High Above

For ordinary people in the Xiahui Territory, the changes brought about by victory in the war were slow and subtle.

For example, more and more mountain people choose Xiahui Territory as a transit point for trade with Nauman City and the Agate Stone Plain Territories, which greatly increases the local economic advantage.

The bards in the tavern are also praising the great achievements of their lords, publicizing the name of the prophet as much as possible, and paving the way for the establishment of the future sect.

It is difficult for ordinary people to detect abnormalities like this, and they only take it for granted. There are many things in the territory, and no one is aware of it.

But in addition, there are also some rapid and tangible changes: for example, there is no longer a curfew at night, and more and more magnetic storm armors and well-equipped guards stand at the street entrances of major key areas, showing the territorial power. .

There are also many hired mountain workers in the city.

Many residents were surprised to find that in the streets and alleys there were strong men from various ministries working hard to reorganize the streets and expand the urban area.

Thanks to the addition of such a group of strong laborers, Ian's process of reshaping the urban area of ​​Xiahui City has been greatly accelerated. For those who rarely go out due to winter, every time they go out, they will feel a sense of change with each passing day.

——What is this tower? Magnetic storm electric circle?

——That black thing on top of the Lord's Mansion is...a light beam cluster cannon? !

——Oh my god, the whole street has been completely resurfaced? Even the armor can't be crushed, right?

More than that.

On the Solitary Flame Peak outside the city, there is even a simple dragon's nest on the platform halfway up the mountain. Recently, residents traveling far away can always see a dragon's shadow passing in the sky, which really brings great joy to the locals. Got a lot of scares.

Xio is happily building his own nest. The young real dragon who leaves his mother's supervision for the first time is like a young man who leaves home and rents a house by himself for the first time. He wants to build his own warm little home by himself.

Ian's attempts to help were declined, so he could only shake his head and leave.

Even the changes in Xiahui Territory are not limited to the city.

It also originated from the distant imperial capital.

In the year 774 of Terra, January 9th, a blue-black dragon-scale war horse was galloping through the streets carrying an envoy from the imperial capital. He did not slow down at all, but he also did not hit anyone. The tall war horse even Being able to step on solid ice and fly through the air out of thin air made everyone watching scream in surprise.

It passed through the vibrant Xiahui City at lightning speed, all the way to the Lord's Mansion Castle located on the lakeside, and then slowed down and climbed up the cliff.

Many passers-by looked at the dragon horse and knight in surprise. They gathered together and couldn't figure out who was so bold and dared to ride a horse and rush to the lord's mansion. Many of the mountain people even thought that the knight had insulted them. The messenger, holding the hammer and pliers in his hands angrily, wanted to come forward to ask for an explanation.

But the local residents of Xiahui City vaguely saw some clues from the sun emblem on the knight's armor. They grabbed the mountain people and told them the true identity of the knight.

That is the messenger from the imperial capital.

"Is it finally here? It can be considered as a formal ceremony for me."

In the Lord's Mansion, Ian, who was discussing financial issues with Scott, raised his head. He was a little surprised and said: "However, I thought they would come after the New Year Festival in the Imperial Capital (the celebration that ends in the first ten days of January). , now look, they set off at least ten days early."

"My record is still of some use." He laughed.

"Imperial capital?" Scott, who was working hard to fund the construction of the new city, was a little confused. The iron citizen scratched his head, looked at his lord, and asked with some expectation: "It's the young master of the Ellen family. Have you sent funds for your lord?"

"Of course not." Ian shook his head and complained: "Don't think of Isengard as a Kaizi who gives me money - we are allies who help each other, and he helps me more than money. Much bigger.!”

"Besides, didn't he already give away five thousand talers last time? Who do you think bought the alchemy equipment in the new alchemy workshop?" Ian felt that he had to let his subordinates know who was responsible. Xiahui has become a real nobleman.

“But there’s a real lack of money right now.”

Scott looked at the forms and accounts in front of him, and held the pen sadly: "Xiahui Lake's new farm needs a sum of money, the alchemy workshop's element crystallization production line needs money, the Xiakou exploration tools need money, and the new mine needs money. Money, money is needed to hire mountain workers, and money is also needed in the new city, not to mention the improvement of the sewer project and the pollutant recycling equipment in the alchemy workshop that you requested - these all cost money."

"It's not recycling of pollutants, but 'reuse equipment'. It can recycle at least ten to twenty percent of the effective alchemy materials, which can greatly save costs. The earlier it is built, the more it can recover its costs and even make money." .”

The young man frowned slightly and glanced at the document in his hand: "But other than that...well. It's all pure expenses."

