Chapter 259 – I Got Pills, They're Multiplying
New
17 minutes ago
Benton enjoyed his encounters with Kang Ya-Ting. The man was a cultivator elder through and through, always working the angles and trying to find advantages for himself, his family, and his sect. Typically, that trait would be one that Benton could understand but not really respect.
The way Kang Ya-Ting went about it was refreshing, though, bringing a level of openness to their dealings. Benton couldn't help but wonder if the man was just less inclined to be sneaky than others in his position or if he was simply not very good at hiding his intentions. Either way, Benton had no problem with someone who looked out for their own self interests as long as they weren't duplicitous.
With their business finished, he said his goodbyes and teleported back to his sect, arriving in the Alchemy Pavilion in lieu of his office. His next task, after all, was the creation of pills. A lot of pills. Thousands.
In preparation for that task, he'd purchased three ranks of techniques each for Alchemy knowledge, herb preparation, and pill creation. Mastery of the first rank brought him to Apprentice as an alchemist, the second to Journeyman, and the third to Expert.
Producing the pills himself would save him hundreds of Shop Points in the short term and thousands or tens of thousands or more in the long term. There was one problem with his plan, though—pill toxicity. The ones purchased from the System were one hundred percent pure, meaning they possessed zero toxins. In contrast, an average low level pill like Minor Healing or Qi Condensing produced by a Journeyman would have a purity percentage in the low eighties. An Expert Alchemist would normally produce similar pills in the ninety-five to ninety-nine percent range, occasionally achieved perfect purity.
Benton would prefer not to have his sect members consume any pills that weren't one hundred percent pure. His hope was that, since System purchased techniques were simply better than the techniques used by most sects and factions, he'd be able to consistently make perfect pills.
He wouldn't truly know until he tried, however.
The room he'd popped into was one of the single-person labs, and he made sure to secure the door before beginning work. Not that anyone would intentionally disturb him, but teleporting to random locations did come with the unfortunate side effect of people not knowing that the sect leader was making use of that location. A simple unintended interruption at the wrong time could cause an alchemist to mess up an entire batch, which was why the room's doors had locking and silencing arrays built into them.
After a bit of consideration, Benton decided to start with creating the Minor Healing Pills. They were a bit more complex to make than the Qi Condensing Pills and an order of magnitude easier than the Major Healing Pills. He was positive, however, that his first few batches, at the very least, would be his worst in terms of purity, and he wasn't nearly as opposed to letting a sect member use a medicinal pill with a bit of toxicity than one intended to help with cultivation.
By starting with the Minor Healing Pills—five hundred of them!—he hoped to gain the experience needed to hone his purchased Mastery of the techniques. Thus, by the time he got to the Qi Condensing Pills, producing high quality ones should be a done deal.
Hopefully.
Benton's new cauldron was rather large, capable of processing up to twenty-five pills at once, and typically, it wouldn't be advisable to use one that large to produce a batch of less than ten and certainly not just a single one. Because of the superior craftsmanship that went into creating the cauldron, however, he felt very comfortable with its ability to do just that.
Thus, he began by laying out the herbs for one Minor Healing Pill on the preparation portion of the table. The first step, identifying the parts to be trimmed, was pretty easy. His superior spiritual sense, augmented both by his Analyze skill and herb preparation techniques, made the areas of the plants that contained toxins stand out to his sight as if they glowed.
The next step was to actually cut the bad parts away. Benton didn't have a blade skill, and for a moment, he considered purchasing one. Honestly, though, Qi Condensing and Minor Healing Pills were both Apprentice level products. Even Major Healing Pills were only at Journeyman level. Considering his Nascent Soul level agility, his Platinum Body Cultivation, and his Mastery of Expert herb preparation techniques, he shouldn't need an additional technique simply to trim a plant.
Luckily, the cutting went as well as he had expected. His blade was sharp and the movements of his cultivation enhanced body sure. The good parts of the herbs were soon separated from the bad, the former going into the cauldron and the latter being swept into the drain to be consumed by Void qi.
He smiled at his addition to the room's design. Void qi really was quite handy for disposal. Much better than leaving a sludge of waste toxins to be disposed of somewhere.
Of course, his trimming hadn't been perfect. Minute portions of good material had remained attached to the parts he'd gotten rid of. For an Expert level pill, not having those tiny amounts would have affected the quality of the final product, meaning if he ever decided to prep materials for such a thing he'd definitely need a blade technique.
For his current purposes, though, he was fine.
Toxins present in the plant were not the only source of pill toxicity. The refinement process also had the possibility of introducing undesired types of qi. In fact, for a normal Foundation Establishment realm alchemist, the mixing stage was the biggest factor in pill purity.
In contrast to those cultivators, Benton's spiritual sense was sophisticated enough to detect any qi element in the surrounding air, and his Mastery of pill creation techniques gave him enough skill to ward away any motes he didn't want in the final product.
Presumably.
Again, he wouldn't really know until he tried.
With the cut herbs resting at the bottom of the cauldron, Benton fed Fire qi into the plant matter, heating it evenly from the bottom up. The heated air rose, driving away stray motes of qi as it did but only for certain areas. At the same time, the displacement created a pressure difference, pulling ambient air down in other locations. That downflow was a major source of impurities.
He carefully injected pure Wind qi, neutral to the Fire qi saturating the mixture, to repel the errant elements and stabilize the pressure differences.
Since he possessed Concepts for both elements, his control over them far exceeded anything any alchemist lower than the middle of the Golden Core realm could achieve. As he monitored the slowly melting mixture, though, he frowned. His control was not as perfect as he'd hoped. Not nearly.
Many stray motes had crept in. His first pill absolutely would not be a perfect success.
Ugh.
Benton shrugged off the failure. It was okay. He hadn't honestly expected a different result. Even though he'd purchased the various alchemy related techniques to Mastery, he hadn't truly mastered them. To do so required practice, though the tiniest fraction of what would have been required to reach the same level of experience naturally.
He continued in order to get practice with the rest of the procedure.
While the mixture was still in the process of melting, the next step was stirring it. For an alchemist who did not have access to Wind qi, that phase was problematic. Obviously, mechanical objects like a spoon simply weren't okay. Nothing besides qi and the surface of a meticulously crafted cauldron were allowed to touch the mixture prior to pill formation. And Fire, the most common element for alchemists, was horrible for stirring.
Such alchemists had to seek devices to fill their needs. Which wasn't a horrible thing. There were many Master Alchemists who used devices. It was just that anyone who possessed an aspect utilizing both Wind and Fire had such a tremendous advantage in terms of ease and expense.
