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Chapter 116 – There’s No Aspect Like No Aspect
🕑 Added 2024-10-21 19:32:12 +0000 UTC11/11/24 A/N: Bonus chapter for reaching 100 Subscribers!
Benton went to the orphanage to check on little Jin LiJuan and found the girl up on her feet, a good sign. He scanned her.
There was only one small change to her status since the last time he’d read it, but that change had major implications. F- spiritual roots meant she should be able to cultivate.
She stared at him with big, hopeful eyes, and he wanted to tell her the good news. Unfortunately, there was another part of her status that confused him. Why was her qi aspect listed as none?
“May I touch your hand for a moment, Li’er?” Benton said.
She shyly held it out to him. “Is there something wrong, Master?”
“I’m not sure. Give me a moment.”
His first instinct had been to soft peddle his answer and tell her that things were fine, but even though he considered her to be a child, she’d been through a lot. She at least deserved the courtesy of being told the truth.
As he grabbed hold of her finger, he dived his senses into her and found a mess. Her channels, her meridians, her dantian. All the important components of her body’s cultivation system were all muddled and clogged and just a … mess. That was the only way to describe it.
As far as his considerable System-granted expertise told him, however, she was healed. Kind of.
“Congratulations, Li’er,” Benton said. “You can now cultivate.”
She grinned.
“Don’t be too happy. You’ve really done a number on yourself. I did all I could, but you’re still damaged.”
“What does that mean, Master?”
“For one thing, cultivating is likely to hurt. A lot. Every cycle. Though, as you complete more and more, your channels should stretch, and the clogs should smooth out, hopefully making it easier in time. But you’re still in for a lot of pain for a long time.”
“I can handle pain, Master.”
Benton sighed. “I’m sure you can, but you got into this mess because you disobeyed me. It is very important that you never do that again. If you make one more mistake, even a tiny one, you could damage yourself in ways that even I can’t fix. Understand?”
“Yes, Master.”
She looked so serious that he believed her.
“Okay,” he said. “Normally, our sect’s members start out trying to do one cycle in approximately an hour for ten hours a day. I have no idea how long it’s going to take you to do a cycle, but it’s going to be a lot longer than an hour, probably more than several hours. And it’s going to hurt like fire moving through your body the entire time. And if you stop even for a moment, you’re going to lose any progress you made for that entire cycle and have to start all over again.”
Her eyes grew wide.
“Yes. It’s going to be that bad, but you do not have to do this. You can still back out, live a nice life and still be a part of the sect without cultivating.”
He’d wince a little bit at the complete loss of those Shop Points, but it would be worth it to spare her the pain.
“No, Master. I want to be a cultivator.”
He sighed again. “I won’t stop you, but I am going to limit you to one cycle per day. Not one and a half. Not one and three quarters. Definitely not two. One. Understand?”
“Yes, Master.”
“Good,” he said. “To be clear, this isn’t me setting an arbitrary limit. Your channels are in bad shape. You need to take it easy until they start to strengthen. Once you reach minor realm two, we’ll re-evaluate.”
If she reached minor realm two. There was no reason she couldn’t achieve that milestone from a cultivation standpoint, but he was, if anything, downplaying the pure agony the process was going to cause her. He really wished she wasn’t so determined.
She cupped her hands. “Gratitude, Master.”
“I don’t think you’ll further damage yourself by doing one cycle a day, but if the pain gets worse—not a little worse, that’s going to happen, a lot worse—stop cultivating and find me. Okay?”
“Yes, Master.”
“Alright, first things first,” he said. “Do you know what a disciple is and what a sect member is?”
“No, Master.”
“A disciple is someone who has a special mentee to mentor relationship with a master. A sect member is just what it sounds like, a member of a sect. A person can be a member of the Rising Tide Sect without being anyone’s disciple. All the founding members of the sect, however, are my personal disciples. All the members I’ve inducted since are just regular members of the sect.”
Her little eyes were filled with so much hope while her face expected disappointment.
“I want you to be my disciple,” Benton said. “Is that okay with you?”
Tears leaked out of her eyes. “Yes, Master. Gratitude, Master.”
