Altura

As I watched, the carriage stopped before the gate and a stunning blond haired woman got off.

“Good Morning, your grace.” The woman said, bowing.

“Good Morning, Lady Illiana. I hope you had a pleasant journey.” I answered.

“Yes I did. Well, as pleasant a journey I could have had once your mountains blocked me. But my guards were able to figure out how to build a road. Do have one of yours take them to the cafeteria or something, I am sure they are hungry.” Lady Illiana said.

I turned to one of the ducal guards beside me and whispered, “Take them to the Roalt Mansion and have one of the cooks cook them something. I doubt they had as pleasant a journey as Lady Illiana here.”

“ Yes, your grace.” the Ducal guard whispered back and set off towards the Roalt Mansion, gesturing for Lady Illiana’s guards to follow.

“Would you perhaps like a tour of the city?” I asked, trying to make small talk.

“Yes, I am sure it will be quite pleasant. Besides, we do need to decide on the venue, your grace.” Lady Illiana said as she began walking towards the city gate.

“Well, I fear that the only place in the City big enough to hold a ball is the guard headquarters. But another can be built on available spaces outside.” I replied as we walked through the City gate.

“As you can see, the city has been built in a grid formation to prevent it from growing in an unplanned manner. The roads are completely planned and have a drainage and lighting system attached. The buildings are quite plain, however, they have been built for utility.” I began before I was interrupted by Lady Illiana.

“I would suggest lighting this place up, your grace. The lights and buildings are all well and good, but they give the place a very utilitarian feel. It will not be well liked among the visiting nobility. Planting a few trees along this road should do it. It would make it more presentable.” Lady Illiana proposed.

“Trees would block the residents’ view and would be unfair to them. The most I will agree to is a decorative fence.” I replied. What? It was quite apparent that I needed to put my foot down. Best to just tell her what I was willing to do.

“That would be agreeable, your grace. I will need to decide what fence is needed, however.” Lady Illiana said.

“And that fence will have to be passed by the residents. While I am sure that they wouldn’t mind a little beatification, it is their home.” I replied as we turned the corner towards the Roalt Mansion. “Now here is the Roalt Mansion. It is the administrative headquarters of the duchy.”

I pointed towards the host of trees, though it was likely apparent. The place was now one of the most active in the entire duchy, with people constantly moving in and out.

“Quite a rustic location, your grace. I suppose that it has a certain cultural significance?” Lady illiana observed. I must say, she was a lot less privileged than I presumed her to be. It was more of a sort of…directness about her. Like she knew what she was supposed to do and was going to do it. And then there was the air of authority.

I supposed it came from being an authority on a subject. I wonder what her cultivation is? Anyway, I had a question to answer.

“Yes, it is the set of buildings the first settlers made. It holds quite a bit of cultural importance, I have found.” I answered.

“That is a good thing, your grace, people are more likely to be loyal if you show acceptance for their culture. Is there any meeting or free space inside?” Lady Illiana asked.

“Yes, some regions aren’t that used and meetings can be held on the forest floor…” I answered, wondering what was going on in her head.

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“Good. Very good. I think we just found our place, your grace.” Lady Illiana said, smiling. Wait what? Wasn’t the party supposed to be held in some big ballroom or something?

Lady Illiana smiled at my expression, stating, “I think you are forgetting, your grace, that you are an Archduchess. Each duchy has their own traditional way of parties. It is best if your duchy follows that tradition and get its own too. How does a forest party sound for an annual event?”

Actually, that did sound cool. I could just imagine lights hanging from the trees and food kept around a bonfire. With magic, there wasn’t a need for wood or a risk of it burning something. I could just conjure one up when required.

A smile stretched across my face as I stated, “Lady Illiana, I think we have an agreement.”

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Altura (one week after lady Illiana’s arrival)

I sighed as I sagged on a chair. It had been a harrowing day. After much contemplation, the Education Council had been upgraded to a basic kindergarten- school-college system with a set curriculum. I admit, I basically copied the popular system on Earth and adjusted the curriculum and a few things here and there.

I still had to add a lot of mathematics, science, and biology syllabus in. Yay, thank you school for making me remember all that stuff by heart, I could now make other people learn it! I wonder what things people would manage to do with logarithms in this world.

Then came the Cultivator Sciences which dealt with how to cast Qi, Ethical Practices which basically taught ethics and of course the Art of War. I had sadly never read Sun Tzu’s book, but Aswelth had managed to come off with something.

Adults were allowed to take any courses in the school as long as they took Ethical Practices. Hopefully, I could educate the population and teach them ethics at the same time.

After this, I had to go over the final draft of the new food price list. Then there was the graduation of the first class of adventurers tomorrow, over 700 new cultivators would now emerge in the duchy.

There had been over two thousand applicants, but most had to be cut down. But there was only one that had been ordered to never apply again. The rest had just failed some or the other test. Corin, the applicant that was told to never apply again, had chosen to kill one of his teammates when nearing the end.

It was during the test of teamwork when a group of applicants were required to fight a different team. Corin had apparently decided to kill his teammate because he was ‘dragging him down’. When he had been removed from the arena and told that he would be facing charges for his actions, he had the temerity to claim that I was not a true noble, for a true noble would not be so weak willed.

If being weak willed meant that I could not allow people to kill each other over a test, then yes, I was weak willed. Needless to say, he had been moved to the guard house, where he would be questioned under truth rods about what exactly his intentions were. Either he suffered from a mental illness, had a very wrong world view, or had nefarious intentions.

And that brought me to truth roads. Norvithius had succeeded in making his first one about five days ago, showing what Aswelth said to be considerable and surprising skill. So that was one thing less to worry about. The duchy had been receiving a constant trickle of immigrants, and using truth rods to judge their intentions had become a necessity.

Then there was the fortress. Aswelth had begun building it ten days ago, returning sometimes to check up on the guard, but remaining there most of the time. While building, it had been my idea, it had certainly become his pet project. I suppose being a General and all, he had his own ideas about building it.

I was quite happy with that arrangement, considering that all I really knew about fortresses was- ‘they have walls. Thick ones’. So all I had said to Aswelth was-Make the wall very thick! And let him do his thing. I looked forward to seeing what he came up with. It was certain to be interesting.

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Aswelth

Aswelth looked on at his handiwork with pride. It wasn’t quite done yet, the interior was too coarse to be ready for habitation, but it sufficed. It had taken him completely running out of Qi every day, multiple times a day, to make it.

The wall was, as the Archduchess had demanded, very thick. The main wall, standing at over fifty meters tall, was fifteen meters thick, with a three meter thick wall adjacent to it. The one-meter thick wall tapered off at thirty meters, running along the inside of the wall. There were archer holes running along its circumference at about thirty-three meters.

An archer could climb up from inside and shoot through holes. The interior was a massive interconnected maze of rooms, set in a complicated array with narrow areas and wide areas to facilitate ambushes.

The ground around the fortress had been lowered to an impressive degree due to the amount of materials needed to make the fortress. Aswelth had compressed every single stone to three times its usual density and compressed the wall to nine times. The gorge was, in retrospect, a bit too deep.

But it did its work. Aswelth would like to see Lady Illiana call him a stupid soldier with more brawn than brains now. The woman was the most irritating Plantling he had met in his entire life. Absolutely no filter or politeness, just a blunt sword. And the way she looked when she wielded a sword was…praiseworthy. Very praiseworthy.