The Sect Leader System-Recaps

Recap for Sect Leader System Book 1

Benton, a nice old man nearing retirement from a corporate career but who displayed a bit of steel in his spine when his proteges were threatened, died attempting to save the life of a man he’d mentored. Because of the circumstances of Benton’s death, he was given a choice of where to reincarnate. He picked a world with a System.

Upon arriving, he was slightly dismayed to discover he’d landed on a cultivation world but forged ahead regardless. He chose the Sect Leader System as the one that best suited his personality, and two of his selected perks were an Auspicious Encounter and an Advantageous Starting Location.

The first of those perks led him to twins Yang Xiu and Yang Ru, orphaned peasants with great cultivation potential. They soon became his first disciples, and he trained them prior to beginning a journey to his starting location, which passed through dangerous lands with prowling spirit beasts. Benton was very pleased to have found two such amazing prospects, planning to have them advance far and fast as cultivators and handle most of the fighting for him.

They eventually arrived at the Prosperous Gray Forest Village and found inhabitants who were nearly starved due to being beset by spirit beasts. Benton supported the local orphanage, taking on its mistress, Zhong Wen, and a promising future alchemist, Wan Ai, as disciples. He also met a cute but intense girl, Jin LiJuan, who was desperate to become a cultivator.

Benton and the twins embarked on a mission to Sixth Flawless Flowing City to sell the precious resource, Orange Vigor Spirit Wood, and use the proceeds to purchase food and other necessary supplies.

That part of the mission went great as they ticked item after item off Benton’s To Do List. They even found two great recruits—Zou Tian, a heavily Shadow aspected young gang member sent to spy on them, and Shi Long, a talented store clerk whose aspect pulled him toward being a blacksmith.

They faced some obstacles such as an encounter with a local cultivator gang, but their main concern was to slip under the radar of the Big Three Sects that govern the continent. Things got complicated when they encountered an arrogant young master, Pan Jiang, leading to meeting his Master—Elder Kang Ya-Ting of the Poison Claw Sect.

Since the elder couldn’t sense Benton’s cultivation—another of his perks—he had to treat the unknown with caution and arranged an official match, one in which Yang Ru thoroughly humiliated the Poison Claw Sect scion. Benton was gracious in victory, however, gifting the young man with an impressive sword technique.

The technique turned out to be top heaven grade, much nicer than anything the Poison Claw Sect possessed, and led to the sect befriending Benton, even helping him with his errands.

He left the city with Zou Tian, Shi Long, guards, and drivers for all their wagons. During the trip, a member of the Jade Chameleon Sect, another Big Three Sect, tried to rob Benton, who ended up killing the man. Further along the journey, they stopped at a small village, and Benton recruited the local blacksmith, Xun Wu—a man with high ranked spirit roots.

Bored, Benton rushed ahead to Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town, the former location of the destroyed Righteous Rain Sect. Led by one of the few surviving members of that sect, Fatty Ren, the town was experiencing hard times. Benton uncovered corruption by the Town Manager and brought it to Fatty Ren, who had the man executed.

Benton arranged for the local orphanage to be funded and recruited a few of its members to bring with him to join his new sect. He also found Zi Delan, a street smart gang leader, and recruited him along with his gang.

The caravan caught up to Benton, and the entire group traveled toward the village. Along the way, he realized that the true role of a sect leader was to be so powerful that no one would dare mess with his sect members, so he planned his ultimate combat build.

They eventually reached the village and turned over all the supplies, surprising and impressing the mayor. One bad thing happened in the village while Benton was away, though—the little girl, Jin LiJuan, ate spirit beast meat left behind for the orphans who had become cultivators, and the meat damaged her mortal body, leaving her in bad shape and unlikely to ever cultivate.

Benton told the mayor about wanting to found a sect, and the mayor granted land for that purpose. With the final condition for creating the sect fulfilled, Benton finally did just that, promising to strive to have each of his sect members reach at least Foundation Establishment. The heavens sent lightning, signifying that his vow has been witnessed.

Recap for Sect Leader System Book 2—Rising Tide

With the Rising Tide Sect officially founded, the System expanded in functionality. For one thing, Benton could now use and create cultivation methods for the Mind and Soul. One concern, though, was the fact that his personal advancement in cultivation was tied to meeting certain metrics such as the number of sect members and his Average Loyalty Rating. An even more concerning thing was that the System gave him a new quest—Survive the Beast Tide.

