Chapter 13 - A Boring Wait?
Yang Xiu stared after her new master. "Did you see that, Ru'er? One second, he was just standing there, and the next, he'd disappeared. Do you think we'll really be able to move that fast?"
Her brother shrugged.
Ru'er was the only family she had left, and she loved him dearly. But he'd never been much of a conversationalist. "No time like the present to get started. You ready to take that pill?"
"Listen, Xiu'er, I've been thinking. Maybe you should go first."
Her brother was also one of the most frustratingly stubborn people she'd ever had the misfortune to encounter. He'd spent a good twenty minutes arguing with her, insisting he should be the one to take the pill first, and the entirety of his reasoning had been that it was his job to protect her.
She didn't want or need his protection, but to keep the peace and not keep her master waiting, she'd acquiesced. After that ordeal of getting their order decided, there was no way she would give in again, especially not after her master had complemented her bravery.
"No," Yang Xiu said. "We discussed this, and we agreed. You are going first. Period."
Over the next several minutes, he tried to get her to change her mind, but she stood firm, not giving an inch. Eventually, he gave up.
"Fine," he said. "How should we do this?"
"You should sit somewhat near the fire. Close enough that it can provide some protection if anything attacks us but far enough away that it isn't causing you discomfort."
The weather was nice, a pleasant temperature with just a hint of a breeze, so the fire had only been needed for cooking. Her real reason for wanting him a decent distance from it, however, was to avoid the danger of him falling into it if he had a bad reaction to the pill.
He chose a spot about five feet from the fire. "Hand me one of those water skins."
"Sit first. I don't want you to hurt yourself if you fall unconscious or something."
He grunted before sinking to the ground. She retrieved the skin.
Before she handed it to him, she paused. "Maybe sit in a lotus position."
"Why?"
"That's how the cultivators in the stories sit." She shrugged. "Maybe it helps?"
"Fine."
After assuming the position and getting the skin from Yang Xiu, he held the pill in his other hand, clearly hesitating.
"We don't have to do this," she said. "I believe master when he said we'd still be his disciples."
"I have no choice. Our new master is counting on me to protect the sect. Our parents counted on me to protect you, but I was not able to. I need strength."
Before Yang Xiu could object, Ru'er popped the pill into his mouth, took a swig of water, and swallowed. That was so like him, the stubborn idiot.
Concerned, she watched him, and at first, he was visibly nervous, fidgeting, body rigid. But after a few minutes, he calmed down.
"Feel anything?" Yang Xiu said.
Ru'er shrugged. "Maybe it doesn't work." He frowned. "Maybe it was just a test."
Yang Xiu inclination was to rush to her master's defense, but she checked herself. Instead, she took a moment to truly consider the situation.
"I don't think it's a test," she said eventually. "Esteemed Master Chao went through great effort to build trust with us by explaining everything in detail and making sure that we didn't make a rash decision. Testing us by giving us a pill that doesn't work would destroy that trust."
Yang Ru grunted.
"Besides," she said. "Why would he make such a big deal about me watching over you if it were just a test. Not only that, but the test would only be for you as I'd see that the pill had no effect."
Yes. She was positive that she was correct.
"No," she said. "He clearly expected this to work and for you to be incapacitated."
Ru'er grunted again.
"Maybe the pill just doesn't work instantly?" She sat, settling in to wait with her brother.
About twenty minutes later, he tensed again.
"What?" she said. "Did something happen?"
He touched his lower stomach. "There's something tingling here. It's faint, but it's definitely there."
"Maybe we got lucky, and all the pill does is make you tingle. The master wasn't sure that there would be pain."
They weren't lucky.
Over the next ten minutes, the tingling turned to discomfort. Over the next half hour after that, the discomfort turned to burning and the burning to pain.
Ru'er at first tried to ignore it, to remain his normal stoic self. Soon, though, he was clutching his stomach, bending and contorting as if some position might cause some relief to the pain. He spent almost an hour literally writhing in agony on the ground before mercifully passing out.
It was hard for Yang Xiu to watch, and there were times when she began to question her master. Was the pill actually harmless? Would it kill Ru'er?
She was so intent on watching her brother that she didn't notice the rustling in the leaves until it had gotten quite close to the campsite.
Benton stowed his latest core, a rank one, and its former body, a rabbit, in his spatial ring where it joined two squirrels and a rat that was bigger than a beaver. None of the battles had been difficult. In fact, he was having fun.
