Chapter 117
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Back at his store, Ben told Captain Kyler someone should be along shortly to relieve him.
He entered the store and led his two spies into his office. He placed the destroyed furniture into his inventory and brought out a table and three chairs.
"Now that we are alone what can you tell me about the cultivators who attacked the store?" Ben asked.
"We have been looking into rumors of this group being cultivators sent to disrupt the populace by the Rodara Kingdom. This groups mainly remains out of sight from the public eye. These dress like regular commoners so as not to stand out. The normal mode of operation is to remain in hiding and to only come out to threaten store owners or make examples of those who refuse to pay. The day before they attacked our store, Marius made a big discovery." Henrik looked over to Marius and nodded for him to continue.
"I was speaking with an owner who claimed to be forced into making protection payments. He said he had refused until they came into his store and destroyed his merchandise. He was told if he didn't pay they would return every week to destroy his store until he went out of business. As the owner was retelling his story he spotted a few of the men who were a part of the group walking past his store. I quickly thanked the owner and left to discreetly follow the group he pointed out. They had stopped at a few shops to collect money and then walked to a large house. The people I questioned told me it is the home of a low ranking noble. I wasn't sure why they had gone to the home so I remained hidden while watching the home. The group never left the home for the rest of the night. I found an out of the way spot to avoid the patrolling city guards and stayed there throughout the night. The next morning the men I was following left the home wearing different clothing. I figured this house must be their hideout and they were forcing the noble to remain quiet or he was working with the cultivators. Once they left the home I went to find Henrik at the inn he was staying at to tell him what I discovered. I was exhausted and wanted to get some sleep so I led him to the home and waited a few hours until the men returned. I pointed them all out to Henrik so he knew who to look for. I said good luck to him and made my back to the store and…" Marius looked down and could not continue.
Henrik placed his hand on Marius' shoulder and said, "Marius went back to the shop and the men who had left the house he was watching had gone to our store. He was the one who found everyone dead. It looked like they had entered the men's and women's apartments as they were waking up. Half of them were not even out of their beds and dressed yet."
Henrik reached into his pocket and pulled out a sheet of parchment with blood on it. He placed it on the table and slid it over to Ben.
"We found this pinned to one of the bodies."
____________________________________
To the owner of the Spirit Store;
We have given you and your employees many warnings which were ignored! We did not initially come to kill anyone but when we found the special door in the back of the store we ordered your employees to open it.
Our men entered each of their rooms and told them to open the door, but each and every one of them continued to refuse. We began to kill them one by one to scare the others into speaking but not one of them ever opened that door.
We know you must be hiding something extremely valuable hidden in there and we want to see it! We also want you to provide us with information on where you acquire your spirit foods from!
If you do not listen to our demands we will continue to destroy your store until you can no longer afford to restock it!
The next time we return we expect good news!
_________________________________________
"Why wouldn't they just open the damn door for them. There wasn't anything in there they could take and I wouldn't have cared if they destroyed the Warehouse and Market." Ben said with sadness in his voice.
"We are all loyal to you my lord and would willingly give up our lives to protect you and your livelihood. The merchants would rather die than to betray your trust."
Ben was glad his people were loyal to him but this was too much! It is one thing if they were defending Dragonshome from invaders but to die over a damn door is just…
When Ben asked what had been done with the merchant's bodies his spies told him the Dynasty had paid for their burials. All twenty of his employees were buried in the city graveyard. He would have rather of brought them back to Dragonshome to bury them but this city was more their home than Dragonshome is so it was fine if they were buried here.
He placed the bloody note in his inventory and had his men take him to where the house was located. They blended with the crowd on the streets while standing a couple of houses away from the target home.
Ben opened his map and found there were eleven people currently in the house. He had Athena mark each of them as a red enemy.
He gave his spies more money and ordered them to rent a cart and head to Greenlyn. He told them there was a store located there where they could make use of for anything they needed. It was too dangerous for them to remain here in Woodford City. For now, they had enough money to rent rooms at an inn and purchase meals for the next couple of weeks.
He was in a difficult position now, Ben was so angry he wanted to storm into the house and begin attacking everyone. The only problem is he had no idea how strong these cultivators are. There are a total of six cultivators so if they were close in cultivation to him or stronger it would be a dire situation where he could be killed.
'If only I had my sixty cultivator mages here we could make a move. My ship right now is out exploring to the south and will not return for a couple weeks. If I were to hire another naval crew to man the yacht it would take just as long to train them to know how to operate a steamship. I want to take care of these guys before Rodara invades. Once the invasion is routed these guys will more than likely escape off to somewhere or move to hide somewhere else.'
*Ding!* [I recommend you purchase the formations Profession and the space magic teleport spell. There are a few formations you would find helpful and you have wanted to learn how to make them for some time now. The formation which can solve your problems right now is the teleport formation. You can make a teleport formation in Dragonshome and one on this continent and link them. This will allow anyone who steps it them to be instantly teleported to the liked formation. These formations do require energy and they run off of space magic. If you purchase the space teleport spell you could use it to charge the crystals needed to power the teleport formations.]
Athena opened up the System Store to show two listings. The first is the Formations Profession and it had a price of 2000 gold coins. The second listing is the space teleport spell sold for 200 gold coins.
Ben went and sat down on a bench and purchased both of them together. He felt a slight pain in his head as the knowledge for both spell and profession were downloaded into his brain.
[Notice] [You have learned a new spell! Teleport: Apprentice: Level 1!]
[Notice] [You have learned a new profession! Formations Level 1!]
