"Damn, where did this idiotic nouveau riche come from?"
Boris propped his feet up on the table, lazily leaning back in his chair.
At that moment a soft clinking sound rang out. Five gold coins fell onto the table.
At the same time the territory panel notified him that someone had used gold coins to purchase the goods he had put up for sale.
It was just something Boris had done out of boredom. He never expected that at this early stage there would actually be someone willing to spend gold coins on such items.
"Where the hell did this idiot come from?"
"Ah, I still have to reach Level 4 before I can open the public channel. When will I finally be able to contact Toji Hisami?"
"Who knows... maybe he and I are from the same family."
Boris scratched his stubble and muttered to himself.
A huge beast lay in front of the table. Upon hearing his words it rolled its eyes and snorted.
Meanwhile, across the four thousand territories of the Void Ocean, many lords exclaimed in surprise.
They were all people who had listed goods on the cross-territory trading channel. Without exception, every one of them had just received gold-coin profits.
Many of them were commoners. The items they had put up were not even worth a single gold coin. Yet that was how the trading system worked, the minimum transaction amount was one gold coin. Almost everyone suddenly found themselves overflowing with unexpected wealth.
With the income from gold coins they could wait for the next patrol trade caravan and make further purchases. Most of them had been born commoners and knew their talents were not enough to reach the forefront. Therefore they did not care about rapid early development; they only sought stability.
........
On the other side, after sweeping up the available goods, Zhao Kai immediately invested everything into construction. He also activated his talent.
His talent was called ’Surging Vitality’. It allowed the people of his territory to generate new energy out of thin air. Working hours could be extended and efficiency increased, though a period of weakness would follow afterward.
The noble young master did not care about such side effects. He ordered his steward to supervise everything strictly.
Zhao Kai then opened the latest rankings and began selecting familiar names. Many of them were students from the Sacred Academy of the Southern Fourth District. There were also candidates from the Sixth, Fifth, Second, and Eighth Districts.
It did not take long for him to circle a densely packed list.
"Hehehe... Toji Hisami, I hope you don’t run into me during the first assessment."
"The power network of the Zhao family is not something a bumpkin like you can imagine."
............
While Zhao Kai was thinking about him, Toji Hisami himself was calmly digesting knowledge inside the Lord’s Hall.
After absorbing knowledge in the Hall of Knowledge, time was still required to fully convert it into usable strength. Inside the Hall the test focused on how quickly one could remember and superficially understand. After leaving, one had to deepen that understanding and truly master it.
Some knowledge applied only to the territory, some only to oneself, and some to both.
At present his territory could accommodate only four fields of knowledge. In order to bring their effects online as quickly as possible, he first focused on catalyzing those four disciplines to the fullest.
The change that resulted was the appearance of the first true professional in the territory.
"Kael——", a mage apprentice, had been recruited through the Population Management Hall.
The Population Management Hall could summon units from the dimensional world, from ordinary peasants and commoners all the way up to professionals. As long as the hall’s level was high enough and the price paid was sufficient, almost anything could appear.
A Level 3 Population Hall already granted one free professional every week. Toji Hisami, however, used most of his remaining resources to recruit commoners.
Unlike the peasants obtained as system rewards, commoners recruited from the hall possessed loyalty that could fluctuate for various reasons.
Yet on the second day after these newly recruited commoners and Kael arrived, they were all shocked.
They discovered that the entire territory was filled with a strong atmosphere of learning. They saw ordinary peasants suddenly comprehend or upgrade skills while working. Many commoners, after being assigned tasks, felt their efforts being rewarded during the process itself. As long as they worked diligently, their understanding of the job deepened and skills followed.
Toji Hisami had deliberately recruited the lowest-level commoners without any basic skills in order to save money. These people had originally lived at the bottom of society in their original dimensional worlds. After only one day here, every single one of them had learned basic skills. The cleverer ones had even learned two.
They became extremely excited and developed deep respect and gratitude toward Lord Toji Hisami.
As for Kael, he had been placed in charge of the Mysticism Laboratory. He discovered that after arriving in the territory his inspiration for magical research overflowed and his progress became remarkably obvious.
"My Lord! My Lord! I have created a magic array that meets your requirements!"
Outside the Lord’s Hall, Kael rushed over in great excitement. Before he even drew close he was already shouting toward the building.
Toji Hisami leaned out of the second-floor window.
Before he could reply, he saw Lyra walking over from a distance with long strides, her expression still serious.
"My Lord, we have discovered the location of the invading forces."
Lyra’s cold and aloof temperament immediately made Kael close his mouth. By now everyone in the territory knew that this ice-cold queen was the second-in-command. No one dared to defy her.
