The Sect Leader System-Chapter 305: New Arrivals

Benton was well pleased with the equipment he’d provided Zou Tian, though the boy’s reaction had been muted at best. He was simply too used to being provided with impossible items to be truly impressed with anything. On the plus side, Yuan Yaozu’s response, as much as he’d tried to hide it, had totally made up for Zou Tian’s lack of enthusiasm.

Almost as good, a Golden Core cultivator from the Premiere Jade Treasures Auction House arrived on a flying sword to deliver the rest of the goods Benton had ordered, prominent among them everything he needed to craft the Time and Momentum qi sources, so he got right to work.

Between his experience in having made two of them already and liberal use of Time Manipulation, he created both of them and installed them in rooms by early the following morning, summoning Peng Hanying and Yang Ru soon after to get them started using Time dilation to accelerate their growth.

Even though none of the sect members so far had experienced any ill effects from using the dilation, Benton still forced the two to proceed cautiously, using the same stair stepped approach to increasing the number of sessions that the others had.

Yang Ru was given the extra warning to make sure to balance his cultivating Momentum with at least the occasional session in the Fire room when it became available. Though he didn’t focus on the aspect, the amount he did use it plus the fact that it so prominently featured in the unique verbiage of his aspect meant it would be an enormous mistake to neglect it completely.

Later that day, the sect had another arrival—a small caravan from Sixth Flawless Flowing City. Besides a couple of merchants, drivers, and a few guards, the main people arriving were the expected eight person acting troupe Kang Ya-Ting had procured and the disguised peak Golden Core cultivator from the Poison Claw Sect who was to use the Trials Pagoda.

After sending everyone else to the cafeteria for refreshments and asking the troupe to wait there until summoned, Benton escorted the cultivator to his office where Yuan Yaozu, summoned via message dragon, waited.

As soon as they were inside the formation protected room, the woman shed her illusionary disguise. “Greetings, Sect Leader Chao Su. This one is Duan Lan.”

Yikes. Everything about her from the tone of her voice to her posture radiated pure stress. The lady looked so taut that she was about to break.

After Benton returned her greeting, Yuan Yaozu said, “Elder Duan, you have not been deceived. The Trials Pagoda is real, and it’s probably even more amazing than you were told.”

Ah. Healthy skepticism warring with hope would explain how tense she appeared to be. Benton hadn’t thought much about the woman’s plight, but sympathy for her situation flooded him at the realization.

“Truly?” she said.

“Truly. I’m living proof.”

The old lady let out a relieved breath. “There have been so many false hopes over the years, and my end approaches.”

“No one understands how you feel better than me,” Yuan Yaozu said.

She turned to Benton. “If this is true—and I can hardly countenance that Elder Kang and Elder Yuan would deliberately deceive me to such a degree—I owe you a great debt.”

“Not at all. Your sect has already promised me compensation.”

“Quite right,” she said. “I have a Fire kernel from a Burning Orchid, a rock steeped in Ice from the Frozen Waste, and best of all, a Time aspected root from a rare tree.”

Benton hid his disappointment. With the exception of the Fire material, the others were duplicates he no longer needed. Which made sense. She’d left Sixth Flawless Flowing City before the auction, and he’d acquired the Ice material there and the Time material from the auction manager.

Besides, it was silly for him to be displeased in the first place. He’d given the sect a list and them literally acquired every item on that list before they had a chance to deliver the goods to him. Obviously, they would provide duplicates. Duh.

Oh well, maybe he could find some other use for them.

“Additionally,” she continued, “you saw the troupe that arrived. Hopefully, they meet your approval?”

He hadn’t actually paid a lot of attention to them, but as long as they were a troupe that acted out plays or performances of some nature, they surely would be fine. It wasn’t as if anyone on the planet had experience doing what he envisioned.

“Of course,” Benton said. “Gratitude.”

“And finally, as soon as my ascension is confirmed, the Poison Claw Sect will be poised to announce a full alliance with the Rising Tide Sect. Of course, they will coordinate the exact date and occasion of that proclamation with you.” She handed him a scroll from her storage ring.

