Core Activities

Two days later, the ministry, construction, blacksmiths, engravers, and mining teams boarded the train and reported to the workshop to receive their orders from Wei Huoran. They arrived, entered the largest room, and sat in the provided seats while waiting for the briefing to begin. They chatted for a few minutes before the door opened right at the top of the hour, and Wei Huoran, Wu Long, and Fu Kai, walked inside.

"Good Morning, Boss Wei and Ministers Wu and Minister Fu", all the attendees greeted the pair.

"Good Morning everyone", Huoran replied, "Today will be the start of a major project that will span probably years, but will benefit the island greatly. I will give an overview of the whole project today and it's phases, and then leave the floor to Minister Wu to discuss the details and assignments. As all of you should know, we are sitting on top of a spiritual vein, but you might not be aware of how spiritual veins work. Simply, think of it as a cycle, Qi from the earth condensing into a spiritual vein after many years until one day it's large enough to be found. Normally, it is found be a cultivator or magical beast who will use the Qi that permeates the area around the vein until it is used up and they will move on. Minister Wu, the architects, and I have come together to design a system to utilize this vein for a long time. Now we were lucky in some regards, because the array formation over this island preserves most of the Qi in the air so that the waste is not a bad as it could be and so far we have a positive growth coefficient for the vein. With positive growth, we don't have to worry about our Qi supply running out, but as more people arrive here and more artifacts are powered by Qi, we will change from a positive growth to a negative one. Once that happens we will on a time limit until the vein can no longer support the island and will drained completely, disappearing forever."

Murmurs went through the crowd as they listened to Huoran's speech. He took a sip of water, activated the holographic mode of the projector in the room, and continued, "Phase one will consist of different tasks for each group: the miners will start at border of the layers between normal rock and spirit stone and mine a section at a time, the blacksmiths will create giant plating, the engravers with take that plating and add array formations to it, and the construction team will be installing the plating."

As Huoran spoke, the holograph would visually demonstrate the process.

"Eventually, the whole vein will be enclosed in this shell that will collect and measure the Qi radiating from it. Now I can feel that most of you have questions, but let me continue the briefing for now and you can ask later when the Ministers take over", Huoran delayed having to answer all of the questions because he was going to explain later anyways, "What do you think happens to spirit stone when the Qi has been removed from it?"

A man raised his hand and when called upon answered, "It no longer has Qi inside but since it previously held Qi, it's possible to 'recharge it'."

"Correct, now here is something that was discovered recently, and is the reason we will be able to successfully complete this project", Huoran said, "Spirit stone can be ground to powder, and that powder can still be 'recharged'. The spirit powder can also be mixed with a metal alloy that has been infused with Qi and turned into cable that can transmit Qi and that's where Phase Two starts."

The audience was surprised to hear of this new development, and a low murmur was heard. When things quieted down, Houran spoke, "Using an artifact, the Qi collected by the plates will be transmitted through these cables to one of two systems: the first will be essential and emergency systems that will continue to use Qi to operate such as the Grand Array Formation, the second will transmit Qi to electrical conversion artifacts that will power the rest of the systems and this will allows us to continue to grow without causing the negative growth coefficient of the vein."

The crowd continued to watch the holographic display as a complex pattern was shown.

"Now it should be said that we will do this by sections, underground and above ground, or we would cutoff everyone's access to Qi", Huoran told the crowd, "Finally, Phase Three, this will consist of a new construction position, the electrical specialist. These new personnel have already been selected and trained, and will be assigned to construction teams from now on. The last phase consist of the construction teams renovating all the buildings to the new electrical system."

As the presentation completed the last phase and displayed statistics of the amount of Qi conserved, Huoran wrapped up his briefing.

"I'll answer two questions and then turn it over to Ministers Wu and Fu", he offered.

"Boss Wei, will this affect the ambient Qi in the air?", one man asked.

"No", Huoran answered, "though things will be adjusted accordingly, ambient Qi levels will remain the same, and you."

He pointed at a woman in the crowd with her hand raised.

"Boss Wei what are those two rooms in the display?", she asked.

He looked at where she was asking about and laughed, "Sure, so the first room with be the core monitor and control room. The people assigned to work there will be monitoring the output of Qi from the core and also monitoring the other room too. The second room is where the new workshops will be located."

All the blacksmiths and engravers suddenly paid attention to this and raised their voices. Huoran heard, "Boss Wei, look how small the room is, how can all of us fit in there?"

