Headmaster of Shadowfrost

Mist blinked a couple of times when he found himself standing in a desert rather than watching the first Star Wars movie so he could work on one of his crossover ideas. "What the hell?!" he sputtered as he glanced around, a bit annoyed to find himself in a desert with nothing of note in sight. "I'm going to be really annoyed if I'm stuck on Tatooine," he muttered, finding the idea insane but only slightly less insane than suddenly finding himself in the middle of a sandy desert.

"Welcome to the Sect Building tutorial," an ethereal voice announced.

"Sect Building Tutorial?" Mist asked, a touch disturbed that he could feel the sand on his feet since touch wasn't a sensation he normally had to worry about in dreams and he seemed annoyingly lucid.

"You've been selected to create a Xianxia sect. If you complete the mission, you'll be lavishly rewarded and you'll be able to return home and keep everything you've acquired. If you fail, your soul will be dragged into Hell and you'll suffer for eternity."

"Right, no pressure," Mist muttered sarcastically.

"Testing Spiritual Root Compatibility…" the voice trailed off. "No spiritual roots found. Attempting to install basic Spiritual Roots, please stand by, this process may be painful and have unintended consequences."

"Shi-it!" Mist screamed the last part and dropped to the ground as his world dissolved into a pain filled nightmare.

"Process unsuccessful, subject incompatible with Qi. The process has caused undesirable mutations and cracked the subject's soul. Attempting a temporary patch so that the subject remains functional."

Mist thrashed on the ground as a new level of agony washed over him, causing him to black out for a second. "What the fuck was that?!" he demanded when he recovered enough to string two thoughts together, relieved that the pain seemed to be fading.

"Ticket filed with management, please stand by," the voice suggested.

Mist bit back some rather nasty comments about the voice's intelligence and sanity. 'Don't piss the ROB off, fuck that hurt!'

"Installing framework for alternative energy source," the voice announced, sounding almost happy that it had found a solution.

Mist tensed and then let his breath out when he wasn't hit with another wave of pain.

"Secondary energy source framework successfully installed. Assigning Sect Territory: All suitable territories have been claimed or destroyed, searching for alternative territory."

"Great," Mist muttered as he twisted his legs around so that he was sitting rather than sprawled on the sand. "System? Help? Information?" he asked, hoping he could get some more data or some type of interface. "How the hell am I supposed to teach a bunch of students when I can't even use Qi?"

"Forest of Shadows(Pocket Dimension) assigned. Main Campus has been placed in the location of the highest Qi in the territory. Checking viability of starting location. Error 49, territory needs to have a path to resource nodes for basic building materials. Error 73, location lacks the ability to grow basic food. Error 99, territory requires path to a population center. Searching for solutions to problems."

"Resource nodes?" Mist asked, hoping for an explanation.

"Error 49 resolved: Created Bridge and created a gateway to Gloom Mine. Error 73 resolved: Begger's Apple Tree assigned. Error 99 resolved, portal to starting town created and student creation device assigned. Error 127, student creation device requires mad science lab. Error 127 resolved, mad science lab added. Error 23, starting sect is too small to contain required structures, increasing starting size. All errors have been successfully dealt with. Please select five drawbacks."

Mist focused on the floating window that appeared in front of him with a list of drawbacks on it. 'Poor reputation, your sect has a poor reputation, this negatively affects interactions with other sects. Leaky Roof, the roof leaks. This lowers student morale but gives a slight boost to morale if you fix it. Yeah, no thanks.'

'Hostility with the Raising Phoenix School of Ascended Radiance because we stole a recruit? Comes with a recruit with high quality spirit roots? Hostility with the Jade Merchant Ascendants and the Shivering Blades of Nalor, merchant ground and a mercenary company, I don't think a couple of starting treasures is worth the hassle.'

Mist skimmed over the next twenty flaws that dropped his sect's reputation for one reason or another until he saw a flaw that actually looked interesting. 'Hostile with the Blood Cult of the Obsidian Dragon, one of your disciples has stolen a failed resurrection technique that turns the user into a kitten inside a dragon’s egg the next time they die. Twenty seven crimson spirit stones to pay off the insult? Is that a huge amount or pocket change?'