Benton was almost positive he’d negotiated an alliance for allowing her to make the attempt, not for her success, but he was willing to wait until after she had her try to determine if he’d need to fight that battle. He opened the scroll and found a promise to form an alliance as stated, signed by the Poison Claw Sect Leader.

Good enough.

“May I touch your hand?” he said to her.

She looked to Yuan Yaozu.

“Don’t worry. He’s not flirting with you. It’s how he checks your cultivation.”

The people on Benton’s new planet were a lot more touch averse than anyone back on Earth. Unless you were married to a person or you were hitting them unarmed in combat, skin to skin contact just wasn’t something that normally happened.

Honestly, he wasn’t entirely sure why he’d asked. It wasn’t like he was supposed to come up with a solution for her. The Trials Pagoda would do that on its own.

Still, more data was more data, and he’d look stupid if he canceled his request at that point.

She nodded, holding her arm out toward him. He gripped her finger and activated Analysis.

What he found wasn’t promising. Her channels weren’t Jin LiJuan levels of being snarled and damaged, but it was a wonder she’d reached the peak of Golden Core. Next he scanned her, ignoring her long list of techniques as a matter of course.

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Name:Duan LanAffiliation:Poison Claw SectAge:959Cultivation:Golden Core - Minor Realm NineQi Available:955,489Spiritual Roots:D-Qi Aspect:That which can be revealed can be concealed

Hmm. She wasn’t lying about having really reached the peak of Golden Core, but her journey to that realm couldn’t have been easy, considering the state of her internal pathways.

“It’s okay, Sect Leader. I know how bad it is. I’m quite proud that I made it as far as I did through sheer determination and stubbornness.” She paused. “And pills, unfortunately. Lots of pills. I figured you couldn’t actually help me.”

“I didn’t say that. Yes, your channels are horrid. I have no idea what happened to you or how you made it as far as you did. And yes, that may be a problem. We’ve never actually used that Trials Pagoda on someone as damaged as you are. Honestly, though, every person so far who has passed a trial has received the reward they sought. I really don’t think your condition matters.”

“Are you positive, Sect Leader? I’ve been informed that every attempt imposes a significant cost on you.”

“I’m as confident as I can be. If nothing else, I will hold you and your sect blameless if you pass the trial and the pagoda cannot advance you.” Benton shrugged. “If that happens, I’ll allow them to apply the cost already paid to a different member.”

Doing so would cost him an additional five hundred Sect Points, but it seemed like the right thing to do.

Duan Lan looked to Yuan Yaozu for advice.

“You know, the older I got, the more skeptical I became,” he said. “My motto was to assume that someone was lying or mistaken until proven otherwise. Sect Leader Chao Su has flipped that motto. If he says something is so, I’ll stand beside him until someone absolutely proves him wrong beyond a shadow of a doubt, and even then I’ll scrutinize the proof closely.”

Hearing that level of faith from the Nascent Soul really made Benton’s day.

“Okay, then, Sect Leader,” Duan Lan said. “When can I start?”

Since Benton had sensed her coming with the slow moving caravan the previous day, he’d preempted anyone using the Trials Pagoda that morning. “No time like the present.”

Wen Duyi grew up in a troupe. His parents were actors. His grandparents were actors. His aunts, uncles, siblings, and cousins were mostly actors.

Following family tradition, he broke away from their troupe when he came of age, knowing that, succeed or fail, he’d be welcomed back whenever he wanted. The time away was for the purpose of finding himself as an artist.

Unfortunately, no one got rich from acting, and sometimes even surviving was difficult. Best case scenario a noble or a rich merchant would become a patron, and that lucky troupe wouldn’t have to worry about feeding themselves. Any further ambitions didn’t go beyond making art and having it be appreciated. Still, everyone dreamed of making a better life for themselves, especially if it didn’t mean giving up on their dreams.

