The Sect Leader System-Chapter 302: An Interesting Opportunity

Feeling frustrated, Zou Tian walked through the village. If he used Hide Presence, no one could see him, but the perception of random people walking about was so low that it would do nothing to train his technique. Trying to use his spycraft knowledge to blend in would be equally fruitless as everyone knew him by sight. He couldn’t walk ten feet without someone greeting him.

There was simply no way for him to train either of the techniques in the village. He needed a test run before reaching Sixth Flawless Flowing City, somewhere safe but where he wasn’t well known.

The obvious solution was Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town.

That training wasn’t his primary goal, though. With the introduction of the Shadow Time dilation room, his first objective was to advance to Foundation Establishment. Master had originally said it would take Zou Tian fifteen days to reach that realm, but the calculation hadn’t taken into account the cautious, stair-stepped use of the room.

So far for the day, he’d completed two ten-hour sessions with one more to go before nightfall. Tomorrow, he’d extend that number to four, but he’d have to talk to Master about being allowed to sleep while inside the formation. Otherwise, he didn’t know how he could handle a literal sixty-hour day.

Not to mention that the problem would grow worse when he reached ten hours of dilation—one hundred hours to him—per twenty-four-hour day. He couldn’t survive on one sleep period per one hundred fourteen hours.

His thoughts were wandering, though. The important factor for his plans was that, assuming all went well and he was allowed to spend that maximum of ten objective hours on schedule, he’d reach Foundation Establishment after seventeen more days. After that, he’d need a day to consolidate.

There was no sense in reaching that realm if he didn’t learn techniques to take advantage of the ability he’d gain to externally manipulate qi. After putting a lot of thought into the matter, he’d decided on three. The first would enhance his physical and spiritual sense. That one was dangerous, however. His Shadow aspect would hide his spiritual presence as a cultivator, but it wouldn’t completely negate any sign of qi used outside his body. Hopefully, the technique would be okay to use in small amounts, but it would still be a risk.

Luckily, he had Senior Brother Yuan Yaozu to help him test it.

The second one would give him a qi based attack. He would never be as good a straight up fighter as the twins or the purely martial sect members, but he needed a way to get himself out of a pinch if he ran into trouble. Master loved the idea of something called Backstab, which would let Zou Tian do double damage when he attacked while hidden.

He had no idea how such a thing would work, but it fit his skills well. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

His final decision came down either to defense or movement. He wanted both, but he would already be carrying a lot of unmastered skills. With his ability to hide both from physical and spiritual senses, a technique that allowed him to extricate himself from a bad situation was simply a more logical choice than a shield designed to help him in straight up fights.

With Time dilation, he believed he could get all three of those to Small Success over the course of two objective days.

Seventeen to increase his realm, one to consolidate gains, and two for training techniques. Doing the math told him he had twenty days before he could leave the village.

The great thing about reaching Foundation Establishment, though, was that he’d be gifted a glider and a storage device. The former would cut his travel time to a negligible amount instead of consuming months, and the latter would allow him to bring everything he needed with him.

He’d have a little over a hundred days between leaving the village and the tournament starting. Assuming around a month training in town, he’d have around about two and a half to determine the plans the sect’s enemies were trying to hide.

That was tight. Too tight. But it would have to work.

He left the village to head back to the sect grounds. It was time to inform Master of his decisions.

Benton was continually impressed by his disciples. Each one of them was as diligent and as hard working as the best of his protégés back on Earth.

Take Zou Tian. The amount of time he was expected to cultivate was increasing by ten hours per day every day, and his only thought was, “What else could I be doing to improve myself and/or help the sect?”

Yang Xiu, Yang Ru, Kang Lin, and Wan Ai—really pretty much all the others, too—weren’t any different.

Benton had approved the plan of spending one partial objective hour out of every three cultivation sessions for sleep. Honestly, it was something he should have thought of himself.

The three techniques also sounded fine, but discussions of Zou Tian potentially leaving so soon brought home how much Benton still needed to do. For one thing, he needed to master talismans to create powerful offensive and defensive measures for all the sect members who intended to go to the tournament. Second, all those sect members required clothing armored with formations, another skill he needed to master. Finally, Zou Tian could definitely use spy toys … uh, tools. Spy tools.

Which meant crafting.

Benton grinned. Coming up with cool inventions was one of the best parts of his new life.

He mentally reviewed his To Do List. The other big item, of course, was making the other qi sources, but it would likely be at least another week or two before he obtained any more of the necessary materials.

Perfect. He had that long to figure out talismans, sewing formations, and Zou Tian’s … tools.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

He Teleported to the part of the Administration Hall he’d designated as his craft area and prepared to query the System on what he needed to purchase to master talismans. Before he could get started, he sensed one of his message dragons rapidly approaching.

The only people who had those were Fatty Ren and Jin LiJuan, and from the direction, the sender was definitely the expedition. Which was interesting. Something sufficiently urgent to call to his attention had happened but not something that was enough of an emergency to use a contingency ring.

He snagged the origami device from the air the instant it appeared.

Master,

Senior Sister Jin LiJuan allowed me use of this message paper. This one hopes the use doesn’t overstep any bounds, but she, Pan Jiang, and I are at a loss on how to proceed.

This one’s friend, Zhong Kun, is not reacting well to encounters with spirit beasts. He freezes whenever one comes near and gets angry when his inaction is called out, blaming others instead of himself. Perhaps his injury during the beast tide has affected him somehow?

The problem seems to be worsening, and this one fears that he will become a danger to himself if he keeps hunting, but he refuses to quit, even going so far as to suggest insubordination if he is ordered to.

If Master has any ideas on how to solve the situation, this one would be eternally grateful.

