As Fang Shi drove into the portal, he got the sensation of being inside a giant bubble for a few moments. His surroundings were blurry during these moments until the mirror like surface he had driven into shattered like a bubble. The view instantly changed and he identified that the unfamiliar location was above the ocean or the sea as a blue sky with a few clouds appeared in his view. Before he had the chance to do anything else, his personal flying boat drastically altered its trajectory as it immediately lost it's ability to float. The now beautiful water he was just admiring was now a real threat as he continued to plummet towards it.
"Activate emergency power", Fang Shi yelled unsure if it would help.
[Activation of emergency power was successful.]
The falling boat slowed down before completely stopping approximately fifty meters above the water's surface.
"System, what happened?", he asked.
[Initial evaluation suggests that the ambient amount of Qi energy in the air is currently scarce, therefore the qi gathering arrays on the vessel cannot effectively power the flying boat.]
Fang Shi was quick to understand the situation, so he used the controls to rotate the flying boat in a 360 degree motion while extending his senses. When the initial scan didn't reveal anything, he changed tactics. Instead of stretching his senses in a circle around him, he pushed his senses as far as they could go in one direction. Starting from the direction he guessed was north, he went in a clockwise direction until he reached south-southwest. It was a rough reception, but his perception had sensed that the water in that area was swallow eventually meeting with land. He sent the flying ship a mental command, which caused it to accelerate in the direction it was facing.
It only took five minutes for a small dot to appear on the horizon, and Fang Shi was able to see more details as he approached it. He could see three peaks on this island with two of them being normal mountains, while the third was a volcano. What caught his attention was that the volcano's crater still had smoke pouring out from it, but no lava spewing out, suggesting it had erupted recently but had calmed since then.
Fang Shi didn't want to waste anymore spiritual energy piloting the flying boat so once he arrived, he landed it and set it to the 'Low Power' mode. He took a few moments to look at the beach he had landed on. In his last life, he had never visited the beach before or even flew over the ocean, so he was feeling grateful he had found this place.
Looking around, Fang Shi started to make some deductions based on what he could see. Looking at the position of the sun, he felt it was late morning so he looked at his personal clock to see if he was correct. Unfortunately, when he looked at the familiar clock that was inspired by m*necr*ft, it was rapidly spinning in an odd way.
"System, what going on?", he panicked a little.
[Host, this sub unit is still in the process of calculating the time at the moment. Once a day has passed and all calculations are completed, the clock will be functional again.]
"Sub unit?", he noticed the new title the system had given itself.
[As per the task description, 'The main unit will handle the daily operations of the company, and a sub unit will be assigned as an observer as the host attempts to complete the new task.']
"Observer?", Fang Shi had a bad feeling.
[Correct.]
"Do you mind if I keep calling you system?", he asked.
[Understood, this sub unit will continue to answer to the title of 'System'.]
"Not that this makes things better, but what can you do?", he inquired.
[As per the title 'Observer', this sub unit will watch the host perform the task and report the success or failure back to the main unit.]
"Wait a minute", he had a concerned look on his face, "So you won't do anything, except for observing and reporting the results. No teleporting me to safety. No issuing tasks or rewards. You won't protect me, or the new store. I can't count on you to perform evaluations on items brought in?"
[Correct.]
"This is terrible", Fang Shi felt terrible, "I can't freely use my flying boat, I can't count on the system, and I don't know where I am."
Looking around, he took a moment to pinch the bridge of his nose in annoyance.
"Getting depressed won't solve anything", he steadied himself mentally, "So let's work on the only problem I can for now."
Pulling out a sword, Fang Shi hopped on it and directed it into the air. Rising into the air, he looked down on the forest that was just beyond the beach and started flying over it. His first observation was that none of the trees or plants held spiritual energy, everything alive was from the mortal world. But he also noticed that everything was relative young, like it all had only been recently planted in the last year. The second thing he noticed was that the forest floor was covered with a thick layer of dead plants. He couldn't recognize any of the dead plants so he took a few pictures of the living and dead plants, and continued his exploration.
Fang Shi's third observation pleased him greatly. As he flew around, he often found fruits trees and they all were familiar to him. Bananas, oranges, pineapples, coconuts, and more were found throughout the forest with some closer to the beach and others more inland. He even found a field of sugar cane which pleased him greatly. Prior to this, all the sweets in the shop were made with honey, syrup, or a sugar processed from certain fruits or vegetables. With the inclusion of all these new plants, his farm and the restaurant will greatly expand in the dishes it could offer. And then a thought occurred to him.
"System, is it possible to add to add these plants to the farm?", he asked.
[Impossible. The host has been randomly teleported here, and cannot interact with the other branches without a teleportation array.]
"Even if I had the array, I don't have the materials to build it or the energy to activate it", Fang Shi retorted in frustration.
[Please work hard, host.]
