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Chapter 89 – May You Live in Interesting Times
🕑 Added 2024-10-20 03:20:41 +0000 UTCBenton started reading the new quests from the top. The first one didn’t seem too hard on the face of it. Getting one hundred members only required forty-five more, and he fully intended to induct fifty in the coming days. The part about loyalty, though…
“System,” he said internally, “what is my current average loyalty?”
That wasn’t so bad, considering that most of his sect members hadn’t been with him all that long. Even some of the disciples he’d had the longest hadn’t been around him much. He had, after all, left for three months right after accepting the twelve in the village.
There was some reason for concern, though. That seven point two was taking into account the average feelings of fifty-five people, ones who had decent reasons to be loyal to him. The fifty villagers he was about to add were instead much more likely to have allegiance to the mayor rather than him.
An average higher than six wasn’t likely. To start off with, anyway.
Oh well, he had no doubt that, as long as he stayed true to his commitment to them, all would increase as time went on. Which was good because the reward for completing that quest was a perk point.
He wanted that perk point.
The next quest, Defend Your Territory, involved building a wall around the sect, a task he was already about to start work on. That one was basically five free Shop Points.
The combination of Pavilionize and House Your Members might have been long term projects were it not for the buildings he had stored in his rings. As it was, he’d convert those into ten Shop Points as soon as he got the wall built.
It was the last one that really was the eye opener. The area was no longer under a beast tide watch or warning. The beast tide was coming. Benton just didn’t know when it would arrive.
He couldn’t help but remember the old curse, “May you live in interesting times.” Well, times sure were getting interesting. Benton added preparing for that potential calamity to his mental To Do list as the most critical item.
Finished with the Quest Menu, he moved on to one of the two remaining visible changes on his status sheet.
“System, please open the Advancement Menu.”
That change was pretty self-explanatory. He now had the ability to increase his mind and soul cultivation in addition to his spirit and body.
“System, please open the Sect Menu.”
“System, please open the Buildings Menu.”
Too cool!
“System, please show me information about the arena.”
“System, please designate Arena Purpose as Sparring.”
“System, please show me information about the arena.”
Benton chuckled. Nice.
“System, please open the Members Menu.”
Interesting. But he was just about back at the village, so he decided to wait until some other time to explore all the options. The menu wasn’t likely to contain any information he didn’t already know. Probably. Maybe.
Benton would figure it out later. More important at the moment was to figure out his next steps.
He decided to come up with a list:
- Call a council meeting to get input on decisions
- Beast Tide. Prep should impact all decisions!
o Call allies? Could reach out to Friend Kang and/or Fatty Ren?
o More martial stance for everyone or protect kids?
- Decide priorities of spending Shop Points
o Qi Condensing Pills
o Xun Wu
o Peng Hanying
o Jin LiJuan
- Discuss organization for Body Cultivation
- Soul Cultivation, now or later?
- Logistics for wall building
- Pavilions, who to assign to what
o Told orphans they’d have a couple of years to decide. Break that?
o In general, who is in charge of what?
o Kids need teaching. Figure out rotation for lessons. Head of martial pavilion?
- Recruitment from village. What positions do we need filled?
Just getting everything down in writing made him feel less overwhelmed. There was something about creating a list that made tasks seem much more manageable.
Benton was tempted to call his council meeting right away but hesitated. The feast would be starting in an hour or two, and the meeting was likely to last longer than that. He wanted everyone to have a chance to really celebrate. The founding of the sect was a big deal, and the feast was a chance to really bring that home to people.
Postponing the meeting meant keeping the council up late, however. Which they all could handle. But was it necessary?
Everything on the list was urgent, but he didn’t know how urgent. From the concentration of beasts, he would bet that the tide wasn’t imminent. It couldn’t be. According to Su’s memories, there were distinct signs that proceeded a beast tide, and the density had not reached near the breaking point yet. They should know at least a month in advance.
Cultivation was a marathon, not a sprint. Discussing actions tonight instead of in the morning wouldn’t move the dial any.
###
Zi Delan’s life had changed rapidly over the last month. Growing up in Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town, he’d seen cultivators occasionally. The Town Lord never left his palace, but the other four remaining members of the Righteous Rain Sect occasionally showed their faces around.
None of them were anything like Sect Leader Chao Su.
Zi Delan wasn’t sure that anyone anywhere was like Sect Leader Chao Su.
Pulling a building out of thin air. Heaven’s lighting answering his oath.
The man was not simple.
Zi Delan himself was not so simple anymore either. He was a cultivator nearing the third minor realm of Qi Gathering, the milestone at which he’d be given a real technique. And at which he and his friends would have to start earning their keep.
