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Chapter 100 – The Night Everything Changed
🕑 Added 2024-10-21 10:08:01 +0000 UTCBenton developed a routine over the next several days, beginning his morning by joining the twins on a sweep of the wood harvesting area and doing check-ins with his sect members and the villagers working on the wall. The craftspeople were actually under-utilized, creating a twenty-feet long by twenty-feet tall section every other day. They informed Benton that they could easily do five times that much, but the harvesters were not producing enough.
The woods had sat fallow long enough that there was plenty of lumber available for cutting, so Benton wasn’t sure what the holdup was. He asked Guang Yin about it. The answer was simple—age. All the harvesters were in their sixties, and having reached only the third and fourth minor realms of Qi Gathering, they weren’t much more spry than a mortal of the same age. Cutting large, supernaturally tough trees was hard work.
Benton wanted to eventually wall off a huge area, but he thought he could live with starting with only five acres. That amount wasn’t nearly large enough for all the buildings he had stored, but it was more than adequate to serve the needs of a sect consisting of only a little over a hundred members.
He did some math. To fence around the entire rectangular space he envisioned would require a bit under two thousand linear feet of wall. At twenty feet every other day, that meant it would be a minimum of two hundred days before he could move his people into their new digs.
That wasn’t good enough.
The first step was to get more manpower. After talking with Mistress Zhong, they upped the number of orphans who would learn harvesting from two to six. Four of the ones from the village were easy to slot due to them having nature aspected qi, and Benton was lucky in that one from the town was wood aspected and another earth. Wood was actually a superior to nature for the particular harvesting involved, and earth was serviceable. Benton’s intent was to switch that latter kid over to growing wood instead of cutting it after the current supply crisis was resolved.
He supplied each of the six new laborers, all at minor realm four, with his harvesting technique. Of course, it would take them a while to even reach Small Success, but just having six more young, willing, strong helpers was a big improvement.
Next, Benton couldn’t help but notice that the tools the men were using weren’t exactly new, and they only had a total of ten sets. And not every tool in every set was in good enough shape to even use. Wincing at the cost, Benton purchased a new set for every harvester for one shop point each.
Production increased dramatically. The new tools cut better and were much more ergonomic than the old ones. And the strong youngsters with outstanding stamina being there for the old men to order around relieved them of a lot of the most backbreaking work.
In the first two days of having the helpers on site, production went up by fifty percent, raising output to thirty linear feet of wall every other day. After two more days with the youngsters learning their jobs and assimilating more of what the technique was telling them to do, it went up to thirty-five.
That number would only improve as the kids gained more experience. Benton expected a big jump when they all hit Small Success.
Wan Ai and Zou Tian continued to be a great team. Five days after the first bath, Ye Zan and two of his guards hit the first minor realm of Bronze Body Cultivation, having immersed themselves three full times. That same day, Wan Ai, who achieved Small Success with the herb technique, and her new assistant, Bai Xinyi, produced enough herbs for twelve baths.
An even bigger event in those days was Yang Xiu advancing to Qi Gathering minor realm eight and after taking a day to consolidate her gains, used a Qi Condensing Pill to advance to minor realm nine. Yang Ru followed the first of those milestones a day later.
The recruits from Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town continued to advance over those days as well, with ten reaching minor realm three in that time period and all eighteen advancing to minor realm four with the help of a pill.
The three points Benton earned that were allocated to his personal use gave him enough to purchase his shield technique, Automatic Reaction Variable Shield, for four points and have a single one left over, which he used to purchase Bronze Body Cultivation to minor realm four.
The big event regarding his personal progress, however, was that big influx of Sect Points put his total over one hundred. As he promised himself, he allocated an additional ten percent for himself, a total of thirty-nine.
Obviously, that big bonanza allowed him to advance quite far toward his final Foundation Establishment Combat Readiness. First, he maxed out archery and spear combat to Mastery and Body Cultivation all the way to Silver minor realm one. Next, he added pausing time, appropriately called the Pause Time Technique by the System, to Small Success, giving him access to all his planned techniques.
Since he considered his void and variable qi attack and quickstep to be his two most important skills, he advanced both of those to Mastery. He didn’t want to neglect his base cultivation, so he advanced that to the fourth minor realm. Finally, with only eight points remaining, he moved the rest of his Foundation Establishment techniques save Pause Time to Large Success.
