Chapter 140 The Calm Before the Storm
In the study room of the castle.
"Please come in." Brian put down the magic book in his hand and responded to the request outside the door.
He raised his head and saw the bloated Graal walking in from the door easily.
Seeing the businessman, he immediately realized that 15 days had passed since the day when the Purple Dragon Knight and the War Mage were stationed in the Rock Bunker.
In other words, he has occupied Mokou Town for nearly 20 days.
Because after he wrote out his plan for the town, he handed it over to Grall, who was solely responsible for the reconstruction of the town.
The other party will also report to him every five days on the development and governance of the town, as well as some problems he has encountered that are difficult to solve.
During this period, he has been staying in the study reading books and practicing new metamagic feats.
It's not that he doesn't want to go out to gain experience, it's mainly because he is worried about what if the shadow guard assassins in the City of Shadows don't play their cards according to common sense and sneak attack him.
After all, he directly offended a future legendary assassin, and he was a woman who liked to hold grudges.
So, before the wizard tower is built, it is best for him to keep a low profile.
"My lord." Graal bowed slightly and saluted. At Brian's signal, he sat down on an oak armchair large enough to accommodate two people and began to report his work seriously.
“According to your instructions, I have arranged for people to establish five simple small villages in some areas to the east of Mokou Town that are conducive to farming and planting, and arranged more than 1,500 liberated slaves in Work will be done there."
After that, he took out a simple map and placed it on the table in front of Brian. "These are the approximate locations of the five newly established villages. Due to limited time, these For the time being, small villages can only be built mainly with tents, and then surrounded by fences to prevent the invasion of wild beasts or small groups of goblin kobolds.”
Brian nodded slightly and looked at the map on the table.
He unexpectedly discovered that Graal had even named five small villages.
The three small villages located in several oak forests near the Stormhorn Mountains are Ancient Oak Village, Golden Tree Village and Hedge Village. They are located on a flat piece of land on the road leading to Tifanton in the east. The village established is called Lvxi Village.
The last village is located in a mining area near the Mokou Mountains, called Shenshi Village.
He took a quick glance and saw that the locations of these five villages were very reasonable.
If it continues to develop, it can gradually develop into a small town that can accommodate thousands of people.
It was his idea to build villages around the territory, which still had a great impact on the indigenous residents of Graal.
This place is no different from the real world. In this high-magic world, in addition to guarding against wild beasts and evil humanoid creatures from the outside world, civilians in the wilderness will even encounter robbers and bandits.
So most civilians like to live in towns or castles with high walls and deep walls for shelter.
Not only did he not choose to concentrate the entire population in the town, he also did the opposite and scattered them around the periphery of the territory. This undoubtedly meant that many civilians who had no power to restrain themselves would be dispersed. Forced towards death.
Brian can naturally think of this kind of problem that even ordinary people can consider.
However, he had his own plans in mind.
In the early days of reclaiming the land, he sent people from the Purple Dragon Legion to act as guards to clean up the surrounding settlements of monsters and evil humanoid creatures.
After all, all the slaves were liberated by him into lower-class civilians. Although they gained personal freedom and property freedom, as slaves, they had almost no wealth of their own.
So, the purpose of establishing villages is to allocate land to them.
The territory of Mokou Town is very large, and the most important thing is uncultivated wasteland.
Of course, even if these lands are abandoned, they still belong to the property of Mokou Town. Naturally, it is impossible to give them to these lower-class civilians for free.
He uniformly distributed farming tools and daily necessities to them in the form of leasing, allowing them to open up wasteland on their own.
Brian knew in his heart that too many gifts could easily have the opposite effect. What he gave these people was the opportunity to strive for the future through hard work.
Only by allowing them to personally experience the land they cultivated and the houses and villages they built can they truly have a sense of belonging to the territory.
The land allocated to them in Mokou Town only charges about 30% of the rent, which means that 70% of the income from farming in a year can be regarded as their personal property.
Next, they can rely on themselves to earn and accumulate wealth.