None of the applied to Benton, of course. He simply used his pill creation technique to apply Wind qi along the curved surface of the cauldron, creating a rotating effect. Eventually, the mixture congealed into a homogenous mass, ready to be turned into a pill.
The final step was somewhat weird to watch. First of all, the mass in the bottom of the cauldron seemed like way too much material to be contained in a single pill. Even the largest one Benton had ever downed on Earth would have only held a fourth of the mixture.
Benton just shrugged, though. In a lot of ways, qi was magic beyond understanding, able to break physics at will. If it wanted to fit a lot of material in a container too small to hold it, it just did it.
Second, the mass was homogenous, a fact confirmed by his spiritual sense. So where then did the outer coating for the pill come from?
He had no idea, but when he used Gravity to coalesce the mass from all directions, it shrunk into a perfect oval and a light blue shell appeared on the outside. When finished, the pill flew into his hand, and he used Analyze on it.
Ninety-two percent.
Yuck. He tossed it down the Void drain. One hundred percent purity was his preference, but he'd accept a healing pill at ninety-five in an emergency. There was no way, though, that he was giving any pill that possessed more than five percent toxicity to any of his sect members.
Well, on the plus side, he'd made his first pill. He only had two thousand five hundred and ninety-nine more to go. Of course, that quantity wasn't as bad as it sounded. Once he perfected his technique, he'd be able to make batches of twenty-five at a time.
Until then, though, it would be a grind.
It took him two more attempts to reach ninety-five percent, another three to reach ninety-seven, twelve after that to get to ninety-nine, and two dozen more to finally reach one hundred.
As soon as he hit that mark, he switched to batches of five. The first set of pills were all in the ninety-six to ninety-eight range, and it took him another three batches to get two out of the five pills to one hundred percent. Eventually, though, all five come out perfect, so he increased the quantity to ten per batch.
By the time all five hundred sets of herbs for the Minor Healing Pills were used, his batches of twenty-five almost always had all the pills at one hundred percent purity. When he did fail, it was only a single pill, and it only had a point or two of toxicity.
Feeling pretty confident in himself, he moved on to Qi Condensing Pills, experimenting with a single one at first. One hundred percent. Perfect.
Even using his Time Aura, the creation of all the pills took all night. When he finished, though, he was quite satisfied. All but fourteen of his Qi Condensing Pills turned out perfect, and every one of his Major Healing Pills, done in batches of five, were also one hundred percent pure.
The experience had been a tedious grind, but it was worth it. Not only did he have pills to provide his sect members that didn't cost a single Shop Point, but he also felt comfortable enough with his alchemy skills to begin preparations for producing qi sources.
Benton still needed to return to Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town at some point soon to create a formation for the palace, but other than that, he could finally turn his attention to acquiring the materials he needed for qi sources. He couldn't help but grin at the thought of all his sect members cultivating in Time Chambers that increased their advancement speed by ten times.
He'd be at Nihility before he knew it.
Chapter 260 – Pedal to the Metal
New
4 hours ago
With all the pills he needed for the immediate future created, Benton turned his attention to creating the qi sources. He wanted to make one for each of six elements—Fire, Ice, Momentum, Nature, Shadow, and Time. And each required three separate types of materials—beast, plant, and mineral.
Eighteen materials total.
He currently had in his possession three of the eighteen—the Fire aspected core from the Cyclops, the Fire stones Kang Ya-Ting traded, and Nature kernels from the Orange Vigor Spirit Wood. Even better, Benton was expecting delivery of a Fire-aspected plant in a little more than a month, which he'd receive in exchange for letting one of the Poison Claw Sect elders use the Trial Pagoda.
Normally, he might have questioned if the material was worth the five hundred Sect Points the usage would cost, but gaining that Fire aspected plant would complete the set of three, allowing him to actually create the Fire qi source.
He couldn't wait!
Besides, the qi sources were the key to his plan for building his sect to the level high enough for all of them to be truly safe. No cost was too high.
The Poison Claw Sect elders had offered two more materials for trade—an Ice aspected plant and a Shadow aspected core. Step one of hopefully acquiring those items was to use his crafting abilities to create products to sale at the auction. If he could make treasures that were extraordinary enough, they would be so in demand that he'd have no problem completing a trade for the materials he needed, even if he had to find a third party to make things work out.
Still, out of eighteen separate materials, he only knew of six. One out of every three he needed. One third. Thirty-three percent.
By any measure, that wasn't a lot.
Finding more wasn't out of the realm of possibility, though. After all, he'd barely even begun to search. His only real effort thus far had been to send the kids to the city and have them ask around. And that seriously minimal effort had born a decent amount of fruit.
Benton even had two very good potential places to search—the upcoming auction and the mountain. Just because he was currently focused on the auction as a way to trade with the elders, that didn't mean he wouldn't find materials for sale there. Which meant it was even more important that he produce as many treasures as he could and make them desirable as possible.
Even easier was exploring the mountain. As far as he could tell, the closer to the mountain one got, the stronger the beasts. Then, upon reaching the slope, the higher up you reached, the stronger the beasts. His spiritual senses indicated that the cyclops wasn't anywhere near the apex predator there, so as a mere Golden Core, Benton had been extremely reluctant to take a look around.
Besides, he'd been pretty darn busy taking care of the sect, and it hadn't been safe to leave the kids unguarded.
With his advancement to Nascent Soul, the recruitment of Yuan Yaozu, and the construction of the Grand Defensive Formation, all that had changed. He was more than powerful enough to take care of himself while searching for hidden treasure, and the kids would be just fine if he took off for a few days, especially with all the contingency rings he'd distributed.
Thus, Benton came up with his plan.
His first step, the one he was itching to do, was creating treasures for the auction. Crafting them involved letting his imagination go wild and inventing the best, most interesting and powerful treasures he could think up using all the advantages the System gave him.
That sounded like so much fun.
Of course, like with so many important tasks, there was a precursor activity. Taking treasures crafted by an Expert alchemist or a Formations Expert to the auction would be impressive. Kind of. People would definitely be interested in what he had to sale. But it wouldn't generate the kind of buzz he needed.
No, if he wanted to trade for the materials necessary to make the qi sources, only masterworks would do, which meant that his prerequisite to beginning was to buy the necessary techniques to raise his level for each type of crafting.
Once he had the trade goods made, the next activity that seemed like the most fun was exploring the mountain. He'd been on the planet for almost a year and felt like he'd done little, if any, actual adventuring. Right after recruiting the twins, he'd followed the System's nudging to find the village, and from there, he'd journeyed to Sixth Flawless Flowing City and back.
