Chapter 1057

Even the Temple Knights sometimes participate in road construction.

One Fifth-Rank warrior, carrying a magic bag, is more useful than a large excavator.

After all, excavators are helpless against boulders the size of houses.

But this Fifth-Rank warrior, wielding a heavy sword infused with magical substances, can cut through the rock, store it in the magic bag, and dump it into the area needing filling.

The efficiency is simply too high!

Once the transportation network within the former Night Empire is perfected, and combined with high-yield crops and high-value economic crops, the prosperity of the former Night Empire region will rise another level!

The Flame Empire will also rise another level!

Besides the road construction plan, Sister Qing Ling also established a reclamation plan.

Next, across all twenty-four provinces of the former Night Empire, a massive development campaign began in full swing.

Trade between east and west continued as well.

After the Night Empire's incorporation, tariffs were further reduced, and trade became even more frequent.

The products manufactured by the Flame Empire's original four provinces simply could not meet the entire Night Empire's demand.

This was also why prices were so inflated.

However, after the Night Empire's incorporation, the Flame Empire adjusted the prices of many products.

Luxury goods still sold at high prices.

Luxury goods profit from the nobility's money; there's no need to adjust their prices.

But items related to daily life, heavily consumed by commoners—such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, milk, meat products, and cotton—had their prices lowered!

Additionally, the Flame Empire recruited large numbers of workers from the former Night Empire's twenty-four provinces.

There was no choice—the Flame Empire was desperately short of people.

Vast quantities of crops were waiting to be harvested in the fields!

Many commoners in the Flame Empire, after harvesting their own crops, spent large amounts of time each day harvesting the state-owned land's crops to earn gold coins.

Due to the labor shortage, Sister Qing Ling even introduced "overtime wages" to encourage commoners eager for more gold coins to work extra hours.

Now, after the Night Empire's incorporation, labor can be recruited from the Night Empire.

Meanwhile, large-scale construction was still ongoing in the former Purple Gold Empire.

The Purple Cloud Empire's army was still building bridges and tunnels.

Bridges were generally constructed from steel; the dwarves added various magical substances during steel and iron smelting, making the steel far more corrosion-resistant—needing no paint and lasting for many years—and vastly superior in strength and toughness to the steel Lin Yan had known before his transmigration.

The Flame Empire's current steel production is still astonishing!

After the Night Empire's incorporation, steel production increased further.

Of course, production is now centrally and uniformly managed by the state.

Overall, output still falls far short of the world Lin Yan had known before his transmigration.

However, Sister Qing Ling has begun paying attention to this area.

On the Continent of Gods, iron ore deposits are actually quite plentiful.

These materials contain, to varying degrees, magical substances—iron included.

This makes iron on the Continent of Gods resistant to rust and results in far less loss.

In short, the Flame Empire is now in a phase of grand construction and rapid development!

Outside the Flame Empire's original four provinces, every other province is a scene of bustling activity.

The Flame Empire's original four provinces are also busy, but require less large-scale construction.

Further north, beyond the wild lands, the former Star Fall Empire has become the Flame Empire's northern provinces.

In the Star Fall Empire, the eldest princess is stationed, and with the cooperation of the Star Fall pantheon, the takeover has proceeded smoothly.

The former royal family has long since abdicated.

There were few nobles in the Star Fall Empire causing trouble.

After all, many nobles are still performing hard labor and have not yet been released—how could they cause trouble?

As for commoners, they certainly won't cause trouble.

These commoners are still frantically reclaiming land.

They are still immersed in the joy of having a pie fall from the sky.

Every commoner can own ten mu of land—isn't that a pie falling from the heavens?

These commoners are all deeply grateful to the Lord of Flame!

They have long forgotten the Star Fall deity; their hearts now hold only the Lord of Flame.

The faith of commoners is this simple.

Next, Sister Qing Ling sent envoys to contact the nobles in the Star Fall Empire who were performing hard labor, offering them hope.

These nobles promptly wrote magical letters to their families in the Star Fall Empire.

Soon after, the descendants of these nobles across the Star Fall Empire each produced large sums of gold coins, hired numerous laborers, and placed them at the eldest princess's disposal.

The sole purpose of this army of laborers remained the same.

That was: road construction!

Following this, Sister Qing Ling reorganized the Star Fall Empire.

The Star Fall Empire, along with nine surrounding kingdoms, totaling ten nations, was divided into twenty provinces.

Now, these twenty provinces are the Flame Empire's official northern twenty provinces.

The central provinces total eighteen: the Flame Empire's original four provinces, plus the Desert Province, the former Purple Gold Empire's ten provinces, and the three former desert-edge provinces—adding up to eighteen!

The western provinces total twenty-four: these are the former Night Empire's twenty-four provinces.

As for the dozen or so kingdoms surrounding the Night Empire, they have all been reclaimed.

These dozen or so kingdoms, totaling fifteen, were reclaimed and not turned into new provinces, but directly merged into the neighboring provinces.

As for the eastern provinces, they were the remaining half of the territory still unclaimed by the Purple Cloud Empire.

Simply the current provinces now numbered sixty-two!

As for population:

The twenty-four western provinces originally had thirty-six to thirty-seven hundred million people under the Eternal Night Empire; the fifteen human kingdoms added another three to four hundred million, bringing the total population past four billion.

The twenty northern provinces had roughly one billion four hundred million people.

The eighteen central provinces had the fewest people, only three hundred million plus.

Combined, the total population reached over five billion seven hundred million.

Despite the vastness of the Continent of Gods, in area, the current Flame Empire still occupied far less than one-tenth of the northern segment of the Continent of Gods.

Yet in scale, the Flame Empire had already become a giant among the northern segment of the Continent of Gods!

On the day when integration was preliminarily completed, Lin Yan's Civilization Fire title quietly reached Lv9.

Only one level away from Lv10!

Of course, the later it gets, the harder it will be.

If this title leveled up based on experience, the experience needed from Lv9 to Lv10 might exceed the total experience required from Lv1 to Lv9 combined!

And it would be many times more!

However, once the Demon Soul Empire is seized and developed, reaching Lv10 should not be too slow!