Arcane Lord

For a moment, Shado regretted agreeing to the invitation of Emperor Calimshan. He originally thought it might just be a relaxing and pleasant sightseeing trip, and maybe some talks along the way, but overall it would be very relaxing.

But now it seems that it may not be that simple. The country of Calimshan is unstable, and the elf prince was assassinated not long ago. Shado suddenly had a premonition——

When Karim comes, he may still be inevitably involved in this matter!

As the floating city continued to deepen, although he still maintained communication with Fadila, Sha Duo also saw more and more ground scenes through [Wide Area Detection] or other passive information collection spells.

From a high altitude, you can see the vast desert extending from west to east, from north to south, all the way to the sea. There are more deserts only along the two rivers that run through the desert and merge into the sea to the west and one to the south. Oasis distribution.

The rest of the territory is only dotted with some small and medium-sized oases. This shows that Calimshan has a vast territory, but its actual population is very limited.

Of course, compared to Netheril, that's still a lot more.

The Kalim that Shado was going to on this trip was at the southernmost end of the Kalim River that ran through the desert and merged into the sea. Looking along the way, Shado saw the exquisite and skillful fighting postures of the Calimshan scholars, and also I saw the scene of the common people struggling to survive.

The oasis belongs to every pasha. If civilians want to live in the oasis, they must work for the pasha and are called "civilians". In fact, their lives may not be as good as those of some slaves in Netheril.

The biggest problem here is the water source. Controlling the water source in the desert is equivalent to controlling everyone's lifeline. Even an extremely skilled spell caster, if he doesn't know how to summon water, will still be able to get it when he is thirsty!

Although almost all the citizens of Calimshan can cast spells, the vast majority of them only know some simple blood magic, and they happen to have awakened the water element blood in a country where the wind element blood is the mainstream.

Even if you really awaken the water element bloodline, you may not be able to summon water. Even if you summon it, it may not be enough to drink for yourself, let alone satisfy the people around you.

If Sha Duo was a local pasha with a slightly more vicious mind, he would immediately hunt down and kill anyone who had awakened the water element bloodline. Even if he could not kill him, he would try to win over and control him as much as possible.

At worst, you can report it to the higher authorities and ask the "great" Sir Pasha to maintain the stability of this class order.

If you think about it this way, I am afraid that someone in Calimshan will really deliberately target the water-related spells in the blood magic system.

If this is the case, Shado dares to conclude that the ruling class of Calimshan was born from the water source and will surely die from the water source!

…

The floating city was not moving slowly. It didn't take long for Shado to receive a message from Niya. She had already seen the magnificent city of Karim on the coast in the distance.

The buildings in the city are tall and majestic, with numerous towers. Almost all buildings have pointed arch tops that shine with colorful brilliance in the sun, full of exotic customs.

In addition, perhaps to facilitate heat dissipation, the main surfaces of most buildings in Calimshan are covered with a kind of fine white sand, which emits a hazy white light in the sun.

Niya liked this architectural style very much, and the voice of the messenger was full of joy and joy until she saw the scene in a small village near a small oasis not far north of Karim!

Listening to Niya's angry and even slightly uneasy tone, Shaduo quickly adjusted the [Wide Area Detection] target and soon discovered the small village that Niya was talking about.

It was a super micro-settlement inhabited by only a dozen families. In the middle was a low building built with stones. Inside was a cellar-like structure, and at the bottom was a soaked water tank paved with gravel.

Outside the stone building, a circle of wooden houses is almost evenly formed. There are also two rows of unknown dead trees growing outside the wooden houses, blocking the wind and sand from the north and west.

Of course, from the sporadic small yellow leaves, it can be seen that the dead trees are not actually dead, but a drought-tolerant plant that is relatively common in deserts and almost non-existent in the North.

If there were no accidents and no rulers from above, this small village would have been a paradise where it could survive peacefully despite its hardships.

When you are hungry, there are fruits on the dead trees, and some lizard-like animals are kept in some wooden houses; when you are thirsty, there is a water source in the cellar of the stone house in the middle.

But reality is reality after all. Although Chatobiniya observed a step too late, from the tools scattered outside the wooden house and the long string of horse hoof prints stretching westward into the desert, it can be seen that this place has just experienced a man-made disaster.

Of course, from the perspective of [Wide Area Detection], Xia Duo could clearly see four masked men on horseback to the west singing a song with a wild melody.

Looking at the village, luckily there was no bloodshed, but the group of horse bandits and sand thieves from the west robbed the water source stored in the village.

It's already winter now, and the Northland has entered a state of ice. But in Calimshan in the south, even in winter, it's still hot during the day, and it's almost impossible to survive without a continuous supply of water.

Therefore, Xia Duo, who had the perfect timing, saw the extremely evil side of human nature——

A girl whose thin figure could be seen even when she was wrapped in a loose blouse was surrounded by four or five men who were equally thin but had particularly fierce eyes.

Although Shado couldn't understand Calimshan, it could be seen from their gestures and the expressions on their faces that the four or five villagers were forcing the little girl to fill the stone trough with water.

As for how to inject it, it is obviously a little instinctive spell of the water element bloodline.

Niya must have seen the robbery by the sand thieves and the rebellion of the villagers after they were robbed. When Xia Duo asked, it was indeed the case. He also mentioned that the girl had just produced some clean water, but the villagers were still not satisfied. He wanted to squeeze more, but the power of his blood was limited and needed to be restored, so the sad scene of coercion that Sha Duo saw happened.

By exploring the outside of the village, Xia Duo estimated that it would take at least a day to walk from the village to the nearest oasis with the strength of the villagers. If he wanted to bring back water, he would probably have to drink it all before he could even walk back to the village. .

Or maybe the transporter fell down from exhaustion.

Now there are only two roads in front of this village——

One is to abandon the village collectively and go to the oasis to become the pasha's obedient slaves; the other is to force the girl with the water element bloodline to create clean water for everyone, temporarily slowing down the water so that the water in the cellar sink can recover.