He selected the drawback since it gave an interesting technique then continued reading through the list. 'Jade sword of sacred fire? I don't care, that doesn't sound worth having a group of immortal monsters hunting me down. Same with the Basket of Plenty, blighting your land isn't a good thing.'

'Bandits: Bandits have infested one of your mines at random, slaughtering your starting miners and forcing the locals to work for them. This drastically decreases the starting reputation of the sect with the local residents since they know you can't protect them and raises the cost of hiring miners by double for a year after the bandits are dealt with. The quality of spirit stones and metal in your mine is upgraded but the bandits have already carted away half the total amount of resources you can harvest before the mine ruins out. Yeah, that's a mess.'

Mist looked at the next flaw he could take for the mine. 'Corrupted Qi Mine. One of your mines at random is filled with demonic qi, causing the entire mine to corrupt everyone that spends too much time there, this makes it nearly impossible to hire qualified miners as the corruption increases as you descend, forcing most sects to resort to questionable methods to harvest the resources. Half of the spirit stones are upgraded and the rest are turned into demonic stones, a resource used in demonic cultivation.'

'Not the worst drawback, especially if I combine them since the corrupted qi should make it hard on the bandits,' Mist mused as he selected the two drawbacks, figuring it would give him a decent source of spirit stones and demonic stones that he could sell to demonic cultivators. He smiled when an additional drawback appeared under the mine drawback. 'Corrupted Dragon Veins: One of the dragon veins in your territory has become tainted. This provides two demonic techniques for the sect's library and lowers the sect's reputation with righteous sects. Unlocks research on corruption.'

'Screw it, the best way to fight something is to understand it,' Mist mused as he selected the Corrupted Dragon Veins drawback. "One more," he muttered as he looked through the list of drawbacks, trying to find something that was interesting or that he could live with. "I don't need a bunch of people trying to take over or students that don't have any loyalty. I don't need incompetent students or teachers or angry townsfolk. Ghost town? That has some potential if I can't find something better since I could rebuild it.'

'Ancient secrets? Spending mana or qi on the library generates books on cultivation but also creates a book on demonic cultivation. These cursed books will generally find their way into the possession of an innocent student, with predictable results.' Mist finished looking through the rest of the drawbacks, not seeing any that he particularly liked. 'Are the techniques worth losing some students? Probably, I'm going to need an edge if I don't want the other sects to walk in and steal everything.'

Mist selected the Ancient Secrets drawback and hit the accept button, causing the window to change as the voice announced, "Please select seven flaws."

Mist glanced at the first flaw. 'Forbidden Blood arts: You've used forbidden blood arts and you've managed to get the attention of the Divine Order? Nope, what else do we have?' He skimmed over the next couple of flaws that dealt with blood feuds, fairly sure anyone that picked them deserved to die since they sounded like major sects. "Great, I need to grab seven flaws and they all suck," he muttered as he looked over a couple of flaws that involved getting a young master for the sect.

'Too much of a resource drain and the reputation hit if you don't avenge them sucks, no thanks. Jade Beauty? Nope, fuck that, I'm not getting steam rolled by some elder because he wants some trophy. Jack? Young master with a dagger that lets him steal spiritual roots from the people he kills at the cost of his sanity. Julia Smith, Isekai protagonist with the ability to absorb corruption and purify it, increasing her spiritual roots in the process. She would be a dream disciple except she has a temper, no patience for Xianxia bullshit and is a trouble magnet.'

'Worst case I can stick her in the mine and let her kill the bandits,' he mused as he selected Julia, figuring he needed at least one exceptional student. 'Shrine of the Shadow Tiger: This ancient and mostly forgotten shrine to a spirit beast emperor became corrupted with the ancient tiger's death. This shrine draws qi from the surrounding area, decreasing the amount of qi available in the area and turning any animal that bathes in the shrine's waters into a corrupted spirit beast.'

