Lyra, Lena, Li Xuan, and Kael sat on the left and right sides of the long table.
Toji Hisami sat at the head.
Behind him, four different patterns were carved into the wall, if one looked carefully, the patterns were constantly shifting. Yet the moment one looked away, they appeared completely fixed, a strangely magical sight.
These were the four fields of knowledge Toji Hisami had integrated into the territory.
Li Xuan and Kael were both visibly excited.
Being promoted to official territorial positions had been almost unimaginable for them.
Although Kael had been a professional recruited from the Population Hall, he had only been a mage apprentice. In the eyes of true high-status individuals, such a rank was little different from that of a commoner. In the past he might have regarded Toji Hisami as a minor lord of limited knowledge. After living in the territory for a while, however, he understood very clearly just how powerful his lord truly was.
Not to mention Toji Hisami’s personal ability, simply watching the rapid progress of every resident under his governance was enough to fill Kael with awe. And even if nothing else was considered, one only needed to look at Lyra sitting at Toji Hisami’s left hand. In the presence of that S-class heroic spirit, even the B-rated Miss Lena had no choice but to sit properly.
Li Xuan did not have as many complicated thoughts as Kael. He himself was a citizen granted by the highest-dimensional power. His loyalty to Toji Hisami was absolute. At this moment the only thing filling his mind was the desire to serve his lord unto death.
Today’s meeting could be considered the first true high-level conference of the territory since its founding.
Toji Hisami sat in the main seat and felt a quiet sense of emotion.
No matter how many simulations one conducted at the academy, none of them were real. In less than a month the territory had reached Level 5 without any external power or backing, and this was despite having resources deducted and supplies exchanged at the very beginning.
Yet he had never lost confidence.
Every step he took was carefully calculated. Every influencing factor remained under his control. He simply wanted to show those outside that without any backing or support, he, Toji Hisami, would still rise.
The words he had spoken to the Zhao family before entering the trial had not been spoken in anger.
"After being promoted to Level 5, the territory will enter a period of steady development until the first assessment arrives," he began.
"During this period, Lena, your most important task is to fill the population of the territory and ensure that every member reaches a second-level profession or higher."
Lena’s beautiful eyes widened. She wanted to refute him, yet the words would not come. Thinking of everything she had witnessed outside earlier, she swallowed her objections.
"I need to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the territory before I can reply to the Lord whether it can be done."
"No problem. Give me the results within a day."
Toji Hisami was unconcerned. He believed Lena would soon accept the reality of this place.
After the promotion to Level 5, the territory prompts indicated that no further mandatory steps were required until the official assessment. According to academy knowledge, many candidates believed there was no need to reach Level 5 so early. Toji Hisami had never shared that view.
The sooner one reached Level 5, the longer one would have to develop at full capacity. One month of growth in a Level 4 territory versus one month of growth in a Level 5 territory produced completely different results. Not to mention his talent, he now had nearly two months of preparation time remaining. He was absolutely confident that even other Level 5 territories would not be able to compare with his.
The levels of the residents themselves were already vastly different. His farmers were farm masters, while the most hardworking farmers of other territories were still ordinary. Efficiency was more than doubled.
"Kael, you are responsible for refining and production. I will give you part of the plan later; you will be in charge of implementing it. If you don’t understand something, you may ask Lena. She is a warlock. If she also cannot answer, come to me."
"Yes, Lord."
After giving instructions to Lena and Kael, Toji Hisami looked at the still-excited Li Xuan.
This young man was a good prospect. His innate talent was only average, yet he was diligent and down-to-earth, a perfect match for Heaven Rewards Diligence.
"After the Level 5 territory, a bulletin board will be opened. Small tasks will refresh from time to time. Train on weekdays and expand the garrison. Once a mission appears, take it."
"Yes, Lord!"
Li Xuan stood up and answered loudly. From his posture it looked as though he wanted to rush out and begin arranging tasks immediately.
Toji Hisami smiled and waved for Lena, Kael, and Li Xuan to leave, keeping only Lyra behind.
The hall suddenly became quiet.
Lyra had never been a talkative person, otherwise she would not have earned the nickname Iceberg Beauty. At this moment her eyes rested on Toji Hisami, waiting for him to speak.
"The integration of knowledge is enough for the territory at this stage to digest for a while. So I will not be extracting any more knowledge for the time being."
Toji Hisami crossed his hands and spoke calmly.
Lyra nodded. Ordinary people simply did not possess such vast knowledge capacity. Only someone like him would have this particular "problem."
