Chapter 345: Territory Status, Trolls Reappear

Near noon that day, Xia Duo put away his notes, preparing to go out for a walk while simultaneously conducting Focus Training; he had been doing this for some time now.

At first, he only practiced Focus Training by thinking about two things at once while in a stationary state, but later he discovered that thinking while walking seemed more efficient, so he tried that.

By utilizing the time usually spent on patrols and inspections this way, he could be said to be racing against time, and his progress had not slowed down just because he was not in the Mage Tower.

On the contrary, because he was outside the Mage Tower, far from comfort, there was even more of a sense of urgency.

Walking out of the small tent, directly to the west was the Lord of Radiance Altar, and to the north of the Altar, wooden houses of identical specifications were becoming more and more numerous.

Xia Duo did not quite like those crude wooden houses; rather than living in one of those, he would rather do it right the first time. He planned to build a villa to the east of the Altar, further east than his current small tent.

During this period, in addition to transporting workers for digging the river, some building stone materials had also been sent over; according to the plan, if nothing went wrong, the next trip would bring the craftsmen.

From the Altar heading north, passing by one wooden house after another, further north were the temporary shacks; the territory residents who had not yet been assigned housing, as well as the workers digging the river further north, all lived here.

According to Xia Duo's philosophy, even the temporary shacks were planned out neatly; even if individuals seemed slightly messy, overall, it looked harmonious.

Of course, this could not be separated from the efforts of Priest Laidun, who also advocated for order.

Currently, Laidun had not accepted an assigned wooden house either; he was using the office space in the shack area as his residence. Xia Duo did not force him; with a subordinate who worked so hard, he was too happy to complain!

"Greetings, Lord!"

"Good afternoon, Lord!"

East of the shack area was the place where the territory residents had fought against the forest: a large expanse of ground turned gray-black from burning, logs piled up like a mountain near the north, and the buzzing sound of sawing wood to the south.

This was the place for log trimming and making standard parts for wooden houses. Further south, after making a circle, Xia Duo returned to the small tent where he was temporarily staying—

To the east of the small tent, at the location prepared for building the Lord's Villa, a pile of stone materials was neatly arranged.

Continuing south, the gray-black ground extended all the way here. Surrounding the Linshui Village settlement, which had the Lord of Radiance Altar as its core, a large area of forest had been completely cleared.

And further away, a short section of wooden fence had already been erected; that would be the wall of Linshui Village. Outside the wall were the fields, but currently, the fields were nowhere to be seen!

Just clearing the trees was a huge problem!

He had the heart to burn it all down with one fire, but he was worried about inviting trouble. In the history of Netheril, Elves had more than once stepped in to interfere with human expansion into the forest.

This time, the Princess's expansion movement had come so intensely; Xia Duo believed there must be some connection, but now that the Tower of Time lacked energy, it was better to cause less trouble.

Additionally, if he burned it directly with fire, not only would the fire be difficult to control, but these logs themselves would also be wasted, which was truly a pity.

After patrolling everywhere, Xia Duo went to check on the Territory Guard, which had now been expanded to 30 people; counting the Jibu Squad already assigned to Daxia Territory, there were forty people in total.

Apart from daily patrols, guarding, and clearing out wild beasts, those who rotated off duty had to undergo Magic Item usage training with Aiwa, and these were the people Xia Duo went to see.

Seeing Xia Duo, Aiwa let the ten soldiers who had rotated off duty continue their training, while he walked up and bowed respectfully, "Lord!"

"Hmm." Xia Duo looked at the ten people not far away and asked, "How is the situation? Has anyone learned it?"

"Lord, besides Ximeng from before, the others still need more training. Also—" Aiwa hesitated for a moment.

Xia Duo understood immediately and took twenty 0-Ring 【Light】 Scrolls from his Personal Space to hand to Aiwa, "Don't worry about the Magic Scrolls; I will have them sent over from the Tower of Time."

For mere 0-Ring scrolls, of course, Xia Duo did not need to craft them personally. With that time, he could craft a high-level scroll, and even if he went outside to trade it, he could exchange it for a pile of 0-Ring scrolls.

It was just that consuming them like this all the time was something he could barely afford; almost 20 copies every day was simply burning money.

But for the sake of the Spell Breaker unit in his heart, Xia Duo could only grit his teeth and persist. However—

"If some people really can't learn it, they don't need to participate in the training. I don't require everyone to be able to learn it, but those who can learn it must learn it as quickly as possible!"

In fact, as long as they kept training, one day they would be able to learn it, but the input-output ratio was pitifully low; Xia Duo was unwilling to do a losing business.

"Yes, Lord!" Aiwa replied.

Just as Xia Duo was preparing to leave to patrol the next location, he noticed Aiwa's expression suddenly change. Just as he was about to ask, he heard faint shouts coming from the southeast.

He did not need to ask; he knew something had happened. Immediately after, a sharp whistle sounded.

This was the signal for encountering an enemy that was difficult to handle!

—3rd-Ring 【Flight】!

Xia Duo decisively extracted the pre-stored Spell from the Magic Net and, with near-instant speed, cast it upon himself, soaring into the sky and flying toward the southeast.

While flying, Xia Duo looked back and saw that the territory residents who were working had already put down their work and started running toward the Lord of Radiance Altar.

At the same time, he also saw Priest Laidun, holding the Holy Light high, directing order. With no worries behind him, Xia Duo's flight speed became even faster.

The one who sent the signal was the ten-man squad that had rotated to clear out wild beasts. According to the duty roster, today should have been Ximeng leading the squad; Xia Duo felt a bit worried.

It had taken who knows how many Magic Scrolls to train just one person who could use them, and that was Ximeng. He had been a squad leader before, but was later demoted. This time, he had learned to use Magic Items, and plus, his performance had been quite good after being demoted from squad leader.

In the two newly formed squads, Xia Duo had directly appointed him as a squad leader, while the other one was still just an acting one.

If Ximeng died, the loss would be huge.

On the other side, Ximeng held his Long Spear with both hands and thrust forward violently, but the enemy in front of him still ignored it, stubbornly pushing against his spear tip to stab the bone spike in its hand over.

The soldier holding the shield in front used all his strength to hold back the tall monster that was leaping frantically in front of him. The Long Spears in the back kept striking, but they had no effect at all.

Not only could they not truly harm the opponent, but it made the opponent even more frantic. Its bloodthirsty eyes swept back and forth over the members of Ximeng's squad, and it let out bursts of strange cries from its mouth.

This greatly increased the fear of the squad members—

"Captain, it's no good, we're really going to die this time!"

"Ximeng, do you think we can go back alive this time?"

Discordant voices had already appeared in the squad. Ximeng shouted angrily, "Shut up! If you don't want to die, then pull yourselves together! The distress signal has already been sent; someone will definitely come to save us!"

Although he said that, in fact, Ximeng himself did not have much confidence. Two Trolls! How did it happen that when it was his turn to go out, he encountered such a situation?

The only thing to be thankful for was that when he went out, he strictly enforced the outing regulations and brought two shields; otherwise, their squad would have been wiped out by these two Trolls long ago. But in the current situation, they wouldn't last long before being killed.

Thinking of this, Ximeng could not help but feel a trace of despair.