Benton had thought he was done with the whole bai-si tea ceremony thing, but there he was again taking the kettle and the cups out of his ring. And in actuality, that time was a pure joy. Jin LiJuan’s happiness was infectious.
He soon got the notification that he’d gained a new disciple and another Shop Point.
Next step, teaching her to cultivate. But there was a problem, a potentially big problem. She had no qi aspect.
Instincts born from his Mastery of Pill Basics and enhancing Analyze to examine other’s cultivation told him that she would be unable to cultivate with a method designed for any qi aspect because she didn’t have any qi aspect. She had none.
“System,” he said internally, “can I create a Qi Gathering Cultivation Method that has no qi aspect?”
Well, that answer didn’t sound right.
“System, I’d like to create a Qi Gathering Cultivation Method. Please pull up the menu.”
“System, I select ‘Targeted to Specific Qi Aspect,’ and for the specific aspect, I choose Jin LiJuan’s aspect, None.”
For a moment, nothing happened, but eventually, a blue box popped up.
Thank you for that ruling, whoever determines such things. And really, Benton had no desire whatsoever to peek behind that particular curtain. The important thing was that the System worked and had remarkably few limitations. He could live with not fully understanding the inner workings.
It was a no brainer for him to proceed at that point. After all, he’d already went through so much effort just to let the little girl cultivate, he wasn’t going to let ten Sect Points stop him from continuing, especially when he was so flush with them.
A certain one of his bosses would have had words about that particular decision. Terms like sunk cost fallacy and throwing good money after bad came to mind.
Benton didn’t care, though. He wasn’t dealing with an investment. He was dealing with a person, a little girl at that.
He did wonder about what the lack of a qi aspect meant for her, though. If she ever got to Foundation Establishment—not that such an achievement was even a remote possibility—would she be able to use techniques at all? Or would she be able to use all techniques like him?
There was no way to know. Her possibilities could be null, or they could be infinite.
Hey, that would make the basis for a good name. Cool.
He proceeded to create the method, called the Null Aspect, Infinite Possibilities Method. Since he believed that she had literally no chance, nil, none, to reach even the peak of Qi Gathering, he set Foundation to zero as it would be useless to her. And since she wouldn’t be able to go any further to gain real power, he threw a minimum amount into that at ten.
The real strength of the method met her biggest need—Ease. He set that at ninety. Anything he could do to make her path a little bit easier was of paramount importance.
“Okay, Jin LiJuan, only my most special disciples get their own personal cultivation methods.” Benton pulled the jade slip and a rank one beast core from his ring. “This is yours.”
Her eyes went wide.
“Yes, I mean it. It’s a completely unique cultivation method just for you, and the core is yours, too, of course.”
She hesitantly took the two objects from him, and he walked her through how to use both.
“Let’s sit,” he said, taking a lotus position on the floor.
She’d clearly been watching the other orphans cultivate because she easily slipped into a matching position.
He walked her through sensing qi, which took well over an hour for her.
“To become a real cultivator,” he said once she’d sensed her first mote, “you must complete one cycle. It’s going to be difficult, but I’m going to stay right here with you for as long as it takes.”
And he did just that. It was almost as painful for him to watch as it demonstratively was for her, and he wanted to stop her so, so many times. But she persevered, and so did he.
Eventually, hours later, he got the pop up he’d been waiting for.
Benton couldn’t help but feel that the point was the most precious one he’d earned and, perhaps, would ever earn.
She was, of course, exhausted by the time she finished. After instructing her to begin practicing the bow and the spear as soon as she felt up to it, he left her to get some rest.
He went to do the same. It had been an emotionally draining day.
Comments
TheRaptorOfHermes
The ending was really sweet
Daoist_Matt
TFTC!! 😋🥳
Pagemaster
I for one am so glad he saved her! There is enough doom and gloom in the real world. I like it when the MC makes his world just a slightly happier place! 😊
BWFoster78 Last
There is no real difference for Benton. In the beginning, he had to make everyone personal disciples for them to qualify them as sect members since the sect had yet to be founded. Now, it means that they are his personal disciples with the relationship that implies.
Shawn Morwood
what is the difference between a disciple and a sect member? are there benefits to Benton or are both the same?