Benton immediately got the sect focused on preparing for the tide, including producing wood for a wall around the sect grounds and having his alchemist, Wan Ai, learn how to prepare Body Cultivation baths. As he was relaying his orders, a cultivator showed up. It was Kang Lin, Elder Kang Ya-Ting’s granddaughter, there to deliver a message.

The cultivator that Benton killed was the son of Teng Jian, a Golden Core cultivator for the Jade Chameleon Sect. Everyone believed that Teng Jian would come after Benton for revenge. Benton replied that he would hold the sect blameless as long as he were the only one targeted but would be greatly angered if the juniors were affected.

On a whim, Benton also suggested that maybe Kang Lin and his disciple, Yang Ru, would make a good match. After Kang Lin departed to deliver the response, Benton assigned Zou Tian to help Wan Ai get the alchemy program running, which turned out to be unexpectedly effective. Wan Ai was extremely introverted and didn’t like being around most people. Zou Tian’s presence was lessened greatly due to his Shadow aspect, making her much more comfortable around him.

Benton went about building his sect, creating techniques and methods as needed and inducting members from the village. One thing he was conflicted about was the little girl, Jin LiJuan. He decided that the responsible thing to do would be not to heal her since it would cost the sect resources with very little chance of those being returned. When he goes to tell her that, though, her suffering broke his heart, and he couldn’t refuse her.

His actions with Jin LiJuan and in saving a little boy from a spirit beast and then giving him a valuable healing pill went a long way in convincing the villagers that he was a good person, which helped his Average Loyalty Rating.

Benton and the sect kept advancing, and he eventually hit Golden Core, growing more powerful by adding Concepts. That power was needed because the beasts around the village grew stronger and more numerous.

He faced a quandary, though, as he had promised to visit the orphanage in Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town and needed to pick up supplies there to help with the beast tide. The problem was that going meant he’d have to leave his sect members alone for hours.

Benton eventually decided to go. While there, he greeted the Town Lord, Fatty Ren, and discovered that Kang Lin, Pan Jiang, and other juniors from the Poison Claw Sect were visiting. They wanted to go to the village to help with the tide, but traveling there was dangerous. Kang Lin, however, was on the verge of breaking through. He gave her a pill to help with that so that, as a Foundation Establishment cultivator, she’d be powerful enough to protect her sect mates on the trip.

Back in the village, a strong raven attacked. The twins and the other sect members held it off for a little while, but one wrong move would mean that all of them were killed. Benton showed up in the nick of time and saved them.

Just before Kang Lin and her sect mates were scheduled to arrive at the village, Benton told Yang Ru about the message to her grandfather, making the boy very nervous about her visit. He was so distracted that his twin sister, Yang Xiu, pulled ahead of him, reaching Foundation Establishment first. She and Kang Lin started hanging out together, making him even more nervous.

After Benton called Yang Ru out for being distracted, he threw himself into cultivation, soon advancing to Foundation Establishment and working on two techniques that needed to be triggered at once. It took a while for him to get those techniques working together, and the girls appeared to outpace him. When he finally got it, though, his power increased dramatically, which he showed off to them by solo killing a rank six beast while they still struggled with rank fours. He and Kang Lin walked and talked and ended up enjoying each other’s company.

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The beasts eventually retreated, a common occurrence for beast tides that portended the calm before the storm. Benton knew time was short before the tide began, and he kicked preparations into high gear, crafting many items for his sect members and inscribing the village’s wall with an array that will prevent beasts from entering.

The first several waves of the beast tide were handled by the sect juniors, with many getting good combat experience and advancing. However, the tides came fast and furious, making Benton nervous. He realized that fighting the really high level beasts near the village might be dangerous for everyone, so he left to hunt the Big Boss, trying to catch all the other waves before they made it to the village.

One high rank badger that used Shadow to conceal itself escaped Benton’s notice, and it discovered that the village’s shield didn’t extend below the wall. It burrowed inside. Zou Tian, due to his strong affinity to Shadow, sensed the beast. The combination of him, the twins, and the guards fought the beast off, and Kang Lin finally got the kill.

Benton found the Big Boss, a rank ten cyclops—a creature at the equivalent of the Nascent Soul realm, higher than Benton. The fight was tough, but Benton eventually realized he could use Gravity to keep out of the creature’s range and pelted him from the sky.

