The Sect Leader System-Chapter 334: An Offer He Couldn’t Refuse?

Yan Guangli wanted to see action. A fight. Anything.

Losing his how many ever greats aunt Yan Mingxia was a big indignity for his family. She’d served the Jade Chameleon Sect loyally for centuries, and one defeat—her final one—against the murderous Chao Su and suddenly none of the Yan family was given face any longer.

That one event had caused them to fall so far that Yan Guangli was even excluded from participating in the tournament. The only reason he was even in Sixth Flawless Flowing City was to serve as guard, a situation that was clearly meant as an insult.

Someone would pay for him suffering such an embarrassment. He didn’t know who or when, but someone would definitely pay.

And his duty wasn’t even to protect anything important, like the sect’s compound. No, he defended the trash left behind by that nothing clan that had embarrassed the sect by not winning even a single match. And trash was too kind a description for the items left behind. Old clothes. Hard bread. Cheese. Travel rations. Nothing worth returning for even if any of the idiots could get back inside.

Expecting his boring night to continue, Yan Guangli continued to stew as he stood in front of the gate. That wasn’t what he got as two men popped into existence in front of him. Though taken by surprise, he immediately bared his blade.

One of the men he recognized as the leader of the clan. Even though the guy was like middle-aged, he was barely in the low Foundation Establishment realm. Total trash. The other, a young man with close cropped hair, wore the robes of the Rising Tide Sect.

Yan Guangli grinned. Things just got interesting. Finally.

He took into account the two appearing in front of him out of nowhere and the fact that he couldn’t sense the cultivation realm of one of them and came to the only sensible conclusion possible—they were trying to trick him. Appearing out of nowhere? Obviously an illusion, which Yang Guangli, a member of the Jade Chameleon Sect, absolutely would not fall for. And not sensing the guy’s cultivation? They were trying to make him think the guy was the infamous Chao Su.

As if.

“What are you doing here, old man?” Yan Guangli said.

“We came to retrieve the clan’s possessions,” the clan leader said.

Yan Guangli was almost stunned into silence by the audacity. “How did you even get inside the grounds?” He grinned, realizing that the answer didn’t matter. “You know what? Never mind. Time for your beat down.”

The old man tried to say something but the younger guy in the Rising Tide Sect robes stopped him.

“What will you do to us?” the younger one said.

There was something off about his tone, like it was supposed to sound like he was scared. But it didn’t. It was obvious the guy had no fear at all.

Yan Guangli knew the type. Way too confident and sure of their own power. He almost laughed. When someone like that encountered a cultivator with real power, like him, they learned their place quickly. Unless they didn’t survive the lesson.

“The old man is to be beaten and thrown from the compound. He’ll survive. You, however, will receive no such mercy. I’ll quarter you like that sect leader of yours is so fond of doing.”

For the first time, a bit of caution entered Yan Guangli’s thoughts. There was a reason that no one attacked the Rising Tide Sect juniors despite how much they were despised. He glanced at the young man’s hands but saw only a ring that appeared to be a storage device.

“You’re not wearing one of those coward rings, are you?” Yan Guangli said.

“Coward ring?” the young man said.

“The one that allows you to call for daddy when you bite off more than you can chew.”

“Interesting perspective, but no, I’m not wearing a coward ring.”

“Good. Let’s get on with this, then.” Yan Guangli stepped forward, ready to attack with his sword.

Or he tried to, anyway. Instead, he found himself frozen, unable to move at all. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

“Yes,” the young man said. “Let’s.”

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

An orb that looked much like the ones recruiters used to test village kids appeared in one of the young man’s hands and a flat metallic device in the other. “He seems like a great example of a young master type, a perfect test subject. I’m sure he’s done lots of bad stuff.”

The clan patriarch simply stood there unspeaking.

Yan Guangli struggled to free himself from whatever held him. His shield hadn’t been disrupted, so it wasn’t qi. He tried using a movement technique to escape and directly manipulating qi both internally and externally, but nothing helped. He was stuck.

It had to be some kind of trick.

He didn’t start to panic until his body lifted a foot into the air and started moving forward. As he stopped, his arm raised, extending toward the young man who showed no signs of strain.

Yan Guangli’s hand made contact with the orb, and wording appeared on the flat rectangular metal that the young man held.

“As I thought, this guy has been a bad, bad boy. Negative seventy-five hundred.”

Yan Guangli began to get seriously worried. The young man was not so simple.

Gao Zian watched as the Jade Chameleon young master was launched, somehow, fifty feet into the air and pushed back until he crashed into a building with a grunt.

