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Chapter 234 – Chillax Time
🕑 Added 2025-04-05 15:16:04 +0000 UTCAfter finishing the Rising Tide Sect’s Grand Defensive Formation, Benton took a break. In the sixteen days since the twins and Kang Lin had returned from Sixth Flawless Flowing City, he’d been working nonstop, first to complete the towers, then to construct the wall, and finally on the massive qi shield. When he had a moment to spare, he activated Time Manipulation and created spirit coins.
Even before the period before starting the defensive measures had been busy for Benton as he’d prepared the sect grounds for move-in. Despite his supernatural stamina, constant work that involved intense concentration wore on him. He was tired and needed to relax. For that entire night, he did nothing but read and sleep and just chill.
The next morning, he Quickstepped down to the second floor of the Administration Hall, finding Sun Hua at her desk.
“Greetings, Sect Leader,” she said, cupping he hands.
He graced her with a warm smile. “The sect is still standing. I don’t hear any peasants with pitchforks and torches storming the building searching for either of us. I take it things went well during the period you were in charge?”
“This lowly assistant believes the sect members progressed adequately while the sect leader was otherwise occupied.”
He laughed. “Good. Anything important that I need to know?”
She presented him with a stack of paper. “Reports of all my activities, Sect Leader.”
Benton looked at the thick stack. Each page seemed to be filled with tightly written characters. He didn’t know how she found time to do anything other than write while he’d been preparing the sect’s defensives. “This is quite the amount of information.”
“I’ll summarize, Sect Leader. The first ten pages are a list of arrays that have demonstrated some form of error or malfunction. The location and type of each formation is noted along with time and date of witnessed errors and a detailed description of the problem. None were deemed important enough to address immediately, though it would be appreciated if fixing the heating array in the cafeteria is made a priority when repairs are effected.”
Benton perused the list. It was quite extensive and very thorough. It was also just what he needed to start teaching the member of the Formation Pavilion how to do repairs. He’d begin that task later if nothing more important drew his attention.
“Your note indicates the cafeteria array was damaged in lieu of simply malfunctioning?” he said.
Sun Hua described a fist fight between two teenage boys that had resulted in a bit of chaos.
Benton sighed. “I suppose they need to be punished.”
“Already taken care of, Sect Leader. This lowly assistant created a Punishment Pavilion, temporarily of course pending your final approval. Senior Sister picked out five promising spear users to serve as enforcers.”
“I see, and who did you pick as the leader?”
“That choice was difficult, Sect Leader,” Sun Hua said. “The most qualified potential applicants were the sect members leading the other pavilions, but Assistant did not deem the job important enough to pull someone from a critical position. The mayor, of course, would have been a perfect choice, but he has the important mission of keeping the village running smoothly, meaning this lowly assistant could not ask him. In the end, this lowly assistant had to, as the Sect Leader would say, think outside the box.”
“Really, how outside the box?”
“Please understand that there were no other sect members that Assistant felt was suited to the position, Sect Leader. The person chosen had to be someone who possessed either great cultivation strength or a strength of will so powerful that others naturally bended to her. Since all the strongest cultivators who were at all suitable for the position had other, more important, duties, Assistant chose someone with the attributes of the latter.”
Benton began to get worried. He wasn’t very dialed in to the various personalities of the villagers, but he'd heard stories about Sun Hua’s mother. The woman did not sound like someone he wanted on his council.
“This lowly assistant begs forgiveness, Sect Leader, but the interim leader of the Punishment Pavilion is Mo Nuying, a mortal.” Sun Hua dropped to her knees and kowtowed. “Please forgive this lowly assistant if that decision has brought shame upon the sect!”
He’d mainly been worried about the girl choosing her mother. Selecting a mortal was no big thing, though he needed to get to know the woman, Mo Nuying. She must be quite the character to have impressed Sun Hua so.
“Rise, Sun Hua. Anyone can become a member of this sect easily enough. The much more important piece of the puzzle is choosing someone who is right for the job,” Benton said. “Creating a Punishment Pavilion was an inspired idea. Well done! And I will withhold judgement on your selection until I meet her and see her at work, but regardless, you will not be punished if I decide to pick someone else instead.”
Slowly the girl rose to her feet and cupped her hands. “Gratitude, Sect Leader.”
“No, Sun Hua.” Benton cupped his hands. “Gratitude to you for taking care of things while I was busy. Is there anything else that I need to know.”
For the next half hour, she filled him in on the various minutia she had handled while he was building the defenses, gaining confidence with each decision he praised her for.
“Again, well done!” he said after she’d completed her report. “The next time I call for a council meeting, we’ll need to add two more members. The first, obviously is Mo Nuying.”
