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Chapter 193 – Interesting Isn’t All It’s Cracked up to Be
🕑 Added 2025-02-09 05:01:25 +0000 UTCAfter dismissing his disciples, Benton spent the next hour hooking up the residences to the main power supply, and once done, he was pretty happy with his accomplishment getting so many places move-in ready. The area could house over three hundred people at full capacity, and he’d randomly tested many formations to make sure they operated as expected.
They all worked. Climate control, defensive shield, alarm, food preservation, and both water and sanitary all functioned correctly in every place he’d tried. If someone did happen to move into a place and there was a malfunction, he’d just have to fix it when notified as performing one hundred percent quality control just wasn’t efficient.
He mentally checked housing off his To Do List for sect move-in. Perfect.
His next task was a bit more tedious, but it was also more important. In addition to standard arrays for climate control and shields and the like, all the big structures he was using for his pavilions had complex custom formations for various functions. For example, the alchemy building had heating arrays for cauldrons and heat and smoke removal arrays for when experiments went awry. The martial building had all kinds of cool features for protecting people who were sparring and various illusionary opponents to practice against.
Benton had started the process of going through all of those arrays to make sure they worked and removing anything he thought might present a danger to his sect members. Which was more arrays than he thought he would encounter when he’d started. But upon reflection, the dangerous ones made sense. What might be deadly for the Qi Gathering cultivators who made up the majority of his sect was trivial for a Foundation Establishment cultivator to use.
He doubted that anyone below that realm had been allowed in some of the rooms without an escort when the building was in use by the Righteous Rain Sect. The Rising Tide Sect, in contrast, had no spare Foundation Establishment cultivators to employ for that purpose, so it was up to him to make everything safe enough for children … uh, young adult Qi Gathering cultivators.
The exploration wasn’t difficult, but it was tedious. Each building had so many rooms, and when walking into one, he never knew if he would encounter only the standard arrays and be able to leave in minutes or if he’d have to spend hours tracing formations rune by rune.
It was a relief, then, when he sensed a very fast-moving Foundation Establishment cultivator heading toward the village.
In the past, the fact that no other cultivator could sense Benton’s location was occasionally an annoyance. Instead of them heading directly to him at the sect grounds, a visitor would go where they sensed the largest concentration of cultivators, and Benton would have to Quickstep to them.
That bother was relegated to the past with the creation of his message technique. A moment of his time and a few qi later, and a paper dragon was on its way to Fatty Ren.
Benton watched through his spiritual sense, amused, as the big man halted for a moment and then changed course toward the sect grounds. A few minutes and a short Quickstep later, the two met.
“Fatty Ren, when you said you could move fast, I had no idea how truthful you were being. You know, Kang Lin uses lightning qi, and you would leave her in the dust. Well done!”
“It’s nothing, Friend Su. I have a year or two or twenty worth of experience on the young lady. I’m sure when she’s had more time to work on her movement technique, she will, as you put it, leave me in the dust.”
“True enough, but I’m still impressed,” Benton said. “I’ll be even more impressed when you reach Golden Core, and I see you flying back to Vermilion Incomparable Rain Town on a sword.”
“I hope that this lowly one can live up to your expectations, Friend Su. I must confess that I find the prospect of finally advancing to be quite exciting, but at the same time, I fear that I will fail the trial.”
Benton shrugged. “Then either you’ll wait and try again, or we’ll find another way past your bottleneck. Never fear, friend, I fully intent for you to leave here as the Rising Tide Sect’s first Golden Core member.” Well, second if Benton counted himself, which he didn’t. Besides, no one needed to know his actual realm.
As soon as the words left his mouth, a notification popped up.
Benton was pretty darn sure that he knew exactly what the content of those quests were, so he could wait until after his conversation with Fatty Ren to check them out.
“I appreciate your confidence, Friend Su. It has been quite some time since I last held the amount of hope that I do right now. I’m afraid, however, that, even were I to reach Golden Core, you won’t see me flying anytime soon since I can’t afford a flying sword.”
Benton laughed. “You can have one of mine.” He extracted more than a dozen from his spatial ring and let them fall all over the ground. “I’ve managed to pick up far more than I can ever use. Every Golden Core cultivator who tries to kill me ends up contributing another one to my collection.”
Fatty Ren’s eyes went wide. Whether his surprise was at being offered such an expensive treasure or at the casual mention of killing so many high realmed cultivators, Benton didn’t know. It just made him happy to have people around that weren’t so used to him performing impossibilities that they could still be shocked.
