Chapter 152 - 355-361

Chapter 355 - Confrontation

The current highlight of Benton's life was watching Jin LiJuan compete in the tournament.

Well, saying that Jin LiJuan competed was something of a misnomer, but that was part of what made it so fun for him. All his other kids were the sole participants representing the Rising Tide Sect in their matches. When a hit was made, it was that person who struck. Winning was about applying their own techniques and martial abilities.

She, on the other hand, simply stood as far from her opponent as she could get and watched. When she was targeted, which was often through the first three matches, she simply let her shield handle the blow.

The contrast between the little girl who stood impassively while the world exploded around her and the rest of the participants throughout the tournament amused him to no end.

Her strategy proved to be a good one, though. None of the cultivators paired against her in the early rounds could dent even her small qi pool before being shredded by Leizhenzi and Ganzou.

In all three matches, a tiny, quiet, nearly motionless kid had come out ahead of three grown adults by literally not doing a thing. To say that her opponents and the JCSB alliance were frustrated was an understatement.

Beast tamers were rare in the tournament, but when one did appear, that cultivator could be slotted into one of two categories. The first category, the rarest, was someone who bonded with a single beast and gained benefits to their cultivation by doing so. The advantage of that type was that they could bond a beast at the same, or even higher, equivalent realm.

The second category, which was common in the sects but not in the tournament, tamed multiple beasts, sometimes in great quantities. Their weakness, though, was that the tamer couldn't control beasts at their equivalent realm, meaning they fielded a small army of much weaker beasts.

That method was quite useful to fulfill particular sect needs. For example, earthworms enhanced soil. Earthworms with a qi core provided a huge benefit for growing many types of expensive, qi-rich crops. A tamer who controlled a half dozen or even more of the creatures contributed greatly to their sect. In fact, Benton eventually wanted that kind of tamer to assist with his own nascent spirit herb farming efforts.

That kind of tamer, however, was fairly worthless in a fight. A high Foundation Establishment realm cultivator would absolutely destroy dozens and dozens of rank three beasts in combat. A lot of tamers had tried different combinations of beasts, but none had gotten out of the early rounds of the tournament.

Jin LiJuan combined the best of both categories due to her unique circumstances. She could, apparently, form bonds with as many beasts as she liked, and she bonded them instead of taming, which meant the beasts' equivalent realm didn't matter since she wasn't trying to control them. All her bondeds for the tournament were at the peak of rank six, equal to or better than the combatants.

Even worse for her opponents, all her beasts possessed strong bloodlines. Leizhenzi was strong enough that he could have defeated all their foes in the first three rounds by himself. Ganzou, though not at the thunderbird's level, was strong, too. And Oogway had yet even to be needed, spending the entire tournament thus far in his spatial habitat.

Benton watched eagerly from the stands as Jin LiJuan, Ganzou, and Leizhenzi marched onto the arena floor for their fourth round match. Their opponent was a young lady from the Jade Chameleon Sect, and she glared at the trio as they approached.

Jin LiJuan cupped her hands and bowed, as she was wont to do, to both the official and her opponent. The official politely returned the gesture. The young lady didn't.

Leizhenzi whispered something to Jin LiJuan. Benton could have used his enhanced hearing to listen in, but he tried to give people privacy whenever he could. Besides, the subject became clear once the opponents had retreated to the opposite sides of the arena—she pulsed a bit of qi into the beast bag and Oogway appeared on the sand.

Reactions to a massive, twenty-feet diameter turtle making his first appearance in the tournament were freaking hilarious. The crowd went completely silent. The young lady from the Jade Chameleon Sect first had her eyes go cartoonishly wide before her face turned red.

"That's not fair!" she yelled to the official. "It's now four against one, and they're all higher in realm than I am. How can this be allowed? Do you know who I am?"

Benton chuckled. The young lady apparently had bad luck. She should have been facing a very low quality opponent, but the tournament organizers hadn't known Jin LiJuan's strength when they made the brackets.

Oh well. Too bad, so sad.

Considering all the crap her sect had pulled already, the young lady deserved what she got.

He did feel sympathy for the poor official who had to put up with the incessant whining of a woman who should have been old enough to know better. Benton was all about spoiling his pseudo kids and grandkids but not to the point that they behaved like brats.

Nice kids deserved nice things. Spoilt kids deserved an attitude correction.

Unfortunately, it didn't appear that the young lady had heard the word "no" nearly often enough.

Eventually, the official got her calmed down, and the match began. She immediately raced toward Jin LiJuan, a strategy every opponent thus far had tried.

Benton had to hand it to the young lady. She was fast. Very fast. It looked like she'd reach Jin LiJuan before any of the three spirit beasts could do anything about it.

For most viewers, it looked like a disaster in the making for the Rising Tide Sect's combatant, but Benton knew the truth. For one thing, though the young lady appeared to be reasonably strong and talented for her realm, the Momentum Dissolution Shield wasn't so easy to defeat.

Even though Jin LiJuan's qi pool was anemic compared to her sect mates, Benton estimated it would take a good dozen or so fully qi enhanced strikes just for the young lady to penetrate the shield, and there was no way the three spirit beasts would give her enough time to do that. Jin LiJuan's toughness shouldn't be discounted, either. In addition to the benefits provided by her peak Spiritual and Body Cultivation, the boosts in strength and toughness from her bonds were nothing to sneeze at. If the young lady somehow made it through the shield, she'd find her target a lot harder nut to crack than she'd imagined.

As it turned out, though, the young lady didn't even get to make a single hit on the shield. One moment, Oogway was completely out of position. The next, he was right between Jin LiJuan and the attacking woman.

For anyone in the audience without Nascent Soul level senses, it probably looked like the turtle Teleported into place, but he actually simply moved faster than unenhanced eyes could track, the result of a bloodline skill. He really was the perfect tank. Benton suspected that even he would have to expend actual effort if he wanted to break that nearly invulnerable shell.

The young lady, clearly surprised by the sudden interception by what appeared to be a large, slow, almost immobile beast, collided with the turtle and bounced back, landing on her behind. She didn't even get a chance to rise to her feet before Ganzou and Leizhenzi were on her, and the match ended with her unable to continue moments later.

Another round, another victory. Go Jin LiJuan and team!

That win definitely illustrated one of the best parts of Benton's new life—anything could happen. A girl who loathed spirit beasts with every fiber of her being could learn to lean on them. The weakest sect member could win in the tournament. The possibilities were endless. No limits.

With the tournament one step closer to finishing, however, it was time for Benton to work on a very pressing problem—resolving the mess of teen angst that had ensnared three of his most important disciples.

Honestly, he didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Evelyn had handled that kind of stuff back on Earth, and he severely missed her extreme competency in dealing with teenagers and their raging hormones.

Well, he missed her for a lot more than just her competency, but her skills and empathy would have come in really handy at that moment. He didn't have her, though, so he'd just have to muddle through on his own somehow.

The first step was to remove all three of the problem children from the city by Teleporting them back to the sect. The compound was too small and relatively cramped. It was hard to do anything without the entire contingent knowing about it. The sect grounds were more controllable and, thus, more private.

The next step was to throw them in a room together and not let them out until they'd actually talked. Or killed each other. Whichever came first.

Metaphorically, of course.

Easy enough. He had plenty of rooms, and both silencing arrays and outside locks were quick and simple to install.

After coordination with Yuan Yaozu to take over watching the tournament contingent and letting Huang Yimun and the others know that Benton would be away for a while, he first Teleported Kang Lin, who'd been apprised of the plan, to the prepared room.

The next step would be more difficult as the twins would be going in blind. He wondered how they'd take it.

Using message dragons, he summoned the two of them to his office. "I have a mission for you two, an important and urgent one. Are you ready?"

"Yes, Master," they chorused.

"Good. Let's Teleport."

In the blink of an eye, they were all transported from Sixth Flawless Flowing City back to the sect grounds, specifically to a room in the Time Pavilion. Neither really reacted, however, when they saw Kang Lin waiting for them.

Interesting.

She immediately dropped to her knees and kowtowed three times to Yang Ru.

"This lowly one is so sorry for the way I acted," she said once she'd completed the ritual.

She then turned toward Yang Xiu and repeated the procedure. "You were the best friend this lowly one had ever had. I am so sorry for my actions."

The twins stood there motionless, not saying a word. They might as well have been robots for all the expression that crossed their faces at the heartfelt apologies.

"Well," Benton said, "do either of you have a response? Yang Ru?"

