Seven Days Without Incident

"Tomorrow will be the sixth day since we came to this dream world."

Wu Pifu watched the Peace Hotel being built in full swing. Though it was already evening, the torches kept the site lit, and the craftsmen and villagers were still working with everything they had.

In fact, the craftsmen and villagers had been divided into three teams, working in rotating shifts to build the Peace Hotel around the clock.

There was no other reason—they were being paid far too well.

After Lin Heier and Xu Rongyu repeatedly confirmed that they could receive at least ten thousand grams of gold every month, they had agreed. That sum might not have meant much to a large organization or a nation, but it was an enormous fortune for the Red Lantern Society. Seventy percent of it belonged to Wu Pifu and the other two. Since the three of them had little to spend money on at the moment, they naturally poured it all into the Peace Hotel.

The craftsmen and villagers building the Peace Hotel were paid more than thirty times what they would earn for equivalent work elsewhere. One day of work here was worth a month of working day and night somewhere else!

If Lin Heier had not solemnly, repeatedly, and sternly warned them not to pay the craftsmen and villagers beyond a certain limit, let alone thirty times, even three hundred times would have been no issue.

This was an era in which supplies for the common people and the lower strata of society were unimaginably scarce.

These villagers could not even scrape together two meals a day. Their daily staple was a thin soup of wild vegetables, something that could scarcely be called food. Every one of them was sallow-faced and emaciated, with bent backs.

The craftsmen were slightly better off, but only slightly. Their stomachs held nothing but watery porridge as well.

In fact, according to Xu Rongyu, simply feeding the villagers would have been enough to hire them to build the Peace Hotel. During this lean season, providing meals alone would have made the villagers flock here, and it would have attracted less outside attention.

But how could Wu Pifu possibly follow that suggestion?

He was afraid that he was not drawing enough attention from the outside world.

Even now, he did not know what conditions were required to upgrade a shelter, but increasing his influence in this world could never be wrong. Since he was building the Peace Hotel and meant to play the role of an invincible swordsman, being bold and generous was part of the persona.

Scholarship required poverty, martial arts required wealth. Without money, it was impossible to practice martial arts. If one could not even eat enough and still tried to forcefully circulate one's blood and qi, that was simply courting death.

So long as the image of someone wealthy, powerful, and skilled in martial arts was established, he could avoid a great deal of trouble in this era—especially trouble from the authorities. As for the martial world... the greatest bandit chief beyond the pass and over a hundred of his core men were buried here. How many fools would dare to provoke him?

On the contrary, people from the martial world would very likely come after hearing his name. Experts, masters, even grandmasters might appear. But that was a good thing for Wu Pifu. He was in a period of rapid advancement, and fighting these practitioners of traditional martial arts would allow him to grow stronger quickly. As for injuries, those were not something he needed to worry about.

Thus, there was thirty times the normal pay; huge, filling bowls of white rice, noodles, or steamed buns; stir-fried vegetables and wild greens mixed with diced meat; and one egg per person. But what made these villagers and craftsmen most envious was that they actually got four meals a day: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and, if they worked at night, a late-night meal as well!

They had never even heard of such an employer!

People in those days were simple by nature. Even when they had their little schemes, they were mostly the simple-minded thoughts of farmers. Spurred by such wages and food, the villagers and craftsmen truly worked as if their lives depended on it.

As a result, Wu Pifu, Yamadai, Xu Shilan, and Xu Rongyu appeared to have nothing to do. They did not even need to supervise. There were village elders among the villagers; anyone who dared to slack off or cheat at a time like this would be condemned to death by the stares and scorn of their fellow villagers.

With time on their hands, Wu Pifu and the others found a few stones and sat some distance away. There was nothing important to deal with at the moment, so they chatted and rested. Whenever Wu Pifu had free time, he practiced martial arts. Xu Rongyu naturally stuck close to him like a lackey. After receiving a few pointers, he was so delighted that he scratched at his ears and cheeks, then began practicing his stances as well.

Xu Rongyu was only half-trained. Though his father, Xu Zhenshan, had reached the level of a Dark Force master, he himself had come from an unorthodox background and did not dare teach Xu Rongyu true martial arts. As a result, Xu Rongyu had not even mastered Bright Force.

Xu Rongyu stood there practicing his boxing stance while Wu Pifu had just finished a set of the Azure Python Shedding Art, heat steaming off his entire body. He looked at the construction site, then at the night in the distance, before turning to Yamadai, who was fiddling with several metal components, and Xu Shilan, who was looking through the account books.

The two of them paused slightly, then returned to their respective tasks. Yamadai casually said, "Right. Tomorrow is the sixth day."

After thinking for a moment, Xu Shilan asked, "Based on what you described, will nightmares begin attacking tomorrow?"

The moment he heard the word "nightmares," Xu Rongyu's breathing immediately became ragged, and the boxing stance he was practicing fell apart. He simply stopped, adjusted his breathing, and sat on the ground to listen to the three of them talk.

Wu Pifu shook his head. "It only means the chance of an attack will increase. It does not necessarily mean that nightmares will definitely attack after five days, nor does it mean the first five days are absolutely safe. There's no certainty."

The other three listened to Wu Pifu. Then Yamadai suddenly blurted out, "Then what does the word 'shelter' in shelter mean?"

By its name alone, a shelter ought to have some kind of protective function, right? Moreover, shelter was not a name invented by Wu Pifu and the other maintenance personnel. It was defined by the Main Brain. Yet judging from its functions, it offered no protection at all. It was even their weak point.

