What happened to my Sleeping Beauty-style castle from Disney?
Instead of the arched ceilings, marble floors, grand staircases, stained glass windows, tapestries, chandeliers, and other opulent furnishings I was expecting, what we found was a gloomy rectangular room with no windows and a bare concrete floor. Its only saving grace was the numerous light fixtures on the walls and ceiling that made it as bright as the day outside.
“Dang it, I wanted to see a majestic castle hall!” I walked further in and spotted a welcome sight. There was a plain wooden staircase leading down to what should be the cellars, which were the main feature of the house in the pocket dimension. “There seems to be nothing on this level. Let’s go down.”
“My lady, can you decorate this the way you did the house?” asked Fengying.
“Yes, but you know that costs money. I was hoping the castle would already be furnished. Before we go down, do you see anything that looks valuable?”
We all turned our heads here and there to look at everything, but the room was empty. The lights, as Scholar Wu pointed out, were magical ones that should be expensive if they were sold. However, as with all things provided by the System, they only really worked inside the farm. If they were taken out of their proper place, they would work for a time and then disappear.
Scholar Wu went down to the cellars first even though I knew it wasn’t dangerous.
“Now this is more like it.” I beamed as I patted the nearest oak barrel. Called a [Cask] in the game, they were the key to making a lot of cash in Adventure Incarnate. Putting [Wine], [Beer], or [Brandy] in them to age for a few months made their quality and price triple.
It was cool in the cellar because it was probably temperature-controlled for maximum quality. Oak barrels stacked three high on steel racks stretched out in front of me and the brick ceiling was around twelve feet overhead, with exposed wooden beams and lights that cast a soft golden glow over everything.
“These spell formations are incredibly complex.” Scholar Wu gingerly touched a wall. “I know you can’t see it, but every inch of this place is inscribed with extremely elaborate arcane symbols.”
Watching raw amazement wash over her face, I felt goosebumps rise on my arms. She wandered off to explore, sometimes kneeling to examine the floor more closely or flying up to the ceiling, presumably to check the symbols there.
I turned to Fengying and Deming and raised an eyebrow, wordlessly asking what they thought.
The Demon Chef and his wife turned to each other and exchanged some form of communication that others couldn’t hear.
These days, Fengying looked a lot younger because of all the potions and spiritual food she had eaten ever since she came to work for me. When I first met her, she looked like a sixty-year-old woman with gray hair, but now she looked like a well-preserved forty-year-old, mostly due to her improved skin condition. I knew for a fact that she now dyed her hair black. Deming had altered his appearance to fit hers, and they matched each other perfectly.
“Deming says he can see the formation, too, but he doesn’t understand them. They’re like nothing he’s seen before,” said Fengying.
“Does he want to inspect the [Casks] before I put the wine in them?” I asked.
“No, my lady. Since he can’t make sense of the spell formations, it’s best for him to leave them alone.”
“Okay, well, I’ll get started.” I turned to my apprentices who were politely keeping quiet while the adults were talking. “Watch. You won’t be able to see anything, but I’ll be right-clicking [Use] on the wine bottles in my inventory and then clicking on these [Casks]. That will fill the [Casks] with the [Wine].”
There were various types of alcoholic goods that could be made on the farm in Adventure Incarnate. The most basic was [Wine] made from grape juice but there was also [Brandy] made from fruit and [Beer] made from hops. [Wine] was the most valuable one, therefore, I planned to age it in the cellar.
The cellar had 33 [Casks] in them, but more could be added, so I added 92 more, for a total of 125. Exactly 300 bottles of [Wine] were needed to fill one oak barrel. I walked down the line of shelves, filling all the containers until I reached the end. Since the shelves could stack three barrels at a time, they could hold 123 max, but there were two empty spaces at the end where I could place the last two barrels.
I turned to the others and said, “You know, I could actually fill this entire space with barrels. We wouldn’t have any space to walk on, but it doesn’t matter since it’s not like we need to tend to the wine.”
Lari, Kharli, and Mo all frowned.
“But, Teacher, isn’t that excessive? I thought you wanted Scholar Wu to investigate what makes the cellar work,” said Kharli.
“Hmm. I’ll ask her if it matters or not.”
We went back to the middle of the cellar where Scholar Wu looked down from the ceiling and said, “That would make the formations on the floor unreadable. I don’t know if it matters though, because I can’t make heads or tails of this, and every square inch of the space here has at least two formations in it.”
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She paused and flew down to where I was standing.
“It’s hard to see with the naked eye, but I can tell each of the symbols in those formations are also made of formations,” she added.
“Wait, the formations are made of formations?!” I said.
“Yes, it’s a very advanced technique that only the most expert formation masters can use.” Scholar Wu pointed at one particular point in the ceiling. “This one spot here seems to be the center point of the whole thing, and I estimate it would take twenty years to make.”
“Wow, so the cellar would take people twenty years to make after you record all the formations?”
“Ah no, you misunderstood. The center formation there, which is three inches by three inches, would take twenty years to create. The entire thing…” She folded her arms across her chest and tapped her feet as she became lost in thought. “Three hundred years at least, and that is assuming they use the highest quality spirit stones.”
