"Fourth Child, go find your sisters and help gather the crop seeds from the black soil. I'll take you all to play in the water this afternoon." Yi Tian stopped Fourth Child from bullying the White Tiger any further.
"Sure, Daddy!" Fourth Child giggled, completely forgetting about what just happened, and hopped away. That pose looked just like the Dark Lady in League of Legends back on Earth.
"Little White! You been feeling okay lately?" Yi Tian stroked Little White's head.
"Roar roar..."
Little White gave a soft roar and even stood up on two legs, showing off its strength.
"Back when you were in the forest, did any wild dogs, foxes, or wolves ever bite you?" Yi Tian asked again.
"Roar roar..."
Little White's roar grew louder, waving a paw. Felt like it was saying, I'm the King of a Hundred Beasts—how could they dare bite me? They only run away when they see me.
"I heard you always pick fights with the Fire Dragon. What's up with that?" Yi Tian's tone shifted, as if he'd picked up on something.
"Awoo..." No wonder master sounds strange—Fire Dragon must've tattled again.
That rascal's sneaky as hell, gotta teach him a lesson next time.
Yi Tian saw Little White's eyes darting around, confirming his hunch.
"Tell you what! I suspect you're hiding some sickness. Come here, let me give you a good massage." Yi Tian smiled slyly.
"Roar..."
The White Tiger shivered—why does master look so sinister when he smiles? It bolted ten meters away from Yi Tian in a flash.
"If you mess with Fire Dragon and the others while they're working again, I'm giving their chores to you next time." Yi Tian knew Little White hated work most of all. No clue why Little White has beef with Fire Dragon, but whatever, better knock some sense into it again.
"Roar roar..."
Little White looked terrified, nodding over and over.
Its favorite things are sunbathing in the yard during the day, and snoozing on the sofa at night.
Working would just mess up its snowy fur.
"Go help the kiddos move some seeds."
Yi Tian joked, then walked out the South City gate.
The stream started from Lake Two, flowed past the southwest corner of War Manor, ran beside the advanced soil, then looped northeast to pass between the villa and boutique warehouse, through the Mountain-Suppressing Stone and the gazebo, then curved northwest, slipped into the high-level wood forest at the northwest wall, cut through a huge stretch of trees, and finally emptied into Lake One.
Under the southwest and northwest city walls, the bottommost high-level stone was cut to make a space one zhang long, half a chi high. This crawlspace was so tight, even little dwarves would struggle to squeeze through.
Yi Tian wanted to build a beautiful stream, not a muddy ditch.
Still hadn't opened the last barrier to let the lake water flow through.
Yi Tian was buying red sand and river pebbles on the auction, laying out the stream as he went.
Sand formed the base layer, with pebbles covering the riverbed.
The pebbles came in all sizes, the biggest was as tall as a person and placed on the stream bank,
the smallest barely bigger than grains of sand.
Pebbles were dirt cheap at auction, half gift half sale, even cheaper than ordinary stone.
Not much use for wall-building, so pebbles are among the hardest stones to sell at auction.
Lots of Trial Takers have plenty of rocks on their hills. These natural stones don't even need mining. Most folks just use the Celestial Dao Stone for a scan and list them "just in case." If they sell, great; if not, so what. They pile up on barren stony hills, mainly as scenery.
Laying red sand and pebbles along the way—buying as he went was way easier than hauling materials.
When the stream reached inside the manor, Yi Tian suddenly realized something was off—he'd hit ten points on the lottery again today and hadn't drawn yet.
Yi Tian immediately opened up the lottery mode.
"Open Two-Star Lottery." Yi Tian was pumped.
The white lottery wheel spun fast, before slowly stopping on 'B-level Item.'
"Ding! You have obtained: B-level Pill Energy Pill*1."
"Energy Pill: Take to increase Strength +10."
Before the second draw could start, Yi Tian swallowed the pill in one gulp, bumping his strength up to 224.
"Draw Two-Star Lottery again."
Feeling his body overflowing with power, Yi Tian muttered—please let me get an agility pill this time.
No luck. The pointer landed on the only 'Special Architectural Design Map.' Yi Tian never really cared about those, always thought they were just building blueprints.
"Ding! Warrior Pavilion Design*1."
Yi Tian quickly checked out the info on the Warrior Pavilion.
"A tower that strengthens warriors; when inside, each warrior gains 5 spiritual power, 1 strength, 2 agility, and 3 constitution every day."
Yi Tian sucked in a breath.
This was nuts.
But more than the bonuses, what really got him was the crazy cost of the Warrior Pavilion.
"One of each of the Nine Elemental Cores, 100,000 gold, 50,000 top-level stone, 1,000,000 iron, 1,000,000 copper, 2,000,000 Celestial Dao Coin."
"This is pricier than his luxury villa. 100,000 gold means 10 million Celestial Dao Coin; 50,000 top-level stone is 25 million Celestial Dao Coin; iron and copper together 3 million coin. Add construction fees—total 40 million. And that's not even counting the priceless Elemental Cores."
"Build! I'm not short on cash, and long-term this thing's awesome. I may not have much left in my balance, but I've got tons of assets—over 100 million gold in value, plus hundreds of millions-worth of unsold Divine Crossbows and Spirit Fruit." Yi Tian clenched his fist.
Yi Tian started planning out where to place it.
Before long, he jogged over to the designated spot.
The stream?
Wait till the Warrior Pavilion is up.
Yi Tian chose a spot 30 meters east of the villa. No other buildings were here yet.
With the Warrior Pavilion nearby, warriors could reach any of the four gates quickly. It's right next to the villa, so they could watch each other's backs.
In the auction house, Yi Tian went wild, stacking up supplies lightning fast on the open ground.
In just two hours, he spent 38 million in a frenzy.
