Chương 78: Chapter 77 – Spreading the Wealth

Coming up with appropriate themes for the 8th and 9th challenges of the outer sect was not nearly as hard as coming up with the actual challenge and the reward. He had already known that he wanted one challenge involving swords to pay his respects to the Heavenly Sword Sect. The other was a culmination of his own path as an array user. Although he had wanted to place the sword challenge as the 9th and final challenge, it was more a place where Ren found use for a flawed creation.

On the rare occasions that Ren forged anything apart from weapons, he tried to improve his skills by attempting something unusual and new. One such creation had come on the eve of the Corpse Silk Moth's silk harvest. Suitably prepared, Ren had harvested nearly 200 cocoons flawlessly. An additional 50 cocoons had broken strands, meaning they were of reduced value. But almost all the cocooned moths emerged healthy. Ren had sold a portion of the flawless strands that he worked into threads and kept the rest.

As for the broken strands, instead of getting robbed by vendors, Ren chose to use the shorter strands in a creation of his own. His forging manual made a small mention of it, and with further study, Ren decided to forge a war brush, a gigantic paintbrush. It was an unusual weapon and mostly used by cultivators who followed paths of illusion, painting, or calligraphy. Naturally there was almost no demand for such a weapon in the sect, but that didn't halt his creativity.

He had created a thick metal staff with a hard core and softer metal outside, and the broken strands of the corpse silk moths were perfect for the brush. For the first time, Ren didn't solely pursue power or practicality. Saying that a weapon used by artists deserved to be artistic, Ren had spent many days carving beautiful carvings along the staff. It was a first attempt, so some flaws were inevitable, but as predicted, no one wanted the war brush anyway. It remained in his spatial storage even now.

Perhaps one day when he had more time on his hands, he might try wielding it. But ever since then, Ren had tasted a wider world of forging than just common weapons. Inspired by something he had seen during the inter-sect auction, he settled on a combat puppet for his next project. He was forced to buy a separate forging technique because it was very different from normal weapon forging. On the other hand, a puppet needed formations to function, and that was something he was proficient in.

But Ren had gotten carried away with his own successes and created a flawed puppet. He had severely underestimated the difficulty of combining hundreds of formations and the delicate control required to engrave them flawlessly. To his shame, he had also spent much more than he should have on the parts, so he couldn't simply discard it as a failed forging. Uncertain what to do with it, Ren had found the puppet a home in the 8th challenge. The puppet was taller than even Bao Hua, with 4 arms.

Each arm wielded a Mutating Bamboo Blade, hardened in the yin fire. The puppet itself was nearly impossible to control directly, as the formations in that section had become a mess. What it could do by itself was defend an object. And weird poses. Ren had searched and searched for the cause, but he had been unable to fix whatever made the puppet occasionally stop and form a weird pose. It would sometimes stand with the feet together and spread out its 4 arms to the sides.

Other times it would flex nonexistent muscles. The worst was when it actively dropped two swords and held its head. That was the most disruptive to its assigned task. But all of them were embarrassing failures. And although it had been a costly lesson to not underestimate an entire profession and style of combat, Ren couldn't deny its power. Maybe not now, but someday he might include puppets in his arsenal! The object it was supposed to protect was just an empty pedestal.

Trial takers would face this puppet, and those who could either get past it or last for a certain duration would be considered victors. Flawed as it was, most 9th layer qi gathering swordsmen would have a good chance of winning. To make things more challenging, Ren had taken a small scrap of the snakeskin, which exuded killing intent, and stuck it inside the puppet's head. It made an enormous difference when the puppet attacked while exuding a mild killing intent, becoming a far more suitable challenge for the 8th.

Unable to come up with anything suitable, Ren had left no reward at the end and kept it the same style as the 5th challenge. For the 9th, it was far more straightforward. Ren created an extremely complex array. Only those who could solve the puzzle would be allowed to engrave their names at the end. It would take a talented array user a long time to solve it, but in doing so, they would learn much before they entered the inner sect.

The reward had been his entire collection of unfiltered notes, useful for all qi gathering realm disciples. Yet that wasn't the whole reward. Ren was unwilling to force others to follow in his footsteps on the path of formation, so instead of giving the future talents his opinions, he gave them clues on where to find answers. The months he had spent searching in the inner sect library for the right technique or the answer to a particular problem would be of use to them.

He listed all the references by topic so anyone who cleared the challenge would save months of effort. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. It had been a bit melancholic to finish the 9th and final challenge in the outer sect. The arrays he used in the last one were as different as heaven and earth from those in the 1st challenge. All those lives he had influenced along the way.