Silence stretched, and he almost issued a more forceful order. Finally, though, the boy spoke. "Kang Lin, I don't blame you for your actions. I wanted something that you did not." He shrugged. "Such happens in the normal course of a life. I have put it past me and bear you no ill will."

The entire statement had been given in a flat tone. Benton had seen more emotion from a man in front of him in line at the dry cleaner, explaining how much starch he wanted in his shirts.

Still, the very beginning of healing was present in Yang Ru's words. He hadn't accepted the apology per se, but he'd held her blameless. It was something.

"Yang Xiu?" Benton said.

"This whole situation is pointless, Master. None of this matters to me. None of it makes me stronger." Her voice wasn't just flat; it was cold.

Kang Lin flinched.

"The last time you and Kang Lin spoke, you told her that the two of you were no longer friends and definitely not sisters," Benton said. "You were quite angry with her. How do you feel now?"

"I feel nothing, Master, and certainly not anger." Yang Xiu glanced down and picked lint off her robe and flicked it onto the floor. "She has no more meaning to me than that trash."

Despite proclaiming herself not to be angry, she'd clearly chosen her words to inflict the maximum amount of pain on her former best friend. Benton took that as a good sign.

Time to roll out the big guns.

"I am quite disappointed in both of you," Benton said.

He vividly recalled a strong admonishment he'd delivered to Yang Ru once, but Benton didn't think he'd ever had a harsh thing to say to Yang Xiu. His words had the impact he wanted, though, finally breaking through their impassive miens.

"What?" Yang Xiu said. "Why?"

"What did I do?" Yang Ru said at the same time. "She was the one who broke up with me!"

"Kang Lin is someone who obviously meant much to both of you over the past year. I'm disappointed that you'd discard her so easily." Benton turned to Yang Xiu. "Like a piece of trash."

She looked away, unable to meet his eyes.

Yang Ru clenched his fists. "You weren't disappointed in her when she rejected me."

Good. Benton would much rather anger than indifference, feigned or not.

"I gave her and you two space to fix it yourselves, which the three of you have screwed up to an unimaginable degree." Benton paused. Now that their emotions were running high, they might actually make progress. "I will leave you now. The room is silenced, so even I won't be able to hear what you say. Talk. Yell. Argue. Fight. Whatever it takes. You don't need to love each other or even like each other, but you do need to not hate each other, understood?"

"Yes, Master." Their response, especially the twins', was the most half-hearted he'd ever heard from them, but it was enough.

Hopefully, they'd figure it out without anyone getting hurt too badly. For physical pain, they had plenty of healing pills. There wasn't much he could do about their emotions, though.

He sighed. Teenagers.

Chapter 356 - Healing

Benton gladly left the trio of teenagers behind as he Teleported to the Healing Pavilion, where he greeted Pan Xiaolian.

"How goes the training?" he said. "Have two of you reached Mastery yet?"

She cupped her hands. "Apologies, Sect Leader, but only I have reached that level. Two others are at Large Success."

That wasn't good. Acupuncture was a medical procedure that required skill. He didn't want to put either twins' health in the hands of someone who hadn't even mastered the technique.

He told Pan Xiaolian his concerns.

"I share your hesitation, Sect Leader," she said. "I would not be comfortable having anyone other than me perform such an important procedure."

Benton frowned. "You mean consecutively? The process is quite lengthy and labor intensive, is it not?"

"The old woman you inducted into your sect absolutely would not have had the required stamina, Sect Leader, but that woman is no more, replaced by one who is young of heart and who possesses the strength of a cultivator in the seventh minor realm of Qi Gathering and who is at the peak of Bronze Body Cultivation. I can handle sticking some needles into my patients."

True. He experienced little cognitive dissonance when seeing youngsters performing superhuman feats after advancing a few minor realms, but for some reason, it was harder for him to accept that people as old as he had been gained the same abilities.

"Besides," she said, "if I don't feel that my stamina will hold out, we'll simply do the procedures on different days."

He tensed at that suggestion. Due to the nature of them being twins, they seemed to have a metaphysical bleed-over effect where one influenced the other. Ideally, they'd both undergo procedures at the same time. He told her as much.

"There are only three choices, Sect Leader. One, proceed as I have suggested. Two, wait until another from the pavilion advances to Mastery. Or three, call in an outside expert."

None of the solutions sounded good. The first risked a metaphysical blowback disrupting the procedure. If that happened, the ramifications could range anywhere from minimal loss of effectiveness all the way up to triggering the qi deviation they were trying to avoid. He suspected that the most major of the ill effects were highly unlikely, but he hated placing the kids at risk.

The second meant that putting off the procedure until after the tournament. Which at first glance didn't seem like a bad thing. But any battle carried risks, meaning that it was possible that he'd be hurt or even killed. Losing would put the entire sect into dangerous territory, and the thought of the twins not being at their absolute best during such a situation filled him with dread.

Finally, the last required trusting a stranger. Presumably, the Poison Claw Sect had someone expert in using acupuncture who could be trusted not to betray them. The problem was that what he considered expert and what the rest of the cultivators on the continent considered expert were two entirely different things. He'd honestly trust one of his own people at Large Success over someone using whatever passed for a technique that one of the other sects had drug up.

When considered in those terms, it felt like the lowest risk was … the first option.

"Perform the procedures consecutively," he said. "The closer in time, the better. Whatever it takes."

"Of course, Sect Leader." Pan Xiaolian paused significantly.

"What?"

"There's another issue, Sect Leader."

She went on to explain that she was not fully qualified to perform the treatment because proper acupuncture required the person applying the needles to sense the flow of energy through the body.

"Since I'm only at Qi Gathering…"

That problem, at least, was one he could solve, which was the answer that she anticipated. The formation that he would be creating could easily be modified to sense the energy flows she needed to monitor, and by that point, he was well acquainted with outputting data to a tablet.

He left her to construct the arrays, which didn't take too terribly long since he used his Time Manipulation. A few of the other pavilion members agreed to be Guinea pigs, and Pan Xiaolian soon certified the results as perfect.

The functionality shown by the formation and the new tablets, however, made her ask if he could do something similar for general health diagnostics, which wasn't something he'd previous considered. After some back and forth planning, he created another design and, by the time he finished implementing it, he'd produced a medical scanning system and output reports that would have made Dr. McCoy toss his tricorder in the trash and weep due to sheer happiness.

For Benton, it was all in a morning's work.

Yang Xiu wasn't processing her situation well. Partially, her problems were because her emotions felt like they were transmitted to her in the same way that sight would have been if she were submerged deep underwater. She still felt things, but it all was quite muted. And when something did make her react, it came in a burst that she couldn't control. It was like something constrained feelings most of the time, but if one grew strong enough, the containment failed, leading to an explosion.

Her gut, though, insisted that she shouldn't feel emotions at all, so when one erupted, it frightened her. But fear was also an emotion, so her reaction to the reaction caused her to be even more frightened. Which irritated her. Which was yet another emotion.

It was a vicious loop that threw her completely off kilter.

One thing—one person—triggering her intense, uncontrollable reactions was the girl on her knees apologizing. She just wouldn't shut up, and every time she spoke, a great ball of conflicting feelings bubbled up inside Yang Xiu's head. Love. Hate. Anger. Pity. All of that and more.

An even bigger trigger were Master's words. Yang Xiu had always been on the receiving end of his praise. Never his anger. Never displeasure. Not disapproval. And certainly never disappointment.

"I am quite disappointed in both of you," Master had said.

The statement was clear and unambiguous. He, Master, was disappointed in them, including her. Maybe even primarily her.

Being stabbed through the heart with a sword would have been less painful than those eight words. Every fiber of her being wanted nothing more than to fix whatever she'd done wrong so that he would be proud of her once again.

She took a deep breath, trying to clear away both the emotions attacking her psyche and the cloud that seemed to prevent her from reacting normally.

Yes, she clearly remembered being angry at Kang Lin, who had publicly hurt Yang Ru. The boy wasn't perfect, but he was the only family Yang Xiu had left. It was not okay for anyone to hurt him.

Kang Lin wasn't family, but she had been a friend. A best friend. A near and hoped for sister.

Was it okay to throw away a friend when they messed up? Especially when they saw the error of their ways and apologized?

Yang Xiu's instinct was to say that forgiveness was unwarranted. A cultivator did not forget a slight.

Something about that inclination bothered her though. Master's words. He was a cultivator. If cultivator's didn't forgive, did that mean she could never regain his favor?

No, not at all. He'd be the first to accept a true apology and grant forgiveness. Which meant that she … should follow his example?

