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Chapter 157 – Well Played
🕑 Added 2024-12-14 03:55:00 +0000 UTCBenton slowly lessened the effect of his gravity burst, lowering him to the ground. Once he landed, he stowed the cyclops’ corpse in his spatial ring. It occurred to him that the fight would have gone a lot better had he known about the beast’s weakness earlier.
He should do something about that oversight, but it wasn’t like he could just snap his fingers and gain as much knowledge of spirit beasts as he wanted. Oh wait…
Next time he was spending points, he’d add that technique to his buy list.
Self-recrimination complete, he turned his attention to the question posed by the popup. Did he want to choose his rewards?
A far higher priority in his opinion was to get back to the village and make sure that everyone was okay. He was low enough on qi that he’d need to consume a handful of spirit coins to afford a Quickstep traversing such a great distance, but he had plenty of the consumables available.
As he glanced down at himself, his appearance gave him pause. Far from looking like an all-knowing mysterious master, he looked more like a hobo than he had since he’d first appeared at the village. He really didn’t want his disciples to see him dressed in torn, dirty, bloody robes.
But he needed to know if everyone was alright. Soon. Now.
Then it hit him. One of the rewards was contingent on the percentage of people surviving. The System should be able to tell him that quantity, and sure enough, after he posed the question, it did just that.
He let out a very relieved breath. Everyone had survived. That was the best news he could have gotten.
For a moment, he worried that some of them might have ended up injured, needing him to come heal them, but he remembered how many pills he’d left them with. They’d be fine.
Feeling like he’d been rushing around like a chicken with its head cut off for entirely too long, he took a very deep breath and exhaled slowly. He took a moment to appreciate what he’d accomplished.
In less than a year, he’d built a sect of over two hundred members who were progressing nicely and who seemed to hold him in high regard. They’d surely had challenges at the village with the spirit beasts that attacked, and they’d come through those fights stronger.
He himself had become quite overpowered. A regular cultivator of his level would not have been able to defeat a beast with an aura, especially not one strong enough to control a beast tide. His techniques were complete cheats.
Benton had a lot of be proud of.
After a few moments of letting himself bask in his and his sect members accomplishments, he sighed. There were miles to go before his slept. First things first. Getting clean.
He Quickstepped to a nearby pond, bathed, and dressed in a fresh robe. After finishing, he felt much, much better. Refreshed.
Satisfied that his sect could survive without him for a little while longer, he said, “System, I’m ready to choose my rewards.”
Benton’s first impulse was to feel quite good about receiving top marks. His second impulse was to dig deeper into the first of the two prizes. Both won to one extent or the other.
If he grokked that correctly, the benefit would allow him to immediately ascend to Nascent Soul and, upon reaching one thousand sect members with the required minimum Average Loyalty, he’d be able to ascend to Nihility.
That was nice. There were only a handful of Nascent Soul cultivators on the continent and none at Nihility level that anyone knew about. He’d be quickly catapulted to, or even above, the ranks of the best.
He asked the System about the next choice.
That prize was ludicrous. Groundbreaking. The reward would allow an E to move to E+ or an F- to an F. Immediately. With apparently no chance of failure.
More importantly, a E+ could move to a D- and so on for D+ to C-, C+ to B-, B+ to A-, and something that boggled his mind, presumably from A+ to S-.
Jumping to the next major rank was a big deal, changing the destiny of the cultivator in question.
Crazy.
Even if not moving to another major rank, each of his sect members from now to forever would be a bit stronger, achieve a bit higher realm, reach each minor realm a bit faster, and learn their techniques a bit easier. For each sect member, it would be a small but important increase. For the sect as a whole multiplied over eventually thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of members, it was absolutely amazing.
Once word got out that his sect offered such a boon, he’d have to beat away applicants with a stick. He’d have to beat away other sects with a stick as well, but that was a problem for future Benton.
His inclination was that there was really no choice. He was all about making his disciples stronger, not himself. Besides, whatever criteria the System threw at him, he was confident that he would eventually reach, and with the beast tide conquered, there was no pressing need for him to advance quickly.
At fifty sect members per month and with the overall mood of the villagers favorable to him, he fully expected to fulfill the criteria for Nascent Soul in less than a year in a half and probably much faster than that. Maybe even under a year.
Cultivation was a journey of centuries and millennia. Prioritizing speeding his journey at this low stage made no sense. In comparison, helping untold numbers of his sect members was too good an opportunity to pass up.
