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Chapter 132 – A Dangerous Position
🕑 Added 2024-11-04 01:41:47 +0000 UTCDespite all the knowledge of formations that had been crammed into Benton’s head, he’d never actually created one. From experience, he knew that converting the System’s downloaded skills into actual concrete abilities meant practicing. To that end, he acquired some scrap Orange Vigor Spirit Wood left over from building the sect wall.
Before the planks and posts were assembled into sections, each piece had to be alchemically treated. Thankfully, the baths for that purpose were reusable, and the village still had a large supply from the days of the Righteous Rain Sect. Apparently, the sect cultivators had made absolutely huge batches of the stuff at once because they all hated having to deliver it to the village.
Their laziness was Benton’s gain. At some point, of course, they’d run out, and he’d have to recreate the formula and have his own Alchemy Pavilion begin producing the stuff. They were fine for a while, though, definitely long enough to complete the wall around the initial five acres he had planned.
The wood was already highly resistant to physical damage, and the treatment brought out its resistance to damage caused by qi-based attacks. And unfortunately, the wood considered any attempt to mar its surface as an attack, including inscribing it for the purpose of creating a formation.
Thus, even with the high-quality inscribing tool provided by the System, even making a mark on the wood was a bit of a pain, requiring a great deal of constant pressure. Any deviation in the depth or width of the inscription caused an inefficiency in the formation, and enough inefficiencies might result in the formation being too easy to defeat or for it not to work at all.
The problem was that he had around three thousand linear feet to inscribe, and close didn’t count. If he didn’t complete the full circuit of the wall, the entire effort was worthless. By the same token, a formation that was too inefficient risked failing completely.
Benton quickly came to realize that his chosen endeavor was going to be a massive pain in the butt, requiring him to meticulously carve twenty-four hours a day for almost a week. He wouldn’t say he typically struggled with immersing himself in a task or keeping his attention on something, but the extreme intensity and length of focus required was a bit much.
There was no help for it, though. Unless the coming beast tide was the weakest, lamest one in history, the area surrounding the village wall would be simply teeming with beasts, all seeking to kill the people within.
The formation was the only way to keep his sect members and the villagers safe.
So, he practiced. And practiced. And practiced.
By sunset, he could consistently create defensive formations on the scrap wood that his Analyze skill judged to be low earth grade. Which wasn’t bad. He couldn’t have honestly expected to pick up the skill in a day and produce heaven grade results. Even if he figured on a slight degradation to his giant formation due to fatigue and boredom, he should still be able to hit low to mid profound grade, which should perform in a perfectly acceptable manner.
Okay. With that goal in mind, he started toward the gate. Only to stop suddenly.
Wait. What was he thinking? Since when was low to mid profound grade acceptable?
From Su’s memories, mortal grade was pure crap, produced by novice crafters and suitable only for use cases in which quality simply was not an important consideration. In contrast, profound grade was what the majority of cultivators used. The quality was sufficient not to be destroyed too easily, and the cost was quite reasonable. Earth grade was reserved for experts that had the resources to pay for the best.
Heaven grade was a legendary existence rarely seen by most common cultivators.
So, yeah, profound grade was perfectly acceptable. For a common cultivator. Which Benton most definitely wasn’t. He was a cheating cheater who cheats.
How was he supposed to keep his image as an expert old monster if he churned out profound grade formations?
There had to be a way to use the System to boost his results.
“System, how many points to integrate my extensive knowledge of formations with my Analyze skill to be able to quickly and easily detect flaws?”
Honestly, that amount was exactly what he was expecting, and the upgrade was totally worth it.
“Sold. System, please confirm choice.”
Benton looked at one of his low earth grade defensive formations with Analyze active, expecting any flaws to become immediately apparent, but nothing seemed different. He was about to ask the System what the deal was but, instead, took a moment to think about the problem.
Formations worked by channeling qi through pathways to create distinct patterns. If he were to think of it as a software program, the pathways were the code, and to figure out where the bugs were, he had to first try to run the program.
To that end, he used his Rank 3 Formation technique to infuse a tiny amount of earth qi into the formation, and sure enough, Analyze took over from there. It was kind of like watching water flow through carved conduits. Every place the water bunched up instead of moving smoothly created a small inefficiency. Every place where a curve was too tight or too long created a small inefficiency. Every place where the conduit was carved just a tad too deeply created a small inefficiency.
