Chapter 221 State Of The True World Sect

No one suspected that a group would choose Mount Tai, one of the tallest peaks in the range known to be notoriously mana scarce, as the base of a sect.

The days passed swiftly, turning into months until finally, an entire year had passed since Guy resolved to start a Sect of his own. Within the past year, much had changed in Twilight Village. For one, some of the rustic mud, thatch and wood architecture had upgraded to more robust wood and brick designs. This improvement was through the initiative of the villagers themselves since the birth of a Sect often followed economic growth. This decision also indicated that the villagers trusted and believed in Guy's Sect. A few additional buildings had even sprouted within the village. One of the most important ones was the public bath that stood at the village's centre, with a sauna that routed fresh water from the stream and filtered it through a very simple ritual formation.

This was Jean's latest project which was positively received by the villagers. Ever since the successful birthing procedure of Chiani Lane, the villagers viewed Jean as a deific figure capable of saving people at the brink of death. Her words regarding personal and public hygiene had become gospel. Guy was sure that if the girl told the villagers that cutting off the tip of their toes would increase their life expectancy by a year, they would do it blindly. Thankfully, the girl was rational, benevolent and a pacifist at heart. Through observation and primary research, Jean found that even with the advent of soap, the level of personal hygiene in the village was abysmal. People regularly suffered from avoidable illnesses due to infections. As an aspiring healer, and one enlightened to the 'truths' of the world, Jean firmly believed that "prevention is better than the cure" - if a disease can be prevented then it must be done so.

Therefore, after some brainstorming with Guy, Jean decided to go forward with the rather controversial idea of a public and communal bath. Now although the general architecture followed by the Solar Empire could be found similar to the Ancient Greco-Roman designs from Earth, the people here were conservative to an uncomfortable degree. Jean was apprehensive that the idea for a public bath would be met with hesitance and distaste by the villagers, but Guy convinced her that with some innovative marketing she could skew public opinion. Furthermore, Guy was sure that the village folk wouldn't be so averse to communal bathing compared to city folk. Normally the men and women of the village bathed in the stream, though they did it at different times - the public bath differed in that they could bathe simultaneously.

The bath was gender-segregated and followed the Roman design by having a large pool at the centre, which was temperature and climate controlled by very simple ritual formations that were self-sustaining. The water was siphoned from the stream through some ingenious terraforming contributed by Markus and passed through another filtering ritual formation that killed bacteria and separated the residuals from the water. As Guy saw the bath taking shape, he decided to contribute as well and redirected some builders to help make the bath larger and added saunas. Guy figured that by doing so, he could then have Sect members visit the village's Public bath to cleanse themselves and form friendlier relations with the villagers. Guy did not want his Sect to isolate itself and grow distant from the regular, non-magical folk like the other sects in this world. By having these opportunities for Sect members to revisit their roots, he could stop such detrimental stigmas from forming.

After its completion, the public bath had turned into a sort of congregation spot for all ages. The youngsters would swim and play in the pool while the elders soaked themselves or cooked themselves in the pleasurable steam sauna. As this slowly turned into the norm, Jean was relieved to see her project reach fruition. To top it off, there was an overall improvement in the villager's health as Jean observed reduced cases of common ailments.

However, the greatest change that transpired in Twilight Village, ironically, wasn't within the village itself. Rather, if one were to follow the road leading from Wayward Town to Twilight Village, they would note the sudden increase in the path's quality. The jerky, muddy path was now flattened and layered with cobblestones to ensure unhindered travel via carriage, horseback, or foot. This cobblestone path wove from Wayward Town till Twilight Village turned sideways and rose an incline until it halted at True World Sect's brand-new campus.

What was originally a quaint plain with a rundown building doubling as the Mount Tai Orphanage, was now a sprawling, walled compound. Newcomers following the newly built cobblestone path to the location would first face a set of large metal-framed wooden doors embedded into the stone walls with two stone pillars framing the doors on either side. Hanging above the doors, in line with the wall's roof tiles was a stone tablet with the words "True World Sect" engraved on it. On the wooden door, a large symbol was engraved and painted which resembled the Sect's logo - the azimuthal equidistant projection of Earth from Guy's old world.

Going past the Sect's entrance, one would then stumble upon the new and improved Mount Tai Orphanage, which was now the official Welcoming Centre to the True World Sect. Similar to the assessment made by Mylo when surveying the orphanage, the builders hired to implement upgrades on the building concluded that the structure was robust and did not need additional reinforcement. A series of remodelling attempts and a basic refurbishment later, the building how projected its ancient majesty with full force.