“System, the description says that the sect members will be allowed a choice if I pick that benefit. How does that work exactly?”
Benton nodded. He’d been scared that they would all suddenly get pop up screens. The ability to spontaneously upgrade their rank was weird enough. Adding strange floating boxes to it would be a little excessive.
He definitely planned to take that second option but decided to wait to officially claim it until after he had a chance to prepare his people.
“System, I want to see the second reward.”
Benton asked the System to explain the first choice.
Captain Obvious much?
“System, I need more information than that. Please give me basic background on bloodlines and information such as can the sect members choose a bloodline? How much can it be improved? Etc.”
Okay. That cleared things up quite a bit. He liked adding power for his disciples and per Su’s memories, bloodlines could either greatly ease a cultivator’s difficulty in advancing or enhance physical prowess or grant the use of an overpowered technique or any number of other possibilities. It sounded, though, like the exact benefit was random, a fact that he didn’t appreciate at all.
“System, tell me about the Trials Pagoda.”
Through a series of questions, he learned some interesting facts about the Trials Pagoda, including the variable safety of the trials, ranging from completely safe for advancing cultivation and techniques to possibly deadly when trying to improve spiritual roots. Given that death was on the table, he started to sour on the concept of the trials.
Then again, that result was only for the most important of the three trial types, which was a complete gamechanger. After all, there was nothing that said a sect member couldn’t improve their roots multiple times, assuming they were willing to risk death and he was willing to spend the Sect Points.
At first, he didn’t see the first type as a huge add, thinking it basically just sped up what his sect members would accomplish anyway. In an emergency like the approaching beast tide, it would have been worth it to spend Sect Points to get a few more cultivators into the Foundation Establishment realm, but with that potential disaster averted, they could afford to take things more slowly.
After a bit of thought, though, he understood the true benefit of that trial type—bottlenecks. Sometimes, cultivators hit a wall and couldn’t advance their realm or their technique, regardless of resources, the quality of their methods and techniques, or their talent level. They might get stuck for a month or a year or a decade. They might never breakthrough.
If he understood the System correctly, the pagoda could help with that.
The second trial type also provided a big benefit. A cultivator was born with their qi aspect. Given his maxim about being in a cultivation world, he was positive that someone somewhere knew how to add to it or modify it, but from Benton’s knowledge and Su’s memory, he didn’t know of a way other than the offered trial.
He’d already seen how much benefit having access to multiple qi aspects offered. The thought of his sect members having a similar, albeit more limited version, made him happy.
With the three trials and given enough Sect Points, he could raise almost anyone to immortal status.
That realization led him to another equally profound one—the trials pagoda was a freaking point sink. He shook his head. Every game had them, and he should have suspected something like it happening once Sect Points started to become so prevalent that he literally had no idea what he would spend all of them on.
Darn.
“Well played, System. Well played.”
Comments
Jeff091
hi, thanks for the story typo There were miles to go before his slept. his--> he
Gopard
Thanks for the chapter!
Sarah Grfghlt
I think not everything should be handed on a silver platter for the disciples therefore I would prefer the pagoda. The should choose their own way forward and what they are willing to risk. They are way too safe now and benton should learn to loosen up a bit on them for their own sake and the world they are living in.
richard bond
So Yang Lin will go from a C+ talent to a B-... Will she now feel comfortable dating Yang Ru? I find myself invested. Also looking forward to her reaction.
Pagemaster
Hopefully he will get them both to their equivalent of Golden Core otherwise how else can he help his disciples walk those paths.
richard bond
"disciples will be allowed the choose to" - should be "choice"
Alnatura
But bloodlines will be more cost effektiv. It is a hard choice.
Hamed Al-Ghamdi
Huh, so this is why this sect would have its tournaments. for the privilege of entering the pagoda.
RedFaux
I'd imagine so. Better than she can after the medicine anyway
Alnatura
I would pick Upgrade for the sect members roots and pick the trials over the bloodlines. I fear bloodlines will lead to faction building within the sect throughout the centuries.
BelligerentGnu
This is a very tough choice. Bloodline is probably better overall, cost/benefit wise, but trials is more meritocracy.
zachary fuller
I think the bloodline one would be cool I am betting that most the village has one and thats why they are all some type of nature bloodline.
FillerArc
Can the lil girl who couldn't cultivate do so now ? O.o
RedFaux
And Mind and Soul Cultivation are pulled further away... Though I do wonder just how good the twins can get if he went ALL IN on root quality
