The Sect Leader System

As Benton had expected, both his disciples had woken the previous evening in plenty of time to consolidate their cultivation, so as the two ate breakfast, he packed their tents and bedrolls and most of the rest of the supplies from around the camp into his spatial ring.

“It has been said that a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step,” he told them, “and today, we will all take that step. It is time to begin our search for a suitable location to found our sect. From now until we reach that destination, we will be traveling, much of that time through dangerous territories filled with spirit beasts.

“Our goals during the journey are threefold. One, to avoid serious injury. Keep your eyes open. Pay attention to your surroundings. Follow my instructions. Two, to continue to build your cultivation and prowess with weapons. To accomplish these objectives, I will limit our traveling to four hours per day. You will spend five hours daily cultivating. The rest of our time will be spent practicing weapons and working on the last goal. Which brings us to three, to harvest spirit beast cores. Our new sect will need resources such as cultivation aids and weapons. We will also need to feed, clothe, and house all the sect members we recruit. All these things require money, and spirit beast cores are quite valuable. Additionally, they are directly useful to our sect in a number of ways, from allowing our members to use jade slips to powering body cultivation baths and formations. And finally, hunting and defeating spirit beasts will advance your martial skills.

“Take a few minutes to attend to any personal matters and make sure we haven’t missed anything. We will not be returning to this site.”

Benton used his waterskins to douse the fire before refilling them all at a nearby stream and washing all the dishes. By the time he’d finished, the kids were ready to depart.

“Both of you now have some experience using a technique to direct qi into your muscles to perform a specific function. You’ve seen me move. Today, you’ll start learning how to do that yourself without a technique to guide you.”

Yang Ru, true to his stoic nature, simply acknowledged that he’d been listening. In contrast, Yang Xiu was visibly excited. That made sense. Being exuberant was in her nature, and smooth movement and speed suited her qi aspect.

Benton explained to them how he manipulated his qi in microbursts to add power to his legs and feet, propelling him forward at great speeds, and how he also sent it to his brain. Without that last effort, his mental faculties wouldn’t be able to process his physical senses fast enough for him to adjust to obstacles as he rushed past them.

Then, they were off.

His disciples’ first efforts at using qi to move were predictably bad. Yang Ru ran into a tree as he used too much power pushing off one leg. Yang Xiu face planted as she lost her balance. Neither lasted more than a dozen tries before Benton told them to stop so as not to completely drain their qi and stamina.

“It’s okay,” Benton said. “You’ll have plenty of time to practice.”

After letting their qi recover for a couple of hours while they walked, they tried again to not much better results and then again before they found a flat clearing with a stream nearby to serve their resting spot for the day.

As the two cultivated, Benton set up the camp. He interrupted them for lunch as he sensed them ending cycles and, after, sent them back to complete their daily requirement.

Each had seized the opportunity given to them by the Qi Refinement Pill and were more than halfway to the fifth minor realm with Yang Xiu a little further along than her brother.

Benton’s best guess was that, limiting themselves to only five hours a day, it would take them about a month to reach their next breakthrough. He hated to slow them down by literally half what they could achieve, but it was a necessary evil. Overall, he—and by extension, they—would be much safer once he had a sect supporting him. Certainly, he’d be much better off with more people feeding him points than he could achieve in any reasonable time period by simply having the siblings increase their personal power levels. That wasn’t even mentioning the fact that founding a sect would allow him access to the system shop. Who knew what goodies he’d find for them there.

Once they’d finished cycling, Benton said, “Time to start our conquest of the spirit beasts. We’re barely in range of where their territory starts, but there are a couple of rank ones relatively nearby. Yang Ru, you’re up first.” He pointed to far end of the clearing. “I’m going to go herd the beast toward us. It will emerge over there. I’ll be behind it, and should you fail to kill it, I’ll take care of it before it can hurt either of you. Until I’m confident you can handle them by yourselves, I’ll make sure you’re not in any danger.”

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Yang Xiu was excited. She was finally starting to feel like a real cultivator from the stories. Not only was she becoming more and more adept at cycling and had experienced her dantian expanding three times already, but she also knew how to use a weapon. She rarely missed the target anymore.

And though progress was halting and more than a little embarrassing, she’d learned how her master moved the way he did. With enough practice, she’d be able to zoom around just like him!

He was also about to have them face real live spirit beasts. She imagined what the first one might be. Probably not a dragon; they weren’t ready for that yet. Maybe a tiger. That opponent was popular in the stories. Or a wolf. Yeah. A wolf would be good.

She was a little disappointed that her brother got to go first, but she was sure that her master had his reasons. He was probably saving the best for last.

Fifteen or twenty minutes after her master had disappeared into the forest, a rustling in the woods approached from the direction he’d told them to expect.

She bounced on the balls of her feet. “Get ready, Ru’er.”

As he’d raised his spear as soon as he’d heard the noise, he shot her an annoyed glance.

“Sorry,” she said.

The rustling got closer and closer. From the sound, something big was coming. Could it be a bear?