Hunting spirit beasts conveyed a host of positives. The cores were both useful and valuable. The combat experience proved beneficial in integrating his Earthborn consciousness with his new body's knowledge. And according the Su's memories, consuming the flesh of the creatures would speed up the kids' cultivation, if only by a tiny amount. Best of all, his incredible spiritual senses allowed him to avoid any dangerous beasts and prey on the weakest creatures, making the entire endeavor much safer than he'd anticipated.
As advantageous as the trip was, he'd been gone from the campsite a couple of hours at that point, and it was time to return. He started the journey back, whipping past trees and over bushes. Soon, his senses detected a beast, a rank two, and it was much closer to him than it should be, meaning it must have possessed a method to conceal its presence from his spiritual sense.
An ambush predator.
Su's memories told him that such beasts were typically on the weaker end when it came to actual combat, relying on a devastating first hit being possible due to the advantage of surprise their stealth abilities gave them. Being able to sense its exact location and instead surprise it should make it an easy victory.
Cores rose exponentially in value with their rank, and both a bit of greed and the challenge of taking out an opponent with a higher cultivation level than his previous targets convinced Benton that hunting it was worth his time.
Besides, he'd only been gone a couple of hours. The kids were probably fine. What could go wrong?
Yang Xiu bolted to her feet and grabbed her spear. Someone or something was nearby, and she was positive it wasn't her master. He moved almost silently, and whatever was approaching made a lot of noise.
With Ru'er incapacitated, it was up to her to protect him.
The noises were coming from her left on the other side of the nearly extinguished fire, and she moved in that direction. She had to keep whatever it was focused on her so that it didn't go after her vulnerable brother.
Ru'er was going to absolutely hate that she was the one protecting him. She grinned in anticipation of how much she'd tease him about it. They'd both be old and gray before she relented, if then.
If either of them survived the next few minutes.
Maybe she was being a bit too pessimistic. There was no proof that whatever was making the noise was hostile or dangerous. Her master had declared the area clear of spirit beasts, so it had to be some type of normal animal. It could be a deer or something fluffy and friendly.
Her fear was that the most hopeful outcome would not come to pass. As the beneficiary of three miracles—her master saving them from Fang Wei, providing them a feast when they were about to starve, and finally, accepting them as his disciples—she had no call to believe she was due any more luck.
And she was right.
A large greyish-brown boar with long, sharp tusks broke through the bushes. The animal was absolutely huge, about three feet tall and five feet long and outweighing her by over a hundred pounds.
Not the end of the world. She could deal with an overgrown pig.
Her parents hadn't liked the idea of her going into the forest around their village, so she'd never encountered a wild boar. She had been taught what to do, though.
Unlike in most of the stories she read, boars didn't attack on sight for no reason. As long as she kept calm and backed away, it should just go away. The important thing was to not make it feel threatened.
"Nice piggie," she said in her friendliest tone as she took a slow, measured step back.
There. No reason for it to attack. She was being calm and friendly. Only one protecting its young would be aggressive in such a situation and—
Behind the boar, there was more rustling. Her eyes shot to the disturbance. Two small boars stepped out behind their mama.
Shoot.
The mama boar charged.
Something so big shouldn't be able to move that fast, but it absolutely did. The tusks filled her vision. She was facing death.
Yang Xiu barely had time to think.
Dodge. Stay on her feet. Don't strike the tough head. Aim for vitals just above the front legs.
She stepped out of the way just in time. The wind from the creature's passing ruffled her blouse. There was no chance for her to even try to strike the boar with her spear.
The animal slowed and turned back to face her.
"Nice piggie. I swear I mean neither you nor your babies any harm."
The boar charged again. It was harder to convince than even her brother.
Yang Xiu was ready. Having faced those tusks once already made them just a little less scary.
When she dodged, she kept the spear at the ready. The boar missed. Barely.
She struck. The boar let out a high-pitched squeal.
Success. Partially, anyway. The wound was higher and farther back than it needed to be.
It stopped and turned again. The injury Yang Xiu had inflicted only seemed to make it angrier.
Another charge.
Yang Xiu set her feet, ready to move at the last instant, and focused on her spear.
The boar neared. Yang Xiu moved. She struck with all her strength and had the haft ripped from her hands. The tip stayed in the boar's body, right above the front leg.
When it stopped next, its turn was lethargic. Blood gushed from the new wound.
