The Sect Leader System-Chapter 190: Procrastination

Benton soared through the air on his way to Vermilion Incomparable Rain Town, the wind washing through his hair and scouring away his troubles. He wished, anyway.

There was no telling when, not if, the Jade Chameleon Sect would retaliate for his actions or what form that reprisal would take. Part of his reason for destroying the branch sect grounds had been pure vengeance, but the main motive had been to send a message that he and his people were not to be messed with. He’d done it to keep his sect members safe.

His greatest fear was that the very act meant to protect them would be what led to their deaths.

If a single Nascent Soul cultivator came after him, he felt good about his chances of defending the sect and the village, but if multiple higher realmed cultivators attacked, there would be nothing he could do. His only way to truly defend his people was to become stronger, which meant ascending to Nascent Soul himself.

And to do that, he needed one thousand sect members who viewed him with an average loyalty rating of at least six point five and a minimum of half of whom lived in the main sect grounds.

With the loss of Ye Zan and the gain of the wolf cub, Fatty Ren, and the four former Righteous Rain Qi Gathering cultivators, the Rising Tide membership sat at two hundred sixty-seven. After inducting the one hundred ninety-five recruits Fatty Ren found, that number would rise to four hundred sixty-two. The next induction of villagers would put the sect at more than half the target.

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It was tempting—so, so tempting—to simply recruit the rest of the people immediately. Dragging the rest of the villagers out to the amphitheater and inducting them would be a piece of cake. Everyone was eager to join up. Even considering the recent trouble with the Jade Chameleon Sect, the advantages far outweighed the risks for the mortals.

The problem was that the sect was not big enough to take in so many people. They didn’t have the infrastructure or the personnel to handle the influx. Benton’s gut told him that trying to do that in an unorganized manner would hurt the sect in the long run.

The question was whether it would save them in the short run, in which case the long-term risk was worth it.

Really, the decision came down to the answer to two questions. The first was how and when would the Jade Chameleon Sect react? If they immediately sent all their Nascent Souls to the village, he was cooked if he didn’t reach that realm first. But everything he and Su knew about sects told him that the Jade Chameleons would move cautiously.

They had been put in a precarious position. The Emperor’s faction and the other two of the big three had to be sniffing at their holdings. One wrong move could cause everyone to pounce. Trying to strike at Benton and failing would prove disastrous for them.

They also had no idea of Benton’s true strength. He’d proven strong enough to kill a large force of Golden Core cultivators, which was something no one of a similar realm should be able to do. Combined with the inability of anyone to sense him, they should suspect he was at least at Nascent Soul. No other interpretation of the facts made sense as his true situation was, to the best of his knowledge, unprecedented.

Taking those two factors together, it was logical that the Jade Chameleons would not move aggressively anytime in the near future. Their best bet was to turn the other factions against him in order to build a coalition. That maneuvering would take time. Months at the very least.

Of course, cultivators were sometimes known to behave very irrationally, and he was basically risking his entire sect on them pursuing the wisest course.

The second question was how the new recruits would affect his average loyalty rating.

“System, what is my current Average Loyalty Rating?”

8.0

That number wasn’t bad at all. He hadn’t checked it since before the beast tide, and it had actually risen zero point two points since then. He’d feared that, with Ye Zan’s death, it might have fallen.

Then again, the combination of coming through the beast tide unscathed, the Trials Pagoda, and the enhanced spiritual roots probably helped a lot.

Doing some quick math, Benton would be in the six point seven five range even if the new recruits he was about to induct had even a very neutral loyalty of five towards him.

It seemed like the villagers held him in good regard in general, so it was possible that his average loyalty rating would end up being okay if there was an emergency and he had to add a bunch of them at once.

That was good to know.

In the end, he decided to take a middle course. He’d accelerate recruitment as much as he felt was reasonable, starting with adding seventy-five villagers every two weeks instead of fifty every four weeks. Just that increase would bring him near a thousand sect members in about fourteen weeks. By tasking Fatty Ren with adding another hundred, he could drop that by an additional two weeks.

Twelve weeks. If Benton could just hold off an attack for three months, he’d be unbeatable by anyone on the continent.

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In the meantime, he’d make it a priority to finish checking all the arrays in the sect buildings and set up enough housing on the grounds for more than five hundred people. He’d also monitor his average loyalty rating after each induction to predict where it might end up after adding more people. Finally, he’d make sure that the mayor and the twins were ready to induct villagers at a moment’s notice if he needed an emergency boost.

The plan wasn’t perfect. If he was caught by surprise by multiple Nascent Souls, he was likely toast, but it gave him the best balance between long-term benefit and short-term safety.

By the time he’d decided on his priorities, he’d reached the outskirts of Vermilion Incomparable Rain Town. From there, a Quickstep took him to Fatty Ren’s combination throne room and cultivation chamber.

“Friend Su, you came!” the Town Lord said.

“Of course I did,” Benton said, “but I unfortunately can’t stay long. Is everyone ready?”

Fatty Ren wrung his hands, clearly worried. “I need just ten minutes, Friend Su. I didn’t know what time you’d get here, so I didn’t have them gathered up.”

