During the remainder of the winter, Ben had expanded onto his immortal cave. He dug a series of other rooms off of his and made them up to look like normal wood-paneled rooms with hardwood floors.
He also took measurements of the cave entrance and made a three-inch-thick steel door in Dragonshome and installed it by hand. The steel door was locked shut with thick steel barricade bars to prevent anyone or anything on the outside from breaking into the extensive cave.
Each room had a large Qi gathering formation carved into the ceiling which all produced a fog of Qi that hung in the air throughout the entire cave.
A long hallway leading deeper into the mountain led to a room with a teleport formation. This formation connected to another teleport formation inside the Spiritual Summit Sect. This special teleport formation was located in a concrete bunker in the section of the Sect only accessible by Elders.
The Aregard Princess, Mythia, Silvana, Nathalia, and the Sect elders were all given private rooms inside the immortal cave. Ben made great use of his Carpentry and Interior Design Professions to turn the hand mined tunnels and rooms into a proper looking dwelling.
There are decorative kerosene lanterns hung from the walls and ceilings in the halls and rooms too softly light up the subterranean rooms. Ben had also laid down woven rugs and placed furniture in the rooms.
Each private room was furnished with beds, sofas, chairs tables, desks, rugs, and even paintings hung on the walls. Every room had a wooden door that could be closed and locked to allow privacy during sleep or cultivation.
It turned out to be a cozy getaway constantly filled with heavy layers of Qi. Ben was thrilled to have this place to advance his cultivation, but he couldn't help wonder if there were other undiscovered lands out there beyond the horizon with even more impressive cultivating grounds and secrets to discover?
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Before spring had arrived the new rail line had two trains running. They became popular with both regular people and businessmen. Regular commoners could now safely climb aboard a train and travel to another kingdom for a small amount of money. They did not have to worry about hiring guards or renting a cart and animal.
The first couple of brave bandit groups who attempted to rob the trains were either ran down or driven off by the rear mounted cannons. Rumors spread of how safe, comfortable, and affordable the trains were. Best of all they shaved off hours or even days off of trips!
A couple could board a train and travel to the next kingdom over for lunch or dinner and return back home to be at work the next day! Traders and merchants also took a liking to the spacious boxcars that could transport their goods across the continent at record speeds.
The train was an incredible invention that changed many lives but not all of these changes were for the better. The spy network that been had created along with his railroad had now infiltrated every capital city along the line and sent their reports back to Dragonshome via the train.
Ben was aware that many of the employees from the Messenger Union were grumbling about how the train had cut out large portions of their profits. The Messenger Union had even been used by Ben in the past. They would deliver letters, documents, contracts, and even packages up to a certain size to any of the capital in the eight kingdoms.
Now that the trains were here people could go to the train station and pay the same prices to have their things shipped at much quicker speeds. The Messenger Union was now reduced to a town crier service. The entire shipping section of their establishments was now only used by a few nobles who were unfriendly towards anything having to do with Ben.
______________________________
Ben had also added a seventh floor to the royal offices and created a large office for himself there. He was sitting behind his desk looking over the reports being sent up to his secretary by Rayner who filtered and organized it all before sending it up to him.
From his reports, he read that the new town projected was well underway. Ben's idea to create a new town with as little help from the system was now breaking ground. He began using his people who had put the extra effort in to attend college or the vocational school.
Before they began building the town Ben had provided them with low-tech blueprints to create tools and basic machines. The first place they began building was a lumber mill. On the main river running south from the western lake.
This river ran south into the Wayward woodlands and has a southern flowing current. A water wheel was built in the river to drive a belt around a series of cogs and shafts. The power supplied by this large water wheel would drive a large steel circular saw blade crafted by a blacksmith who had moved to Dragonshome.
The logs chopped down in the forest were sent down the river and into the lumber mill. The men who cut the logs were able to make planks, beams, posts, and just about any other form of wood needed for the new town's construction.