It charged again, but it was too slow, listless. Yang Xiu easily dodged.
After two more iterations, the boar fell over, dead. The two babies rushed off into the woods.
Yang Xiu collapsed to her knees, breathing hard.
And that was how her master found her a few minutes later when he just appeared from the between two trees without making a sound.
He studied her for a moment and said, "Had a boring wait?"
Yang Xiu froze. The way her master had phrased his question sounded off. It couldn't be because she'd killed a boar. Could it? Her master wouldn't make a pun that bad. Would he?
Chapter 14 - Cultivating Disciples
Benton scratched the back of his neck. That pun had been bad even for him. Greg would have both hated and loved it.
A pang of regret flooded Benton at the prospect of never seeing any of his grandchildren again, but he quickly brushed it off. They'd be fine without him. Yang Xiu and her brother would have died if Benton hadn't been there to save them.
Of course, she almost died because he left her alone, too. He'd never even considered something as mundane as a boar as being dangerous and hadn't realized that his spirit sense didn't work on them because they had no qi.
His only solace was that she'd be outclassing those types of threats very soon. Even getting to the second minor realm of Qi Gathering with a fighting technique under her belt would give her enough power to not worry about any mortal animal.
"Disciple greets Senior Brother Chao," Yang Xiu said.
"How's your brother?" he said, turning toward the prone figure near the fire ring.
"Answering the Senior Brother's question, Disciple Yang Ru experienced a lot of pain and fell unconscious. He hasn't moved much since then." She sounded concerned.
Benton almost asked her to dial back the formality, but Su's memories objected. The culture of his new world held such conventions to be important, and trying to bypass them would do more harm than good. He just needed to get over his sensibilities.
"I see," he said.
He pulled up Yang Ru's status.
Name:Yang RuAffiliation:Host's DiscipleAge:15Cultivation:NoneTechniques:NoneSpiritual Roots:A-Qi Aspect:Low viscosity lava flowing down Mount Burning ThunderOne data point, his name, had been added and another, his affiliation, had been changed. The third difference was the most significant, the one Benton had hoped to see. Yang Ru's spiritual roots had increased from B+ to A-.
"The pill worked," Benton said before relaying the exact results. "The worst of the effects should be over. With luck, he'll mostly sleep until he recovers."
He looked at her expectantly.
"Senior Brother Chao, should this … should I take my pill now?"
Benton raised his eyebrows. "You watched what your brother endured, and you still wish to take it? Why?"
"Senior Brother Chao, I don't want to let my brother down. I don't want to let Senior Brother Chao down."
He would have preferred to hear a reason that was more centered on the benefits to herself, but it wasn't like the pill would damage her. It would, in fact, do her a lot of good, and using it made sense. As long as she had some personal rationale for proceeding, he wouldn't try to stop her.
"Very well," he said. "Do as you wish."
While she prepared herself, Benton flitted quickly around the campsite, stowing both the cooked boar and the one Yang Xiu had slain in his spatial ring as well as cleaning dishes in a nearby stream and other such tasks. Too soon, she was ready to take the pill.
Benton regretted his decision not to intervene almost as soon as she'd swallowed the darn thing. Watching a fifteen-year-old kid suffer so much was one of the worst experiences of either of his lives. It was a huge relief when she finally succumbed to the pain and fell unconscious.
The pill had worked just as well on her as on her brother, increasing the quality of her spiritual roots from A- to A. Hopefully, that gain would make all that suffering worth it.
After setting up two of the tents he'd taken from Fang's men and laying down bedrolls inside, he settled in for a long wait. Yang Ru, slightly sore but otherwise none the worse for wear, woke just as night was falling, and Benton fed him. After attending to bodily functions, the kid went right back to sleep. A few hours later, Yang Xiu woke and basically followed suit to her brother.
Benton dozed until sunrise when he began preparing for the day. First, he used his menu, spending ten Sect Points—leaving him with just seventy—to create Yang Ru's cultivation method. It was the same as Yang Xiu's except being named the Divine Flowing Fire Method and attuned specifically to Yang Ru's qi aspect.
That task accomplished, he made breakfast, warming up slices of the spit-roasted boar and cooking more rice. The smells did the trick, and soon both the kids emerged from their tents.
"Good morning!"
"Disciple greets Senior Brother Chao," Yang Xiu said.
Yang Ru echoed the same right after her.
"Are you two feeling okay? Any ill effects from the pill?"