Benton was in a hurry, but the rush wasn’t that severe. He hadn’t meant for his question to cause so much anguish. “It’s my fault entirely. I should have messaged. Just gather everyone as quickly as you can.”

Ten minutes turned to fifteen which turned to twenty with Fatty Ren sweating the delay the entire time. Benton wasn’t really that impatient, however. If timeliness had been that crucial to him, he definitely would have sent a message to have everyone ready.

Once he saw the mass of one hundred ninety-five recruits, he decided it was a good thing he’d decided to come. For one thing, doing the induction ceremony himself would hopefully result in more loyalty toward him. The people were probably already somewhat loyal to Fatty Ren, and Benton doubted that transferred to him automatically. He needed to keep his rating up.

The main reason his being there was so advantageous, though, was the distribution of cultivation methods. No one else could do that as effectively as he could.

If he’d been forced to delegate the chore to Fatty Ren, the only option would have been to give everyone the generic Supreme Foundations of Heaven scripture that allowed anyone with any qi aspect to cultivate it.

Not that the method was a bad choice. In fact, all but five of the people in the crowd received it as most everyone was E ranked and below with a wide variety of qi aspects. Three, though all in the F range, happened to have a nature aspect. He distributed the Supreme Growth of Heaven scripture to them as using a method tuned to their element would provide a minor benefit and, since it had already been created, the providing that tiny advantage cost him nothing.

The remaining two exceptions were relatively young people with decent roots. There was a twenty-year-old girl with E+ roots and ice aspected qi. With the spiritual root enhancement she’d receive upon induction, she’d be elevated to D-, the minimum rank at which he’d devoted a tailored cultivation method for all his previous disciples. He didn’t see any reason to change that practice as the ten-point expenditure was trivial compared to the almost two hundred he was about to receive.

The second of the two was the real prize, though. He was a little old for most sects at twenty-six, but B- roots made him a fantastic find. His wind-based qi aspect wasn’t anything particularly exciting, but with roots like that, Benton didn’t care.

With the aid of Fatty Ren’s four Qi Gathering cultivators, jade slips holding the appropriate cultivation methods were quickly distributed to each person.

It was at that point that Benton encountered a minor problem. He usually supplied beast cores to each sect member so that they could access the jade slips, but he didn’t have nearly two hundred cores on him. Fortunately, Fatty Ren had a decent number available given the recent tide. There wouldn’t be enough for each person, but twenty shared among the group meant that they would have decent access to one when they needed to refer to the jade slip.

“Greetings soon to be inductees to the Rising Tide Sect,” Benton said. “You’ve each been given a jade slip that contains a cultivation method. Tomorrow, Town Lord Fatty Ren and his subordinates will teach you how to access the information on it. Before that, though, you will be presented with a choice.”

He explained that, as soon as they became a member, they’d have the opportunity to improve their spiritual roots. The men and women, except for those associated with the orphanage, looked to Fatty Ren for confirmation. He nodded.

Benton continued by explaining that, though the enhancement was a major improvement, it was also very, very painful.

“Please understand that, even with the improvement, all but two of you would never have been accepted to any other sect,” Benton said. “In those sects, you would not have a chance to make it higher than the middle of Qi Gathering. I will personally guarantee you that, as long as you are diligent, I will utilize all reasonable measures at my disposal to make sure you reach Foundation Establishment. It is highly likely, though, that the vast majority of you will not reach much higher than the very beginning of that realm. Think carefully if the pain is worth the benefit given your slim odds of advancing higher. You will not be looked down upon for choosing not to go through that ordeal.”

His words might as well have fallen on deaf ears. After the induction, every single person in the crowd decided to go through with the improvement.

Crazy. They were all crazy.

After instructing Fatty Ren how important it was that he and the four Qi Gathering cultivators make sure that each of the recruits finish at least one cycle the next day, Benton left, dreaming of the nearly two hundred Sect Points he’d receive once the recruits completed that task.

On the way back to the village, Benton started out thinking about his most important immediate task—completing his examination of the arrays constructed by the Righteous Rain Sect in their former buildings. Another thought intruded upon that plan, though. There was something else pressing that he’d been avoiding.

The other thing he needed to deal with was Ye Zan’s funeral. Benton knew that everyone was waiting from him to set the date, but he’d been avoiding thinking about it, much less planning the details.

His reaction was strange. Though Ye Zan was an important sect member who Benton had been quite fond of, the amount he cared for the guard captain, a relatively brief acquaintance, paled in comparison to the love of a husband for a wife of literal decades. Yet Benton had soldiered on through the planning of Evelyn’s memorial service immediately.

He'd been sad and quite a mess, actually, but he’d done his duty, making sure that her memory was honored through the ceremony. Ye Zan, who’d given his life to save Yang Xiu, deserved no less.

Benton didn’t understand why he was procrastinating so much.

Well, maybe he did. When Evelyn died, there was nothing he could have done about it. She received the best medical care they could find, and he’d stayed by her side until the end. Her death was in no way his fault.

He couldn’t make the same statement about Ye Zan, and that was ultimately the reason for the delay.