A Level 1 shelter required them to defend it for ten days every thirty days. For a Level 2 shelter, that was shortened to seven days. The defense time for Level 3 and above shelters was unknown. After maintenance personnel remained in a dream world for more than five days, the nightmares of that world could sense their location, and the odds of being found by nightmares would gradually rise.

During that period, if a nightmare discovered them and pursued them, they could not even expose the shelter's location. Otherwise, the nightmare would follow the shelter into the real world and lie in wait to kill them... Thinking about it that way, what exactly did the shelter protect? It was instead their greatest weakness.

Wu Pifu did not know what the shelter protected either, but he still said, "There's no use thinking so much. We know too little about dream worlds, about all these changes, even about the Main Brain. What are nightmares? What are anomalies? What is contamination? What is 'week's end'? And what does this shelter signify? We know none of it. So no matter how much we speculate now, it's useless. Survive, grow stronger, and live better. That's what we need to do now."

Yamadai and Xu Shilan both nodded in agreement.

Nothing happened that night. The next day, Wu Pifu began patrolling and inspecting the construction site and the surrounding land. Another uneventful day passed. By the seventh day since they had entered this world, Wu Pifu was even more cautious, and Yamadai joined the patrols. The two of them patrolled and inspected without rest or sleep for twenty-four hours, yet they safely made it through another day without even the slightest sign of anything unusual.

At noon on the seventh day, the Main Brain's countdown notification appeared in the minds of all three of them, informing them that their defense mission in this world was complete and that they could return to the real world at any time.

Wu Pifu breathed a sigh of relief and looked at Yamadai and Xu Shilan. "Good. We got lucky this time. You won't encounter anomalies or nightmares during every defense period. Especially if you don't wander around recklessly, that's the safest way."

Yamadai did not particularly care, while Xu Shilan seemed deep in thought. Wu Pifu then said, "So, have you decided what building to buy? At present, establishing a force cannot be accomplished in a day or two. The historical event cannot be completed until at least four months later, when Empress Dowager Cixi flees west. So how about we establish a Level 1 shelter first and draw a random reward?"

For the random draw granted by establishing one's first shelter, the Main Brain seemed to have some sort of selection mechanism. It generally gave a cultivation art, and one suited to the recipient. That had been true for Wu Pifu himself, as well as several of his seniors.

Yamadai and Xu Shilan were still ordinary people, after all. They did not even possess the most basic Baseline Reality 0.9 cultivation art. That was an extremely dangerous thing in a dream world.

Yamadai immediately nodded repeatedly in agreement, but Xu Shilan directly shook her head in refusal.

"No. We won't establish a shelter in this world. Little Brother Wu, take us to the Mud-Buddha Yasha world," Xu Shilan said at once.

Wu Pifu and Yamadai looked at her in surprise.

Xu Shilan seriously asked, "Little Brother Wu, are cultivation arts easy to obtain?"

Wu Pifu froze for a moment, then frankly shook his head. "They aren't. The Tiger Demon Art and Azure Python Shedding Art I know now were both rewards from the Main Brain. Trying to find cultivation arts in dream worlds... difficult, difficult, difficult."

Xu Shilan sighed. "A false teacher may give you ten thousand volumes of books, but a true teacher gives only a single sentence. Even technology works that way, let alone supernatural cultivation arts that grant power to oneself. Trying to acquire them in dream worlds will probably be dozens or hundreds of times harder than establishing a shelter. Our most likely route to obtaining extraordinary cultivation arts is through our first shelter."

That was precisely why Wu Pifu had suggested establishing a shelter immediately. He looked at Xu Shilan in confusion, but she said frankly, "But clearly, the cultivation arts in the Baseline Reality 0.7 dream world are far stronger than those in the Baseline Reality 0.9 dream world, right? If there were no other option, then naturally we could only establish our first shelter here. But don't we have you? You can take us to the Baseline Reality 0.7 dream world."

Wu Pifu was stunned at first, then immediately understood. He nodded in delight. "Right, right, right. You're right. We really shouldn't establish a shelter here."

Wu Pifu had not considered it from that angle before, but with Xu Shilan's reminder, he immediately understood what she meant.

The deeper one went into dream worlds, the more dangerous they became. But at the same time, supernatural power also became stronger.

For the first shelter established by maintenance personnel, the random draw they received, due to the Main Brain's selection factor, would basically grant them a cultivation art suited to them from the world they were in.

Other newcomers naturally had no choice. Either they gambled with their lives through random penetration, or they could only establish their first shelter in a Baseline Reality 0.9 dream world, just as Wu Pifu had done. Only after gaining that shelter could they continue safely penetrating downward.

But if an experienced senior existed and had a shelter in a deeper dream world, they could bring newcomers directly into that deeper dream world and establish their first shelter there. In that way, they could naturally obtain more powerful cultivation arts.

Though the danger would also be greater, because their first shelter would be in a deeper dream world, and the defense missions could be deadly. In particular, they would need to defend it within one month of obtaining the cultivation art. It was truly a double-edged sword.

"...But Little Brother Wu already has a shelter in this Baseline Reality 0.7 dream world. If we establish our first shelters in this world too, we can fight alongside you and support one another. Isn't that the best choice?" Xu Shilan said with a smile.

Wu Pifu and Yamadai naturally came to the same realization.

"Yes, yes!" Yamadai laughed heartily and agreed again and again.

Wu Pifu immediately gave Xu Rongyu instructions regarding management matters, then took the two of them out into an uninhabited area of wilderness. With a flash, the three returned to Gaia. Without lingering, they immediately lay down in the hibernation pods.

"Main Brain, activate dream world shelter return. Destination..."

"Mud-Buddha Yasha dream world!"