Things to come

"It's true what the light novels had written in them", Fang Shi sighed, "Older ginger is indeed spicier."

Fang Shi opened the pod as he remembered everything that had happened over the last three days. He had faced off against numerous opponents that started easy enough in the beginning. The Qi Gathering realm cultivators were the first ones to step into the arena, and they were also the most plentiful. Since Fang Shi cultivated his body, mind, and spirit, as well as training with all weapons, these battles weren't very difficult.

To Fang Shi's surprise, many cultivators at the Foundation Establishment realm signed up to compete. Even though the advertisements didn't restrict who could sign up, he had hoped that guests of higher realms would save face and just watch juniors fight. Unfortunately, these seniors had saw the rewards posted on the wall scrolls and shamelessly entered the contest. When these opponents entered the arena, the higher leveled participants had their realms adjusted to the Qi Gathering realm to match Fang Shi's. Since the Foundation Establishment realm cultivators had more experience and a solid base, Fang Shi quickly discovered that he had to expend more effort to gain victory. When he battled his peers, he could quickly claim victory and immediately return to face the next challenge. It wasn't strange for him to face ten or more enemies before taking a quick break to replenish his blood essence, qi, and mental strength, but against the higher level opponents, breaks were required more often.

After defeating all the Foundation Establishment cultivators, Fang Shi was getting ready to finish the event when he noticed that several Golden Core seniors had sighed up as well. He wanted to curse these shameless people, but the system warned him about going back on his word as a merchant. As before, the golden core guests were restricted to match his level, and their ability and experience forced Fang Shi to use his known tri-elemental cultivation to achieve victory.

After the last battle was won, Fang Shi paused to see if any of the handful of Nascent Soul elders were also going to participate, and fortunately none of them actually entered. He finally relaxed because secretly he felt that if they were to challenge him, he would have exposed more of his secrets or been defeated. His current level wasn't high enough to sell breakthrough products for Nascent Soul cultivators, but he still would have been responsible for providing goods until they reached the limit.

Fang Shi left the pod and took a break from his normal evening routine, taking a soothing bath, eating a nourishing meal, and going to sleep early instead of checking the reports or working on designing the new business for his task. The next morning, Fang Shi felt refreshed and instead of walking around the shops, he went back to the pod to start working on his task.

Sitting in the pod, Fang Shi quickly found a new hallway that led to a new area. Opening the door, he saw a large artifact in the middle of the room. It appeared as a large flat table that seemed like a blend of cultivation style with science fiction. The artifact was five meters square in area, and the top layer was made of the purest crystal. Each side of the artifact had the same structure installed that resembled a panel, so Fang Shi approached it.

'Attention: This room and artifact can only be used by the host', the system canto life to provide Fang Shi with information, 'This artifact will be used by the host to design the next business to fulfill the task. Use your Qi sense to access the artifact, and if you have questions, use the tutorial to learn how to operate it.'

Fang Shi became curious, so he infused his qi sense as directed and soon was smiling.

"It's like the simulation games I played in my past life", he grinned, "Instead of building a city, I can use this to design buildings."

When building glass or adding floors to the buildings of the pavilion before, Fang Shi only had to insure that there was enough building material of the correct quality and enough spirit stones to accomplish the task. This was the first time he would get to more than give his priorities to the system, and wait for it to do everything else.

Fang Shi took a few hours to familiarize himself with all the tools before opening a new design project. He started in playing around with the preview mode, a setting where he could make a floor or put up a wall to view it. Hours went by as Fang Shi slowly decided what materials to use that coordinated well with the tribal theme the northern pavilion was using.

Several days later, Fang Shi proudly looked upon his hard work as the table sized artifact indicated that three designs were saved within. The first was a large plot with a large building sitting in the front with a half circle formed by smaller buildings behind it. This was Fang Shi's new business he was going to create to complete the task, a hotel. The hotel was very tall, but it was designed to serve all sorts of customers. There were smaller rooms that had basic necessities, larger rooms that included mediation capabilities, and suites that included pods inside. The smaller buildings that surrounded the back half of the hotel were villas that had almost everything: cultivation pods, spirit water baths, and more.