“Of course, Sect Leader. Assistant will make a note so that the inclusion is not forgotten. Who is the second addition?”
“Sun Hua,” he said.
“Yes, Sect Leader?”
Benton grinned. “You misunderstood. I wasn’t calling your name. I was telling you the name of the second addition—Sun Hua.”
“Apologies, Sect Leader. Assistant was not aware of a sect member that shared that name.” The poor girl looked so confused.
He barely held back a chuckle. “Sun Hua, you are the second new member of the council.”
“Oh. Oh!” She cupped her hands. “Gratitude, Sect Leader.”
“You earned it. Good job.” He so much wanted to affectionately tousle her hair, but the young woman was in her twenties. Even if he had been the immortal that everyone thought him to be, he didn’t think he could get by with such an act. Pity.
With that bit of business out of the way, Benton reviewed his gains for the past twenty days and, boy, were there a lot of them.
From Body Cultivation alone, he added one hundred forty points, and those advances reminded him of something important. Due to not wanting to distract Wan Ai from learning pill making, he’d never started the twins on their regimen for Silver. Given that she’d finally been successful in creating one and had then practice from weeks since, he felt fine with giving her a new task. He made a mental note to pop on over there soon and give her a jade slip for each of the two new baths.
The biggest surprise from his notifications were the addition of seventy-five new sect members. Someone, probably either Sun Hua or the mayor had noted that the two-week time period for a new induction were upon them and went ahead with it. Benton couldn’t help but wonder who had conducted the ceremony. And since he’d gotten points, someone must have distributed cultivation methods.
No one in the sect was had spiritual senses like his that could detect talent and qi aspect, so they’d probably just given everyone the basic method that everyone could use. He’d have to check and make sure the newbies had all been given ones appropriate for them. For all he knew, he could have missed a talented genius who deserved an individual method.
Benton also noted that Mo Nuying’s name was included on the list. Good. That was one less think that he had to remember to do.
One expected name was not listing in any of his notifications, though. While someone had been on their toes regarding inducting the new villagers, the same did not go for authorizing the beast core necessary to advance the wolf pup and Jin LiJuan. Benton would also have to check on her soon.
Besides the seventy-five Sect Points he received for the newbies reaching minor realm one, a lot of other movements within Qi Gathering gained him points. The previous set of inductees reached the second minor realm, awarding him another seventy-five. The branch members in Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town and the fourth set of recruits from the village all made it to minor realm three for a whopping two hundred forty-five points. The first set of fifty villagers he’d inducted advanced to minor realm five, giving him yet another fifty points. And finally, and despite the numbers being paltry in comparison, came the notification that made him most happy, both Shi Long and Zou Tian hit minor realm seven. He had comparatively few members reaching the higher minor realms, but each time one advanced so far it was them getting just a little bit closer to Foundation Establishment. Benton couldn’t wait to get all his sect members to that realm.
All told, Spiritual Cultivation gained him four hundred forty-seven points. Not bad. Not bad at all.
Mind and Soul Cultivation finally started paying dividends with his sect members reached the respective second minor realms in their chosen path—one hundred three for the former and one hundred fifty-nine from the latter.
As usual, techniques weren’t quite as lucrative as his other methods for getting points, but Benton wasn’t going to complain. With the secret that persevering in the trials was the key to success, no one else failed, and he gained twenty from the pagoda. The original village inductees also started having more success with advancing their techniques, and them, along with a few others, added another sixty-one points.
All told, his sect members’ diligence in practicing their skills earned him eighty-one points.
Adding all those subtotals gave him a grand total of a whopping nine hundred thirty points. Not as the total he had available. As the total he’d gained in twenty days.
Amazing.
As Benton was wont to do without really even thinking about it, he pulsed his spiritual sense, searching for any dangers, and unlike normal, he found something. Cultivators. Two of them approaching rapidly.
On the plus side, they were only in the Golden Core realm, so he wasn’t too worried about it being an attack. If they were stupid enough to have hostile intent, they were going to be really surprised to find both his Grand Defensive Formation and the two towers operational.
He estimated he had at least a minute or two before they reached the sect grounds, more than enough time to check his status.
Comments
Keldra
"One expected name was not listing in any of his notifications, though." Perhaps "listed"
Black Rose
He should give sun hua special mental cultivation. I think she would benefit a lot
fity0208
Is there anything else that I need to know.” It looks like it's missing a '?'
bonk proof
So, will it be the rival sect who’s name is unimportant, or will it be a neutral meeting.
tonright
I love when I open the site and something was just posted
