Chapter 156: Wonders Bring Prosperity

The city’s water supply pipes also needed to be laid. The construction of the Aqueduct made water supply very convenient for Northguard Keep. The river water, after layers of sedimentation and filtration, was of high purity. Su Lun installed pure silver mesh screens in the purification pools for disinfection. Later, after Heatherway arrived, a magic circle specifically for removing toxins was built in the Reservoir. This added a toxin-purifying property to the water supply system.

With multiple safeguards in place, the drinking water in Northguard Keep was already very safe. The water from the Reservoir was then piped to every household. It could be said that Northguard Keep had achieved tap water supply in this era. Su Lun planned to officially start charging for the tap water service from next year.

After all, such a water supply facility needed daily maintenance, and he wasn’t about to let people use it for free.

Su Lun also reserved many empty plots in the outer city area for future development needs. The Harvest Altar belonged to the Wonder Building category, demanding high construction difficulty and consuming vast resources. Take that large Earth Crystal, for instance; if sold alone to Wizards, half a million Gold Nar wouldn’t be a problem.

The Harvest Altar somewhat resembled the Mayan pyramids from Su Lun’s past life. Its base was square, and at the very top stood a circular altar. The entire altar was a massive project. Fortunately, winter had arrived now, so farming wasn’t needed, freeing up more manpower in Northguard Keep for other tasks.

To complete this altar as quickly as possible, Su Lun employed four thousand people for its construction. To speed things up, he ordered Jushi and Johnson to attack small tribes in the Wilderness, capture the inhabitants, and then hand over all the captured Goblins, Kobolds, and Gnolls to the Drow Elf for “training.”

Winter was the toughest season to endure in the Northern Wasteland. The wasteland was covered in ice and snow for about a hundred days. With no food, most Goblins and Kobolds wouldn’t survive, and even the stronger Centaurs and Orc Tribes would see some of their elderly or weak members starve to death every winter.

In fact, many Goblins and Kobolds were desperate to become slaves of Northguard Keep. Su Lun only learned this later. Floer, the Goblin servant who had sworn loyalty to him, told Su Lun he knew a way to secure large numbers of slaves for the Territory.

Su Lun agreed to let him try. The Goblin servant then demonstrated unconventional tactics. He used his Goblin identity to infiltrate a Goblin Tribe, gaining their trust. Once familiar with them, he told the Goblins he knew where to find food.

Goblins facing starvation immediately expressed willingness to follow him and even asked him to become their tribal leader. The rest was simple. Floer led this entire group of Goblins to the place arranged with Johnson and Jushi, where they were easily captured.

The Goblin leaders were killed, and the remaining Goblins were handed over to the Drow Elf for “training.” In just one week, the Goblin slave population in Northguard Keep swelled to three thousand, including over two hundred Hobgoblins and Bugbears.

To commend Floer’s outstanding performance, Su Lun exceptionally freed him from slavery, granting him the status of a lower Citizen of Northguard Keep. Goblins weren’t picky eaters; any scraps could keep them fed. With ample food supplies in his Territory, Su Lun didn’t mind this. Although their individual strength was low, their sheer numbers compensated.

The Harvest Altar required huge amounts of stone, and only top-quality stone would suffice. Relying solely on the Turn Mud to Stone spell wasn’t meeting the demand. Stone quarries were scarce in the Wilderness. Su Lun put the Bugbear and Hobgoblin slaves to work at a quarry located near where the Ogres had once camped.

The rock quality there was excellent, fully meeting the construction standards. The quarry was situated not far from the White Water River, so the quarried stone could be shipped directly to Northguard Keep via river transport.

Besides this stone, the Harvest Altar also needed a lot of pure white marble. This could only be quarried from the Lotas Mountains. After extraction, the marble needed further processing. Since pure white marble deposits were limited, Su Lun used the Turn Stone to Mud spell to soften the marble, then removed the color impurities within to obtain pure white marble.

The entire Harvest Altar was twenty-seven meters tall, divided into three layers, each nine meters high. Each layer featured various carvings. Fortunately, there were many carving craftsmen in Su Lun’s Territory. Apart from these materials, constructing the altar required vast quantities of five-color soil.

Five-color soil refers to pure, naturally occurring soil in five colors: blue, red, yellow, white, and black. Finding this soil wasn’t particularly difficult; it just took some effort. Besides these basic materials, building the altar also entailed engraving numerous runes. Thankfully, these runes weren’t overly complex.

To speed up construction, Su Lun also created some simple mechanical devices. Thanks to his Mechanical Control skill, he didn’t take long to build some rudimentary cranes, along with carts for transporting materials. These devices significantly accelerated the altar’s construction.

With massive amounts of manpower, materials, and resources consumed, the Harvest Altar progressed rapidly. A month passed in the blink of an eye. During this time, the weather grew increasingly colder, and another heavy snowfall occurred. Luckily, the Lotas Mountains to the north of Northguard Keep blocked most of the icy winds blowing in from the polar ice plains; otherwise, this place too would have become a frozen wasteland.