So there had been a decent amount of travel, especially compared to peasants who might never go more than a dozen miles from where they were born. But travel wasn't adventure. It wasn't exploring. Flying to the mountain to search for hidden treasures while dodging spirit beasts that might be above even him in cultivation was an adventure!
He couldn't wait.
Unfortunately, as a responsible adult, he had to eat his veggies before chowing down on dessert. As long as the palace in Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town was relatively unprotected, he couldn't justify taking off into the woods and playing Indiana Jones.
Benton gave himself a week to work on the trade goods. If he finished before that deadline, he'd teleport to the town and complete his work there. Even if he wasn't finished with his crafting when the deadline came around, he'd teleport to the town at that time regardless.
There. Decision made. Benton had a full week, guilt free, to dive into thinking up and making awesome toys. He rubbed his hands together gleefully.
First phase, personal enhancement. Benton used three Foundation Establishment level skills for alchemy—Alchemy Knowledge, Herb Preparation, and Pill Creation. Each had three ranks, Mastery of which brought him to the peak of the Expert Level. To become a Master alchemist, he needed to purchase the rank four technique for each. Which he did.
At eight points each, he spent twenty-four Sect Points.
To create formations at an Expert Level, he used one Qi Gathering level technique and three at the Foundation Establishment realm—Knowledge of Formations, Formation Construction, Formation Construction Acceleration, and Inscription. He'd already bought the first three ranks for all of them. To increase his level to Master, he needed purchase the fourth rank of each.
He hesitated a moment before purchasing the fourth rank of one of the techniques, however. Acceleration was not technically a requirement. That skill basically let him design and produce arrays at a faster pace, an essential boon for the massive amounts of inscribing that walls and Grand Defensive Formations took. The question was whether he really needed it for Master level work.
Then again, why was he quibbling over a measly eight points when he was raking them in by the hundreds.
He spent the twenty-eight points required to increase the rank of all four techniques.
Blacksmithing was much more problematic than the other two crafts. Benton had cheaped out when buying his initial technique, purchasing only one of them at basically the first rank. He barely had enough ability to properly be called an Apprentice.
To get to Mastery, he'd need three additional ranks of Blacksmithing, four ranks of Blacksmithing Knowledge, and four ranks of Forging. That was an additional seventy-two points, twenty more than advancing the other two types of crafts combined.
Still, it wasn't like he had a choice. Pills that were as in demand as he needed required herbs that were as rare as the qi materials that he was trying to obtain, and it wasn't possible to sell his services as a Formations Master given the current political environment. No, he needed to use those two skills to augment his weapon creation, a craft that required blacksmithing.
After dithering about it for a while, Benton finally pulled the trigger and made the purchase. Even with buying all those techniques, though, he was still well above his thousand point floor, so he tried not to let the expenditures bother him.
In fact, as he thought about how to maximize the value of the trade goods he planned to produce, he realized that specializing in a particular type of weapon would be better than making a bunch of different kinds, and since cultivators loved their swords…
He purchased four ranks of a Qi Gathering level technique on the knowledge of sword construction. It was worth the sixteen additional points to become a Master swordsmith.
His first sword needed to be something easy so that he could practice his skill. After a bit of consideration, he decided that a simple, well-built sword imbued with one of the five common elements would be perfect. The idea of the weapon being that a Fire aspected cultivator could more easily channel qi through the weapon if it were already imbued with Fire qi. In fact, if Benton added a simple array, the amount of qi channeled through the sword could actually be multiplied and also made to be more destructive.
Benton liked that idea. An array for self-repair and another to keep the blade always sharp would add to the value.
Yeah. Simple but valuable. Exactly what he needed. Five such swords, one for each common element, would be a good start for his trade goods.
He had a Concept for Metal, which would serve him well in adding self-repair. The problem was that he didn't have a Concept for Sharpness. Of course, he didn't actually need a Concept simply to imbue Sharpness into metal, but the array would be a lot more efficient and effective if he did.
Hmm.
Benton would probably be making a lot of swords to sale and, eventually, other weapons, particularly spears, for his sect. He couldn't imagine not wanting both the self-repair and the Sharpness arrays for all of them.
Besides, a more efficient and effective Sharpness array meant more valuable, which was the whole point of the exercise.
There went another sixteen Sect Points.
He still had two sample ingots of the ten different metals the kids had purchased from Kang Ya-Ting, so Benton used Analyze to study each of them. None of the metals were top tier materials, but they had the benefit of all being easily available from the Poison Claw Sect at a reasonable, if high, price.
In theory, a Master Blacksmith could turn the roughest trash iron into a weapon that any sect would treasure, but in practice, the type of metal did impact the final price. If he would have had access to better materials, he would definitely have used them, but he could definitely work with what was in front of him.
After his examination, he chose starsteel to work with. The metal possessed a good combination of strength and durability while still maintaining a healthy degree of flexibility. Importantly, it would also easily hold a sharp edge, accept the three arrays he planned to inscribe, and conduct qi efficiently.
Honestly, most of the metals possessed similar properties. One might be a little stronger or more durable or conduct qi better or what have you, but Benton liked the starsteel's overall combination the best. Of course, it was also the most expensive at one hundred seventy five greater spirit coins per ingot.
Counting waste, he'd need about one and a quarter ingots per sword, so six and a quarter for the five swords he was definitely planning on making. He wasn't sure how many swords other than those five he would make, though.
Hmm.
No more than twenty, right? Yeah. That sounded reasonable. So call it thirty-two ingots. Round that up to thirty-five. Perfect.
Assuming a ten percent service fee for Kang Ya-Ting, the ingots should cost him about sixty thousand eight hundred greater spirit coins all in. Not exactly pocket change, but those were easy enough for him to produce.
He fired off a message to the Poison Claw Sect elder.
Friend Kang,
I need another 35 ingots of starsteel. Will 6,800 greater spirit coins work (a number that should already include your fee, btw!)?
Any preference on the qi element on the coins?
Also, do you think it's safe for your most excellent granddaughter to fly back and forth to the city solo to pick up the metal? If you think there's any danger at all, I'd rather not risk it and could instead come myself.
Gratitude,
Friend Su
It didn't take long to get the response back.
Friend Su,
I suppose this nearly destitute old man can accept the measly sum of 6,800 greater spirit coins for the metal, my time spent arranging the purchase of the metal, and the use of my very own granddaughter for transportation.
As for our preference on the qi element, any of the five common ones are always easy to trade. If you also had some Poison or Venom aspected ones lying around, their inclusion would certainly be appreciated.