Yang Xiu closed her eyes and let out a long breath. When she reopened them, she said, "What you did was wrong, and we are no longer in the same place we once were because of it. I refuse to hang onto my anger and hate, however, and am willing to start over. That's the best I can give you."

Kang Lin literally had tears running down her face as she kowtowed again. "Gratitude."

The open display made so many emotions flicker through Yang Xiu—anger at herself for causing such pain, pleasure that her friendship meant so much to the girl, and envy that Kang Lin could so easily experience feelings. They'd no sooner registered, though, than they were again subsumed by depths of pure Ice.

Yang Xiu simply nodded.

Yang Ru was frustrated and flummoxed. The former because he just wanted to move on from the whole debacle that was Kang Lin, and the latter because he'd been ordered to resolve the situation, meaning he had to keep looking backward.

But what more could he do? He'd already told her that he held her blameless and that he bore her no ill will.

Maybe Master hadn't actually meant that he was disappointed in both of them. Maybe he just meant Yang Xiu.

That would make sense. She was clearly still hanging on to anger and hate.

Yang Ru nodded. That had to be it. He'd done everything right.

That conclusion didn't feel right, though. Master had specifically said, "both of you." Both. Two. Yang Xiu and Yang Ru.

But that brought him right back to what more could he do?

Ugh. Once he got out of that room, he was swearing off girls for the rest of his life. Joining a monastery was an option. Yeah. Leave the sect and become a monk. Perfect.

Okay. He had to think about the situation logically. Despite what he'd said about bearing Kang Lin no ill will, he'd complained that she had been the one to break up with him and basically whined that Master hadn't said he was disappointed in her.

Maybe, possibly, there was a reason Master hadn't believed what Yang Ru had said.

He thought for a long time before saying, "Kang Lin, ever since you began pulling away from me, my life has been miserable. For the longest time, I wanted only to know what I did wrong and how I could fix it. Now, I just want to move on. Maybe I haven't fully forgiven you, but I want to. That's all I can give you for now."

She kowtowed to him. "That is enough. It's more than enough. Gratitude."

He sighed. "Good. Now, how do we get out of here?"

Chapter 357 – A Good Uselessness

Pan Xiaolian had been a healer a long time, though for most of her life that had simply meant bandaging wounds or giving a sick person a herb known to help with their symptoms. She'd watched, powerless, as many villagers had succumbed to injuries and diseases.

That had all changed with the arrival of the sect leader. She and the other former village healers had received knowledge techniques and training far more advanced than anything they'd known previously. At the same time, the miraculous healing pills made that knowledge almost worthless as most issues could be resolved by alchemy.

The main contribution Pan Xiaolian made in helping a patient who entered the pavilion was to determine if the person needed a Major Healing Pill or if a minor one would do. Which was both frustrating and amazing.

She couldn't help but feel a bit useless. Literally anyone could hand out a pill. But she couldn't complain about the results. Now that the vast majority of the villagers had been inducted into the sect, there were no more deaths to mundane causes. No one even suffered from the sniffles.

Younger idiots suffered injuries from doing stupid things as teenagers were wont to do, but those issues were easily resolved. One young man on the last expedition had fought a spirit beast that was too strong and had his arm bitten off. He'd simply popped a Major Healing Pill in his mouth, and his limb regrew in minutes.

When he'd returned to the sect, he hadn't even thought to report to the Healing Pavilion to have it checked. Pan Xiaolian hadn't found out about the injury until weeks later and, after dragging the young man in to be examined, found that he was essentially good as new.

Being useless as a healer was a good thing, but sometimes it didn't feel like it, especially considering that so many resources had been expended to create the pavilion. The entire team felt like they weren't contributing as much as they should be.

The Martial Pavilion trained warriors who would become the sect's protectors. The Alchemy Pavilion would one day create miraculous medicines that could fix any injury and cure any disease. The Formations Pavilion eventually would be able to replicate the miraculous arrays the sect leader so easily made. And so on and so on.

Up until less than a week prior, the entire Healing Pavilion felt like they'd be relegated to handing out the creations the Alchemy Pavilion made, something most cultivators could do perfectly well on their own.

Then the sect leader introduced the Acupuncture technique. It required true expertise to perform and fixed issues that couldn't be resolved just by popping a pill. Once the technique was mastered, she and her team would provide a valuable service to the sect.

All of them were elated.

The fact that their very first patients for the new procedure were Senior Brother and Senior Sister added quite a large bit of pressure, though. Pan Xiaolian wouldn't want to cause harm to anyone, young or old, from the least competent laborer in the village to the sect leader himself, but she knew the importance of those two teenagers—the most talented members and heirs to the sect.

She thought she had the sect leader's measure, that he was a good man who wouldn't lash out at others even for a grievous mistake, but cultivators, especially ones as high realm as him, were known for their tempers. In any other sect, failing to heal such important core disciples would be death sentence.

Sooner than Pan Xiaolian expected, the sect leader returned with the twins, and the four of them moved to one of the pavilion's consultation rooms.

"Yang Xiu, Yang Ru," the sect leader said, "it is obvious that something is influencing your emotions and personalities. You have noticed this, correct?"

"Yes, Master," they chorused.

"Good. I'm here because I believe myself to be the foremost authority on the continent, maybe the world, regarding your condition. Healing Pavilion Master Pan Xiaolian is here as the expert on the process for treating that condition. Understood?"

"Yes, Master."

"I'll explain the condition. Healing Pavilion Master Pan Xiaolian will explain the treatment. You will each decide for yourselves on whether or not to proceed with the treatment. Neither Healing Pavilion Master Pan Xiaolian nor myself will command you to pursue a particular path. We are only here to provide information, so you each can make an informed decision. Understood?"

"Yes, Master."

He smiled at them, and the fact that he cared deeply for both of them was quite evident on his face. "To put it bluntly, your energy has gotten out of balance, and that is causing your respective qi aspects, which had previously affected your opposite number, to instead influence your own personality. Since you're unused to your own elements, you haven't developed any immunity to it, making them exert outsized influence."

The twins shared a look.

Though neither of them said a word, the sect leader appeared to have interpreted their question. "Honestly, I don't know how dangerous it is long term. Maybe you'll each adapt to it, and it will be no big thing. Or your personalities may stay drastically altered, and you'll each live as people wholly different than who you used to be. Worst case scenario, the energy imbalance causes a qi deviation that could lead to problems with your cultivation or even death. The variables are too wonky to determine an exact outcome."

Wonky was not a word Pan Xiaolian was familiar with. It didn't seem to faze the twins, though.

"You mentioned an energy imbalance," Yang Ru said. "Does that mean our qi is imbalanced?"

"Not exactly. I'm using energy to represent sort of a unified mixture of all possible energies. It incorporates qi and karma and mana and a whole host of other metaphysical powers that are present in this universe or connected ones." The sect leader paused. "You know how I'm always saying that anything can happen in a cultivation world?"

"Yes, Master."

"This energy is part of the reason for me saying that." He turned to Yang Xiu. "If I set up one hundred clay targets and gave you one hundred arrows and told you to shoot each one with a single arrow, I guarantee that two things would happen. One, you'd hit each target with an arrow. Two, each arrow would shatter the target it hit. Makes sense?"

It seemed to Pan Xiaolian that his hypothetical situation depended on a number of factors including distance, wind, etc. Both twins, on the other hand, readily agreed with the sect leader.

"Now let's take that same scenario and introduce some of this universal energy into the mix," he said to Yang Xiu. "This time, you'd hit and destroy the targets only, say, ninety seven times. One time, you'd miss. One time, the arrow would bounce off the target. And one time, your arrow would turn into a bird and fly away."

The twins shared another look.

"I know. Ridiculous, right? But that's exactly the kind of thing that can happen when this energy is involved. Most of time, fortunately, it doesn't interact with our world much, and during the few times that it does, it's mostly harmless. That one time that it decides to be spontaneous, though." The sect leader shrugged. "That's why this is completely unpredictable."

He paused. "Honestly, my biggest worry isn't a qi deviation or death or anything like that. The chances of something that drastic seem slim, though they are definitely possible. What I fear is that your personalities keep changing. Now that it has happened once, it is more likely to happen again, maybe at random or possibly based on intense emotional triggers. If we fix it now, I'm hoping you never have to go through it again."

Pan Xiaolian decided that was a good spot for her to take over. "Which is where I come in. You've heard of acupuncture?"

The twins had.

