BWFoster78
patreon
Chapter 98 – Wouldn’t Change if He Could
🕑 Added 2024-10-21 10:06:00 +0000 UTCBenton rushed from the house and to the gate. Not even willing to wait for the village guards to open it, he leapt over the fifteen-foot-tall structure. He needed to get away. He needed to think.
First, though, he needed to commit to his decision. His new decision, not the old one that he reneged on.
Ugh.
“System, purchase whatever is necessary to heal Jin LiJuan. I confirm whatever you need me to confirm. Don’t even show me how many Shop Points are left.”
The System was nothing if not compliant when it came to such requests. A set of seven pills appeared in his ring.
Had he done the right thing? If right were defined as the act that was in the best interests of the sect, then no, he hadn’t. Only by defining right as the choice that felt the most emotionally satisfying would he be able to answer yes.
He kept doing things like that. No matter how many times he told himself he needed to be harder, to adapt to the fact that he was living in a harsh might-makes-right cultivation world where a tiny mistake may destroy him, he kept bending. Every. Single. Time.
Well, at least, he’d managed to kill that Foundation Establishment cultivator. What was his name? Feng Chun. No. Teng Chun. But that was only because Benton didn’t have a choice. The guy almost killed Zou Tian and would almost definitely have killed all of them.
Besides, look where that got Benton. A Golden Core cultivator would be coming after his head in the not too far distant future. When Teng Chun’s father arrived, everything Benton had built would be destroyed if he didn’t grow strong enough by then.
If the beast tide didn’t get him first.
And what was he doing? Using every single resource at his disposal to grow stronger? No. Choosing the path that made him feel good.
For the first time since transmigrating, he truly felt like a failure.
And the worst part? He wouldn’t change his decision if he could. There was no way he could face that little girl and disappoint her like that.
He simply wasn’t cut out for the cruelty of a cultivation world. What was he thinking? Who was he to found a sect, to have all those people depending on him?
###
Zhong Wen wiped tears from her eyes as Master left the building. She’d never heard anything so touching in her life.
Her two assistants, Xiao Rong and Chang Xioadan, saw her and immediately came over to console her.
“Did he tell Jin LiJuan the bad news?” Xiao Rong said.
“How did she take it?” Chang Xioadan said.
Zhong Wen was sobbing so hard that she could barely get any words out. “Master didn’t.”
“Oh no! He left you to do to deliver the bad news?” Xiao Rong said. “That’s terrible!”
“You’re not getting it,” Zhong Wen said. “There is no bad news. Master is going to heal her.”
“But, I thought you said…”
“I did,” Mistress Zhong said. “We all decided. I agreed. It wasn’t worth the expense.”
“But he’s going ahead with it anyway?” Chang Xioadan said. “Is that wise? Why ask for your advice if he’s just going to ignore it?”
“You don’t understand what I heard in that room. For so long it was just me who cared about you kids. The village barely helped. I had to beg, borrow, and yes, steal to feed all of you. I thought for sure I’d lose some, or even most, of the kids over the coming winter. So, when a cultivator showed up at my door offering to feed the children in exchange for making some of them into cultivators, I thought that surely he had something bad planned. But I had to take the deal. I had to!”
“Of course, Mistress Zhong,” Xiao Rong said. “We all knew that. No one would have blamed you even if it all turned out terrible.”
“But incredibly, it didn’t! That’s the point. When he returned like he said he would, I began to hope just a little bit that he had been truthful, that he really did have honorable intentions. And then he founded the sect and made us all members and the heavens heard his oath. I thought, ‘Okay. He means it.’” Zhong Wen tapped her head. “But I thought it up here.” She tapped her heart. “I didn’t believe it in here.”
“And now?” Xiao Rong said.
“I’ll say it again. For so long, it was just me caring for all of you. Now, a great burden has been lifted off my heart. That was the act of a man who genuinely cares for that little girl. And if he cares so much for her, why couldn’t the same thing be true for all the rest of you?”
By the time she finished speaking, the two girls had tears in their eyes as well.
###
Yang Xiu raced Yang Ru back to the village and, of course, won. He was unstoppable when he got going, but she was just plain fast.
“Good race, Brother.”
He grunted.
“Don’t be like that. You have your skills, and I have mine,” she said. “Speaking of which, I am so very, very close to breaking through. Master was so right about cultivating in the woods. It feels like every cycle there is worth two or more anywhere else, just like those rooms at the Poison Claw Sect.”
Yang Ru grunted again.
“Another race? This one to see who advances first? Sure. But you’re going to lose. I’m closer. I can feel it.”
As they were bantering back and forth, a villager, a man who looked only slightly older than Master, approached. He cupped his hands and bowed low.
“Apologies, Esteemed Master Cultivators. May this lowly one ask a question?”
Having someone approach them was quite unexpected, especially a mortal. But the guy seemed harmless, and Yang Xiu thought her master would answer the question if he were there.
“Sure. Go ahead.”
“Is it true that the Esteemed Sect Leader decided to use vast amounts of sect resources to heal a worthless little girl?”
“Worthless?” Yang Xiu’s tone held an edge of warning.
“Pardon, Esteemed Master Cultivator. This lowly one just meant that the girl had nothing to offer the sect in return.”