Toji Hisami’s eyes lit up at the news. He immediately invited both of them inside.
Kael and Lyra entered the Lord’s Hall. As a contracted spirit, Lyra stood directly beside him. Kael stood obediently in front of the desk and took out a wooden tray from his waist pouch, a reasoning tray that mages used to simulate magical theories. At this moment it was covered with runes and circular array lines.
"You go first and talk about your achievements," Toji Hisami said to Kael.
The matter of the invading forces could wait for a moment. With Lyra present there would be no major problems. What interested him more right now were Kael’s research results.
Lyra quietly watched Kael’s excited expression. She understood his feelings very well. In truth she herself had also been shocked by Toji Hisami’s talent.
After taking charge of the territory’s military affairs, her daily work consisted of training the defense force and improving herself. After only a few days she had unexpectedly gained a new ability: Military Strategy Guidance. When she guided and trained the army, efficiency increased by 20 %. Moreover, even though she and the defense team only performed basic training every day, their individual attributes continued to rise.
This completely shattered her previous worldview.
Unable to hold it in any longer, she had gone directly to Toji Hisami and only then learned that it was the effect of his Lord’s Talent. From that moment she understood that his rise was unstoppable. Being able to summon her was definitely not a coincidence; there had to be some deeper connection in the dark.
Even she, an S-level spirit, could obtain such obvious progress. How much more so for a mere mage apprentice like Kael?
At this moment Kael excitedly placed the reasoning tray on the table, poured some soil and gravel onto it, and released magic to activate the array.
The patterns on the tray lit up. The soil and gravel solidified into a sturdy stone-like block. Kael picked up a hammer and tried to smash the small stone, yet he could not destroy it.
"My Lord, as you instructed, the Soil-to-Stone Transformation Tray is complete!" he said proudly. Although he was only an insignificant mage apprentice, he was excited and proud to have independently researched and completed a tray design in just two days.
"What about the consumption?"
"The tray can be infused with magic crystals or by a mage. If the size is enlarged to one meter in diameter, one infusion can last for two days."
"What about its durability?"
"According to my calculations, a standard tray can produce about five hundred pieces of magic stone bricks."
Kael handed over a sheet of paper with detailed data recorded on it.
Toji Hisami scanned it at a glance. Kael wanted to explain further, but Toji Hisami picked up a pen and circled several parameters.
"Here, and here, both need to be adjusted. Reduce the input values so that durability becomes higher. By doing so, the cost of each brick can be reduced by another forty percent."
"You’ve done well. I’ll issue you an official certificate. Organize a team immediately and build the refining factory."
He returned the note, issued another certificate, and stamped it with his signature.
The territory now had more than two hundred people and an organized division of labor. Opening a new factory required his formal approval.
After glancing at the modified note, Kael’s eyes bulged. He was so excited that he trembled, opening his mouth yet unable to form complete words.
He had quickly deduced the results of the modifications in his mind and discovered that the outcome could indeed be improved. The plan that had taken him two full days to complete had been identified and refined by Lord Toji Hisami with a single glance.
His admiration deepened even further. If Lyra had not been waiting to report, he would have loved to stay and continue learning on the spot.
Lyra watched Kael leave with obvious reluctance, a faint smile appearing on her lips.
She knew that Toji Hisami had absorbed knowledge from nine different disciplines inside the Hall of Knowledge. As long as he was willing, his progress in magic would be astonishing.
"Actually... if you were to do these things yourself, it wouldn’t even take half a day, right?" she could not help asking once Kael had left.
She knew that if she possessed such ability she would probably want to plan and design everything personally. Kael’s achievement this time would almost certainly have been even more perfect if Toji Hisami had handled it himself.
When he heard the question, however, he only smiled and shook his head.
"I’ve read a story before. There was a genius so strong that he could do almost anything. He took every responsibility upon himself and managed his territory extremely well, almost to the point of becoming the territory itself. But after his unfortunate death, the territory could not last long and collapsed."
He looked at Lyra and retold a slightly altered version of the story of Zhuge Liang.
Lyra’s expression became thoughtful. Toji Hisami did not explain further.
In his view, possessing the talent Heaven Rewards Diligence meant that insisting on doing everything himself would only waste the talent’s true potential. Only by getting every person in the territory to actively participate, learn, and take action could progress become greater and greater.
If every resident of the territory became a master in their own right, who in the world could contend with them?
By enabling those below to possess ability and autonomy, the territory would naturally grow stronger, and he himself would have more time to improve, the two sides complementing each other.
"Alright," he said, bringing the conversation back on track. "Tell me about the mysterious invading force. What kind of force is it?"