Considering that Kang Lin's sect robes should provide adequate protection all on their own along with the fact that she possesses one of the contingency rings you created, I have absolutely no fear of her not having a complete safe and boring journey.
Send her along tomorrow, and I'll have the ingots waiting for her.
With Respect,
Friend Kang
Perfect. Tomorrow he'd have all the materials he needed. Today, he'd use the sample ingots to practice.
Chapter 261 – Incredible Generosity
New
2 hours ago
Kang Lin reminisced as she flew on her glider, as Master called it. She still enjoyed the experience of flying, but with her Foundation Establishment level body control and reflexes, simply staying over the trees as she made her way to Sixth Flawless Flowing City didn't require much of her attention. The easy flight was nothing like playing what Yang Xiu called sky tag.
Now that make Kang Lin concentrate solely on flying.
As it was, though, her mind wandered. First, she considered the gliders themselves. The construction and arrays weren't anything all that special, and the only part that would make it difficult to replicate was the inclusion of Gravity qi, not an element that many cultivators used. Still, she'd never heard of a sect that produced anything like the device.
She couldn't help but wonder why.
The device allowed Foundation Establishment cultivators to get from place to place much faster than any movement technique available at their level. Considering that the majority of the hard labor performed in a sect was done by cultivators of that level, it seemed like improving their efficiency would be something worth doing.
On the negative side, the devices were only good for a couple of years at most for the most talented of sect members, and sects weren't known for giving expensive gifts to untalented members. Maybe they just didn't think it was worth the effort to produce.
The Rising Tide Sect was different in that they had very, very few high realmed members, only Master and Town Lord Ren. They had a growing number of Foundation Establishment Cultivators, though. The twins and, as of recently, Jin LiJuan were just the start. Master had promised that every Qi Gathering cultivator in the sect, even those with only F talent, would reach the second major realm if they were diligent enough, and Kang Lin believed him.
The benefit provided by his top heaven grade cultivation methods could not be overstated. Combine those with that crazy Trial Pagoda, and there was no reason the entire sect wouldn't eventually reach even Golden Core. Or higher.
She had personally witnessed one man use the pagoda to go from Foundation Establishment to Golden Core and another from Golden Core to Nascent Soul. Nascent Soul! And both men had been stuck for a long time at the peaks of their respective realms. The Trial Pagoda was solely responsible for their advancement.
Kang Lin trembled, and she didn't know if the reaction was from fear or excitement. Probably both but more the former.
Within two to three years, it would not be surprising if the Rising Tide Sect had a thousand Foundation Establishment cultivators. Which wasn't a big thing. The Poison Claw Sect had treble that number. But even selecting only highly talented recruits, more than half the inductees never even reached that high.
To ensure that no recruit, no matter how untalented, failed was unfathomable. What would the Rising Tide Sect be in a century? A millennium?
Even if the Poison Claw Sect had a dozen Nascent Souls by then, it would probably end up a subsidiary of Master's sect. The future of the Rising Tide Sect was bright indeed.
If.
A big if.
If no one came along and destroyed what Master was trying to build.
Kang Lin wasn't stupid, and she'd been educated in the ways of sects. The Rising Tide Sect was about to go through a tribulation, one originating from its fellow sects instead of from the heavens. And there were only two outcomes. Either Master would reign supreme or he and all his disciples would be dead.
Trying to shake off her morose thoughts, she stared ahead. The city walls were just coming into view.
Her grandfather had gotten her permission to fly over gate directly to the Poison Claw Sect, so the guards should have been expecting her. She lowered her speed and altitude to just above the height of the wall and waved at one of them. He waved back.
As she crossed the threshold into the city, she was well aware that, at that moment, she was almost definitely the only Foundation Establishment cultivator flying solo above the city. Being the only cultivator of her realm performing such a highly visible activity wasn't necessarily a good thing. Spotting several figures on flying swords in the sky, she realized how vulnerable she was and that she had nearly seven thousand of Master's greater spirit coins in her storage ring. Keeping her speed high, she lowered her height to the minimum needed to clear the surrounding buildings and headed straight for her sect's branch grounds.
The closer she got to her grandfather's study, the more anxious she became. She barely even knew why, but a deep feeling of unease came over her.
"Grandfather!" she said as soon as she was invited in.
"Kang Lin? Are you okay?"
"How bad is it, Grandfather? Will my friends be killed? Will Master?"
His shoulders slumped. "I don't know. With Yuan Yaozu's advancement, our sect is strongly allied with him now, more strongly than we've been with any other sect ever. We are also now the strongest faction with five, soon to be six, Nascent Souls." He chuckled, clearly trying to lighten the mood. "The way it's going, this old man will soon join those lofty ranks."
Kang Lin plastered a grin on her face even though she didn't feel at all amused. "The world will be a better place with you watching over it at such a high realm."
Her belief in that sentiment, at least, she didn't have to fake.
"Trust in your master, Granddaughter. He is a wise and powerful cultivator."
She frowned. "Those two Nascent Souls nearly killed him. How will he stand against what is sure to come next?"
Her grandfather did something that she had never seen nor could even fathom. He shrugged. "What I don't know about that man is far more extensive than what I do know. All I can say is that I have the utmost confidence that anyone who comes against him will die. Period. Just like all the others before them. Your master may have looked like he was on the verge of losing, but who is standing and who doesn't have enough of their bodies remaining for a decent burial?"
"I've never seen him act like he did afterward. He was angry, which I have seen, but more than that, he appeared defeated."
"That wasn't a man who admitted defeat, my granddaughter. That was a man who admitted making a mistake. He clearly underestimated his foes and almost paid for it." He shrugged again. "It happens to the best of us."
"You really think that is all it was, Grandfather?"
"I do."
"And you think he has the power to defend his sect?" Kang Lin said. "That Trial Pagoda? I'm right about what's coming, aren't I?"
"You are, and I do. There is much more to this world than you or I have seen. I heard of a man once who could advance his cultivation by restricting his realm while in combat. The trick of it was that, once limited, it couldn't be changed until the fight was over. So if he made a miscalculation, he'd die, but when he got it right, his cultivation shot forward at ridiculous speed."
"Is that what's going on with Master?"
Her grandfather chuckled. "I doubt it, but there is something very unusual about that man. This old man hasn't lived long enough to understand what he's using for a source of power, but I guarantee you that he is not so simple. I would bet you all the spirit coins you have on you at ten to one odds that, if he were to come up against those two Nascent Souls today, he'd obliterate them without expending any effort at all. If I didn't believe in his ability, there is no way I'd let you go back to that sect with what will be coming his way."