Your Disciple,

Zi Delan

While Zi Delan’s street smarts had been impressive enough to recruit him, Benton hadn’t actually gained much of an impression of the boy since. The letter reminded him that all his disciples were their own unique people with their own talents, hopes, dreams, and problems.

It was good that the issue was brought to his attention.

With night having just fallen, Benton immediately Teleported to a location a few miles above the ground on the village side of the mountain. A quick flare of his spiritual sense located the expedition camp.

He had the spiritual signatures of all his sect members memorized to the extent that he could instantly determine if the person was one of his. For his council members and a lot of the more prominent members he dealt with often, he could match a signature to a person, but he hadn’t bothered to do the same with every one of the more than one thousand sect members.

Zi Delan would surely know the location of the affected boy, though, so a second Teleport landed him right outside his tent.

“Master!” Zi Delan said, his eyes going wide. “You came!”

“Of course I did. Show me to Zhong Kun.”

The boy led Benton to another tent, and soon, the occupant was summoned.

Benton cupped his hands. “Greetings, Zhong Kun.”

“Sect Leader? Why are you here?” His expression grew agitated, and he wrung his hands. “What did they tell you? I'm fine. I can continue."

Benton wasn’t exactly an expert on trauma, but it was obvious even to him that something was going on. He vividly recalled how wounded the young man had been, his throat having been ripped out by a jackal during the beast tide. At the time, it had seemed that healing him had made him good as new. Clearly, that wasn’t the case.

The boy was trembling, and the temperature wasn’t all that cold. Admittedly, it wasn’t every day that most of the sect members had the sect leader show up at their tent, but there was still no reason for his reaction. Nor should he be freezing every time he encountered a spirit beast.

“I need your help, Zhong Kun,” Benton said. “I’m experimenting with a technique, and I need a volunteer to test out how it works in the field. If you agree, I’ll Teleport you back to the sect, have you use one of the Time dilation rooms for an hour or two, and then get you right back here.”

“Why me?”

Benton wasn’t one to enforce protocol much, but neither did his sect members typically respond so rudely. The boy was obviously suffering from a malady, however, so Benton chose to simply not answer. Zi Delan nudged the other boy.

Zhong Kun first appeared livid but soon shook his head, clearly understanding what he’d done wrong. “Apologies, Sect Leader. Of course, I’ll help.”

Benton cupped his hands again. “Gratitude.”

It was quick work to Teleport both of them back to the sect and have Zhong Kun learn and practice the Quiet Mind Restoration technique, the same one that had helped Jin LiJuan so much. After twenty subjective hours, the boy surpassed Small Success and used an additional hour in the room to get a good sleep.

When he emerged, Zhong Kun said, “I’ve messed up, haven’t I, Master? How much trouble am I in?”

“None. Why would you be?”

The boy seemed surprised.

“If anything, I owe you a profound apology. I should have followed up with you after the beast tide to make sure you were doing okay.”

Zhong Kun went from surprised to uncomfortable.

“If it’s any consolation, your suffering has helped the sect. While you were in the Time dilation room, I distributed a technique to the Healing Pavilion for the express purpose of diagnosing problems caused by stress and traumatic circumstances. From now on, all sect members will be required to get checked out after any kind of major incident or injury.”

Yang Xiu was surely going to just love that, but she could put up with the annoyance. The price was low compared to not having the sect members suffer like Zhong Kun had.

“Truly? I’m not in trouble, Master?”

“Not at all. I advise you to keep practicing that technique and to let me know if you continue to have problems. I also want you to go to the Healing Pavilion when you return from the expedition just to get checked out.”

“Of course, Master.” The boy cupped his hands. “Gratitude.”

There was no reason to extend the conversation, so Benton Teleported them back to the expedition’s camp. Before he could return to his office, though, an Aura brushed up against him, one he recognized.

It wasn’t an attack from the Lord and Protector of the Eternal Celestial Peak. Nor was it a simple greeting.

Benton hadn’t experienced anyone using an Aura to send a message, so it took him several seconds to determine the meaning—a request for him to come to the Thunderbird’s cave.

Sure. Why not? Benton even had several dozen Thunder aspected greater spirit coins in his ring.

He Teleported directly to the cave and cupped his hands. “Greetings, Lord Thunderbird. You called?”

Amusingly, the Thunderbird used the devices Benton had gifted it on his previous visit to cup its hands. “Gratitude for coming so quickly, Sect Leader. This one seeks a favor.”

“Oh. Okay.” The summons had been unexpected in the first place. Hearing that the bird wanted something was even more of a surprise. But it was actually a good thing. Benton really wanted to stay on its good side. “No problem. Let’s hear it.”

“Gratitude, again, Sect Leader. This one has a great-great-great-great-great-great grandson who is burning with desire to experience the world. He wishes to attend the Quinquennial Tournament.”

Benton didn’t know that the bird even knew about the tournament and really wondered how it would work for a spirit beast to attend. Taking responsibility for such a thing might turn into a disaster.

“This one of course refused on the grounds of attending simply being too dangerous,” the Thunderbird said. “But recent events have presented an interesting opportunity, one that could help one of your sect members and my grandson.”

The Thunderbird went on to describe how attendance was now a possibility, and Benton had to admit that the explanation made sense.

“I can’t speak for my disciple,” Benton said, “but I take no objection. I say we leave this to our juniors to decide.”

“How wonderful!” the Thunderbird said. “Gratitude again, Sect Leader.”

“Oh, before I forget, I do have something for you.” Benton removed a bag of ten greater spirit coins from his ring and tossed it to the Lord.

“You do bring the most magnificent gifts, Sect Leader. Thunder aspected spirit coins. This one hasn’t seen such a unique flavor for centuries. Gratitude.”

It was always so nice to be appreciated.