Chapter 238: Kowtowing to Jerks
Benton hadn’t expected his visit to the two girls to be such a bummer. Wan Ai was a smart kid who had done so well with alchemy and cultivation that he’d gained a lot of confidence in her abilities. He hated to lay such a heavy burden on her, but he didn’t have time to take on every task himself.
The meeting with Jin LiJuan had been lighter. She was clearly doing much better since he’d created that formation for her bed that literally chased away bad dreams. The Quiet Mind technique seemed to be helping as well, and she hadn’t even reached Small Success with it yet. And she’d had no problem accepting responsibility for her own success by hunting for her own cores once she was ready.
His problem with her was that he felt so bad sending her potentially into harm’s way. Most of his earliest sect members felt like kids to him, but they were in the mid to late teens, old enough to be taking on responsibility even if he had a hard time considering them adults. Twelve, on the other hand, was still a little kid by any measure. Certainly not ready for adult actions like fighting spirit beasts with her life literally on the line. But everything he had learned about cultivation told him that she needed to earn her own power. Giving her the cores would be more dangerous for her in the long run than having her hunt them herself.
At least his other chores had gone fine. Since he’d used Time Manipulation, inscribing the three arrays around the amphitheater had taking only minutes instead of hours, and two sessions of spirit coin generation, for two minutes or twenty hours depending on one’s viewpoint, had produced close to thirty-six hundred greater coins. Not bad.
Of the items on his task list, that left the council meeting. Fortunately, between his messenger dragons and his extremely capable assistant, they were all waiting for him on the third floor of the Administrative Hall. He Quickstepped down there and found his fifteen previous official council members; his two new ones, Sun Hua and Mo Nuying; his regular guest attendee, Kang Lin; and his two new guest attendees, Kang Ya-Ting and Yuan Yaozu.
It was time to start planning for the big fight.
Of course, the first step was to make sure that a big fight was actually inevitable. Which, honestly, he kind of hoped it was. That sect, after all, had killed Ye Zan. They deserved to be wiped off the face of the planet. Period.
The only reason he was even bringing the subject up was because he knew it was better to swallow his pride than to risk any more of his sect members being harmed. After all, there was always the possibility that he could lose. And if that was the case—so be it. He’d lived a long life on Earth and had thoroughly enjoyed himself so far on this planet that no one seemed to have a name for.
The thought of another one of the kids dying, though. No. Just no. He couldn’t accept that outcome. If the best way to protect them was to kowtow to those jerks, that was what he would do.
“How sure are we that the two Nascent Souls can’t be reasoned with?” Benton said. “After all, I have significant treasures I could offer as bribes, such as cultivation methods, techniques, and access to the Trial Pagoda.”