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Chapter 204 – Move-in Day
🕑 Added 2025-02-25 04:37:54 +0000 UTCHuang Yimun was pretty far down the priority list. He had E- spirit roots even after the upgrade and was only at the fifth minor realm of Qi Gathering. Up until very recently he would never have even believed that him becoming a member of the council was remotely possible.
He still couldn’t fathom the fact that he’d been appointed guard captain. When Senior Sister chose him, he’d thought he’d be replaced as soon as the sect leader returned. Instead, he’d confirmed her decision.
Huang Yimun was grateful to have the trust of people he respected so much, but if he had his choice, he wouldn’t have ever had to accept the position because that would have meant that Ye Zan would still be alive.
His friend would have liked picking out a house just from the sheer weirdness of going from an orphan on the city streets to being given such a nice place to live as a sect member.
The whole experience was surreal.
Maybe Ye Zan would have ended up picking a two-bedroom house so that the two of them could room together. Or if he would have chosen an even bigger house to cram even more of the guards in. Or maybe he would have taken over one of the smaller apartment buildings for the whole squad.
Huang Yimun had no energy or desire to arrange something like that. With the death of his friend so recent, he desired only solitude.
Most people so far had picked places near the front of the neighborhood closest to the main sect buildings. In contrast, he walked all the way to the back and found a small place meant for a lone cultivator.
There wasn’t much to the place—a single room included space for preparing food, dining, cultivating, and sleeping. The only other room in the building was a small restroom that had a bathtub. There was also an attached courtyard with room for a small garden.
It met his needs.
Actually, it exceeded them. Running water. Some sort of qi-using device that took away waste so one didn’t have to bother with a chamber pot. A device for storing food. All in all, the house was much nicer than anything he would have ever dreamed of back in Sixth Flawless Flowing City.
He registered his choice with the sect leader’s assistant and returned to the Administration Hall later in the day. The assignments were posted on a board outside. It did not surprise him that he’d gotten his first choice.
When Huang Yimun had left the city, he hadn’t known when, if ever, he’d return, so he’d carried everything he owned, which wasn’t a lot, with him. He’d picked up a few more items since, but all he really had were a few changes of clothes, a handmade cultivation mat of woven straw, a bedroll, his spears, and a few personal effects such as toiletries and various small items he’d picked up. Having so few possessions made moving easy, and by nightfall, he was living in his new house, wondering if the new start was somehow a betrayal to his absent friend.
###
It had quickly become apparent to Sun Hua that the method she used in letting the council choose their houses would not work for the rest of the sect members. There was no reason, after all, that a process put in place for sixteen people should be efficient for close to two hundred and fifty.
Instead, she had gone to the mayor and, with his help, arranged for the remaining sect members to come choose their housing in shifts in the order they were listed on the priority list. That method simplified things greatly.
Starting early in the morning, a batch of fifty people were allowed to tour the neighborhood. Then, as a group, they went to the Administration Pavilion and lined up in the order they were listed. The first person chose from the available housing, and the assignment was made immediately, allowing them to begin moving their personal effects to their new home at their leisure. Meanwhile, the next person in line chose their home. And so forth.
By the end of the day, all the people on the list had picked out places to live and most had already moved in.
Sun Hua let out a relieved sigh when the last one left the pavilion. Her first true test as the sect leader’s assistant was complete. She felt she’d performed … adequately. Hopefully, he agreed.
If he didn’t, she just hoped he wouldn’t remove her from her position because there would be no way to keep that shame from her mother.
###
Wan Ai was quite proud of herself. She’d noticed that Zou Tian had tensed up every time anyone brought up the subject of moving to the new sect grounds, and she quickly deduced the reason. Not only had she figured out the problem, but she’d come up with a solution that they both liked.
Of course, that meant she had to continue sharing a house with Bai Xinyi. Not that the other girl was a problem or anything. She was overall very quiet and respectful and was a hard worker.
It was just that Wan Ai preferred being alone. Or she had preferred being alone. If she were honest with herself, she now preferred being with Zou Tian, and if continuing to live with him meant extending an invite to Bai Xinyi, having the extra person around was completely worth it.
Honestly, Wan Ai couldn’t believe how much she’d changed in such a short time. A matter of months prior, she would have jumped at the chance to move into a house all by herself. Such a thing would have been a dream come true.
Instead, she now considered having Zou Tian constantly nearby a much better outcome.
It wasn’t even that they ever did anything inappropriate—well, nothing really, really inappropriate, anyway. She simply felt more at ease when he was with her than when he wasn’t.
Considering how every other person she’d met in her life made her feel the exact opposite, she thought herself truly fortunate to have found him.
After their first night in their new home—in separate bedrooms, of course—the three housemates went to the visit the Alchemy Pavilion for the first time, arriving at the time instructed by the sect leader.
The place was amazing. The buildings near it were a bit taller with it only being three stories, but it was still impressive with its stained wood with blue accents and blue roof tiles. And its location was perfect, right in the middle of the row of pavilions, between the Martial Pavilion and the Formations Pavilion, across from the Amphitheater. And the bathhouse was conveniently located right behind.
Wan Ai couldn’t believe that she was basically in charge of the entire building. It was weird enough to be given such a nice house. But a whole building?
She thought she might have fallen just a little bit in love with the place at first glance.
As he was wont to do, the sect leader appeared out of nowhere. “Ready for the fifty-cent tour?”
