“Yes!” I threw my hands up and did a little dance of celebration.

Everyone cheered and cheered. Kharli and Mo hooked their arms together and spun around doing a few folk dance steps that involved bending the knees then kicking their feet up.

The next System popup didn’t even give me pause.

[Golem Initialization Cost: 108, 000 gold coins per golem]

Yinuo handed me a golden goblet studded with rubies, and Scholar Wu poured apple juice into it. Everyone got their drinks, juice for the younger people, and rice wine for the older ones, in fine crystal glasses.

I took out a large, futuristic-looking control panel and placed it on a table for them to see. It was, of course, merely a dummy, since the actual settings were in my System tabs, but it should serve as a good visual representation for the others.

“Okay, guys, this is it! Get ready for the awesome unveiling of the Grand View Garden!” I lifted my goblet and pressed a big red button on the fake control panel while simultaneously paying the price to mobilize the golems. “Now!”

They all lifted their glasses and cheered, but most of us, including me, forgot to drink because a huge magic circle appeared in the sky and rained green light down on us.

“Run!” yelled Scholar Wu.

She grabbed me and Yinuo, who were closest to her, and flew out of the magic circle’s radius. There was mayhem as my apprentices and household staff ran as fast as they could. Deming picked Fengying up and raced off, moving almost as fast as a clan member. Scholar Wu dumped us just outside the glowing area and flew back to pick people up two by two.

I was about to run back inside to help the more high-strung maids who had started screaming when Fengying shouted at us, “Don’t panic! Deming says it's not dangerous!”

“You heard her! Stay calm!” I walked, not ran, to the others.

“Evacuate, but don’t be afraid! The light seems to be a gentle shower of qi!” Scholar Wu called out to us. She waited until we were all outside before flying up to inspect the magic circle in the sky.

“Is everyone all right?” I went around to check if anyone had been injured or was freaking out, but they all relaxed once Deming said it was fine.

Lari sidled up to me and whispered, “Scholar Wu isn’t used to how the System works. That’s why she was alarmed.”

Kharli, who had overheard, said, “The magic is rather scary when you’re not from Emberstone Farm.”

“Okay, now quietly watch the System make changes to the landscape,” I said. “You might want to write down your observations, too.”

“Nothing seems to be different…” Lari walked over to the edge of the circle and put his hand inside, palm up. “The light doesn’t even tickle.”

“Uh-huh.” I knelt and examined the ground more closely. “Something seems to be happening to the edges of the blades of grass.”

It was hard to see, but the grass was gradually dissolving into nothing, starting from their edges.

“Teacher, the golems are moving!” Kharli pointed at the nearest one.

I stood up and watched. The golems were very slowly changing their positions. It took ten minutes for them to turn their head to the center of the circle, and another ten for them to assume an upright position. By the time they started walking to the center of the area, the magic circle’s glow had intensified, filling the ground below with a green mist that made it hard to see what was inside it. After another ten minutes, Scholar Wu flew out. It was now impossible to make out anything in the area covered by the mist.

“I must record this!” said Scholar Wu.

She went to her work table that she had set up beforehand and started furiously drawing the magic circle on a large piece of vellum using a quill pen, which was quite unusual since people here normally used a brush to draw or write. Mo wandered over to watch her.

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The mist roiled and flashed with arcs of lightning. I spread a picnic blanket below an oak tree and sat down to watch the show. Kharli and Lari joined me and we ate French fries while we waited. Fengying, Deming, and the rest of the household staff followed suit and we had a little party with tea and snacks.

Only the middle of the pocket dimension was being modified. The rest of the land, including the part directly in front of the portal, was left untouched. A long stretch of the river which was great for fishing, and some groves of trees were also outside the area of influence.

“It’s still smaller than Emberstone Farm, isn’t it?” I asked the others.

“Maybe it will expand when you level up, Teacher?” said Kharli.

Lari leaned against the tree, his eyes glazed over with boredom as he idly twirled a small wooden branch between his fingers. “How long will this take? May I go Fishing?”

“Hmm. I don’t know. It could take all day, or it could be over in a few more minutes. Go ahead and Fish if you want to,” I said. “I’ll join you in an hour if the new farm isn’t ready by then.”