Along with the lumber mill a stone quarry was created in the mountains north of the town's future location. Ben gave the blacksmith photos and descriptions of tools and the materials needed to craft them. The tools used to cut stone from the stone quarry are steel feathers, steel, plugs, steel hammers, steel sledgehammers, steel chisels, and steel razzers which is a thin blade saw used to cut stone.
The stonemasons could use these tools to cut any sized stone they needed for the construction of the town buildings, walls, or streets.
Inside the harbor hidden in the mountain, Ben set up a building to create concrete using the ancient Roman recipes. He had to for now supply them with volcanic ash and lime. The ash and lime were combined with crush stone from the quarry and mixed with seawater on sight to create the same durable roman concrete which withstood thousands of years on Earth.
His people would soon use this roman cement would be used as mortar to adhere the stone blocks together.
Ben tried to remain as hands off on this project as possible he wanted his people to work together and use the knowledge they learned to solve any problems they came across on their own. If he continued to always build and provide them with everything it would get to the point where he would be constantly building all day every day.
He offered his main Architect some suggestions on the architectural style he would like and how they knew town should be laid out and allowed him to work with this information to create a full drawing draft of the town.
It was now at the point to where they were marking out the streets and digging them up to lay the road foundation and the stone blocks over the road foundation. Once again they borrowed from the Romans by using their surveying tools to create straight roads.
When the road was marked out they would dig down two feet and line it with sand and crushed stone. The sand and crushed stone would then be packed down to create a foundation for the stone blocks that were laid over it.
Alongside the stone roads, thick clay pipes would later be buried to provide drainage when it rained. These clay pipes would channel the water out of the town to prevent the streets from flooding.
All of this was still only the beginning as other people continued to graduate from school they would join these projects and move on to create other towns and infrastructures.
____________________________________
Ben continued reading through his reports and came across the Spiritual Summit reports. As he looked over the cultivation progress of his disciples and how things were progressing he remembered the new spirit plants he had taken from the fallen cultivators. The new plants were earlier scanned and now growing in his Spirit Farms.
At his sect, a few cultivators were showing interest in Pill House. They wanted to join the Pill House and begin to learn how to make pills. Ben like the idea of having another source where new recipes and pills could come from.
If he educated a handful of pill cultivators they may one-day open pill shops in his city and towns. They may even discover new pills that could be useful to them all.
He arranged for the sect Pill House to be given access to the Spirit Plants they grew and provided Pill Dou lessons through the system-link chairs in the Pill House. The sect Pill House was already outfitted with all of the items they would need to create pills it would now be up to those who joined to learn and begin experimenting.
Ben felt a little guilty after reviewing his reports his people were all working hard and his disciples continued to advance their cultivation. He had become so driven to produce money to feed to the system, he had begun neglecting his cultivation and attribute gains.
He still would cultivate during the night, but it had been ages since he tried to create a new spell or hit the gym to improve his attributes. One area he had always had the most trouble increasing was his intelligence and wisdom.
He could not run around the city or workout in the gym to increase his mental capacity. The only time he ever noticed these gains were when he had read new materials.
'If I were to begin reading, I could learn more about this world while also increasing my intelligence and wisdom. If I could raise these two attributes my mana will increase along with my magic power.'
After thinking it through Ben stood up and cast his Zoom spell. He jumped to each of his regions on the continent and used his Photo Reading skill to devour the contents of every book he could find in the royal palaces and sold by merchants.
His new technologies such as typewriters, pens, and paper will still catch on. Books before this were all handwritten. Someone would have to sit down and copy another book word for word. This took a long time and was an expensive process.
This meant there were no libraries like we are used to in the modern world. People had their private studies of books they chanced upon in the market or sold through merchants. Commoners were for the most part illiterate only nobles and royalty attend schooling to learn to read and write along with other things.
This all led to a small volume of books being distributed out there. Ben had gone as far to even ask for access to book collections from those who were known to have an impressive private book depository.
During his free time of taking care of the kingdom and preparing for the spring invasion, he had read through countless books. Unfortunately, he wasn't lucky enough to learn any new spells as he had in the ruined druid village.
It wasn't all for nothing Ben did improve his intelligence and wisdom attributes. These gains alone made his hard work of hunting down books well worth his time.