“He’ll be fine,” Chao Su said. “His qi shield protected him.”

“You didn’t simply kill him, Sect Leader?”

“I don’t kill kids. Besides, young masters might be toxic messes, but I’ve seen proof that not all of them are irredeemable.”

Gao Zian nodded before walking forward into what had been the clan’s compound. Utilizing the spatial treasure lent to him—no one in the clan could afford such a thing—he swiftly gathered all their belongings.

“Ready,” he called.

Instantly, they were back in what the sect leader called his office.

It had been so strange. They’d been discussing the value of the glider and the poverty of the clan when the sect leader grew distracted. He’d requested to be excused to investigate a thought, disappeared, and returned less than ten minutes later, asking Gao Zian to put his hand on what looked like a testing orb.

At that point, whether he lived or died was solely up to the sect leader’s forbearance, so Gao Zian had no real objections to whatever was being done. He complied.

“Hmm,” the sect leader said. “Fifteen hundred per year average since you reached the age of accountability. Solidly on the side of good, if only slightly.”

Gao Zian simply nodded. When dealing with a madman, agreement was the safest course.

“To really test the device, though, I need someone who skews evil.” Chao Su paused. “I know. I bet the Jade Chameleons have someone watching over your stuff. Let’s see how bad they are.”

“Of course, Sect Leader.”

Once they arrived back in the office, Gao Zian took stock of the situation. He had no idea what testing the sect leader was doing or why, but all his clan members were alive and hale. They’d also re-gained their meager possessions. As long as Chao Su didn’t go on a murdering spree, the clan might actually end up in a better situation.

Chao Su fired off one of his message dragons. “I’ve asked Sun Hua to bring ten random clansmen to be tested. Of all my disciples, she’ll definitely do the best job of picking randomly. Well, Zou Tian might have done better, but he’s still out of pocket.”

“Of course, Sect Leader.”

Gao Zian hesitated. While humoring the powerful and eccentric sect leader was a good survival technique, the man clearly had some plan in the works that involved the clan. As patriarch, it was his responsibility to protect his sect, which required knowledge of risks. At some point, pursuing safety at the expense of all else ventured into the territory of cowardice.

“May this patriarch ask what the sect leader is trying to ascertain?” He hunched his shoulders as he asked the question.

“Honestly, I want to know if you and the clan are good people, and while this method isn’t perfect, it apparently can give me a decent indicator.”

“I see, Sect Leader. Gratitude for answering.”

Gao Zian hesitated again. If the clan wasn’t deemed good, would they be executed? And what could the orb possibly measure that would purport to say whether a man was good or bad?

He wasn’t sure what knowing would do for him, considering the sect leader’s extraordinary power, but as patriarch, he felt it was his duty to find out.

“May this patriarch ask why the sect leader seeks this information?”

“I’m thinking about extending an invitation to join my sect, but since I’m no longer in a situation where I need to rapidly expand, I’m trying to be a little more picky, you know?”

Gao Zian did not, in fact, know, but that was not nearly his biggest problem with the sect leader’s words. No, that criterion belonged to the fact that the sect leader apparently was considering forcing the clan to join a sect.

For a moment, pure avarice overwhelmed Gao Zian. Though the sect leader was well known for killing anyone who so much as looked at him wrong, he was also famous for distributing top heaven grade scriptures to his subordinates, and it was clear that even his Body Cultivation methods were better than those developed by the clan. Not only that, but rumors said that the sect leader’s cultivation methods practically assured that all who used them would reach, at a minimum, Foundation Establishment.

Gao Zian found such fanciful tales to be unlikely, of course, but such accounts usually held a kernel of truth. The fact was that the clan was severely hampered by being unable to advance many of its members to that realm. Finding correctly aspected beast cores to advance their members to the peak of Bronze Body Cultivation was difficult but doable.

Reaching the peak of Silver and beyond, however, demanded many, many more cores, and getting the qi element correct became even more crucial. It was difficult to raise a single clan member using the method, much less all of them.

No, reaching that high required the ability to manipulate qi externally.

If Chao Su’s cultivation methods could improve the rate of clan members advancing to that milestone by even ten percent, the clan would become much more powerful, able to defend itself from the nearby sects. On the other hand, being beholden to a murderous sect leader who might decide to end them in a horrific manner at any moment was ideal despite the gains offered.

When considered in that way, Gao Zian decided it was best to stay as far away from the Rising Tide Sect as possible. If he were given the choice, that was.