Chapter 136 – The Nuclear Option

After Benton finished giving instructions about the FEDs, he pulled Kang Lin away from the others. “I need some advice, and I think you and Zhong Wen might be my best sources.”

“Of course, Master. Anything you need.”

The two of them walked to the orphanage, and Zhong Wen invited them inside. Once they were settled, she asked him what he needed help with.

“It’s kind of an awkward subject, and I’m not sure how to handle it.”

“You can ask us anything, Ma...

Chapter 135 – FED Up

Since the spirit beasts were currently located far enough from the village to not even register with Benton’s spiritual sense, his sect members were no longer in imminent danger, meaning he no longer needed to keep a close watch on them. Instead of spending his time at the village plaza or in the Wood, he decided he much preferred his own land, the sect grounds.

No longer being on full time guard duty and having finished his major preparatory tasks didn’t mean that he was taking it ...

Chapter 134 – Calming and Exhilarating

11/11/24 A/N: Bonus chapter for reaching 100 subscribers!

With the spirit beasts having retreated from the area, Wan Ai had found a nice, isolated part of the Wood to cultivate that only Zou Tian knew about. It was perfect, really. Several trees grew tight together, forming almost a wall that hid any other sect members passing by from her sight.

Peace and quiet were exactly what she needed.

She dropped into a deep meditative state. All her concentration was required to draw ...

Chapter 133 – Tempting Fate

After Benton debriefed his sect members on the operation of the defensive formation, he turned his mind toward what he should accomplish next.

A council meeting seemed superfluous. The team had set goals and tasks a week prior and nothing substantial had changed. As far as he could tell, everyone was on the right track.

He also felt a lot better about the village’s defense. As long as the formation was fed spirit coins and was protected from disruption from the inside, it would ...

Chapter 132 – A Dangerous Position

Despite all the knowledge of formations that had been crammed into Benton’s head, he’d never actually created one. From experience, he knew that converting the System’s downloaded skills into actual concrete abilities meant practicing. To that end, he acquired some scrap Orange Vigor Spirit Wood left over from building the sect wall.

Before the planks and posts were assembled into sections, each piece had to be alchemically treated. Thankfully, the baths for that purpose were reus...

Chapter 131 – Picking Up a Thing or Two

Benton sat, recovering from his powerup. Well, he wasn’t sure if learning how to craft formations could rightfully be called much of a powerup, but he did spend lots of points? Anyway, once his head had stopped pounding quite so hard, he called for a council meeting.

Since there were no more beasts to worry about, he was no longer tied to guarding the Wood. It would have felt weird to have no one watching over the vulnerable cultivators, though, so he delegated that task to Huang Yimu...

Chapter 130 – Time and Tide Wait for No Man

Beast tides had a number of distinct phases. Following the quick escalation in quantity and quality of beasts in an area, the next one was a complete withdrawal. The number of beasts would keep increasing until suddenly all vanishing.

Benton suspected that time was getting close.

Four days later, he was guarding the sect members cultivating in the Wood when it happened. All the spirit beasts in range of his spiritual sense ran back toward the mountain. The process took a while wit...

Chapter 129 – Vow of Eternal Love

Talking was not Yang Ru’s strong point, and in his quest to get to know Kang Lin, grunting just wouldn’t be enough. So, he resolved to talk to her.

There was one big problem, though. He had no idea what to say. Literally. Not a thing came to mind.

They walked for a while, silently, through an area outside the Wood. Master had swept it for beasts earlier, so they didn’t expect to encounter anything. Yang Ru almost wished they would. It would have given him something to talk t...

Chapter 128 – Strong Enough?

It took the entirety of Benton’s self-control not to burst out laughing at Yang Xiu’s expression when he told her that Yang Ru had passed her. Nothing like good old sibling rivalry to spur his disciples to greater heights.

The boy had really impressed him, though. It took a lot of effort to advance two techniques at the same time so quickly, and killing a rank six beast at Foundation Establishment minor realm one was quite an accomplishment, one that Benton doubted many could make.<...

Chapter 127 – One Has to Run before One Can Walk

Yang Ru sprinted across the clearing and slammed his spear into the tree, using qi to increase his momentum with each step. At the moment of impact, qi erupted from the tip, transferring that momentum into the wood.

He stopped. Or more accurately, he was stopped.