Losing some motivation, Fang Shi didn't inspect everything as closely as before and just decided to do a quick search over the whole island. This led to two more discoveries: the first was that the island was basically a circle and the size of Guam, and the second was that he found certain locations on the island that felt strange. He first noticed it when he flew over the northwestern part of the island. This area was where the majority of the lava from the volcano had flowed out from during the eruption. As he flew over, he had this sensation that felt similar to fire qi energy but when he tried to absorb this energy, he felt nothing.
"There must be a power of some sort here", he stated his theory aloud, "Perhaps there is a special way to harness it."
Other areas also had similar feelings, one of the mountains exuded a strong earth, a certain spot of the beach had a strong water aura, and dense part of the forest had a wood aura. This gave him an idea but after a few hours of searching, he couldn't find a metal aura. He had already found a lot today, so he decided to head back to his boat.
"I have three years, and today's the first day", he told himself, "Let's stop for dinner and I'll start again in the morning. I should have an artifact packed away that help with this."
Fang Shi traveled back to where he had left his boat with no problems, and once inside he pulled out a few containers from a storage space. With a few hand motions, a space inside the boat changed and a small dining table was there. He placed the small boxes down onto the table, and poured a very small amount of qi into them. Several moments later, steam could be seen rising from the boxes and when it stopped, he removed the lids. He took out a small bottle of peach blossom wine and started to eat as he looked as his phone.
Fang Shi was about to watch 'Clouds and Wind' when he remembered the pictures he took earlier today. Not know the plants today made him realize he had neglected a certain skill of being a merchant. Ever since he had the evaluation artifact, he simply let it handle the evaluation and payment of all incoming goods guests brought in to sell. Considering the situation at his current location, it would be impossible to use the artifact the same way here with such scarce ambient qi. He resolved in the future, he would study hard so that he would avoid from falling into this position again.
Fang Shi pulled out the evaluation artifact, and inserted the spirit stones into the proper slots before placing his phone in it. The pictures were transferred, and he took the opportunity to eat while he awaited the results. It didn't take long and when he got the signal, he went to open a light screen but stopped himself.
"Don't waste energy", he quietly reminded himself as he picked up his phone and looked at the report. He had a hunch and the report on the screen had confirmed it, the dead plants on forest floor was dead spiritual plants and the trees were normal trees from the mortal world.
"How could this have happened?", he asked himself, "A volcanic eruption wouldn't be the cause. Something happened in this region that caused the ambient qi to fall. Without this energy, all the spiritual plants died and seeds from normal plants and trees grew at an accelerated rate due to the rich volcanic soil that was further enhanced by the compost made by spiritual plants. I just don't know what caused the qi levels to drop. Speaking of which, I haven't found any spiritual veins either. Last year, there was an incident at the other branches where was a rise in ambient qi. I theorized then that many spiritual veins must have been destroyed for that to happen, and this place must be the epicenter for that disaster."
Fang Shi finished his dinner and spent some time in meditation before laying down to rest.
The next morning at sunrise, Fang Shi also started his day with a quick, healthy breakfast. Once again sitting at the table, he opened a different app on his phone, the mapping app. Numerous pins were placed from yesterday during his initial exploration of the island but for now he focused on four specific points. These were the four locations that radiated the powerful, yet strange aura. Now that he could look at these points of interests from another point of view, it seemed really obvious where the fifth location should be.
Fang Shi summoned his sword again before lifting off, and heading towards the location where the metal aura should be. It didn't take long to reach it and even though he couldn't feel the aura he was searching for, he had an idea why. He put away his sword and with a few hand gestures cast 'Earth escape', diving into the ground. After a few hundred feet, he finally felt a sharp aura around him that could only come from a humongous mine of some type of metal. Instead of search for the mine, he returned to the surface. Looking at the map again, he also brought out several scrolls of Feng Shui and cross referenced them to find the place the five points intersected.
Fang Shi headed towards the next destination and as he got closer, he began to sense the qi in the air was becoming more concentrated. He finally arrived at a somewhat hidden cove, the center of the five auras. It was here that the qi had reached it's highest level, which was the equivalent of a third order spiritual vein.
"It's a natural formation", Fang Shi realized, "The five elements gather here to combine and form qi. Given enough time, a spiritual vein would form here but I don't have time for that. I need to investigate what is causing this aura. If I can increase it's strength, it should also increase the strength of the natural formation, too. But for now, let's get the flying ship and park it here for now. The qi isn't strong enough to power everything, but it's better than nothing."
Feeling accomplished for the day, Fang Shi hopped onto his sword and returned to the flying ship. With a quick motion, he shrunk the boat to fit in the palm of his hand and he put it away in his storage rang. Just as he was about to leave and returned to the cove, he heard the voices of multiple people.
"There were people on this island?", he couldn't believe it, "I haven't even found a city, town, village, or a hut. Where did people come from?"
Fang Shi stepped onto his sword but this time he headed toward the voices he heard. Not sure what he would run into, he placed four talismans on to his outer garment. These talismans blocked others from seeing, smelling, sensing, or hearing him. It didn't take long to reach the owners of the voices, and what really surprised him was that it appeared to be three small groups of mortals.