After all, under the slavery system, they had almost no freedom of life and property rights, and their labor was more driven by whips.
Now that they have property rights, the income from farming will be their private property, which can greatly stimulate their enthusiasm.
Right now, the most difficult defensive problem for Brian has been solved by him.
Of course, the solution to the problem is not to have more than 500 Purple Dragon Guards who are overqualified to guard these small villages.
But among the more than 2,000 slaves, through his policy of converting land into private property and upgrading to citizens of Mokou Town, he brought many humanoid creatures and some good gladiators from the former arena Volunteer to join the garrison and form a militia to protect the village.
Although most of these slaves are not strong, after being distributed with weapons, it is still no problem to resist the goblin kobolds.
Next, he only needs to ask the army responsible for patrolling outside the town to regularly clean up wild monsters in several villages, which is enough for these small villages to withstand the test of time and develop stably.
"Did you encounter any problems?" Brian looked at Graal and asked.
He found that the fat assistant had not only lost a lot of weight, but also had a healthy tan.
In response, Brian, who was the lord of Mokou Town, just smiled and encouraged him appropriately.
Seriously speaking, he is not a good lord who likes to do everything himself and take the lead.
In fact, Brian has never learned how to be a good and well-loved lord.
However, although he is not good at doing these things, he at least knows that as a lord or a superior, there is no need to do everything personally and focus on the overall situation.
He only needs to make plans for the future, allocate incentives reasonably, and be fair and just to his subordinates.
This is the so-called ‘Those who do not plan for the overall situation cannot plan for one area’.
In his current power distribution, Grall is responsible for all the construction of the town and all internal affairs, as well as logistics work.
There is nothing he can do about this, mainly because he really can't find a second suitable person to help him share the pressure.
In fact, Brian could still feel the pain and joy expression on Graal's chubby face, who managed so many affairs.
Seeing this, after careful consideration, he suppressed his plan to recruit new people and simply let him manage it alone.
This seems to give Grall too much power, but Brian always believes that in this high-magic world, where personal power is integrated into one body, in the face of absolute strength, any fancy tricks and means can It's all clouds.
Obviously, the businessman in front of him, who seemed to be the general manager of Mokou Town, was completely within his control.
Among other forces, Salo, the leader of the Dragon Skeleton Mercenary Group, is responsible for managing and recruiting soldiers, forming a garrison, and has full authority to maintain public security within the town, as well as assist in the defense of Mokou Town.
Obert, the purple dragon knight, leads his own purple dragon guards, responsible for dealing with threats from outside the town, and training new recruits with the old sword master Balerius.
The casters of the War Mage Team are on standby and ready to respond to emergencies that are too late to provide support.
The dozen or so spellcasters of the Silver Scholars Association, headed by the moon elf mage Ru Yin, are still in the Aldus King City in the Dark Region.
In addition to supervising the quality of the stone bricks, they also added an additional task of enchanting each stone brick with protective runes, which was the largest workload.
"Sir, when we were burning the forest to open up wasteland, we found five druids living in seclusion in an oak forest near Hedge Village." Graal said truthfully, "These druids once He came out to warn us about disrupting the natural balance, and also strictly limited the scope of our land reclamation."
Hearing this, Brian glanced at the map subconsciously, and Graal had carefully mapped out where the druids lived. The location of the grove is clearly marked inside.
As expected, he discovered that these people were indeed druids from the Emerald Garden.
In his impression, they were mainly responsible for the natural balance of the rocky wasteland.
The Emerald Garden is an organization established by a group of druids and rangers who believe in the god of nature, Silvanus. The main purpose is to maintain the balance of nature.
However, these hanging men did nothing but chat and fart in the grove all day long, and they did not even let their players get close to the grove.
Because there are a wide variety of herbs growing in it. There was once a player who wanted to die and arrogantly threatened: I'm afraid of them. These guys don't protect nature and fish here every day. I will burn this small forest for them today to rid them of their bad habit of fishing. Cured!
As a result, his bad habit of fishing was not cured, and he himself became fertilizer for the grove.
