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Chapter 182 – A Complete Idiot
🕑 Added 2025-01-25 16:29:14 +0000 UTCBenton offered to induct Fatty Ren into the Rising Tide Sect immediately, but the Town Lord was too concerned about his former and future fellow sect members to focus on his own advancement. He insisted on summoning them to the palace immediately.
Not wanting to waste time, Benton decided to bring up the organization of the sect and the new sect branch. Fatty Ren would obviously be the branch leader for Vermilion Incomparable Rain Town, but his high cultivation realm created a major issue for Benton.
“I like you, Fatty Ren. You’re loyal and a diligent cultivator,” Benton said. “We can do great things together. We’ll build a fantastic sect.”
“But, Friend Su? I definitely sensed a ‘but’ coming.”
“But there is little trust between us, yet. As the second highest realmed cultivator in the entire sect, especially as one who will probably be advancing to Golden Core soon, you rightly should be placed second in command of the entire Rising Tide Sect, but I can’t do that. For one thing, I have two core disciples who I intend to inherit the sect. You cannot be placed above them.”
Fatty Ren nodded. “Fighting was something that came easy to me. Even before joining the sect, I was a big guy, stronger than others. And I wasn’t afraid of pain. I exceled in the arena. Up until after my breakthrough to Foundation Establishment, my cultivation came easily to me, too.” He paused. “I was never very ambitious, though. I didn’t seek to lead missions or form a faction or even try to teach others my methods in the Martial Pavilion. I never asked to be City Lord.”
Benton was very relieved that the big guy wasn’t planning on pushing to be put in what could be considered his rightful place. “I am so glad you understand and promise to find ways to compensate you for being so agreeable. You will, of course, still be needed to fill a leadership role here. You understand that, right?”
“I understand, Friend Su. Duty is as heavy as a mountain.”
Benton snorted. “Better than the alternative, death being light as a feather. Anyway, I am sorry to be adding more of a leadership burden on your plate. The good thing is that the travel time is minimal when flying, so I can be here as often as I need to be.” He removed a stack of message papers from his spatial ring and gave to Fatty Ren. “Use these whenever you need.”
The Town Lord cupped his hands and accepted the papers.
“Honestly, I’m not sure that I want to replicate pavilions here yet,” Benton said. “For the first several months, all the new inductees will be doing is cultivating, anyway. As long as we provide them a space to do that and provide them with food and everything else they need, there’s not a lot of oversight required initially.”
“You said two hundred people, right, Friend Su? I can house that many here. It might be a little cramped as far as sleeping space, but there’s plenty of room outside to cultivate and spar.”
“Perfect.”
Well, not exactly perfect. It was more like kicking the can down the road to be dealt with at a later time, but that was usually the case when it came to expediting projects. And the expansion of the sect to Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town was definitely a fast-tracked project, considering Benton had only started giving serious consideration to the idea in the last several days.
When he thought about the logistics, though, there was no reason that delaying the organization tasks shouldn’t work. Fatty Ren could draw on the new Town Manager sent from Sixth Flawless Flowing City to organize food and other arrangements for the new members. Considering it would take most of them almost a month to reach Qi Gathering minor realm four, the point at which Benton would allow them to start learning techniques, he had plenty of time to figure out what the heck to do with them after that point.
The decisions weren’t exactly difficult, but they were tricky. Should he send experienced people from the village to the town to be trainers? Or should he send the new inductees from the town to the village for training? Or perhaps, mix and match. Some stay in the town and some go to the village.
Ugh. Not decisions he wanted to make immediately. Better to get the full council on it, anyway.
Yeah. Kick the can down the road. Definitely.
Soon after Benton and Fatty Ren reached that conclusion, the four former Righteous Rain Sect members arrived, and Fatty Ren introduced them.
“These three are my junior brothers—Song Yongliang, who is in the seventh minor realm, and Su Cai and Dai Weimin, who are both in the fifth minor realm.” He moved over to stand beside the lone female. “And this is my junior sister, Sun Jiao, who is in the sixth minor realm.”
“Greetings, junior cultivators. I am Chao Su, leader of the Rising Tide Sect.”
“Greetings, Esteemed Sect Leader,” the four chorused.
“City Lord Fatty Ren has decided to join my sect,” Benton said.
The four looked absolutely stunned.
“I guaranteed him that I will assist him in breaking through to Golden Core in the very near future,” Benton said.
“Was there a time limit given for this miraculous breakthrough?” Song Yongliang said.
Fatty Ren opened his mouth, probably to castigate his junior for being so rude in tone, in the content of his question, and in not using an honorific.
Benton held up a hand to forestall the Town Lord. “It is good to be skeptical of promises, and you are right. I did not specify a time frame. My hope is to resolve the situation in a few days, but it could take as much as a week. Honestly, though, until we test a few approaches, I can’t tell you how long it will take. All I can promise is that I will devote significant attention to the problem, and it will be resolved. Soon.”
Song Yongliang looked like he wanted to object again, but Fatty Ren spoke up.
“Junior Brother, do not be rude again. Friend Su has proven himself to me, and I have the utmost confidence in his ability to deliver.”
Neither Song Yongliang nor the others looked happy, but no one further voiced concerns.
“Fatty Ren has summoned you so that I may examine each of you to determine how to correct the damage caused by the demonic cultivators’ attacks,” Benton said.
The four looked just as skeptical about his current claim as they did the previous one.
“I make no promises about my ability to correct the damage, but I am extremely confident that no one on this continent is better equipped to diagnose the problem than I am.”