The second project was also a large building but this was an employee dormitory for all the soon to be hired staff. This building would be setup essentially the same at the staff dormitory in Blue Moon city: living rooms, kitchens, training rooms, and other facilities. Speaking of the staff dorm of Blue Moon city, the third project was a renovation of that building. More people would be hired there was well but not as many as the Tianbao location. Since the Blue Moon city location could no longer expand without paying exorbitant prices for land, he had no plans to build a hotel inside the city walls.

Before he could continue to observe his work, a familiar tone played in his mind.

[New! Only Results matter!

Discover ten spiritual plants from researching normal plants or 3rd class spiritual herbs (Completed)

Reward: Wall Scroll 'Herb Garden' upgraded. Space and spiritual energy inside will be customized for all the spiritual herbs grown inside.]

Fang Shi immediately walked to the room that held all the wall scrolls before finding the herb garden, and taking a look. When it first arrived, the scroll looked exactly as advertised, an herb garden but now the change was evident. Parts of the garden were snowing, other parts were cloudy with lightning, and others areas seemed like a desert.

"Why is it like this system?", Fang Shi was confused.

'Answer: Not all spiritual plants and herbs grow in the richest soil or areas with the highest levels of qi', the system replied, 'Often these plants and herbs adapt to certain conditions to survive.'

"What is that plant there?", Fang Shi pointed at a certain plot on the scroll.

'Answer: These are Emberheart peppers', the system responded, 'For cultivators that wish to practice body cultivation, these peppers are excellent for tempering the body, purifying blood essence, and burning away impurities. Warning: To prevent permanent damage to a customer's body, ensure they consume peppers of appropriate levels.'

"Ok, then what is that?", Fang Shi inquired.

'Answer: This is Voidmind Mint', the system replied, 'This mint can be made into tea, pills, or incense. When used, the recipient will feel their mental space expand. Once the expansion stops, fortification will take place and the user will experience experiences from their past in vivid detail. Once the mint has fully completed its progress, the user should notice a difference in mental strength, clarity, and a overwhelming feeling of calm. Warning: Do not ingest, or inhale inappropriate amounts of this herb. Overconsumption will result in a user's mental space bursting and collapsing, or falling into a coma as their soul disassociates from their body.'

Fang Shi decided to investigate the rest of the new spiritual plants later, and head downstairs to deal with all the questions he knew he would have to face sooner or later.

As expected when Fang Shi appeared on the first floor of the main hall, many of the customers were eager to greet him.

"Everybody, I understand that you have questions", he said while manipulating the pavilion's formation to create space around himself, "Let's go to the tea house, and I can answer some of your questions."

The tea house quickly filled up, but it couldn't hold everyone so Fang Shi made the decision to have his Question and Answer session broadcasted. The seats of the tea house were filled with the Nascent soul, Golden Core, and Foundation Establishment cultivators, so everyone else went to the cultivation hall to watch from a pod. Cultivators in the pods sent messages to their friends in Blue Moon city and soon cultivators in both locations were sitting in cultivation pods or watching their Tianmu in anticipation.

"I'll apologize for my absence the last several days", Fang Shi said to the crowd, "I had some task assigned to me that I needed to deal with."

Everyone in the tea house murmured as that they understood, so Fang Shi continued.

"Protector Lei, you have a question?", he asked.

"Yes", Lei Huang answered, "How are capable of using intent with every weapon you used several days ago?"

"I'll answer, but first does anyone know what sword intent is?", Fang Shi challenged the audience, "Or spear intent? What's the difference between them?"

No one said anything as they looked at each other before looking back at Fang Shi.

"I see", he nodded, "I should explain something first, I practice cultivation methods for my body, mind, and soul."

The room got loud as everyone started to discuss his declaration before Mei Lihua spoke up, "Isn't it terribly resource intensive to do such as thing Owner Fang?"

"Obviously", Fang Shi replied, "But I'll ask something else instead. Do you know what these are?"

Fang Shi changed his Tianmu to projection mode and two diagrams appeared in front of everyone, the first was the Taiji diagram showing the relationship of Yin and Yang, and the other was the diagram of the five elements.

"It's the Taiji and Wuxing diagrams", Mei Lihua easily answered.

"What is the basic lesson you first learn about these diagrams?", Fang Shi asked next.

A Foundation Establishment cultivator who was lucky enough to get a seat raised his hand, "Balance."

"Correct", Fang Shi smiled, "So look at this."

