The Sect Leader System

Chapter 352: Rank Fourteen?

Jin LiJuan grew up on a farm with herself, her parents, and her two older siblings. Until moving into the village proper, she’d never seen more than a dozen people in one place at one time. Prosperous Gray Forest Village, in contrast, had been huge with its population of over a thousand people. Just the orphanage had housed more people than she had ever previously known.

Sixth Flawless Flowing City was on an entirely different level. It stretched for miles in every direction and was absolutely packed with houses everywhere she looked. Just the people gathered at the arena were more numerous than she had realized existed. There had to be thousands upon thousands of people watching.

And it felt like all those eyes were on her as she walked onto the sandy floor.

She reached down to pat Ganzou’s head, unsure if the action was for his comfort or for hers. Given his reaction of nuzzling her leg, he clearly thought it was for her. And he was probably right. He was much better at that kind of thing than she was.

Two people stood near the center of the arena. One was dressed in a purple robe. According to Master, that man was the official for the match, a member of the City Lord’s faction and someone who should be completely neutral. The other wore a green robe much like Senior Brother Pan Jiang’s. The Poison Claw Sect member was to be her opponent.

He looked older than she expected, closer to Guard Captain Huang Yimun’s age than to Senior Brother’s or Senior Sister’s. She couldn’t help but wonder how the man felt about fighting a thirteen-year-old. Moreso, how would he feel when he lost to a thirteen-year-old?

When she neared the two, she cupped her hands toward the man in the purple robe. “Greetings, Esteemed Official. This lowly one is a beast tamer.”

He smiled at her. “Welcome, little one. Gratitude for informing me that your wolf will fight with you today.”

She bowed her head. “This lowly one was instructed to reveal all my bonded beasts who would be participating, Esteemed Official.”

“All?”

“Yes, Esteemed Official.” Jin LiJuan pointed at the sky. “My bonded thunderbird, Leizhenzi, is up there. I was instructed to make sure no one attacked him as he landed. Master said such an act would create…” She paused, making sure she got the wording exactly right. “It would create a ‘diplomatic incident.’”

“I see. The beast must be under your master’s protection outside tournament matches. We’ve learned that he takes such protection seriously.”

Jin LiJuan frowned at the unexpected reply. “This lowly one doesn’t believe that is what Master meant, Esteemed Official.”

The man tilted his head slightly to the side.

“Leizhenzi is related to the Lord of the Eternal Celestial Peak, who is a rank fourteen spirit beast, Esteemed Official. It is that entity who might take offense.”

Though, honestly, Master probably would as well. That was simply her opinion, however, and not what she’d been instructed to say.

“R-rank f-fourteen?”

“Yes, Esteemed Official. Master feared that a spirit beast landing in the middle of the arena might lead to a misunderstanding and stressed to me that it would be a good idea to impress upon you the importance of no one attacking Leizhenzi.”

The man swallowed hard. “Your master is quite wise. Give me a moment to take care of that.” He walked quickly to the edge of the arena floor where he engaged in a conversation with two other purple robed figures.

Jin LiJuan turned her attention to her opponent, cupping her hands in his direction. “Greetings, Esteemed Cultivator. This lowly one has great respect for your sect. Senior Brother Pan Jiang has been most helpful to this lowly one.”

“P-Pan J-jiang?”

“Yes, Esteemed Cultivator. Senior Brother has been most kind to this lowly one. He is a credit to your sect.”

The man bowed much lower than she would have expected and cupped his hands. “Gratitude, Esteemed Cultivator. He is indeed a credit to our sect. This one will ensure that his father learns of your compliments.”

Jin LiJuan smiled. Pan Jiang didn’t talk about his family much, but he had made many slips that made her think that he held his father’s opinion to be of the utmost importance. If she had in any way improved Pan Jiang’s reputation with his family, she counted the day as a success already.

By the time her brief conversation with her opponent had concluded, the official had returned.

“We are ready for your bonded to descend, Esteemed Cultivator,” the official said. “The formation will be briefly disabled, and you can be assured that no one will harm a single one of his feathers.”

“Gratitude, Esteemed Official.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“I have marked you down as having two bonded spirit beasts, one wolf and one thunderbird, Esteemed Cultivator. You will not have to announce them for your matches going forward should you advance.”

Oops.

“Apologies, Esteemed Official. This lowly one actually has three bonded spirit beasts.” She pointed to the beast pouch hanging from her belt. “Master said I probably wouldn’t need my turtle, Oogway, for the first round.”

Her opponent frowned, but the official simply made a mark on a tablet. Seconds later, Leizhenzi landed to the cheers of the crowd. He preened under the attention.

The big showoff.

When he’d been high in the air, he hadn’t looked all that large, something about distance and perception. Pan Jiang had tried to explain it to her, but she hadn’t completely understood. Basically, it came down to things in the distance looking smaller than they actually were.

Her opponent must not have understood such matters, either, because he seemed really surprised at how much taller Leizhenzi was than him. And, to be honest, the bird was much, much bigger than any of the humans.