He pulled up his status.
Not bad. Benton was starting to feel like a real cultivator. He’d finally matched Su in realm and well surpassed him in every other way.
As was his wont, he spent the night in the arena. Since reaching Foundation Establishment, his need for sleep was greatly diminished, but he found himself bored a lot of the time while almost everyone else still needed rest. Sleep helped pass the time.
A noise woke him, and he sat up quickly.
“Master!”
There it was again. Yang Xiu’s voice. Coming from far away, probably from the village.
A scan quickly picked up on the reason for her shout. A rank four spirit beast was within a few yards of her.
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Yang Xiu was woken by a shout and literally jumped up off her pallet. Having just been in the seventh minor realm two days ago and being now in the ninth, she wasn’t quite used to her new strength. She literally hit her head on the ceiling.
“Oof.”
She was really glad that she and her brother had separate bedrooms. He would have never let her live that down.
There was more shouting, though, which was much more important than worrying about bumping her head. It sounded like it was coming from the direction of the main gate.
Yes. The mortal guards there were shouting. Even enhancing her hearing, she couldn’t tell exactly what they were saying.
Yang Ru had been awakened, too, and he popped his head in the door.
“Yes,” she said. “Let’s go.”
They both sprinted, her reducing her speed to keep pace with her slowpoke brother, O’ him of the lower realm than her. Until tomorrow at least.
The scene they arrived upon was chaos. Two guards on the main gate were shouting, basically at the top of their lungs, trying to warn everyone … away? Or to get them to come help? She couldn’t tell.
The source of the guards’ panic was a large, jade-green jaguar. It looked big and angry and, honestly, hungry.
A nearby house that was right next to the village wall had its roof destroyed, and the jaguar stood in a hole leading to what looked like a bedroom. And, oh no, a small, bloody figure lay on the floor behind the creature.
The damage and the position of the jaguar told a clear story. It must have jumped over the wall from the outside and landed on the roof of the house. Mortal materials were nothing against the might of a spirit beast, so it must have clawed through the structure and attacked whatever and whoever it found inside.
Since mortal flesh did not sate such creatures at all, it then began its hunt for its true prey—cultivators.
Well, it sure wasn’t going to prey on her. Yang Xiu nocked an arrow and loosed. The shot flew straight and true, hitting the beast in the eye. And that was how it was done. One less spirit beast in the world.
Except that wasn’t what happened. Her shot hit exactly where she intended. Instead of penetrating through to the creature’s brain, though, it bounced off.
It. Bounced. Off.
She shot another and another, targeting other parts of the big cat’s body. The same thing happened.
The only thing she accomplished was drawing its attention. It eyed her, ready to pounce.
Her brother hadn’t been standing idle during that time, though. He charged, building up momentum as he quickly covered the ground between him and the beast.
Yang Xiu was speed and accuracy. Her brother was all power. She doubted the creature would stand up to a hit from him.
Her expectations were once again thwarted.
The beast didn’t dodge. Didn’t even move. Yang Ru had generated much momentum, and he focused all of it on the tip of his spear.
He struck. Hard.
And bounced back.
It was one thing to see an arrow bounce off something. It was startling to see the same thing happen to her brother.
Yang Xiu did the only thing she could think of to do in such an unusual situation. She channeled qi to her voice and shouted with all her might. “Master! Master!”
###
Benton had recently advanced his Quickstep technique to Mastery, but one of the detriments of his special type of improvement reared its ugly head. He simply didn’t feel like he had practiced it enough to depend on it in a life and death situation.
Instead, he sprinted like he’d never sprinted before. That very evening, he’d experienced a major advancement. His Body Cultivation had reached Silver. His Spiritual Cultivation had reached Foundation Establishment minor realm four. Every bit of strength and speed and toughness for every minor realm was enhanced by his new perk.
All that to say that, when he wanted to, he could run fast.
He had no way to gauge his velocity, but he wouldn’t have doubted if he would have beat a NASCAR Next Gen car in a flat-out race.
When he got to the gate, he didn’t bother with trying to get the guards to let him in. He simply hopped over it.