Kang Lin cupped her hands. "Gratitude, Grandfather."
Once they'd done their business, exchanging Master's coins for the metal ingots, Kang Lin took her leave, feeling much lighter of heart than when she'd arrived. Her flight back out of the city was more enjoyable, too, as she noted all the people who pointed to the girl flying on the strange device.
She waved and had fun with the attention until she spotted a man wearing the gray robes of the Jade Chameleon Sect. From his age and the fact that she couldn't sense him, he was surely a Golden Core but not one that she recognized. Not that she knew many on sight.
Instead of him being angry, he smiled and waved back at her, and at first, she thought he meant it as a peace offering to her and her sect. Then, she met his eyes. They were cold and calculating, standing in bright contrast to his expression and body language.
That man was a snake, and she'd best avoid him at all costs. She pretended to wave at someone else as she increased her speed away from him. When she finally passed over the wall and didn't spot anyone behind her, she breathed out a huge sigh of relief.
Still, she kept her glider at maximum velocity all the way back to the Rising Tide Sect, swearing to herself that she would plead with Master to make her device faster.
Obviously, then, when she landed, she went straight to the Administration Hall and climbed the stairs to Master's office.
"Ah, Kang Lin," he said. "Welcome back. I'm so glad to see you made it safely. Any problems?"
She almost mentioned the Jade Chameleon that she saw, but as nothing had actually happened with the man, there wasn't anything to tell. "No, Master. I went straight there and back, only taking a brief time to visit with my grandfather."
"So diligent. You are a credit to your sect."
She cupped her hands, holding her storage ring in her palm. "Your ingots, Master."
"Perfect!" He took the ring, extracted the ingots into the air and had them hover there from a moment as he examined them before, presumably, storing them in his ring. "Exactly what I requested. This will do nicely." Master floated her ring back to her.
Since she thought that their business was concluded, she was about to ask about making the gliders faster when he spoke again.
"I've got something for you. A small gift."
A gift? For her? Another one? He'd already given her the glider. She couldn't help but get a bit excited.
"It's nothing big or all that impressive." He paused. "Here, let me just show you."
A sword, a jian, appeared floating in the air in front of her, confusing her to no end. Why would he give her a sword? She was a spear user.
"The metal you retrieved for me will be made into swords for the upcoming auction," Master said, "and the ones that I sell there will need to be perfect. Even a master like me sometimes needs to rough out a project before starting on the real thing. This is my proof of concept."
Okay. That explained why he had that sword but not why he was giving it to her.
"My problem was twofold," he said. "One, I knew that sword was neither going to be good enough for the auction or for any of my disciples, few of which could get any use of a blade anyway. Two, I knew that sword was good enough to be of use to someone somewhere, and I hate being wasteful. If someone can use it, I want it to be used, you know?"
"Yes, Master." She did understand. Resources for cultivators were precious. Even if the resource wasn't perfect, it would be valuable to someone.
"I was thinking that my excellent disciple, Kang Lin, who was off doing me a favor, was spending an awful lot of time at my sect, which is not hers. Then, I got to thinking, if she's here, how's she earning any contribution points at home? So I made this sword Poison aspected. I figure you can sell it for points. If you want to. You can give it to a friend or whatever you might prefer. I just thought it might be helpful."
She cupped her hands again, wondering again at the fact that Master was so thoughtful. Of all the adjectives that she would have used to describe sect leaders before meeting him, that one would not have appeared on the list. "Gratitude, Master."
"I honestly don't know what you can get for it," he said. "It's not that great, not even top or heaven grade."
"What grade is it, Master?"
"High Earth."
Kang Lin resisted shaking her head. Of course her Master would create a trash practice sword better than ninety percent of all the weapons used by her entire sect. "Gratitude again, Master. I'm sure I can get something for it in trade."
"Good! The arrays turned out okay, at least, so that should help the value."
"Arrays, Master?"
"Yeah. The sword will self-repair when damaged. You can feed it qi to speed that process or let it absorb slowly from the atmosphere."
She nodded. That array was very popular, and he was right about it increasing the value. Maybe not doubling it exactly but close to it.
"The edge has an array to increase sharpness as well. I'm not quite happy with my inscribing on that one, though. It'll only increase the cutting power by about five times."
"Only five times!" Kang Lin couldn't help herself. Swords were made for cutting. Any array that helped make it sharper would greatly increase its worth, and she'd never heard of an array giving a multiple higher than three.
"Yeah. I know. Not up to my normal standards, but I did tell you this one was for practice. With what I learned, though, the ones for the auction should reach at least ten times."
She opened and closed her mouth a few times, unintentionally doing her best imitation of a fish. "A high Earth sword, Poison aspected, with those two arrays will be quite valuable, Master. Are you sure you want to give it to me?"
"I have no use for it," he said. "It makes me happy that you'll find it a good home. But don't forget about the third array, the final one."
Pavilions tended to have healthy rivalries in most sects, meaning they didn't often work together unless commanded by the council of elders or by the sect leader, meaning that swords with any arrays at all were unusual. The more arrays a blade had, the more unusual and, thus, the more valuable it became, especially when the arrays were well thought of.
She waited a moment for him to tell her what the array did, but he said nothing. Clearly he wanted her to ask. So she did.
"Oh," he said, "it converts and amplifies raw poison qi into an attack that penetrates the enemy's body upon any cut."
"Amplifies, Master? By how much?"
"Again, about five times. I'm hoping to double that for the real thing."
As far as Kang Lin could figure, the trash sword he'd given her was worth more than all the greater spirit coins she'd just transferred to her grandfather. Stunned by her master's incredible generosity, she stumbled out of his office after saying her goodbyes and thanking Master once again. It wasn't until later that she realized she'd completely forgotten to ask him about the glider.
Chapter 262 – Swords!
Benton absolutely loved Kang Lin's reactions. The twins and the rest of his kids just didn't have enough knowledge to know how crazy some of the things he provided them were. She, on the other hand, was very aware of the items unusual nature and acted accordingly in the most amusing ways.
The look on her face when she realized just how valuable that sword was!
He chuckled. Really, he had no other use for the thing. Sure, he could have gotten a few spirit coins had he sold it, but he was trying to build up a reputation as a master craftsman. High earth grade just didn't cut it, even if it did have a sharpness array.
Benton chuckled again, that time at his little pun. Then he sighed. Too bad there was no one around to appreciate it.
Anyway, with enough ingots in hand to make twenty-five swords, it was time to get to work. His first step was obviously to create the masterwork versions of the one he'd gifted to Kang Lin. Though he used his Time Aura to speed the process, he actually took things slow inside the bubble. The key to perfection was to give each task his full attention so as not to make any mistakes.
