We woke up super early. With no technology anywhere around to make an alarm, there was hardly any other choice for us but to wake up with the first shine of the sun that would warm us up through the cracks in the building.
Still.
We spent quite some time talking and cuddling. Then, we didn't hurry up while dressing up at all. And yet, by the time we walked out of our room and then our building, it was still early in the morning.
'It's early in the morning but everyone is already on their feet,' I thought when I saw just how busy the outside of the former auction house was.
It wasn't all that long since this town was attacked by those otherwordly hunters, leading to the death of several of the people I wanted to protect.
But right now, if one of the town's former residents were to return, they wouldn't be able to tell that anything out of the ordinary happened here. After all, how could they discern the destruction caused by those mana monsters from the marks left by the fighting between humans?
"I was ready for a huge number of them to be already out hunting," I muttered, only to feel Mia's hand squeeze my fingers.
"After what happened, I think they are quite wary of going into the wild," she pointed out.
The only reason why people died in this city even after we resettled it was due to me leaving it behind to go on a hunt with Mia. Now that I returned, though, and after I showcased how I was willing to go far to defend this place, people started to change what they associated safety with from the city itself to my presence.
"Well, that works for us," I said before stepping into the most crowded area and coming to a stop. "Everyone!" I then shouted before waiting for a few moments for people to stop what they were doing and turn their eyes toward me. "I need you all to gather up at the main hall!"
I didn't waste my time after uttering this order, turning around right away and heading back to the building we just left.
Between speaking to everyone out in the open and doing so in the confined area of the building, the second option was simply all that more practical.
After all, I was about to fire those people up quite a bit before revealing my true intentions!
"So, what's the plan?" Mia asked in a small voice as we walked back the way we came from.
"Showcase what my formation can do. Then agitate them by denouncing my willingness to use it as planned before showing them a new way of how things will work from now on."
Hearing my answer, Mia raised her eyes and stared at the side of my face for a while.
Yet, even though she couldn't know the details of the plan in my head, she only ended up shrugging her shoulders before fixing her grasp on my hand and then following me by my side in silence.
"You are not going to ask for details?" I asked, puzzled by how she didn't push any deeper into the answer that she had no right to properly understand.
"And what's the point of doing that?" Mia asked, raising her head only to show a face of total bewilderment. "It's not like you are going to keep it a secret for long. So, rather than having you repeat yourself," she smiled before taking a step closer and cuddling herself to my arm, "I can just wait a bit for you to explain it all to everyone."
Dang.
Looking at this particular situation from a wider perspective, Mia's decision to just sit tight and wait was pretty rational. Yet, for some strange reason, it only further served to cement her place in my heart.
After all, not bothering to inquire about my plans meant that she put all of her faith in me, trusting that whatever arrangement I had in mind would align with her own ideas and wishes!
'Well, I guess that makes sense,' I breathed out a small sigh right as we entered the main hall of the former auction house. 'There is no way I would do anything that would make her sad, after all!'
I stepped over the patch of fresh wood that covered up the entrance to whatever was hidden below the floor of the auction house's main auctioning room that we remodeled into the main hall.
Even though it wasn't long since we discovered this place, I, quite honestly, couldn't care less about it.
Until the day it would open all on its own to reveal what was inside, I'd already decided to just leave it be.
We had enough problems to deal with on our hands already, so there was no point in splitting my attention even further.
The people slowly filled up the main hall.
With how I didn't even remember the exact number of the settlers we had in the city right now, I didn't even bother to count them up. What was I supposed to compare the number of people in the hall to, without knowing what was the total number of people within the city?
Rather than counting the cultivators, I simply waited until a whole minute passed before someone new came in.
"Everyone, thank you for gathering here," I called out when I decided it was high time to break the news to everyone. "Today, I want to reveal to you the one thing that I used to buy your loyalty," I revealed… only to take two steps to the side.
And there it was.
Project that I spent about half an hour completing before adding several more hours of hard work just to limit what it was capable of. A cultivation formation that allowed anyone to make far more efficient use of any of the resources they were in possession of.