"The sect leader provided me with manuals and a technique, which I reached Mastery with. I have not, however, had much practice. Likewise, I have not, nor to the best of my knowledge has anyone, used acupuncture to correct a condition like yours. On the other hand, correcting energy imbalances in the body is the exact kind of issue that the process was created to solve."

The two looked at each other again.

"What are the risks, Healing Pavilion Master?" Yang Xiu said.

"One possibility is that it simply that it doesn't work. In the worst case, it causes a qi deviation like we're trying to avoid. And I have no way even to put odds on whether the procedure will be successful, do nothing, or result in a catastrophic ill."

Yet again, the two looked at each other. That time, Yang Ru grunted, and Yang Xiu nodded.

"I'll go first," he said.

Chapter 358 – Procedural Resolution

Pan Xiaolian had Yang Ru remove his robe and undershirt and lie face down on a padded table.

"This shouldn't hurt," she said. "In fact, you shouldn't feel a thing. If you do, please tell me at once."

She and the two other Healing Pavilion members who learned the techniques had practiced applying needles to each other, and it had be completely bloodless and painless. Yang Ru was her first actual patient for the procedure, though, and it was important to ensure that everything was proceeding correctly at each stage.

One hundred needles had been sterilized by one of her assistants and placed in a container in the room for her use. Pan Xiaolian didn't expect to need more than forty at most in his body, but not every placement was perfect on the first try. The quantity should be plenty for his treatment with some to spare.

The ultra-thin needles themselves were quite extraordinary. Crafted by the sect leader out of a fancy cultivator material, each one was the work of a Master Blacksmith. Though single use and only about the width of a human hair, she imagined that each one would cost more than anything she had ever owned before joining the sect, maybe more than everything put together. When it came to necessary tools, the man didn't hold back on quality.

Her assistant had also prepared a disinfecting solution, which Pan Xiaolian used to clean the planned insertion points on Yang Ru's body, including those in the ears, back, neck, and his arms and legs from the elbows and knees down. After she was done, she used a sanitized cloth to dry the areas she'd washed.

"The prep work is complete, young man," she said. "How are you doing?"

Yang Ru grunted, which she took to mean that he was fine, so she continued her work, tapping in the first of the needles. He didn't react, not even to flinch.

"No pain?" she said.

He grunted again.

Generally speaking, she was of the belief that it was best to let patients explain themselves in whatever way made them the most comfortable, but that leeway sometimes had to be overruled when she required complete clarity.

"I'm afraid I need an actual verbal response this time."

"No pain."

She tapped in another needle and saw no reaction from him, so she applied ten more needles, ending up with one in each of his twelve primary meridians. And that was where she would have only been able to proceed blindly without the functionality added by the sect leader's formation. With the tap of what he called a screen, an image appeared on her tablet showing Yang Ru's body.

When she selected qi, the image showed that energy flowed exactly as she would have expected, starting in his dantian and moving through channels as prescribed by his cultivation method. There was nothing wrong there, and if there had been, the sect leader would have detected it long before the boy was brought to the Healing Pavilion.

Another touch switched the view to the new amalgamated energy. Instead of flowing smoothly through Yang Ru's body, it concentrated in his head and in his dantian with only faint wisps flowing throughout his body, broadly following his bloodstream where it moved at all.

There were three problems with what she saw. One, there was too much of it, easily a multiple of five compared to what showed up in her body or any of the other Healing Pavilion members who had volunteered to be scanned. According to the sect leader, a Foundation Establishment realm cultivator should definitely have more than anyone in the Qi Gathering realm, but not that much more. Two to three times would be a more appropriate amount.

The second issue was that the energy wasn't flowing nearly as well as it should. Instead of the slight wisps she saw, there should have been small but solid channels. And the final issue was that, while the large build up in the dantian was natural, the one in his brain wasn't.

The image made the solution obvious. She had to drain energy from his body, entice it to flow throughout, and reduce the buildup in his brain. Luckily, all three of those objectives were obstacles acupuncture was designed to overcome.

Hours of tedious work followed. She'd insert a needle here or there, each one either opening or closing a path to encourage the energy to flow where and how she wanted. Then she'd check the tablet after each insertion to see if it had worked how she'd intended, often having to remove the needle and try again.

Finally, though, she got even flow established.

"It is very important that you remain absolutely still for this next part," she told him.

Luckily, cultivators were quite used to keeping their bodies entirely motionless because the next needles she used were the truly tricky ones. The plan was to stick them into Yang Ru's head, some even penetrating his brain—a dangerous activity to be sure.

Six months prior, she was sure her sixty plus year old hands couldn't have remained steady enough for the delicate procedure, but her cultivation—especially her Body Cultivation—had changed that.

She barely breathed as she made the insertions, and soon, ten needles stuck out of the back and sides of his head, these serving as conduits for the energy instead of blockages. And they worked, letting out minute amounts of the foreign power from his system.

"It will be at least a couple of hours before the energy is balanced the way I'd like to see it, but all signs are that things are proceeding perfectly," she told him. "I'll give you a pill that will put you into a mild coma while I'm working on your sister."

He gave a soft grunt, clearly trying not to move.

"There's some transference between you and her. If we would have had two healers who had reached Mastery in acupuncture, we would have ideally performed both procedures at once. Since we didn't, the sect leader believes that putting you in a medically induced coma will be beneficial."

Yang Ru grunted again.

"One of my assistants will remain with you, monitoring you via the tablet. You'll be in good hands."

Pan Xiaolian considered the first procedure to be a resounding success. All three issues she'd identified had either been rectified perfectly or were well on their way, and she didn't anticipate any complications with her second patient. Even better, her cultivation enhanced body felt like it could keep going for days.

As she left the room, she found herself humming. It felt so good to be useful.

Sun Hua wasn't comfortable talking about her desire to conceive a baby, even with the man who might partner with her for that endeavor. She and Wu You had only had one additional meeting since he'd stated his objections to her becoming pregnant, and though she had been fresh off a meeting with the sect leader who had promised to resolve all their problems, she'd not brought up the subject again.

Since, she'd been too nervous to talk to Wu You, politely refusing several requests to meet for tea, and after that, the invitations had stopped coming. The tournament was ending soon, and the possibility of her leaving the city and never seeing him again was quite real.

She needed to make a daring move, which in the past had required Senior Sister providing her unique type of encouragement. Considering that she was suddenly busy with her own issues and currently back at the sect for some reason, help from that quarter seemed unlikely.

The only other person that Sun Hua really ever interacted with much was Wan Ai, and if there were one person less likely to be able to help when it came to being bold, it was that quiet girl.

Sun Hua sat to think about her situation logically. The process of actually inviting Wu You to tea wasn't all that problematic. Sending written invitations was, obviously, a part of her training. She could write a polite request with no problems whatsoever.

The problem lay in the actual meeting, specifically in the conversation they needed to have. She believed that the facts were on her side. Between the different way the Rising Tide operated compared to other sects, superior resources, her own relatively high position in the sect's hierarchy, and the sect leader's promise, the situation in her sect versus what Wu You had experienced were completely different.

That being the case, she understood the deep emotional scar that losing his wife in such a way must have produced. She needed to approach the subject delicately and with tact, not something that was one of her strengths.

Using facts and logic and reason was her forte, especially in the form of a written report. Talking was so much more difficult.

Wait. That might just be the solution…

She dashed off a message to him, receiving a positive response a short time later, and spent the rest of the day until late into the night making her preparations. Even though she was as ready as she could be going into the meeting, her heart still pounded as she walked into the tea house.

After seating herself, she cupped her hands. "Gratitude for agreeing to see this Assistant, Esteemed Cultivator Wu You. Apologies for refusing your previous invitations."

"I was honestly quite surprised to get your message. To be honest, I assumed the no children thing was something you decided you couldn't accept."

That was the problem. It was something she couldn't accept. But saying that seemed imprudent.

"This Assistant has a proposal," she said instead.

His eyebrows rose. "A proposal?"

Oops. A poor word choice given the circumstances. Mistakes like that were a big reason that she'd been reluctant to meet with him again.

"A proposition," she said, hastily correcting herself.

The sect leader had crafted a leather satchel for her to carry her paperwork and miscellaneous writing utensils in. It was larger on the inside than on the outside but didn't require qi to use. That latter trait made it even rarer than storage rings and, therefore, more valuable.

Not that she'd even consider selling it, not even once she reached Foundation Establishment and got her own ring. The satchel was her most prized possession, clearly showing the high regard in which her employer held her.

Mother had never been prouder.

Sun Hua pulled out a bound document and handed it to him. "My proposition is laid out in these pages."