Teleport: The player can use space magic to teleport to any unblock location within twenty yards of his position. [Higher spell levels will allow you to teleport longer distances]
Formations Profession: Unlike a formation spell this profession allows you to create a number of formations. It is possible to also learn new formations with this knowledge and make them your own. [RESTRICTIONS: CAN NOT BE USED INSIDE OF UNOWNED CITIES AND TOWNS] [Higher profession levels will allow you to create formations which use less energy to operate]
'Hmm, this is strange, my formations profession has a restriction? It says it can't be used in unowed cities and towns?'
*Ding!* [There is no reason why it should not work in unowned towns or cities. I only know the system creator has placed a restriction on it. The only logical reason I can think of is to prevent you from abusing its use. If there wasn't a restriction then you could go and buy a property in the Rodara capital and create a teleport formation there. Then there is nothing to prevent you from teleporting your troops directly into the city and conquering it from the inside. It is the same as your Zoom spell there is no reason you could not instantly cast it but the creator has applied a one minute cast time to it. This is yet another way of preventing you from abusing it by casting Zoom in the middle of a disadvantageous fight.]
'I guess that makes sense most of the skills and spells I have available are, very "game like". The system creator used my games to create the system along with the spells, skills, and professions by studying my games. They must have understood why the games applied certain restrictions to them and decided to do the same. The system creator realized if everything is too easy I will never grow. I need to face hardships and to struggle if I want to keep ahead of the competition.'
With the new knowledge and an understanding of its uses, Ben walked off into an alley to cast Zoom. One minute later his spell activated and sent him to the military Training Grounds.
Ben opened his Build Menu to use the concrete and rebar tool to wall off the military Ground Force Barracks and Training FIelds. The new wall was connected to the outer wall and it allowed his troops to walk from the outer walls to the walls surrounding the Training area. One Gatehouse allowed his troops to freely come and go.
Dragonshome was beginning to bring in more and more strangers from around the land so it was time to block the view of his troops as they trained and to secure the area. Ben told the men patrolling the wall to begin stationing guards at the Gatehouse and to only allow military and royal employees entrance to the area.
Ben walked to the far end of the Training Grounds and built a concrete and rebar bunker. There was only one entrance with a three-inch thick steel door that could be opened with a fingerprint scanner. He installed lighting inside the bunker and a single light switch next to the door. There were no windows so it remained dark until he flipped the switch on.
From the System Store, he purchased a sculpting tools kit and a metal sculpting tools kit. Both kits had different size and shaped chisels and different sized hammers. The metal sculpting tools kit remained in his inventory. He opened the stone sculpting tools kit and sat down on the cold concrete floor.
He picked up a hammer and chisel and began to carefully chip away at the floor. Over the next couple of hours, a detail circle was etched into the floor with symbols and runic letters inside of the circle.
Ben was currently using his chisel to make an octagon shaped recessed socket in the center of the formation. When he finished he blew the concrete dust and chips out of the socket and stood up.
[Notice] Profession: Formations has increased! Formations Level 2!
He had to walk over to the Jewelry workshop to use the custom design menu. From the new information he learned, Ben drew out a template for a six inch long by four-inch thick octagon shaped prisms.
The new template was then used to craft crystals from his Mine into the shape of the octagon-shaped prism. Ben seldom used the crystals from his Mine and would normally just sell them to the System Store. It was nice that he now had something to actually use them for.
While the first few crystals were being cut, he returned to the bunker and sat down inside the formation. Ben removed one of the new octagon crystals from his inventory and began to project space magic energy into the crystal.
He watched the crystal as it gradually changed from transparent into a dark black crystal. Ben continued to fill another ten crystals before he placed them all in his inventory except for one.
He gingerly placed the crystal into the socket in the center of the formations and watched as the formation began to glow with a black light. The outer formation circle and symbols were all slowly pulsing now while being charged by the space crystal.
"This is incredible! I can't believe I will now have a way to teleport people long distances! There is a bit of work and skill involved in making these formations but once I have made one I can continue to move people back and forth as long as they remained charged!'
Ben excitedly watched the formation with a smile before he locked the bunker door and used Zoom to return to his store.
Ben equip his armor and weapons to clear his deserted store before he got to work. There was no telling when those cultivators may come back so he had to remain cautious. When he found the store empty he used his System Store and Build Menu to install a commercial alarm system in his store. On the roof of his store, he installed an air raid siren and wired it to his alarm.
Every section of his store now had motion detectors in it so if someone were to enter while his alarm was set it would trigger the air raid siren that is loud enough to wake up the entire city!
The moment that siren began to scream every guard in the city would come running to find out what the hell was going on. The new alarm system was set up to use a keypad by the front door, a keypad on the third floor, and it could be operated through his system. Any future employees could engage or disengage the alarm through the keypads.
After he installed the new alarm Ben went outside and locked the front door. He wasn't in the mood to deal with his store right now. Ben had made this store the flagship of his businesses. It was bigger and much more opulent than his other stores. It also had twice as many merchant employees.
He had worked hard to make this store stand out and it was now destroyed and tainted by yet another ambitious king who brought back memories of Soren Knotley. The Trareniel king is now dead and the way things were progressing the Rodara King might be following him.
Ben went to the Woodford City Royal Palace and spoke with the gentlemen who helped him find the property for his store. He informed him he wished to buy a few acres of land in a remote wilderness location.
Even though the kingdom officially owned all the land in its borders it truly did not own it. You can only own what you can control and with the endless bandits and merciless beasts roaming the wilderness it was difficult to say who the true owner was outside of the city and town walls.