“Could this be replicated elsewhere?” That was the crux of the matter. Could we build more cellars?
She looked at me as though I was insane. “Even if they could, no one would spend three hundred years of their life to make wine better!”
“Oh.” I scratched my head sheepishly. “I guess you’re right.”
“We could learn something from these formations that could help with other things,” she said. “The qi-gathering formations are quite valuable, for example.”
“Okay. Then it seems you have no objections to me filling the entire floor space with [Casks], right?”
“It should be fine.”
Starting from the farther end from the door, I placed as many barrels as I could and filled them all with [Wine], for a total of 189 [Casks]. “I’m done. Time to start up the golems!”
We all went back up the stairs and outside the castle where, at my request, Scholar Wu flew up the battlements to find the best view of the northern quarter of the farmable land. While she was doing that, I read the System tabs about the features I could use now, and Fengying and Deming went to fetch the household staff. They guided the others to where we were waiting at the outer courtyard of the castle.
When Scholar Wu found a good place on the northern side, I suggested using a telescoping ladder from my inventory to climb up there, but they found it too scary. Instead, Scholar Wu flew us up one by one. I could tell she was quite amused by my fear of heights. However, she was nice enough to fly very slowly for my sake.
“Such a great view!” I said.
Thankfully, the parapet was quite high which made it a lot less scary than I feared. To the north, I could see the green hills in the distance. The open fields, dotted with trees, spread out below us.
“I’ll start with planting grass on the northern field for the animals,” I said to Scholar Wu. “Our goal is simply to see how it works with the golems since we’ve never seen, much less used, them before.”
“Will we really get no exp from it?” asked Mo.
We had already discussed this, but I guess she was feeling uncertain now that it was actually going to happen.
“No exp from this, but we will when we plant the Immortal Herbs,” I said. “Relax and watch.”
Using the golems to till the fields and sow them with spirit grass cost one thousand gold coins. With a simple command from me using the System interface, the golems ponderously walked north and tilled the soil with their bare hands.
“They can use magic!” said Kharli, her voice a hushed whisper as she leaned forward against the parapet, her eyes sparkling with excitement.
The golems merely had to lightly touch the ground with their fists to loosen and overturn the soil. Once it was tilled, they scattered the seeds in a shower of green light.
“I’m not even disappointed even though I’m not getting exp,” said Mo. Her eyes were glued to the scene and she was frowning with concentration as she watched. “It’s amazing to think Teacher has these magical creatures helping her.”
Lari nodded his agreement, his eyes never leaving the spectacle, too.
Though the golems looked slow, in reality, they were nimble and fast. Their bodies were made of rocks and soil which looked crude even from this far away. However, their limbs moved smoothly and could bend every which way for maximum efficiency. The planting was done in half an hour, whereupon I turned on the rain function.
“That’s incredibly powerful!” said Scholar Wu, her eyes fixed on a spot in the sky. “I know you can’t see it, but a formation in the sky was just activated.”
“It’s just regular rain though, right?” I asked her.
Scholar Wu tore her eyes away from the sky and said wryly, “Yes… because rain normally falls on command whenever you want it.”
I laughed and threw my hands up in surrender. “You have a point.”
Once the job was finished, the golems walked back to the field in front of the castle which was in the south.
“The last thing we’ll do today is to place the [Animal Pen] and eggs,” I said.
Scholar Wu flew us all back down, and we trooped to the northern field. I chose a spot near a strand of apple trees and placed the pen there.
“There’s a limit of six animals in the pocket dimension,” I said as I handed a basket of twelve identical white eggs to Kharli. “Pick one. They all look the same, but the animals that hatch in seven days will have different colors and characteristics.”
We put the eggs in the pen.
“Okay, there’s nothing more to do today, so everyone can explore or go back to the farm if they want,” I said to the others.
My apprentices and most of the staff wandered off to explore the castle grounds, leaving me to decorate the interior as I pleased. Scholar Wu went back to the cellar to study the spells.
Yinuo, since she was my maid, stayed by my side along with Fengying.
I rubbed my hands together with glee. “It’s time to decorate the ever-loving heck out of this thing! Shall we go for the most outrageous decor this time?”
Without waiting for their reply, I clicked on the [Bambi’s Dream Castle] furniture pack. The Adventure Incarnate developers seemed to be fond of Barbie because even the fact that they couldn’t get the license from Mattel didn’t stop them from making their own version. Instead of Barbie, it was named Bambi, and her castle was suitably cute, with a pink, white, and gold color scheme.
The soaring ceiling above us was white with gilded moldings and a grand chandelier made of gold and pink crystals hung from its center, with smaller chandeliers in silver and white crystals around it. The floor was a marble mosaic with fairytale scenes of Bambi with various woodland creatures. I particularly liked the one where Bambi was a ballerina dancing with a bevy of swans. On the far side was a cozy fireplace with plush armchairs in front of it, and long, elegant tables, laden with silver platters and crystal goblets, lined the room. The east side was full of floor-to-ceiling windows and on the west side was the reason why I was in a hurry to decorate.
“That’s it!” I pointed to the west wall where a large circle of glowing light had appeared. “It’s the skilling portal!”