Dear Broom Knight

“I don’t need them to expend energy outside of working hours for the next two or three years,” Lorne said after some thought, providing a suitable answer.

Cesca happily nodded. “Then I’ll go make the arrangements!

Um… Baron, will our profit distribution remain the same as before?”

Lorne looked at her with surprise. “Is there any need to change it?

Just make sure there are no mistakes in the tasks I assign.”

“Then rest assured, the territory's top priority will always be your wishes, Baron,” Cesca said emphatically before hurrying off.

Lorne shook his head with a smile.

He remembered why he himself didn't want to join those companies and suffer, and he certainly wouldn't subject his subordinates to that kind of torment.

Although the world is different, everyone's feelings are not the same.

But for Lorne, unless there was an urgent need, he generally wouldn't make these hard-earned technicians work more than eight hours.

He wouldn't harm himself for such a small amount of profit… The past him was still him.

That past belief and pursuit, Lorne may have slowly forgotten, but he would never destroy it with his own hands.

Besides, even though Lorne had gathered almost all the children with mage and scholar potential from the Northern territories for the past two decades, there were only a little over twenty of them in total.

Among them, there were nine mages, but aside from the two students Lorne had formally taken in, their talents weren't that great.

Not all mages are born with the ability to memorize everything they see; in fact, most can't do that.

Although this world hasn't figured out the specific attribute requirements when analyzing talent,

each profession basically has a similar standard.

Mage talent isn't just about intelligence.

No matter how high your intelligence is, it's useless if you can't establish a sufficient connection with magical energy.

But conversely, no matter how good your talent is, if your intelligence is too low, you're done for… Well, most of those are sent to the church to be faith batteries.

Of course, Lorne has his own more refined methods of distinguishing talent.

But he doesn't plan to pass this method on… After so many years, this world has been exposed to enough external knowledge, yet it still lives in a daze, confused and lost. There must be a deeper reason for this.

Lorne wouldn't think that he should benefit the world just because he knows more. No matter what a humanoid dragon is, his position, for now, is only in this world.

It's indeed difficult for outsiders to regard a new world as their home, but after years of wandering, Lorne, who has slowly turned a foreign land into a new home, is actually very open-minded about this.

He certainly won't love this world as much as he loved his former country, but a second homeland is still a home.

However, he secretly analyzed all the children who came to Qingfeng Territory hoping to have a good future as mages and scholars.

This is also why he can be sure that although the locals don't say anything, the Awakening Array should be able to roughly judge a person's talent and attribute range.

The mage seedlings who weren't taken away by the King's army and court mages basically have a maximum intelligence of 13.

According to the research of those worlds in Toril, it is indeed true that anyone with a natural intelligence over 10 can sense the aura of magic, but in reality, if it's less than 13, there's basically no way to understand the essence of magic.

In fact, the so-called scholar seedlings are those with sufficient intelligence but poor talent, whose utilization rate of magical energy is estimated to be at the level of an ordinary knight.

That Yuri, his IQ is very likely to be over 18 naturally, and with the deepening of his research on knowledge, he has surpassed the 20 mark after birth, and may even be more.

Otherwise, he would never have been able to manage the complicated and precise compound magic array of the Hamilton County so easily.

Bowen, who is currently by the side of Earl Ezra Hamilton, is estimated to have an intelligence that is the bottom line for scholars, 13 points, at most 15 points.

Without Wish and those strange but well-known stat-boosting treasures from other worlds, even with hard work, such talent can only add two or three points at most.

Yuri's starting point is the end point of that Bowen, and he may not even reach it.

Talent is truly the most terrifying and unshakeable watershed bestowed by heaven.

Although Lorne had long understood this in his pursuit of the artistic world and had suffered huge setbacks, at least in his world, insufficient talent only means that you can't reach the highest hall, but it doesn't mean that you can't pursue your beloved career for life.

The amount of talent has never been the main reason for determining whether a person can take a certain path; survival is.

These children with mage talent, without being selected by the royal family or seduced by the church, actually find it very difficult to become professionals through their own efforts. They might not even be as well off as some scholars who can only find their own path… If they had the intelligence attribute of a scholar, they wouldn't have been abandoned.

High intelligence and low mage talent are very suitable talents for artifact creators favored by large groups.