He looked somewhat bemused as he took the stack and thumbed through it. "There have to be several dozen pages here."

She nodded. Fifty-one actually, counting the cover page and table of contents.

"I'll leave you to review it. Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns." Sun Hua paused, remembering the token so that the sect leader wouldn't accidentally kill her possible intended. She removed it from her pocket and placed it on the table. "Please also take this token and keep it on your person at all times."

With both the token and the document laying out her position of why conception and childbearing would be inexpensive and safe in the Rising Tide Sect safely in Wu You's hands, she felt a great relief as she practically ran from the tea house.

Chapter 359 – Prelude to Ultimate Defeat

Zou Tian's instincts had changed in the months that he'd lived undercover in the city. Being worried that everyone you passed on the street might suspect you're actually a cultivator spying on two of the three ruling sects had made him almost paranoid. And that wasn't a bad thing according to the manuals.

Or at least it hadn't been. Now that he was in from the cold, he found himself looking at his sect mates with suspicion. That was a habit he needed to break.

Probably, anyway. There could be value in making sure no internal spies sought to betray the sect. He'd have to discuss the matter with Senior Brother Yuan Yaozu.

Other than that bit of weirdness, it felt incredible to be back with his sect mates, and Wan Ai most of all, obviously. The relationship between the two of them picked up where they'd left off. If anything, absence had made them cherish each other all the more.

Only one minor issue arose. At first, she studied his face intently every time she talked about their impending marriage, checking for signs he was as committed as he'd said. She found nothing. As an orphaned street rat, he hadn't had a family growing up, not until Master plucked him out of that alley. The idea of marriage and being a father appealed to Zou Tian in a way he'd never realized was possible. He wanted to give his wife and kids the life he never had.

His only concern was that she honestly believed Master would let them get away with a quiet ceremony in the mayor's house. She obviously didn't know the man nearly as well as Zou Tian did. But he didn't dissuade her from the notion. Better to let her have her little fantasy. Besides, he was sure it wouldn't be as bad as she thought it would be.

Probably. Maybe.

Actually… Yeah. Yeah, it would be exactly that bad. Master would surely throw a party to rival the birthday bash, and Wan Ai would hate it. Honestly, though, it would be interesting to see what he'd do. Colorful glowing orbs, a massive cake, and gliders had come out of the last one. Surely, a wedding topped a birthday, right?

Zou Tian hesitated. Something didn't seem right about the situation, so he rethought things. And it didn't take long for him to determine what was wrong.

Something amazing that his girlfriend—no, fiancée—hated wasn't truly amazing. If Wan Ai wanted a quiet wedding in the mayor's office, that was what she would get. Zou Tian would just have to go to Master and explain the situation. He'd be disappointed, but he cared a lot more about making his sect members happy than he did about what he wanted. It was just that sometimes he could be a little blind to what actually made others happy.

Another interesting change in Zou Tian was that he'd picked up a gut feel for the atmosphere of a place. Things like whether a crowded tavern was likely to have a brawl that night or if a particular street might be frequented by criminal elements had become obvious. He'd partially formed those senses as a street rat, but the techniques, manuals, and experience of living as a spy had sharpened them to acute accuracy.

As he walked into the arena every other day to watch Jin LiJuan fight, he felt attitudes grow more tense with each round. His own sect mates were the least affected, but everyone else, including commoners, demonstrated consistently more strain as the last division of the tournament progressed toward the end.

The evidence that he could point to wasn't apparent to most observers, but to him, the signs couldn't be more obvious. It was a tightened jaw here and a whispered conversation there or the way a Jade Chameleon member tightened his hand on the hilt of his sword while looking at a Poison Claw member or the way a Swift Blizzard member purposely bumped into the shoulder of a Rising Tide member.

Ambush or no, war was coming, and Zou Tian paid attention and watched constantly. He would be ready.

As far as the actual tournament went, Jin LiJuan just kept winning. Correction. Jin LiJuan kept standing as far away from her opponent as she could get and letting her shield tank hits while Ganzou and Leizhenzi won.

Her Rising Tide Sect mates loved it, and she became the feast of the compound, everyone's mascot. The weakest cultivator in the sect inched closer every round to becoming the overall champion of the tournament, and every single person in the contingent enthusiastically cheered her on.

He knew enough about how other sects operated to understand how rare that attitude was. In any other faction, her fellow cultivators, to some extent, would be jealous of her or would seek to use her rise to further their own. His sect mates did none of that. They were just … happy for her.

Less pleased were the non-allied sects. They couldn't believe that a little child who did nothing but watch was so effortlessly defeating the best and the brightest the true powerhouses of the continent could field. The boos when she took to the arena floor grew more deafening each time she competed.

The day of the sixth round, sentiments in the rival sects brightened. They were absolutely sure that her opponent, a top ranked Jade Chameleon, would finally end her run.

Zou Tian didn't know if they were correct or not, but he couldn't wait to watch the match. Wearing his own face and spectating with his sect mates turned out to be even more fun than watching from anywhere else in the arena.

His only concern was that the conflict with the other sects was rapidly approaching and Senior Sister and Senior Brother had been called back to the main sect grounds for an undisclosed reason, probably having to do with whatever caused the obvious change in their personalities.

The matter was clearly important as Master frequently Teleported between the two locations and moved Senior Brother Yuan Yaozu to the compound in the interim.

Zou Tian put that worry out of his mind and grinned as Jin LiJuan walked into the arena. Her opponent for the round was a top talent, evidenced by the fact that he'd reached the peak of Foundation Establishment at a relatively young age and thus wasn't that much older than her. Maybe three years? But he still stood a foot and a half taller than her, and his muscles had muscles. It looked like the world's biggest bully picking on the tiniest victim he could find.

Even a win for him would be a loss considering the size and age difference between the two, and if he truly didn't emerge victorious, his shame would be everlasting.

Zou Tian had to admit that Jin LiJuan and her menagerie would be a tough fight. None of her previous opponents had even gotten a half dozen hits on her shield before the spirit beasts took them down.

If he had to defeat her, he'd use Shadow affinity to backstab her and then break away hopefully before he was caught, repeating the hit and run tactics until he finally penetrated the shield. He'd not tested his stealth against her beasts, however. Animals were renowned for having stronger physical senses than humans, and such traits only grew stronger in spirit beasts.

Zou Tian couldn't help but wonder if he could beat her.

Honestly, probably not. The realm discrepancy alone would put him at a disadvantage, and he was not meant to be a straight up fighter.

Still, his tactics would likely give her trouble, and he suspected that the upper rounds of the tournament wouldn't be nearly as easy for her as she'd experienced so far.

The match started, and her opponent immediately disappeared. He didn't turn invisible or slip into shadow. Nor was he so fast that he just looked like he disappeared. No, he did a short range Teleport, appearing behind Jin LiJuan and immediately stabbing her.

Spatial affinities were incredibly rare. That the Jade Chameleon could already Teleport at such a young age proved that his future was bright. It remained to be seen, however, if his talent would win the day.

If not for Jin LiJuan activating her shield as soon as the match started, she would have been in trouble. Instead, the young man's attack fizzled, almost certainly costing him more qi for the combined Teleport and attack than it cost her to defend.

Leizhenzi, Ganzou, and even Oogway raced to save her, and he only got two more hits in before he had to Teleport away.

Moving at will anywhere in the arena was a fantastic ability, but Zou Tian was absolutely positive that it couldn't be very qi efficient for someone only in the Foundation Establishment realm. As the three spirit beasts remained in a triangle around her, though, it looked like the two sides were at an impasse, revealing Jin LiJuan's team's major weakness—the lack of a ranged attack.

That was when Leizhenzi let out an earsplitting shriek. A combined lightning bolt and sonic attack raced from his mouth toward their opponent. The Jade Chameleon's Teleport was fast to activate but not faster than either lightning or sound.

Zou Tian grinned. Never mind that whole weakness thing. Just because the thunderbird hadn't needed to use a particular technique yet in the tournament didn't mean he didn't have access to one.

The attack hit, stunning the guy, and before he could move, Ganzou had hold of his leg.

Apparently, the Jade Chameleon had a weakness of his own—the inability to Teleport when being bitten by a hundred plus pound wolf.

From there, it didn't take long before he was overwhelmed and had to surrender, leaving Jin LiJuan, who hadn't moved a muscle from the time the match started to its end, as the victor.

Like Master always said, anything and everything could and would happen when dealing with cultivators, and the intense little girl certainly proved that adage true.