This made it easy to sell lands in the wilderness. If the royal court could make money selling land invested with troublesome people or creatures it was a win, win for them. They made money by selling the land and hopefully the new owner would subjugate the surrounding wilderness.
Ben decided to purchase ten acres of land in the small forest located next to eastern ocean inlet. The land provided close access for ships to anchor nearby and it wasn't far from the Rodara border.
After paying his fees, Ben was given a deed to mark out ten acres of land in the northern section of the specified forest.
The lands in this era were not surveyed and divided into plots like those on Earth. When you purchased wilderness land you were provided a deed to claim land in the general area stated on the deed. As long as you marked out your property lines without claiming more land than you purchased it was considered to legally belong to you. This is as long as you did not become involved in criminal actions that could lead to your lands and titles being stripped away.
Ben left a message with the land commission employee for the monarch. The note stated he had figured out where the Rodara cultivators were hiding and he was making plans to deal with them. Ben stated he might be out of the city for a couple of days and he would stop by soon to inquire on their joint effort decision.
Ben thanked the friendly palace employee and left the city to travel northeast. The location of his new property is approximately one hundred miles from the capital city so he used his Whirlwind Technique and his acrobatics skill in tandem to traverses the wilderness at speeds near sixty miles per hour.
An hour and a half later he was in the general area of where his deed allowed him to claim land. Ben began exploring the forest to find the spot he wished to claim.
_____________________________
Walking along through the forest, Ben took out a couple low stage profound beasts who had taken up residence there. The mix of exotic trees and plants was different from those of the Wayward Woodlands.
It was an enjoyable atmosphere that helped Ben to settle down. He was listening to the sounds of running water in a small stream nearby while walking north.
He walked for about fifteen minutes through the woods and came out into a small clearing the center of the trees. The sun beat down on the small grassy meadow here and the sounds of the busy insects created a chorus of sounds.
'This looks like a nice enough place.' He thought while taking in the scenery.
Ben first thought about walling the area in and then decided against it. It wasn't necessary and he rather the spot remained low key.
Out in the center of the meadow, Ben began casting his Lower Earth spell to create a large indentation in the ground. The hole was around fifteen feet deep when he was done with a dirt ramp along one of the walls to allow people to walk down into or up from the hole.
Using the same design as he had at the military training fields, Ben made a solid concrete and rebar bunker in the hole.
When the bunker was complete Ben walked to the edge of the clearing and could not even tell there was a bunker built down in the hole he made. You had to actually walk out into the clearing before you would begin to see the hole and the roof of the bunker.
Inside the bunker, Ben used his stone sculpting tool kit to make another teleportation formation. By the time he finished the sun had gone down. The light inside the bunker cast a cozy glow that allowed him to place a charged crystal into the formation socket.
When the formation charged up and began to glow a system window opened asking if he wished to link the new formation. A list with one entry was displayed for the formation located in Dragonshome.
Ben clicked on the only entry on the list and the two formations were linked by the system.
Ben stepped into the formation and was instantly whisked off to find himself standing in a dark bunker. He was teleported to the bunker he built in Dragonshome! He now had a way to move his people across one thousand miles of ocean in the blink of an eye.
As a test, Ben removed the crystal from the formation for a couple of minutes and then returned it to the slot to power up the formation again. He then stepped into the formation and found he had returned to the lit bunker he built in the woods.
'This is perfect, I can actually remove one of the crystals and it will not break the link between the two formations. I was worried about leaving this formation here powered up. If someone broke into the bunker they would have access to teleport to Dragonshome.
Ben took the socketed crystal to shut down the formation and used Zoom to teleport back to Dragonshome.
'I guess I can cultivate until the morning and then round up my cultivators to go pay a visit to the nobles estate where the Rodara bastards are hiding out.'
He went into his QI Chamber next to his castle and prepared to cultivate for the new few hours.
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Back at his store, Ben told Captain Kyler someone should be along shortly to relieve him.
He entered the store and led his two spies into his office. He placed the destroyed furniture into his inventory and brought out a table and three chairs.
"Now that we are alone what can you tell me about the cultivators who attacked the store?" Ben asked.
"We have been looking into rumors of this group being cultivators sent to disrupt the populace by the Rodara Kingdom. This groups mainly remains out of sight from the public eye. These dress like regular commoners so as not to stand out. The normal mode of operation is to remain in hiding and to only come out to threaten store owners or make examples of those who refuse to pay. The day before they attacked our store, Marius made a big discovery." Henrik looked over to Marius and nodded for him to continue.
"I was speaking with an owner who claimed to be forced into making protection payments. He said he had refused until they came into his store and destroyed his merchandise. He was told if he didn't pay they would return every week to destroy his store until he went out of business. As the owner was retelling his story he spotted a few of the men who were a part of the group walking past his store. I quickly thanked the owner and left to discreetly follow the group he pointed out. They had stopped at a few shops to collect money and then walked to a large house. The people I questioned told me it is the home of a low ranking noble. I wasn't sure why they had gone to the home so I remained hidden while watching the home. The group never left the home for the rest of the night. I found an out of the way spot to avoid the patrolling city guards and stayed there throughout the night. The next morning the men I was following left the home wearing different clothing. I figured this house must be their hideout and they were forcing the noble to remain quiet or he was working with the cultivators. Once they left the home I went to find Henrik at the inn he was staying at to tell him what I discovered. I was exhausted and wanted to get some sleep so I led him to the home and waited a few hours until the men returned. I pointed them all out to Henrik so he knew who to look for. I said good luck to him and made my back to the store and…" Marius looked down and could not continue.