She had no idea what cents were or why a tour required fifty of them, but she was well used to ignoring the sect leader’s odd phrases by that point. “Yes, Sect Leader.”
He led the three of them inside into a large foyer. “When the sect is large enough, you’ll probably want to set up some kind of desk down here manned by a junior pavilion member who can instruct people where to go and keep out those who walked into the wrong building. For now, we’ll just have to be really careful about setting the arrays correctly whenever you’re dealing with anything dangerous.”
The front hall ran the width of the building, but it wasn’t very deep. On each side was a door and a stairway. The sect leader led them through one of the doors first. It opened into a large space.
“The function of this area is as a classroom. We’ll put a lectern at the front and fill it with benches, and you, Wan Ai, can give lessons to all your pavilion members.”
She shuddered at the thought. There was no way she would ever get up in front of that many people to speak unless she was directly ordered to do so by the sect leader. On second thought, probably not even then. Running far away would be a better option.
When they returned to the foyer, the sect leader told them that both the doors opened into the large space, so there was no need to go to the other side. Instead, he led them up the stairs.
“The third floor contains twenty rooms with individual alchemy workstations while this second floor consists of group labs,” the sect leader said, leading them into one.
The room held ten stone slabs, each three feet off the ground on solid stone legs, spaced about the room.
“There are three rooms just like this one on this floor. A junior alchemist can easily work at each station while a more senior sect member supervises an entire group.” The sect leader led them to one of the workstations. “These are standard throughout the building. You’ll note that there is plenty of room to cut and prepare herbs and that the stone should be tough enough to hold up as a cutting surface.”
He pointed at depression in the middle of the station that had a strange tube arching from the tabletop to open above it. “The array on the tube provides water. Interestingly enough, it is not tied to the sect’s central water supply like most other sources. Instead, it literally creates water. Obviously, that consumes a lot more qi than simply pumping it in, but the water coming out should be absolutely pure.”
Having access to water without impurities would surely be a huge help in progressing their alchemy. It didn’t matter a lot for the Body Cultivation baths, but the manuals that Wan Ai read all noted the importance of avoiding introducing any foreign materials into mixtures when they started creating advanced pills.
“The array at the bottom of the sink originally used Fire qi to incinerate any wastes disposed down it, but I modified them to use Void instead. That way, you can dump anything you want down there and not have to worry about smoke or fumes or any materials like ash remaining afterward.”
Wan Ai cupped her hands. “Gratitude, Sect Leader.”
Like with the pure water, having an absolutely sure way to rid themselves of leftovers from processes was tremendously important for alchemists.
On the left side of the large stone slab was a smaller square one.
The sect leader pointed at the square. “This is a type of heating plate. The ones on this floor only have five settings for the amount of fire qi to be generated. In contrast the ones on the floor above range from ten settings all the way to twenty-five. Five of the rooms have square slabs with no fire qi array at all. Those are for Foundation Establishment realm and above alchemists who have a technique to provide their own heat.”
Interesting. Wai Ai’s reading had led her to understand that mortal pills didn’t typically require fine control of the heat, meaning that the entire second floor were for Qi Gathering cultivators to practice. As the alchemist reached Foundation Establishment and started creating pills that required finer control, they’d move to rooms on the third floor, using the Fire arrays until they mastered their techniques for providing heat without it.
The entire building was meant for alchemists who were learning the profession.
Her conclusion must have shone on her face because he said, “It’s going to take a while before you outgrow this building. Once you do, we’ll either acquire or build another one.”
She cupped her hands again. “Gratitude, Master.”
“Okay,” he said, leading them to a panel beside the door. “There are several more very important arrays controlled from here. The first is one intended for fume removal. When you activate it, all air will be pulled from the room and subjected to Void qi. That’s really handy if you have a fire producing a lot of smoke, or a student has screwed up a mixture and fumes are pouring out. It’s not so handy if you want to breathe.”
She understood that not breathing meant dangerous, even for cultivators.
“This array provides fresh air quickly back into the room. Understand the significance?”
“Yes, Sect Leader.”
“Most of these arrays were already present in the building. I just tweaked them a little. This last one I added.” He activated it.
A loud wailing sound erupted from the formation. Another touch deactivated it, and the sound ceased.
“If there’s an emergency and you need help.”
“Yes, Sect Leader.”
“The final array for the room is this one. When the door is closed and this array is activated, the door cannot be opened from the outside absent a force a powerful as Yang Ru’s main attack. If anyone is doing anything even remotely dangerous to an untrained person, please activate this array.”
“Yes, Sect Leader.”
He continued the tour by taking her to the third floor, so she could get a sense of the layout and then by taking her to a room that was only accessible from the outside. That was where spirit coins were fed to keep the arrays for the entire building operational.
“At first, you can just draw coins from the Contribution Points Shop,” the sect leader said. “Eventually, we’ll establish a budget once we see what your normal usage is, and anything over that budget will need to be paid for. You’ll probably want to charge your pavilion members for workstation time over a certain amount, but we can figure all that stuff out later.”
She cupped her hands. “Gratitude, Sect Leader.”
There was a lot she needed to learn about how all the arrays worked, but her new building was so cool. It was definitely going to work a lot better for them than the random house they were currently using.
She couldn’t wait to get started!
Comments
Christabel Amanoh
I love base building details like this. I’m excited to see the reactions of baby alchemists and sect visitors.
