BWFoster78

Chapter 107 – Ultimate Juggernaut Combat Build Mark 2

In the absence of an emergency arising, Benton was done with his spending spree of Sect Points. He’d just utilized a massive amount for improving himself and wanted to get used to the changes before adding any more. Besides, he’d overspent his personal allotment by quite a bit.

Unlike previous times when he’d dipped into the sect’s funds for his own use, he didn’t plan on paying the sect back. Instead, he thought of the expenditure as a bonus allocation and intended to go back...

Chapter 106 – Personal Growth

As Benton walked through the forest far from any of his sect members, he contemplated what to do with the points he had available to increase his personal power. Seventy-eight points was an unprecedented amount, more than enough to max out his ultimate juggernaut combat build.

His first step was obvious, to max out everything he was currently working on. Since he had so many, he went ahead and used four points to bring both Analyze and Pill basics to Mastery, even though neither was of ...

Chapter 105 – Sect Growth

Benton turned to Mo Jian. “Honorable Mayor, how about the villagers?”

“My fellow new inductees are all diligently cultivating ten hours per day as instructed and are approaching the second minor realm, Esteemed Sect Leader.”

“I was more thinking about how we should proceed for the future,” Benton said. “When they reach minor realm four, the martial oriented ones will get weapon techniques and proceed along the same path as Zi Delan’s group now. We haven’t establi...

Chapter 104 – Excelsior!

The next four days passed with no exciting developments besides the incremental improvements made by Benton’s sect members. Peng Hanying was able to advance from the first minor realm to the second, but it was Wan Ai who made the most major improvement in cultivation. She first hit minor realm six before using a pill to get to minor realm seven the next day. Continuing her run of exceptional advancements, she got her dagger technique to Small Success as well.

Much bigger point moves w...

Chapter 103 – Looking Up

A little more than a month prior, Zi Delan and his friends were struggling to find food, often resorting to methods he did not feel comfortable with just to keep himself alive. Mugging innocent people. Robbing stores and homes. He’d hated doing it, but the choice was thieving or dying of starvation.

At least, they’d never had to resort to killing anyone and had tried to limit their victims to those who could most afford the loss. Not that anyone had much to spare, but they did their...

Chapter 102 – The Reverberations of Words

Kang Lin met her grandfather in Elder Dai’s chambers, cupping her hands and bowing low as she presented the scroll containing Chao Su’s response. The letter was, of course, unopened.

Grandfather removed the wax seal and began reading. After but an instant, he lowered it and peered at Kang Lin. “What was Chao Su’s attitude when he saw you?”

“Answering Esteemed Grandfather. Esteemed Cultivator Chao was very welcoming. In fact, his greeting made him seem … oddly exubera...

Chapter 101 – The Reverberations of Actions

Yang Xiu couldn’t believe how unfathomable her master was.

First, he hopped over the fifteen-foot-tall gate with all the ease she would have demonstrated leaping over a fallen tree trunk. Upon landing, he calmly stood there as the jaguar, for no apparent reason, was repelled from atop Yang Ru.

Again for no apparent reason and with Master simply standing still, the cat smashed into the ground like it had been slammed with great force. It literally sunk several inches into hard-pa...

Chapter 100 – The Night Everything Changed

Benton developed a routine over the next several days, beginning his morning by joining the twins on a sweep of the wood harvesting area and doing check-ins with his sect members and the villagers working on the wall. The craftspeople were actually under-utilized, creating a twenty-feet long by twenty-feet tall section every other day. They informed Benton that they could easily do five times that much, but the harvesters were not producing enough.

The woods had sat fallow long enough t...

Chapter 99 – Perk Up. Again.

Benton quickly ran to the harvesting site and found a large pile of wood laying on a tarp, including multiple tree trunks exceeding forty feet in length. He stored all of it in his ring and ran to the village.

It was late, and most everyone was asleep. Not knowing where to deposit his load, he ran by Peng Zhen’s house and discovered that the place was dark and silent. He needed to know where to leave the wood, but his tardiness didn’t justify disturbing the family inside. There had ...

