God Of Crafting

The fact that we left the viewing platform that overlooked the ancient forest from above didn't mean we were ready to leave the place yet.

After all, save for learning about this kind of challenge I would soon have to overcome, I didn't really get any information about this place at all!

Claire appeared to understand this problem, seeing how instead back to the car, she led me down a path hidden perfectly well by what looked like natural overgrowth of the bushes, all the way down the small hill and to where, right by the edge of the cleared-out border area of the zone, stood a huge, wooden hut.

"A boarding house?" I asked, voicing out the first suggestion that came to my mind.

"More like, an administration building," Claire sighed before leading the way and stepping inside this three-story high building that was way too big for anyone to keep hidden yet was made up with materials most likely sourced from this very area, in the desperate hopes that the similar colors and patterns would somehow make this building well-hidden from an outsider's eye.

Then again, the first thing that I thought when we got inside, was how my guess of this building's purpose was much closer aligned to how it looked from the inside than Claire's claim.

Only then did it strike me just how big of a contrast there was between the building's outside and its interior.

From the outside, it was an oversized, wooden hut that robbed its visitors of any hope for running, hot water, or electricity inside.

Once passing through the main doorway and then through the second pair of doors at the end of the windcatcher, we stepped into what could only be called a resort.

What appeared like just a plain, wooden wall from the outside now turned out to be mere masking of a massive, glass panel that spanned the entire side of the building's wall, allowing the guests to freely amuse themselves with the beautiful view of the ancient forest.

The furnishing was done with only the most comfortable of pieces, ranging from huge sofas, through deep, elegant chairs all the way to three sets of high seats by what looked like individual bars.

Then, there was the usual set-up one could expect from a resort consisting of reception, outer-wear changing area, and some tables for people to sit and discuss their matters.

The bright, flashing lights made sure no one had any doubt about where to find the resort's toilets, which most likely indeed had both running and hot water.

"What a weird place," I muttered as I silently followed after Claire who appeared to know exactly where to go and what to do.

First, she ignored the reception, opting to head for the staircase right away. Then, she brought us all the way to the very top floor… Only to move across the main hall and then find another set of stairs that she then made us take all the way back to the bottom floor… and then, even deeper, into the cellar.

'Wait, this doesn't look like a basement…' I thought when the elegant furnishing and finishing of the walls turned into a solid if not outright brutal look of the thick, concrete walls and even thicker, steel blast-doors hanging off the hinges many times thicker than my leg.

'This is a fucking bunker, isn't it?'

At this point, I could hardly be any more surprised… or impressed. After all, once I gave it some thought…

It only made sense for a retreat built for cultivators would be comparable in quality to five-star hotels back in the city, given how extremely pricey the cultivation materials were. In other words, if someone was strong enough to pay this place a visit, the amount of resources they had to consume on the way made them very well rich enough to pay for their lodging fee.

And just like that, the presence of a solid bunker also only made sense, when save for what looked like a rather flimsy barrier, there was nothing stopping the monsters of those ancestral woods from breaking free and wreaking havoc at the nearest building they could find, where all the cultivators, weary from their past hunts or merely preparing for their first one would assume themselves to be safe.

It only made sense… but that didn't mean it made it any easier for me to feel comfortable as I walked through those narrower and narrower corridors.

Thankfully, Claire didn't intend to take me all that far. Instead, she soon took a turn and plunged into an even narrower corridor, only to then pull out some sort of a card, press it against what appeared to be just another piece of the bunker's wall…

Only for the wall itself to suddenly open up, revealing a seam so perfect it was impossible to notice it on one's own. And as those doors opened up, Claire reached out with her hand and smiled, pointing at the small but perfectly comfortable room hidden within.

"This is the clans' viewing platform proper," Claire announced, only to grab my head and pull me inside before hurriedly pressing her card against the inner side of the wall, causing it to swish again and seal the entrance behind us.

Then, as if by a touch of a magic wand, the whole of the wall suddenly lit up as one… only to then split up into a few dozen, uniformly shaped and sized squares. Squares that soon revealed their boundaries before clarifying their content, revealing an extensive network of cameras feeding directly into the system mounted on the wall!

"Take a seat, relax, and be ready to start taking notes," Claire called me out while taking a seat and grabbing what looked like some sort of a remote from a small stand by the edge of the main sofa.

"Those cameras are from the clans' private investment into the reservation and are exclusive just to this room. Or, in other words…"

"No matter where you go in those woods, there will be someone watching?" I attempted to finish up the sentence Claire left hanging.

"That's right," the girl nodded her head with a small smile before reaching out and passing over the remote. "That's just one of the things that you absolutely need to keep in mind at all times. But it wouldn't be a good place to train if you couldn't manifest your abilities safely, wouldn't it be?" she then suggested, only to press one of the buttons on the remote, right as she passed it over.

Looking over to the side, I could see various squares of the camera feeds suddenly merging together, leaving only two rows and two columns of ongoing monitoring to all four sides of the wall, with roughly eighty percent of it now merging into just one, focused feed that displayed a huge, open clearing seemingly in the middle of the sea of the trees.

"This place is our clan's plot, where no other cameras are allowed. And while it's far from being the closest to the good hunting grounds, you won't find a better place to train out in the open than this."

Hearing all of this, I could already imagine myself swinging my finished scythe all over the very place that I could only through the lenses of the camera for now. But there was just one thing I didn't quite follow from Claire's explanation.

"It's far from good hunting grounds?" I asked while reiterating her own words. "Isn't this entire place a hunting ground?"

"It is," Claire nodded her head before leaning back and sinking down into the cushions of the sofa. "But spiritual beasts have their own habits, their own hunting grounds, and their own treasures they found and try to protect from the rest of the world.

That's why, while those things change a lot, there are some areas where you are more likely to encounter a good hung and then there are the areas that are largely safe from the incursions from random spiritual beasts. But then again…"

"Just like the law of the modern world does not apply to this place; so does the modern way of absolute thinking," I finished Claire's sentence again… Even though this time, it was nothing more but a feeling that prompted me to do so, not a proper idea born from reason and observation.

"That's right," Claire nodded her head again while putting on a small, satisfied smile.

"It might be unlikely for beasts or anyone else, in fact, to venture as far off the natural trails to end up at that place," she nodded her chin forward, as if to point at the place displayed on the main screen, "it's not like it never happened before nor is there any reason to believe it will never happen again."