As soon as everyone was organized for the trip back to the village, Benton scanned the area for any spirit beasts. There were none near.

  Good. The twins and Ye Zan’s guards should be able to handle any that popped up.

  Benton pulled up his status.

  The first thing that he noticed was that the sect name had been filled in. For some reason, seeing Rising Tide listed there made him feel a great sense of accomplishment. The second was that he now had fifty-five sect members and fifty-five disciples. He would have to figure out how to separate the two soon for the new inductees from the village, but as he had personally accepted each of the ones so far as his disciples, he was fine with that status continuing for the founding sect members.

  His eyes drifted to the bottom of the screen where the Shop was no longer listed as locked. That menu was definitely high on his list of things to explore. Three other menus had changed as well, though, and one, Sect, had been added. Cultivation Method and Advancement both had new features available. He’d have to check all those out.

  Interestingly, the Quest tab showed new quests available. The screen previously hadn’t displayed that content even when he did, in fact, have new quests available. He’d had to open that tab to discover them.

  It seemed that founding his sect had supercharged his System access in big and small ways.

  The three other changes to the menu tabs could wait, though. He was most interested in the Shop.

  “System,” he said internally, “please open the Shop tab.”

  “System, can you give me a list of what is available for purchase and for how much?”

  Hmm. A list would have been beneficial as it might have triggered him to buy something he wouldn’t have otherwise thought of. In a way, though, the flexibility offered to buy literally anything he could imagine with a couple of well-defined limitations might be even better.

  No sense wasting time asking about treasures and flying swords. He had real needs for his sect members. His first goal was to accelerate the cultivation of some, if not all, of his disciples. The faster and higher they ascended, the safer all of them would be.

  Benton felt his shoulders tense up. A lot was riding on the answer to his next question.

  “System, how much for Qi Condensing Pills strong enough to advance a cultivator from the beginning of Qi Gathering minor realm three to the beginning of Qi Gathering minor realm four and are there any restrictions on quantity?”

  His shoulders relaxed. That price was really reasonable.

  Benton’s Pill Basics technique told him it was one hundred percent safe to use perfect purity pills to advance disciples through the Qi Gathering realm. However, there was a benefit for a cultivator pursuing the longer, slower path of meditating and following a cultivation method. Such a cultivator gained experience in manipulating and cycling qi that someone rushing through the minor realms simply didn’t get.

  Based on his expertise, he felt confident that using two pills was a good compromise between speed and experience and felt no hesitation recommending such a route even for disciples like the twins who would benefit from the expertise cycling in the lower realms as they later challenged the heavens.

  A minor shortcut now should not impact them long term, considering how short Qi Gathering lasted compared to future realms. A slight risk was easily countered by the tradeoff for more speed.

  In most sects, it was much more common for alchemists, blacksmiths, and other crafters to rely on pills to advance, but Benton suspected that those sects valued production of goods over cultivation for those members. If they stalled at Foundation Establishment after all, they could still produce, and sects had lots of members. Some of the crafters were sure to reach Golden Core.

  For Rising Tide Sect members like Wan Ai, Shi Long, and Xun Wu, Benton absolutely refused to do anything that would stunt their growth. He was tempted, though, to advance some of the F ranked disciples quickly. Since they were highly unlikely to get past Foundation Establishment, anyway, was there any real harm? That path was something he’d have to give some consideration.

  “System, how much for Qi Condensing Pills strong enough to advance a cultivator from the beginning of Qi Gathering minor realm eight to the beginning of Qi Gathering minor realm nine?”

  That was a bit concerning. More qi was required to advance in the later minor realms than the earlier ones.

  “System, is there any difference between the strength of the first pill I asked about and the second?”

  That response was interesting.

  “System, how much for Qi Condensing Pills strong enough to advance a cultivator from the beginning of Qi Gathering minor realm one to the peak of Qi Gathering minor realm nine?”