For once, Teng Wuying could actually relate to Mao Biya's anger. It was one thing for a Rising Tide Sect top talent to win the low division of Foundation Establishment. After all, Yang Xiu would have been feted in any of the big three sects, and Chao Su had access to treasures that would make any cultivator on the continent drool.

There was no shame in Yang Xiu winning.

For a top talent to lose to a literally F ranked little girl, on the other hand, was preposterous. Teng Wuying had thought that his sect's face couldn't go any lower, but he'd been wrong. And it looked like the Swift Blizzard Sect and even the Poison Claw Sect would soon experience the same fate.

Frankly, he didn't know if anyone could beat her and her spirit beasts. One of her earlier round opponents had a point when complaining that the matchup wasn't fair. The equivalent of four peak Foundation Establishment realm combatants against one of that realm wasn't something any but a once in a millennium talent could overcome.

The tournament wasn't set up to accommodate a beast tamer who so flagrantly defied the norms for their type. They were supposed to be limited to a beast of an equal equivalent realm or any number of beasts of a much lower realm. That one could combine the advantages of each was thought to be so impossible that no one had ever even suggested a rule against it.

Teng Wuying was sure that the oversight would be corrected in the future, but that didn't help the current participants, leaving the big three sects to suffer the ignominy of losing to a mere whelp. She didn't even actively participate in the matches, instead just standing back and watching her spirit beasts fight!

It was an insult to the face of her opponents and the sects they represented.

"We have to do something about that insufferable brat," Mao Biya said before she'd even sat down in the booth.

"Do you have something in mind?"

She frowned as she took her seat, obviously expecting him to come up with a plan.

"There's no way that we can push through a major rule change," Teng Wuying said. "Kang Ya-Ting won't vote against his ally, and Qiu ZhenKang will object on procedural grounds."

"There has to be something we can do!"

But there wasn't. Teng Wuying had given the matter much thought already and had come up with a blank. The only way to bring the little girl down was by cheating, and the loss of face that would be accompanied with such an act if it were discovered didn't bear thinking about. He wasn't even willing to suggest the idea as something not to be done, fearing that Mao Biya would seize on it.

"Think of it this way," he said. "We let this farce proceed. She wins. They, for a moment, revel in the perception that they've beaten us. And at that moment when their eyes are full of their seeming omnipotence, we take it all away."

"You mean…"

"I do. Literally the second after her match concludes, we trigger the ambush. We turn their moment of victory into the prelude to their ultimate defeat." He laughed as a thought struck him. "Afterwards, we spin it, tell everyone we let the girl win just for this purpose. It's perfect."

Silence stretched for a moment as Mao Biya considered his words. Despite the brilliance of his plan, he expected her to find fault with it.

Instead, she said, "For once, I agree with you completely. Well done."

Later, it struck him that Mao Biya fully endorsing his idea wasn't something he'd usually consider a good sign, but he quickly dismissed the thought. All the elements lined up perfectly. The Rising Tide Sect had gone too far, and it was finally time for them to pay the price for their arrogance … and for him finally to gain control of that Trials Pagoda!

Chapter 360 – Duty Versus Heart

Jin LiJuan's life had certainly changed. Outwardly, anyway. Inwardly, she was confused and conflicted by all the differences. For one thing, she was no longer practically invisible. Back at the sect, very few of her sect mates had noticed her existence.

Since she'd started fighting in the tournament, everyone not only knew who she was, but they went out of their way to talk to her. It was … weird. She didn't think of herself as anyone special.

The feeling was made even worse because her newfound fame arose from her winning matches, but none of that was her doing. Ganzou, Leizhenzi, and Oogway did all the work. She just watched.

Which made her feel kind of bad.

On the other hand, Pan Jiang had taught her about fighting in a team. Most cultivators fought solo, and even when they grouped up, it was just that—a group of solo cultivators. To truly make a team work, each person had to know their role and do it to the best of their ability.

If there was one lesson she'd learned from the mistake that had almost cost her life, it was the importance of following orders. Once the team told her what she needed to do, doing that task well became her only goal.

Her job was to protect herself.

If she was forced unconscious or surrendered, the team lost. Thus, the absolute best thing she could do for her team was to keep herself safe. Most of the time that meant simply standing and allowing her shield to take hits. Which at first seemed like a really bad idea given how small her qi pool was. Sparring and much practice, however, had proved to her that Master's technique was really efficient.

Standing still felt a little stupid to her, but she'd asked if she should try to move around and dodge. Oogway said he could protect her easier if she stayed in one place. So she stood and let herself be hit.

Pan Jiang had told her that, even if she didn't feel like she was doing anything, really she was. He'd said that he was proud of her. So even when she felt like an imposter for taking credit for winning, she knew she was actually doing her best for the team even if she wasn't taking an active role.

That day, though, would be her very last match. Win or lose, it would be over. And she was looking forward to it. Everyone, including Master, had told her she'd done the sect proud. Senior Brother and Senior Sister had even rushed back from whatever important mission they had to see her last fight.

Leizhenzi, of course, really wanted to win, but that was his personality. He'd be sad for about five minutes if they lost before he got over it. Oogway truly didn't care either way. Or he said he didn't. Jin LiJuan thought that he actually had a lot of fun during the matches even if he wouldn't admit it.

Ganzou … Ganzou was proud of what they'd done. He received as much attention in the compound as she did with everyone wanting to pet him. He even let most of them. She didn't think the end result really mattered all that much to him.

It was good not to feel any pressure to win. Though that didn't mean the team wouldn't give it their best shot.

It did mean that, when she and Ganzou walked onto the arena floor, she felt no pressure. Actually, she found all the boos and cheers to be quite funny. That was just noise, though, which she ignored.

She cupped her hands and bowed to both the official and her opponent, a young woman from the Swift Blizzard Sect, who sneered at them and didn't return the gesture. The snub was fine with Jin LiJuan. Having the respect of her own sect mates was more than she ever imagined she'd get, and she frankly didn't care about the other sects.

At the official's direction, the opponents separated to opposite sides of the arena floor, and Jin LiJuan pulsed a tiny bit of qi into the beast bag. Oogway appeared in front of her.

An announcer called out the names of all the participants, including the spirit beasts—which was nice; her team enjoyed being recognized—and then it was time to fight.

Jin LiJuan waited to see what the Swift Blizzard would do, expecting her to either dash forward or shoot a ranged attack like all the previous opponents. Instead, the young woman did neither, just standing there waiting.

Leizhenzi and Ganzou looked at each other, and each gave the equivalent of a shrug. Together, they dashed across the sand.

Jin LiJuan eyed her opponent warily, expecting some kind of trick. Even with Oogway's technique for intercepting attacks, many cultivators had found ways past him. Pan Jiang had said that a good strategy against them would be to draw Leizhenzi and Ganzou away from her and then sneak attack somehow.

The Swift Blizzard apparently had some other strategy in mind. She engaged the two charging her with a sword

The fight was brutal, each side giving and receiving vicious blows. The young woman was definitely tougher than she looked, with Ganzou's claws and Leizhenzi's attacks being repelled by her shield. And faster, too. Her blade danced from thunderbird to wolf slashing two to three times for every hit she took.

The spirit beasts had natural qi barriers instead of a technique. Those typically weren't as strong as cultivator's shields, but they were more efficient and didn't drain their entire qi pool.

The first sign of real trouble came when Ganzou whined after one strike, and blood dripped to the sand from one of his front legs.

Jin LiJuan's eyes went wide as she realized the young woman's strategy—divide and conquer. If she could knock out the main attackers, she'd just have to whittle down Oogway's defenses before beating one little girl.

Obviously, Jin LiJuan still did nothing. After all, both Leizhenzi and Ganzou were powerful spirit beasts, and she trusted her team. And her job was not to get hit, so she needed to stay away from their opponent. The attack on her team could actually be a feint to draw her out.

The woman turned her attention to Leizhenzi, attacking him with a flurry of slashes and thrusts. Surprisingly, she drew blood.

Jin LiJuan was shocked. None of their opponents yet had penetrated even one attacking spirit beast's qi barriers, let alone both.

Leizhenzi, in the time she'd known him, had never been injured, and he'd sparred a lot with the other members of the team and hunted many powerful spirit beasts as they sought to get Ganzou enough cores to get him to rank six.

Seeing his own blood appeared to affect him more than she thought it would. He flew as high as the arena's shield would let him get before unleashing his primary ranged attack on their opponent.

The woman had turned her attention to Ganzou as soon as Leizhenzi had retreated, launching blow after blow. The wolf did his best to get away, but she kept up with him, her pursuit not significantly disrupting her attacks.