Thankfully, he didn't need to upgrade the construction platform—level 4 was enough, or else he'd have to start selling off stuff.
Yi Tian guessed a building at this level was the limit for level-4 construction. Any more and he'd probably have to drop 50 million to upgrade the platform again.
"Warrior Pavilion: Gold Element Core*1, Wood Element Core*1, Water Element Core*1, Fire Element Core*1, Earth Element Core*1, Wind Element Core*1, Thunder Element Core*1, Light Element Core*1, Dark Element Core*1, gold*100,000, top-level stone*50,000, iron*1,000,000, copper*1,000,000, Celestial Dao Coin 2,000,000."
"Warrior Pavilion, build!"
Yi Tian placed the blueprint on the Level 4 Building Platform and issued a command to the Celestial Dao Stone.
The platform absorbed the blueprint first, its light sweeping over the construction materials, then began merging everything, shrouded in black light.
This build was super slow—the slowest Yi Tian had ever seen. Even the villa only took ten minutes.
The black glow grew higher and higher, beating ten floors tall.
An entire hour later, the black light finally faded.
A nine-story tower rose up from the ground, blending sci-fi with fantasy vibes.
Nine floors, nine colors, each floor over four meters high.
Above the nine stories was a nine-colored cone, jutting up twenty meters, getting pointier the higher, like a lightning rod.
If you include the cone on top, the building's over sixty meters tall.
The exterior material was dazzlingly shiny—not iron, not stone. Mysterious, enchanting, and gorgeous.
Next to the Warrior Pavilion, Yi Tian's deluxe villa looked instantly two grades lower.
If the Pavilion actually had windows, Yi Tian'd probably move in himself.
With the arrival of the Warrior Pavilion, it officially replaced the villa as the landmark of War Manor.
"Warrior Pavilion built successfully. Territory Points increased by 50,000. Current territory points (182,100/200,000)."
Celestial Dao Coin balance: 1,100,000.
Yi Tian called Feng Yi over and walked inside the Warrior Pavilion with him.
The first floor wasn't Wind Element's world—it was Gold Element's.
This Warrior Pavilion was over a thousand square meters. The first floor alone had four hundred stone 'single sofas.'
Yi Tian frowned at the sight.
The stone seats were spaced well apart—if you squeezed like a train station's waiting area, maybe fit two thousand people.
What if more than four hundred for the same element show up?
No windows, but it glowed inside like daytime.
Yi Tian noticed one wall covered in tons of tiny holes. No way those were just for air.
Yi Tian checked each floor, finally bringing Feng Yi up to the sixth—Wind Element's floor.
"Feng Yi, give it a try."
Yi Tian told Feng Yi.
"Yes, Lord."
After accepting the command, Feng Yi sat on the first seat.
The stone seat instantly resonated, shining with pale green light, wrapping Feng Yi up.
It was basically like a living creature's cultivation mode.
"Feng Yi, can you stop anytime when in this mode?" Yi Tian asked.
"Lord, I can stop whenever you summon me!" Feng Yi opened his eyes and replied.
"Great! When there's no battle, get stronger here!"
With that, Yi Tian moved upstairs.
He kept going till the Dark Element floor and sat on a stone seat to test—turns out he was overthinking it.
Back down to the first floor, the empty rows of seats gave Yi Tian a little stab of longing.
Suddenly, Yi Tian had a wild idea.
To fill every seat in the Warrior Pavilion with warriors.
After leaving the Pavilion, Yi Tian casually scanned with the Celestial Dao Stone. Loads of info on the Pavilion flooded his mind.
"Once all seats in the Warrior Pavilion are filled with warriors, the Elemental Worlds cycle; warriors' cultivation boost is doubled."
"Meaning every day gains 10 spiritual power, 2 strength, 4 agility, 6 constitution. Other than not taking spirit medicine, this beats even divine-level talent."
"Yi Tian did some rough calculations. Holy sh*t, looks like over five billion."
The numbers gave Yi Tian a headache.
If the Tool and Weapon Platforms could mass-produce, maybe possible. But producing them one at a time would be way too hard.
And!
Warrior blueprints! Element cores!
"I need to handle my assets—bet big on gold."
Yi Tian decided to stockpile gold like crazy, waiting for it to spike, then sell everything.
But something felt off...
"Damn, each warrior needs at least 10,000 gold. That's why."
"Fine, I'll stash even more gold!"
"Gold's value goes without saying. As one of the earliest to handle gold, Yi Tian knows its rise is inevitable."
Suddenly fired up, Yi Tian wished he could slam down ten more Energy Pills.
"Given everyone's development pace, gold should start rising in at most two months. I need to stockpile as much as I can in that time."
After the hype settled, Yi Tian quietly went back to laying out the stream. The kiddos finished gathering old seeds and sowed new ones, coming over to help him out.
After that scolding from Yi Tian, Little White didn't dare slack off, so it helped lay the stream in silence.
Originally, the whole thing should've finished that afternoon, but the Warrior Pavilion build delayed things a lot.
They were only done by the time the stream reached Lake One—it was already night.
The kiddos couldn't play in the water anymore; they'd have to wait for tomorrow.
After laying the stream, Yi Tian went alone to Lake Two to let the lake water flow into the stream.
Sitting up on the high ground, the stream rushed fast when first opened.
After a while, as it flowed into Lake One, the current began to slow.
The water was still really muddy; Yi Tian was sure by morning it'd be shimmering and crystal clear.
The deepest part of the stream was under three chi, the shallowest only half a chi.
Back at the villa, Yi Tian could hear the sound of water tumbling over the pebbles.
Thinking about how he just jumped over a whole zhang of stream to get rice from the granary—total low-tier move.
Tomorrow, he had to build some bridges. At the very least, connect the villa to the boutique warehouse.