  Okay. Using such a pill would be a horrible and dangerous experience for the cultivator in so many ways, but it was interesting that Benton had the option.

  Time to move on to other matters, though. He’d gotten all the information he needed about that subject. Benton’s main takeaway was that, to provide each of his sect members with two Qi Condensing Pills would cost zero point six seven Shop Points. Since each generated one Shop Point via a repeatable quest, he was left with a profit of zero point three three per sect member.

  “System, how much for a Spiritual Root Refinement Pill?”

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  Great. That took care of Xun Wu. Benton could get him started on his cultivation journey.

  “System, how much for a Spiritual Root Refinement Pill that will improve spiritual roots more than a single minor step in rank?”

  That was unfortunate. He’d been hoping there would be a better solution to his problem with Peng Hanying not having any possibility of advancing high enough to use his time aspected qi than the risky process some sect leaders were known to use.

  A thought occurred to Benton. Maybe he’d phrased the question wrong. He’d unintentionally limited the System’s solution to a particular type of pill.

  “System, is there any way to increase spiritual roots more than a single minor step in rank for mortals who have not yet begun cultivating?”

  Whew. For ten shop points, Benton could improve Peng Hanying’s spiritual roots from F- to C-, though the result could vary between D and C+. That was enough to make his ascension to Golden Core likely, but it was also quite expensive, the same cost as thirty Qi Condensing Pills.

  Those fifty-nine Shop Points were going to go really quickly if he started spending one here and ten there.

  “System, is there any way to give a mortal with a G rank the ability to cultivate?”

  Ugh. Jin LiJuan was going to be devastated. Surely there had to be some way.

  “System, does it matter in the above question if the mortal in question had injured her spiritual roots by consuming spirit beast meat? She may have had the ability to cultivate beforehand.”

  If anything, that answer was worse than the first one. Fifteen points just for the possibility that Jin LiJuan might be able to cultivate at the level of a subpar F-. Was that amount worth the gain by any stretch of the imagination?

  No.

  She was going to be absolutely destroyed. Poor kid.

  “System, how much would it be to purchase a bow for me similar in quality to the one I let Yang Xiu have?”

  The Orange Vigor Spirit Wood spear was amazing. Maybe it wasn’t quite as good as the one supplied by the System, but the difference wasn’t huge at all. In contrast, Benton didn’t like any of the bows nearly as much as his original one.

  Meh. The price wasn’t as bad as he feared or as good as he hoped.

  Benton could have spent all afternoon asking questions about what things cost, but he had all the information he needed for his most pressing purchases. Further queries could wait until he had more time to peruse his options.

  “System, please open the Cultivation Method menu.”

  An unfamiliar screen popped up.

  Okay. That was different. Before, the menu had opened with choosing a realm, but that option had been replaced with a screen to choose a type. Which, honestly, he had expected as the System had previously told him that body cultivation would be unlocked.

  What he didn’t expect at all were the options for Mind and Soul. Su’s memories didn’t contain information about either of them.

  “System, what is mind cultivation?”

  Okay. That method sounded like a nice to have for sect members like Wan Ai. On the other hand, it seemed like any time spent pursuing it would take away from traditional cultivation. He’d study it more in depth later, but he felt good about putting it to the side for the moment in favor of more crucial issues.

  “System, what is soul cultivation?”

  Uh…

  Benton was stunned. Soul cultivation was crucial for protecting oneself from demonic attacks. Why did no one know that information?

  He moved the topic way up his priority list. They’d have to balance it versus gaining traditional power, but it shored up one of the Rising Tide Sect’s most glaring vulnerabilities.

  “System, open the Quest Menu.”

  Benton knew exactly what the previously viewed open quests were, and it was nice that Found a Sect had moved to completed along with Recruit First Disciple. His real interest lay elsewhere.

  “System, please display new quests.”

  Oh? That part about new quests being available surprised him. He asked the System to please display them.

  Well, now. Wasn’t that interesting?