Chapter 111: Preparations
As the mayor left to round up fifty more villagers for induction and the rest of the council adjourned to do whatever it was that would most advance the sect’s goals, Benton took a moment to think about where he was and where he was going. He had one hundred eleven sect members, not counting himself, and he felt like he barely even knew most of them. And he was about to add fifty more.
He needed to get a better handle on his organization before it grew out of control.
At the moment, he had two people assigned to him as administrative assistants that he hadn’t utilized at all. He’d barely even met them. Seven sect members were technically working in the Alchemy Pavilion, but four of those were villagers who hadn’t even gotten their herb technique to Small Success yet. Five were in the Blacksmith Pavilion, which, honestly, Benton had left for Xun Wu to organize. Presumably, they were all busy making arrowheads or something.
Peng Zhen and his family were running the Contribution Point Store, though that hadn’t really gotten off the ground yet, instead coordinating the villagers who were working on crafting the wall. The Formation Pavilion had five sect members assigned to it, but they were really just getting started as Benton had not appointed a leader until the man had reached minor realm four.
Mistress Zhong ran the outer sect, which was essentially the orphanage at that point. No one save her two helpers were actually assigned to it.
Eventually, Benton envisioned her being in charge of getting everyone through the first four minor realms before moving them on to their assigned pavilions. When the sect was bigger, Benton would think about making the core, inner, and outer sects into real suborganizations, but that division just didn’t make any real sense with so few people.
The second largest pavilion was actually Woodworking. It contained the six village harvesters, their six new apprentices, and five villagers experienced in making bows and arrows. Since the latter of those were already experienced crafters, they’d continued working as they’d started their cultivation journey.
Though Benton had basically merged the village and the sect by that point, he still kept the mayor and the four he’d selected as subordinates as a separate division within the sect, though Benton wouldn’t call it a pavilion per se.
Finally, the remaining sixty-three sect members, even those who were eventually slated to be assigned to other places, were assigned to the Martial Pavilion. Besides the twins and Zou Tian, there were four defined groups—Ye Zan’s two groups of guards, Zi Delan’s burgeoning strike team, and the twenty village guards. That left a combination of seventeen villagers and various orphans who would be either added to another pavilion in the future or organized into new or existing martial squads.
Of course, with the exception of those working on prepping for Body Cultivation baths and those crafting materials useful for the fighting beasts, all sect members were to be focused on cultivating and learning weapon techniques until after the crisis was resolved.
Benton lamented the cessation of progress on his sect wall. They hadn’t even reached half of what he needed yet, having produced only seven hundred forty linear feet. There was a bright spot, though. It was entirely possible that, should they survive the beast tide intact, the density of creatures would be so low and his sect members experienced enough in fighting them that the wall wouldn’t be immediately needed.
That consideration was actually a valid one. He’d have to check conditions afterward, but that he might be able to place all his main buildings once the combat was over cheered him considerably.