From the forging to inscribing three arrays to making and attaching the hilts, Benton took his time, sweating over every detail. His patience paid off. At the end of nearly a full subjective day's worth of work, he had five top heaven grade swords, one for each of the common elements.
Five down, twenty to go.
Even being a Nascent Soul at an equivalent realm of Mind Cultivation didn't prevent him from getting fatigued after intensely concentrating on something for that long, so he needed a break after he finished. During that time, he thought about the next set of swords.
His first five blades required the wielder to be able to channel similarly aspected qi into the weapon. Which reduced the target audience for each of those swords. He was almost positive, however, that the demand would still be high because there were a lot of cultivators aspected to the five most common elements.
Benton thought a weapon that gave a cultivator the ability to use a rare and powerful element not of their aspect would be even more valuable. The question was how to make that happen.
He was definitely a cheating cheater who cheats, but he didn't need the System that time. As an actual Formations Master, he possessed more than enough knowledge to design such an array himself.
Thus, his next set of swords would be similar to the first set—possessing arrays for self-repair, sharpness, and amplification of input qi resulting in an attack—but would add another array that converted whatever qi was input into the blade into the type of qi used by the attack.
There was an issue, however. He didn't mind rival formation experts being able to reverse engineer his first three arrays as they were all common knowledge. That last array, though…
Currently, if a cultivator wanted to use a qi type that didn't correspond to their aspect, they had limited choices. The easiest and cheapest was a single use talisman. The maker would imbue the device with a qi type and technique, and tearing the talisman would trigger usage of the stored ability.
The other option was something like the bracelet the Water aspected Nascent Soul had used. When its qi was used up, it could be recharged with a spirit coin of the proper aspect. A lot of Benton's defensive arrays were of that type.
To the best of his knowledge, it was highly unusual, and maybe even actually unheard of, for a device to convert one qi type into another. He definitely didn't want to spread the array around for two reasons. One, he didn't want something so potentially powerful being used against his sect. And two, he wanted to keep a monopoly on it to keep the value high.
It was good that he was a master at both Blacksmithing and Formations because the only solution he could think of was to hide the array inside the sword's core. Which meant inscribing it during an interim stage of the forging process.
Not an easy thing to do but something that was definitely possible. And hopefully, the results would be worth it.
Of course, he doubted that those creations would be a cultivator's primary weapon but rather something they could pull out of their spatial ring at a critical moment to change the circumstances of a fight. Which lowered the value somewhat. His hope was that the combination of the uniqueness of changing the input qi's type, the swords' quality, and the power and rarity of the qi elements used would escalate the value to the heights he needed.
It was an easy choice for him to use uncommon sub elements for some of the blades, choosing Force, Ice, Lightning, Magnetism, and Shadow. Each of those could create a powerful attack or an effect that could definitely impact a battle, from the simplicity of a Lightning strike to enveloping the wielder in a veil of Shadow.
If Benton's guess was right, those five swords would bring in decent returns. But he doubted they'd were special enough to compel auction goers to trade the materials he needed to him.
No, to provide that level of motivation, he needed more oomph. He needed Gravity, Soul, Space, Time, and Void.
The problem was that he wasn't sure he wanted to release weapons with that kind of power out into the wild. He'd hate it to the depths of his being if one of them were used to hurt one of his sect members.
Hmm.
An idea hit him—a hidden fifth array, one that prevented the sword's qi attack from activating against anyone who carried a Rising Tide Sect token.
Perfect.
Benton grinned. Obviously, he wouldn't be advertising that last feature.
The next two and a half subjective days were spent forging those ten swords and resting when necessary. At the end, he was ecstatic with the results as they all turned out perfect as well, leaving him with fifteen swords that all should fetch a pretty darn good price at the auction.
Ten to go.
For half of those, he wanted one-off, really unique effects, but he kind of liked how he had a theme for sets of five going. So what could he do for the next five?
Though he thought the ones he'd already created would be very popular, especially those last five, he was kind of bored with the whole basic setup of channel qi into the blade and have it launch an attack.
There had to be something more creative than that.
Hmm.
The point of the swords was to enhance its wielder's combat power. Was there a way to do that in a more literal sense? In addition to being a sharp, well-made weapon, could one of his blades actually make the cultivator a better fighter? Not in the sense of training but actually better. Stronger. Faster.
Enhanced stats basically.
That would be a cool feature, but how?
Well, as a Formations Master, Benton knew of arrays that could improve a cultivator's stats. Since they originated from the System, he doubted that anyone else nearby knew of them. Should be a valuable effect.
His first idea was for the cultivator to channel qi into the sword, and in return, the sword would make the cultivator stronger. That seemed … weak. Weakish, anyway.
Ah. In addition to self-repair and sharpness, what if the blade absorbed a portion of an opponent's attacks and channeled that qi into the array to temporarily boost the cultivator?
Yes. Now that sounded powerful, worthy of opening those stingy auction goer's pocketbooks.
Benton just had to figure out which stats. Strength was a no brainer, as was Speed. He really wanted five, though. Agility? Dexterity? Intelligence?
Hmm.
Available qi. Yeah. That would actually be easier than the other two. He'd just need formations to absorb qi from an attack, store it, and convert it to a form useable by the wielder. Actually, that last part was a bit complicated as he'd need another array to bond the blade to the wielder's aspect so that the other array would function properly.
Complicated was okay, though. Complicated meant rare. Rare meant valuable.
The idea of an opponent's attack adding to the wielder's qi pool led Benton to his next sword—one that converted qi from the opponent's attacks into health for the wielder.
Nice.
Benton's next idea was inspired by asking himself—what is the ultimate stat that could be increased? The answer was simple—cultivation. The ultimate sword would be one that took power from opponents' attacks to increase the wielder's cultivation.
But how?
Well, in a way, the formations were really similar to the ones used for increasing the wielder's available qi. The difference with the new sword would be that the qi output would need to be converted to aspected ambient qi like a qi source would produce instead of like a spirit coin would provide.
Of course, if Benton could do that, he wouldn't need the qi sources in the first place. Okay, so that one just wasn't going to work.
Bummer.
He couldn't think of anything nearly as cool as increased cultivation level and ended up settling for a relatively lame boost to perception. Oh well.
Another day was spent creating those five swords, and during his rest period, he considered his final five, the ones he planned to make as one-offs instead of all being alike in some way.