"Please quiet down and be patient", he told them, "Everyone here should be familiar with secret realms, correct?"

Everyone nodded or quietly acknowledged his question.

"I have developed something called a secret realm artifact and there is currently two hundred kilometers of land inside which will have brand new facilities built inside for all the professions. The farmers will be moving in first, and then everyone else. Unfortunately, I must go get started, so I turn the podium over to the Ministry at this time."

Huoran bowed and everyone bowed back as he left the briefing room.

For the next week, Huoran and the miners dig out the new rooms and then he released the teams to start Phase One. Just like his cave, he inscribed the same level of protection onto these two rooms. He placed both globe sized artifacts in the one room and then placed their associated portals on the first basement floor beneath his cave before he went back to the teams. He watched the smiths produce the first plates and the construction teams as they installed it into place. They installed the Qi collection artifact and ran the cable from the plate to the control, secret realm, and portal rooms. After watching the process and feeling comfortable with the construction process, he started installing all the equipment into the core monitor and control room. Then he activated the secret realm artifacts, tested them again to ensure the safety of the residents, and began having another contrustion team build the facilities inside each globe.

Another day and another group of people filed into the briefing room, but this time it was farmers. As everyone held discussions about the reason, Wei Huoran and Munster Ren entered.

"Good morning, Boss Wei, Minister Ren", the audience greeted the pair.

'Whoa, Deja Vu', thought Huoran.

"Good morning everyone", Huoran replied, "I'm just here to listen, Minister Ren will be speaking today."

He went to sit and Ren stepped up to the podium, "Good Morning Everyone, today I'll be briefing you on the solutions to our farming challenges."

Everyone settled down and turned their attention to the holographic projector.

"As you are aware, we recently hired many new farmers but we are lacking in land to farm so some of you must curious what the plan is. Boss Wei has obtained two hundred kilometers of land in two secret realms: one is weather similar to here which is the one that you will be working in, the other is a snow climate that the newly hired farmers will be working growing crop that only grow in cold climates."

One farmer raised his hand, "Minister, will it be safe to do this?"

"Absolutely, your Qphones or identification cards will be updated so that if an emergency happens, everyone inside the realm will be rescued immediately", Ren told them, "Also the workshops will be located in these realms as well: talismans, engraving, arrays, paper making, drying racks and brewing will be in your realm, artifact refinement and alchemy in the winter realm."

The farmers began to discuss with each other the news and one hand rose, "I noticed some weird designs on the display there, what are those?"

"Excellent question, these three items will be part of your future. As higher level guests begin to visit the island, higher level products must be available to them. Unfortunately, everyone here is still in the Qi Gathering stage, so no one would survive if you tried to work in an environment where the Qi levels are are too high but you still need to observe the growth of the spiritual plants. The first item", Ren enlarged the first design on the display, "is a Qi infusion greenhouse. This is an adjustable tool that can transmit Qi from Qi gathering stage levels up to Golden Core stage levels of saturation and can cover a certain area. It still has the sensors and arrays you are familiar with, but keep you from being exposed to dangerous levels of Qi. This here is the same thing but it's a planter, sometimes we can only find a small number of seeds or guests only trade us one plant. A whole field isn't required for such a small number so this planter will be good enough. The last item is a farming drone, since you can't enter fields with high levels of Qi, you control the drone to enter for you. It will also harvest the target and store it before delivering to you in a safe manner."

Excitement filled the eyes of the crowd as they imagined the goods they would produce in the future.

Ren clapped his hands, "Everyone, the move to the new realms will start tomorrow. Just don't forget your identification card as the realms are an important asset to the island, and guards and drones will be present. If anyone has questions, please ask now, otherwise, you are released to return to your fields to prepare for tomorrow."

A few questions were asked and answered, but soon everyone left to get ready for tomorrow.

The next day, the trains were packed as all the personnel were scrambling to arrive at their workplace, pack it up and move into the new realm. Long lines at the portals caused tempers to flare, but security from the law enforcement department kept the peace. Even though Huoran had recruited so many new people it never felt like it was enough, but he refused to make them work over time, telling everyone, "No matter how long it takes to get everything done, I will not accept any injuries or fatalities due to negligence."

This reminded people to work smartly and efficiently, but don't endanger themselves or others to accomplish the goals. With all the space all the farms and workshop as now, they found they were now lacking in manpower, something that Huoran informed them would change soon as a fresh class of students had graduated recently and were to be assigned to the workshops.