Off to Work We Go

Wei Huoran led the group of people over to the farm and explained to them, "Your job responsibilities are as follows. The people assigned to the farm will monitor the plants and as you learn, you will harvest when they are ready and replant accordingly to the season. As you see, there are currently three fields, and I will training you in the all proper techniques of job. The rest of you will be monitoring the animals. This will consist of feeding and watering them, regularly cleaning them, and reporting on their health."

Huoran spent the next few hours going over the basics and let them know that he would be training them some everyday until you are proficient in the tasks. He added, "Since you will have a lot of time sitting and watching, I recommend using that time to learn how to read, count, and cultivate. This enough for today, but starting today you will start your watches. Here is a scroll with the names and times of your watch."

Wei Huoran left them to get familiar with their new place of work and returned to the village. He took each group to their work place explaining their duties and schedules. Not many industries were currently ready so it was mainly the farmers, herders, bathhouse employees, and chefs. Then he met the biggest group, the construction workers. He asked them to sit and began to speak, "Construction will be a difficult job to master. There will be days that you will feel physically tired and mentally drained. You will learn to work with wood and stone, but you will also learn about materials that have never been seen before. You will have to master a wide variety of knowledge and artifacts and depending on your sense of aesthetics will decide how your journey will take you in construction. The first portion of work will be building homes and dormitories for the married and single people living on the island with me. It will take time and there will be a lot of studying, so you will need to learn to read and draw. I will be teaching you this as well as how forces in the world works because that will affect the outcome."

Everyday, Wei Huoran was busy working with the villagers. He held classes teaching reading, writing, and numbers. He was in the kitchens with chefs, teaching the many different techniques of cooking, using herbs and seasonings, and how to preserve food. The bathhouse employees didn't take long to get used to their jobs and he only had to inspect them once every seven to ten days to make sure standards were being met. The farmers and herders took longer because as they became more literate, the more they had to read about the plants and animals they cared for. The miners essentially had nothing to do for now because until they broke through to the Body Perfecting stage, they were unable to handle the Qi pressure inside the mines. And the construction crews worked with him every day as they also learned reading, writing, and numbers. He would take them to the first construction site as well as they learned how to build modern homes and buildings. They had never seen bricks or concrete before and glass was only available to rich families and merchants so their progress was slower than the other groups. He also would visit the mothers who stayed home watching their children and taught them reading, writing, and math. He envisioned that they might become the first teachers once their children were old enough. Lastly, Wei Huoran would meet with the seven representatives, teaching them about governance and administration. He named them the council and assigned them the duty of managing the village. He added, "While you do represent the people, remember that your are representing their interests, not just yours. If I find out that you don't talk with your people and make choices regardless of their wishes, you will exiled from the island."

Three months later and the village has seen some progress. All the adults can read, write, and do simple math, the fields have produced their first harvests, and two homes have been built with the third in the works. While everyone was working, Wei Huoran had built communication artifacts for all the village leaders. He called the council and all the team leaders together for a meeting.

"Thank you for attending today at my request. I have a few announcements, the first is that I will taking a trip soon to North River city to recruit more citizens for the island. Just like you all, I will be inviting people who had a rough lot in life but were not criminals. I will also most likely be buying slaves as well, but let me make this clear. Slavery is not permitted on this island. Anyone I bring here will be a free person and I expect everyone to treat them with discrimination. I expect that many of them will take the lower level positions as the people here will be promoted to higher positions soon. I, of course, won't leave until housing is available for the current residents as well as the incoming citizens. Finally, here are communication artifacts for each of you. I will instruct you in how to use them after this, but think of it as a simplified version of the artifact you see me use, the 'tablet'."

And with his final words he handed out small palm sized versions of his tablet to everyone. He went over the many features, such as the phone, text chat, and emergency functions. He also expressed the seriousness of losing this artifact or having it stolen.

The months following consisted mainly of the construction crews and him working to provide everyone with a new house and then building a few dormitories. Once these completed, he readied himself for the next trip and met with the council again.

"Everyone, the houses for all the families are now built and enough food has been set aside for everyone to eat for two weeks. I should only be gone for a week and half at most but it could take two. Watch over everyone and maintain order, my drones are still around so I can still oversee the situation here and call you if I need to. Be ready to receive approximately three to four hundred people because this will be the next generation of citizens that will have to work under you all. I always have my tablet and the ability to come back quickly so even though there shouldn't be any problems, be mindful and vigilant."

Ye Peizhi responded, "Boss Wei, the last few months have been amazing. We will look over everyone and be ready for the new members."

The rest of the council and team leaders expressed their well wishes and watched as Wei Huoran walked towards the beach, summoned a large pod shaped boat, entered and waved, and disappeared under the water.