Chapter 217: Interest, Mortification, and Excitement
Benton’s heart broke for Li’er. The girl had been through so much. He couldn’t even imagine the impact that watching spirit beasts kill one’s family would have on a person. It was said that children tended to be resilient, but there was a limit to what anyone could endure.
On one level, he had realized that her life hadn’t been easy. No one’s life as a peasant in a cultivation world was easy, especially not one who was orphaned. But he hadn’t quite understood just how much she was suffering until she mentioned the dreams.
She needed something to help her. In an ideal world, he would have created a Mind technique for her, but she was one of the few sect members who, with his advice, had not begun cultivating either her Mind or Soul. Her spiritual pathways were just too messed up for Mind Cultivation, and he honestly didn’t know how she’d fare with Soul Cultivation. He figured it was better to focus her time on learning techniques since her Spiritual Cultivation was turning out to be so accelerated.
Since she wasn’t cultivating her Mind, though, there was no chance of her quickly getting rid of the dreams herself.
If her brain had been physically damaged, he could have patched her up quickly with his healing technique. But she was dealing with injuries to her psyche, and his Mind Cultivation level did not confer psychic abilities nearly powerful enough to provide external therapy.
That left him with only one choice.
“System,” he said internally, “I need a Qi Gathering level technique for Li’er that will help quiet and heal her mind. It absolutely must prevent nightmares starting as early as Small Success. The technique should be useable by cultivators using any qi aspect.”
When prompted, he went with zero in Foundation and split the one hundred allocation points between Ease and Power. The System affirmed the creation of the technique, Quiet Mind Restoration, for ten Sect Points, and he handed her the jade slip.
“Start learning this technique immediately,” Benton told her. “It’s more important than learning to use your sword. Understand?”
She didn’t look happy about it, but she cupped her hands. “Yes, Master.”
“Good.” Benton looked out over the crowd and noticed Peng Zhen and the rest of his family were present. “It looks like the Contribution Points Shop is closed for the evening, but I’ll send word that you have my permission to draw one rank two and nine rank one beast cores. Feed Ganzou the rank two tomorrow and then a rank one every other day until they’re gone. When that happens, come to me to discuss the next step.”
Those instructions cheered her noticeably. “Yes, Master.”