She’d almost forgotten about that difference. For one thing, she was so tiny that most everyone and everything overtopped her by a great deal. For another, she’d been fighting alongside Leizhenzi for months by that point and was simply used to his ginormous size.

With the formalities out of the way, the official sent her and her team to one side of the arena and the nice Poison Claw Sect member to the other. Soon, the fight started.

The man pulled a bow from his storage ring and shot an arrow at her. Which was smart. Easier to defeat one cultivator than two massive spirit beasts, after all.

What he probably didn’t expect was just how good her shield was. Just before the arrow hit her stomach, a small qi shield no larger than six inches in diameter formed in front of it. When the projectile made impact, it simply halted midair and fell to the ground.

She could barely even sense that she’d used any qi at all. Maybe a tiny smidge. Maybe.

Jin LiJuan didn’t think that either of her teammates fully trusted her to hold her own, but they did trust Master’s techniques completely. Even if the man hit her with a hundred arrows, none of them would get through.

That trust allowed her teammates to do what they did best—attack.

From the instant the fight started, both raced at their opponent. Ganzou took an early lead as his acceleration was nearly instantaneous. Leizhenzi was much, much faster overall, but it took him a second to reach his top speed.

In a short race, Ganzou would dominate. In a long one, he’d lose by a, perhaps literal, mile.

The arena floor wasn’t all that big, but it wasn’t tiny, either. As far as Jin LiJuan could tell, her two teammates reached their target at pretty close to the same time. That meant there was no winner.

There was, however, a definite loser—the Poison Claw Sect member.

She’d never stood watching as a wolf that weighed over a hundred pounds charged at her with clearly ill intent, especially not while an even larger thunderbird did the same. The experience must have been terrifying because their opponent surrendered before either could connect with their attacks.

The shaken man stood and bowed deeply to her. “Gratitude for the pointers, Senior Sister.”

“Gratitude for the match, Esteemed Cultivator. Best of luck in your future endeavors.”

It occurred to Benton that Jin LiJuan might just be the best straight man in existence. She treated every word from his mouth like the God’s honest truth, no matter what nonsense he actually spouted, and if he told her to do something, she would do her absolute best to do it exactly as he told her to.

No questions. No deviation.

Watching that tiny thirteen-year-old girl walk up to the official and her opponent was quite amusing even from the start. For one thing, the size and age difference between her and the Poison Claw Sect member was outrageous. She was barely a teenager. He looked to be around twenty and topped her by a good foot and a half.

The man simply had to believe that he’d just drawn the easiest opening opponent in the history of the Quinquennial Tournament.

Sure, she was fighting with a huge beast at her side, but everyone knew that a strong cultivator was more than a match for an equivalently ranked beast. Besides, he didn’t have to beat the wolf, only her.

Then, as Benton had instructed her, she instructed the official to arrange for Leizhenzi’s landing and explained why it was so important. A cultivator bonding a random rank six wolf was one thing. A cultivator bonding both a rank six wolf and a rank six thunderbird while at that equivalent realm herself was something else entirely.

Both men had to be thinking at that point, “This little girl isn’t so simple.”

The absolute crown on the top, though, was when she busted out with, just like he’d instructed her to say, “a rank fourteen spirit beast.” And she’d said it so matter-of-fact, so deadpan, as if her bonded beast being the offspring of the equivalent of a Nihility realm being was not a major concern.

So. Awesome.

Benton barely kept himself from totally losing it.

The next part wasn’t even part of his coaching. Of her own volition, she started chatting with her opponent and perfectly name dropped her mentor, Pan Jiang. And it was totally innocent. If there were anyone in Benton’s sect who knew absolutely nothing about sect politics, it was Jin LiJuan. She had no idea that Pan Jiang’s father was so important.

Which made the sight of her opponent’s jaw dropping just that much funnier.

Then came the “oh, yeah, well I do kind of have a third peak rank six bonded beast as well, did you need to know about him, too” moment.

Too. Funny.

The two men were like, “Who is this girl?”

Benton especially liked how they went from calling her “Little One” to “Esteemed Cultivator.”

What he didn’t like, however, was the start of her match. Well, kind of. On one hand, he was so, so proud of the way she stood completely undaunted as an arrow launched by a high Foundation Establishment realm cultivator and propelled by a qi technique rocketed toward her. She didn’t even flinch. Not one bit.

Her opponent and most of the crowd must have thought her arrogant to so disregard an attack like that, only to see that she was right to be so confident as the arrow did absolutely no damage to her, barely flaring her shield. The truth was that she simply trusted that the technique Benton had given her was that good.

He needed to make sure she understood that the shield wouldn’t protect her from everything. It was still powered by Foundation Establishment realm qi, after all. If she faced a Golden Core, the results might not be quite as definitive.

What broke his heart, though, was his feeling that a thirteen-year-old girl should not be expected to stand undaunted in the face of an arrow being shot at her. She shouldn’t have arrows shot at her in the first place.

But he was living in a cultivation world, not on Earth. His expectations had to adjust to his new reality. Here, true safety came from having power, which she was well on the way to acquiring.

Good for her.

He guessed.