"Status!"
_____________________________
[STATUS]
_____________________________
[Host]: Ben King
[System Level]: 72
[Health]: 2360/2360
[Mana]: 2860/2860
[Strength]: 264
[Agility]: 238
[Stamina]: 294
[Intelligence]: 291
[Wisdom]: 286
[Vitality]: 236
[Charisma]: 178
_____________________________
[SKILLS]
_____________________________
[Running: Level 9]
[Spriniting: Level 9]
[Enhanced Hearing: Level 19]
[Sword Mastery: Level 16]
[Hand to Hand Combat: Level 5]
[Pain Reflection: Level 9]
[Chameleon: Level 19]
[Silent Movement: Level 9]
[Bowman Sniper: Level 8]
[Victus Zoologist: Level 8]
[Poison Resistance: Level 5]
[Analyze: Level 14]
[Echolocation: Level 6]
[Mercantile Skill: Level 6]
[Iron Grasp: Level 8]
[Herbalist Aura Vision Level 9]
[Penmanship: Level 7]
[Grappling Level 4]
[Night Sight: Level 9]
[Acrobatics: Level 4]
[Photo Reading]
[Mount Riding Level 6]
[Piano: Level 3]
[Modini Dance: Level 2]
[Dollu Dance: Level 2]
[Singing: Level 3]
[Mining: Level 8]
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[SPELLS]
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[Spells]:
[Mana Manipulation: Adept: Level: 6]
[Mana Ball: Apprentice: Level: 1]
[Mana Shield: Apprentice: Level: 9]
[Enhance Form: Adept: Level: 9]
[Slave Command: Apprentice: Level: 8]
[Heal Area: Apprentice: Level: 5]
[Mana Javelin: Adept: Level: 2]
[Sleep: Apprentice: Level 3]
[Zoom Spell]
[Raise Earth: Adept: Level: 7]
[Lower Earth: Adept: Level: 3]
[Ensnare: Adept: Level: 4]
[Barkskin: Adept: Level: 6]
[Weather Control: Apprentice: Level: 6]
[Reverse Gravity: Apprentice: Level: 8]
[Wind Control: Apprentice: Level: 4]
[Firebolt: Expert: Level: 5]
[Lightning Bolt Expert: Level: 4]
[Disguise Self: Apprentice: Level: 8]
[Open Lock: Apprentice: Level: 3]
[Teleport: Apprentice: Level: 3]
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[CULTIVATION STAGE]
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[Stage Six: Level: Nine]
[Current stage provides +10 to attributes per level]
[Current stage +100 QI per stage and +10 QI per level]
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CULTIVATION TECHNIQUES
[Immortal Strengthening Technique: Stage 6: Level 9]
[Whirlwind Maneuver: Level 14]
[Aura Assault: Level 5]
[Cultivation Reader: Level 1]
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[CLASSES]
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Druid Class: Provides boosts to healing, weather, animal summoning, nature, and elemental based spells.
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[PROFESSIONS]
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[Sign Maker Level 2]
[Graphic Designer Level 2]
[Carpenter Level 9]
[Furniture Maker Level 8]
[Interior Designer: Level 8]
[Metallurgical Engineering: Level 6]
[Public Speaker: Level 8]
[Formations: Level 9]
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'Not bad, not too bad at all. I was able to make some decent improvements before the next military campaign and I am really close to breaking through to the Seventh Stage.'
Ben closed his Status menu and glanced up at the sky over Dragonshome. There was an ugly gray cloud cover winter sky still oppressively hanging around. It had not snowed for a few weeks and it would not be long before the highlands with the three northern kingdoms were free of snow.
Turning away from the gloomy sky, he went off to speak with a blacksmith he had been working with. The been paid the very same blacksmith he used on his projects to attend vocational school. Ben thought it would be a great idea for him to learn how to weld.
After he had graduated from vocational school Ben gave him welding tanks and tools to practice what he had learned.
'I have one more project I would like to squeeze in before we take off with the troops. I hope this blacksmith is up to the challenge.'