The Hidden Myth of Ji Dara

Chapter 100 - The Smithy & The Vault

Then he poured these ore dusts into the hole, and stirred everything with a wet wood, and once that was done, he lowered the wooden bowl into it and told them to fill the entire hole with sand…

Then after waiting for about another hour, he then told the Obuns to dig everything out, and the moment they did, they uprooted steel bowl stuck to the bottom of the wooden bowl…

"Wow, that's really creative…" Ji Wang had no choice but to whistle; he was really impressed;

The Obun broke the mold and they separated the new steel bowl from the wood and gave the bowl to Elder Smith;

"Alright, what next?"

"I will need tables made out of wood…" Elder Smith replied;

"Like how many are we looking at?"

"About five would do…"

"Alright, you heard him… Get to it!" Ji Wang ordered but one of the tribesmen stepped out with a helpless and tired expression;

"We are out of logs, Master Wang…"

"Unh? Out of logs?"

"How is that even possible?"

"Master Min and the others have taken a few to go build the storage and the vault…" The tribesman replied;

"Well, lead the Obuns and go cut more!" Ji Wang harried all of them;

"We have to be at least 75 percent done before the tribe leader returns!"

He added as the tribesmen led some Obuns out of the tribe gates to go log more woods whilst Ji Wang himself moved over about 50 meters to where the storage and vault were being constructed…

The store was a very massive barn looking structure and its sheer size alone were able to testify as to why they had run out of wood;

It was a massive store and the food area alone was about 400 square meters, and it was the same for the weapons area as well as other tools and necessities, and all in all, this place had five compartments and each of these compartments were 400 square meters big…

The vault on the other hand was actually dug underground with about 15 stairs deep before one would then find themselves in a 100 square meter room;

Then on one side was a weapons rack for high grade weapons, on another side was an inbuilt wooden shelf which would obviously be for the techniques and arts which would be written in scrolls and manuals…

Another side had a three massive containers that were as long as the length of the wall and there were three of them stacked atop one another but hung to the wall…

Then the last face of the wall was where the entrance was;

"How did you manage to do all of this?" Ji Wang asked in amazement when he saw what Uncle Min had done with the place;

"Well, rather than building everything from scratch and then fixing them here, we simply carved them out of the wall…"

"So you mean these three stacked containers were not built and hung on the wall, but are actually the wall itself?"

"If that makes it simpler for you to comprehend, yes…"

"Wow, and what would they be used for?"

"The bottom container would be used for storing Qi Stones, and the one in the middle would be used for storing precious gems and ores that we might find, whilst the one at the top would be used for materials, gems or ores we know nothing about…"

"Then you lined their interior with wood and made a wooden cover which would preserve whatever are within these containers…"

"I have to hand it to you, this is truly imaginative and peculiar…"

"Thanks, how about you, have you come up with a lock system for both the store and the vault?" Uncle Min walked Ji Wang out of the pit as he asked;

"I have the designs but I would rather have them be steel doors rather than wooden, thus, I have to finish the smithy first, and let Elder Smith build me some steel vault doors…"

"And how is that going?"

"Well, we have been delayed because you guys used the rest of the available woods, but I have sent them to log more…"

"That's fantastic, now if you don't mind, I have to finish up this place…"

"Alright, I will be on my way, keep up the good work…" Ji Wang added before leaving the site altogether…

But just as he walked halfway over to the smithy, he saw the tribe gates open and massive flood of heads filling into the village;

"Whoa! Whoa!! Whoa!!! That's a lot of people…"

Ji Wang exclaimed in shock as he began to feel a headache brewing in his head…

He walked over and could already count about 250 Obuns at first glance, and little by little, all the tribesmen and Obuns within the tribe all began to pop out of different corners of the tribe when they noticed the commotion…

Aunt Lin and Uncle Min also stepped out and were stunned by the size of what they were seeing, Aunt Lin who was atop the plateau could roughly count over 1800 people from her vantage point as she rushed down to the tribe square which was just outside their residence…

"Ji Wang, where is Ji Chen?" Dara asked when he noticed the group weren't as much as he had left them;

"We ran out of wood, so they are out logging…"

Dara nodded and simply turned around to face the entire crowd whose whisperings alone was almost deafening;

"Alright, those with the stones come forward!"

Dara bellowed as the crowd parted and about 700 men stepped out of the group with loads in their hands wrapped in some piece of cloth;

~Ah!~

Aunt Lin gasped when she saw what they brought forward, and even Uncle Min just kept starring, unable to believe his eyes…

There was no mistaking it, is it by the change in atmosphere?

Or the sudden freshness of the air around them?

Or the abrupt humidity that spiked just now?

Or the glow that was spilling out from several crevices in the clothes?

This was unmistakable and they all knew what they were;

Qi Stones! 

Dara relished in the gazes of the entire tribe as did the First Obun Elder who was shaking the hands of his former assistant…

"Is that what I think it is!?"

Ji Wang abruptly squealed in delight as he slowly approached each of these cloth wrapped loads, looking at all of them almost adoringly…