As Leizhenzi's thunderbolt hurtled toward her faster than Jin LiJuan's eye could follow, the woman sidestepped it, moving instantaneously just as she was about to be struck.

Jin LiJuan was definitely not an expert on cultivator combat, but to her untrained eye, the woman's movement was quite odd. Jerky. Like her body had been forced to the side against her will.

She continued her assault on Ganzou as if nothing had happened, striking him with her blade multiple times. Each produced a line of blood.

Things were not looking good. Ganzou was tough, but nothing he'd ever faced had left him so bloody.

Leizhenzi kept trying to hit her with thunderbolts, but she dodged each one with that same weird motion. Since his main attack wasn't working, he tried his screech, the one that had burst Jin LiJuan's eardrums when they'd first met. The concentrated sound wave didn't appear to affect the woman at all, though.

Except when she was actively defending herself from the ranged attacks, she kept hitting Ganzou, who stopped running and turned to face her. He growled and lunged impossibly fast at her, trying to bite her leg.

She dodged his teeth the same as she did the thunderbolts, punishing him with a massive blow to his shoulders when he missed.

Ganzou let out a long, whimpering howl. Jin LiJuan had never seen him in so much pain.

A rational part of her mind told her to stay the course, to keep back. The woman was empowering her sword for each strike. She used a technique each time she evaded a thunderbolt.

Once she defeated Ganzou, she'd have to keep dodging Leizhenzi's attacks and get past Oogway's defenses and defeat Master's shield technique to take down Jin LiJuan.

Unless the woman's qi pool was many times larger than that of the average top talented sect member's, she'd run dry long before she could beat all four of them.

Besides, Ganzou's life wasn't in danger. He couldn't actually be hurt too badly with the arena's arrays in operation.

But he felt every blow as if it were real. He was suffering.

Jin LiJuan's duty was to stay in place. She'd learned the value of doing her duty, no matter the personal cost.

Remain in place. Win the match.

But Ganzou was suffering.

Her duty.

Her bonded.

Jin LiJuan never made a conscious decision to move, but the next thing she knew, she raced across the sand with her sword drawn.

Oogway had apparently been paying a lot more attention to the action happening across the sand than to his protectee who had been standing stationary behind him because she made it past him before he reacted, calling out to her.

Tortoises, while slow moving, lived on land and had legs. Oogway was a turtle, a reptile that lived in water. Not only was he slow, but his flippers hindered his progress on land even more than if had been a tortoise.

Jin LiJuan's legs may have been short, but she possessed the strength and speed of both the peak Foundation Establishment realm and peak Silver Body Cultivation.

Oogway had a technique that greatly sped his movement, but using that technique required two conditions to be met—it must be used to intercede between a target and someone attacking that target and the distance traveled must be small. The first of those conditions was not currently in effect as their opponent was not focused on Jin LiJuan. The second failed because Oogway was too far away, and by the time she reached the fight, she would be as well.

All that to say that there was no way for the turtle to place himself between Jin LiJuan and danger.

Leizhenzi clearly saw what was happening, but he made no move to fly back down to the floor, instead increasing the number of thunderbolts he sent. Even a spirit beast with a strong bloodline didn't have infinite qi, though, and Jin LiJuan knew he'd reach his limit soon.

She also knew that, as much as she wanted to protect her bonded, it was stupid to rush in without a plan. Her mind spun.

She only had three techniques. The first, Quiet Mind, had no combat applications as far as she knew. The second, her Upgraded Strong Oak Sword Art would be a help, but seeing her opponent beating both Ganzou and Leizhenzi, Jin LiJuan knew it wouldn't be enough. Her third, Ensnare would have been helpful, but it required a plant to enhance. She couldn't just make one out of qi.

A thought struck her. If she had a plant on her, it would be perfectly legal to use because only items that used formations, aside from storage devices, were prohibited unless the combatant personally made them.

Normally, she wouldn't just carry around plants with her because, as everyone knew, spatial rings couldn't store living objects. Except the beast bag that Master made for Oogway was way more advanced than most storage devices. Not only could it store plants, it contained a habitat full of them—mosses, lilies, flowers, and … trees.

She just needed a way to deliver them where she needed them.

"Leizhenzi!" she yelled. "Catch. Three."

With her strength, it was easy for her to withdraw a small tree from the bag and toss it high into the air. After ensuring that Leizhenzi caught it, she did it twice more.

Luckily, the thunderbird was pretty smart and well experienced with his partner's techniques. He knew exactly what to do.

As she approached their opponent, he redoubled his efforts, launching five thunderbolts in quick succession, likely expending most, if not all, of his qi. The attacks distracted her enough that Jin LiJuan's initial sword strikes, though blocked, weren't completely defeated by the superior swordswoman.

She actually had to pay attention not to get hit.

Everything hinged on what happened next. Jin LiJuan suspected—well, hoped really—that the woman's dodges were the result of an automatic technique that only reacted to fast attacks.

If so, when Leizhenzi plopped the trees down behind her, the technique wouldn't trigger. And if she were distracted, maybe she wouldn't even notice.

It worked!

Jin LiJuan's bladework was good enough to keep the woman's attention, and she didn't react to the trees thudding softly onto the sand behind her.

A minor problem arose in that Jin LiJuan had to set up her final attack by securing the trees' roots. Which meant not concentrating on the fight for a few moments. As she drove tendrils of qi to dig deep from the ends of each of the trees' roots to anchor them to the ground, the woman made good use of the distraction, landing several blows.

Jin LiJuan's shield easily handled the brief onslaught, though.

"Now!" Jin LiJuan yelled.

She couldn't afford to look at Leizhenzi, but after months of working together as a team, she trusted that he knew exactly what was needed and would attack via dive. At the same time, she attacked with every bit of skill, speed, and power she possessed.

The woman was forced to take several steps back. She didn't see the trees behind her until it was too late.

Jin LiJuan activated Ensnare. All three trees reached out and wrapped around the woman, the slow branches not fast enough to trigger her evasion technique. One ensnared each arm, and the final circled around her waist.

Wood qi strengthened the branches, making them unbreakable even for a peak Foundation Establishment cultivator.

For a moment, anyway. The technique wasn't super strong, and it was intended as a distraction, not a way to imprison an opponent.

But a moment was all Jin LiJuan needed. Her sword found the woman's undefended neck three times. Simultaneously, Leizhenzi bit the woman's head.

Her shield popped.

The match was over.

Jin LiJuan and her team had won. Not that she cared. She rushed to Ganzou, falling to her knees beside him and hugging him tightly.

Benton had never been so proud of anyone in his life. That wasn't because Jin LiJuan and her menagerie had won, though he had been impressed by the girl's quick thinking with the trees.

No, he was proud because of her growth. The little girl who hated spirit beasts, the same little girl who had struggled not to kill that wolf when he was but a cub, now risked everything to protect him.

Moisture welled, and Benton had to wipe at his eyes.

Before he could do anything to congratulate Jin LiJuan, though, he sensed a beacon from a contingency ring. From an old contingency ring. And it was close.

The ambush. Finally.

Chapter 361 – Formation Masterwork

Lei Bohai had been stuck in a dreadful city on a disadvantaged continent for way too long, but upholding the title of Formations Master was important. He'd worked his way up the ranks over the course of centuries before achieving that rank, and there was no way he would let an unrecognized upstart run around calling himself that.

When a functionary from the Jade Chameleon Sect, a minor sect though apparently a ruler in their region, had contacted the Twelfth Majestic Order of Formations Masters to request assistant in putting down a Nascent Soul realm charlatan, Lei Bohai had been the first to volunteer. No one in the organization was as good as he was at hiding arrays, perfect for the planned ambush.

Usually, his services weren't for sale. Only his sect or certain extremely influential cultivators were the beneficiaries of his immense talents. If he were to be so gauche as to charge actual spirit coins for his creations, the cost would be high enough to break a Nihility Realm practitioner.

It wasn't often, however, that anyone dared to defy the Order, and Lei Bohai took it as a personal affront. Which led him to charging only a pittance to hide a multi-purpose formation in a small plaza. Which he'd done. All that was left was for the trap to be sprung.

He just hadn't realized how long that would take. Months. Stuck in a sub-standard inn in a sub-standard city on a sub-standard continent, all while having his cultivation restrained to Golden Core level by a device he'd created to hide his presence.