Henrik placed his hand on Marius' shoulder and said, "Marius went back to the shop and the men who had left the house he was watching had gone to our store. He was the one who found everyone dead. It looked like they had entered the men's and women's apartments as they were waking up. Half of them were not even out of their beds and dressed yet."
Henrik reached into his pocket and pulled out a sheet of parchment with blood on it. He placed it on the table and slid it over to Ben.
"We found this pinned to one of the bodies."
____________________________________
To the owner of the Spirit Store;
We have given you and your employees many warnings which were ignored! We did not initially come to kill anyone but when we found the special door in the back of the store we ordered your employees to open it.
Our men entered each of their rooms and told them to open the door, but each and every one of them continued to refuse. We began to kill them one by one to scare the others into speaking but not one of them ever opened that door.
We know you must be hiding something extremely valuable hidden in there and we want to see it! We also want you to provide us with information on where you acquire your spirit foods from!
If you do not listen to our demands we will continue to destroy your store until you can no longer afford to restock it!
The next time we return we expect good news!
_________________________________________
"Why wouldn't they just open the damn door for them. There wasn't anything in there they could take and I wouldn't have cared if they destroyed the Warehouse and Market." Ben said with sadness in his voice.
"We are all loyal to you my lord and would willingly give up our lives to protect you and your livelihood. The merchants would rather die than to betray your trust."
Ben was glad his people were loyal to him but this was too much! It is one thing if they were defending Dragonshome from invaders but to die over a damn door is just…
When Ben asked what had been done with the merchant's bodies his spies told him the Dynasty had paid for their burials. All twenty of his employees were buried in the city graveyard. He would have rather of brought them back to Dragonshome to bury them but this city was more their home than Dragonshome is so it was fine if they were buried here.
He placed the bloody note in his inventory and had his men take him to where the house was located. They blended with the crowd on the streets while standing a couple of houses away from the target home.
Ben opened his map and found there were eleven people currently in the house. He had Athena mark each of them as a red enemy.
He gave his spies more money and ordered them to rent a cart and head to Greenlyn. He told them there was a store located there where they could make use of for anything they needed. It was too dangerous for them to remain here in Woodford City. For now, they had enough money to rent rooms at an inn and purchase meals for the next couple of weeks.
He was in a difficult position now, Ben was so angry he wanted to storm into the house and begin attacking everyone. The only problem is he had no idea how strong these cultivators are. There are a total of six cultivators so if they were close in cultivation to him or stronger it would be a dire situation where he could be killed.
'If only I had my sixty cultivator mages here we could make a move. My ship right now is out exploring to the south and will not return for a couple weeks. If I were to hire another naval crew to man the yacht it would take just as long to train them to know how to operate a steamship. I want to take care of these guys before Rodara invades. Once the invasion is routed these guys will more than likely escape off to somewhere or move to hide somewhere else.'
*Ding!* [I recommend you purchase the formations Profession and the space magic teleport spell. There are a few formations you would find helpful and you have wanted to learn how to make them for some time now. The formation which can solve your problems right now is the teleport formation. You can make a teleport formation in Dragonshome and one on this continent and link them. This will allow anyone who steps it them to be instantly teleported to the liked formation. These formations do require energy and they run off of space magic. If you purchase the space teleport spell you could use it to charge the crystals needed to power the teleport formations.]
Athena opened up the System Store to show two listings. The first is the Formations Profession and it had a price of 2000 gold coins. The second listing is the space teleport spell sold for 200 gold coins.
Ben went and sat down on a bench and purchased both of them together. He felt a slight pain in his head as the knowledge for both spell and profession were downloaded into his brain.
[Notice] [You have learned a new spell! Teleport: Apprentice: Level 1!]
[Notice] [You have learned a new profession! Formations Level 1!]
Teleport: The player can use space magic to teleport to any unblock location within twenty yards of his position. [Higher spell levels will allow you to teleport longer distances]
Formations Profession: Unlike a formation spell this profession allows you to create a number of formations. It is possible to also learn new formations with this knowledge and make them your own. [RESTRICTIONS: CAN NOT BE USED INSIDE OF UNOWNED CITIES AND TOWNS] [Higher profession levels will allow you to create formations which use less energy to operate]
'Hmm, this is strange, my formations profession has a restriction? It says it can't be used in unowed cities and towns?'
*Ding!* [There is no reason why it should not work in unowned towns or cities. I only know the system creator has placed a restriction on it. The only logical reason I can think of is to prevent you from abusing its use. If there wasn't a restriction then you could go and buy a property in the Rodara capital and create a teleport formation there. Then there is nothing to prevent you from teleporting your troops directly into the city and conquering it from the inside. It is the same as your Zoom spell there is no reason you could not instantly cast it but the creator has applied a one minute cast time to it. This is yet another way of preventing you from abusing it by casting Zoom in the middle of a disadvantageous fight.]
'I guess that makes sense most of the skills and spells I have available are, very "game like". The system creator used my games to create the system along with the spells, skills, and professions by studying my games. They must have understood why the games applied certain restrictions to them and decided to do the same. The system creator realized if everything is too easy I will never grow. I need to face hardships and to struggle if I want to keep ahead of the competition.'
With the new knowledge and an understanding of its uses, Ben walked off into an alley to cast Zoom. One minute later his spell activated and sent him to the military Training Grounds.
Ben opened his Build Menu to use the concrete and rebar tool to wall off the military Ground Force Barracks and Training FIelds. The new wall was connected to the outer wall and it allowed his troops to walk from the outer walls to the walls surrounding the Training area. One Gatehouse allowed his troops to freely come and go.