'That sounds dangerous and like a decent source of resources if my students can kill the monsters,' Mist mused, wondering if they'd be able to exhaust the shrine by tossing harmless animals into it. 'Worst case, we'll just have to have people guard it or we build a wall around it.'

Mist added the Shrine flaw to his list and skimmed over the next couple of flaws that basically crippled the quality of students that he could recruit. 'I'd rather take some of the reputation flaws. Poor Students, your students come from poor families and will do anything to forget that fact. Your students are disloyal little shits that will jump at the chance to find something better once they have a little training if something goes wrong. Yeah, no thanks.'

He looked at the next one, not seeing a point in grabbing disloyal students. 'Poor Students, All Heart. Half of your students come from poor families that had to scrimp and save up to send their student to the sect, this halves the school's starting funds but improves their mental fortitude. Their parents also expect letters and they're generally well adjusted students which restricts the type of missions they'll accept.'

'That's almost worth taking on general principle,' Mist mused as he checked the description for the tournament contract flaw. 'Rather than merely sending a token number of students you're obligated to send at least half of your students to the first regional tournament, expect extensive injuries if they're not exceptional. Once and done? That's better than dealing with the reputation flaws but I'd rather have well adjusted students.'

He added the Poor Students flaw to his list and skimmed the next couple of flaws that turned the trainers into useless or corrupt idiots, something that he wanted to avoid since he couldn't use qi himself. 'Out of place cultists? A group of magic using cultists have set up a camp in your lands. They don't want cultivators harvesting any spiritual herbs but are otherwise friendly enough. One of the cultists' wacky rituals has actually managed to increase the quality of the spiritual plants in your region, unfortunately the abundance of resources has drawn a group of young and reckless cultivators to your lands that are willing to kill everyone they run into if it means advancing faster.'

'It doesn't say anything about a hit to my reputation if the cultists end up dying and it doesn't say that more of them keep showing up so the boost to the spirit herbs is probably worth it.' He added the flaw to his list then continued looking for something that wouldn't cripple his new sect, a bit annoyed that he was having trouble finding something that wasn't horrible. 'I don't need crappy treasures scattered around the forest if they're going to draw dangerous cultivators and I don't need a bunch of lunatics running around eating people on the full moon.'

'Corrupted Well, the water in the well has picked up tainted qi from the corrupted dragon veins under the school, expect some of the students to become corrupted and go insane unless the source is cleansed. Comes with magical plumbing to make sure the corrupted water reaches everyone. At least that means we get showers,' he mused as he added the flaw, figuring it was fixable.

'Dark Mirror: your sect has a magical mirror that lets your students walk into an arena and fight a version of themselves, if they win they'll be rewarded with rare cultivation resources, unfortunately the dark copy is always just a bit more aggressive and has an edge when it comes to skill resulting in a lot of dead students. It doesn't say it lures people in but they're cultivators, this is going to end in tears,' he admitted as he added it to his list, figuring he could always lock the mirror away until he figured out the best way to use it.

Mist skimmed the next twenty flaws, not interested in reducing the quality of his teachers or the school since they weren't offering anything interesting. "Ooh, Madam Trixie's House of Wonder, this little whore house was built to see to the disciple's earthly needs. Unfortunately, all of the girls working there are qi vampires and quite attractive. While this has a small benefit of increasing the stamina and sanity of your disciples, they'll often find themselves low on qi and funds which will cut into their training time. The sect also takes a hit to their starting reputation with most righteous sects and the local population because of the immoral behavior of their disciples.'

Mist glanced over the rest of the flaws then picked the House of Wonder flaw and hit the accept button, figuring the stamina and sanity boost was worth the reputation hit with a bunch of self righteous assholes.

"The School has been generated and placed, please take a minute to look over the details before picking your blessings," the voice suggested.

Mist looked at the map of the school, finding the layout simple enough to understand. 'The meditation chambers, dorms and the cafeteria are underground and the training halls and lecture rooms are on the first floor while the library takes up the entire second floor. The staff rooms are on the third floor. The student creation machine is under the mad science building which is away from the main building. Yeah, that's probably for the best.'