After receiving replies that both contained way too many words and were way too polite assuring him they felt as fit as fiddles, they all ate.
"Are you two excited?" Benton said. "Today, you become cultivators."
Their eyes both went wide.
He removed the two jade slips from his spatial ring and held up one of them. "Yang Xiu, this is the Divine Flowing Ice Method. It will be your cultivation method." He handed it to her before repeating the process with Yang Ru.
Benton pulled two rank one beast cores from his ring and again held one up. "This is a beast core." He explained that, since they could not yet manipulate qi external to their bodies, they needed a source to do so. "Simply hold both the slip and the core in one hand and concentrate on what you want, gaining the knowledge held within the slip."
Neither of them immediately took a proffered core from him, instead looking at each other.
"You can do this one at a time or both at once," he said. "I have used jade slips and seen them used many, many times. Having information injected directly into your brain feels a little weird, but it isn't dangerous or painful."
Yang Xiu was the first to act. "Thank you, Senior Brother Chao."
She practically snatched a core from him and followed his instructions. A moment later, she blinked, looking dazed.
"See, no pain right?" Benton said.
"This lowly … I am a touch lightheaded, Senior Brother Chao, but have experienced no other ill effects."
Frowning, Yang Ru took his spirit beast core from Benton and used the Divine Flowing Fire jade slip.
Both kids tried to hand the slips and the cores back to Benton.
"Keep them. You may want to review the material or something, and you'll definitely need the cores when I give you techniques." He grinned. "Now, it's time for you two to become cultivators. Do you have any questions about the methods you just learned?"
Both shook their heads.
"When you breathe in," Benton said, "small motes of qi in the air enter your body. Without a cultivation method, those motes escape. Mortals do it all the time. The trick is to look inward until you can feel those motes. Once you do, use the technique as instructed by your method to cycle the qi though your body. Complete one cycle, and you'll become a cultivator."
He had both of them sit in a lotus position, making themselves as comfortable as possible.
"Great," Benton said. "Get to cultivating."
Yang Xiu, followed by Yang Ru, closed her eyes. Thirty minutes later, she was quite frustrated, but she didn't give up. Less than five minutes after that, a blue box popped up.
Host's Disciple, Yang Xiu, has reached Qi Gathering – Minor Realm One
Host is awarded one Sect Point.
Host has 71 Sect Points available.
Yes! Finally, he'd actually gained a Sect Point. Go, Yang Xiu. Even better, another box popped up a few minutes later with a similar message regarding Yang Ru, leaving Benton with seventy-two points.
He observed the two with his spiritual senses. In Su's experience, an average D+ or C- cultivator was able to complete one cycle in about an hour, but that result was obtained only after gaining experience with the cultivation method. The first cycle was likely to take anywhere from two to five times longer than that.
Yang Xiu finished her first in just over an hour. Yang Ru didn't take that much longer. The combination of natural born talent and a System-provided method perfectly attuned to their respective qi aspects worked wonders.
The next five hours or so passed very slowly as he watched the siblings cultivate. Yikes, it was boring. Talk about something that was not the most exciting activity imaginable, but after the boar attack, there was no way Benton was going to move a step away from that camp for more than a few minutes.
After preparing a lunch consisting of yet more rice and meat from the spiritual rabbit he'd killed earlier, he watched the siblings closely. Yang Xiu was the first to complete her latest cycle, and he touched her on the shoulder, causing her to open her eyes.
"Take a break and grab some food," he said.
About ten minutes later, Yang Ru finished a complete cycle, and Benton repeated his actions.
"Nine cycles in just over five hours for each of you," he said once they'd all finished eating. "That's really good. General practice is to limit sect members to around ten hours of cultivation a day, and I wouldn't have expected an average outer sect disciple to be able to get in a full ten cycles on their first day. You've each almost reached that many at the halfway point, each completing cycles in less than a half hour. Well done!"
Yang Ru simply grunted at the news, but Yang Xiu beamed.
"Thank you, Senior Brother Chao!" She paused. "Do we have to stop at ten hours?"
Benton laughed. "Yes. The rule is there for a reason. You can damage your channels by trying to do too much too fast. Until you reach at least the high Qi Gathering Realm, you must adhere to this restriction."
"Yes, Senior Brother Chao," the two chorused.
Benton didn't know specifically where his Advantageous Starting Location was located, but he felt what could best be described as a pulling sensation when he faced the northwest. He assumed that was the System telling him which way to go.