At first, he’d been afraid when the guards had been forced to go into the woods to hunt, only none of them had seemed forced. Concerned. A little afraid. But it didn’t seem like it was against their will. And none of them got hurt. Not a scratch. They came back to the campfire at night full of stories of the mighty beasts they’d faced fearlessly.
Zi Delan and his friends were more than ready to do the same.
Weirder, though, was that he was invited to be a member of Sect Leader Chao Su’s council, which was a strange concept and even stranger for including a street rat like him as someone important.
But that was the thing. Everyone treated Zi Delan like he was important. The siblings who clearly were the top dogs in the group never looked down on him in the slightest. The mercenary guard captain who would normally beat a street rat as soon as look at one was polite and cordial.
If not for those personal experiences, Zi Delan might have thought the Sect Leader’s words about lifting each other up were pure hooey. With that treatment? Maybe. Zi Delan was withholding judgment.
One thing was for sure, he’d already been rewarded amply for his choice, what choice there had been, to come along to the village. Plenty of food. A decent weapon. And, oh yeah, don’t forget a cultivation method that seemed as easy as breathing, literally, for all his supposed lack of talent.
And tonight? A feast. He’d never been to a feast. It sure sounded fun, though!
###
Peng Hanying followed his father.
“I think we made a good decision, Honored Wife,” Peng Zhen said.
“I hope so. The village is underwhelming, but that ceremony was auspicious. Master seems to be one to keep his word.”
Peng Hanying sure hoped so. The last month had been incredibly frustrating for him. To be told he was to become a cultivator was amazing. To be told to wait a month before he started because he had substandard talent was less so. He’d spent that time riding in a wagon watching everyone around him get stronger and stronger and return from the woods with tales of killing ferocious beasts.
And he couldn’t even join in the meals. Because he was still a mortal, he had to eat what the children, and Master Xun of course, ate.
Beyond. Frustrating.
The sect had been founded, though, and they were at the village. Master had said that, once he reached the village he’d know if Peng Hanying’s talent could be improved so that the sect could take advantage of his unique qi aspect.
He hoped so. He wanted to be of use. Mainly, though, he wanted to start cultivating.
Perhaps tomorrow would be his day. But, first, tonight, the feast.
###
Zhong Wen walked through the streets with her head held high. Her pride was a recent development. During the long, slow decline of the village, she’d fought for the orphans, those she considered her children.
That advocacy meant soliciting donations so no one went hungry, finding places for the ones aging out of her care to become apprentices. Her presence at someone’s door had come to mean that she was asking for something, and in hard times, people had little to give.
All that changed when Master arrived. He’d made her into a cultivator and left her with meat. For the three months he’d been gone, she was considered one of the richest people in town.
Upon his return, she became known as someone who had his ear, which made the other villagers respect her. She basked in the newfound value they placed on her.
Nodding imperiously to a lady who used to look down on her, Zhong Wen walked into the plaza and saw the mayor talking with Master. He waved her over to them.
“I’m glad you’re here, Mistress Zhong,” Master said. “The Honorable Mayor needs us to arrange our seating, and I wanted your thoughts. I’m to be placed at the center, and I was thinking the twins to my right and you to my left?”
What? He wanted her to be placed in a seat of honor?
“If that is your wish, Master.”
They went through the list, finding seating positions for the rest of his council at that head table with Wan Ai next to Zhong Wen.
It was gratifying to see that their time away from him hadn’t seemed to lessen their importance. She had been somewhat afraid she would have been surpassed by other, more talented, sect members, a feeling that wasn’t helped by her discovering that a council meeting had occurred in the village without including either of them.
Instead, Master deferred to her for almost all the decisions, saying that she knew the customs of the village far better than him. She felt like a queen, sitting in a place of such prominence and her choices, from the first dish to be served to which centerpiece went on which table, impacting everyone.
The village hadn’t had a celebration in many years because food was always so scarce, and considering the short time period to prepare for the feast, Cai Peizhi had really outdone herself. There were three different types of meat—deer, boar, and unbelievably, bear. All were prepared perfectly, and best of all, there was plenty of it, along with rice, dumplings, spring rolls, and every type of vegetable grown nearby. Desserts were even provided, including almond biscuits and Zhong Wen’s favorite, mooncake.
After everyone had their fill, two of the younger men broke out their instruments, a dizi and an erhu, and played while a young lady sang. The trio had obviously had much experience practicing together because they were quite good.
Finally, the Honorable Mayor made a speech welcoming the sect and praising the Sect Leader and all that he had done for the village. For his part, Master kept his remarks short, praising the mayor for entering a partnership with the sect and promising that the sect would cause the entire village’s fortunes to rise.
The tones of both speeches were quite optimistic, and everyone came away feeling much better about the future than they had in a long time.