Fang Shi's Tianmu produced another image of a person's outline with three words: body, mind, energy.

"This is how cultivators currently cultivate", Fang Shi explained, "They strengthen their bodies until the can sense qi, and then abandon the practice only focusing on qi cultivation."

On the last image he produced, the circle that represented the body slightly expanded before stopping. Moments later, the circle representing Qi started to expand until it eventually stopped.

"If Yin and Yang require balance, as well as the elements", Fang Shi lectured the crowd, "Why doesn't the body of a cultivator or a spiritual beast?"

Silence followed his statement until Gu Lin Wang broke it, "Spiritual beast as well?"

"Of course", Fang Shi responded, "It is well known that spiritual beasts live longer than us, and have very sturdy bodies, so your diagram would look different."

A fourth image was displayed with a deer's body, but it had the same three circles. This time the body circle was the largest while the other two were smaller.

"If everyone here were to balance all their circles, they would find cultivation easier, bottlenecks gone, and would live longer", Fang Shi told them, "Isn't it obvious? Cultivating your body would affect your vitality and strength, cultivating your mind would affect your comprehension and ability to create?"

"But that takes a huge quantity of resources", Jin Tianxuan frowned.

"Which means you're still human", Fang Shi retorted, "Instead of learning how to raise and care for spiritual plants, you take them for yourself. Luckily, my senior didn't think like you and he can now offer these resources to be sold."

Everyone in the tea house started to feel gloomy, it was true, should resources be found their instincts was to take for themselves.

"Now let's loop back to the question asked", Fang Shi changed the topic, "Because I gather and refine essence, Qi, and mental energy, I'm able to use intent."

"Why?", Jin Ruoshui asked.

"Because intent is a fusion of all three", Fang Shi raised his hand before pointing with his index finger. Suddenly, everyone felt sword intent appear at his finger as he threw a spirit fruit in the air that he had taken out of his ring. With a quick motion he targeted the fruit in the air several times with his finger, and it was easily cut into several pieces. Fang Shi took a plate that was at his table and caught all the pieces before eating a piece of the fruit.

"Why did your intent change from a sword to a blade to a spear?", Tie E asked with amazement.

"I said that intent is a fusion of my blood essence, qi, and mental energy", Fang Shi responded, "If I will it to be a sword, it will be, but that doesn't mean it can only be a sword. Sword cultivators are that because they only thinks about swords. In fact must cultivators that cultivate with weapons usually form intent for that weapon because it's all they focus on. I'm more flexible, so my intent is what I will it to be. I think everyone should understand by now, so I'll take another question."

"If I were to cultivate my body and mind, would it really make bottlenecks disappear?", a Golden core woman that Fang Shi rarely talked to asked from the back.

"It depends", Fang Shi answered, "I'll say that it definitely reduce the difficulty of breaking through, but if your cultivation method doesn't suit you, it won't completely remove all obstacles."

"What's that supposed to mean?", Shui Yan couldn't help to say something.

"The understanding that my senior imparted to me was that cultivator pick their strongest spirit roots to concentrate their cultivation on", Fang Shi explained, "My senior says this is very shortsighted because if you're born with multiple roots, you need to cultivate them all to be successful. It's like cultivating a spiritual plant by watering it, but giving it just enough water so it won't die. How do you expect to grow a healthy plant if you don't supply everything it needs to grow? If you think about it, leaders of a sect are farmers, it's just that instead of growing plants, their are growing their members. Unfortunately, most don't get what they need which is why only the top disciples succeed while thousands fail. If you think about it that way, they're terrible at farming. Either way, it's more business for me. I recommend everyone that comes to visit the tester in the pod, and once you understand what you need, visit the store to get it."

The audience inside the tea house had been contemplating his words when he first started speaking, but by the end they were scowling when they realized he was advertising his store. Fang Shi's answered a few more questions before he signaled to the crowd that it was time to end.

"I'll try to do this again in the future", Fang Shi announced, "But first I have two announcements to make. First of all for the guests of the Tianbao region, the senior has noticed the inconvenience of traveling here every day. As such, he has decided to build a hotel and set of villas for rent. Second, the decision has been made to not use puppets to serve guests, so starting tomorrow the Heaven & Earth pavilion will start the process of hiring workers for all positions. Please come tomorrow if your interested, but if you already belong to an organization, expect to not be selected."