All those small inefficiencies lowered the grade of the formation.
Benton went back and corrected where he could. Some of the mistakes, like a section where he’d applied too much strength and gouged the wood, weren’t recoverable, but most were. By shaving a bit off here and rounding a corner there, the qi flowed much more smoothly.
The formation grade increased to top earth.
That was still low, of course, so he tried again with a new piece of scrap wood. Just knowing what mistakes to look for made the latest effort much better. It took him a little bit longer, but his initial result was low heaven. After spending several minutes perfecting the channels, he got the formation all the way to top heaven.
Perfect.
Well, not quite. There were still a couple of areas with minute disturbances, but the formation was within the tolerance to be judged at the top.
Benton was ready to begin on the wall. He worked through the night, and by morning, he was ready to quit. Hour after hour of meticulously creating the same pattern over and over on one section of wood after the next was mind numbing. At the same time, the process was stressful in that a single wrong stroke or putting a bit too much pressure or too little at any point would drag down the overall performance. The combination of the two extremes was exhausting.
At the end of about ten hours of work, he’d only finished about one hundred fifty linear feet. His calculations told him that he needed to complete close to eighteen an hour to finish in a week.
Not good enough.
Of course, he felt like he was getting faster as he progressed, his muscles developing memory of the strokes and pressure required. The last section he finished required fewer corrective measures than the first one had.
Regardless, there was nothing for it but to continue. The job was essential. It had to be completed before the tide.
So, Benton pressed on. Hour after hour, day after day, until, finally, the entire three thousand feet of wall was complete.
During the seven days and nights the project had taken, he’d taken few breaks, consuming only spirit coins to keep himself fed. Which was a handy thing that Golden Core cultivators could do. Not as fun or tasty as eating food but darn convenient.
One of those breaks, however, had been important. He’d visited the woodworkers and arranged for them to create a housing for the formation’s main control node. Once he completed the last of the inscriptions, he placed that cover over the node.
There were two common qi elements considered to be strong in defense—earth and ice. Earth’s biggest weakness was water, which wasn’t a prevalent type among the spirit beasts they’d encountered. In contrast, ice’s vulnerability, fire, occurred in abundance.
Thus, Benton’s choice was fairly easy. He imbued the formation with earth qi and smiled down at the finished product.
Done. Finally.
The grin only lasted until he examined it with Analyze.
Low heaven. He’d been more distracted by boredom than he’d anticipated.
His first impulse was to fix it, but he considered the issue. Best case scenario, he had less than a week before the beast tide started. Worst case, hours. There were other priorities much higher than troubleshooting the formation to increase its ranking, though he sure wanted to.
It didn’t occur to him until at that very point that increasing his Mind Cultivation probably would have helped him focus. Doh! Oh well, he added that task to his mental To Do list before the next time he took on a major formation.
Next, he sat down and began making earth spirit coins. He had no idea how much qi the formation would use when it was under heavy attack, so he wanted to have an abundance of ten thousand qi coins to feed it. After creating a hundred, he gathered some of his core defenders—the twins, Kang Lin, Zou Tian, Ye Zan, and … Jin LiJuan.
From their expressions, the others were somewhat perplexed by the inclusion of the little girl with the damaged cultivation who hadn’t even reached the second minor realm yet in a discussion about the village’s defense. Honestly, Li’er looked just as confused.
“Good news, all. The formation is complete.” Benton scratched the back of his neck. “Keep in mind that this was a rush job, so it’s not quite up to my normal standards. Frankly, its rank is lacking.”
“That’s okay, Master,” Yang Xiu said. “We all saw you working night and day to complete it. Speed was more essential than quality.”
Kang Lin grimaced. “To an extent, of course, Master. The formation is at least low profound grade, right? Otherwise…”
Benton gave the girl his best What-you-talkin-bout-Willis face. “Look, this is a little embarrassing, so I’d prefer you not tell your grandfather about it. But it’s not unusable or anything. It’s low heaven grade.”
Kang Lin’s jaw dropped. “You think low heaven is … inferior, Master?”
“Obviously, compared to mid heaven or top heaven, low heaven is definitely inferior.”