When Benton thought about weapons that provided a unique benefit, the first thing that came to mind was Mjolnir, Thor's hammer. Specifically, he liked how the hammer only allowed those who were worthy to use it.
Benton had no idea how to create an array to judge one's worth, but it was simple enough to develop an array and a process to bind the sword to a cultivator's soul, making it only useable by that person. Perfect.
For the next one, he really liked the sword he'd made that used qi from attacks to provide healing, but the effect was a bit passive in that it depended on the enemy's actions. It would be so much cooler if the wielder's every successful attack stole life or health or qi or something from the opponent and transferred it back to the wielder.
A life steal sword.
Well, it wouldn't actually steal life as, after a bit of thought, Benton couldn't quite figure out how to make that work. A healing array was easy, though, and it was fairly simple for a Formations Master to reverse the function of a given array, making the new one take healing from an opponent instead.
Awesome.
For the third of the set, his first idea was mind control, but even if he were able to figure out how to make that work, the ethical considerations made him pause. Imagine giving an arrogant young master that particular power.
Benton literally shuddered at the thought.
He also didn't want to give the blade an ability too similar to his Mind Stun as he wanted that technique to remain one of his trump cards. The idea, in general, was good, though, so he ended up having the sword put out a kind of flashbang disruptive blast of light and sound.
The effect wasn't exactly overpowered, but a distraction at the right time could easily mean the difference between life and death.
For the next one, he hit upon a completely different idea. What if the blade could help its wielder become better at using a sword? He could create a technique of the absolute most basic sword moves and use complex formations to have the blade guide the young cultivators in reproducing those moves correctly.
That one ended up being a pain in the buttocks to figure out the formations. Maybe it wasn't technically as complex as the Grand Defense Formation, but it was equally as difficult in a different way.
Benton honestly didn't know if the price he'd get for his teaching sword would be worth the effort, but he did know one thing for sure—he absolutely would create the spear version of the weapon for his sect members. One really good thing, though, was that, now that he'd figured out the formations, reproducing it would be easy, even for different weapons.
For the final sword, he decided the thing his weapons were missing was a lack of lethality. Which, okay, wasn't something that was a consideration for most people when thinking about swords. But building on the concept of a teaching blade, Benton thought that the functionality to "set phasers on stun" might be an interesting concept.
The arrays weren't all that difficult to figure out. Basically, it was similar to the second set of swords. Actually, it was almost exactly the Lightning sword but with an added array that allowed the wielder to dial down the intensity of the attack.
Benton spent another subjective day forging the five newest blades, adding the self-repair array to all of them and the sharpness array to all but the last two. All in all, the last set was … a bit lackluster. He liked some of the ideas, but they weren't nearly as powerful as he'd been hoping to come up with.
Still, between the twenty-five blades and all the greater spirit coins he'd make by the time the auction rolled around, he hoped to have plenty of resources to purchase anything he needed.
Chapter 263 – Testing
New
Just now
Benton had spent nearly a week in subjective time forging the twenty-five blades. In real time, less than a day had passed, meaning it was early morning of the next day. He had to admit that his Aura definitely saved Time.
Ugh.
Oh well. That one wasn't even funny to him. Too on the nose. That was the thing about trying to be funny, though—no one succeeded with every joke.
Anyway, once he finished creating trade goods, his goal was to rebuild the towers before heading to Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town to create a new Grand Defensive Array for Fatty Ren's palace.
The problem was that he wasn't sure whether or not the swords he made were valuable enough to get him the materials he wanted. They seemed good to him, and his Analyze technique placed a very high value on them. But it was impossible to know what a cultivator would require in exchange for a treasure like the ones needed to create his qi sources.
Of course, the obvious solution was simply to ask Kang Ya-Ting. He was a man who understood cultivators and the value of cultivation treasures to a greater extent than Benton.
The issue there was that he had been getting a lot of aid from the man lately. It was fine to ask a friend for a favor every now and again, but becoming a burden was not okay.
Benton needed to resolve that imbalance in their relationship. He would ask Kang Lin if there was anything her grandfather needed. A gift of a pill, a weapon, or even a cultivation method or technique would be a nice way to return the friendship to a more equal footing.
In the meantime, Benton would need to deal with the current situation more adroitly than he normally managed. Instead of straight up asking what the value of the swords were, he'd send Kang Ya-Ting a list of the blades with their associated arrays and traits and ask him to share his message with the two elders that had materials for trade. The elders could select one the swords directly, request a custom weapon be forged for them with traits similar to one of the blades, or ask him to wait to see what might be available at the auction.
The response would tell him everything he needed to know. If either or both took one of the swords or requested that he forge something custom for them, it would be obvious that the blades were absolutely of the same order of magnitude of value as the materials. If neither did, though, he'd know that he was likely still under the quality required and would have to hope that quantity made up for quality.
Benton fired off the message and sat down to make greater spirit coins as he waited for the reply. Several hours later, the return paper dragon popped into his office.
Friend Su,
The list you sent me is quite extraordinary, and this old man has absolutely no doubt that each is a masterwork that possesses traits exactly as you described. Unfortunately, Elders Dai and Feng have not established the same level of trust with you that I have. Would it be possible for you to have Yuan Yaozu examine the blades and verify the quality and features for each?
This old man would be pleased if you could treat this request as simply the paranoia of cultivators who have been burned before rather than an affront to your face.
Gratitude,
Friend Kang
Kang Ya-Ting was obviously worried about Benton being insulted by the request. In truth, he was anything but. He never expected any trade to be made without the quality of the blades being verified first. The thought that they'd just take his word for it was absurd on the face of it.
He dashed off a message to Yuan Yaozu.
###
The Rising Tide Sect was an interesting place. For one thing, it was much smaller than any sect that Yuan Yaozu had ever encountered. Then again, as a top tier talent, he'd never had much to do with smaller sects and especially not one that was just getting started.
That latter characteristic explained the average realm of the members. Of the over six hundred of them at the main sect grounds, all but three—four if one counted the sect leader—were in the Qi Gathering realm, and the ones that weren't were only at the very beginning of Foundation Establishment.
What was much more unusual than the average realm was the general talent level of the sect members. With the exception of some true standouts, his spiritual sense made it feel like almost everyone was similar in rank to what he'd expect for an average sect, but he'd been told that the vast majority of those members were all F and E ranked.
Both the idea of inducting such trash into a sect and the fact that they felt like normal sect members to his sense were both absurd. Of course, the latter basically justified the former but still. A sect made up mostly of talentless peasants?
Yuan Yaozu didn't know how he felt about that.