After a glare from Fatty Ren, none of them spoke. Song Yongliang, in particular, looked like he was biting his tongue to keep from voicing his complaint, but he didn’t actually say anything.
Benton sighed. He could definitely relate to their suspicion, but it was mildly annoying all the same. In the end, though, their attitude didn’t matter. As long as they complied with what he told them to do, he’d let the matter slide.
Then again, he was a sect leader. Disrespecting him was disrespecting the sect. He didn’t want to turn into a stereotypical cultivator who ran around demanding to be given face, but maybe a little lesson was in order.
He used his technique to increase the pull of gravity by ten times on each of the four Qi Gathering cultivators. The two ones in the fifth minor realm fell to their knees. The other two resisted.
Benton doubled the pull on the two still standing, forcing them to the ground. “Whether you believe me or not is immaterial. Frankly, I don’t care what you think. I am, however, a sect leader and a cultivator much, much higher in realm than you. You will extend me respect.”
All four of them cupped their hands.
“Apologies, Esteemed Sect Leader,” Song Yongliang said. “This lowly one forgot himself, having not been in an actual sect in twenty years.”
Benton released the Gravity technique and reflected on what he had just done. He’d forced four people into a submissive position just because they weren’t being respectful enough to him. That was not something he would have done back on Earth even if he’d had the ability to do so.
Living on a cultivation planet was changing him.
Then again, he wasn’t sure his actions were incorrect. Providing protection to his weak sect members meant being a true sect leader. There was a reason that people in his position demanded respect. If those four cultivators didn’t fear him, his existence didn’t provide the deterrent he and his disciples needed.
“Very well,” he said. “Keep your opinions to yourselves, even from your faces, and do what I tell you to do, and I will forget this unpleasantness. Song Yongliang, come forward and give me your hand.”
As the young man hesitantly walked forward, Benton scanned him.
The first bit of information was exactly what Benton had expected as far as name, age, and realm went. Like with Fatty Ren, the man’s affiliation was associated with the town instead of the sect. Maybe its destruction had removed it as a valid organization? There was a lot of things like that about the System that Benton didn’t know.
He also didn’t know what the two techniques other than the sword art did, but he could guess that the first was some kind of movement skill and the other maybe something to do with stealth? The interesting thing was that they were all at Mastery.
Usually, once a cultivator mastered all his techniques, he’d find a new one to start working on. Either the young man followed a different philosophy, or he didn’t have access to any other techniques.
His spiritual roots were fine, equal to Kang Lin’s prior to her recent upgrade, and his water related aspect was somewhat expected as a former member of the Righteous Rain sect.
Benton grabbed the young man’s hand and sent a pulse of qi through his body. The results the spiritual sense returned were interesting. There wasn’t a thing wrong with him.
His cultivation was fine, exactly what Benton would have expected for someone in the seventh minor realm of Qi Gathering. The cultivation method being used was inferior to anything one of Benton’s disciples had access to, but it wasn’t horrible. There was no reason Song Yongliang shouldn’t be well into the Foundation Establishment realm.
Literally. Benton didn’t find even the slightest discord. Likewise, there was no damage to either the dantian, meridians, or channels. According to everything that Benton could find, the young man should be sailing through the minor realms.
“Interesting,” Benton said, dropping the hand. “Sun Jiao, as the second highest realmed, I’ll examine you next. Please let me touch your finger.”
The young woman was demonstratively more reticent than Song Yongliang, but she bravely stepped forward and extended her hand. Benton grabbed it and sent a pulse of qi into her body, finding the same thing as he had with the young man. She was perfectly healthy with only the most minor of discords, one that shouldn’t have prevented her from breaking through to the next major realm, much less the next minor one.
After releasing her hand, Benton discovered that she, too, had mastered three techniques and had a water related qi aspect. Sun Jiao’s talent was slightly inferior to Song Yongliang’s at a C- but was still quite respectable.
There was no reason for either of those two not to be advancing.
By that point, Benton was engrossed in figuring out the problem. He curtly ordered the other two young men to be examined in turn. Both of them were D ranked and had mastered three techniques. Dai Weimin was water aspected.
Finding three out of the four to match the sect’s obvious qi preference was against Benton’s expectations. Neither Su’s old sect nor the Poison Claw Sect was close to being so homogenous. Since Water was one of the five primary elements, cultivators with that aspect were much more common than any particular secondary element. Maybe the Righteous Rain Sect was really selective.
Regardless, none of that mattered to the problem at hand. The point was that all four of the cultivators should be advancing without issue. Benton couldn’t find the problem.
After all his previous bluster in telling them how qualified he was to diagnose the issue, announcing the fact that he couldn’t was going to make him look like a complete idiot. Crap.
Comments
Pagemaster
And I have no doubt soul cultivation has just as many tangible benefits as mind cultivation. It would be one thing if he was running tight on points, but he has plenty. I personally hope that if he raises both soul and mind his cultivation to his current limit then essentially the system says achievement unlocked and maybe all his cultivation unifies or something like that.
ShadeByTheSea
I kinda want him to try and buy a soul diagnosis skill and the system tell him no because his soul cultivation is too low.
ShadeByTheSea
Specially when they are so cheap and the mind one has tangible benefits like with formations.
Pagemaster
Is he FINALLY going to upgrade soul cultivation because that sounds like what he needs here?! Probably not because Benton seems to hate Soul and Mind cultivation for some reason.
jean
system save buy the answer maybe? :P
joshua adkins
I'm betting they have been holding themselves back in order to make it easier for Fatty Ren to stay the City Lord as the strongest.
The Friendly Plague Doctor
Probably a soul thing right?
