When Immortal Ascension Fails Time Travel to Try Again-Story 11 - How to Save a Sect in Six Simple Steps (13)

While I waited for Elder Vengeful Siren to come back with the right materials, I sent messages to my students. I demanded that they meet me at our normal practice grounds in 24 hours. frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓

Though, unlike that terrible boss I had briefly in my past-past life, I would let them off if a fucking war started prematurely. Besides, at that point, learning something new would only be a hindrance. In the heat of battle, a student had to rely on the techniques they knew best. Which was why I put the kid through hell training every chance I could.

Frankly, I didn’t believe that the Harmonious Sound and Leashed Claws sects would leave us alone while the formation was in repair.

Little Spring flew over. His uniform was singed in some places and his hair had a slight frizz to it, as if some of it was damaged from a hot flame.

”What happened to you?”

He gave me a sheepish look. “Well, I had to help save the other node. One of the beast tamers attacking it had a Mystic Volcano Snail. It was using a lava spitting technique to burn through the stone.”

I crossed my arms. ”Did you stop it, or are we fucked?”

”Don’t worry, a nearby elder and I took care of it. Everything is perfectly fine.”

I narrowed my eyes at the brat.

“Well... it managed to get me with its lava.” He put his hand through a massive charred hole in his red sleeve. “If it weren’t for my body cultivation, I would have died.”

I could tell with a quick scan from my divine sense that the kid was fine. Of course he would be, since he was the universe’s protagonist. Just imagine if he had been killed by it. Ridiculous!

Now, if that fucker Bloodsword died by a lava snail, I would have laughed at his grave. Then I would hire someone to keep it as the goodest pet snail ever.

”Don’t be so dramatic and tell me about the node. How damaged is it?”

”When I first arrived, there were cracks and burn marks all throughout the node.”

Damn it! How many more hours would this take? I had limited time here to save this sect.

“But by the time we finished fighting, all the damage had vanished. Even the scorch marks.” He grinned. This brat knew exactly what he was doing. He was lucky I didn’t flick his glabella for teasing me like that. “I don’t think they planned this attack very well.”

“I’ll still have to double check it later but, excellently done!”

Dealing with one broken node was bad enough. Resolving two would cut too far into my prep time.

I frowned down at the crack in the life-gate node. It would be easier to fix things if I ground down some of those rough edges. I tried to bring out my tools from the space. Nothing happened. Fuck!

”What’s wrong?”

::I left most of my forging tools in your space.:: Damn it. From now on I’d bring everything with me! Of course, I’d need a big enough spatial ring or bag to do that.

::Oh, no! I’m sorry Sister Lin!”

::It’s alright. It’s not like you can control that unruly dragon.” I sighed. “How long is your space going to be unavailable this time?::

::I don’t know. Maybe a couple of days?”

”It’s not a week, right?”

He shrugged. ::The spirit of the space isn’t very communicative when he’s upgrading.::

”Fine, then you come over here and help me power this thing. This is going to be some delicate work to grind these protruding edges down where the material broke after being partially cut. If possible, we need to shave off one material at a time so we can include the dust for later insertion.” RÄɴՕBΕʂ

”Why?”

I narrowed my eyes at the brat. “Because it’s expensive. One gram of this red stone is worth a hundred medium tier spirit stones. You might say this is some of the most costly dust in this sect.”

“Just tell me what I need to do.”

I grinned and held up the carving tool that made the cuts in the first place.

”Stop anyone from interrupting me.”

He nodded and looked determined. “Should I set up an isolation formation?”

That wasn’t a bad idea. I hadn’t thought of doing that since I would have been alone and needed to keep my divine sense up to watch for more attacks, anyway. But with this kid watching my back, an isolation formation sounded perfect. “Good thinking!”

He began pulling out formation flags, then he paused. “Will setting up a formation so close to a node like this affect it at all?”

”If small arrays affected an unpowered node, this whole sect... no, every sect would have to be formation free.”

“That... makes sense.”

As soon as he set the first flag down, a bunch of disciples walked up the stairs to this lecture area. They all stilled when they saw me, then turned to look at the gray-haired girl in the middle of their group.

I glared at the bitch. “Teasing Mouse!”

She jumped a foot, then dashed behind a large man with a rhino horn on his forehead. Slowly, she leaned over and peaked out at me. ”Little Sister Linlin?”

I grinned viciously. “It’s actually Temporary Elder Linlin.”

Ah, the wide-eyed shock on her face made becoming an elder this unorthodox sect, worth all the discomfort and irony. Muahahaha!

Her hands tightened on the man’s sleeve, causing it to wrinkle. ”What? How?” Teasing Mouse said.

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”Impossible!” a tall blue-haired girl behind the group said.

Rhino Head stepped forward and pointed at me. “Don’t listen to her. She’s just messing with us. There is no way the leaders of our sect would agree to make someone in Foundation Establishment an Elder.”

”Even if they essentially saved the sect?” Little Spring said.

They all looked at him. He shined with the light of a protagonist who had just finished a rough fight.

I put my hands on my hips and tilted my chin up. “They made me a temporary elder since I created a treatment plan to cure the Beast Blood Contract Bath’s side effects!”

The entire group gasped in shock.

Rhino Horn pointed at me and bellowed, “Imposible!”

”With Senior Noxious Fangstrikes’ help.” Little Spring added uselessly.

Then again, after he included that, the faces of some of the rat girl’s possy appeared to believe me.

”And, if any of you are using the new contract bath formula that no longer has those side effects… I’m the one who created that!”

The crowd looked toward the kid for confirmation and he added, ”Also with the venerable poison master’s help.”

I sent the kid a glare.

::Was that clarification really necessary?::

He shrugged.

“I think they might be telling the truth,” a small girl said.