Unfortunately, his senses indicated that many spiritual beasts resided in that direction.
It was time to share his plans with his disciples.
"The way ahead is dangerous. Even with me protecting you every step of the way, the risk is not worth it for you to travel that path as you are now. At the very least, I want each of you to attain the fourth minor realm before we depart from this campsite. Understand?"
"Yes, Senior Brother Chao," the two chorused again.
"For the next several days," Benton said, "your only job is to cultivate for around ten hours a day. Once you break through to the second minor realm, I'll teach you a weapon technique, and you'll be responsible for practicing that for a minimum of two hours a day in addition to cultivating. Got it?"
"Yes, Senior Brother Chao."
"Now, obviously, cultivation takes quite some time, even with how fast you two are, and I'm eager to get on with founding my sect." Benton pulled a Qi Condensing Pill from his ring and showed it to them. "Therefore, once you reach the third minor realm on your own, I'm going to give you each one of these. That should quickly bump you up to the fourth minor realm. Any questions?"
"No, Senior Brother Chao."
"Great. Then what are you waiting for? Get back to cultivating."
Chapter 15 - Pressure Points
With not a whole heck of a lot to do other than watch two kids literally sit around, the next three days passed slowly for Benton. On the morning of the fifth day only a couple of hours after Yang Xiu started cultivating, he got the notification he'd been waiting for.
Host's Disciple, Yang Xiu, has reached Qi Gathering – Minor Realm Two
Host is awarded one Sect Point.
Host has 73 Sect Points available.
He quickly scanned her with his senses.
Name:Yang XiuAffiliation:Host's DiscipleAge:15Cultivation:Qi Gathering - Minor Realm TwoQi Available:5Techniques:NoneSpiritual Roots:AQi Aspect:Perfectly smooth ice balanced on the razor edge of freezing and thawingFive? She had five qi available in her second minor realm? He'd only had two. Nice.
As boring as the process had been for him, it was immensely satisfying to have her make such a huge jump forward.
There was no need for him to touch her shoulder to pull her from her cultivation trance. She was staring at him with wide eyes.
"Congratulations," he said. "You have broken through to the second minor realm."
"Thank you, Senior Brother Chao."
He could see the question on her face even though she didn't ask it. "You remember the next part of the method, correct?"
"I need to consolidate my gains, Senior Brother Chao?"
"Let me guess, the method wasn't too specific on how exactly to do that, huh?"
Yang Xiu nodded.
"First of all, you need to meditate but not cultivate. Whatever you do, do not pull in a single mote of qi. Understood?"
"Yes, Senior Brother Chao."
"While meditating, you need to do two things. One, reflect on what you have learned by cultivating and what reaching the second minor realm means to you. Two, dive your consciousness inside yourself and study the changes to your body. Explore your lower dantian and the channels your qi uses to circulate. Your muscles are stronger, and your skin and bones and organs have grown slightly tougher. Study how each of these differ from what you remember before. Is that clear?"
"Yes, Senior Brother Chao."
"Right now, you're feeling agitated, right? Like something isn't quite right with you?"
She nodded again.
"After an hour or two of meditating like I told you to do, you'll suddenly feel normal again. At that point, you should get up and move around. Run. Jump. Feel how your body flows. It will feel off at first, but again, something will just click after a while. At that point, your gains will be consolidated, and you can begin cultivating again."
"Thank you for the instruction, Senior Brother Chao." Despite the formal and exceedingly polite wording, a hint of warmth was evident in her tone.
It was hard not to feel for the siblings. They'd apparently lost their parents to a psycho stalker and been forced to run from their village, hounded by the forces of that same psycho. Benton couldn't imagine one of his children or grandchildren being forced to go through something like that tragedy.
If she were to start seeing him as a surrogate parent, he could definitely live with that role.
He waited until she had once again fully entered into a meditative trance before beginning preparation for the next phase of powering up his disciples—techniques. His choices were either to have them both learn the spear and supply them with mortal weapons he'd taken off Fang's men or to give them his only true cultivator grade weapons, the spear and bow he'd been given by the System.
That decision was a tough call and one he'd been deliberating on for days.
Benton hadn't had a chance to use his bow yet, but over the course of his hunt for spirit animals, he'd begun to grow attached to the spear. It was well-nigh indestructible and slid in and out of his kills with incredible smoothness. He didn't know when he might have an opportunity to find anything remotely similar in quality and didn't relish the thought of giving it up.