But before she could reply, his next words nearly made her stand up.
"I want to go to sea."
"!!!"
Lyra stared at him in shock and found that his expression was completely serious. He was not joking.
"You are the guardian, come with me."
.....
"Why do you want to go to sea?" Lyra asked, still surprised.
Upgrading to a Level 5 territory expanded the land area and also caused the ocean to appear. That did not mean the ocean could be freely explored.
This was the Void Ocean, mysterious and unpredictable. Even top experts sometimes died inexplicably at sea. Moreover, before the first assessment the territories were not adjacent to one another. Only when the first assessment began would the four thousand territories gradually begin to merge.
For Toji Hisami to go to sea at this time was something Lyra simply could not understand.
He had already anticipated her reaction and only smiled.
He reached up and tapped his own temple.
"You know I obtained nine disciplines of knowledge. New knowledge can be born through the matching of different contents between those fields."
He slowly explained. Alchemy, for example, had been born from the fusion of magic and mysticism. Lyra was aware of this principle as well.
Toji Hisami opened the territory map and pointed to the newly appeared ocean along the border.
"There will never be any ineffective factors in the Lord’s Trial. The fact that this sea appears before the first assessment proves that it contains some kind of secret. That secret may determine whether I can reach the very top in this trial."
"And within my knowledge I already have certain speculation in this regard. That is one of the reasons I want to go to sea."
He wrote the words "Dimension" and "Mystery" over the marked sea area.
As an S-class heroic soul, Lyra also possessed some involvement in dimensional studies and mysticism. Yet it was different from Toji Hisami, who had directly obtained and engraved the knowledge into his mind through the Hall of Knowledge. In his own words, it was the difference between nurture and innate talent in martial arts, mysterious and subtle beyond ordinary description.
His firm attitude moved her. After a period of silence she finally nodded in approval.
"The moment I sense a fatal risk, we retreat immediately."
As his guardian, Lyra had her own bottom line. Toji Hisami naturally would not refuse.
He immediately instructed her to prepare everything needed for the voyage. As for himself, he opened a notebook he carried and reviewed his own records.
The pages were filled with dense thinking patterns and interconnected lines that looked particularly dizzying. This was the information he had compiled for himself during the process of integrating knowledge into the territory.
Before being promoted to Level 5, he had already deduced the existence of some unknown factor.
In the early and middle stages of past Lord Trials, the final winners or winning camps had consisted of roughly equal numbers from the great families and from among the commoners. As time passed, however, commoners were gradually reduced to supporting roles in later trials. This could not be explained simply by the great families possessing more resources. After all, there were many powerful individuals among the common people as well.
Toji Hisami had reason to believe that the great families had grasped some key advantage. That key did not lie in the outside world, therefore it must exist within the trial itself.
Yet from the first assessment until the final decision in the third year, the lords actually had fewer and fewer opportunities to act independently and search for opportunities. So when an ocean appeared within his territory, he used his occult knowledge to perform divination calculations.
The result was blurry.
He then combined it with dimensional science and, sure enough, deduced that secrets existed within the sea. That was something he could no longer ignore.
Seizing every opportunity during the growth process was the only way for him to rise and compete with the descendants of those great families. Even if the sea turned out to be dangerous, he had to go and take a look.
He was the third person to reach Level 5, he believed that if any of the other top ten who had advanced possessed a family background, they must be thinking the exact same thing at this moment.
In fact, his guess was absolutely correct.
In a lush green territory, Elara clasped her hands together and placed them against her chest in a praying posture.
Behind her the territory was bathed in light, sublimating and evolving.
Lumi, the elf butler, floated beside her.
"How is it, Lord? Are we number one?"
"Haha, Lumi... no. We are only fourth."
Lumi pouted in surprise, a look of disbelief on her small face.
"Lord, you used the Fountain of Life! How could you not be number one? Even if not first, it should at least be top three. Why only fourth?!"
The little elf flew around Elara in agitation.
Elara remained calm, a peaceful smile on her face. She carefully put away the crystal bottle that had been placed in front of her. Only about a hundred milliliters of liquid remained inside, yet she handled it with extreme care and solemnity.
This was the holy water of the half-elves, the Fountain of Life. Within the Human Alliance it was a famous natural treasure that was extremely difficult to obtain.
Elara stood and looked from the treetops toward the rumbling mountains rising in the distance and the sea that had emerged at the far edge.
"That is where the last of the Fountain of Life will be used."
"Lumi, are you ready?"
"Ready, my lord."
