Chapter 48 - Retail Therapy
True to Benton’s decision, he and the twins spent the entire day in the warehouse cultivating, sparring, and practicing techniques. In the early evening, Yang Ru reached Small Success in Stone Skin, quickly returning one of the three Sect Points that had been spent on the technique.
Benton pulled up the boy’s status.
Name:Yang RuAffiliation:Host's DiscipleAge:15Cultivation:Qi Gathering - Minor Realm SixQi Available:87Techniques:Foundational Spear Essentials - Mastery Foundational Archery Essentials - Small Success Stone Skin - Small SuccessSpiritual Roots:A-Qi Aspect:Low viscosity lava flowing down Mount Burning Thunder
Just because he hadn’t done it in a while, he did the same for Yang Xiu.
Name:Yang XiuAffiliation:Host's DiscipleAge:15Cultivation:Qi Gathering - Minor Realm SixQi Available:87Techniques:Foundational Archery Essentials - Mastery Foundational Spear Essentials - Small Success Peerless Peering and Perception - Small SuccessSpiritual Roots:AQi Aspect:Perfectly smooth ice balanced on the razor edge of freezing and thawing
Her progress on advancing techniques had stagnated a bit, but to be fair, their schedule while they’d been traveling didn’t leave her much time to do anything besides minimal cultivating. Overall, he was very pleased with both the twins’ progress.
Other than checking and re-checking System stuff, it was mostly a quiet, boring day for Benton. He really needed to find a hobby since he wasn’t cultivating. The only thing he had to occupy his time was planning for the next day.
So far, they hadn’t accomplished much in the way of their goals for the trip. The only big tick marks on the checklist were selling the wood and securing the manufacturer of a supply of really good spears.
Recruitment so far had been a total nothing burger. At best, they had one potential prospect in Zou Tian, but given the sect recruitment restrictions, who knew how much trouble it would be to get the boy out of the city without drawing undue attention. Benton had a feeling that, if he tried to leave with a wagon full of orphans, he’d be stopped by the City Watch.
The fact that his prospects were looking so negative in that regard was a big problem. He needed more sect members, ones without ties to the village.
All he could do would be to keep his eyes and ears open and hope that an opportunity presented itself. Which wasn’t exactly a plan. Ugh.
The rest of his To Do List was more easily solved. He had in his possession just under one hundred forty-eight thousand silver taels and a lot of stuff to buy, including food for the village and for his future sect, weapons, spirit herbs for body cultivation, fabric for sect uniforms, and various materials to hopefully get his disciples doing alchemy and arrays and crafting talismans and creating all the other stuff necessary for cultivators to thrive.