Knight Lord: Start with Daily Intelligence

Chapter 33: Griffin Mount - Deathclaw

South of the Thorns River Valley in the Duchy of Zijing lies the famous Great Serpent Estuary. Here, three rivers converge, the land is fertile, and it belongs to the fiefdom of an old-established noble family of the Empire, even more prosperous than the Duchy of Zijing.

This world basically follows a rule: humans rule the plains and river valleys, beasts rule the mountains and cliffs, elves rule the forests, and some strange races occupy the plateaus, swamps, deserts, and underground.

Entering a prosperous noble territory, it's difficult to gain anything if you don't leave the main road and enter the forest. Most of the messages displayed in the daily intelligence system are also in the forests and cliffs.

Su Li didn't want to leave the main road too far for a little benefit, after all, his supplies were not very sufficient.

So he accelerated his marching speed and left the even wider Great Serpent Estuary in just six days.

Crossing south of the Great Serpent Estuary is a barren land. The environment here is not very suitable for human survival. If you get lost in it, it is easy to cut off supplies. Su Li did not dare to run around away from the main road. It took him six days to successfully march nearly 1,000 Imperial miles and leave this yellow sand and desert.

At this time, the terrain has risen, because this barren land already belongs to the plateau, and the towering black mountains are faintly visible to the south.

More than twenty days after leaving the Duchy of Zijing, Su Li finally arrived at the Black Volcano Pass of the Empire. Crossing here to the south is outside the border of the Empire.

The Duchy of Zijing was originally located in the southeast, not considered the hinterland. Su Li marched three thousand Imperial miles before barely leaving the border of the Empire, which also shows the vastness of the Empire's territory.

In this huge territory, countless beasts, monsters, bandits, warbands, goblin tribes, etc. are hidden in the cliffs and dense forests, constantly threatening the villages and towns of the Empire. If they rely entirely on the Emperor's Imperial Guard, there is no way to deal with them.

Therefore, the implementation of the enfeoffment system is also a compromise for the Empire to face reality.

However, after a long history of enfeoffment, there is not much territory in the Empire that can be distributed to the huge knightly class.

Enlightened people have actually seen that the Empire is bound to win the border principality.

However, in order to reduce the intensification of contradictions, the Empire chose to send a large number of pioneering knights to enter, taking down territory piece by piece within the border principality.

A large number of Kingdom Knights and Barons are fighting here. The last strong man unifies the entire border principality, like the Guiyi Army, carrying tens of thousands of miles of territory, and returning to the Empire.

On the day of the victory and conferment, perhaps the prince who returns with the land will be recognized as a new elector of the Empire, with the right to be voted as the Emperor of the Empire.

Of course, this grand blueprint of the Empire's high-level is still relatively far away from Su Li. He now just wants to quickly arrive at Maleburg and have a good rest.

He was really fed up with this kind of wandering life, where he wasn't sure he'd have the next meal after finishing the current one. If it weren't for the assistance of the daily intelligence system, allowing him to lead the troops to hunt some game, they might not have been able to persevere smoothly along the way.

The main reason was that the size of his troops was too large. So many elite knights and formal knights put a lot of pressure on supplies. The size of his troops should not be something a pioneering knight of a duchy could have, so after leaving the Thorns River Valley, his supplies had been very difficult.

At this time, Su Li realized why the term 'marching and fighting' always puts marching first and fighting second. Being able to bring a troop smoothly to the battlefield surpasses ninety percent of generals in history, at least not weaker than Flying General.

However, due to the pressure of supplies, he also gained some benefits. By foraging everywhere, he harvested many valuable items.

When he walked out of the Black Volcano Pass and arrived at Maleburg, there was already a newborn griffon, three hartebeests, five pounds of dragon blood grass, thirty pounds of star iron, and two sets of excellent armor in his troops.

These two sets of armor were found in the nests of magical beasts after the death of ranger knights who had traveled and challenged everywhere before. One of them was near a griffon nest.

Because the griffon's nest was very high, built in a cliff cave more than 2,000 meters high, Su Li did not send anyone to climb up, but camped below and rescued a fallen griffon chick.

Griffins are very vengeful creatures. If someone breaks into their cave and steals their eggs, they will track the scent and carry out a vendetta all the way. Two tiger-striped griffins in the sky secretly attacking, even bloodthirsty wild bulls will suffer a big loss. Except for Earl Stein, Su Li's subordinates cannot defend against them at all, and it is impossible to get rid of them because of their extremely fast speed.

More importantly, Su Li is now personally feeding the little griffon. The little griffon is in his tent. He doesn't want to be attacked by two griffins in the middle of the night when the knights are practicing. Knight Earl Stein is the Knight Commander, but not his personal guard, and cannot always guard his tent.

However, if no scent is left in the cave, the griffins will search around the cave after seeing the eggshells. If they really can't find it, they will give up the search and assume that the descendants who fell to their deaths should have been eaten by wild animals.

This little griffon was personally raised by Su Li, and Su Li named it Deathclaw.

Griffins are very humane. It knows that Su Li has a life-saving grace for it, so it is very close to Su Li. Su Li also takes it wherever he goes. This is the symbol of a great noble, which is very respectable. After entering Maleburg, walking on the street can cause a burst of clamor from the crowd, and countless people run to watch.

Arriving at Maleburg, Su Li's pressure was finally relieved a lot. He left the troops outside the city and only took Earl Stein, Schwartz, Frederick, and Hilde into the city.

Although the number of people was small, each knight was wearing Vibranium rune armor. The team also had a champion knight and a griffon. The golden light shone, and it was obvious that they were aristocratic. Everyone in the city respected them when they saw them.

After buying a map of the city, Su Li arranged tasks for Schwartz and Frederick: 'You two, go and purchase a batch of food and seeds, and by the way, dispose of the precious materials we collected on the road. Earl Stein and I will go to the City Hall, and we will meet at the slave market later.'

The identity of the pioneering knight is highly valued by the Empire. The Empire's high-level officials are determined to win the border principality, so they encourage every pioneering knight who enters the border principality to register in Maleburg.

If the pioneering knight can gain a firm foothold in the border principality, develop and prosper, and reach a certain standard, the Empire will grant him a title no lower than a Kingdom Knight in as little as two years, with no upper limit. This ensures that the lords who finally occupy the border principality are vassals of the Empire.

This is also beneficial to the lords. The noble status awarded by the Empire is respected everywhere.

Moreover, in order to encourage pioneering lords to be loyal to the Empire and expand their territory, when the Empire confers titles on pioneering lords, the Emperor and the Imperial Council composed of electors will reward the pioneering lords. Even if it is just the title of a Kingdom Knight, the Empire will generously reward at least a team of chivalrous knights. And the rewards for Barons and Earls will be more generous. However, as of now, there are only a few dozen pioneering lords in the border principality who have obtained imperial titles.

This means that there is still a vast territory in the border principality to choose from. If Su Li wants to choose a good location in this vast sea-like territory, the clerk may be able to give him a little help.