The Welcoming Centre was where most, if not all the administrative work for the Sect and its affiliated business was set to take place. To that end, the housing of its previous occupants was moved further back in after clearing up more of the woods behind the orphanage. Guy insisted on a seamless marriage between nature and the Sect's campus, thus a significant portion of the surrounding foliage was preserved while ensuring that the campus did not get crowded with trees and shrubbery. Therefore, a constant stream of pleasant breeze swam through the campus grounds.

Guy opted for a more community-oriented living arrangement, while also adhering to Grace's strict request that the male and female youths be separated to opposite wings of the campus. To that end, Guy did not want a large fissure to form between members of the Sect standing in different positions. Hence, he planned for the Sect's faculty and administrative staff to live amidst the regular members.

The steps leading down to the village also went through a thorough overhaul. The loose stones were fixed, and broken steps were remade. A similar gate was placed at the location of the wall leading to the steps with the Sect's name and logo emblazoned on it.

Additional buildings were erected with the Sect's campus, with more available space and funds to work with, Guy managed to build a lecture building, which was filled with six average-sized classrooms - matching the classrooms he'd made in rural villages in his past life - with an open lecture hall adjacent to the building. He also managed to fit the Maker-Space into his budget, which was a single-storey building that was mostly empty barring machineries such as a large Gutenberg Press, a mana-powered lathe, milling machine and bench saw. There were large tables with simple tools slotted into them and high benches to sit on while working. Even with this installed, there was still half of the room left empty for future additions. A basic forge was established outside and adjacent to the Maker-Space, for the more adventurous and hands-on inventors. The storeroom inside the building was filled with a fresh medley of resources such as wood, metals, fabrics and so on.

To accommodate the combat aspect of the Sect, two regulation-size combat fields were installed close to the centre of the campus. At the centre of both was another building that extended into the ground and housed the weapons and training equipment.

The functional buildings were positioned in the region of the Sect's campus closer to downhill of Mount Tai. The leisure buildings, including the dorms and living arrangements, were placed at the rear of the Sect closer to the rising section of Mount Tai. A Community Centre, which contained a Mess Hall, a Play Room, and an open Playground outside was positioned between the two dorm wings.

Behind the Community Centre, a new set of stairs was built that rose higher up the mountainside to another plain at an even higher elevation. On this elevation lay the pride and glory of the True World Sect - the Sect's Library. Although Guy did not want to have knowledge hidden away from the Sect members, he didn't want to trivialise its importance. He wanted his Sect's members to respect the knowledge and information stored within the Sect's library, which was now filled with all the books Guy had in his RoK, both from this world and his own. The altitude separation between the Sect and the Library was meant to evoke a passive sense of deference amongst his Sect's members - that to gain said knowledge they would have to physically trek up the steps as an act of penance to temper their hubris.

The Library itself had a design mimicking the Great Library of Alexandria as recreated from historical texts (before it was burned down). This was decided because the architecture matched that of the other buildings of the Sect. Since the Library was filled with books from the RoK, including those from his past life, there could only be a singular copy of them. Therefore, he established a rule that no book could be taken out of the library. If knowledge was to be transported out, it had to be transcribed in the building itself by hand (or typewriter as soon as Guy figured out the convoluted contraption). Guy wanted to use this Library as the physical manifestation of the RoK, thus any book that was added to the RoK would be physically added here immediately after.

Apart from these key structures, additional inclusions in the Sect's campus were a Science Lab that bordered the path leading to Grace's newly expanded garden. This was a three-tiered building behind the Maker-Space, with each tier corresponding to a branch of the three overarching fields of physical science. There were also miscellaneous buildings for personal hygiene scattered across the campus. With some ingenious plumbing, Guy managed to finally install a proper flushing mechanism and a basic squatting toilet. He didn't splurge excessively for these structures since advancing in cultivation would ultimately render them redundant.

This was the current state of the True World Sect. Even with all of these buildings and structures in place, the campus was only half built. There were vast patches of empty space to accommodate new additions as opportunities presented themselves and as the Sect grew - Guy wanted to hold on to that optimism. Regardless, Guy was proud of everything that was accomplished within the tight time frame. The Sect's foundations were in place, now all that was left was to officially register it with the Solar Sect Alliance and then fill the Sect up with people. Coincidentally, the moment to check those boxes was within arm's reach.

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