On one hand, he completely understood why they were all doing so well. The cultivation method that the sect leader had given him was beyond impressive. If he had similar ones throughout his life, he couldn't even imagine the heights to which he would have already ascended. The quality was simply amazing.
The thought of giving such methods and techniques to talentless trash made him want to scream at the affront, though. The Poison Claw Sect gave their best resources to the most talented cultivators. Period. And their best was not nearly as good as the worst the Rising Tide sect leader handed out.
A top talent could simply go further and achieve more than someone of lesser talent. Limited resources should be given to those who could make the best use of them.
On the other hand, Yuan Yaozu had seen no sign that the sect leader's resources were limited at all, and the talentless trash would probably go further in their journey using his cultivation methods than a top talent receiving the best from another sect. Maybe the Rising Tide Sect's way of doing things wasn't so crazy.
What was absolutely insane was watching the sect leader move around using his Time Aura. The man forged twenty-five swords in less than a day, cautiously and meticulously forming each one.
Yuan Yaozu wasn't a blacksmith, but over the course of nearly one thousand years of life, he'd picked up an appreciation for crafts. From what he could tell, the blades were probably extraordinary. He'd really like a chance to see them up close.
He debated for most of the afternoon going to the sect leader and asking for that permission. The request was a simple one that would likely be granted, but Yuan Yaozu so far had gotten a lot more from his discipleship than he'd returned. He was leery about pressing his luck.
The inverse of his reasoning was that the sect leader seemed like the kind of person who enjoyed showing off his accomplishments. And really, who didn't like exhibiting the fruits of one's labor? Asking to examine the blades might be as much a benefit to the sect leader as it was to Yuan Yaozu.
Late in the day, he received a summons to attend his Master and quickly hurried over to the Administration Hall, still dickering over whether to ask for permission.
"Thanks for coming so soon, but you didn't have to rush," the sect leader said. "For future reference, I'll tell you in the message if it's urgent."
"It's not problem, Sect Leader. Truthfully, I didn't have anything else to do. I've been stuck so long without being able to advance that I'm no longer used to cultivating all day long. I'm working my way back to it."
For the last several hundred years, Yuan Yaozu had been at the peak of Golden Core, and the only times he'd actually cultivated was during the relatively brief periods when he tried to breakthrough. He'd spent much of his lifetime in a lotus position cultivating, but hitting a bottleneck at the peak had forced him to stop. It was weird to think about it, but somewhere along the way, he'd lost his patience for the process.
"Do you need help with anything?" the sect leader said.
"It's purely a personal issue. I just need to reacclimate my body and brain to the tedium. In several months or so, I should be back to normal."
"Okay. I know that you accepted me as Master mainly for certain benefits that I can provide and to assure me of keeping my secrets, but I am fairly knowledgeable about cultivation issues. Feel free to come with me if you need."
The sect leader was the most unusual cultivator that Yuan Yaozu had ever encountered. If he needed help, he wouldn't hesitate to ask it if for no other reason than that the advice was likely to be something he never would have considered.
He cupped his hands. "Gratitude, Master."
"Anyway, here's the reason I asked you to stop by." The sect leader handed over two messages.
The first was a message from the sect leader from Elder Kang and the second was the elder's reply. Yuan Yaozu almost laughed. The thing he'd been thinking about requesting was the thing that the sect leader needed him to do.
It was nice when life aligned with one's wishes like that.
"I'm happy to help, Sect Leader," Yuan Yaozu said.
The sect leader deposited twenty-five swords on a table.
From the list, Yuan Yaozu had an idea of what to expect, and to say he was excited was an understatement.
"May I take one of these to the forest to test the sharpness and self-repair arrays, Sect Leader?"
"Sure. Have at it."
Yuan Yaozu chose the Void attack blade. He'd seen firsthand the results of the sect leader using that element on a Nascent Soul and wanted to try it.
"You can use the window if you want," the sect leader said.
Yuan Yaozu cupped his hands again. "Gratitude."
The office was on the top floor of the building, but there was no access to the roof. He'd been using the front door and climbing the stairs. Which didn't cause him to exert himself, but it was an annoyance.
A quick flight later found him in the forest swinging the sword. First, he tried the Void attack, and it worked as advertised. According to his spiritual sense, there was no qi present inside the blade, and he watched it as the formations converted his qi into Void qi.
That feature was amazing. No treasure that he knew of could do anything similar.
Almost as cool was the actual attack. A portion of the tree truck he aimed it at just disappeared.
Yikes. He sincerely hoped the sect leader didn't make too many of those things. Yuan Yaozu really didn't want to face anyone using one in combat.
Next, he sliced another trunk without channeling the blade's attack. It sliced through the wood like butter.
Amazing.
Tree after tree went down without a mark on the metal. Which was good for confirming that the sword's sharpness array worked great. Not so much for testing the self-repair function.
He happened to have an ingot of cultivator-grade metal in his storage ring and used that as an additional test. It, too, was sliced through with no issues and left not a scratch.
Mildly chagrined, he returned to the sect leader's office and reported the failure to test the feature.
The sect leader laughed. "That's a problem. These swords will cut just about anything, including another blade that I made. Give me a moment." He pulled an ingot out of his ring and began inscribing.
"I put a durability array on the metal. It should hold up. Try it, now," he said, holding the ingot in his hand.
"Uh… If the array doesn't hold, the blade will cut your hand off, Sect Leader."
"Well, that'll be a good lesson to me to do a better job with my formations, then, won't it? Besides, worst case scenario, the hand will grow back."
"If you're sure…" Yuan Yaozu didn't bother waiting for an answer before swinging.
Clank.
The array held, and the blade finally met something it couldn't slice straight through.
Yuan Yaozu examined it. Sure enough, there was a small divot in the blade's previously pristine edge. He channeled some qi into the array, and the divot slowly repaired itself, leaving it once again perfect.
After that series of successful tests, he picked up a few of the others at random and checked their craftsmanship and functionality. Everything he found was up to the standards of the first.
"I'll report back to the elders that all these swords are the best I've ever seen and that they all absolutely do exactly what you said they do, Sect Leader."
"Gratitude." The sect leader paused. "Just out of curiosity, how do you think these will do at auction?"
"They'll create an absolute frenzy. I've seen weapons much inferior to these be fought over, and I honestly can't remember anything of this quality ever being sold there. The auction house will erect a statue in your honor after this sale is complete, Sect Leader."
Yuan Yaozu wasn't blowing smoke, either. From the craftsmanship to the ideas behind the swords to the functionality, the sects would all want to have these weapons.
He laughed imagining their reaction if they ever found out that the sect leader created all of them in a single day.