To Arthur’s surprise, the Benevolent Durians were left alone for an entire week before they faced their first challenge. What currently had Arthur feeling superfluous was the fact that the entire event – and resolution – had happened without him being informed. Now, late in the evening, Yao Jing, Mel, and Jan were standing before him, under his glaring eyes.
“So, after they beat up our third hunting team, you thought the best way to deal with them was to put together your own group, hunt them down and thrash their place while stealing all their cores,” Arthur said coldly, sweeping his gaze over the stolen goods placed before him. “Is that right?”
“Ah . . . yes?” Yao Jing said, hesitantly.
Turning his gaze away from the man, it rested on Jan who gave a curt nod. Arthur rubbed his face before fixing his eyes on Mel. “And you knew about this?”
“About the reprisal attack? Yes.” Mel inclined her head. “I didn’t give orders to rob them, though.” Her voice grew wintry.
“Yes, about that . . .” Arthur drew a deep breath and then released it. He really did not have time to deal with this. “Later. Let’s tackle this one thing at a time. Starting with why I wasn’t informed about our teams being attacked.”
“You were cultivating. It didn’t seem important enough to disturb you,” Mel said, shrugging.
“It wasn’t important enough? People attacking ours isn’t important enough?” Arthur growled.
“We’ve had outsiders testing our people the entire week,” Mel growled. Seeing Arthur’s look of surprise, she waved a hand. “It’s expected. We’re the new power, and they want to know how much we’ve got. So they’re probing. It’s all individual challenges, all taunts to see who is what.”
Yao Jing was nodding right alongside before he added, “Ya, ya. Lots of people want to fight me all the time. I tell them to go fly kite, but they still wanna pick a fight. Haish!”
Jan grinned. “Same here. I just beat them until blue-black.”
Mel growled at Jan who shrugged unrepentantly. “We have some of our better fighters taking the occasional challenge to try to head this all off, but obviously it hasn’t worked. Since they were still a small group, we chose to make an example of them.”
“Why is this the first I’m hearing of it!” Arthur threw his hands up. “I can’t be your boss if you won’t tell me what’s going on. That’s what you’re supposed to be doing every morning.”
Mel shrugged. “Again, it wasn’t important. I can handle such things.” She crossed her arms. “We always had challenges like this when we were under Amah. People trying their luck. Trying to see if they can take advantage. It’s just more of the same thing. I didn’t tell Amah, so why should I tell you?”
“Did she know it was happening?”
Mel reluctantly nodded.
“That’s why you should tell me!” He roared, slamming his fist on the table. “I’m not her. I don’t know what the hell you people are doing. I need to know.”
Silence greeted his shout until Mel eventually nodded. Arthur flopped back in his chair, rubbing his face again as he tried to regain control of his temper. After a moment, he said, “I’m sorry about the shouting. But I need proper debriefs.”
“You also need to grow stronger.” Jan pointed a finger at him. “Best thing you can do is cultivate.”
“I know that.”
“Really, ah? ‘Cause someone going to challenge you soon, you know.”
“What, who?” Arthur was taken aback, but neither Mel nor Yao Jing reacted to Jan’s words. “You think so too?”
“Yaaa,” Yao Jing said, as if Arthur should have known better. “Attack our members, attack our groups, then finally, attack you. See if we have the strength, lah.”
“Shit, shit, shit,” Arthur cursed. “I can’t beat someone past the first threshold. And that’s who they’ll send, right?”
“Probably.” Mel shrugged. “It’s why we’re trying to gather as many cores for you as we can.” She looked at the two standing beside her. “Probably why they stole all this too.”
“Not stealing. They were assholes, they deserved it,” Yao Jing said.
“Spoils of war,” Jan added, with a smirk.
“Big words, coming from you.” Arthur shook his head, pointing at the stack of beast cores. “Return them.”
“All of them?!” Jan let out a yell.
Arthur paused, considering. “How bad was our group hurt?”
“They’ll heal up in a day.” A slight smile on Mel’s lips then. “Thanks to the clan boon.”
“Then set aside enough cores for two days. Return the rest,” Arthur decided.
“Why? They attacked us first!” Jan raged.
Calmly, doing his best not to let her own temper trigger his again, Arthur explained. “We’re not bullies. We aren’t thieves or robbers either. They attacked us. We attacked back. And took fair compensation. Now, they’re stuck healing and with losses.” He paused, then added, “Deterrent, not vengeance.”
“I don’t like it,” Jan said mulishly.
“And you?” Arthur looked at Yao Jing.
He shrugged. “You the boss.”
“It’s a decent proposal. I’ll get it done,” Mel said before he could ask her to oversee the return of cores. “And we’ll keep you informed. But you need to keep cultivating. We need you strong.” She paused, rubbing her chin. “Maybe put your next point into Body.”
Arthur sighed. He had been careful about the use of the cores coming in, only using the one he had set aside for himself. He’d been cycling between cultivating and refining, pouring energy into himself so that he could begin the process of growing stronger.
He’d also been considering purchasing the Bark Skin technique, thinking he had more time to learn it. But if these fights kept escalating in speed, that idea would have to be put aside.
“Yeah, yeah.” Waving the other two away, he kept Mel behind long enough to ask her the question he’d been wondering about since she brought up potential fights. “How strong are you?”
“Me?” she said, surprised.
“Yeah. You’re not at first threshold, right?” She shook her head, confirming his guess. “But how close?”
“Very.”
“I thought so.” Arthur let out a long exhale. “I think you should start focusing on your cultivating too.” When she frowned, he waved a hand. “I’m thinking of using Jan and you as my champions to start.” He frowned. “Maybe Amah Si?” When Mel shook her head, he gave up on that idea. Even if someone reached the first threshold, there were still considerations about fighting ability and techniques. You couldn’t just throw a random cultivator into a fight and expect them to win, even if they were theoretically stronger. “You two then, and maybe Yao Jing. If you are strong enough, maybe we can buy me time.”
“To grow stronger.”
“Exactly.”
She nodded after a moment of further thought. “I’ll start putting more time into cultivating.” A longer pause before she added, “But we might need to go out, to do our own hunting run too.”
Arthur let out a long breath but nodded. She was right. They had set up the clan to divide the income coming in, but the majority of it still went to those who did the work. Which was fair and right, but it did mean that if Arthur wanted more resources, he ought to venture out himself on hunts.
“Tomorrow,” he said.
Mel nodded, and then seeing that Arthur had nothing else to add, left him to his thoughts. His mind scurried for a few minutes, concerned about all the things that needed doing, all the strength he had to gain. And then he squashed the thoughts.
For right now, he needed strength more than anything. And the only way to get it was cultivating.
So he got to work.