Chapter 163: Placemaking

Benton frowned as he received a notification. Not a half hour had passed since he had sent Yang Xiu to the Contribution Points Shop to arrange payment with Peng Zhen for a trial.

Well, she must have accomplished that task because the System informed Benton that she had requested to participate in a trial. He was sure he’d been very clear on exactly which trial she was to pick. Her mission was to advance her shield. In fact, he’d explicitly told her she wasn’t allowed to attempt to improve her spirit roots again for another year.

Why, then, was he receiving a notification asking his permission for her to do that very thing? What was she thinking?

He shook his head.

No. She did not have his permission.

He bet that, when he asked her why she’d selected that trial, she’d say something like she was just testing the pagoda’s functionality. The little scamp!

It occurred to him that the kind of thing she had just pulled had made him very angry when he was parenting his own teenagers. Since he transitioned to grandfather mode with Greg’s birth, though, such antics amused him more than anything else. Evelyn would have been rolling her eyes and shaking her head at him were she present.

Most of all, she’d just be glad he’d found a new family to love.

A short time later, a new popup appeared, informing him that Yang Xiu had selected the correct one, and immediately after the notification, she disappeared from his senses.

Her vanishing was not something he’d expected to happen, and he almost rushed to the pagoda to investigate. Before doing anything in haste, he calmed himself. The Trials Pagoda was a product of the System, and it had told him that the one she was attempting was completely safe. He doubted that she’d died.

He pulled up his status and checked, finding he still had two hundred sixty-two sect members and fifty-seven disciples. That information confirmed that she was still alive.

The trials probably occurred in a separate dimension or something. Once it was over, she should re-appear.



Yeah. It would be fine. He just needed to be patient.

At first, Yang Xiu coming to the arena with her request had helped to relieve his boredom, but the added tension of worrying about her made the wait even worse.

Hours passed, and he grew more and more anxious. He knew it was irrational. The System had told him that the trial-taker would not be harmed, but he did not like not being able to sense her.

And worries about her safety led to other worries. Even if she emerged unscathed, it was possible for her to fail the test. He worried about what that would do to her confidence. Not to mention that it would hurt her pride when the rest of the sect found out.

A while later, though, there was a popup.

Host’s Disciple, Yang Xiu, has reached Automated Slippery Ice Shield: Large Success.

Host is awarded one Sect Point.

Host has 841 Sect Points available.

As expected for such a talented disciple, she’d passed. He didn’t know why he’d been worried. Such a good kid!

Immediately after the notification, she reappeared to his spiritual sense, though she remained completely immobile.

Ah. Consolidating her gains. Great kid!

After another hour or so, she ran to the arena.

“Disciple reporting to Master.”

Ever since she started hanging around with Kang Lin, Yang Xiu had started randomly being more formal with some interactions. Benton didn’t know if she was trying to act more like she felt a true sect member should act or if the manner of speech amused her.

If there was one thing that he had learned about parenting teenagers, it was that it just wasn’t worth trying to micromanage the small stuff. He and Evelyn had never tried to control their children’s hairstyles or, for the most part, their clothing choices.

They focused on the important things. Did the kids do their schoolwork? Were they respectful? Did they stay out of trouble?

In other words, pick your battles.

Overall, Yang Xiu was a fantastic kid. Diligent. Respectful. Responsible. If she wanted to be a bit more formal in her speech, so be it.

“Master listening to Disciple.”

Of course, his resolution to let her choose her words for herself didn’t mean he wouldn’t gently tease her about it.

She looked chastened. “The trial was a success, Master. I raised my shield technique to Large Success.”

Yang Xiu went on to tell him about the trial, about how the spheres were unblockable and how she died multiple times. That news concerned him, of course, but after he questioned her about the experience, it seemed like there was no mental trauma associated with it. One instant she was alive and the next she was in a void being told she had died.

Though she seemed fine, dying over and over again couldn’t be healthy for her psyche. He’d have to monitor the situation. If future trials used the same methodology but made the process of dying linger, he might have to consider not allowing his disciples to use the pagoda.

More tests were needed before he could make such a decision, though. He’d have Yang Ru attempt an improvement next, following the pagoda’s reset, and pending how that went, Kang Lin would be the next up. Both would be instructed with the strongest possible admonition to give up on the trial if it was in any way traumatic.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

He trusted them to adhere to the letter and spirit of his orders even if they didn’t want to follow them.



With Yang Xiu having finished her report, he sent her back to the village with instructions to return at first light with her two fellow Foundation Establishment cultivators.

Since he’d ended up waiting on pins and needles for her to get finished with the trial, most of the night had passed, and his newest sect members began finishing up the fiery ordeal on having their spiritual roots enhanced. Somehow, they all seemed happy with the experience despite looking like they’d all been run through the wringer.

After another hour, the fifty new cultivators were all on their way back to the village, and he was finally free to begin placing buildings. The current sect grounds consisted of an old farmer’s field overgrown with weeds, shrubs, and grasses. Not the most auspicious of locales, but that was okay. He was focused on what could be, not on what was.

He envisioned a wall surrounding the entire area with a gate in the direction of the village as that would be where almost all traffic came from. Upon entering, he wanted all the main sect buildings to be front and center.

From various projects he’d been involved with over the years, he knew that creating a sense of place was very important. Or at least, the architects and developers had claimed that it was very important. One had gone on and on about how necessary it was to activate the ground plane, whatever that meant.

Benton had little idea what exactly placemaking entailed, but he was enthusiastic to give it a go.

