Chapter 28 - Supreme Growth of Heaven
As Benton watched the children eat dinner, he scanned each of them. Most of them returned messages such as:
System is unable to analyze target’s cultivation because the target’s spiritual roots are not finished growing. Repeat scan in 1.3 years.
The timeline varied from a month to, in the case of a little girl who Zhong Wen informed him was six, over seven years. That information tracked with Su’s memories. It was well known that spiritual roots did not stop growing until sometime between the ages of ten and thirteen, and since cultivating prior to that point was immensely harmful to the individual, no sect recruited anyone under fourteen.
Of the eight children with mature spiritual roots, none were special. All had some form of nature aspected qi, some combined with one other aspect and others not. He found one F, four E-, two E, and one E+.
Not a single one of them would be a candidate for a typical sect because, using the poor-quality cultivation methods available to most of them, achieving even Foundation Establishment with such a low talent was unlikely. Qi Gathering disciples were considered next to worthless, definitely not worth the expense of feeding, housing, and clothing much less providing cultivation aids to. Foundation Establishment wasn’t that much more valued.
All the resources of a sect were dedicated to one purpose—finding recruits with the potential to reach at least Golden Core and, though much more unlikely, Nascent Soul. The strength of a sect was measured by the number of members in those two realms.
Benton’s circumstances caused him to value the children differently. For one thing, the cultivation methods he could create were better, making it more likely that even these kids with low talent might make Foundation Establishment. That concern wasn’t really that important, though.
No, what really drew his consideration was that each one of those kids was a potential Sect Point generator. Every kid who even learned a method and drew in a single mote of qi, reaching minor realm one, was worth a point. If the child was even halfway diligent about cultivating, the kid would produce at least three points over the next month or so, and that total didn’t even take into account techniques.
Compared to the generation of a truly scarce and valuable resource like Sect Points, the expense of raising the children was nothing. If possible, he would find a hundred, a thousand, such kids.
Benton felt a little bad about essentially using them for his own gains, but he firmly believed the kids would benefit as well. It was a true win-win scenario.
When dinner was over and the children dispatched to do chores, Benton pulled Zhong Wen aside. “I’m impressed. You have the house running like a well-oiled machine.”
“A well-oiled machine, Honored Benefactor?”