Dragonshome was beginning to bring in more and more strangers from around the land so it was time to block the view of his troops as they trained and to secure the area. Ben told the men patrolling the wall to begin stationing guards at the Gatehouse and to only allow military and royal employees entrance to the area.
Ben walked to the far end of the Training Grounds and built a concrete and rebar bunker. There was only one entrance with a three-inch thick steel door that could be opened with a fingerprint scanner. He installed lighting inside the bunker and a single light switch next to the door. There were no windows so it remained dark until he flipped the switch on.
From the System Store, he purchased a sculpting tools kit and a metal sculpting tools kit. Both kits had different size and shaped chisels and different sized hammers. The metal sculpting tools kit remained in his inventory. He opened the stone sculpting tools kit and sat down on the cold concrete floor.
He picked up a hammer and chisel and began to carefully chip away at the floor. Over the next couple of hours, a detail circle was etched into the floor with symbols and runic letters inside of the circle.
Ben was currently using his chisel to make an octagon shaped recessed socket in the center of the formation. When he finished he blew the concrete dust and chips out of the socket and stood up.
[Notice] Profession: Formations has increased! Formations Level 2!
He had to walk over to the Jewelry workshop to use the custom design menu. From the new information he learned, Ben drew out a template for a six inch long by four-inch thick octagon shaped prisms.
The new template was then used to craft crystals from his Mine into the shape of the octagon-shaped prism. Ben seldom used the crystals from his Mine and would normally just sell them to the System Store. It was nice that he now had something to actually use them for.
While the first few crystals were being cut, he returned to the bunker and sat down inside the formation. Ben removed one of the new octagon crystals from his inventory and began to project space magic energy into the crystal.
He watched the crystal as it gradually changed from transparent into a dark black crystal. Ben continued to fill another ten crystals before he placed them all in his inventory except for one.
He gingerly placed the crystal into the socket in the center of the formations and watched as the formation began to glow with a black light. The outer formation circle and symbols were all slowly pulsing now while being charged by the space crystal.
"This is incredible! I can't believe I will now have a way to teleport people long distances! There is a bit of work and skill involved in making these formations but once I have made one I can continue to move people back and forth as long as they remained charged!'
Ben excitedly watched the formation with a smile before he locked the bunker door and used Zoom to return to his store.
Ben equip his armor and weapons to clear his deserted store before he got to work. There was no telling when those cultivators may come back so he had to remain cautious. When he found the store empty he used his System Store and Build Menu to install a commercial alarm system in his store. On the roof of his store, he installed an air raid siren and wired it to his alarm.
Every section of his store now had motion detectors in it so if someone were to enter while his alarm was set it would trigger the air raid siren that is loud enough to wake up the entire city!
The moment that siren began to scream every guard in the city would come running to find out what the hell was going on. The new alarm system was set up to use a keypad by the front door, a keypad on the third floor, and it could be operated through his system. Any future employees could engage or disengage the alarm through the keypads.
After he installed the new alarm Ben went outside and locked the front door. He wasn't in the mood to deal with his store right now. Ben had made this store the flagship of his businesses. It was bigger and much more opulent than his other stores. It also had twice as many merchant employees.
He had worked hard to make this store stand out and it was now destroyed and tainted by yet another ambitious king who brought back memories of Soren Knotley. The Trareniel king is now dead and the way things were progressing the Rodara King might be following him.
Ben went to the Woodford City Royal Palace and spoke with the gentlemen who helped him find the property for his store. He informed him he wished to buy a few acres of land in a remote wilderness location.
Even though the kingdom officially owned all the land in its borders it truly did not own it. You can only own what you can control and with the endless bandits and merciless beasts roaming the wilderness it was difficult to say who the true owner was outside of the city and town walls.
This made it easy to sell lands in the wilderness. If the royal court could make money selling land invested with troublesome people or creatures it was a win, win for them. They made money by selling the land and hopefully the new owner would subjugate the surrounding wilderness.
Ben decided to purchase ten acres of land in the small forest located next to eastern ocean inlet. The land provided close access for ships to anchor nearby and it wasn't far from the Rodara border.
After paying his fees, Ben was given a deed to mark out ten acres of land in the northern section of the specified forest.
The lands in this era were not surveyed and divided into plots like those on Earth. When you purchased wilderness land you were provided a deed to claim land in the general area stated on the deed. As long as you marked out your property lines without claiming more land than you purchased it was considered to legally belong to you. This is as long as you did not become involved in criminal actions that could lead to your lands and titles being stripped away.
Ben left a message with the land commission employee for the monarch. The note stated he had figured out where the Rodara cultivators were hiding and he was making plans to deal with them. Ben stated he might be out of the city for a couple of days and he would stop by soon to inquire on their joint effort decision.
Ben thanked the friendly palace employee and left the city to travel northeast. The location of his new property is approximately one hundred miles from the capital city so he used his Whirlwind Technique and his acrobatics skill in tandem to traverses the wilderness at speeds near sixty miles per hour.
An hour and a half later he was in the general area of where his deed allowed him to claim land. Ben began exploring the forest to find the spot he wished to claim.
_____________________________
Walking along through the forest, Ben took out a couple low stage profound beasts who had taken up residence there. The mix of exotic trees and plants was different from those of the Wayward Woodlands.
It was an enjoyable atmosphere that helped Ben to settle down. He was listening to the sounds of running water in a small stream nearby while walking north.
He walked for about fifteen minutes through the woods and came out into a small clearing the center of the trees. The sun beat down on the small grassy meadow here and the sounds of the busy insects created a chorus of sounds.
