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Chapter 256 – Sending a Message
🕑 Added 2025-05-09 15:26:29 +0000 UTCBenton handed Jin LiJuan a jade slip with her new cultivation method.
She cupped her hands. “Gratitude, Master.”
“The next issue is what to do about techniques.” He sighed. “I’d really prefer you got both your current ones to Large Success before giving you any more, but we need more information about how the fact that you don’t have a qi aspect will affect things.”
She stared at him, curiosity evident on her face.
“For cultivation methods and Qi Gathering level techniques,” he said, “your lack of an aspect is a definite positive. Basically, it allows you to use any literally any one that you find. If you were in a normal sect, that would be a huge advantage. In our sect, though, it’s only a tiny benefit, mainly to me.”
She nodded.
“Depending on how your lack of an aspect interacts with Foundation Level techniques, it could be an absolutely broken benefit or it could be a possibly hefty net negative,” Benton said. “We won’t know until I give you a technique and see what happens.”
“I don’t understand, Master. Why would it be a large benefit or an equally large negative?”
He paused for a moment, trying to come up with the best way to explain it. “Kang Lin uses Lighting qi, right?”
“Yes, Master.”
“When she triggers her shield,” he said, “the qi used takes on the elemental attributes of Lightning as it protects her. The shield is stronger against elements weak to Lightning and weaker against elements strong to Lightning. It also shares some of the physical characteristics of Lightning.”
Well, that last point was a bit iffy. If you tried to throw a rock through some kind of persistent lightning, not much would happen to the rock assuming it didn’t melt or something. It definitely wouldn’t bounce back like it struck a wall. It would if it hit a qi shield, though.
Benton shook off the mental distraction and continued. “The big question that I need answered is—if you were to use her shield technique, would the qi take on the characteristics of Lightning or would the qi generated be unaspected?”
From Jin LiJuan’s expression, she had no idea why that was so important.
“Let’s assume that you can generate any aspect that corresponds to a technique that you use,” he said. “Let’s further say that I give you a Water aspected shield. You’ll be strong against Earth qi users, but facing a Wind qi user, you’d be at a disadvantage. If you were a normal cultivation, there wouldn’t be much you could do about that vulnerability absent a talisman or defensive treasure. Your specific advantage in contrast to normal cultivators would be that you could also learn a Wood shield, which is strong against Wind. In fact, you could learn five different shields and choose which one to use depending on what element your opponent uses.”
Her eyes lit up. She understood.
“That’s the best case scenario,” Benton said. “The worst case would be that any technique you use produces unaspected qi. In that case, you’d basically be neutral against all opponents. Which isn’t the end of the world or anything, but the difference between using qi neutral to an opponent’s element versus qi that is strong against that element is tremendous. Battles can easily be won and lost on that factor alone.”
She cupped her hands again. “Gratitude for the explanation, Master.”
“If you can truly make use of any element, we can abuse the heck out of that exploit,” Benton said.
She needed to learn an aspected technique in order to find out how her qi reacted with it, and he was so, so tempted to create one for her that used Void, Gravity, Time, or Space. The problem was that anything really powerful using one of those elements would be complicated and, thus, difficult and time-consuming to learn. Considering that she was already behind where he wanted her to be with learning techniques, something simple would be best for the proof of concept test. It felt wasteful to use points to create something that no-one else was likely to use, though.
Hmm.
The vast majority of his sect members were Nature aspected. If he created a basic offensive technique and stuck it in the Contribution Points Shop, he bet a bunch of people would eventually buy it. Simple and easy to learn did not mean worthless. In fact, both those qualities possessed an intrinsic value to a cultivator.
After a moment’s thought, he created Ensnarl, a crowd control skill that allowed the user to influence existing nearby plant material to grab an opponent. It wasn’t super powerful as any Foundation Establishment realm cultivator could easily break a mundane plant. At the right moment, though, the technique could be a great distraction or a way to trip an opponent or deflect a blow.
Since the user wasn’t actually creating anything with qi, the technique was very efficient. Benton set Power to ten to give it a bit of oomph but mainly focused on Ease, allocating the remaining ninety points to that category. Between that setting and the simplicity of the technique, it should be the easiest one to learn out of all that he’d created. He figured that it would be attractive enough to his sect members that he’d easily eventually earn a profit on his eight points.
