Benton had spent nearly a week in subjective time forging the twenty-five blades. In real time, less than a day had passed, meaning it was early morning of the next day. He had to admit that his Aura definitely saved Time.

    Ugh.

    Oh well. That one wasn’t even funny to him. Too on the nose. That was the thing about comedy, though—no one succeeded with every joke.

    Funny favored the bold.

    He grinned. That was a good one.

    Anyway, once he finished creating trade goods, his goal was to rebuild the towers before heading to Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town to create a new Grand Defensive Array for Fatty Ren’s palace.

    The problem was that he wasn’t sure whether or not the swords he made were valuable enough to get him the materials he wanted. They seemed good to him, and his Analyze technique placed a very high value on them. But it was impossible to know what a cultivator would require in exchange for a treasure like the ones needed to create his qi sources.

    Of course, the obvious solution was simply to ask Kang Ya-Ting. He was a man who understood cultivators and the value of cultivation treasures to a greater extent than Benton.

    The issue there was that he had been getting a lot of aid from the man lately. It was fine to ask a friend for a favor every now and again, but becoming a burden was not okay. And honestly, that sentiment was as true on Earth as it was on a cultivation planet.

    Benton needed to resolve that imbalance in their relationship. He would ask Kang Lin if there was anything her grandfather needed. A gift of a pill, a weapon, or even a cultivation method or technique would be a nice way to return the friendship to a more equal footing.

    In the meantime, Benton would need to deal with the current situation more adroitly than he normally managed. Instead of straight up asking what the value of the swords were, he’d send Kang Ya-Ting a list of the blades with their associated arrays and traits and ask him to share his message with the two elders that had materials for trade. The elders could select one of the swords directly, request a custom weapon be forged for them with traits similar to one of the blades, or ask him to wait to see what might be available at the auction.

    The response would tell him everything he needed to know. If either or both took one of the swords or requested that he forge something custom for them, it would be obvious that the blades were absolutely of the same order of magnitude of value as the materials. If neither did, though, he’d know that he likely hadn’t gone big enough with his crafting and would have to hope that quantity made up for quality.

    Benton fired off the message and sat down to make greater spirit coins as he waited for the reply. Several hours later, the return paper dragon popped into his office.

    Friend Su,

    The list you sent me is quite extraordinary, and this old man has absolutely no doubt that each is a masterwork that possesses traits exactly as you described. Unfortunately, Elders Dai and Feng have not established the same level of trust with you that I have. Would it be possible for you to have Yuan Yaozu examine the blades and verify the quality and features of each?

    This old man would be pleased if you could treat this request as simply the paranoia of cultivators who have been burned before rather than an affront to your face.

    Gratitude,

    Friend Kang

    Kang Ya-Ting was obviously worried about Benton being insulted by the request. In truth, he was anything but. He never expected any trade to be made without the quality of the blades being verified first. The thought that they’d just take his word for it was absurd on the face of it.

    He dashed off a message to Yuan Yaozu.

    The Rising Tide Sect was an interesting place. For one thing, it was much smaller than any sect that Yuan Yaozu had ever encountered. Then again, as a top tier talent, he’d never had much to do with smaller sects and especially not one that was just getting started.

    That latter characteristic explained the average realm of the members. Of the over six hundred of them at the main sect grounds, all but three—four if one counted the sect leader—were in the Qi Gathering realm, and the ones that weren’t were only at the very beginning of Foundation Establishment.

    What was much more unusual than the average realm was the general talent level of the sect members. With the exception of some true standouts, his spiritual sense made it feel like almost everyone was similar in rank to what he’d expect for an average sect, but he’d been told that the vast majority of those members were all F and E ranked.

    Both the idea of inducting such trash into a sect and the fact that they felt like normal sect members to his sense were both absurd. Of course, the latter basically justified the former but still. A sect made up mostly of talentless peasants?

    Yuan Yaozu didn’t know how he felt about that.

    On one hand, he completely understood why they were all doing so well. The cultivation method that the sect leader had given him was beyond impressive. If he had similar ones throughout his life, he couldn’t even imagine the heights to which he would have already ascended. The quality was simply amazing.

    The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

    The thought of giving such methods and techniques to talentless trash made him want to scream at the affront, though. The Poison Claw Sect gave their best resources to the most talented cultivators. Period. And their best was not nearly as good as the worst the Rising Tide sect leader handed out.

    A top talent could simply go further and achieve more than someone of lesser talent. Limited resources should be given to those who could make the best use of them.

    On the other hand, Yuan Yaozu had seen no sign that the sect leader’s resources were limited at all, and the talentless trash would probably go further in their journey using his cultivation methods than a top talent receiving the best from another sect. Maybe the Rising Tide Sect’s way of doing things wasn’t so crazy.

    What was absolutely insane was watching the sect leader move around using his Time Aura. The man forged twenty-five swords in less than a day, cautiously and meticulously forming each one.

    Yuan Yaozu wasn’t a blacksmith, but over the course of nearly one thousand years of life, he’d picked up an appreciation for crafts. From what he could tell, the blades were probably extraordinary. He’d really like a chance to see them up close.

    He debated for most of the afternoon going to the sect leader and asking for that permission. The request was a simple one that would likely be granted, but Yuan Yaozu so far had gotten a lot more from his discipleship than he’d returned. He was leery about pressing his luck.

