The Sect Leader System-Chapter 188: Explosive Growth

Zou Tian smoothly darted from shadow to shadow, moving ever closer to the four-armed bug-eyed creatures slinging ice shards at him. The cavern provided plenty of cover in the form of rocks growing both from the floor and the ceiling, and each blocked the glowing light from above, giving him ample options for hiding.

He was still one against five, but the environment tilted things in his favor. The question was, though, what did the encounter have to teach him about using his daggers?

Short-bladed weapons were ideal for close in work. He struggled when dueling with trained fighters who used swords or spears. Or bows.

He shuddered. Especially a bow wielded by Senior Sister.

Those spars had taught him to dart in close and strike fast. Which often cost him the match when he was unable to avoid or block attacks. Staying at range, though, only made him lose faster.

He doubted the lesson from the trial was one he’d already taken to heart, so there had to be something he was missing.

Still, moving closer to attack was the only way he could determine to handle the encounter, so that was what he did.

Occasionally, one of the creatures would launch an ice shard but always in a random direction. Zou Tian was too good at stealth to be seen or heard by an opponent given the terrain. By the time he’d drawn near and circled around the group, it was apparent from their throws that the creatures had no idea where he was.

Next came the hard part, though. He couldn’t fight any of them one on one because the ranged weapons of the others would kill him almost instantly as he couldn’t block thrown shards while engaging in melee. A quick backstab followed by darting back into the shadows was a possibility, but he knew nothing about the creatures’ physiology. It was entirely possible that, if he buried his blade deeply into one of them, he might not be able to draw it back out in time.

From experience, he judged the problem to be more likely to occur than not.

Zou Tian was not a Foundation Establishment cultivator. In addition to not being able to externally manipulate qi, he had not yet been gifted a spatial ring. The two daggers were all he had.

First lesson learned from the trial—carry more weapons. A backup dagger and some throwing knives would have been great to have.

The safest plan of attack was to dart out of shadow, slice one of the creatures with his blade—or blades if the momentum of the attack allowed—and retreat immediately back into the shadows, maintaining situational awareness to block or dodge incoming projectiles at all times.

Zou Tian crept within a few feet of the rearmost of the creatures, its back facing him. With it being behind the others, it was tempting—oh so tempting—to attempt a backstab, counting on the suddenness of his ambush to give him time to extract his blade and get back into cover.

But he’d already discarded that idea as risky. Light slices were the order of the day.

He stuck to his plan, darting quickly and quietly from shadow and swiping the creature’s back with both his daggers. What he had first thought to be black clothing turned out to be fur, and very satisfying twin red slashes opened on the thing’s back.

Not that he took the time to properly savor his successful strike. No sooner had the cuts been made than he dashed back behind a nearby rock.

And that movement was a good thing. He’d barely made it out of sight when a dozen ice shards cracked into the rocks near him.

His plan had been sound, and he was thankful he hadn’t given into temptation and abandoned it.

Of course, he didn’t remain in one place once he’d moved out of the creatures’ sight. Instead, he was immediately on the move, stealthily relocating before attacking a different creature from a different location.

The task of killing all five of them was long and, frankly, a bit boring. They had no perception skills capable of locating him, and as long as he employed hit and run tactics and avoided getting entangled with any of his targets, they really had no way of stopping him at all.

Which he supposed was the whole point of the trial. He was a stealth oriented fighter who employed short-bladed weapons. Going toe to toe with someone in a duel was the height of stupidity.

Obviously, there was merit to sparring with other sect members because one would not always be able to choose their battleground. He needed to be able to hold his own against swords and spears. But a straight up fight should never be his plan going into a fight if it could be avoided.

It was a good lesson, one he was glad to have learned.

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Once the last creature had died, a man appeared.

“Congratulations,” he said. “You have passed the trial.”

Practically before the echo of the last word had faded, Zou Tian found himself back in the room with the orb and pedestal. He immediately sunk into meditation and consolidated the lessons he’d learned.

It didn’t take long before he felt something click in his mind. He’d reached Mastery with his dagger technique.

Zou Tian grinned. He’d passed his trial on the first try. None of the others had done that, not Yang Xiu, not Yang Ru, and not Kang Lin.

What had he been so worried about?

Fatty Ren had just finished his second mid-morning snack when his valet returned with a list of sons and daughters of the palace staff. Seeing as there were dozens of servants from cooks to maids to gardeners to positions he didn’t even know the definition of, the list was quite extensive, and as it was arranged by servant, he couldn’t help but notice that some of them seemed to have an awful lot of children.

Maybe he wasn’t working them hard enough because those workers seemed to have an awful lot of time for … other activities given the number of kids listed.