The little elf landed on Elara’s shoulder and gazed at the distant ocean.
...
Today was Lena’s third day in the territory.
The clerk who had been rather proud the day before now seemed a little distracted. She had been shocked to discover that ninety percent of the population already possessed professional abilities. The remaining ten percent consisted of those who had only just been recruited from the Population Hall.
Moreover, the individual qualities of the residents far exceeded what should be normal for this level. Yesterday she had personally watched the garrison train with heavy weights; after returning, her own endurance and life attributes had improved by several points.
How could she not feel dazed?
Everything she saw had completely subverted her previous impression of a junior territory, she had also discovered changes within herself. The previous night, while studying warlock knowledge on her own, she found the efficiency extremely high. Obscure points that had been difficult to understand in the past suddenly became clear one after another under a burst of inspiration.
"Officer Lena, the Lord and the Sword-Bearing Officer are about to leave. They asked me to call you."
"Huh? Oh... alright."
A civilian approached and spoke. Lena immediately pulled herself out of her trance and headed toward the city gate.
The territory was now fully enclosed by a city wall, and diamond-shaped protruding towers were being constructed at the four corners. Because Toji Hisami had planned everything from the beginning and the roads were smooth, she quickly arrived at the gate.
Li Xuan, Kael and several others were already there, beside them sat a boat.
It had been built over the past two days according to drawings Toji Hisami had designed himself. Dozens of laborers waited nearby, ready to push the wheeled vessel down to the beach.
"Lena, you’re here. During the time I am away, the daily operation of the territory will depend on you."
Toji Hisami saw her and waved with a smile.
Lena’s expression was complicated. She first bowed to him, then looked at the ship beside them.
When he had first proposed going to sea she had also opposed the idea. Yet both Toji Hisami and Lyra were determined, and her objections had been ineffective.
"I hope the Lord will put his own safety first."
She looked at him with complex eyes, she felt that her lord not only possessed extremely vast and profound knowledge, but also carried an invisible sense of mystery. After only a few days in the territory she had already been deeply impressed by him and naturally did not want anything to happen to him. In her opinion, if he simply stayed in the territory and continued developing it, progress would be even faster. When the assessment began they would certainly enter the first echelon. Occupying the very top of the trial was not impossible.
"Don’t worry. I will not take risks easily."
Toji Hisami and Lyra mounted their horses. The laborers behind them began pushing the ship forward. The group soon arrived at the beach.
Blue-gray waves crashed against the coastline. There was no beautiful scenery to speak of. At a glance everything was surrounded by fog; the horizon could not be seen at all.
The boat built by the territory was not large, roughly equivalent to a single-story small yacht from Toji Hisami’s previous life. Its only real advantage was sturdiness. Both Lena and Kael had applied force-field protection to the hull so that it could withstand a certain degree of impact.
The laborers moved food and fresh water aboard. Everything was ready.
Toji Hisami reminded everyone once more about their duties, then boarded the boat with Lyra and set out to sea at once.
Lyra took the helm. After raising the sail, the S-class heroic spirit steadily controlled the vessel and headed outward.
After leaving the shoreline, Lena rubbed her face.
"Go back. While the Lord is away, the development of the territory must not slow down."
"Yes, Affairs Officer."
Kael and Li Xuan responded. They looked toward the sea once more, only to find that the ship had already become blurred and difficult to see.
On the ship itself, Toji Hisami also noticed the same phenomenon. Although he was certain this sea was not the true Void Ocean, the influence of the fog was still considerable.
"After three nautical miles, visibility drops dramatically."
He recorded the observation carefully in his notebook.
There were many resources in the sea, and three nautical miles was already enough for initial territorial exploration. When he returned he would arrange for the construction of docks so that navigation and marine fisheries could be developed.
For now, looking at the clouds and mist floating across the water, he concentrated and began to feel for something deeper.
Because of his knowledge he understood that energy fields also existed in this world. If a place was different or strange, then the energy field there must be in conflict with the general environment. What he needed to do was locate that point of conflict.
However, he had underestimated the difficulty of searching at sea, he and Lyra spent an entire week searching.
A week later, many other territories in this trial also began sending lords out to sea.
Unlike Toji Hisami, however, these lords were accompanied by full escorts. From their posture, clothing, and equipment it was clear they were all of noble birth. Each of them held special props that guided them toward a specific direction on the sea.
If someone could view a global map at this moment, they would discover that every territory currently going to sea was one that had already been upgraded to Level 5.
There were at least twenty such groups...
Among them were people such as Victor, Elara, and others.