Chapter 98 – Wouldn’t Change if He Could

Benton rushed from the house and to the gate. Not even willing to wait for the village guards to open it, he leapt over the fifteen-foot-tall structure. He needed to get away. He needed to think.

First, though, he needed to commit to his decision. His new decision, not the old one that he reneged on.

Ugh.

“System, purchase whatever is necessary to heal Jin LiJuan. I confirm whatever you need me to confirm. Don’t even show me how many Shop Points are left.”

The Sy...

Chapter 97 – Don’t Go Breaking My Heart

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...

Chapter 96 – Dislike, Excitement, and Ambivalence

After escorting his newest sect members back to the village, Benton returned to the area outside the arena. As the site of his sect and land he personally owned, the place was already becoming special to him, and he wanted to spend as much time as possible there.

Work was never finished for a sect leader, apparently, because he had no time to wander his territory just to get familiar with it. He had System business to attend to. Three items, actually. One he didn’t want to do; one he ...

Chapter 95 – One Fell Swoop

Wan Ai was at the orphanage deeply engrossed in studying the Body Cultivation scripture Master had given her when Zou Tian came for her. It felt like she’d barely even scratched the surface of everything she needed to understand, and the distraction was not welcome.

“This one was able to find a perfect lab for you, Senior Sister,” he said.

Wan Ai blushed. No one had ever referred to her as a senior before. She certainly didn’t feel qualified to give orders to anyone other ...

Chapter 94 – That’s Not a Problem; This Is a Problem

Prosperous Gray Forest Village was a quiet place, especially for the last ten years or so. They rarely received visitors, and other than the occasional spirit beast attacking the walls, nothing much happened.

The death of the village that Mo Jian presided over was a slow one, one characterized by starvation, lack of resources, and boredom.

When the mysterious cultivator, Chao Su, actually returned with food as he’d promised, it was both a happy, if concerning, surprise and a ble...

Chapter 93 – For the Good of the Sect

With Kang Lin having departed, it was time for Benton and his council to get back to work.

“Alright, everyone,” Benton said. “Let’s move back to the arena floor. There are a few more important issues to discuss.”

No one groaned as he led them back onto the sand and set up the tables and chairs again. He wouldn’t have blamed them if they would have. The meeting was becoming a marathon.

“After Body Cultivation, the next most important step is preparing for the de...

Chapter 92 - A Lovely Girl

Benton’s face must have showed his concern at sensing a cultivator heading their way because Yang Xiu said, “Is something wrong, Master?”

From the cultivator’s movement speed, they weren’t using a flying sword. In fact, they weren’t moving fast at all. Unless he missed his guess, it was someone in the Qi Gathering realm. Either that or someone hiding their cultivation.

“Give me a minute,” Benton said.

The cultivator stayed on the path to the village until rea...

Chapter 91 – Body and Soul

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 si...

Chapter 90 – Belonging

A much smaller group gathered with Benton the next morning in front of the gate. His council, with the addition finally of Zhong Wen and Wan Ai, numbered eleven, and for so few people, it was relatively easy for him and the twins to kill the spirit beasts en route to the sect grounds while Ye Zan and Hou Yazhu kept any leakers from causing damage.

Not that Benton and the siblings let any beasts through, of course, but it was nice to have backup. He led them all into the arena and out on...

Chapter 89 – May You Live in Interesting Times

Benton started reading the new quests from the top. The first one didn’t seem too hard on the face of it. Getting one hundred members only required forty-five more, and he fully intended to induct fifty in the coming days. The part about loyalty, though…

“System,” he said internally, “what is my current average loyalty?”

That wasn’t so bad, considering that most of hi...

Chapter 88 – Another Tide Is Rising

As soon as everyone was organized for the trip back to the village, Benton scanned the area for any spirit beasts. There were none near.

Good. The twins and Ye Zan’s guards should be able to handle any that popped up.

Benton pulled up his status.

 The first thing that he noticed was that the sect name had been filled in. For some reason, seeing Rising Tide listed there made ...

