Chapter 11 – Operation SAUNA

Having passed through his tribulation, Aki's body had been released from some of the mortal restraints binding it. His aging had reversed completely, taking away every last white hair. Aki also felt more energetic than before. Though he now no longer needed to eat or sleep, that did not mean that he would stop doing so.

'A good night's sleep is one of the key pleasures of life! Waking up to the gentle sunlight streaming from outside while comfortably tucked into your bedsheets, letting the idle thoughts of the day settle, awakening with a new perspective on things that seemed uncertain the previous day, who would want to give up on that!'

So, the next day after his breakthrough, Aki woke up as usual.

He started to ponder on what he should now do that he no longer had to worry about his lifespan abruptly running out. His main goal was to make the sect into a place where people could balance cultivation with leisure, but that path would probably be a long and arduous one. He felt that he should probably start by getting more familiar with the sect itself. So far, he had not ventured too far outside his residence.

However, he did not exactly want to get back to work right away. He was feeling the satisfaction of a job well done and felt like he deserved a bit of a break. And there was one thing he desired above all else after a job well done.

'Aaaaah, I really feel like enjoying a nice, relaxing sauna session. It should not be too much trouble to build one, right? A sauna is not a complicated thing, I even helped one of my uncles build his own after he bought that lakeside property. The landscape out here is really perfect for saunas. I can almost imagine the feeling of jumping into one of those pristine lakes straight out of there. With a cultivator workforce, building one should be quite a swift matter. Maybe these self-disciplined idiots might even be able to relax if I got them to try it out.'

The more he thought about it, the better the idea seemed. Aki started becoming more and more convinced that this was what he needed to do now, above all else.

'I could probably start a proper culture of going to the sauna here if I told them that it was a facility for efficient cultivation. They drink tea only because it can help cultivation, so maybe that is the way I can subtly guide these lost souls back to the sinful embrace of worldly pleasures.'

Aki set off to fetch Passionate Seeker so excited he forgot to even eat his breakfast, which he tragically did not notice as he no longer felt hunger. She however was not due to show up to give her report for a few more hours, so Aki elected to go scout out a place for his sauna on his own.

Aki did not want to forever be reliant on Passionate Seeker for transportation, so he had covertly been practicing with a few tools he had identified as the easiest method of flight: A [Wand of Acceleration] and a [Ring of Feather Fall]. The ring made the process safe enough, while the wand would serve as an easy method of guiding his flight path.

He set off from his residence, beginning the search for a nice location. His new flight method consisted of activating the wand and being flung in a direction, then slowly gliding down using the ring. His criteria for a nice location were not too strict. He wanted a nice, sunny patch of land next to a lake that got deep enough to jump into relatively quickly. He also wanted it to be relatively close to his residence. After flying around and studying the first few candidates he silently added another criterion.

'No terrifying auras emanating from the depths of the lake, please!'

Eventually he found a lake he judged fitting. The lake was not too big, perhaps about 100 meters across. The sight of the morning sun bouncing off the lake surface, lighting the gloomy forest around it was a picturesque one, so Aki decided to lay down on his back for a while to daydream about his ideal sauna.

'Hmm, I imagine it would not be too difficult to make some sort of mini-fridge artifact that you could store drinks inside. Could you throw water onto the stove using a water Qi weave? Then you would not have to go fetch new buckets of water from outside. Maybe some sort of boundary talisman could keep the hot air from escaping whenever someone opens the door?'

As he daydreamed Aki tried catching some of the strands of light Qi floating around and turning them into the [Illusory Wall] weave, which he tried to make depict an idealized version of his sauna. His attempts at the weave were however very basic, only resulting in a vague impression of colours.

"Master, what are you doing?"

Aki was almost scared out of his skin by Passionate Seekers sudden voice coming from right behind him. As he tried to erase his sloppy weave in a panic, he saw that she was sitting crouched right behind him, staring curiously.

'What, how is she here? I never told her where I was going, and this is the first time I've deviated from my schedule. He tried to estimate the time that he had spent searching for a sauna. Besides, isn't now just when she should be arriving to the residence to give me a report there?'

More than a little unsettled, Aki scrambled up and adopted his sagely manner.

"Ah, apprentice you arrived right as I was expecting you. I have decided to have a cultivation facility called a [Sauna] built here. Your task will be to gather a suitable labour force to build it."

"A [Sauna]? I haven't heard of a facility like that. What is it like?"

"It is a rather simple construct. A wooden room containing raised benches set around a wood-powered stove. On top of the stove, stones are placed to be heated. Outside of the main sauna room you will of course have a washing and dressing room. A short pier should also be built over that lake."

"That sounds simple enough. A few of the wood carvers from Midnight Sun Hall should be able to construct such a facility pretty quickly. How is this... [Sauna] used to cultivate?"

Aki did not actually know how to cultivate using a sauna, so he elected to use a proven response.

"Ah, apprentice you should be able to figure that out on your own of course. It is a basic thing."

Passionate Seeker seemed eager to rise to the challenge, so Aki sent her off to fetch the workers.

The workers arrived soon enough, a group of three men from Midnight Sun Hall. Their toned arms looked very firm, and using his spiritual sense Aki sensed a strong Aura of wood from them. He quickly got to work instructing them on the building. The disciples were clearly very skilled at woodwork. They only needed their hands, Qi and knives to mould the wood they used however they wanted. They carried around large logs of wood with ease and then used their knives and weaves to turn the wood into the right shape. The construction needed no nails or hammers, weaves were instead used to directly fuse the wood logs together. Aki decided to increase the amount of ventilation a bit in response.

The disciples wanted to build everything out of high-grade spirit materials, and as Aki saw no harm in that, he let them do so. The construction proceeded at a rapid pace, a firm floor was in place in no time at all, and the walls were raised equally fast. Most of the time went into preparing the stove for the main sauna room and the water heater for the washing room, as they had to be improvised from appropriate materials.

In the end the construction did not even take the entire day. Once the disciples were finished with the construction, Aki invited them to try the [sauna] after him. He did not want to immediately share the sauna with them, as then he would then need to maintain his sagely facade when he mostly just wanted to relax. He could not however let people who had participated in its construction not have one of the first turns in the sauna. They seemed curious about the facility, but Aki was sure they would figure out how to use it properly.

It was with pride that Aki gazed at the finished sauna, painted yellow by the setting sun. He quickly chopped up some of the leftover wood from the construction into firewood, which he then used to light a fire in the stove and the boiler in the washing room. He carried water from the lake into the boiler, and into the separate cold-water containers in the washing room. Then he went and sat outside to wait. He gazed wistfully at the smoke rising from the chimney. The scene was so nostalgic he almost forgot he was in a foreign world.

Aki generally enjoyed his saunas at around 80°C, but as he did not have an exact temperature meter available, he had to vaguely approximate the appropriate time. Once he judged that the temperature was suitable, he undressed in the dressing room and quickly washed himself with some lukewarm water he had prepared in the washing room. He opened the door to the sauna with the biggest smile he had worn in a long while.

'Finally, it's time to relax.'