Mages who are strong in everything are not so easy to use… Their egos are too strong.

Court archmages very much like to cultivate such subordinates.

Those who don't, such as local nobles, where would they get the money?

Raising a mage like that would cost them enough to support half a knight order!

Unless such a child appeared within the family, noble houses would rather invite mages who had been in the royal court for too long and felt they had no future to work in their territories.

Generally, such mages would also train a few mage apprentices, but this wasn't very useful for the territory.

However, for Lorry, these weren't troublesome matters.

It was just that he never thought he needed to support any low or mid-level mages before… if it weren't for the blockade by the Earth Church and the Wealth Church that annoyed him for those few years.

These children, even as apprentices, could do some rune tracing work, and they could make tents and cold-weather clothing.

Scholars-in-training might be a bit lacking, but when paired up, their work efficiency was even better than a lone mage apprentice!

And after becoming formal professionals, they could also make some basic potions and ordinary curios… although each person could only learn three at most, and the production efficiency was very low, it was enough to meet Lorry's needs!

At least he didn't have to squat there grinding stones every day.

To make some things into magical materials, mana had to be added during the grinding process… Although Lorry could make a lot at once, he always had to interrupt his research to deal with these low-level materials, which made him a little irritable.

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Although Lorry could buy many things with a little extra money, who knew what he would encounter in the future?

In addition, these children all came to Green Maple Territory after complete disappointment, and their life goal was even just to become clerks in the Green Maple Territory magic shop.

The staff directly under the Green Maple Territory Lord were known for their good treatment, and they also received some basic training.

In this way, they could at least have the strength of an apprentice and earn money to support themselves, and if they were lucky, they could even support their families.

Lorry initially only trained them as apprentices anyway. In any case, making them grind stones for eight hours a day could almost deplete two-thirds of an apprentice's mana.

If they still wanted to work hard afterwards, Lorry would count it as overtime… in the form of performance wages.

Generally speaking, apprentices would persevere until they only had one-tenth of their mana left to review their lessons after a hard day.

These children were really hardworking, sincere, and very sensible.

As they spent more and more time with him, Lorry naturally gave them a little more care.

For example, in the mage workshop located to the right of his castle gate, opposite the castle knight order's garrison on the left, some amplification magic circles gradually began to be added.

With the same work, these children could complete it with only half of their mana.

What was reduced was only the mana consumption, not the material production time.

In this way, they could have a little more gain when working overtime.

In fact, by this time, these children had been with Lorry for at least three to five years and were already able to support themselves very well.

However, many children were still working hard, exhausting every drop of their mana, not only because of their desire to become stronger, but also because they wanted to make their families live a better life.

Some children have always hoped that after becoming formal mages, they would apply to the lord to move their families into Green Maple Territory, just like Lorry's two serious students.

Although these two students were originally from Green Maple Territory… otherwise, it would have been impossible for them to have an intelligence of 15 and not be scouted by the royal family.

This can also be regarded as an invisible asset of a mage territory.

The king gave some great mages such rich territories and abundant mineral resources for a reason.

In addition to allowing these mages to help guard some relatively remote territories, there were also the magical resources that slowly appeared in the territory with their repeated mana breaths.

Even the simplest mana mushrooms could be used to make stamina potions that would quickly restore the combat power of knights.

Although this would inevitably allow the mages to earn a lot of resources, if there was no mage, they might be strangled by other countries.

Moreover, once mages began to ponder these business ideas, they would inevitably recruit apprentices and train ordinary people who were good at mining or digging for medicinal herbs.

When these people got older and could no longer keep up with the needs of the mages, and had to give way to young people, they would naturally return to their hometowns… then, the knowledge they learned would most likely be passed on.

Now, there are naturally not so many requirements for mages.

But a long, long time ago, when magical knowledge was still held in the hands of some people, this was the most subtle method that the royal nobles had painstakingly devised.

Of course, this method, which could be regarded as a conspiracy, might also make some mages dissatisfied.

Therefore, the royal nobles simply gave up all the power of the mage territory… such as the rule that children with mage talents would first be screened by the royal family and the church.

Originally, this rule was only cancelled for the nobles.

This was not only because of the relationship of mutual restraint between the royal family and the territorial nobles, but also because they were originally more wary of the church.