Yang Ru was on the ground, using his spear in an attempt to keep a rank four jaguar from eating him. Yang Xiu was trying her hardest to distract the beast, but her arrows bounced off with no effect.
The creature clearly was protected by a layer of qi.
Well, that was why Benton had created his primary attack technique the way that he did.
The first thing he needed to do was to get the beast off Yang Ru. The two being in contact with each other limited Benton’s options too much.
Up until that point, he’d only used his gravity area attack to increase the planet’s natural pull, but there was no reason he had to adhere to those coordinates. He focused a burst at the cat’s rear, increasing gravity a hundredfold in that direction.
The jaguar flew backward.
Nice.
When it was clear of anyone and anything underneath it, Benton canceled the first burst and triggered another one, this one increasing its weight a hundredfold.
The jaguar slammed to the ground, creating a small crater.
The beast whined softly, unable even to draw in enough breath to screech properly as it lie there, unmoving. Its limbs weighed so much that it didn’t have the strength to do more than twitch.
Benton calmly walked over to it, intending to end its life with a strike to the eye. But he got an idea. He hadn’t had a chance to test his shield, and having a captive rank four beast was an opportunity too good to pass up.
He stood right beside it and reached his arm next to the beast’s. A targeted canceling of the area of effect allowed the creature to raise its claw and swipe.
The claw bounced off Benton’s shield. He didn’t even feel it.
Hmm. He wondered how his new body would hold up to a similar strike.
Benton immobilized the jaguar again while he pushed back his sleeve. The robe was a perfectly good one. No reason to get a hole in it.
When he released the cat’s arm once more, the jaguar, not the sharpest tool in the shed, swiped at him again.
The claw bounced off Benton’s arm, leaving no damage behind. Not only was he not scratched but the spot wasn’t even red.
Nice. Silver Body Cultivation plus fourth realm Foundation Establishment toughness plus Enhanced Cultivation Power was pretty stout.
His test concluded, there was no reason to prolong the beast’s suffering. He stabbed it in the eye, a small burst of ice qi popping the shield and allowing the tip to penetrate and a tiny sphere of void qi to destroy the jaguar’s brain.
Killing the creature didn’t finish Benton’s job, though. A little boy, a mortal, had apparently been attacked in his bedroom. He was still alive, barely, and was missing an arm.
Benton pulled a Major Healing Pill from his ring along with a wineskin filled with water. He forced the boy to gulp down some water and the pill with it. Before his eyes, the limb regrew, and soon after, the boy regained consciousness, good as new.
There. Now the job was done.
When he turned around, he found that a large crowd was staring at him.
He didn’t realize it at that point, but he eventually would look back at that moment as the night that everything changed.
Comments
richard C bond
This story is just lovely, it is really stark how much the protagonist is a caring human instead of a soulless heaven-defier. That said, this chapter has one odd note for me: Benton hops over the wall and immediately dominates/restrains the bad cat, but then proceeds to test his defenses for a bit while ignoring the child bleeding out in the corner. I know everything works out, but it feels out of character for him to focus on playing with his resistances and skills while a child is in danger. Maybe he should have fed the kid a pill immediately after pinning the cat?
Jeff091
while googling it you could also stumble upon to lie | lied | lied | lying | lies the verb for "telling a lie" (saying something that is not truthful)
Jeff091
verb 1 (the correct verb in this situation, which you are using) to lie | lay | lain | lying | lies you are just using the wrong tense of the verb verb 2 (the incorrect verb in this situation, which you are not using) to lay | laid | laid | laying | lays
BWFoster78 Last
Thanks for the comment, but I'm not sure that's right. Google says that "lay" requires an object, as in you lay down a beast. Unless I'm just completely misunderstanding what that post is telling me, I think "lie" is correct.
Jeff091
hi, thanks for the story typo The beast whined, softly, unable even to draw in enough breath to screech properly as it lie there, unmoving. lie-->lay
Daoist_Matt
TFTC 😋🥳
BWFoster78 Last
Fixed. Now off to fix the two other tables where the error propagated.
Kyle Pemberton
It just the archery and spear techniques should be mastery according to the second to last paragraph before the table.
BWFoster78 Last
Thanks for letting me know. I'll check that tomorrow and correct as necessary.
Kyle Pemberton
The description of which techniques he raised to mastery and large success don't match the table?
