Chapter 161: Festival – New Year

Su Lun was very interested in learning spells. Many spells, although not having powerful destructive force, were very convenient for daily life.

Many spells were developed for various uses. Even the original inventors of the spells could not have thought of them. Of course, sometimes in order to explore some magical uses of spells, some wizards would mess up. For example, there was the Hardening Spell. The Hardening Spell could make objects very hard, and the effect was permanent. This spell was widely used when building Wizard Towers.

But one wizard had a sudden idea and cast a Hardening Spell on his fifth limb. The spell was successful, but this guy became a bad example of a spell accident. This unlucky fellow’s fifth limb became as hard as steel, but it lost its liveliness.

In the end, this unlucky guy had to remove that part. If he wanted to recover it, he had to spend a lot of money to ask a high-level Priest to cast a high-level restoration spell on him, or wait until he learned the Clone Spell and make a new body for himself. This pioneer’s actions were not without effect. At least after the explanation of the Hardening Spell’s effect, there was a special note saying it was forbidden to cast the Hardening Spell on any part of the body, and you would bear the consequences yourself.

Chris actually knew many spells too. As a Succubus, she was naturally skilled in the Tongue Trick, which greatly reduced the difficulty of learning languages. Of course, there were some additional abilities, like flexibility and such. Su Lun and Chris had several battles of words. They each won some and lost some. This was also their regular activity.

Every day, Su Lun would spend some time with the two young ladies exploring the wonders of spells. This also made Su Lun more and more skilled in mastering spells.

The city’s construction was proceeding in an orderly manner. Because of the Harvest Altar, the crops in Su Lun’s territory matured much faster. Sugar beets that originally took a year to mature now only took seven months. According to this calculation, in at most two more months, the first batch of sugar beets planted in the territory would mature.

Moreover, Su Lun found that because of the Harvest Altar, the territory could grow some cold-resistant crops in winter. This discovery made Su Lun very happy. He collected the seeds of those cold-resistant crops in the territory and then sent people to plant them.

During this time, due to the lack of raw materials, the sugar pressing workshop had stopped production. Similarly, the Rum workshop had also stopped. The Northern Lands were cold, and in winter, many people liked to drink a cup of strong alcohol. The Rum in the taverns was not very popular in winter. After all, its alcohol content was not high. The town did not have raw materials like barley for brewing Ale, but potatoes were more than enough.

If they could not use barley to make alcohol, they could use potatoes to brew alcohol. Su Lun knew very little about brewing alcohol. But he was the Lord now, so he did not need to do it himself to use potatoes for brewing. He just told the brewers, and they would naturally experiment.

While building houses during this time, Su Lun was also building other structures. The outer city area only had two main roads, one running north-south and the other east-west, that were repaired. The other roads also needed to be fixed. While building the residential blocks, the city’s trading market also needed to be constructed.

The market was set up in the northwest direction of the town. It was close to the Port, making it convenient for loading and unloading goods. Su Lun built a professional Trading Market here, specifically for trading large quantities of goods. At the same time, besides the market, Zhenbei City also built a commercial district. In the future, many shops would be established here.

Su Lun only rented out these shops and did not sell them. Once the population of Zhenbei City increased, the rent collected here every year would be a huge income. After all, his past life experience told him that real estate was the ‘pillar’ industry of a country. The rising house prices every year just kept going up without stopping.

Apart from these constructions, Su Lun did not neglect the territory’s security. Right after the walls of Zhenbei City were built, Su Lun started building additional structures for the walls, the arrow towers.

This time, there were sixty-four arrow towers. Each arrow tower would be equipped with a Ballista. The Blacksmith Shop’s entire winter work schedule was fully booked, which was to produce Ballistas. These large war weapons, with a range of up to eight hundred meters, were one of the guarantees of the territory’s safety.

If all the arrow towers were completed and all the Ballistas were in place, even if Frost Wyverns attacked, they would not dare to get close to the city under the barrage of so many Ballista arrows.

Moreover, Zhenbei City also had Wyvern Knights. As System-hatched wyverns, their loyalty to Su Lun was maxed out.

…

The weather was getting colder and colder. The Northern Wilderness was covered in heavy snow again, and this snowfall lasted for five full days. The whole world turned white. Because of the effect of the Harvest Altar, the snow in Zhenbei City melted quickly. But outside Zhenbei City, the situation was not so good.

Just yesterday, after the snow stopped, Aydin’s scout camp found some clues in the northern forest. They discovered some footprints in the forest. Because of the snow, the footprints left were not clear, but they could still tell that these footprints were not left by humans.

