Chapter 59 - A Man Who Is Good at His Job
As Benton waited for the crew to reset the arena from archery range mode to the normal bare sandy floor for the upcoming duel, he wondered if the spars would be as tilted in favor of the Poison Claw Sect as the contests had been. He found he didn’t care all that much. As long as his disciples had an opportunity to advance, a loss was fine with him.
His mind drifted to the future, though, and the heights the twins could achieve. First, he had to get back to the village, though. Thoughts of founding his sect reminded him of his dwindling point total. He soon, hopefully, would have two new inner disciples, and so far, he’d given personal cultivation techniques to all the kids he’d found who had spiritual roots in the D rank and above. It seemed unfair to not provide Zou Tian and Shi Long the same advantage.
The problem was that Benton literally only had twenty-three points remaining. Individualized Qi Gathering cultivations methods ran ten Sect Points each. After that expenditure, he’d only have a measly three points remaining.
That wasn’t nearly enough for emergencies.
Granted, it felt like threats of immediate danger had calmed down a lot with his budding friendly relations with the Poison Claw Sect, but he didn’t like running on such thin margins.
It occurred to him that the System was a lot like a pyramid scheme, requiring a lot of shmoes at the bottom in order to pay out the ones who’d made it to the top and, of course, for him to skim his share, too.
And okay, the analogy wasn’t perfect. The most important difference was that he wasn’t scamming his future sect members. They really were getting benefits no one else could provide. Additionally, no one was drawing more out than they put in for the long run. The ten points he invested in each of the two new inner disciples would eventually return him fourteen points. He had to put in the investment up front, but barring something really unfortunate happening, it would pay off.
For Qi Gathering realm, anyway. With the quality of his cultivation methods, he felt positive that even an F- could reach Foundation Establishment eventually. He suspected that the lower ranks would struggle to reach Golden Core—if it were even possible at all. Still, fifty points for a cultivation method that any of the outer sect disciples could use would eventually be paid back given enough people.
If he were to actually think of the sect as a pyramid scheme, though, it was a good one. For most of his members, he only had to buy a product once and sell it over and over again to the folks at the base. Every low ranked person he brought in was pure profit.
In order to realize those profits, though, he needed time, and to survive long enough to gain that time, he needed more points. Which, in turn, necessitated that he treated the situation just like he would in administering a pyramid scheme—recruit more people on the bottom.
“Esteemed Elder,” he said to Kang Ya-Ting, “I am reluctant to admit it, but this one seeks another favor.”
“This one is willing to entertain such a request, depending on what it is.”