In response, her jaw moved, but no words emerged.
The girl was definitely Benton’s favorite person to mess with. She had even better reactions than the mayor.
“Anyway,” he said, “the whole point of the formation is to keep beasts outside the village, so since I inscribed the inside of the wall, the barrier should hold. If they do somehow get in, even a scratch through the lines can disrupt the flow of qi, bringing the entire thing down. Please advise everyone of this vulnerability. Note, though, that it would take quite a bit of force to accomplish this feat, ranks four and up definitely.”
They all nodded.
“The barrier’s other vulnerability is running out of qi.” Benton pulled a bag of spirit coins from his ring and extracted one of them. He placed it in a slot on top of the housing covering the central node and added four more atop the first. “The barrier is one hundred percent powered at the moment. As soon as a beast attacks it, qi will be consumed. The formation will absorb what it needs from that bottom coin.
“This one point is the sole place to feed qi into the formation. If the formation runs out of qi, it no longer functions. If the formation no longer functions, beasts swarm the village and kill lots of people. Understand the vital importance of keeping coins supplied to this slot?”
“Yes, Master,” the six chorused.
“Not only is the job important, it’s dangerous,” Benton said. “A tremendous amount of qi is stored in this node. Spirit beasts will be attracted to that enormous concentration. If they somehow make it inside the village, this spot will be a target. It must be protected. Understand?”
“Yes, Master.”
Benton got down on a knee to bring himself to eye level with Jin LiJuan. “I thought long and hard about who I could entrust with the important task of feeding spirit coins to the formation. There will be a lot going on. Yelling. Fighting. Maybe people dying. The person doing this job has to remember that there is literally nothing more important than keeping five coins in this slot. Who can I trust not to get distracted? Who owes the sect so much that they will dedicate themselves to not messing up this critical job?”
If he had his way, Jin LiJuan would have been transported to Sixth Flawless Flowing City to wait out the beast tide in safety, but that never would have worked. If she was to be a part of the sect, she needed to be right there with her brothers and sisters defending the village, but she had no skills to do so. Feeding spirit coins into the slot took no special abilities, though.
He just hated it that the position was so dangerous.
“What do you think, Jin LiJuan?” Benton said. “Will you take on this important, dangerous assignment for the good of the sect and the village?”
The little girl’s eyes glistened. “Yes, Master.”
“Good. I’m counting on you. We’re all counting on you.” He handed her the bag of coins. “I’ll try to get you more of these before the tide starts. In the meantime, keep them safe.”
“Yes, Master.”
A horrible thought hit him.
Benton pulled a different coin from his bag. “This is what happens when you touch a coin to any part of your mouth.”
He touched the coin with his tongue. It immediately dissolved, flooding his body with qi.
“That doesn’t hurt me at all. Yang Xiu, Yang Ru, or Kang Lin would find eating one of the coins you have to be unpleasant. Very unpleasant. If any other person in this village, even Wan Ai who is farther along in her cultivation than anyone else besides the ones I mentioned, were to eat one of these coins… Instant. Painful. Death. Clear?”
Jin LiJuan swallowed hard. “Clear, Master.”
Benton met Ye Zan’s eyes. “Assign someone you trust to monitor this location. Protect it as long as is feasible. If it becomes no longer feasible to protect it, have them drag her to safety.”
“Yes, Master,” Ye Zan said. “I will protect her with my life.”
Benton almost objected but stopped himself. Instead, he cupped his hands. “Gratitude.”
He was putting Jin LiJuan in a dangerous position, but there were no safe positions in a beast tide. The best he could do for her was arrange for her protection. He just hoped it would be enough.
Comments
Gopard
Thanks for the chapter!
richard C bond
As far as I can tell he created the formation but only validated that it was correctly formed, he didn't do any actual testing. I picture our protagonist going to find some straggling spirit beast and chucking it at the barrier to see if it goes through...
Sarah Grfghlt
Thanks for the awesome chapters! Can‘t wait for the actual beast wave and the aftermath of it all. Very exciting
Daoist_Matt
Thank you Mr Superb Author Sir. I’m sadly already done reading the new chapters 😔 they were too good. Maybe you need to go down in quality, rather than continuously going up?
Shawn Morwood
thanks for the update of great chapters