When all was said and done, no one died, and the System granted Benton the highest possible rewards for the quest. Those included, primarily, a Trials Pagoda and increased spiritual roots for all his sect members and disciples.

That last reward angered the heavens, though, and Benton faced a tribulation. He quickly bought an Anti-Tribulation Concept and easily shook off the lightning bolts, greatly impressing his sect members.

Recap for Sect Leader System Book 3—Courting Death

With the beast tide finally behind Benton, he prepared the sect grounds for moving in, including placing buildings he got from the old Righteous Rain Sect grounds, fixing all the arrays, and building streets. Meanwhile, he sent his three Foundation Establishment disciples out with teams to process the beast carcasses that he left behind for them.

Jin LiJuan, now somewhat healed from eating beast meat as a mortal in that she could at least kind of cultivate, turned out to be one of the better sect members at the task of breaking down the materials. While working on a wolf carcass, its stomach started moving, and she discovered a cub inside. Her first instinct was to kill it, but she’d promised Benton that she’d try not to hate. She ended up accidentally bonding the beast to increase her power.

While the teams were away from the sect, Teng Jian, of the Jade Chameleon Sect, showed up with two sect members—all in the Golden Core realm—seeking vengeance. Benton defeated all three but not before one of them killed Ye Zan, the guard captain Benton had hired.

Beyond livid, Benton rushed to Sixth Flawless Flowing City intent on destroying the entire Jade Chameleon branch sect there. Along the way, he calmed down. There were surely innocents there as well as the ones deserving of punishment. On the other hand, Ye Zan deserved vengenance.

As a compromise, he announced that he’d destroy the entire grounds and anyone there when he returned, giving them time to evacuate. He next visited Elder Kang Ya-Ting for advice on how best to proceed. Understanding the need to keep the other factions on his side or at least neutral, Benton sent a gift of a technique to the Swift Blizzard Sect and a letter of explanation to the City Lord.

With the time Benton gave for evacuation up, he returned to the Jade Chameleon branch sect with Kang Ya-Ting and the Poison Claw branch sect’s leader, Elder Dai, following. Fifteen Golden Core cultivators waited for them, but at least, they’d evacuated all their juniors.

Benton allowed his opponents first shot, and his shield handled the barrage without issue. Then, it was his turn, and he absolutely destroyed the Jade Chameleons one by one. The final three surrendered, and he let them live, destroying their cultivation instead.

Before heading back to his sect, he stopped by Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town and recruited Fatty Ren and the four other former Righteous Rain Sect members, discovering that the four had Soul damage from the demonic cultivator attack that destroyed their sect.

Fatty Ren, who has been bottlenecked at the peak of Foundation Establishment for more than a decade, became the first to break through using the Trials Pagoda. A subsequent mission to the city for Benton revealed the pagoda’s potential to Kang Ya-Ting. The news eventually spread, igniting avarice in the Jade Chameleon Sect. They’d lost close to half of their Golden Cores and much face. They decided to send two Nascent Souls after Benton.

The Poison Claw Sect knew such an attack was probably coming and told Benton, who had a choice to make—rush his sect’s growth so he can advance to Nascent Soul or value steady growth instead. He chose a middle ground. Thinking he had plenty of time before the Nascent Souls left secluded cultivation, Benton increased the pace of induction.

The Rising Tide Sect members finally moved onto the main sect grounds—with the help of Benton’s efficient assistant, Sun Hua—and Benton turned his focus to defense, building towers capable of killing a Nascent Soul, a wall, and a Grand Defensive Formation. With the exception of actually advancing to Nascent Soul, he was as ready as he could be for the attack.

Benton discovered that the twins had had a birthday and was dismayed to find out that his new culture didn’t celebrate the occasion. He threw a big party and designed flying gliders as their gift.

He also came up with a new idea to speed the advancement of his disciple—qi sources. Cultivating in a room with one of the treasures doubled the effectiveness. The only problem was that the materials needed were expensive and hard to find. Benton sent the twins and Kang Lin to the city in search of them.

While in the city, the twins were attacked by five Jade Chameleon juniors, whom they easily defeated. The Golden Core cultivator leading the five grew very angry and almost attacked. The twins weren’t too worried because Benton had given them contingency rings to summon him, but Kang Lin shamed the man into not attacking. He left with a warning not to let him see any of their faces again.