Chapter 87 – A Heady Feeling

Wan Ai had just had the best three months of her life. Growing up in the orphanage, she’d mostly been praised by Mistress Zhong for being a helpful and obedient child.

Mostly.

When Wan Ai did get into trouble it was for hiding away from the other children in the house. It wasn’t that she was bullied or teased or anything like that. It was just that they were so loud. And she liked quiet. She liked to be alone.

For the last three months, she’d basically confined herself...

Chapter 86 – What Wasn’t Lost Has Been Founded

Benton was so excited he could barely stand it. His goal was so, so close. He just had to wait for the official letter deeding the land, and he could found the sect and complete the quest.

The mayor was diligently working on the letter. That task shouldn’t take more than an hour tops.

Meanwhile, Benton was on his way to deliver food to the people who’d been designated to prepare it.

He arrived at the house the mayor directed him to and discovered it was owned by the same...

Chapter 85 – Feast or Famine

There was absolutely nothing that affected Benton’s emotions more than a sick or injured child, and the sight of poor, suffering Jin LiJuan shivering under her covers hit him right in the heart.

“M-Master?” she said, waking as he entered the room. “Master! You’re back.”

“Shh. It’s okay. Just rest.”

“I wanted to cultivate, Master, and you said you’d be back in two months. Two. It was three. And I wanted to cultivate.” Tears streamed down her cheek.

Chapter 84 – Home Again, Home Again, Jiggitty Jig

Considering how little time Benton had actually spent in the village, it felt strange for him to consider it home. The small, decrepit place filled with starving people besieged on all sides by spirit beasts was his future, though, and that made it home.

The amount of spirit beasts was a bit concerning, more so than he would have thought. The density of them near the village had increased significantly in the time since he’d left, and there were mainly rank twos nearby compared to ran...

Chapter 83 – Learning to Hunt

Ye Zan crept through the woods behind Yang Xiu, trying to move as quietly as possible. Whatever he was doing wasn’t good enough for Senior Sister, who kept glaring and him and Huang Yimun, his fellow guard who was even worse about finding every dead leaf than Ye Zan was.

Less than a month and a half ago, he’d never left the city. He’d never walked through woods. He’d certainly never crept through the woods in an attempt to kill a spirit beast. It still amazed him every day that ...

Chapter 82 – Distant Thunder Portends a Storm

Starting in the early afternoon, Benton’s musings were interrupted by notifications. Not that he minded. Not for those kinds of notifications.

By the time the caravan stopped for the night, he’d received eight more of those notifications as the guards started reaching the next minor realm. The first of those was Huang Yimun, who was the winner of the extra Qi Condensing Pill.

Happily...

Chapter 81 – Juggernaut

So far, Benton had come up with two techniques he definitely wanted—the one that layered void and variable aspected qi on a weapon tip and the one that made an arrow faster and/or homing.

What else?

The first thing that came to mind was some kind of area attack. All things were possible in a cultivation world, so he should expect the unexpected. Even though his arrows would be hard to counter and would deliver a devastating blow, they weren’t impossible to evade or block.

Chapter 80 – The True Role of a Sect Leader

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 t...

Chapter 79 – Leaps and Bounds

Benton wanted to get as far from the town as they could in the remaining daylight. With friendly relations established between him and Fatty Ren, there was no real fear of cultivators interfering with the caravan, but they were transporting lots of vulnerable kids and valuable goods.

It was best to get the wagons away from where they might prove to be a temptation to the town’s many mortal gangs. If nothing else, he didn’t want the orphans first experience with his sect to be the vi...

Chapter 78 – Can’t Wait to Get on the Road Again

Benton woke feeling good. His efforts of the last few days had paid off with him being able to achieve all his tasks and then some. Best of all, his disciples should arrive no later than early evening, and they all could finally begin the last leg of the voyage to Prosperous Gray Forest Village.

In four weeks at the most, they would arrive, and he could finally found his sect.

He walked down the stairs intending to have a leisurely breakfast in the inn’s common room and was surp...