Mist turned his attention to the staff section of the page. "Mist: Position: Headmaster. Notable abilities: Mana Use. Mutation: Qi Void, the headmaster can't use qi but qi also doesn't function within three feet of him, getting converted to mana and absorbed. Condition: Spirit Bound: Not even dying will free you from your duties, every day you wake up in the headmaster's bed. At least I won't have to worry about one of my students going crazy and killing me.'

'Sabrina: Position Librarian. Path of the Spirit Beast. Notable abilities: Summoning a shadowfox and finding books. Sounds decent for a librarian. Le Wen: Position Cook: Path of the Devouring Demon. Notable abilities: Cooking spirit beasts in ways that help cultivation and hitting pressure points with a spoon. Devouring Demon? Is that a demonic path or just a weird name? I really need a guidebook.'

He looked at the combat teacher. 'Le Chan: Position: Combat instructor: Path of the Nine Blades. Notable Abilities: Stabbing people. Not exactly a ringing endorsement but it's a Xianxia world, I'll probably need someone stabbed. Dawn Frankenstein: Position: Mad Science instructor. Path of Demonic Crafting. Notable abilities: Creating demons, installing demonic graphs and improving spirit beasts. So much for keeping the moral high ground.'

'Sun Ru: Position: General instructor: Path of the Celestial Dragon. Notable abilities: Excellent teacher and Jack of All Trades. Could be worse,' he mused as he looked at the information for his mine. 'Gloom Mine: This mine is actually a pocket dimension that grows as you mine it, giving you an infinite source of poor quality spirit stones and mundane metal or at least that is what most gloom mines are, yours has been upgraded to contain good quality spirit stones, demonic stones and poor quality spirit metal. Unfortunately it is currently infested with bandits and corrupted qi which makes hiring miners all but impossible. Current miners: zero. At least I don't have to worry about running out of stones.'

'Farms: Zero. Gardens: Zero. Contracts: Zero. Debts: 27 spirit stones to the Blood Cult of the Obsidian Dragon. 20 spirit stones for employees per month. 2 spirit stones for basic food from town. Income: zero. Current Wealth: 100 spirit stones. Do I want to pay off my debts? Yeah, might as well start with a clean slate and that saves me from trying to figure out how to track them down or them demanding interest.'

Mist pushed the button for paying off his debts. 'Fifty one spirit stones. That means I have about two months to get the mine cleared of bandits and find people that can actually mine it, so more like a month because I doubt hiring the miners is going to come cheap. Hopefully the corruption kills the bandits,' he thought as he looked at the blessings he could pick up.

'Golden Reputation: You start with a better reputation with virtuous sects but your reputation with demonic sects decreases. Infamous Reputation, other way around, yeah, that sounds like a trap since it doesn't say how much your reputation takes a hit. Strength Covers All Sins, winning a duel over a slight will decrease the reputation hit for any misdeeds. That sounds like a good way to end up with a bunch of insane students.'

'Karmic Backlash, any attempt to unfairly damage your sect's reputation will end badly for the people responsible and your reputation won't take a hit. Considering the usual underhanded shit most protagonists have to deal with and the nature of sects competing for resources, that's probably a decent choice,' he mused as he glanced over the next couple of dozen blessings, not interested in most of them as they gave him a boost to his starting class of cultivators or a boost to his reputation with some of the sects without giving him enough details to let him know why taking it would be a good idea.

He grinned when he saw a blessing that he wanted. 'Cursed Mine: This blessing improves the quality of spirit stones and metal in one of your mines at random, then duplicates the mine and fills the duplicate with spirit beasts and strange underground plants, giving you an excellent source of cultivation materials. Nothing wrong with having an endless source of monsters to harvest.'

'Pay to Win? This blessing gives you the ability to pay spirit stones to instantly upgrade your school, unfortunately the prices are three times what it would normally cost and you have to have the material available. I should have plenty of spirit stones if I can get the mines working and if I can't, I'm screwed anyway.'