When a member of the Poison Claw Sect approached him a little more than a month prior, his first impulse was to rack his brain, trying to determine if one of their shows could have inadvertently insulted the sect or cultivators in general. No one was stupid enough to do so overtly, of course, not after what happened to a troupe whose play contained a negative portrayal of an ill disguised member of the Swift Blizzard Sect.

No one knew exactly what happened to them. The entire troupe, eleven people, had simply disappeared, never to be heard from again.

Wen Duyi’s concern had only grown when he’d been escorted back to the Poison Claw’s branch sect and shown to an elder’s private sanctum. An actual elder. He’d never been in the presence of anyone so powerful or important.

It turned out that there was a village looking for a troupe to provide entertainment. Wen Duyi’s group would be paid ten silvers per person—fifteen for him as the leader—simply to journey via caravan to the village and hear their offer.

That was it, his big chance. The village had to be decent sized to support an acting troupe, and they wanted his to be exclusive.

Surely, pursuing that opportunity would be more lucrative and lead to greater renown than continuing to struggle to find an audience in the relatively crowded marketplace of Sixth Flawless Flowing City.

It didn’t take much to convince the troupe members to accept the deal. After all, they could always back out after hearing the offer.

The journey was long but exciting, full of hope for new opportunities. Besides the money up front, their way had also been paid, including all meals. There were even guards to protect against bandits.

The only strange thing was the presence of an old woman who was unrelated to the caravanners. She would appear happy and optimistic one day and melancholy and pessimistic the next. The troupe spent much of their time speculating as to what her situation was.

The leading theory was that her grandchildren lived in the village, and she hoped they’d accept her moving in for them to support in her old age. None of their attempts to fish for information bore fruit, however, and they could only guess.

As the caravan neared its destination, the troupe members grew more and more excited, wondering what the village must be like. They mostly believed it to be only slightly smaller than the town they’d passed through. It would have to be considering they sought a troupe.

When they finally saw the walls, however, they were sorely disappointed. The village was small. Tiny. Barely a flyspeck.

Still, they were determined to make the best of it, so as the wagons approached the gate, the members put on their best faces, feigning excitement at being there.

But the caravan kept going past the gate, soon arriving at another walled area, that one even smaller than the village. The troupe had no idea what to think, especially when it became apparent that the new area was a small sect, and it was clear that it was their destination.

A young man in nice silver and blue robes met them, asking them to wait in the cafeteria to be summoned while he conducted business of some sort with the old woman. Not being idiots, the troupe members were exceedingly polite, as they would be to any cultivator, and did as requested.

Almost all the sect members were young and surprisingly friendly, and the novelty of new arrivals got their tongues wagging. The troupe soon discovered that the young man was actually the sect leader, but they figured he was simply a Foundation Establishment cultivator who’d created his own little sect, no one truly important.

The first crack in that theory came when they noticed several people in Poison Claw Sect robes interacting with the blue clad members of the new sect. And the Poison Claw members treated the blue sect members with great respect.

Then Wen Duyi reminded them how they’d been recruited, by a Poison Claw Sect elder. The blue sect wasn’t so simple!

Actors were, by nature, usually quite extroverted, and the troupe was no exception. They soon, very politely, made overtures to some of the blue sect members. One thing led to another, and questions were asked and answered regarding the sect leader.

He was no Foundation Establishment level cultivator. No one was quite sure of his realm, but two cultivators from the Poison Claw Sect called him Master.

How powerful did one have to be to have two members of a big three sect as disciples?

And he’d apparently defeated two high realm cultivators from the Jade Chameleon Sect in battle. Him alone versus two strong enough to fly. That was a feat worthy of a tale!

Maybe they’d been summoned to create that very story in play form. The troupe grew quite excited by the prospect. A command performance!

Soon after that revelation, a blue dragon popped into the cafeteria and flew directly at Wen Duyi. He of course thought he was under attack. Had not a kind blue sect member told him the purpose of the origami construct, he might have tried to destroy the thing. Which might have led to his ruin considering who sent the message.

Thus, it was with more than some trepidation that Wen Duyi and the rest of his troupe went to the sect leader’s office.

Their entire future rested on what happened in the next few minutes.