“Ignore them for now.” Brian said nonchalantly, “If they try to take action, put all the responsibility on me and let them go to Mokou Town. See me.”
The druid stopped the large-scale reclamation of the rocky wasteland as he had expected.
As the saying goes, evil people need to be punished by evil people. He believed that when the priests of the Mother Goddess of the Earth came here, they would be able to put on a wonderful show with these druids.
He didn't have to worry about it at all.
If they went too far, the worst he could do was imitate the gamer from his previous life and cure their problem of fishing.
“I have some good news here, sir.”
Graal continued, “After we cleared out a group of kobolds in an abandoned underground mine near Deep Stone Village, A fine gold mine was discovered.”
After listening to Graal’s report, Brian’s expression rarely fluctuated and he looked at the map on the table.
All the mining areas near Shenshi Village were obtained from the Eagle Chamber of Commerce, which he eliminated, and were by far the largest source of income.
The main purpose is to transport these ores to the gray dwarf cities in exchange for weapons and equipment.
Adamantine, as one of the hardest metals known in the material world, is resistant to high temperatures, corrosion, and dissociation. It can also burn magic runes and absorb magic energy.
In addition to the shortcomings of being heavy, difficult to process, and difficult to find, fine gold can be said to be the best magic metal.
Its density is five times that of steel, its toughness is comparable to gold, and it is extremely resistant to high temperatures.
The most important thing is that due to the golden age of the Arcane Empire Netherese, many important components of the floating city can only be supported by the performance of adamantine, which has led to their over-exploitation of adamantine resources. Nowadays, it is rare to find adamantine on the surface. mineral.
This makes fine gold astonishingly rare and precious in the material world.
"After detecting the reserves, do not mine and export them for the time being. I will keep them for other purposes." Brian thought for a moment and said to the assistant in front of him.
Adamantine is also an important material for building the wizard tower, and is also the main material for making the legendary creature, the adamantine golem.
For him, the more of this rare material, the better.
However, he won't be able to use that much yet.
Because in the small world where he was reborn, there were also abundant reserves of fine gold and mithril.
Before he left, he collected enough materials to make two adamantine golems in advance, and stored them all with his fellow psychics.
After his wizard tower is built, he can start making a legendary-level construct, the adamantine golem.
This is why he confidently said that after owning the Wizard Tower, he is not afraid of most legendary powerhouses.
Next, after he discussed with Graal for about half an hour, the other party left with a smile on his face and was satisfied.
Because in the report just now, Brian mentioned Graal's son Lando intentionally or unintentionally.
At this time, this talented young warrior is receiving training from Balerius with Alek, another purple dragon knight.
His plan to do this was mainly to let the two of them learn to use the energy of Qi in their bodies.
In this case, they can naturally work part-time as Sage's Sword, one of the three basic professions of Nine Swords, to learn the swordsmanship of the Desert Wind Sect obtained from him.
And after he successfully suppressed the sequelae of Salo, the dragon vein warlock, through the magic potion prepared by the myconids, he wanted to try to let these two talented young people practice the desert wind swordsmanship based on the fire element. Perform a dragon blood baptism with the blood of the red dragon to greatly enhance the power of their swordsmanship.
If it is really successful, Graal's son Lando will not only be able to work part-time as the Nine Swordsman, but he will also be able to advance to Dragon Vein Warlock based on the warrior profession.
His strength has been greatly improved.
Thinking of this, he gave up on reading and prepared to go to the lightless woodland in the Underdark.
At noon.
After Brian took away the magic potion that suppressed the red dragon's bloodline from the Myconid leader in the Sunless Woods, he had just returned to the study when good news came to him.
Tysonde, the priest of the Temple of Knowledge, came to Mokou Town with a group of missionaries and temple guardians.
He immediately arranged for someone to bring them into the Rock Bunker for a meeting.
After seeing the polymath Pastor Tysonde again, Brian was surprised to find that the other party actually brought half of the people from the Temple of Knowledge in Arabay City to Mokou Town to establish themselves.
