The Sect Leader System-Chapter 303: Rising Tide Attacks!: a CCG

The next twelve days passed in relative peace. Benton checked up on the expedition kids periodically, Teleporting high in the air above them and hiding himself from their view using Invisibility. Not even Ganzou sensed him.

There were no further incidents with that group, and they all seemed to be proceeding nicely. Weirdly, the Thunderbird’s interesting opportunity hadn’t materialized yet. Oh well, maybe the grandson backed out, or maybe he was waiting for the exact right time.

Either way was fine with Benton.

He also received two missives over that period, both related to the qi sources. Kang Ya-Ting had promised the remaining Lightning material soon, and Jia Xueqin provided a delivery date for all the goods he’d procured. It would be at the sect that very evening, meaning that Benton had to wrap everything else up by then so he could devote his attention solely to crafting qi sources.

To achieve all he wanted with his projects before those materials arrived, though, he had needed the auction manager to provide some of the merchandise early. Luckily, everything Benton absolutely had to have was off the shelf type stuff, and a politely worded request got him a rush delivery about a week prior.

Since, he’d spent every spare moment working on his To Do List.

Four ranks of Fortified Sewing had been required to make formations out of thread, but the technique had worked like a charm. He’d created a battle robe for each of the sect members likely to go to the tournament and for more than a few of them that likely weren’t, just in case.

And those robes were masterworks. Formations fed by greater spirit coins in an internal pouch protected against both physical and qi attacks, controlled temperature surrounding the cultivator based on thermal indicators from the wearer’s body, self cleaned, self repaired, and adjusted the force gravity exerted on the garment based on intuitive inputs from the wearer.

Best of all, he’d covered all the formations in a concealment array. Even a Nascent Soul—as long as that Nascent Soul wasn’t also a Formations Master—wouldn’t be able to discern any enhancements on the garment. The only slight vulnerability to detection was the pouch containing the spirit coins. Some beasts and cultivators were so well trained at detecting qi that even the best available formation couldn’t hide so much of it in one place.

That was okay, though. It wouldn’t be anything unusual for sect members to carry qi-filled devices or spirit coins on them. The overall badassery of the robes wouldn’t be revealed simply by the presence of a lump of qi.

He couldn’t wait to show the new duds to the kids because, obviously, only a practical demonstration would do. That fun could wait until it was time to leave for the tournament, though. No sense gathering everyone together before then.

The other major project he’d completed was creating talismans. To make those, he’d had to purchase eight Foundation Establishment realm techniques, four ranks of two different ones. The first was Formations Modification. Essentially, written formations were not the same thing as inscribed formations. Luckily, there was a lot of crossover between the two, however. By learning to modify inscribed formations, he could utilize all his knowledge as a Formations Master.

Talisman Crafting was the second technique, one that allowed him to imbue his techniques into paper for a single use. Which offered both great versatility and was absolutely broken.

Anyone, even a mortal, could use a talisman.

They were also expensive, due to the materials used, the skill required to craft them, and the need for a high level practitioner to channel their technique into the device. For Benton, the cost of the materials was trivial compared to how much he made at the auction and his ability to literally print spirit coins. And obviously, skill was no issue. After spending sixty-four Sect Points, he became a Talisman Master, able to imbue the simple devices with techniques up to the very peak of the Nascent Soul Realm. Finally, he possessed a quite impressive number and variety of attacks that he could imbue, negating the need to find anyone else to do it.

All that to say that he could cheaply and easily create as many talismans as he wanted. And he wanted a lot of them. In fact, he had the System create a list just so he could keep track.

NameEffectAmplify VoiceMakes voice louder, throws voice, etc.AoE ShieldProtects user from environmental area attacksAura DefenseProtects user from enemy AuraChain LightningChain LightningCloneCreates an illusory clone of a targetCoin CreationCreate spirit coins (variety of elements)Dispel IllusionGets rid of illusions in a specified areaEarth ShotShoots ball of EarthEnhance ProjectileMakes any projectile faster and hit harderExcavateDigs a holeExplosive GrowthCauses plant to grow rapidlyGlass CreationCreates a glass structure to the user’s specificationsGravity BurstAdjusts pull of gravity in targeted areaHealingProvides directed burst of healing energyHydro BlastShoots water jetInvisibilityRenders user invisibleLightning BoltSingle bolt of lightningMessengerCreates a dragon messagePause TimeAllows user to stop time to consider actionsPerceptionBoosts user’s physical and spiritual sensesQuickstepFolds space for quick movementShieldShort duration shield (variety of elements)Speed BurstProvides user with burst of speedStealthHides userStone ShapingUser can shape stoneSwitch PlacesUses Teleport to switch user’s place with targetTeleportationTeleports userTemperature ManipulationRapidly adjusts temperature of target areaTime ManipulationSpeeds or slows time relative to userVoid AttackShoots metal ball with Void qi attachedWind SlashGenerates wind attack

When Benton realized that he wanted to create thirty-one different talismans, he at first felt like he was being a little excessive, especially since a lot of the talismans would benefit from having both high and low qi output versions and at least two needed to be available in multiple aspects.