Seeing this, Ian couldn't help but fell silent, and then sighed: "The construction of the territory really costs money like water - if I had known better, I wouldn't have bought people's hearts and reduced taxes for the mountain people."

That being said, if the mountain people are not given tax cuts to recuperate and recuperate, then Ian's next development and population diversion for the Midela Autonomous Region and other mountain people tribes will be delayed by more than a year.

If Ian really wants money, he has plenty of ways to find it. Not to mention anything else, if he and his people brought back a large amount of sublimated minerals and Warcraft materials from the Jiamu Department's underground secret warehouse some time ago, if they were sold, they could quickly obtain tens of thousands of thalers of sufficient funds.

But this kind of precious material, even strategic material, is easy to sell but difficult to buy. If you sell sublimation materials for a quick buck, you will definitely regret it in the future.

Therefore, Ian and Xia Huiling are not poor, but for a better future, to save time, and for many things more important than money, it is a bit difficult to circulate funds.

temporary!

"Speaking of this." Ian opened his precognitive vision and looked at the lavender figure at the gate of the Lord's Mansion: "Can I ask the empire for a development fund? I also meet the conditions of the empire's South Ridge Development Plan!"

Thinking of this, he quickly stood up and greeted the other party.

The imperial courier never imagined that he, a knight who came to deliver a message, would be caught by the local lord and asked about the various regulations for applying for 'development funds'.

He doesn't pay attention to imperial policies on weekdays, how could he know this?

Although the lord in front of him is very good-looking, if it was his free time on weekdays, the messenger would not mind talking more... But he had done his homework before coming, and he knew very well that the white-haired young man in front of him fought side by side with the real dragon, killing The murderer who killed the leader of the third-level mountain people, the most top-notch genius!

He didn't dare to fool the other party with half-informed information.

Therefore, he was neither embarrassed to refuse nor dared to turn around and leave without saying anything in front of a patrol knight who had a higher rank than himself. The messenger knight could only give one opinion: "Sir, look, what happened?" Viscount Taymor Ducasse, who will be conferring honors on you in a few days, is coming soon. He is a big shot in the Hall of Nobles, so he must know a lot about this aspect?"

"That's a good idea."

After getting the news he wanted, that is, 'who is going to award him the medal?', Ian did not continue to pester the messenger, but asked him to leave.

He thought thoughtfully: "Viscount Ducas of the Noble Hall... I remember that he was a person under the eldest prince, right? I didn't expect that after going around and around, it was his people who came to confer me a medal."

"They probably plan to take this opportunity to try to recruit me. It's really strange. How could the second prince allow it? But I don't care. It would be nice if I could defraud a sum of aid..."

He has already begun to think about how to get more benefits.

Just as Viscount Grant, who received aid from Archduke Thorin and then from the Imperial Capital, said, aid is something you don't get for free.

Nobles who want to develop their territory should not be afraid of eating hundreds of thousands of meals.

Treat every scam for aid as your last scam, and then don’t be afraid of being discovered!

The news that Ian and Elder Manya joined forces with the King of Mountain to quell the unrest in Nanling had already reached the imperial capital.

Although the main topic in the imperial capital today is the war front with Feiyandi on the western border, the small victory in Nanling has also attracted the attention of some interested people.

In the first week after the victory, Ian received many letters from acquaintances: the appreciation of the second prince, the support of another batch of ether crystals from Marquis Barton, the congratulatory letters from Isengard and Master Gosei... and even just Even Hua An and Shuang Die sent a small letter, telling Ian that they had found the group of hot water fairies.

Now, they are trying to move the original lair out of the cooling warehouse, find a place to place it, and perfect it into a real 'fairy lair'.

If possible, they hope that Ian will come to help - it is really difficult for only a second-level person to do such a thing, and no other goblins will come to Nanling in a short period of time.

Ian did write in his memo about returning to Port Harrison.

The development of the Xiahui Territory is now on the right track. With his prestige, the military guarantee brought by Xiou on the surface, and secretly the guard of Adelbert as insurance, the entire territory is impregnable, and it is very safe even if he is not around.

Not to mention, Ian now controls the most important 'ether crystallization production line'!

The 'Element Crystal Condenser' obtained from Jiamube was in very good condition. After being sent back to Xiahui City by Qingchao, it was transferred deep into the alchemy workshop by Adebert.

Except for a small number of core White People's guards, no one knows where this alchemy equipment, which is worth more than all the alchemy workshops in Xiahui City put together, is kept. And those White People's guards, and even Qingchao himself don't know what it is. What to do.

After Ian returned to his territory, the first thing he did was prepare to build his own element crystallization production line to completely solve the energy problem of the territory.

