The Sect Leader System

The next twelve days passed in relative peace. Benton checked up on the expedition kids periodically, Teleporting high in the air above them and hiding himself from their view using Invisibility. Not even Ganzou sensed him.

There were no further incidents with that group, and they all seemed to be proceeding nicely. Weirdly, the Thunderbird’s interesting opportunity hadn’t materialized yet. Oh well, maybe the grandson backed out, or maybe he was waiting for the exact right time.

Either way was fine with Benton.

He also received two missives over that period, both related to the qi sources. Kang Ya-Ting had promised the remaining Lightning material soon, and Jia Xueqin provided a delivery date for all the goods he’d procured. It would be at the sect that very evening, meaning that Benton had to wrap everything else up by then so he could devote his attention solely to crafting qi sources.

To achieve all he wanted with his projects before those materials arrived, though, he had needed the auction manager to provide some of the merchandise early. Luckily, everything Benton absolutely had to have was off the shelf type stuff, and a politely worded request got him a rush delivery about a week prior.

Since, he’d spent every spare moment working on his To Do List.

Four ranks of Fortified Sewing had been required to make formations out of thread, but the technique had worked like a charm. He’d created a battle robe for each of the sect members likely to go to the tournament and for more than a few of them that likely weren’t, just in case.

And those robes were masterworks. Formations fed by greater spirit coins in an internal pouch protected against both physical and qi attacks, controlled temperature surrounding the cultivator based on thermal indicators from the wearer’s body, self cleaned, self repaired, and adjusted the force gravity exerted on the garment based on intuitive inputs from the wearer.

Best of all, he’d covered all the formations in a concealment array. Even a Nascent Soul—as long as that Nascent Soul wasn’t also a Formations Master—wouldn’t be able to discern any enhancements on the garment. The only slight vulnerability to detection was the pouch containing the spirit coins. Some beasts and cultivators were so well trained at detecting qi that even the best available formation couldn’t hide so much of it in one place.

That was okay, though. It wouldn’t be anything unusual for sect members to carry qi-filled devices or spirit coins on them. The overall badassery of the robes wouldn’t be revealed simply by the presence of a lump of qi.

He couldn’t wait to show the new duds to the kids because, obviously, only a practical demonstration would do. That fun could wait until it was time to leave for the tournament, though. No sense gathering everyone together before then.

The other major project he’d completed was creating talismans. To make those, he’d had to purchase eight Foundation Establishment realm techniques, four ranks of two different ones. The first was Formations Modification. Essentially, written formations were not the same thing as inscribed formations. Luckily, there was a lot of crossover between the two, however. By learning to modify inscribed formations, he could utilize all his knowledge as a Formations Master.