Mist looked over the rest of the blessings then selected the Cursed Mine, Karmic Backlash and the Pay to Win blessings and hit the button since none of the rest of them gave him quite as much though the general training booster came close but it was only for a year.

"Congratulations," the voice announced. "Randomly generating starting techniques. Moonlight Devouring: Gathering Method: This energy gathering technique absorbs moonlight and turns it into qi. Crystal Sphere: Refining Method: This technique allows the user to expand their qi reserves by growing their core. Celestial Bones of the Timeless Immortal: Body Tempering: This technique allows the user to spend qi to slowly temper their Bones. Ghost Step: Movement Method: This technique reduces the noise you make while using it. Snow Fairy Moonbeam Cannon of Peerless Death: Attack Method: This technique creates a bright beam of energy that strikes a target when you shout the entire technique name."

'So much for having a usable method to attack things,' Mist mused, rather happy he'd picked up the ability to get more techniques.

"Randomly generating bonus techniques: Demonic Flesh:(demonic) Body Tempering: This fiendish technique allows the user to temper their flesh by using corrupted qi. Corrupted Essence Theft:(demonic) Gathering Method: This technique allows the user to absorb ki from corrupted sources for quick power. Tainted Veins of the Blackened Earth:(demonic) Creation Technique: This technique defies the will of the Heavens and creates a tainted dragon vein using fifty demon stones. Tainted Dragon Veins increase the amount of corrupted qi in the area, causing creatures and plants in the area to mutate. Cheat Code 99: Creation Technique: This strange technique uses mana or qi to create magic stones."

"Cheat Code 99? Is that because of Julia?" Mist asked, not expecting an answer.

"Certain students come with unique techniques," the voice answered as the window changed. "Please select your preferred uniform style."

Mist glanced at the options for uniforms, quickly coming to the conclusion that someone was trolling him. 'Traditional sect robes, slightly increased reputation with righteous sects. Ninja Gear, increased stealth. Jedi Robes, comes with laser swords? Management isn't responsible for lost limbs. Seriously? Cultist Robes, comes with a spell to summon tentacle monsters. Venom Suits and Naughty School Outfits: These strange outfits double the amount of qi the students acquire when they cultivate and provide a small amount of armor. They can also be tempered using qi, increasing their abilities. This option also unlocks sibling creation in the minion creation machine.'

Mist briefly considered picking the Jedi option for the lightsabers before deciding that he'd rather have upgradable costumes and more minion creation options. He selected the last option, causing the floating window to vanish.

"Granting compatible techniques and generating random school names, please pick one from the following list: Shadowfrost Academy, Black Lotus Cult, Sneaky Ninja Academy, Broken Crane Hall, Temple of the Celestial Tempest or Windstruck Mountain sect."

'Not calling it a sneaky ninja academy, or anything that starts with Broken, Celestial Tempest? I'd probably have a bunch of righteous sects crossing the world to kill me for the insult when they realize we're using demonic techniques. I don't have any wind techniques or a mountain so that leaves the Academy.' He stood up and said, "Shadowfrost Academy."

"Name applied to all records. If you manage to keep the school functional for one hundred years or until one of your people wins a regional tournament, you'll get the ability to open portals back to Earth. If the school is completely destroyed for longer than a year, you'll be pulled into Hell and devoured, best of luck," the voice told him.

Mist blinked when he found himself sitting in a comfortable wooden chair in an old fashioned office looking at a solid wooden door. 'At least I know what I have to do to get home, though I'm not sure I'll recognize anything after a hundred years.' He twitched when someone pounded on the door.

"Open the fucking door!" a female voice demanded.

"Just a minute!" Mist replied as stood up and walked over to the door. He opened the door and looked at the attractive and busty girl with red hair that was wearing a cheerleading outfit that looked like it was made out of transparent silk. "Yes?"

"Why the hell are we stuck wearing shit straight out of a porno?!" Julia demanded.

Mist pulled his attention away from the girl's chest. "Blame the ROB that set everything up."

Julia blinked when she realized the headmaster was wearing a green hoodie and jeans. "Did you get Isekaied?"