The core condenser is already available, but the rest of the production line is quite simple, and Xiahui Ling can produce it itself.

For the raw material 'Xiao Crystal Mushroom', Jiamubu has a channel and planting area. Elder Manya took over the plantations located in the northern part of the Midela Autonomous Region and the Odor Autonomous Region. After a short period of rectification, he brought a steady stream of Xiao The crystal mushrooms were sent to Xia Hui Ling.

Around the end of the month, Xiahui Ling's self-produced element crystals will be freshly baked, providing sufficient and cheap energy for many newly opened alchemy projects.

"By then, the territory will be developing rapidly even without me. I just need to keep track of the progress of key projects."

Ian is not a power-hungry person. If possible, he would not want to interfere at all and concentrate on research.

But in the continent of Terra, strength and power complement each other. If he has strength, power will follow.

Some call it ‘duty’, but that is only for responsible Ascendants. A considerable number of nobles only like to use power to satisfy their own desires.

However, Ian is a responsible person. After the war ended and he received the Steel Dragon Nest inheritance, he worked overtime for more than a week to prepare all the government affairs issues related to the mountain people and the development plan of Xiahui City. Have time to think about other issues.

Of course, this is not a bad thing - in the process of handling government affairs, Ian also used the silver chip to convert the 'Cod Jiamu's soul' into an 'intermediate ectoplasm computing unit'.

As an 'intermediate computing unit' condensed from the souls of third-level ascenders, its computing power is nearly a hundred times that of the 'basic computing unit'. One is because the improvement in soul quality greatly improves the structural strength of the computing unit, making overclocking acceleration calculations easier, and the other is because with enough volume, the computing unit can be built into a more complex and computationally efficient structure.

By observing the structure of the 'intermediate computing unit', Ian also began to upgrade his soul. While optimizing his computing power again, he also gradually strengthened the strength of his soul to something close to the third energy level.

In this way, as the strength of Ian's soul increased, he also noticed that the number of "Parallel Worlds on the Path of Spiritual Disaster" that could be linked to in his "Guiding Star" was also increasing.

It is precisely for this reason that Ian has obviously unlocked the spiritual disaster path at the beginning of the year, but until now he has not started to choose a parallel world to try exchange technology. Opportunities are precious. If you can try to link to something better, don’t settle for it.

Nearly ten days have passed, and Ian has almost completely converted his soul into a 'medium computing unit' structure. His soul strength will slow down and will remain at this level for a long time. At that time, he will begin to communicate with the parallel world.

"From this point of view, the basic computing unit is the 'primary meditation method', and the intermediate computing unit is naturally the 'intermediate meditation method'."

While conducting experiments on himself, Ian was also summarizing the basis of the future arcane path: "But it's still too complicated. I can figure it out, but I have to consider it for ordinary people."

He has taught all the 'meditation methods' he has summed up to Adalbert, asking the genius of the deceased king to help him continue to optimize the meditation methods, and let him try to think about how to use the existing 'meditation methods', Summarized a set of "trainee meditation methods" that ordinary people with only "artificial souls" can learn.

Ian can also do this research himself, but his time is really tight, and Adelbert also likes this technology that can strengthen ordinary people. As a leader, you have to assign the right tasks to the right people.

Knowing and employing people is the most important job of a lord. Only the most critical projects can make Ian devote his time and energy to research.

Ian told Scott to continue to push forward the construction of major projects in Xiahui's territory with all his strength. He had something to go out for.

As for money, he will find a way.

In this regard, Ian is really not panicked.

Even if he failed to defraud a sum of money from the eldest prince, he could still contact the Firestone Group.

The 'alchemical coating agent' that can be effective on armor has been proven to be practical, and its performance is extremely good. It can be mass-produced - but now there are still some key issues in the project, such as the pass rate that need to be solved, so It is necessary to apply for the second batch of research funds to stabilize the quality of the plating agent.

——This reason is no problem, right?

Ian even had several subsequent reasons, such as 'the need to develop special new alchemy equipment', 'the need to train a new batch of professional alchemy craftsmen', 'the need to improve the compatibility of different types of armor', etc...

Every reason can be used to defraud a wave of research funds!

Ian is so skilled!

As for what happened to Ian, he needed to leave the territory during his busy schedule, leaving behind all kinds of very important research and official duties...

Naturally, it is the most critical item.

The new advancement direction of the third level of Fudo Castle is now a new potion tentatively named 'Steel Lord' by Ian. Its most critical core material, 'Earth Source Crystal', is being transported by the King of the Mountain, Benlong. , is now at the mouth of Gu Yanfeng Gorge, waiting for him to get it.