    The inverse of his reasoning was that the sect leader seemed like the kind of person who enjoyed showing off his accomplishments. And really, who didn’t like exhibiting the fruits of one’s labor? Asking to examine the blades might be as much a benefit to the sect leader as it was to Yuan Yaozu.

    Late in the day, he received a summons to attend his Master and quickly hurried over to the Administration Hall, still dickering over whether to ask for permission.

    “Thanks for coming so soon, but you didn’t have to rush,” the sect leader said. “For future reference, I’ll tell you in the message if it’s urgent.”

    “It’s not a problem, Sect Leader. Truthfully, I didn’t have anything else to do. I’ve been stuck so long without being able to advance that I’m no longer used to cultivating all day long. I’m working my way back to it.”

    For the last several hundred years, Yuan Yaozu had been at the peak of Golden Core, and the only times he’d actually cultivated was during the relatively brief periods when he tried to breakthrough. He’d spent much of his lifetime in a lotus position cultivating, but hitting a bottleneck at the peak had forced him to stop. It was weird to think about it, but somewhere along the way, he’d lost his patience for the process.

    “Do you need help with anything?” the sect leader said.

    “It’s purely a personal issue. I just need to re-acclimate my body and brain to the tedium. In several months or so, I should be back to normal.”

    “Okay. I know that you accepted me as Master mainly for certain benefits that I can provide and to assure me of keeping my secrets, but I am fairly knowledgeable about cultivation issues. Feel free to come with me if you need.”

    The sect leader was the most unusual cultivator that Yuan Yaozu had ever encountered. If he needed help, he wouldn’t hesitate to ask for it if for no other reason than that the advice was likely to be something he never would have considered.

    He cupped his hands. “Gratitude, Master.”

    “Anyway, here’s the reason I asked you to stop by.” The sect leader handed over two messages.

    The first was a message from the sect leader to Elder Kang, and the second was the elder’s reply. Yuan Yaozu almost laughed. The thing he’d been thinking about requesting was the thing that the sect leader needed him to do.

    It was nice when life aligned with one’s wishes like that.

    “I’m happy to help, Sect Leader,” Yuan Yaozu said.

    The sect leader deposited twenty-five swords on a table.

    From the list, Yuan Yaozu had an idea of what to expect, and to say he was excited was an understatement.

    “May I take one of these to the forest to test the sharpness and self-repair arrays, Sect Leader?”

    “Sure. Have at it.”

    Yuan Yaozu chose the Void attack blade. He’d seen firsthand the results of the sect leader using that element on a Nascent Soul and wanted to try it. Sёar?h the N?velFire.nёt website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

    “You can use the window if you want,” the sect leader said.

    Yuan Yaozu cupped his hands again. “Gratitude.”

    The office was on the top floor of the building, but there was no access to the roof. He’d been using the front door and climbing the stairs. Which didn’t cause him to exert himself, but it was an annoyance.

    A quick flight found him in the forest swinging the sword. First, he tried the Void attack, and it worked as advertised. According to his spiritual sense, there was no qi present inside the blade, and he watched it as the formations converted his qi into Void qi.

    That feature was amazing. No treasure that he knew of could do anything similar.

    Almost as fascinating was the actual attack. A portion of the tree truck he aimed it at just disappeared.

    Yikes. He sincerely hoped the sect leader didn’t make too many of those things. Yuan Yaozu really didn’t want to face anyone using one in combat.

    Next, he sliced another trunk without channeling the blade’s attack. It sliced through the wood like butter.

    Amazing.

    Tree after tree went down without a mark on the metal. Which was good for confirming that the sword’s sharpness array worked great. Not so much for testing the self-repair function.

    He happened to have an ingot of cultivator-grade metal in his storage ring and used that as an additional test. It, too, was sliced through with no issues and left not a scratch.

    Mildly chagrined, he returned to the sect leader’s office and reported the failure to test the feature.

    The sect leader laughed. “That’s a problem. These swords will cut just about anything, including another blade that I made. Give me a moment.” He pulled an ingot out of his ring and began inscribing.

    “I put a durability array on the metal. It should hold up. Try it, now,” he said, holding the ingot in his hand.

    “Uh… If the array doesn’t hold, the blade will cut your hand off, Sect Leader.”

    “Well, that’ll be a good lesson for me to do a better job with my formations, then, won’t it? Besides, worst case scenario, the hand will grow back.”

    “If you’re sure…” Yuan Yaozu didn’t bother waiting for an answer before swinging.

    Clank.

    The array held, and the blade finally met something it couldn’t slice straight through.

    Yuan Yaozu examined it. Sure enough, there was a small divot in the blade’s previously pristine edge. He channeled some qi into the array, and the divot slowly repaired itself, leaving it once again perfect.

    After that series of successful tests, he picked up a few of the others at random and checked their craftsmanship and functionality. Everything he found was up to the standards of the first.

    “I’ll report back to the elders that all these swords are the best I’ve ever seen and that they all absolutely do exactly what you said they do, Sect Leader.”

    “Gratitude.” The sect leader paused. “Just out of curiosity, how do you think these will do at auction?”

    “They’ll create an absolute frenzy. I’ve seen weapons much inferior to these be fought over, and I honestly can’t remember anything of this quality ever being sold there. The auction house will erect a statue in your honor after this sale is complete, Sect Leader.”

    Yuan Yaozu wasn’t blowing smoke, either. From the craftsmanship to the ideas behind the swords to the functionality, the sects would all want to have these weapons.

    He laughed imagining their reaction if they ever found out that the sect leader created all of them in a single day.