He stored the swords back in his ring. “Choosing one of those is a reward for advancing, though, so you don’t get to select it yet.”
The big man cupped his hands. “I understand, Friend Su, and I agree. I want to earn my place.”
“Well, my sect is a little underpowered at the moment, so you’ll be earning just about anything you want at that point. Believe me, adding a Golden Core cultivator to our ranks will make me really happy.”
“Glad to be of service, Friend Su!”
Benton scanned with his spiritual senses and, as he suspected, detected four people standing just out of earshot.
“Great,” Benton said. “Let’s introduce you to several of my disciples, and then we can get you to the Trials Pagoda.”
Fatty Ren, having obviously sensed the four approaching as well, nodded.
Benton used his technique to amplify his voice slightly. “Come on, you four.”
It didn’t take them long to sheepishly reach where Benton and Fatty Ren were talking.
“Greetings, Town Lord Ren,” Kang Lin said.
The others looked at her, and she shrugged.
“Apologies, Master,” Yang Xiu said. “I sensed a cultivator approaching and wanted to make sure everything was okay.”
Yeah. Benton was positive that ensuring his safety was foremost on her mind rather than simple curiosity, especially since it hadn’t been that long ago when he’d informed all of them that a new sect brother would be arriving soon. It was hard to fault them for being inquisitive, though. The trait, when tempered with caution, was a good one for cultivators to have.
“Fatty Ren, you know my disciple, Kang Lin, of the Poison Claw Sect, of course.”
“I do. Greetings, Kang Lin.”
“These other three are your sect sister, Yang Xiu, and your sect brothers, Yang Ru and Zou Tian,” Benton said.
“Greetings, sect sister and sect brothers. I hope for our relationship to be both cordial and fruitful.”
The three cupped their hands. “Greetings, Senior Brother.”
“Your senior brother, in addition to being the Lord of Vermilion Incomparable Rain Town, is also the leader of the Rising Tide Sect branch in that town.” Benton cheered inwardly as he saw the faces of his four disciples. He did still have the ability to surprise them after all.
“Hey,” Benton continued, “since all of you are here, do me a favor. Take your senior brother to the Contribution Points Shop and introduce him to Peng Zhen. Let him know that, as a branch sect leader, anything that Fatty Ren wants should be put on a separate tab that I will reconcile later, including access to the Trials Pagoda. Understood?”
“Yes, Master,” the four chorused.
It was good having help. Much easier to have them show Fatty Ren where to go, leaving Benton to get back to work.
“Fatty Ren?” Benton said.
“Yes, Friend Su?”
“Come and see me as soon as your trial is over, regardless of the outcome. We have matters to discuss.”
“Of course, Friend Su.”
With that, the five left, and as soon as they were out of sight, Benton pulled up the Quest menu to view his four new quests.
There was something very soothing about having the System, the mysterious entity that controlled his entire destiny, doing exactly what he expected it to do. From the quantity of new quests to the content to the rewards, the information displayed matched his expectations.
Maybe it was a little bit boring for the System to be so predictable, but sometimes, boring was good.
What was the old curse? May you live in interesting times?
Yep. When his life and the lives of those he cared about were on the line, interesting wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Give him boring any day of the week.
With his curiosity about the new quests satisfied, he returned to his work examining arrays. It was going to be a long night.
Well, maybe not too long. He’d gone without sleep for a while by that point. Grabbing a couple of hours would be a good idea to keep him sharp. Hopefully soon he’d reach Nascent Soul and would be able to totally avoid the necessity of rest.
As for his current project, he just hoped he could finish it by the end of the next day. He dearly, dearly wished to be able to announce the opening of the sect grounds for use at Ye Zan’s memorial service the day after that.
Benton rubbed his hands together. His sect was really coming together nicely. Moving onto the sect grounds was the next major step.
He couldn’t wait!
Comments
BWFoster78 Last
Yes. To save a little effort I copy pasted from the last set of Quests. Must have missed one of the edits. Thanks!
Dotakiin
The quest here says 'Advance Additional Foundation Establishment Disciple',shouldn't it be Golden Cores?
RedFaux
These sure are some mixed messages form the comments here. For the record, I'm in the "yay slice of life" camp myself
richard bond
I love the slice of life. Everyone getting acclimated to each other is a reward for all.
ck g
Getting boring