Construction activities in Northguard Keep did not stop, even so. Naturally, to cope with the grueling physical labor, meat was added to every meal. Previously stored dried salted fish were distributed. Many of the slaves and Refugees, who had often been unable to get enough to eat, now not only had full bellies but also ate meat every day. Not even the biting cold wind outside could dampen their enthusiasm for this meaty diet.

Alongside the Harvest Altar, the walls of Northguard Keep’s Outer City were also being built at full speed. The operation to capture slaves for Northguard Keep in the Wilderness had never ceased. Now, Northguard Keep adopted a system of old soldiers training newcomers.

Barbarians would lead a group of new recruits on scouting missions. If they encountered formidable prey, the Barbarians stepped in to resolve it while the recruits followed, gaining experience and an easy win. If they found weaker opponents, the recruits were sent in to practice and gain experience under the watchful eyes of the Barbarian Warriors.

Since the Troll Tribe campaign ended, Northguard Keep had recruited over one hundred and fifty new soldiers, plus a hundred Militia members. This greatly expedited the training of new recruits. Normally, turning a civilian into a qualified soldier took three months, but participation in actual combat shortened this period to two weeks, or even less.

Kobolds and Goblins weren’t particularly strong opponents. Equipped with wooden shields, spears, and Iron-Reinforced Leather Armor, these new recruits only needed to form up. Against their disciplined formations, the Kobolds and Goblins usually couldn’t put up much of a fight, often collapsing after just two Charges. The one caution was against Kobold Sorcerers sometimes found in Kobold Tribes.

These Kobold Sorcerers, though only capable of casting one or two spells, posed a significant threat. To counter this, Su Lun assigned Archers from the Spirit of War unit to accompany patrols. These Archers, having participated in the previous Troll battle, had successfully advanced to become Longbowmen.

Knight-tier Longbowmen ensured that any Kobold Sorcerer appearing would be shot dead instantly. After all, the spells Kobold Sorcerers usually awakened were rarely defensive; Fire Arrow or Burning Hands were the most common offensive ones, though some might awaken the berserking-bloodlust auxiliary magic.

Using these monsters to practice and gain experience, the recruits became qualified Soldiers after just two or three engagements. Through such ‘monster-battling’ training, Northguard Keep’s recruits transformed very quickly into competent Soldiers. The newly recruited one hundred and fifty continued to be divided equally into Archers and Spearmen. Among them, a few individuals who had killed more enemies had already become elite Spearmen or Longbowmen.

Soldiers from the Militia, after experiencing combat, successfully advanced to become guards of Northguard Keep. Due to the population boom, urban affairs had multiplied severalfold. Even after expanding the Militia, its size was barely sufficient.

However, recruiting a large number of soldiers caused the town’s expenditures to balloon several times over. Paying these soldiers cost over a thousand Gold Nar every month. But this also had a benefit: once paid, these soldiers would certainly spend their money, meaning they would serve as the main consumers in Northguard Keep for some time.

Through the practical experience gained in the ‘old training new’ system, the soldiers’ strength improved, the Territory acquired many slaves, and the monsters surrounding the Territory were cleared out. This achieved three benefits at once.

The number of slaves in Northguard Keep grew by another thousand. Non-human slaves alone now totaled over four thousand, approaching five thousand. Naturally, Northguard Keep could no longer house them all. Therefore, Su Lun constructed several slave settlements in the Outer City of Northguard Keep.

The population had reached a point of near-saturation, primarily due to food supply constraints. In just over a month, including non-human slaves, the total population of Northguard Keep had increased fivefold. This year’s harvest was just barely enough. Consequently, the slave-capturing operation finally came to an end.

Su Lun was extremely busy during this period, but he still found time every day to visit the Hatching Room to check on the pterosaur eggs. Perhaps fortune favored him, for eleven of this batch of eggs survived; only two became dead eggs. This hatching rate was exceptionally high, as pterosaurs usually only have about a fifty percent success rate.

Su Lun didn’t waste the two dead eggs. He gave them directly to the Halfling to cook. Halfling Frodo was constantly experimenting with various dishes during this time, so getting such high-grade ingredients like dragon eggs naturally delighted him. By evening, the dinner table featured dishes like scrambled dragon egg with meat, dragon egg cake, and others.

After more than forty days of incubation, the remaining eleven pterosaur eggs reached the imminent hatching stage. On this day, Su Lun took the day off. He specifically gathered Heatherway, Chris, Halfling Frodo, Drow Elf Aydin, and Carina to wait together.

He had thought about calling Jushi and Johnson too, but the two showed zero interest in the eggs and instead went to the Training Ground to spar. As time passed, a sharp ‘crack’ sound suddenly echoed in the room, resembling the sound of breaking ice. A tiny fissure appeared on one pterosaur egg’s shell.

Soft cracking sounds continued one after another, and the web of cracks spreading across the eggshell grew denser.