'This looks like a nice enough place.' He thought while taking in the scenery.
Ben first thought about walling the area in and then decided against it. It wasn't necessary and he rather the spot remained low key.
Out in the center of the meadow, Ben began casting his Lower Earth spell to create a large indentation in the ground. The hole was around fifteen feet deep when he was done with a dirt ramp along one of the walls to allow people to walk down into or up from the hole.
Using the same design as he had at the military training fields, Ben made a solid concrete and rebar bunker in the hole.
When the bunker was complete Ben walked to the edge of the clearing and could not even tell there was a bunker built down in the hole he made. You had to actually walk out into the clearing before you would begin to see the hole and the roof of the bunker.
Inside the bunker, Ben used his stone sculpting tool kit to make another teleportation formation. By the time he finished the sun had gone down. The light inside the bunker cast a cozy glow that allowed him to place a charged crystal into the formation socket.
When the formation charged up and began to glow a system window opened asking if he wished to link the new formation. A list with one entry was displayed for the formation located in Dragonshome.
Ben clicked on the only entry on the list and the two formations were linked by the system.
Ben stepped into the formation and was instantly whisked off to find himself standing in a dark bunker. He was teleported to the bunker he built in Dragonshome! He now had a way to move his people across one thousand miles of ocean in the blink of an eye.
As a test, Ben removed the crystal from the formation for a couple of minutes and then returned it to the slot to power up the formation again. He then stepped into the formation and found he had returned to the lit bunker he built in the woods.
'This is perfect, I can actually remove one of the crystals and it will not break the link between the two formations. I was worried about leaving this formation here powered up. If someone broke into the bunker they would have access to teleport to Dragonshome.
Ben took the socketed crystal to shut down the formation and used Zoom to teleport back to Dragonshome.
'I guess I can cultivate until the morning and then round up my cultivators to go pay a visit to the nobles estate where the Rodara bastards are hiding out.'
He went into his QI Chamber next to his castle and prepared to cultivate for the new few hours.
Back at his store, Ben told Captain Kyler someone should be along shortly to relieve him.He entered the store and led his two spies into his office. He placed the destroyed furniture into his inventory and brought out a table and three chairs."Now that we are alone what can you tell me about the cultivators who attacked the store?" Ben asked."We have been looking into rumors of this group being cultivators sent to disrupt the populace by the Rodara Kingdom. This groups mainly remains out of sight from the public eye. These dress like regular commoners so as not to stand out. The normal mode of operation is to remain in hiding and to only come out to threaten store owners or make examples of those who refuse to pay. The day before they attacked our store, Marius made a big discovery." Henrik looked over to Marius and nodded for him to continue."I was speaking with an owner who claimed to be forced into making protection payments. He said he had refused until they came into his store and destroyed his merchandise. He was told if he didn't pay they would return every week to destroy his store until he went out of business. As the owner was retelling his story he spotted a few of the men who were a part of the group walking past his store. I quickly thanked the owner and left to discreetly follow the group he pointed out. They had stopped at a few shops to collect money and then walked to a large house. The people I questioned told me it is the home of a low ranking noble. I wasn't sure why they had gone to the home so I remained hidden while watching the home. The group never left the home for the rest of the night. I found an out of the way spot to avoid the patrolling city guards and stayed there throughout the night. The next morning the men I was following left the home wearing different clothing. I figured this house must be their hideout and they were forcing the noble to remain quiet or he was working with the cultivators. Once they left the home I went to find Henrik at the inn he was staying at to tell him what I discovered. I was exhausted and wanted to get some sleep so I led him to the home and waited a few hours until the men returned. I pointed them all out to Henrik so he knew who to look for. I said good luck to him and made my back to the store and" Marius looked down and could not continue.Henrik placed his hand on Marius' shoulder and said, "Marius went back to the shop and the men who had left the house he was watching had gone to our store. He was the one who found everyone dead. It looked like they had entered the men's and women's apartments as they were waking up. Half of them were not even out of their beds and dressed yet."Henrik reached into his pocket and pulled out a sheet of parchment with blood on it. He placed it on the table and slid it over to Ben."We found this pinned to one of the bodies."____________________________________To the owner of the Spirit Store;We have given you and your employees many warnings which were ignored! We did not initially come to kill anyone but when we found the special door in the back of the store we ordered your employees to open it.Our men entered each of their rooms and told them to open the door, but each and every one of them continued to refuse. We began to kill them one by one to scare the others into speaking but not one of them ever opened that door.We know you must be hiding something extremely valuable hidden in there and we want to see it! We also want you to provide us with information on where you acquire your spirit foods from!If you do not listen to our demands we will continue to destroy your store until you can no longer afford to restock it!The next time we return we expect good news!_________________________________________"Why wouldn't they just open the damn door for them. There wasn't anything in there they could take and I wouldn't have cared if they destroyed the Warehouse and Market." Ben said with sadness in his voice."We are all loyal to you my lord and would willingly give up our lives to protect you and your livelihood. The merchants would rather die than to betray your trust."Ben was glad his people were loyal to him but this was too much! It is one thing if they were defending Dragonshome from invaders but to die over a damn door is justWhen Ben asked what had been done with the merchant's bodies his spies told him the Dynasty had paid for their burials. All twenty of his employees were buried in the city graveyard. He would have rather of brought them back to Dragonshome to bury them but this city was more their home than Dragonshome is so it was fine if they were buried here.He placed the bloody note in his inventory and had his men take him to where the house was located. They blended with the crowd on the streets while standing a couple of houses away