"Just like I announced when we first decided how things will work here, this formation can multiply the effects of the cultivation resources. If you could consume the energy of a spirit stone by cultivating it for an hour, you could either achieve the same results by cultivating for a mere minute inside of it or spend an hour absorbing far more energy than you would normally be able to suck out of said stone."
As proud as I was of my work, there was no way I could make it break the laws of physics. Those laws might be different than what I knew about from my past life, but they were laws nonetheless.
As such, the formation itself couldn't magically produce more energy from the limited amount within the resource used to fuel it. Just like I revealed to everyone, it could speed up the process by sucking the resource dry, cleaning the energy, and then making it far easier to absorb. Alternatively, it could raise the efficiency of using the energy from the said resource.
In other words, while one using the formation to get greater benefits from the same amount of resources could believe it added on to the energy of the resource… just like with the speeding up process, it simply cleaned it from impurities before turning it into a slow but steady nourishment that was far easier for cultivators to properly absorb.
"The truth is, I've limited what this formation is capable of just so I could slowly raise its ability, constantly proving how necessary I was to the growth of this place."
Revealing this truth went against everything that I had in mind when coming up with the idea for this small ploy in the first place.
Yet, I didn't feel bad doing so. I didn't feel bad when Mia gave me a weirded-out stare, confused by what I was talking about out loud. I didn't feel bad when my words easily agitated the gathered cultivators either.
"By slowly raising the ability of this formation I wanted you guys to slowly get used to its benefit. If I were to instantly allow you the use of what this formation is truly capable of, I'm worried some of you wouldn't be able to survive the pressure."
This time, my words changed.
Rather than justifying my modifications to the formation with my own self-interest, I made it look as if I was worried about those who were supposed to be using it.
My words were a sprinkle of water added to the fires that I'd started with my own words just a moment earlier.
But now, it was time for me to fan the flames again.
"It was my plan to let everyone grow at a steady pace while using said growth as an incentive to keep you all working hard," I revealed the ultimate reason, the ultimate scheme I created for turning this run-down and destroyed town into a new center of human civilization.
"But what happened recently made me change my mind," I shouted and put a huge grin on my face. "After the invasion of those fuckers, I realized that this world won't allow us to just grow in peace," I announced with a shake of my head.
"And that's why," I raised my foot, "this formation," I kept my knee up while staring down at the crowd gathered below the scene, "this formation is no longer necessary!"
I stomped my foot down, easily breaking the wood that I used as the canvas for the formation and disturbing the peaceful harmony between the stones used as the cornerstones of the array.
There was no fuel within the formation… but that didn't mean it was free of energy. Every stone, every crystal that I've used to create it had some lingering energy in it. The energy that I infused in those stones myself in order to make the activation of the formation that much smoother.
And now, all of this energy suddenly released, only serving to further mess up my creation.
Just like that, with a single stomp, the formation that was to be the foundation of the society within this city ceased to exist.
Everyone below the stage froze. Only a few of them got their chance to experience the blessings of this formation… but everyone was already aware of just how insane it was.
And now, without even a shred of hesitation, I fucked it all up.
'It's only a matter of time before their shock turns into anger which will then fuel them to riot,' I thought, a small smirk dancing in the corner of my lips.
"I've changed my mind because this world won't allow us the peace necessary to make this arrangement work!" I shouted right before the anger of the crowd could grow beyond what I could control with my words alone. "This world won't give us the chance to let everyone grow in peace!" I raised my voice to muffle the moral cries of anti-elitism that my soul raised.
"That's why, I'm going to pick the best out of you and do everything in my power to raise your strength instead!" I announced, finally revealing that I didn't gather everyone just to take a piss on their hopes of regaining the strength they lost along with the collapse of their old world.
"If we want to rebel against the horrors of this world, we have no other choice but to become horrors ourselves!" I screamed out, staring out into the distance and breathing heavily.
For a moment, I allowed my outcry to linger in the hall, before using my slow, steady breathing to seemingly calm myself down.
"Only terrors can fight against terrors. But to become terrors, I don't need those who are just willing," I explained in a strangely calm and composed tone. "I need those who boast the best talent among you and are willing to use it to defend this place from monsters," I put a short pause while darkening my expression, "even if they come hidden in the flesh of men."
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