I clasped my hands behind my back. “Temporary or not, this means I’m your senior.”

Teasing Mouse clasped both her hands in front of her chest, stared up at me with large, adorable eyes. A tear traveled down her left eye. “Are you trying to bully me because I didn’t know?”

The group gasped, then glared at me.

”Are you all idiots?”

They glared at me harder.

::Sister Linlin. Maybe it would be better if you didn’t call everyone idiots so close to the node you have to fix.::

I already knew that, with the current state of the node, one powerful technique landing in the right place would turn my small repair job into an impossible task.

I turned toward the brat. “How the hell did me becoming an elder equate to her being bullied?”

“I know.”

“They’re fools!”

“Sister Linlin. Please calm down.”

Fuck. It was this goddamn Xianxia Universe, wasn’t it? People who went up against the main character could always find the most flimsy excuse to fuck the protagonist’s team over, even if they were the supposed future love interest.

They would say things like, ‘Oh, you pushed me down! My arm is broken! You must take responsibility!’ Or ‘Release that treasure (that I just saw), and I’ll leave your corpse intact!’

This nonsensical bullshit this girl spat out was no different. Teasing Mouse was just another spoiled brat with too much power and influence. So, by this universe’s logic, she had to point her ugly little rat claw at us.

Actually, why were they here, anyway?

I narrowed my eyes at the group and crossed my arms. “Are you spies for the orthodox sect?”

I did see the irony in an orthodox sect spy accusing another of being an orthodox spy, but I also didn’t care.

They all looked confused and the rat girl even stopped crying crocodile tears. ”What?”

”Because I can’t think of any other reason why you’d be over here after knowing that this area is under repair. Isn’t that right?”

I turned to Little Spring. He wore an expression of disbelief.

Rhino Horn glared. ”We saw the junior sect leader and Elder Vengeful Siren come over here. And we heard the fight.”

“We just wanted to see if we could do anything to help,” Teasing Mouse said with her mosquito voice.

More like she wanted a chance to dig her demonic dancing wiles into Wild Hoof. Just imagining that arrogant fucker becoming her simp like her other followers made me want to puke.

“Well, as you can see, this temporary elder has things covered. You can walk away, with your head held high, knowing you’ve done everything you can to help.”

Which was less than nothing.

They hesitated as their ingrained need to obey their elders warred with their hatred of me.

”Hold on! We’re here to help.”

”Walk away… head high.”

Teasing Mouse shook her head and stepped forward. “No! There has to be something we can do to help the junior sect leader and Elder Vengeful Siren.”

I grinned. “You can.”

She widened her eyes and appeared hopeful.

“It would help him if you left, so he didn’t have to see your face.” Which looked priceless after I said that.

Just as I was about to chase them off using the sect rules as a threat, Elder Siren returned along with the lion-eared woman he sat next to in the meeting a few days ago.

”Temporary Elder Linlin! I just barely found all the materials! And Sister Golden Pride agreed to help.”

The lion woman from the sec elder meeting pulled out a white strange flame with yellow diamond shapes cutting through the flames randomly. “I hope this will do. We’re counting on you to—“She jumped when Siren poked her side as if reminding her of something. She cleared her throat. “We’re counting on you to help us fix the node.”

Then she turned toward the group. “What are these disciples doing here? Are they acting as your protectors?”

A few in the crowd snorted.

Teasing Mouse stepped forward and bowed cutely. “Seniors! We are here to do whatever we can. This place is our home and we’ll even take on tribulation lightning if it can save the sect!”

Vengeful Siren glanced at me. ::Are they really here to help?::

::Doubtful. I think they’re trying to earn points with you and the sect leader. Throw them out.::

“Elders! Just say the word and I’ll do whatever you ask. Please give me the chance to help save our sect!”

::Her heart isn’t in the wrong place.::

::She’s incompetent. Hell, her entire group isn’t much better. I don’t trust them to watch my back, let alone help us fix this thing. Besides, I’ve been looking into whether that rat girl is a spy for the demonic dancer sect.::

His gold eyes hardened and it seemed like a flame of hatred kindled within them. ::I despise those traitors! What evidence do you have so far?::

::Very little. Just a demonic dancer manual and many hours of footage of that brat in the exact same poses.::

::Well, that’s damming enough for me to throw them out.::

Hold on... did I finally find someone willing to listen to me about this bitch?! If my standards were as low as the typical one dimensional harem wife, I might have fallen for this guy!

::You’re actually willing to throw her out of the sect?::

::What? No. I’ll throw her out of this place. But if you can bring me undeniable proof that she’s working with those demonic dancer traitors, I’ll work to convince the other elders to throw her out of the sect. I can’t make any promises though.::

Damn! So close!

It took me two years to get as little proof as I did. How the hell was I supposed to get better proof before the war while also saving this sect? While amazing, I was only one damn person!

He turned to the group and pressured them with his Nascent Soul level energy. “Get out.”

They jumped and bowed before beginning to leave.

Thinking fast, I hid my hand in my sleeve and pulled out a trick pill that I slowly squeezed into dust and flicked toward them. With a simple breeze-creating technique, I spread the itching powder all over the retreating crowd.

They wouldn’t start to feel it until they were halfway through their day, but by that time, the group would have no actual proof that I was their poisoner. Especially since the common poison was supposed to be a fast-acting, itch-inducing toxin. The only person who knew how to make the delayed version was me and my in-name disciple. And neither of us were telling. Muahahaha!

What was truly beautiful—they’d soon be locked up in here once I turned this formation on. While the cure was well known, the ingredients were all rare. Unless they were very lucky, they would have to endure increasingly itchy body parts for the next two weeks.

This was my one chance to keep them away from the front lines. The last thing a place like that needed were fools and idiots who couldn’t take orders well.

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