He handed the jade slip to her. “Your primary goal should be getting your sword technique to Large Success but make this your secondary focus. Once you reach Small Success, I’ll watch you demonstrate it.”
All he really needed was to sense the qi coming from her as she practiced the technique, which she’d be able to produce a long time before she reached Small Success. Waiting until that milestone would allow him to judge things like her conversion efficiency as well, though.
Too bad he didn’t have any other Nature users who had reached Foundation Establishment. It would have been interesting to compare her results with someone else at the same stage.
Oh well, maybe he could arrange those kinds of tests in the future.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“The good thing is that, since you don’t have to cultivate nearly as much as everyone else, you have a lot more time to practice techniques. Be diligent.”
“I will, Master!”
Such a good kid.
After a quick goodbye, he teleported back to his office and considered his next task. His overall goal was to accomplish everything on his To Do List so that he could turn his attention fully to acquiring materials for the qi sources. The biggest, most time consuming item left was obviously creating the Grand Defensive Formation at Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town.
The other big item was creating the hundreds of Qi Gathering Pills he needed. That task could wait until after constructing the GDF, but there was also the precursor activity of herb acquisition to consider. Those would need to be purchased in Sixth Flawless Flowing City. Which, on one hand, was no problem. He had plenty of spirit coins and could always make more.
Travel to, from, and inside the city was more problematic. After the twins had encountered trouble last time, he really didn’t want to send them back there, and Fatty Ren’s position was really too important for him to be used as an errand boy.
Benton really felt he should just go himself. It would be easy. Just teleport to the shops he knew and teleport back. He’d be in and out before the Jade Chameleons discovered anything about it.
Unfortunately, he didn’t know enough about the etiquette of the situation. For all he knew, the City Lord might get ticked about him just teleporting in and out.
Benton sighed. The best course of action was to message Kang Ya-Ting for advice. Asking for help in that manner wasn’t Benton’s preference, but it was better than making a misstep that might lead to more people getting hurt.
He penned a quick message explaining the situation and requesting the elder’s opinion on the best way to acquire the materials. The message, of course, included a blank page for the reply. The messages the Poison Claw Sect used were way too slow.
Sending one message reminded Benton that he needed to send others as well—a threat for the Jade Chameleons, warnings to the Emperor’s faction and the Swift Blizzard Sect, and a notification to Kang Ya-Ting about the other messages.
The first one was the most strongly worded.
Chameleons,
You have attacked the Rising Tide Sect for the last time. Any future hostile act perpetrated by your sect will result in the complete destruction of your main sect grounds and the elimination of all your members who are at the Golden Core realm and higher. Do not test me.
Chao Su
Rising Tide Sect Leader
The second was much more diplomatic.
City Lord Luo Quan,
Greetings. As you have probably heard, the Jade Chameleon Sect sent two Nascent Soul cultivators to attack my Rising Tide Sect main branch. This incursion was unprovoked and resulted in damages to my sect grounds.
Fortunately, no one besides the two intruders were harmed.
Upon the advice of my friends at the Poison Claw Sect, I am not pursuing further vengeance on the Jade Chameleon Sect at this time. However, my patience grows short. If there are any future attacks, I will be forced to eradicate that sect and all their members at a higher realm than Foundation Establishment.
I have notified the Jade Chameleon Sect of this consequence.
Please be aware that any sect or faction that allies with the Jade Chameleon Sect for an attack on my Rising Tide Sect is subject the same consequences.
I appreciate your consideration of this matter and implore you to use whatever means you have at your disposal to discourage the Jade Chameleon Sect and/or any other entities for pursuing such a self-destructive course of action.
Sincerely,
Chao Su
Rising Tide Sect Leader
PS: Note that, as a matter of courtesy, I would have returned the bodies of the two Nascent Souls to the Jade Chameleon Sect for proper burial, but I was unable to do so because there simply was not enough of the former cultivators left.
The third message was the same as the second, except it was addressed to Mao Biya of the Swift Blizzard Sect. Finally, the fourth message was short and sweet, providing copies of the other messages to Kang Ya-Ting for information purposes.
With a small application of qi, all four messages were quickly dispatched.
Cool. Another item checked off the list!
Comments
musashi
Surprised generic energy isn't a qi aspect. Light would be a great starter aspect. And void is odd in quietly destroying matter, where does the energy go?
alberforth
TFTC, please tell me we'll get a jade chameleon POV where they read the letter