As his momentum shifted from him to the tree, all his inertia dissolved, leaving him standing still. It was the oddest feeling.

One moment he was running flat out. The next, he hit the trunk at full speed.

Exp...

Chapter 126 – Uninvolved

Kang Lin’s next couple of days were busy. Master had given her four pills. One reset her cultivation back to the beginning of Foundation Establishment, wiping out both the work she’d done on the profound grade scripture her grandfather had given her and the similarly graded technique.

When she’d questioned why resetting her cultivation also made her lose all the progress she’d made with her technique, he’d responded, “Because I want you to start the realm fresh.”

App...

Chapter 125 – Lightning, Heed my Call!

Kang Lin knew that Sect Leader Chao Su—the man who’d somehow just become her master—was having a bit of fun at her expense in the way he so cavalierly told her that the cultivation method had been specifically tuned to her qi aspect, but she couldn’t help her reaction. For that claim to be true was not possible. Literally. There was no way imaginable for him to have achieved such a feat.

If she were an expert on creating cultivation methods and was already in the Golden Core rea...

Chapter 124 – It’s What?

11/11/24 A/N: Bonus chapter for reaching 100 Subscribers!

Yang Ru stood across the clearing from his nemesis, a wide tree that had not a mark on it. Two dozen times, he’d slammed into it, trying to transfer the momentum built up from his run onto the tip of his spear. Two dozen times, he’d failed. Two dozen times, he’d ended up on his butt.

Undeterred, he sprinted full speed toward the orange wood with its garish foliage. Each step created momentum as he channeled qi outside...

Chapter 123 – A Brat, a Bounce, and a Butt

Yang Ru had cultivated for two straight days as if his life depended on it because, in at least a couple of ways, it did.

For one, he was the sect’s protector. Everyone was depending on him to take out the threats Master didn’t have time to kill during the beast tide. Yang Ru was determined to fulfill that role whether he was ready or not. If he died in the process, so be it.

Second, his sister and his perhaps future fiancé had become fast friends, spending literally every se...

Chapter 122 – Benefits

Kang Lin once again experienced the thrill of the Esteemed Master Cultivator’s Quickstep as he grabbed both her and Yang Xui’s hands and whisked them to a different section of the forest. Immediately, Kang Lin reached out with her spiritual sense and found that there was a powerful spirit beast less than a hundred yards away.

Just as she was about to announce the fact, she discovered that the Esteemed Master Cultivator was no longer there.

“Don’t worry about it, Sister,”...

Chapter 121 – Fashion Choices and a Slinking Dog

Yang Ru’s heart pounded as he topped the hill, and his possible fiancé came into view. She was … pretty. Her face and form were pleasing. And he guessed he liked her well enough. Besides the one spar, they hadn’t interacted all that much.

With the girls back home, he’d at least grown up with them. Kang Lin was a complete unknown, a member of a large and prestigious sect. Who knew what her expectations for a husband were?

He and his sister approached the group of Poison Cl...

Chapter 120 – Nervous

Yang Xiu was a little concerned. Master had said that consolidating her gains could take an hour or a week. She took that to mean that it was likely to take an extended period of time.

After an hour, though, she felt … good.

She’d advanced through nine minor realms and Mastery of two different techniques. She knew what it was supposed to feel like when she was ready to continue with the next step.

She was ready.

Well, he had said that she would know. She shrugged a...

Chapter 119 – No-Brainer

Benton accessed the System menu for cultivation method creation, and for the first time, chose Foundation Establishment. The Sect Point Factor being set to two was a bit of a bummer, but his elation at having a disciple finally breakthrough to the next major realm easily countered any negative feelings. Besides, he was quite flush with points.

The twins both were doing fantastic, advancing through realms and techniques quickly, and their qi pools were phenomenally high compared to their...

Chapter 118 – Your View of Who You Are

The first time Benton had a woman tell him, “It’s time,” had been when Evelyn was about to give birth to their firstborn. Yang Xiu’s news wasn’t quite so urgent, but it was pretty darn important.

She was ready to breakthrough into Foundation Establishment.

That step was a major one for the Rising Tide Sect. Thus far, they had exactly one cultivator who could even touch a rank four spirit beast—Benton himself. The news that Yang Xiu would soon be ready to take a much mo...