Yang Xiu tensed, both eager and anxious to see what would come out of the bushes. Whatever it was, its size didn’t slow it down, considering how fast it approached.

If she didn’t trust her master so much, she might have even gotten a little worried. Spirit beasts didn’t often wander near their village, but when they did, it was always a calamity. The nearest sect was a long distance away, and by the time help could be requested, several people had usually died. Those things were no joke.

Anticipation built.

Finally, the creature emerged. It was … a squirrel.

Yang Xiu frowned. That wasn’t like the stories at all. And how had that tiny thing made so much noise?

Her brother didn’t hesitate one bit. He charged, the tip of his spear proceeding him and looking every bit the ferocious cultivator she hoped to become.

The squirrel leapt toward his face. He thrust his weapon at it.

A miss.

She tensed. Even though it looked harmless, no spirit beast actually was. Filled with qi, even the most innocent seeming creatures could and would kill mortals as prey.

Suddenly, her master was there. Before the squirrel had leapt, she’d not even seen a single sign that he was nearby, but prior to the beast landing, he just appeared.

He wielded only a small mortal-made knife, but that didn’t seem to matter. With a flick of his wrist, the creature split in two, one half landing to the right of Yang Ru and the other to the left.

Both halves soon disappeared into Master’s ring.

“That was a good first effort,” her master said. “You charged forward without any hesitation. Your thrust looked steady and powerful. You know your mistake, though, right?”

“Answering the Senior Brother, I was too slow.”

“Exactly. Speed kills. While I go wrangle up something for your sister to practice against, meditate on the fight. Examine your actions and your opponents’. Let the technique guide you mentally into what you could have done differently.” He paused. “I’m serious, though. That was a good start. Many sect members completely freeze up in their first fight. You put forth a good effort. Great job.”

“Senior Brother Chao, may I ask a question?” Yang Xiu said.

For an instant, a look of irritation flashed across her master’s face.

She quickly said, “This lowly one is sorry, Senior Brother Chao. Please forgive me.”

He sighed. “It’s not your fault, and I probably should have said something before now. I get that asking me if you can ask a question is one of the ways you show respect, and I’ve been trying to accommodate that. The issue is that it is so inefficient. You are my disciple. It is my job to answer your questions. I want you to feel free to ask me anything you think you need to know.”

“Yes, Senior Brother Chao.”

“It’s not that big of a deal. Go ahead and ask your question.”

The exchange had left her more than a little flustered. “It’s just that … there was a lot of noise.”

“Ah. Yes. It probably sounded something huge like a bear was approaching, huh?”

She nodded.

“Most of that noise was me,” he said.

“But Senior Brother Chao normally moves completely silently?”

Her master didn’t respond, and the silence stretched. He tended to alternate between explaining things in great detail to wanting her to figure things out for herself. Obviously, the answer to her latest question was the latter. She thought on it for a moment.

“Senior Brother Chao wanted us to hear him coming so that we would be prepared for the beast emerging,” she said.

“Good job. Got it in one. Now, get ready. The next beast is yours.”

He disappeared into the woods again, a feat he accomplished silently.

Yang Xiu began her preparations. First, she moved as far as she could from the edge of the clearing where her master had told them to expect the beast. There was a nice, large tree there, and she moved so that half her body was shielded by it. She stuck a half dozen arrows tip first into the ground and visualized herself grabbing one and going through her technique’s steps to loose it.

Over and over, she repeated the mental process until, finally, a great deal of rustling brought her back to the present.

Yang Xiu took a steadying breath. Soon, it would be her turn. She would not let her master down.

The rustling grew louder, closer, until the beast finally appeared. It was a snake. Its mottled brown coloring blended into the surroundings, but its several inches in girth and ten-foot length made it visible enough for her to take aim.

She nocked an arrow, smoothly raised her bow, set her eyes on the snake, stilled herself, channeled qi into the appropriate muscles, drew back the string, and smoothly let the fingers on her draw hand relax.

Twang!

The arrow loosed.

She immediately nocked another arrow and didn’t discover that her first one missed until her eyes found the snake before loosing that one. The second one also missed. As did the third.

Before she could even grasp the fourth, the snake was upon her, and her master had to kill it.

“Good job,” he said. “Three arrows in the time it took to cross the clearing. Nice.”

“Senior Brother Chao, may this … I mean, what did I do wrong?”

“Honestly, your accuracy looked darn good, especially considering that a spirit beast was bearing down on you. You were calm and focused and fast. I couldn’t ask anything more from you at this stage in those regards. Your issue was that you didn’t take into account the nature of your opponent and its speed. It undulated as it moved. By the time your arrow reached where you aimed it, its body had moved to the side.”

Yang Xiu considered his critique. Meditation would show her ways to improve.

She’d failed in her first combat, but the next time, she wouldn’t. Or if not, the time after that. How ever many times it took to succeed, she’d would finally do so. After all, the journey to become an immortal was long, and she’d only taken her first small steps.