“Is one’s worth, especially as a child, measured by what she can immediately return? Do you have children? If you did, would you measure their worth solely by what they can return to you?”
“Well, no. This lowly one guesses not, Esteemed Master Cultivator.” The man paused. “So, it’s true?”
“I haven’t heard either way, but it sounds exactly like something Master would do. He did, after all, find two worthless pieces of gutter trash in the forest and saved them from enemies and starvation. But wait, that didn’t turn out so bad for him, did it?”
The guy’s mouth opened and closed like a fish.
“Where did you hear this story?” she said.
“It’s on everyone’s lips, Esteemed Master Cultivator, and this lowly one didn’t know what to think.”
“Well, I can’t tell you what you should think, but I can tell you what I think. Master has a big heart. He cares about people, and he helps without thought of what he might get in return. In fact, when he knows he will be receiving something in return for his assistance, he feels guilty about it and tries to dissuade the recipient from acting in both their best interests.
“You’re wondering if that makes him weak, aren’t you?”
“This lowly one would never question the sect leader, Esteemed Master Cultivator.”
Yeah. Right. Next the villager would be trying to sell her swamp land in the dessert.
“All I know,” she said, “is that Master is the strongest cultivator I’ve ever seen. Elders of the prestigious Poison Claw Sect respect him. One of his enemies is a late-stage Golden Core Cultivator of the Chameleon Jade Sect, and Master is not scared of the man at all. So, if I were to give you advice, it would be to not think of Master as weak because he cares but rather think that he’s so strong that he can care all he wants without fear.”
By the end of her little speech, the man was nodding along. Good. She really didn’t like people thinking of Master in an insulting way, and he would have gotten upset if she’d killed the man.
###
Benton spent the entire rest of the day hunting spirit beasts and trying out his new techniques. The extra level of Body Cultivation was nice, but since he’d already reached Foundation Establishment, the increase he perceived in his physical attributes wasn’t nearly as big as when he’d been a mortal. Still, his reason for the advance was sound. Each extra realm would make him tougher, from his skin to his muscles to his bones to his internal organs. Some day, he’d take a blow from an opponent, and that extra little bit might just be what saved him.
The gravity burst was interesting. For an investment of five qi, he made the limb on a tree a hundred yards away snap off under its artificially enhanced weight. It required a hundred qi to hold a rank two badger in place for two seconds with an area effect, allowing him to calmly stab it in the eye. After several such trials, he felt comfortable knowing the limits of the attack.
The star of the show, however, was his new movement skill. He could stand arm’s length from a tree, take one step, and stab the back of the trunk without crossing the intervening space. Against a rival cultivator, the attack would be devastating.
It would also help with bluffing his status as a higher realm cultivator. According to Su’s memories, it was known that many cultivators typically developed teleport techniques in the higher realms of Golden Core. Below minor realm six, such a skill was almost unheard of.
Benton was most interested in why such a technique didn’t seem to depend on qi aspect. How did fire lead to teleportation? Or earth? Or any of the others outside of types like dimension and space?
With the sun low in the sky, he decided he’d skirted his duties long enough. If nothing else, he’d promised to transport the Orange Vigor Spirit Wood back to the village so that the villagers could start work the next morning.
He’d been getting notifications all afternoon, but frankly, he hadn’t paid too much attention to them, just enough to know that a lot of his sect members were advancing to the third and fourth minor realms. Best check his status to determine what had happened. Maybe it would cheer him up.
The remaining Shop Points were as bad as he’d feared, down to ninety-four, which seemed like a lot but not in comparison to the previous total. Easy come, easy go, right? The Sect Points were at least rising again. He’d gained seventeen through the day to get him to seventy-six.
That gain also gave him two points for his personal allotment. It was tempting to take the time pausing technique immediately, but he decided it was more prudent to wait until he had another two in order to get the all-important shield.
Benton also made a mental note to find the kids from Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town who had hit minor realm three and get them their Qi Condensing Pills.
There was another change, though, one he wasn’t expecting. The Quest menu showed a reward available. That was strange.
“System, what quest reward is available?”
What? He pulled up that quest.
“System, what is my current average loyalty?”
What? How had his average loyalty risen by two whole points? What was going on in the village?
He had to get back to find out.
Comments
ShadeByTheSea
Honestly i was losing interest in the story when it seemed like they weren't going to heal her, was still pushing throw though because I still liked the story and figured I'd get over it. Than 97 hit and it broke the finial chain stopping me from joining patreon :)
BelligerentGnu
The thing no one seems to be mentioning is that he swore an oath to the heavens to do everything in his power to get every sect member to at least...foundation, was it? Point being, I can't recall if the girl technically counted yet but it would definitely stray close to breaking the oath to *not* help her, given his close connection.
Daoist_Matt
Genuinely moved my heart with this one. Definitely the right call, even if it was the wrong one
Daoist_Matt
TFTC 😋🥳
BWFoster78 Last
That's good to hear. I was a little worried about reader reaction to this one.
ChillyPepper
It wasn't the most practical call, but holding on to some extra power by leaving people behind wouldn't be the right way to start off the sect's legacy. You did good Benton, brought a tear to my eye too <3