from the target home.Ben opened his map and found there were eleven people currently in the house. He had Athena mark each of them as a red enemy.He gave his spies more money and ordered them to rent a cart and head to Greenlyn. He told them there was a store located there where they could make use of for anything they needed. It was too dangerous for them to remain here in Woodford City. For now, they had enough money to rent rooms at an inn and purchase meals for the next couple of weeks.He was in a difficult position now, Ben was so angry he wanted to storm into the house and begin attacking everyone. The only problem is he had no idea how strong these cultivators are. There are a total of six cultivators so if they were close in cultivation to him or stronger it would be a dire situation where he could be killed.'If only I had my sixty cultivator mages here we could make a move. My ship right now is out exploring to the south and will not return for a couple weeks. If I were to hire another naval crew to man the yacht it would take just as long to train them to know how to operate a steamship. I want to take care of these guys before Rodara invades. Once the invasion is routed these guys will more than likely escape off to somewhere or move to hide somewhere else.'*Ding!* I recommend you purchase the formations Profession and the space magic teleport spell. There are a few formations you would find helpful and you have wanted to learn how to make them for some time now. The formation which can solve your problems right now is the teleport formation. You can make a teleport formation in Dragonshome and one on this continent and link them. This will allow anyone who steps it them to be instantly teleported to the liked formation. These formations do require energy and they run off of space magic. If you purchase the space teleport spell you could use it to charge the crystals needed to power the teleport formations.Athena opened up the System Store to show two listings. The first is the Formations Profession and it had a price of 2000 gold coins. The second listing is the space teleport spell sold for 200 gold coins.Ben went and sat down on a bench and purchased both of them together. He felt a slight pain in his head as the knowledge for both spell and profession were downloaded into his brain.Notice You have learned a new spell! Teleport: Apprentice: Level 1!Notice You have learned a new profession! Formations Level 1!Teleport: The player can use space magic to teleport to any unblock location within twenty yards of his position. Higher spell levels will allow you to teleport longer distancesFormations Profession: Unlike a formation spell this profession allows you to create a number of formations. It is possible to also learn new formations with this knowledge and make them your own. RESTRICTIONS: CAN NOT BE USED INSIDE OF UNOWNED CITIES AND TOWNS Higher profession levels will allow you to create formations which use less energy to operate'Hmm, this is strange, my formations profession has a restriction? It says it can't be used in unowed cities and towns?'*Ding!* There is no reason why it should not work in unowned towns or cities. I only know the system creator has placed a restriction on it. The only logical reason I can think of is to prevent you from abusing its use. If there wasn't a restriction then you could go and buy a property in the Rodara capital and create a teleport formation there. Then there is nothing to prevent you from teleporting your troops directly into the city and conquering it from the inside. It is the same as your Zoom spell there is no reason you could not instantly cast it but the creator has applied a one minute cast time to it. This is yet another way of preventing you from abusing it by casting Zoom in the middle of a disadvantageous fight.'I guess that makes sense most of the skills and spells I have available are, very "game like". The system creator used my games to create the system along with the spells, skills, and professions by studying my games. They must have understood why the games applied certain restrictions to them and decided to do the same. The system creator realized if everything is too easy I will never grow. I need to face hardships and to struggle if I want to keep ahead of the competition.'With the new knowledge and an understanding of its uses, Ben walked off into an alley to cast Zoom. One minute later his spell activated and sent him to the military Training Grounds.Ben opened his Build Menu to use the concrete and rebar tool to wall off the military Ground Force Barracks and Training FIelds. The new wall was connected to the outer wall and it allowed his troops to walk from the outer walls to the walls surrounding the Training area. One Gatehouse allowed his troops to freely come and go.Dragonshome was beginning to bring in more and more strangers from around the land so it was time to block the view of his troops as they trained and to secure the area. Ben told the men patrolling the wall to begin stationing guards at the Gatehouse and to only allow military and royal employees entrance to the area.Ben walked to the far end of the Training Grounds and built a concrete and rebar bunker. There was only one entrance with a three-inch thick steel door that could be opened with a fingerprint scanner. He installed lighting inside the bunker and a single light switch next to the door. There were no windows so it remained dark until he flipped the switch on.From the System Store, he purchased a sculpting tools kit and a metal sculpting tools kit. Both kits had different size and shaped chisels and different sized hammers. The metal sculpting tools kit remained in his inventory. He opened the stone sculpting tools kit and sat down on the cold concrete floor.He picked up a hammer and chisel and began to carefully chip away at the floor. Over the next couple of hours, a detail circle was etched into the floor with symbols and runic letters inside of the circle.Ben was currently using his chisel to make an octagon shaped recessed socket in the center of the formation. When he finished he blew the concrete dust and chips out of the socket and stood up.Notice Profession: Formations has increased! Formations Level 2!He had to walk over to the Jewelry workshop to use the custom design menu. From the new information he learned, Ben drew out a template for a six inch long by four-inch thick octagon shaped prisms.The new template was then used to craft crystals from his Mine into the shape of the octagon-shaped prism. Ben seldom used the crystals from his Mine and would normally just sell them to the System Store. It was nice that he now had something to actually use them for.While the first few crystals were being cut, he returned to the bunker and sat down inside the formation. Ben removed one of the new octagon crystals from his inventory and began to project space magic energy into the crystal.He watched the crystal as it gradually changed from transparent into a dark black crystal. Ben continued to fill another ten crystals before he placed them all in his inventory except for one.He gingerly placed the crystal into the socket in the center of the formations and watched as the formation began to glow with a black light. The outer formation circle and symbols were all slowly pulsing