Ren, too, had received heavenly providence for the karma he generated, but at the same time, the vast majority of the disciples wouldn't form permanent connections with him. There was no great debt; he had merely brushed their lives briefly. The rest was up to them to choose because everyone had their own lives to live. Ren didn't linger on those feelings for too long because he already had plans for the challenges in the inner sect.

The first one used the rest of the snakeskin in a milder imitation of the same trial he had undergone below his mountain. That challenge didn't even need a big reward because anyone who cleared it would receive innate rewards. According to Mei Ling, who heard from her master, training to endure killing intent raised mental resilience and willpower. Ren felt that was reward enough for those who tried their best. Instead, he tried to make sure they didn't suffer afterwards like he had.

Going so far as to leave a mental healing manual he had bought from the inner sect for free might offend elders, so he simply directed everyone to it. The 2nd challenge of the inner sect was centered around growing herbs. It wasn't out of vindictive intent that Ren decided to test trial takers with the 1000 Crimson Spider Lily seed. True, it had frustrated him until he eventually mastered it, but the benefit of having far greater control over his qi had been undeniable.

It was also easier to grade based on the end result's shade of red. The entire array that Ren designed was solely to quantify and score the resulting flower, which had hundreds of slightly different shades. It had been surprisingly difficult to account for such minor changes, and it had sent Ren down a strange path of sensory arrays that he had previously neglected.

What was detecting an intruder in an open field compared to detecting the difference between two nearly identical shades of a color with identical qi signatures? The reward for this one would be invaluable to those who were interested in growing herbs. It was the Nurturing Rain Sutra. Ren had initially planned to leave it in the outer sect but lacked the opportunity.

Simultaneously, if someone saw such a crude and simple sutra in the inner sect as a reward for completing an extremely challenging trial, they would be far less disposed to ignoring it. They would at least try to discover what qualified it as a reward. The last two trials had only been set up recently. Ren had found more time ever since he began teaching his 3rd class. The first one had taken up every spare bit of time, and the second one had been about addressing the flaws of the first.

But when teaching the 3rd batch of students in the outer sect, Ren had already settled into a rhythm. He had most of his lectures already prepared and knew how to keep proper pace while keeping his students' interest. It meant he had more time in the past month, during which he had set up 3 challenges in the inner sect. It had only been two weeks since he had set up the 3rd challenge, so he was very surprised to see Hua of all people there.

Ren wondered if he should keep hiding or just reveal his identity as 'The Challenger'. It only took him a few moments to decide. This was his brother. One of the rare people Ren trusted implicitly. There was no need to keep secrets that weren't related to cultivation. So he waited till Hua emerged from the challenge, his robes dripping with sweat, and then showed himself.

"How did you find this place so quickly, Hua?" Ren asked as though they were sipping tea together at home but couldn't hold back his laughter when Bao Hua jumped in shock. He hadn't meant to reveal his stealth technique, Twilight Shade, in this manner, but it was just as satisfying as surprising Hua with it during a spar would have been. Once he saw who it was, Hua smiled ruefully and said, "So you found this challenge first? Isn't it amazing, brother!?"

He walked up to Ren and without a word plucked the tortoise clinging to Ren's shoulder and started cuddling it. The tortoises had all gotten used to seeing Hua long ago, and when it noticed him, the little tortoise poked its head out of its cloudy-white shell and squeaked happily.

"What did you think of this challenge, brother?" Ren continued, waiting for the right moment to reveal himself as 'The Challenger'.

"It certainly knows how to push one's limits! I have new respect for you raising all those herbs and for alchemy as a whole now. Still, I wish there was another like that first one found in the inner sect. That chilling sensation was perfect for honing my sword!" Ren knew this challenge wasn't particularly suited for Hua, who was more fond of combat.

He had tried to create something along those lines that might be repeatable for the hundreds of disciples who would attempt it, but such a thing was beyond his means now. The closest idea Ren had was to use lures to attract a stream of beasts, but something told him the elders of the sect wouldn't approve of anyone initiating beast tides! So that challenge would have to wait. Meanwhile, Hua continued speaking.

"I sometimes wish I were back in the outer sect just so I could try all those challenges at the appropriate realm. Whoever this Challenger is, surely they are a heavenly genius!"

"Thank you for the compliment, brother; I have worked hard." Ren said with a straight face. Then, not a moment later, collapsed with laughter at the stunned look on Hua's face!