In addition to scholars, inventors, craftsmen, artists and other believers related to knowledge in various fields who spread knowledge, these people also brought 50 fully armed temple knights and more than 40 priests, as well as A small number of clergymen who work part-time as wizards.
In the Church of the God of Knowledge, the real temple knights are mainly warriors, but they also work part-time as priests and have the ability to release divine magic.
Their strength is generally above level 3 and level 10. Brian also saw through the blank scroll emblem on their silver-white armor that the strength of the leader of this group of knights has reached the paragon of level 4.
As for the more than 40 priests wearing priest robes full of scholarly temperament, at least 10 priests are around the third level in strength.
It can be seen from this that the "Gilded Laurel" of the Church of the God of Knowledge provides unremitting support for his intention to promote knowledge.
However, what made him a little regretful was that the high priest from Arabe City, whose strength had reached the legendary realm, did not come in person.
"Lord, we have arrived as promised." Tysonde, who was wearing a scholar's robe, bowed slightly and saluted him. "Ogma, the god of knowledge, cares about every soul who is passionate about knowledge. He wishes Cormyr, who possesses wisdom and power, Lord salutes. "
The priests, temple knights and scholars behind Tysonde all bowed slightly to Brian to show their respect.
"Praise to Ogma. In the name of the Kingdom of Cormyr, I, Brian, welcome you all on behalf of all the people of Mokou Town."
Brian also followed suit with a polite word. , "May the sun illuminate the world, knowledge illuminate life, and let the glory of the God of Knowledge shine in every corner of the territory."
After placing the believers of the God of Knowledge, when the sun is about to disappear on the horizon At that time, Brian received news that people from the Mother Earth Church had arrived in Mokou Town.
Hearing this news, he finally felt relieved.
After all, his subjects are in full swing clearing up wasteland and using the spring plowing time to sow food.
But their poor sowing technology made the progress of land reclamation very slow.
At this time, with the guidance and help of professionals from the Church of the Mother Earth, their safety can be guaranteed while efficiency becomes faster.
The priests of Shantia are best at teaching gardening, herbalism, plant classification and plant diseases, and spreading the knowledge of all civilizations about multiple planting, composting and irrigation to fertilize the land, transforming the land from generation to generation. Pass it on.
Just as Brian thought, the people brought by the female priest Kalina, in addition to the relevant farming believers, also had a watchman force of about a hundred people.
The ‘Watchers’ are a special organization of the Church of the Mother Earth. They are mainly composed of rangers who believe in Shantia, and are supplemented by priests.
These Watcher Rangers are not only proficient in melee combat and archery, but also have the ability to unleash divine magic.
They are the most professional and most powerful combatants, responsible for guarding farming and eliminating anyone who tries to destroy the land and evil humanoid creatures that threaten border civilization.
In a simple meeting with the female priest Kalina, Brian was surprised that when she learned that there were five fishing druids near Hedge Village, she led a group of druids without hesitation. The Watcher Ranger Team headed straight for it.
Seeing this neat and tidy female priest, he did not stop him. Instead, he ordered Graal to move the believers of the Earth Mother Goddess to a place they had prepared in advance.
With the arrival of the Church of the God of Knowledge and the Church of the Mother Earth, Brian clearly felt that the atmosphere of the entire town had changed.
On the originally empty streets, more and more adventurers gradually began to appear. Caravans from the Northland Alliance across the Enook Desert, heading for the Valley and the Kingdom of Cormyr, also began to pass through in an endless stream.
This harmonious atmosphere lasted until the next morning. When Brian opened his eyes and sat up from the bed, he suddenly discovered that Silver Wing had already appeared as a half-elf poet. Maung sat next to him.
He was about to say something, but out of the corner of his eye, he suddenly noticed the unprecedented solemn expression on the other person's handsome face.
Seeing this, even if he didn't ask, he knew that Yin Yi, who had been keeping tabs on him in the desert, was definitely aware of the upcoming counterattack from Ghost City.
To be able to make an ancient silver dragon show such a solemn expression, the enemy's power is obviously extraordinary.
(End of this chapter)