There were three buildings already sited—the arena far from the eventual gate, the Contribution Points Shop, and the adjacent Trials Pagoda. The latter two were on the outskirts of what he termed his Central Business District in the direction of the arena.

Hmm.

In his mind, there was a large avenue leading from the gate through his new sect. Both sides of the avenue would be lined with his most important buildings, making everything easy to find. Ancillary facilities could be located on side streets leading behind the buildings on both sides. Housing would be in a different area entirely.

Perfect.

The first large structure a visitor saw when entering the gate should be the Administration Hall, a four-story pagoda he’d stored in his ring for that purpose. He wondered how close to the wall it should be, though.

There definitely should be a gap between the wall and any buildings. That space would be used for guard shacks and for defensive forces to muster and what have you. Probably a fifty-yard distance between the wall and the structures would work.

Those decisions made placing the first structure easy. The Administration Hall went fifty yards from the eventual location of the gate on the north side of the planned avenue. Even better, the actual installation went lightning fast with his new technique for excavating foundations.

He removed the hall from the ring, held it in the air with his gravity burst, dug out the foundations in the appropriate places with his technique, and lowered the gravity to allow the building to gently fall into place.

Awesome.

Across from it, he placed a five-story library. As of yet, he only had a few dozen books to store in it, but that amount would expand over time.

Next to the library, he placed the Lecture Hall, a building that reminded him a lot of something he’d find on a college campus but with an eastern flare. It was a more short and squat than most of the beautiful tall pagodas that housed the other functions, but the architect had done a good job of making it fit in with the surrounding buildings. The important thing was function, anyway, and it contained rooms that would fit up to several hundred in a single lecture all the way down to very intimate one on one study nooks.

Obviously, he also needed a space other than the arena where he could gather the entire sect, and next to the Lecture Hall seemed logical. Benton placed the Amphitheater there. As indicated by its name, it was an open-air facility, but its big advantage was that it held seating for close to five thousand people. It would be quite some time before the Rising Tide Sect outgrew it.

He hadn’t checked on its formations yet, but he was willing to bet that it included one to protect the occupants from the elements. If not, he was positive that he could create one. The Amphitheater was destined to become the sect’s new home for meetings and inductions and all kinds of other official functions.

Moving back to the other side of the street, he placed the five-story Martial Pavilion next to the Administration Hall. He figured that it would be his most important and most used pavilion as almost every sect member would be required to learn a weapon skill.

Eventually, when their sect was large enough to rival the big three, it would be okay for specialist crafters to forego learning to fight, but until then, everyone needed to know the basics of defense just in case the sect was attacked.

Benton paused in his thoughts.

Actually, he wasn’t sure if it would ever be okay for any cultivator to completely ignore combat skills. The world was too dangerous. Unless one truly planned to never leave the walls of the sect, the ability to defend oneself, at least to some extent, was a requirement.

He hated that fact, but it was the truth. Maybe a part of his long-term plans should be to make the world safe enough that not everyone was required to know how to fight. To do that, he’d need to establish the rule of law, which would require him to become so powerful that he could bring to heel anyone who stood against whatever justice dispensing organization he created.

Wow. His thoughts sure had turned heavy. Creating the place of his sect was supposed to be a happy occasion.

Benton banished those concerns, turning back to the fun project of building his physical sect. Next to the Martial Pavilion, he placed what he considered to be his second most important pavilion—Alchemy. Though the structure was only three stories, he expected it to be of incredible importance. Once he got Wan Ai and others up to speed producing nearly perfect pills, he’d start saving a lot of Shop Points. Her advancement was definitely one of his most important priorities.

He paused for a second. How lucky was it that she was so dedicated to cultivation? Despite her less than stellar roots, she was next closest to advancing to Foundation Establishment, and the sooner she accomplished that task, the better.



Departing from the main avenue, he placed the Bath House dedicated to Body Cultivation behind the Alchemy Pavilion. It wasn’t a structure that demanded a place of prominence, but it would be much visited as he would require all his sect members to eventually reach at least peak Bronze Body Cultivation. And obviously, the building needed to be close to the alchemists who created the baths for the sake of efficiency.

Back on the main avenue, he installed the third of the major pavilions, Formations, next to the Alchemy Pavilion. At the moment, the math-oriented profession was the least developed with only five members and none who could even make the simplest of arrays. Like with alchemy, it played a major role in the development of all sects, so getting them up to speed was another priority.

Benton had a choice to make with his next placement. One side of the avenue was lined with all the pavilions and four total buildings. There were only three on the other side, creating an imbalance.

Not counting the Outer Sect, he had three pavilions left install—Woodworking, Blacksmithing, and Healing. His first impulse was to keep all the pavilions on one side of the street, but that didn’t make sense as he had nothing to go opposite them.

Hmm.

It was fine. All of them didn’t have to line up next to each other as long as they were in the same area. In fact, he was pretty sure he’d end up adding more later. Those would probably end up on side streets or even farther away from the CBD.

Okay. Decision made, then. He’d balance the buildings on each side.

It was logical to keep Woodworking and the forge next to each other as they were similar types of craft and worked closely together, so he put those on the side next to the Amphitheater. That left the Healing Pavilion to go next to the building for arrays.

Great. That left only the auxillary building for the fletchers, which naturally went behind the Woodworking Pavilion.

Finished, he stood at one end and looked at his future main avenue. Big tall beautiful buildings lined it.

Of course, it wasn’t perfect. There was no stone path yet for the actual road, and the area was still overgrown. There were no decorative trees or anything else.

But it was a start. A good start.