Lari went to talk to Yinuo’s husbands, and they all left through the portal and returned with fishing rods. I waved at them as they left for the river.

“Wow, and I remember when Lari used to lie in bed all morning because he was too lazy to do anything,” said Kharli.

I nodded. “He’s much more mature now.”

Twenty minutes later, the mist started to thin and Lari came running back just in time to see the transformation.

I jumped up and squealed in delight. “It’s ready!”

I vanished the picnic things into my inventory and gestured at Mo and Scholar Wu to join us.

“Lady Violet, I’d like to fly over the area to see what has changed,” said Scholar Wu.

“Okay, the rest of us will go to the center on foot. How exciting!” I said.

With Lari, Kharli, and Mo walking beside me, I made my way to the center of the Grand View Garden.

What we saw when the green mist and magic circle in the sky disappeared was four flat, bare fields in the north, south, west, and east ready for sowing. The golems all stood in a row like unmoving statues in the middle of the southern field.

The river had been diverted and now flowed from southeast to northwest and southwest to northeast, neatly dividing the fields into four distinct sectors. At the center of the area, the water flowed into a circular moat.

I knew it was a moat rather than just a wide ditch because the System map called it that.

We walked up to the very edge and looked down at it. The water was clear enough for me to see the sandy and rocks at the bottom of it.

“We could stock this with fish,” said Lari.

I made a sound of agreement. “Later.”

I looked around for Scholar Wu and found her flying towards us, so I waited for her to land near me before saying, “This area is for the house. Give me a few minutes while I fix it up.”

The System’s [Build] tab gave me a few options. The one I actually liked best was the cute [Fairytale Cottage], but I wasn’t actually going to live in this place. Therefore, the one I picked was the biggest one possible, the [Castle of the Swan Knight].

I closed my eyes, crossed my fingers, and chanted, “Please don’t be weird. Don’t be weird. Please be a normal castle.”

When I opened my eyes, I saw that once again, a magic circle had appeared. This time it was on the ground and much less showy than the big one in the sky earlier. Scholar Wu immediately started drawing its design on a wax tablet. It flashed a few times and when it disappeared, a lovely castle stood in its place, along with a bridge over the moat.

The castle was made of a lovely cream-colored and cherry blossom pink stone, with cornflower blue roofs. It was not a fortification made to withstand sieges. Rather, it was a Disney-style fantasy structure with lots of crenelated parapets, slim towers, ornamental turrets, Juliet balconies, decorative chimneys, fancy stained-glass windows, and golden spires.

“Yes! It’s not weird at all!” I threw my arms around my apprentices. “This is great, isn’t it?”

“It’s wonderful, Teacher. This castle is just what you need since you’re marrying a prince,” said Kharli.

All of us were grinning from ear to ear.

“Teacher, were you scared it was going to be a flat castle, like the mustard tree?” asked Mo.

“I’m glad it’s a real castle!” I let go of the kids and patted my chest twice to calm down.

“Is this where the magical creatures live?” asked Lari.

“We have to hatch those later…” I looked towards Scholar Wu and, seeing that she was still busy writing or drawing her notes, gestured to Fengying and Deming to join us.

“My lady, Deming says the castle doesn’t give off any dangerous qi,” said Fengying.

“Perfect! We’ll enter with Scholar Wu and my apprentices to check everything before letting the rest of the household explore, okay?” I said.

She nodded and walked back to where the others were to tell them to wait. While she was talking with them, I tried to estimate the size of the [Castle of the Swan Knight]. It wasn’t small, but neither was it as large as, say, Buckingham Palace. As best as I could tell, it was only theme park castle-sized, perhaps a little larger than Shanghai Disneyland’s Enchanted Storybook Castle.

“They’re excited, but they’ll stay put for now,” said Fengying when she returned to us.

“I wonder what the inside looks like.” Leading the way across the stone arch bridge, I appreciated how the drawbridge automatically lowered itself for us. We entered the gatehouse and then a small courtyard. The main door of the castle was made of fine redwood, with a jade sculpture of a medieval knight standing on a boat drawn by a large swan. I pushed the door open and boldly entered, only to see an unexpected sight. “Huh? Why is it not a castle inside?”