Chapter 482: Act 230 – The City of Trees (Part 1)
From the sky, the Toniger region appears high at both ends and low in the middle, with a basin to the southwest where Cold Fir Castle is located. Looking east from Cold Fir Castle, beneath the azure sky are the rolling shadows of the mountains. A vast hilly area stretches down from the western foot of Graham’s Mountain, where tributaries of the River Gris converge. During the autumn and winter seasons, it becomes the best hunting ground, being the most densely forested region.
This place lies at the junction of the Mintai area and Cold Fir Territory, connecting to Parsons in the north and leading east to the Schafflund Mines. It guards one of the most important passages for Toniger, precisely the best location that Brendel envisioned for the Toniger Fortress.
Although the terrain is uneven, it has never been a problem for the dwarves. It is only due to funding that this plan is just starting; some troops are stationed in the hills, merely establishing a few fortresses along the main road.
In the central hilly region, the forest is opened into a clearing; this should have been a place lush with greenery, but now the clearing is strewn with stones gathered from the forest, a massive magical array etched into the uneven gray surface.
Multiple concentric circles compose the body of this magical array, filled with many mysterious runes. Even the most renowned masters within the Erluin Royal Academy might struggle to recognize these ancient characters. For Brendel, this magical array at least comes from an era before the dark dragon, traceable back to the Dusk War.
A mysterious power flows through the magical array, akin to the whispers of the woods, a pure natural force filling the forest. Green vines visibly grow quickly through the cracks between the stones. Although the magical array has only been established for less than a week, the vine-covered appearance seems to suggest it has been sleeping in the forest for hundreds of years. This unusually lush phenomenon has persisted for several days; the magical array seems capable of gathering the magic from the forest.
This is the completed central magical array of Valhalla, with a groove in the center that perfectly fits the city core Brendel holds, reserved specifically for it.
“The magical array doesn’t require external sources of magical power; once completed, it can draw on ambient magic. Such a powerful rule, even we silver elves do not possess,” Medisa gazed at the magical array in the forest, exclaiming, “What a pure natural aura, Lord, you are truly remarkable.”
“That isn’t my creation,” Brendel responded modestly.
“Even so, no one can interpret the information about this magical array inscribed on the crystal. Even the druid elders who came from the Black Forest have been rendered powerless while you happen to have read ancient texts on the subject. It can only be called a matter of fate,” the sister among the wild elves agreed with the elf princess behind Brendel.
Hearing Flour say this, Brendel smiled. There were no ancient texts; his ability to interpret this crystal was due, to some extent, to his special identity. He could understand the true use of an item through extra information projected onto his retina, while the natives could only theorize its function through archaeology or general identification methods.
“Well then, Brendel, when will you place the crystal?” Romaine asked while sitting on a rock.
“Probably right now,” Brendel answered.
He had witnessed the scene of cultivating a city core in past games. The city core is essentially a semi-intelligent artificial life, planted underground like a seed, and then infused with magic to help it grow.
However, before planting it, a magical array is required for reinforcement, a sight that was new to Brendel. He inserted the crystal into the groove at the center of the magical array, feeling it hum and vibrate in his hand, emitting a faint light that flowed like golden water along the array’s runes.
Brendel quickly shook his head.
In that instant, he almost thought he had misread, for a line of green text appeared in his retina, asking:
“A strange request, connecting to the Lord System.”
Brendel’s Lord System was activated when he first gained his lord status; once opened, the system resembled the town panels in SLG games, used to monitor the operation of his territory.
For example, at this moment, there were two downward submenus in Brendel’s Lord System: the Loop of Trade Winds and Toniger (2/3 territory). He could see the revenue and expenditure of both territories, specialty products, population, mining and forest resources, as well as public safety situations, and more.
It also included a set of personnel appointment data, showing the current responsible persons in different selection options. For instance, the person responsible for Toniger’s financial situation was Romaine.
If Brendel were to remove Romaine from this position now, he could see the potential impacts on the future finances of the territory. This system existed in the game, but in the game, its functionalities were even more powerful, allowing player lords to use the system for personnel appointments and to issue various edicts.
However, in this world of Vaunte, the territory system couldn’t be operated practically; it was basically a monitoring system. Merely monitoring was already quite powerful. Brendel could see that if Romaine were assigned to manage the Schafflund Silver Mine, it could increase the mine’s income by nearly one-third after three months.
It was only when this business lady’s abilities became apparent that Brendel gained an intuitive understanding of the Lord System’s secret. Nevertheless, even so, he preferred Romaine to remain in charge of the finances of Toniger rather than become a mine manager.
