Altura

The soldiers coming in could easily be spies or saboteurs and make problems on the way. On the other hand, ignoring the opportunity was not really an option. At least not an excellent one, the duchies blocked my way. I could just send Kerrin with and have him intimidate his way through, but I was loath to do it. Trade and diplomacy were ruined with intimidation. The deals signed under such a predicament were very likely to be backed upon once the other side could get away with it.

I opened the scroll and read it, and as I had thought, it never mentioned how the members were supposed to act. Well, that could be fixed. I just added a clause at the end.

‘The merchants added to the convoy are to act politely and not harm the convoy. Should this clause be broken then the Merchant Lord promises to pay full reparations for any harm caused and void this deal’.

And done. I hoped that would be enough to protect people from whatever threat these people posed. I would also tell Xerte to keep an eye on them, a few Plants keeping an eye on them should basically ensure good behavior from them.

Now to go back to planning and doing stuff. I had been trying to find out what else I could make. I had to admit I had gone a bit crazy after inventing the armor, how could I not? The armor was great. Just made me think of what I could do by simple combining my understanding of science and magic.

Hmm, what else could I use. A bow? I had a few of those, and what could, I do? Use diamond? I could do that. In fact, I could do that with swords and the rest too. But would it be useful? The diamond was harder… Hmm, was there anything like enchantment here? Not that I knew of. But how good would diamond really be against steel that could be mass-produced with metal’s supplies? Well I didn’t have metal supplies, so I guess diamond was workable. But it would also need Earth cultivators to do it. Ok, I needed to up the Adventure Guild’s efforts. The duchy was being pulled down by lack of natural resources, something that could be mitigated by cultivator resources. Actually, I should get all the lands searched for signs of any minable places. A few could be around.

Now what. Was there anything else I could do? Tables, chairs? Well I could shape wood, but that was not special. What else… Ok, I was blank. I had no idea what I could use. Guess it was time to take a walk. I required inspiration. Or at least find out what was really needed.

I stepped out of the treehouse and walked out. Drawing a bunch of eyes to me. Oops, people were going to stare weren’t they? I guess that came with being an Archduchess. Thankfully, I could hide in my treehouse.

Ok, change of plans. I needed a way to sneak around. The age-old disguise? But there were people right outside the treehouse. Wait. I could just order them to not tell anyone. I weaved a long robe around me and then added a sort of hoodie to cover my face and head.

Walking out of the treehouse I said, “I am not the Archduchess and she most definitely did not leave the treehouse.” Hopefully, they got the gist.

I headed out towards the city markets, looking at the surroundings. The city was, as usual, busy. A bustling heart of this nascent civilization. I weaved through the crowds of people looking at things. I could see that vehicles were missing, but I also had no idea how to make anything more advanced than a carriage which was already around.

The clothes. Hmm, there was little fashion. But I was also not the most fashionable person. I might want to let it develop naturally. What next? On to the market! The market was as expected. A place full of noise and activity. The main road was flanked by a row of stalls on either side with a lane of stalls being set up in the middle also.

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I suppose there was no real need to keep space for carriages, the market was on the edge of the city and on a road that wasn’t used for anything else, so I suppose I could let it be. I hadn’t even said that it couldn’t be done this way had I? I might want to do that before it becomes a problem. A city needed roads. And vehicles, better vehicles would be very convenient not just for travel in the duchy, which now took a few days thanks to its new width, but for trade.

But how to do it without horses? The few carriages were powered by magic, the guard, or driver would propel it using Air magic. To develop I required a power source. A power source would solve so much, I could then automate things…and destroy jobs in the process.

So I did have a ‘thing to do’. I had to figure out a power source. I could just restrict its use, but bringing about an industrial revolution was too tempting. Now for other things, let's see, what other things did help in the industrial revolution? I did write a history project on it.

Textile was a big one, but irrelevant, magic had weavers faster than anything else. The non-combatant cultivator section of the Adventurer’s Guild had been set up and was good to go. The way for them to advance was to hire higher cultivation adventurers to injure beasts for them that they could kill. And just like that the Adventurers had a constant stream of applicants. The final goal was and would continue to be to awaken the seeds of every person here.

Iron. The production of Iron sped up. Well I was going to start production, so it did increase? Ya, that was not how it worked, but I could make do. I could always mass conjure iron now that I was a Treeling and the Rotere guards were around too.

Agriculture was accounted for. The arch duchy was reporting better harvests than anyone else somehow. The first harvests from the original crop had just joined the convoy too. And the new land would have us producing enough crop for the Empire Sect and Kingdom combined.

Paper and education also played a part, and I needed to step that up. Hmm, how about I imported people from the Kingdom that had experience. I was already hiring everyone with experience in the arch duchy. Wait, that sounds bad. I should get more people at once. I couldn’t afford to let anyone go anyway, there was too much work, and I was just making more. And that reminded me that I would need to hire more again. I would be worried if the duchy’s finances weren’t so lavish, and the convoy would be paying taxes too. I had worked hard to allow it to happen, I deserved the taxes.

And there was lighting. Huh, did we have lighting here? No. But lighting would also need a power source. I suppose a few people pouring Qi into something and using that Qi somehow to power the city could work, but it sounded a bit too much like the plot from a dystopian novel. Or a horror one. How connected was Qi and Spirit again? I shouldn’t rule it out, but it might be best to be cautious.

What did store Qi again? Was it even possible with the System controlling the Qi? System?

Information regarding Qi storage is not available to the user.

And that was a dead end. At least I now knew that it was high level information. Now, what else was important? Chemicals were used to manufacture stuff but again, I had magic and chemicals were in short supply. I didn’t exactly study the methods of production. And even if I did how likely was it that I would be able to reproduce it here?

The other thing was machine tools, now that I could do something about. The Grant Association would be receiving a million gold budget for the production of tools that made production easier and faster. And the Adventurers Guild a million gold task for the materials that could hold Qi to a satisfactory level. I decided if it was satisfactory on examination.

I had a few billion pieces of gold now after raiding the organization. But it did make me wonder how much gold the other Jewels had, if the King was willing to give that much gold to me just for an alliance then he had to have a lot. Actually, how valuable was gold for higher level cultivators? I knew that Mauriss could make it. The questions!

But I had just initiated a legendary level secret quest line in an adventurers' guild. The million gold was sure to cause a commotion, whoever earned it would be the richest person in the duchy besides me. I looked forward to it. Of course, I could attract attention from the wrong type of people with the ask, but well, I had to deal with the nuisance of having Adreia as a mother, I got the benefits too. I had a feeling that the people that would want to deal with her and her family were few and far between. Welp, nothing to see here, just a Xianxia young mistress walking through.

Wait. I could conjure Iron, what about gold?