now while being charged by the space crystal."This is incredible! I can't believe I will now have a way to teleport people long distances! There is a bit of work and skill involved in making these formations but once I have made one I can continue to move people back and forth as long as they remained charged!'Ben excitedly watched the formation with a smile before he locked the bunker door and used Zoom to return to his store.Ben equip his armor and weapons to clear his deserted store before he got to work. There was no telling when those cultivators may come back so he had to remain cautious. When he found the store empty he used his System Store and Build Menu to install a commercial alarm system in his store. On the roof of his store, he installed an air raid siren and wired it to his alarm.Every section of his store now had motion detectors in it so if someone were to enter while his alarm was set it would trigger the air raid siren that is loud enough to wake up the entire city!The moment that siren began to scream every guard in the city would come running to find out what the hell was going on. The new alarm system was set up to use a keypad by the front door, a keypad on the third floor, and it could be operated through his system. Any future employees could engage or disengage the alarm through the keypads.After he installed the new alarm Ben went outside and locked the front door. He wasn't in the mood to deal with his store right now. Ben had made this store the flagship of his businesses. It was bigger and much more opulent than his other stores. It also had twice as many merchant employees.He had worked hard to make this store stand out and it was now destroyed and tainted by yet another ambitious king who brought back memories of Soren Knotley. The Trareniel king is now dead and the way things were progressing the Rodara King might be following him.Ben went to the Woodford City Royal Palace and spoke with the gentlemen who helped him find the property for his store. He informed him he wished to buy a few acres of land in a remote wilderness location.Even though the kingdom officially owned all the land in its borders it truly did not own it. You can only own what you can control and with the endless bandits and merciless beasts roaming the wilderness it was difficult to say who the true owner was outside of the city and town walls.This made it easy to sell lands in the wilderness. If the royal court could make money selling land invested with troublesome people or creatures it was a win, win for them. They made money by selling the land and hopefully the new owner would subjugate the surrounding wilderness.Ben decided to purchase ten acres of land in the small forest located next to eastern ocean inlet. The land provided close access for ships to anchor nearby and it wasn't far from the Rodara border.After paying his fees, Ben was given a deed to mark out ten acres of land in the northern section of the specified forest.The lands in this era were not surveyed and divided into plots like those on Earth. When you purchased wilderness land you were provided a deed to claim land in the general area stated on the deed. As long as you marked out your property lines without claiming more land than you purchased it was considered to legally belong to you. This is as long as you did not become involved in criminal actions that could lead to your lands and titles being stripped away.Ben left a message with the land commission employee for the monarch. The note stated he had figured out where the Rodara cultivators were hiding and he was making plans to deal with them. Ben stated he might be out of the city for a couple of days and he would stop by soon to inquire on their joint effort decision.Ben thanked the friendly palace employee and left the city to travel northeast. The location of his new property is approximately one hundred miles from the capital city so he used his Whirlwind Technique and his acrobatics skill in tandem to traverses the wilderness at speeds near sixty miles per hour.An hour and a half later he was in the general area of where his deed allowed him to claim land. Ben began exploring the forest to find the spot he wished to claim._____________________________Walking along through the forest, Ben took out a couple low stage profound beasts who had taken up residence there. The mix of exotic trees and plants was different from those of the Wayward Woodlands.It was an enjoyable atmosphere that helped Ben to settle down. He was listening to the sounds of running water in a small stream nearby while walking north.He walked for about fifteen minutes through the woods and came out into a small clearing the center of the trees. The sun beat down on the small grassy meadow here and the sounds of the busy insects created a chorus of sounds.'This looks like a nice enough place.' He thought while taking in the scenery.Ben first thought about walling the area in and then decided against it. It wasn't necessary and he rather the spot remained low key.Out in the center of the meadow, Ben began casting his Lower Earth spell to create a large indentation in the ground. The hole was around fifteen feet deep when he was done with a dirt ramp along one of the walls to allow people to walk down into or up from the hole.Using the same design as he had at the military training fields, Ben made a solid concrete and rebar bunker in the hole.When the bunker was complete Ben walked to the edge of the clearing and could not even tell there was a bunker built down in the hole he made. You had to actually walk out into the clearing before you would begin to see the hole and the roof of the bunker.Inside the bunker, Ben used his stone sculpting tool kit to make another teleportation formation. By the time he finished the sun had gone down. The light inside the bunker cast a cozy glow that allowed him to place a charged crystal into the formation socket.When the formation charged up and began to glow a system window opened asking if he wished to link the new formation. A list with one entry was displayed for the formation located in Dragonshome.Ben clicked on the only entry on the list and the two formations were linked by the system.Ben stepped into the formation and was instantly whisked off to find himself standing in a dark bunker. He was teleported to the bunker he built in Dragonshome! He now had a way to move his people across one thousand miles of ocean in the blink of an eye.As a test, Ben removed the crystal from the formation for a couple of minutes and then returned it to the slot to power up the formation again. He then stepped into the formation and found he had returned to the lit bunker he built in the woods.'This is perfect, I can actually remove one of the crystals and it will not break the link between the two formations. I was worried about leaving this formation here powered up. If someone broke into the bunker they would have access to teleport to Dragonshome.Ben took the socketed crystal to shut down the formation and used Zoom to teleport back to Dragonshome.'I guess I can cultivate until the morning and then round up my cultivators to go pay a visit to the nobles estate where the Rodara bastards are hiding out.'He went into his QI Chamber next to his castle and prepared to cultivate for the new few hours.
