Outworld Liberators-Chapter 148: A Place that Redefined Goldkeep Crownmarkets

Chapter 148: A Place that Redefined Goldkeep Crownmarkets

After giving the multiple blueprints a read, Calyx started to huddle the ghosts, eager to work.

From what Calyx understood, Radeon was not looking to create a higher peak, as he had initially thought.

The elevation was only four thousand meters at its peak, but it could still rival the summit of the five emperors.

What Calyx saw first was the access and the order. He wanted a city that could be climbed by mortal merchants. And a relaxing stroll for the cultivators. A calm the summit of the five emperors did not offer.

With Calyx’s power, the uneven ridges were flattened. Rock was pressed down. Slopes were shaved clean.

Soil hauled up from the underground expansion of the ghost realm fragment was poured back onto the living world in heavy, dark loads.

Terraces replaced peaks. Nine layers in all, remaking the terrain entirely.

The walls were over a hundred meters tall and a dozen meters thick.

A small, flowing river could be seen by the inner wall once you entered. Below the river were defensive arrays, hidden in plain sight.

Instead of being locked in like the dead they were, the ghosts could now swim around the river. It made the consumption feel like play, not a job.

The new groups of Tiyanak, with their ugly greyed infant faces, disdained work without play.

They were elated when they heard the job, even to the point of pestering the older batches who talked like Radeon in haughty voices.

"To my understanding, we will swim here in different colors, then people can fish us out. Is that correct? Isn’t that just playing around?"

The oldest Tiyanak strode up coolly. With a frivolous twirl it shook its head.

"Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Too young. One does not understand the Dao if one does not know how to play like a fish."

"Alas, you may be a wraith in disguise, here to take our job, no?"

"This infant-brained one has been ignorant, senior. I am a fish. Blop. Blop. Blop. See, senior? I am not a Tiyanak but a fish."

As the Tiyanak joked among themselves, the ghosts worked the first three layers, their large hands clawing the clay to make rentals and lodgings.

Each terrace climbed into more luxury, better views and privacy, measuring comfort by altitude.

The fourth and fifth layers were entertainment. The fifth terrace held the flight entrances. Here, cultivators did not need to climb and plead their way upward.

They could fly straight in and land clean, without going through the busy entrances.

North held gambling and lottery. Radeon simply copied what he had encountered in his past lifetime.

Blackjack. Slot machines. Poker. A lottery that happened every day. One could become peerless, as the winnings could stagger anyone, even cultivators.

South held an arena. Anyone with money could even rent it out. Special events were held there.

East held a relaxation resort and exclusive housing. There were medical facilities, healing pools, and luxury manors with servants that made one feel like a king.

West held shops and auction houses, where anyone could buy and sell anything that had been verified.

The sixth layer was shrines, overlooking the businesses the way judges overlooked a square.

Four temples, one for each direction, each built around the same figure.

A golden man with twelve arms. It was depiction of Radeon’s soul.

To the south stood the Fighting Temple. The statue held weapons, one in each hand, swords, bows, spears, and other weapons carved with a different stance.

To the north stood the Fortune Seeking Temple. Twelve hands cradled spirit stones, gold coins, precious ores, luxuries piled like offerings that expected interest back.

To the east stood the Ailment and Misfortune Purging Temple. A figure held herbs, pills, incense, and needles, and it promised relief.

To the west stood the Will and Integrity Temple. Scales and gavel. Pillory and lash marks carved into stone. Punishment and justice displayed together.

On the seventh terrace, hidden arrays dotted the ground and walls, quiet as moss.

They increased the absorption of heaven and earth energy, pulling it down into the stone and up into lungs without announcing themselves.

You could stand there and feel the air grow a little sweeter, a little heavier, as if the world was offering more than it offered elsewhere.

The terrace’s specialty was peaceful dojos. Each school carried a simple insignia above its door.

A fist for those who wanted to learn close quarters.

A shoe with wind for those who wanted to learn escape techniques.

A sword. A bow. A spear. Between the training halls were workshops. Forging. Alchemy. Array creation.

Twelve dojos in total, each marked with a clean symbol that even a child could understand, each symbol a promise that strength and knowledge could be purchased with gold instead of kowtows and pleas.

Radeon planned to teach foundations through all of it. Basics, disciplined, repeatable.

Great enough to turn a mortal into a cultivator. Not enough to make the top sects feel threatened or draw their ire the way a rising power does.

The eighth terrace was a vast herb field.

It held only plants with spiritual energy, nothing common, nothing grown by accident.

Radeon had derived many of them himself, shaping them to resemble what he had known before, then forcing them to survive in this soil and this sky.

Ginseng grew in neat beds, thick rooted and stubborn. Spiritual rice rippled in pale rows like a quiet pond. Tea shrubs lined the edges, glossy leaves catching dew and moonlight.

There were flowers too. Spiritual flowers of too many kinds to name.

Some opened only at dusk. Some held color like a secret. Some smelled sweet.

An array netted their essence, trapping most of it in place so the field stayed rich and controlled.

Radeon still let some leak out on purpose.

A thin seep of fragrance drifted down the terraces, softening the stone and heat, giving the whole summit a calm that felt earned.

It was a far cry from Ledgegrove Bazaar, where the air was thick with smog-like perfume that clung to hair and clothes.

Small houses were tucked into the herb field for his disciples.

They were not huge. Not fancy. No lacquered beams or gold trim meant to impress strangers.

They were built low and quiet, deliberately blended into the rows, half hidden behind tea shrubs and flowering stalks.

From a distance they looked like shadows between plants, the kind you only noticed when you were already close.

Seclusion abodes. Places for privacy. Places to focus their cultivation on.

On the ninth peak was a large golden statue with twelve arms. It had open palms and it stood at over two hundred meters.

At the distance, one could see his own two pavilions here. One was for Radeon. One was for Calyx and his team.

Even then, those terraces were not what stood out most.

What stood out were the array boards. They were everywhere.

Mounted on walls. Set into posts. Hanging over streets. Squares of light displaying numbers, letters, symbols, in a language that looked too simple to be sacred.

It was Radeon’s personal design, made to be legible even the illiterate. With all of them playing in synchronicity, it was child’s play for Ewan and Maeron to keep the simplest functions running.

Eldric sat at the center of it all, acting as the core intelligence of the network. The boards answered him like a nervous system, blinking and shifting as orders flowed.

Curiosity finally bit Maeron hard enough to make him speak.

"What are these things supposed to do, Lord Radeon?"

Radeon only smiled. A small smile. A private one. The kind that meant a man had already decided how you would pay and was simply waiting for you to ask.

Ewan and Maeron exchanged a look and let the question drop. Not because they did not care, but because they knew they would find out soon enough.