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

His restraint was tempered by one thought—how cool it would be for his sect members to have access to such attacks? It would almost be like playing instants in Magic: the Gathering—Benton had enjoyed that portion of Greg’s childhood much more than the Pokemon years.

Inspiration naturally struck. What if he made the talismans resemble a collectible card game?

The more Benton thought about it, the cooler the idea sounded. He could draw an illustration on each, title it, list the attack power in qi, maybe even add flavor text. The cards could be numbered so that members could trade with others to collect the entire set.

He laughed. It would be epic!

Yes. He had to do it. He couldn’t not do it.

Two more techniques were required. The first was Illustration, a Qi Gathering realm skill that taught him to draw because he had exactly zero talent in that area. The next solved the problem of having every card be an original creation. Instead of hand copying each of them how many ever times he needed, the Foundation Establishment level Copy Image would allow him to duplicate his original work exactly with minimal effort.

Perfect.

As it turned out, it made sense to provide some of the talismans, such as attacks, with three different qi expenditures—low, medium, and high. And some of those with multiple qi settings also required various qi aspects.

In the end, he spent days creating nearly a hundred cards. When all the copies he made were accounted for, his ring had thousands of the things.

He really hoped the kids loved them because he’d spent way more time and effort on them than he’d anticipated.

His next project was minor but important, involving alchemy. Benton spent three Shop Points each time one of his disciples reached Foundation Establishment. Considering his skill level, he figured he could take over some of the production to save on a scarce resource just like he’d done with healing pills..

The cocktail that increased a cultivator’s qi pool at the start of the realm consisted of three pills. One of those was unique to each aspect. Though the formula for that type of pill was well known, it required special ingredients to make which were almost as difficult to obtain as the qi source materials. It made sense to keep paying a single Shop Point for those unless he happened to run across the material he needed.

On the other hand, the other two pills in the cocktail presented the opposite problem—from the composition of the finished product, Benton didn’t detect any particularly hard to acquire ingredients, but none of the sects on the continent seemed to have any awareness of how to make them. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

The System offered the sell him the formulas for five Shop Points each, a bargain considering that he’d be into profit territory with the sixth pill of each that he made.

Next, Benton figured out the Momentum ring, and man, was that thing difficult to design. In fact, he almost gave up and bought a schematic from the System, but in the end, he persevered. And the result was worth it. Kind of.

Wanting to hide the surprise from the kiddos, he had Yuan Yaozu shoot an arrow at him—when you get to be nearly a thousand years old, you tend to pick up basic proficiency in almost all useful skills. The ring worked like a charm. It snagged the arrow from the air with a minimal qi expenditure and didn’t even require that to let the projectile fly.

Of course, there were some issues. One, it required external qi manipulation, and using a beast core during combat wasn’t exactly feasible. Two, it took more than a little practice both to capture fast moving missiles and to direct them accurately from the ring. If he ever got around to making a Mark II version of the ring, he’d definitely have to figure out how to add a targeting feature.

Anyway, while the coolness factor of the ring was off the charts, the practicality factor was nil for his Qi Gathering members and not much better for ones in the Foundation Establishment realm.

Oh well, Yuan Yaozu enjoyed the gift.

The final task Benton completed over the dozen days was to make all of Zou Tian’s … tools, though he still needed to present them to the boy.

No time like the present. Except for one problem.

Initial tests with the Time dilation rooms had gone well. Zou Tian and Yang Xiu had been cultivating for a full one hundred subjective hours per day for almost a full week with no ill effects. Wan Ai, though restricted to only two or three sessions every other day due to her dual aspect, also was proceeding just fine. None of the kids using the non-aspected rooms for technique practice experienced any issues, either.

At his current rate, Zou Tian needed at least four to five more days to reach Foundation Establishment, though, and Benton would have much preferred to supply the gifts after that point. On the other hand, he really wanted to go heads down crafting once he got all the materials for the sources in.

Hmm.

There was no real issue with giving Zou Tian his supplies early. The only thing he needed to advance to use were the jade slips and the storage device. And for the latter, he could simply use a beast core in the interim.

Benton fired off one message to the boy and one to Yuan Yaozu asking them to meet in the Admistration Hall in an hour.