Chapter 283: As Expected
Benton had about a day and a half left before the morning of the auction arrived, and he’d accomplished all his major objectives. Which meant he was free to move onto minor ones.
He believed that the training sword he’d created to sell could end up being a tremendous boon for whatever faction ended up buying it, and he’d frankly be a horrible sect leader if he didn’t provide similar resources for his members.
Spears should be easy. To save money on building them, he’d forego the all-metal haft design and use Orange Vigor Spirit Wood, which had the dual benefits of being almost as good as metal and basically free for him. The woodworkers and former village alchemists had already cut and treated plenty of correctly sized branches just for that future purpose.
All Benton had to do was forge the spear tips and inscribe the formations. No problem. Ten of the practice weapons should be enough to get things started.
The sect’s other primary weapon was the bow. Two former villagers turned sect members were bowyers, and while the Qi Gathering realm archers were all still using weapons purchased from merchants, the craftsmen were already preparing for the day Benton would want to award new Foundation Establishment members with bows made from Orange Vigor Spirit Wood.
But there was a problem. As far as he knew, they’d only made three of them so far, having been concentrating on other general woodcrafting needs instead.
For an instant, he was tempted to spend the points necessary to become a Master Bowyer, but that expenditure seemed wasteful. While he enjoyed crafting, it was silly for him to take on literally every job. The sect could get by with three training bows for a while. He’d add more as soon as the raw versions became available.
The sect had branched out some from his original thought of everyone using both those weapons and only those weapons. Many of his members, especially the crafters, used a dagger, which made a ton of sense for the alchemists. And it also made sense for the blacksmiths to use a hammer.
Luckily, those were easy enough to forge. Since there were far fewer using daggers or hammers than spears or bows, he’d start with two training weapons each.
As soon as he came to that conclusion, though, a thought occurred to him. The crafters used them as both a weapon and a tool, and while he probably could cram teaching functions for both into a single device, it would be far easier to simply separate the two uses, meaning making eight total devices instead of four.
Finally, came his hardest choice—a sword. Currently, he only had one sect member training with it, but he had to believe others would come along eventually. Besides, Pan Jiang could also use it while he was at the sect.
Why not? Making one of them wouldn’t take up too much of his time.