Chapter 117 – It’s Time

As Benton watched over his sect members cultivating in the Wood, his thoughts turned to the progress everyone had made. They’d all worked really hard over the last four weeks.

All his recruits from Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town had advanced from minor realm four to minor realm five, and Xun Wu, Shi Long, Zou Tian, and the original group of eight orphans from the village also reached their next minor realm, the sixth. Pan Xiaolian and the other forty-nine villagers were the big poi...

Chapter 116 – There’s No Aspect Like No Aspect

11/11/24 A/N: Bonus chapter for reaching 100 Subscribers!

Benton went to the orphanage to check on little Jin LiJuan and found the girl up on her feet, a good sign. He scanned her.

There was only one small change to her status since the last time he’d read it, but that change had major implications. F- spiritual roots meant she should be able to cultivate.

She stared at him with ...

Chapter 115 – Letters and Numbers

As soon as the beast was dead, Yang Ru sunk into meditation, going over the fight in his head over and over again. Specifically, he concentrated on his use of Stone Skin to toughen two opposite ends of his body, the part facing the raven and his feet that he dug into the dirt.

He repeated the actions in his mind, feeling it almost click into place. So close. So, so close.

The usage felt off. Good. But not perfect. He’d toughened too much of his foot and started an instant too so...

Chapter 114 – Nevermore

Yang Ru placed his spear tip between his body and the raven’s beak. He knew he couldn’t harm it, but the bird was also unlikely to be strong enough to fight through the weapon.

Atop the wall, Xiang Qiao rang the gong.

Good, the village guard was of too low a realm in both Spiritual and Body Cultivation to attack the raven, but the alert would draw others who could contribute to the fight.

Yang Ru just had to survive solo long enough for others to engage.

The bird s...

Chapter 113 – Be Careful What You Wish For

The raven kept getting drawn back to the gathering as it imagined snacking on the tasty tasty morsels down below.

When he passed over again, he noticed something strange. The humans seemed agitated. Two of the tastiest were gathered inside the gate like they were on watch, and many, many other tastees were at the top of the wall, all vigilantly looking out.

There were always a certain number of them walking around up there but not nearly so many.

Why? What had changed?

Chapter 112 – Old Friends Well Met

The raven flew over the gathering of humans far below. It used its aspect, death, to cloak its presence, utilizing the natural aversion the living felt toward anything not alive.

So many tasty morsels were below, and the number had grown recently. Grown by a lot. And all were so weak.

Too many of its fellows had found death in pursuing those morsels, though, including fellows only slightly weaker than itself. Away from the gathering, several as strong as itself had also fallen. An...

Chapter 111 – Preparations

As the mayor left to round up fifty more villagers for induction and the rest of the council adjourned to do whatever it was that would most advance the sect’s goals, Benton took a moment to think about where he was and where he was going. He had one hundred eleven sect members, not counting himself, and he felt like he barely even knew most of them. And he was about to add fifty more.

He needed to get a better handle on his organization before it grew out of control.

At the mom...

Chapter 110 – Changes

The appearance of a rank five was a major change, but it was too soon to draw any conclusions about the impending beast tide from it. Benton decided to wait a few days and observe if more of the higher-level beasts appeared before calling a council meeting to discuss.

He did, however, make it a point to scan to the extent of his spiritual senses a minimum of four times per hour.

Additionally, he instituted procedural changes. The twins combat lessons were moved to the village as h...

Chapter 109 – Turning Green

Benton’s spiritual sense was unrivaled in detecting spirit beast intrusions, even to the extent of being able to determine rank at a great distance. It did not, however, operate independently. For it to be active, he had to concentrate on doing a sweep.

It was not possible for him to constantly monitor for beasts. For one, he had to sleep occasionally. For another, he simply could not focus on just that all the time.

As a compromise, he tried to do remember to sweep periodically...

Chapter 108 – You Gotta Fight…

Ye Zan’s ears perked up. Something was moving in the foliage coming his way.

“You got it?” Huang Yimun said.

“Yeah.” Ye Zan propped his spear against a nearby tree and strung his bow.

A few weeks ago, he might have been nervous about facing a spirit beast without backup from either Senior Brother or Senior Sister. Of course, a few weeks ago, he hadn’t been killing an average of two to three of the creatures per day.

Master said that both the quantity and qu...