After their safe return to the sect, Kang Ya-Ting showed up with another Poison Claw Sect Golden Core, Yuan Yaozu. He would guard the sect for a century if he were to be allowed to use the Trials Pagoda to break his bottleneck. Benton agreed, though he almost reneged when he discovered the cost was five hundred Sect Points.

While Yuan Yaozu attempted his trial, the two Jade Chameleon Sect Nascent Souls attacked. All went well until Benton made a mistake and almost died. He took the fight much more seriously after that point and pushed one of the Nascent Souls into a trap that allowed the towers to kill her.

That left him one on one against a Nascent Soul. Based on his fight with the cyclops to end the beast tide, Benton believed that the encounter should be easy. His experience in almost dying taught him how wrong he was.

He finally got two good hits on the Nascent Soul, sending him to the ground, but Benton lost his right arm and shoulder in the process, disconnecting him from his spatial ring.

Yuan Yaozu exited the Trials Pagoda as a Nascent Soul, surprised to see Benton still alive and the enemy Nascent Soul near death. At Benton’s command, he chased away some onlookers, leaving Benton to finish off the remaining Nascent Soul.

Recap for Sect Leader System Book 4—The Quinquennial Tournament (Working Title)

(Note: No spoilers for chapters not published on RR. Recap only goes through Chapter 278.)

Benton killed the remaining Nascent Soul who had attacked and went to check on his sect members, admitting to them that he’d been arrogant and underestimated his enemies. He came to an agreement with Kang Ya-Ting to let one more Poison Claw Sect Golden Core use the Trials Pagoda in return for three qi source materials and a formal alliance. Intent on advancing to Nascent Soul as quickly as possible, Benton sent the elder away.

Yuan Yaozu asked to be accepted as a disciple, partly for the sweet heaven grade techniques and partly because it helped fulfill his oath, and Benton eventually accepted. The discipleship triggered another quest, which earned him a very valuable Perk Point.

Benton inducted three hundred sect members from the village and ordered Fatty Ren to induct another one hundred immediately, fulfilling the System’s requirements for Benton to advance to Nascent Soul. He wasted no time doing so, choosing to turn his Concept of Gravity into an Aura.

The advancement resulted in a massive powerup as Benton also advanced all his other cultivation types and chose Regeneration with his Perk Point. The requirements to get to the next realm, Nihility, were much more difficult as it depended on having specific quantities of members at each of the lower realms, including five Nascent Souls and twenty-five Golden Cores.

That could take a while.

Benton prepared to destroy the entire Jade Chameleon Sect, but Yuan Yaozu talked him out of it, mainly by asking if that was the example Benton wanted to set for the juniors. He could not be talked out of sending a warning to the other factions, though. That way, if any of them attacked, he would have at least done what he could to dissuade them. The Swift Blizzard Sect, however, took the message as a threat, leading to the exact opposite result than what Benton intended.

As always, several initiatives drew Benton’s attention—helping his floundering Formations Pavilion get on track, creating defenses for his branch sect, learning Alchemy to save Shop points, and crafting weapons for the upcoming auction to afford to buy more qi source materials.

In preparation for making those qi sources and in order to build weapons for the auction, Benton became a Master in Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Formations, and Swordsmithing. With his new skills, he created twenty-five swords for the auction.

Meanwhile, his enemies came up with a plot. Since it was too dangerous to fight a Formations Master on prepared ground, they needed to draw him to them, so they invited the Rising Tide Sect to the Quinquennial Tournament. Benton and his allies realized the trap, but there were definite advantages to going. He left the decision up to his council of elders, and they decided to participate.

For the next week, Benton knocked items off his To Do List. Zou Tian was given a mission to spy in the city in an attempt to determine their enemy’s plans. Benton finished up various crafting projects. Most importantly, though, he created the Grand Defensive Formation for the branch sect and rebuilt the towers protecting the main grounds.

Benton took his Foundation Establishment disciples on an expedition to the mountain, leaving them to gain experience fighting spirit beasts while he explored for qi materials. The first thing that drew his attention, though, was a powerful beast. He approached it cautiously, but instead of an attack, it spoke to him. After he gave it a crafted gift that provided it with hands, the rank fourteen Thunderbird renewed the agreement it had with the Righteous Rain Sect. Benton was then free to find three of the materials he sought, and the kids advanced their skills and techniques as planned.