While little Romaine was not as talented with finances as she was in business, trade within the territory was not merely limited to the silver mine’s income, so it made more sense for her to stay in this position than to manage a mine.
Of course, these were all side notes. Brendel looked at the line of floating green text in his retina, slightly taken aback, then accepted the request.
Immediately, a subsystem named Valhalla appeared under the Lord System. However, this system was still gray. When Brendel tried to touch it, he immediately received a prompt:
“Valhalla is under cultivation, first phase requires 132,000 magic units.”
“132,000 magic units!?” Brendel was taken aback; here, the unit of magic referred to mana, and 130,000 mana was not something anyone could provide — even including wizards like William and Turiman would likely be drained to husks — so much magic had to be extracted from magic crystals, which Brendel quickly realized.
The lowest grade of magic crystals was the Lesser Moonstone, followed by Flame Agate. However, since he was neither a wizard nor a specialized alchemist, he really did not know how many units of magic a Lesser Moonstone could convert into. He felt a bit anxious that the conversion ratio might be too low, making the so-called ‘Valhalla’ a bottomless pit.
Thoughts like that made Brendel hurry to retrieve the prepared magic crystal from the dimensional pocket, which was a Lesser Moonstone. The quality of the magical crystal veins in the Black Forest was pretty good; at least, this Lesser Moonstone was filled with more magic than what Brendel had seen in the market.
He tossed the Lesser Moonstone onto the magical array, and in the blink of an eye, that diamond-shaped magic crystal lost its color, turning into a transparent glass-like substance. The prompt in Brendel’s retina also changed:
“Valhalla is under cultivation, first phase requires 131,900 magic units.”
“1:100.” Brendel breathed a sigh of relief; if the lowest-grade Moonstone could exchange for 100 units of magic, then higher-grade magic crystals were not a problem. He also tried the Flame Agate, and sure enough, the exchange rate for a piece of Flame Agate was around 2,000.
This meant that the 130,000 magic units required only needed a few hundred pieces of magic crystals. The first extraction of magic crystals from the rich magical veins in the Black Forest produced tons of crystals, and at the moment, the territory’s demand for magic crystals was primarily from Charles and other wizards and Master Ruber and Tam’s foundries. Thus, Brendel could almost pocket half of this extraction without worrying that there would not be enough magic crystals for Valhalla.
However, he soon realized he was too naïve.
A few hundred crystals tossed down only yielded a pile of transparent colorless glass, and at that moment, the city core finally absorbed enough magic for the first phase, making the crystal emit a creaking sound, and soon cracked significantly.
Then with a click, the city core actually shattered in front of everyone and sprouted from the original groove a…
A small sapling.
“What the hell?!” Even with Brendel’s knowledge, he could not help but be taken aback; planting the city heart like a tree seed was absurd enough, but he never imagined it would actually grow a sapling.
Nonetheless, Brendel also knew this sapling was certainly extraordinary. No one would believe that a few hundred magic crystals would yield an ordinary seedling — as the sapling grew in the wind, it astonishingly shot up to nearly Brendel’s height in an instant.
Brendel looked up and saw that the sapling had begun to thicken and elongate, extending branches like an ancient elven holy tree, rapidly growing to a height of several meters, enough to require a person to wrap their arms around it.
Within a minute, this ‘sapling’ reached a level that would take a typical tree at least ten years to achieve, yet it showed no signs of stopping.
Everyone present saw dense air roots beginning to sprout from the trunk, while many roots emerged from beneath the rock-constructed array, lifting the stone slabs, these roots also grew at a visible speed, intertwining together.
In just a few breaths, the ‘sapling’ grew another circle thicker.
Staring wide-eyed, it was taking on the appearance of an ancient tree.
“This… this is…” At this moment, Otales, who had long been dormant in Brendel’s mind, awakened due to the drastic change in the surrounding magic. Seeing this tree left her momentarily speechless.
Brendel actually found himself at a loss for words long before this.
Because right before his eyes, the sapling was getting thicker, countless roots and branches extending from the trunk, already big enough for seven or eight people to embrace. However, the tree’s height remained low, capped at just a few meters off the ground; at this moment, Brendel gradually discerned the tree’s shape, where a natural plaza unexpectedly formed among the treetops.
“Holy crap!” Brendel finally reacted: “This is just like the World Tree in the Loop of Trade Winds!”
…
(PS: The Wind Archer (Part 2) has been pushed to the back; if you see it, don’t ask where it went, just know the chapter order is correct. The development of the territory will be consolidated into one writing…) (To be continued. If you like this work, feel free to vote for recommendations or monthly tickets on Qidian (qidian.com). Your support is my greatest motivation.)
