Chapter 404: Changing the Status Quo, Responding to the Southern Inspection

The next day, Xia Duo and Niya met once more. This time, it was mainly for Niya to introduce Xia Duo to the situation in Seventon, as well as the relationships between the various Great Arcanists.

Although this was just some ordinary information, it depended on which circle it came from. After Niya became the Princess's student, the information she could access was far broader and deeper than what Xia Duo could obtain.

This information was of great help to Xia Duo in judging the current situation, but it was a pity that Niya was in a rush to return to Seventon; otherwise, Xia Duo would certainly have kept her to chat for a while longer.

After Niya left, Xia Duo issued the first official order for the transformation of the Tower of Time—lowering the prices of paper and ink within the Tower of Time!

Although this order seemed very inconspicuous, Xia Duo, who had personally experienced the Apprentice stage, knew very well how much time was sometimes wasted by Apprentices for a single Blank Notebook or a small bottle of ink!

It was fine for those with money at home, but the reality was that wealthy families were, after all, in the minority. Many people came to the Tower of Time with the intention of staying for only three years.

In three years, they were provided with food and lodging and received a salary (albeit a very low one), could learn to read and write, and if they were lucky, could even become a Mage Apprentice, or perhaps even an Official Mage.

Basically, unless the family was truly in dire need of manpower, even the poorest families would send their children who had just come of age to live in the Tower of Time for three years.

These people were all very hardworking, but some things could not be achieved by hard work alone. The Tower of Time had artificially set up many obstacles regarding how Apprentices acquired Knowledge and how they acquired it efficiently.

This was the general situation in Netheril at present, and it could not be changed overnight, but Xia Duo could start from the Tower of Time, beginning with the subtle details and changing it slowly.

He believed that other Mage Towers currently undergoing transformation were certainly not as thorough as he was; not only did he want to change the production methods of Magic Items, but more importantly, he wanted to change the existing Mage cultivation system.

Of course, in Xia Duo's eyes, the existing Mage cultivation system could not be called a cultivation system at all; it was more like free-range grazing, which was very passive. What he wanted was active cultivation.

Or, to use a few high-sounding terms, it could be "comprehensively advancing Magic Education reform, perfecting the Mage cultivation system, and vigorously developing magical productivity!"

In the following days, Xia Duo stayed in the Tower of Time, constantly observing the state of the Apprentices through the Tower Spirit's Projection. The price reduction of essential consumables made the Apprentices very happy, and even their enthusiasm for learning had risen significantly.

At the same time, Xia Duo also paid attention to the performance of the Official Mages.

Most Intermediate Mages had mastered Spells like 【Detect Detection】. Xia Duo did not peek at them, but judging from the performance of other Primary Mages, the Mages did not show any abnormality regarding the price reduction of ink and paper.

Or rather, these were simply not the targets they were concerned with.

This also made Xia Duo heave a sigh of relief, but the next step would have to directly touch upon the interests, or rather the pain points, of the Official Mages.

Xia Duo was not in a hurry to issue the next order, but prepared to consolidate for a period of time first. Privately, however, he had Dien expand the scope of the "Progress Society" propaganda to all Apprentices.

By establishing the tone first, it might not be so hard to accept when the order was issued later.

……

In the 835th year of the Netheril Calendar, mid-October, Xia Duo took the "Lucky Owen" back to Linshui Village in Daxia Territory.

As for the Tower of Time, Xia Duo had temporarily set it aside, but he contacted the Tower Spirit every day to understand the latest situation there. Now that the Elemental Channel of the Mythallar Ruins had been built, the pressure on the Tower of Time from the external Chaos Weave had been greatly reduced.

Not only was the energy reserve gradually becoming sufficient, but the state of the riotous Magic Net had also been smoothed out, and the difficulty of communication had actually dropped a lot.

Perhaps it would not be long before Xia Duo could even pass directly through the Magic Net ruins to travel between the Tower of Time and Linshui Village.

It was just a pity that during the year in the Projection Plane of Yinguang City, excluding the Sword Singer training in the morning and sleeping time at night, nearly half of Xia Duo's disposable time was spent in the Yinguang Ta Library.

If this year had been used entirely for studying Magic, perhaps he would have already become an Advanced Mage and learned 【Long-distance Teleportation】. Then, when he returned to Linshui Village, he would not have needed to take a boat back to the Territory; it would have been much more convenient to teleport using the Tower of Time's Teleportation Array.

However, the temptation of Mithril Refining Technology was truly too great. Although he only found some simple process descriptions in the end, it was still of considerable value.

Projection Planes were common, but projecting into an Elf was not. Cases of Netherese Mages projecting into Elves only existed in legends, and no one had ever stood up and said they had projected into an Elf.

Xia Duo had projected three times and projected into an Elf twice; this had already made him feel very surprised. He guessed that it might be related to him being from Earth, but without empirical evidence, he could not make any further judgments.

Therefore, he had prioritized finding the technology of the Elves; perhaps there would be no such opportunity in the future.

Returning to the Territory this time, Advanced Rank was already in sight, but Xia Duo was not in a hurry to throw himself into research, because there was one thing that had always been hanging on his calendar, with a very high priority, and now it was almost time.

For Xia Duo, a long time ago, Archmage Greta had reminded him to spend more energy on Territory pioneering. Later, Niya had even explicitly told him that the Princess was coming to inspect the south.

Currently, he was the only Pioneer in the south, so it was obvious that the place the Princess was coming to was Daxia Territory!

Archmage Greta did not say the time, and Niya only said before winter. Now that it was autumn, calculating the time, the Princess would be coming soon. With a Great Arcanist personally inspecting, Xia Duo was still under a lot of pressure.

But at the same time, he also felt some excitement. A personage like a Great Arcanist could not be seen just anywhere. In their eyes, how much difference was there between an Advanced Mage and a low-level Mage, or even an Apprentice!

Perhaps only by advancing to become an Arcanist could he make them look at him with respect, but that was something that could not be achieved in a short time.

Therefore, Xia Duo could only put more effort into Territory pioneering, and this happened to be what the Princess, this Great Arcanist, was concerned about.

……

On the Altar Square, Xia Duo looked at the few lonely wooden houses to the north and asked Laidun about the progress of the wooden house manufacturing: "Laidun, how many sets of Standard Wooden House Components does the Territory currently have in reserve?"

Unlike Xia Duo, who returned to the Tower of Time from time to time, or even conducted Astral Projection and time travel, Laidun had not left since arriving at Linshui Village. He spent his whole day devoted to the Territory, and he was likely more familiar with these data than the carpenters themselves.

There was no need to check the records; he reported it directly, "The latest record is 33 sets, and 10 more sets can be added in three days."

Xia Duo nodded. Manufacturing Standard Wooden House Components was not done set by set, but modularly in batches of ten. On average, not counting the time consumed for assembly, it took about 20 man-days to manufacture one set of Standard Wooden House Components.

That is, 20 carpenters for 1 day, or 10 carpenters for 2 days.

Xia Duo was quite satisfied with this speed. There were currently more than two hundred households of residents in the Territory, so counting it up, at least two hundred sets of wooden houses were needed.

And now there were 20 carpenters in the Territory whose craftsmanship was passable (limited to manufacturing wooden houses). Even without increasing manpower, they could all be manufactured in more than half a year.