Worse, the functionary had come to him and pleaded to have the formations moved, worried that the target might learn of the arrays and disable them. As if a charlatan, even one who had somehow managed to reach Nascent Soul, could even detect a masterwork created by Lei Bohai, much less determine how to sabotage it!

No one, not even the grandmaster of the Twelfth Majestic Order of Formations Masters could spot one of Lei Bohai's hidden arrays. It was impossible.

Not one to be completely unreasonable, he had quoted the functionary a price. That tender surely outstripped the entire reserves of the minor sect by several orders of magnitude, but it had at least been offered. Never let it be said that a member of the Order was unaccommodating, even if the person requesting cooperation had implied that one's arrays could so easily be found and disabled.

Still, protecting the integrity of the Order was of the utmost importance, not something to be left solely to the ineptitude of minor sects. He was not willing to further devalue his work, but there was another way he could assist in the mission's goals by weaponizing the Order's prestige and influence.

The functionary was quite happy with the compromise.

Unfortunately, arranging for assistance only further delayed the date of the punishment, leaving Lei Bohai languishing at the dreadful inn even longer.

The only thing that would soothe the ignominy of having spent so much of his valuable time in such a poor, depressed place while being disrespected by such a minor sect was watching the charlatan die for daring to call himself a Formations Master. And, finally, the day arrived.

Lei Bohai waited, apparently alone, atop a building overlooking the plaza containing his masterwork formation. Upon receiving the agreed upon signal from the functionary, he pulled a ring from his storage device.

The simple band could hardly be called jewelry, and its singular array was simplistic in the extreme. When pressure was applied at a designed weak point, the ring would break, releasing a Teleportation beacon.

He had to admit that portion of the device was somewhat unusual but only because the ability to Teleport was not common, owing to the rarity of the Spatial element. And the beacon, if he were being charitable, was not incompetently done. Lei Bohai was still unsure how the charlatan had made it small enough to fit within the confines of the small piece of metal-encased wood.

The field of formations design was so complex that even novices and complete imbeciles occasionally discovered something innovative, usually by accident. Sure, the beacon miniaturization was impressive but nothing to get excited about. Too bad he wouldn't have a chance to ask the charlatan about the method used before he was killed.

Lei Bohai pressed on the ring's weak point, activating the beacon.

Several seconds later, Chao Su Teleported to the sky about a hundred feet above the plaza, exactly as planned. What an idiot.

The series of arrays Lei Bohai created truly was a masterwork, and it was both absolutely undetectable and highly resistant to disruption, not something that a charlatan could figure out before he was completely obliterated.

A lot of work had gone into it. First, the entire plaza had been deconstructed down to bare dirt. With a blank canvas, Lei Bohai had laid down an incredibly tough and highly qi conductive metal in thin strips crisscrossing the area.

In those metallic strips, he'd inscribed a multitude of arrays, including qi concealment to keep it undetectable even while in operation, strengthening and shielding to prevent damage to the channels from the Nascent Soul realm attacks it would be subjected to, anti-communication to keep the target from calling from help, anti-Teleportation to keep the target from escaping, weapons to blast the target with six different qi elements, stasis to hamper movement of anyone caught in its field, and Aura suppression attuned to Chao Su's specific qi signature to greatly hinder him both offensively and defensively.

Once Lei Bohai had finished, Earth and Nature aspected cultivators had reconstructed the plaza over the metal, making it look just like it had previously.

All in all, the charlatan Chao Su would find himself unable to flee, call for help, or even move as soon as the formation activated. With his Aura suppressed and six different elemental blasts targeting him, his qi shield would be drained dry in seconds. The masterwork alone secured his destruction.

It was nice to have martial specialist Nascent Souls available for mop up duty, but they wouldn't be needed unless Chao Su's had allies ready to join him immediately.

With a minute pulse of qi, Lei Bohai activated the formation, springing the trap and sealing Chao Su's fate.

Upon detecting the beacon, Benton sent two pre-arranged messages—one to Kang Ya-Ting and one to Sun Hua. The first would prepare Nascent Souls should Benton signal that he needed backup. The second instructed his assistant sect leader to have the contingent retreat to the compound and Teleport back to the sect grounds at the first sign of trouble.

As soon as the paper dragons were away, he Teleported to the beacon and emerged in the air above the plaza.

Honestly, he was surprised. Surely, they had to know that the ambush site was compromised. Either they did and didn't care, or they were clueless.

Oh well.

One man, a Nascent Soul with a device that inadequately disguised his qi signature, stood on a building watching. Behind him, there was a strong concealment array. It wasn't good enough to hide the cultivators behind it completely, but it did obscure them well enough that Benton couldn't quite figure out how many or what realms. There were definitely some Nascent Souls, though. At least a half dozen. Probably more.

Before he could even say hi, the man pulsed his qi and activated the hidden formations. The power in the arrays wasn't bad, and the intent made sense. If Benton weren't as strong as he was, he'd probably have been affected.

As it was, there were just too many slight errors in the qi flow, and even tiny errors added up. If he were to take the man in as an apprentice, the guy might make Expert in a decade or two of hard work.

Benton almost gave into the arrogant streak he seemed to be developing the longer he lived in a cultivation world. Instead, he sternly reminded himself not to take chances and immediately tossed out four metal spheres, each aimed at a specific point in the formation.

When they hit, Void erupted from each one, and the formation collapsed.

Benton grinned at the man.

Lei Bohai was nothing if not confident in his work. After all, he'd spent centuries focused on only two pursuits—cultivation and formations. He was not a man to indulge in pleasures of the flesh, be it wine or women or food or any other failing. He didn't have friends or hobbies. He cultivated and studied the crafting of arrays.

That was all.

Combined, he must have spent over a million hours of his life studying, repairing, and creating formations. He wasn't just an Expert; he was a Master.

As he faced a charlatan who claimed that title, Lei Bohai knew two things as absolute certainties. One, his arrays were absolutely unbreakable. And two, his arrays would hold the charlatan in place and tear him apart.

It came as something of a surprise to Lei Bohai when, after the formation was activated, the charlatan could still move. It was of no import, however. He only had seconds to live. Once he experienced the full power of Lei Bohai's ultimate attack arrays, there wouldn't be enough left of his body to reconstitute.

The puzzling part was what the charlatan did with his last few moments of life. He pulled four metal balls from his storage device and tossed them at the ground. Sure, there was potent qi ready to explode from those spheres, but what good would scattering them randomly upon the ground do?

Lei Bohai, after all, had hardened his formation to withstand devastating Nascent Soul attacks. He wasn't an idiot, though. As a Nascent Soul Formations Master, he understood that no material could stand up indefinitely to a sustained attack from a powerful cultivator. That was why he included many redundancies in his formations, allowing qi to flow through multiple paths to serve the same purpose.

Four attacks, no matter how big, weren't strong enough to disrupt a single array.

The spheres hit. Void erupted.

Lei Bohai's formation flickered. In one struck area, qi flow reversed. In another, Earth qi jumped into a channel designed for Water. The third hit took out a power node, destroying the greater spirit coins stored there.

Those were not random effects, meaning those strikes weren't random. Each exposed flaws in the formation that he, the great Formations Master Lei Bohai, hadn't noticed.

Still, it was possible that qi flow might have stabilized if not for the fourth hit.

The Void sphere landed in the middle of two sets of inscriptions, somehow aimed perfectly to destroy each. Even with all the redundancies, the damage was too much when combined with the other specific targeting.

A cascading failure began, and within seconds, the entire formation, one that had taken him a week to construct, lay in ruins.

How?

The precision and understanding needed to cause such destruction were incalculable. No member of the Order could have done the same. Not even Lei Bohai, who had spent untold hours designing the formation, had noticed the flaws.

He was so stunned that he didn't notice exploding qi arcing from the end of one of his formation's now crumbling nodes. The chaotic mix of Fire and Wood qi jumped to a junction feeding the separate concealment array behind him, a junction carrying Wind qi.

He noticed the explosion, though, and the subsequent failure of the array that caused the hidden cultivators to appear in full view.

That effect couldn't have been planned. No one was that good. No one.

Benton was quite pleased with himself as he watched the cascading failure take out the formation. He became even more self-satisfied when his late addition of adjusting his aim from his fourth sphere did, in fact, take out the separate array.

Split Focus for the win!

Really, he could have more easily simply threw a fifth sphere, but the way he'd done it was so much more elegant.

Or impressive.

His smugness took an immediate hit, however, when he saw what the concealment array hid—fifteen Nascent Souls.

Counting the so-called Formations Master, it was sixteen against one. Even with Benton's power, that was a bit much.

Oops.