Su Lun immediately became alert. Wandering in the Wilderness at this time most likely meant a lack of food. It was difficult for the races in the wilderness to store large amounts of food. Once they did not have enough food in winter, they would raid other tribes.

To prevent the territory from being ambushed, Su Lun decided to send more Scouts right away. The Drow Elves of the scout camp and those five human Scouts were all sent out to monitor the surroundings of the territory. If there was any movement, they would report it immediately.

Su Lun also had a guess about those monsters. They were likely an Orc Tribe. If it really was an Orc Tribe, then it would be a big trouble for Zhenbei City. An Orc Tribe that could suppress the Centaur Tribes was undoubtedly powerful.

But because the Centaur Tribes were there, even if this Orc Tribe was powerful, they could not send too many people to attack Su Lun’s territory. Su Lun was not afraid of the Orc Tribe attacking the territory. Relying on the current walls and defenses of the territory, attacking this place would not be easy.

This created an awkward situation. If they sent too few people, it would not be useful at all. They might not even get close to the walls. If they sent too many people, it would be hard to say if they could still maintain the upper hand in the battle with the Centaur Tribes. After all, the racial talent of the Centaurs was just too powerful.

Their running speed, and those always accurate sharp arrows, the heavy cavalry regiment composed of sturdy armor and sharp spears—if not for the advantage in numbers, the Orcs might have already lost.

After arranging for Scouts to monitor outside, Su Lun started thinking about the New Year.

This world had a calendar, and according to tradition, many intelligent races would hold celebration activities on this day. But no one defined it as an important festival. For Su Lun who liked celebrating the New Year, this was unacceptable. After coming to this world, every year when he lived in Caren City, he would celebrate the New Year by himself. Now that he had become the Lord, he naturally wanted to set the New Year as an important festival in the territory.

In his previous life, there was New Year’s Day and the Spring Festival. But this world did not have a lunar calendar or the Gregorian calendar. So New Year’s Day and the New Year were set on the same day. Su Lun designated this day as a grand festival in Zhenbei City. At that time, Zhenbei City would hold a grand celebration to welcome the arrival of the New Year, and also to hope for a better and happier year ahead.

At the same time, on this day, everyone would have a three-day holiday. Special positions and military personnel would take turns to rest. On this day, the territory needed to prepare plenty of food. After learning that Su Lun planned to set the New Year as a festival, the happiest was the Halfling Frodo. He was already rolling up his sleeves and getting ready to show his skills.

There was still some time before the New Year. On New Year’s Day, a festive celebration must be held. So Zhenbei City needed many decorative structures, like gardens, statues, fountains, and so on.

Holding a celebration also required a lot of food. Besides potatoes, Su Lun also prepared a lot of meat, with fish being the most abundant. Because near Zhenbei City, the Red Sand River and White Water River were not frozen. A large number of fish came to these rivers to spend the winter, making the catch surprisingly plentiful.

After finishing the construction of the residential blocks in Zhenbei City, they temporarily stopped building more residential blocks and started building flower beds along the roads. In the outer city of Zhenbei City, a central square also began construction. The central square was right in front of the Inner City.

To build this square in a short time, Su Lun brought Carina along to help with the construction. After the ground of the square was flattened multiple times by Pack Beasts, Su Lun and Carina continuously cast Turn Mud to Stone, turning the entire square into a rock surface.

At the same time, they also built a large fountain group in the square. The fountain was created by Su Lun directly using the Earthspring Surge spell to draw water from the underground water veins. The fountain group consisted of more than ten small fountains. Each fountain had a marble statue. Some statues depicted Su Lun fighting a group of Frost Wyverns. There was also a scene of Su Lun killing the ancestral spirit of a Troll.

The content of the marble statues in the other fountains were also sculptures themed around Su Lun. Of course, this was arranged by Su Lun and made by those master sculptors. Su Lun did not feel embarrassed about this at all. This was his territory, and these statues did not make up stories; they were all based on Su Lun’s experiences.

For the celebration, Su Lun specially found Heatherway and asked her to use a growth spell to cultivate a batch of flowers. These flowers were all planted in the flower beds of the central square. These flowers would all bloom on New Year’s Day. Of course, because of the growth spell, these flowers would only bloom for three days.

But even if the flowering period was only three short days, for those Refugees and slaves, it was a miracle. For the territory and Su Lun, this would gain great prestige.