"Yeah," Mist agreed as he stepped out of the way and gestured so that she could come into his office. "I got tapped to be the headmaster for reasons I don't understand."

"Did you have a say in the outfits?" Julia asked as she walked into the office.

"I got a choice between crappy traditional robes that gave a minor reputation boost with righteous sects, Jedi robes that came with lightsabers and a warning about missing limbs, ninja gear that seemed out of place for the world and venom suits and naughty outfits that you can upgrade using qi, which would you have picked?"

"Did the ninja gear come with anything special?" Julia asked.

"Not that I know of and to be fair, I was expecting short skirts, not transparent," Mist offered.

"That's fair," Julia admitted after a couple of seconds. "Given the choices, I can understand why you picked the clothes we can upgrade. Did you end up with any super crazy cheat techniques?"

Mist frowned slightly as he realized he actually knew how to cast three spells. "I doubt the spell to create magic stones counts considering the spell just makes mana batteries and the spell costs double what you can get from the stone. It's probably the same for the qi stone version but I don't have qi so I'd have to check the library."

"That sucks and yeah, it's the same, I have the qi technique," Julia replied. "Is there a reason you don't have qi?"

"I don't have any spirit roots," Mist replied with a shrug. "On the upside, the voice or system was able to give me mana which means I can probably learn spells, if I can find them."

"Do you have a way to get back to Earth?" Julia asked hopefully.

"The voice said that if the school survives a hundred years or if we can win one of the regional tournaments I'll get the ability to open portals back to Earth, so probably," Mist offered, figuring it was worth building things up so that his students had a chance to win the tournament.

"Unless it's lying," she pointed out.

"If it's lying we're probably screwed so I'm going to assume it's telling the truth and try to build the school up to the point where we can win."

"Don't take this the wrong way but how are you planning on winning? The other schools probably have someone that has been doing the job for years or centuries which means we're sort of screwed from what I understand."

"Just because I didn't get any hacked qi techniques doesn't mean I didn't do my best to stack the deck with the choices I had. We should have two portals to spirit mines that have excellent quality spirit stones and spirit metal, we just need to figure out a way to deal with the corrupted qi and the bandits."

Julia smiled as she realized she had a decent method of getting stronger. "My special ability lets me purify corrupted qi, I'm willing to help deal with the corruption for a share of the spirit stones if you have someone that can deal with the bandits."

"We have a combat teacher that would probably be willing to help clear the mine if the corruption isn't a problem," Mist mused, not sure how much he'd have to pay him but figuring he'd be interested in a good fight. "We also need to get you down to the corrupted dragon veins under the school so you can fix the corrupted water since I don't need the rest of the students going insane."

"How many drawbacks did you take?" Julia asked.

"Five and seven flaws, I didn't have a choice in the number, just the specific flaws. We have a group of cultists in the forest that don't like cultivators harvesting spiritual plants and an ancient shrine that turns animals into homicidal spirit beasts."

"What else?" Julia asked.

"If you see a magic mirror on the walls, you should probably avoid walking into it unless you want to die, your evil copy is a bit more skilled and aggressive," Mist warned her.

"Why would you take a flaw that involves luring people to their death?" Julia asked.

Mist shrugged. "Because if you win, you get rare cultivation resources and I was hoping I could figure out a way to cheat. I grabbed the corrupted water flaw because I wanted showers and hot water and I was hoping you could deal with the corruption."

"How long is it going to take to fix all of the flaws you took?" Julia asked.

"I've already paid off the Dragon Cult for the reincarnation technique so the only real problems are the spirit beast shrine, the cultivators in the forest and the bandits in the mines if you don't include the corrupted dragon veins," Mist assured her.

"Can the bandits escape the mines?" Julia asked.

"I doubt it but we should probably check to make sure," Mist replied, wishing he had a system or something that would let him check.

"Let's check then we can check on the corrupted well," Julia suggested, wanting to fix that before it caused a problem.

"Sounds good," Mist replied as he headed out of his office, glad that he'd looked at the map and that the school wasn't all that large.