“How many are on this list?” Fatty Ren said.

“One hundred fifty-eight, my lord, but that includes some nieces and nephews. Those are marked with an N for the sake of clarity and transparency.”

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“I see. Good. I’ll take this into consideration.” Fatty Ren said before dismissing the man.

Shortly thereafter, his sect brothers and sister returned.

“Senior Brother,” Song Yongliang said, “here is the list.”

That one was much shorter than the one compiled by the servants, so Fatty Ren quickly counted the names himself. Twenty-six. Not a paltry number but less than he’d hoped.

“You are confident in these people, Brother?” Fatty Ren said.

“We would not be willing to stake our lives on most of them, Senior Brother, but they have all proven to be competent and reliable in the past. None of them were touched by the taint of the previous Town Manager, and we have always been cautious that people in our circle might use news of our activities to curry favor with the big three. None of the ones on this list ever did anything that aroused our suspicion.”

That recommendation was good enough for Fatty Ren. He mentally added the twenty-six names to the previous total of eighty-three combined from the guards and the orphanage. The new total became one hundred and nine. Adding in himself and his sect brothers and sister got him to one hundred fourteen. All he needed was eighty-six more.

He handed the list of servant’s children to Song Yongliang. “The four of you take a look at this list and choose eighty-six people from it by whatever criteria you decide. Once you’re finished, bring all the guards, the orphans and their watchers, and your friends to the palace.”

Using almost half of the servant’s children was a bit of a risk, but by that point, Fatty Ren needed more people, regardless of where they came from. Absent using those from the list, he’d probably end up grabbing random passersby from the street.

He’d just have to task his sect brothers and sister as well as the guards with keeping an eye on the others.

Yes. That would work. As soon as the two hundred were all gathered, he’d send a message to Sect Leader Chao Su, who would surely be very happy that the task had been completed in well under the month time period.

Perfect. Fatty Ren’s membership in his new sect was getting off to a wonderful start.

It was the morning of the fourth day since Jin LiJuan had found the wolf cub spirit beast, and she still hadn’t named it. With all that was going on, she doubted anyone, not even Master, would fault her for not doing so.

Cultivators from a rival sect had attacked the village. Ye Zan had been killed. Master had dashed off to avenge him.

The news had been shocking.

And she’d been stuck hiking back from her processing mission and taking care of a filthy spirit beast.

Not literally filthy, of course. She bathed the cub daily in addition to feeding it and giving it a core.

After the cub ate its second core on the morning on the third day, it outgrew the cage Senior Brother made for it. Given the beast’s intelligence and apparent understanding that harming her would be bad, she’d let it sleep in her tent without the cage rather than asking him, having recently returned to camp from the village, to rebuild it.

Jin LiJuan had woken up with the creature snuggled up to her, and her cuddling it in turn. She’d immediately pushed it away as soon as she realized what was happening, but she couldn’t get the image out of her mind.

It was a hateful, evil spirit beast. Its brethren had killed her family. She knew that. She believed that. With all her heart.

But.

Taking care of a creature night and day and having it depend solely on her to meet all its needs wore on her. She found it more and more difficult to hate it.

Maybe she should kill it and get it over with. She’d get to hang onto the hate in her heart, and all it would cost her was her oath to Master.

Conflicted, she fed the beast its third spirit core, expecting it to grow like normal after consuming it. And it did. First, though, it collapsed, unconscious.

Jin LiJuan was elated. Maybe it was going to die. And through no fault of hers.

She couldn’t imagine a better outcome no matter the consequences for herself.

As they broke camp, their final time as they were no more than three quarters of a day’s hike from the village, the beast remained unconscious. Looking after it was her responsibility, so she tried to carry it. But it had grown too large. Huang Yimun had to transport the beast.

It wasn’t until after lunch that it experienced the growth she’d expected. In fact, it exceeded that growth in an explosive manner, expanding to the size of a large dog in seconds. Senior Brother rushed over as the beast woke.

“Congratulations,” he said, his voice deadpan. “You are now bonded to a rank two beast, and unless my spiritual sense deceives me, you’ve reached the fourth minor realm.”

Jin LiJuan stared at Senior Brother blankly. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility for the beast to advance in rank. She was, after all, feeding it cores daily. That was how beasts grew.

But the part about her reaching minor realm four?

What? How? He’d never said anything about her getting to the second or third realm. She hadn’t felt anything different when she tried to cultivate.

With her ruined channels, she couldn’t have possibly reached so high so fast. Could she? But as unfathomable as such explosive growth being true for her, it was equally as unfathomable for Senior Brother to be wrong.

Master had said that the bond would bring benefits to her, but jumping three minor realms in as many days was insane!