Honestly, though, his strength didn't matter. Both the kids would surpass him soon. It made sense that the strongest among them should possess the strongest weapons, right?
As much as part of him didn't want to admit it, that reasoning was all too clear. He pulled up the appropriate menu.
Welcome, Host, to the Technique Creation Menu.
Select Cultivation Realm:
Qi Gathering
Foundation Establishment
Golden Core
Nascent Soul
Nihility
Ascension
Half Immortal
True Immortal
Immortal King
Immortal Emperor
Heavenly Saint
Celestial Being
He obviously chose Qi Gathering.
Cultivation Realm set to Qi Gathering.
Sect Point Factor set to one.
Select Applicability:
Targeted to Specific Qi Aspect
Sliding Scale (Specify)
Any Qi Aspect
That screen represented Benton's first real decision for the technique. He was convinced that Yang Xiu's high qi availability was almost solely the result of two factors. One, he'd set the power of her cultivation method to sixty-five. And two, her cultivation method was tailored to her specific qi aspect.
Though he didn't know the relative percentages each of those two factors contributed, he was sold on the concept that specific qi aspect equaled good.
For techniques in the Qi Gathering realm, Su's memories told him otherwise. In that realm, cultivators were unable to manipulate qi externally, and the qi inside their bodies was already converted to their aspect as part of the method of drawing it into their dantian. At Foundation Establishment and after, a technique being perfectly aligned with one's qi would assist in converting and controlling ambient qi. Until that point in cultivation, a technique's aspect simply wouldn't have much impact, though other sects and clans held a different opinion.
That conclusion left the lower Sect Point expenditure as the only benefit of choosing to target a technique to a specific aspect, and making a choice based on that reason alone was so short sighted as to be completely idiotic.
The logic of the decision did not make it any less painful. Dreading all the points that were about to disappear from his total, Benton reluctantly made his selection.
Any Qi Aspect selection accepted.
Please specify what skill or ability the Host wishes for the technique to impart.
That request was pretty darn open ended. He willed it to select the ability to use a spear for combat.
Skill/ability specification accepted.
Please allocate 100 Technique Creation Points in the following three categories:
Ease
Power
Foundation
That part of the process was always going to be the most difficult. He stopped to think it over.
Ease seemed like the least important part of a combat technique. The speed of learning didn't seem to matter all that much, not compared to Power and Foundation at any rate. Still, it wouldn't do to have a technique his sect members weren't able to eventually master.
Maybe ten points? Fifteen? Definitely no more than twenty. The allocation process was not an exact science by any means.
After a moment's consideration, he decided that Power would be more difficult to quantify than the last category, so he skipped it for the moment.
Su's memories indicated that Foundation for a technique, like Foundation for a cultivation method, contributed greatly to success in the next realm. In fact, the impact was likely even higher for the former than the latter.
If that theory were correct, Foundation was hugely important, even more so than Power at the Qi Gathering stage. After all, hopefully his sect members would be more likely to have his protection at the beginning and, since lower realms took less time to go through than higher ones, would probably get in fewer fights.
Yes, that answer felt correct. It was much more important to build a proper Foundation than it was to attain immediate prowess. More than half should go to that category. Maybe sixty points?
Power was still important, however, and the twenty points he had remaining were too few. If he lowered Ease to fifteen, he'd have twenty-five left.
That distribution felt right. He locked it in.
Technique Creation Point allocation selection accepted.
Please provide a name for your technique.
Ugh. That problem again. Uh… The Foundational Spear Essentials Technique.
Man, that name sounded so completely lame, but screw it, it was descriptive at least.
Name accepted.
Congratulations, Host, on the creation of the Foundational Spear Essentials Technique!
Would you like to create this method for ten Sect Points?
He winced at the expenditure but chose yes.
Technique created.
Host has 63 Sect Points remaining.
That task accomplished, he re-opened the menu and queued up another technique using similar inputs. The creation of the Foundational Archery Essentials Technique left him with only fifty-three points.
Ouch. That total remaining was getting a lot lower than he would have liked. The only good thing was that he could use these two techniques for all his future sect members. He'd still need to create a generic cultivation method, though, at a cost of twenty-five points. That left him with only twenty-eight points for emergencies and for any necessities that he hadn't considered yet.
He really needed to recruit outer sect disciples as soon as possible.