Chapter 585: Scholar's Touch, Transformation Gemstone

Xia Duo roughly flipped through the data on the territory residents; he did not finish reading it all, but focused on some of the data that Laidun had marked. Afterward, he picked up another document on the desk.

This was also a document that Xia Duo was more concerned about—information regarding the local customs, strange legends, and the like of various territories in Netheril, which had been dictated by the previous batch of territory residents and compiled by Laidun.

Although the perspective of commoners was not comprehensive, he preferred this simple, almost unadorned description over those recorded by the Tower of Time, which were viewed from above by spellcasters and occasionally carried biases.

Of course, regardless of which type it was, both could provide Xia Duo with different perspectives for understanding Netheril; combining the two allowed him to see things more comprehensively.

It was just that the data collected by the Tower of Time was still somewhat scarce, and data specifically introducing territories was almost non-existent. After all, most of this territory data came from mage biographies, travelogues, and the like, mostly being side descriptions, sometimes even just a few sparse words.

Now that he had these compiled documents from the residents' dictation, Xia Duo wished he could stuff this thick stack of documents into his brain all at once.

Thinking of stuffing text into his brain, Xia Duo suddenly remembered when the Princess came to inspect earlier, he had presented the Princess with the "Standard Development Manual of Daxia Territory." The Princess took the manual and, as if using some spell, immediately knew the contents of the manual.

At the time, with the Princess present, he was a bit nervous, and afterward, he never thought of this matter. Now that he thought about it, perhaps there really was a technique (spell) to stuff books and text into one's brain.

He could also find an opportunity to talk to Niya about this aspect and see if she could find relevant information at Giles Tower.

If he could learn this spell, then he wouldn't need to be a human photocopier when he went to the Projection Plane; being a human scanner directly would be simply too awesome!

However, for the moment, Xia Duo was not yet a human scanner, and he could only slowly check it word by word.

Before long, the last ray of sunset slowly disappeared from the window, the sky gradually darkened, and Xia Duo put away the data he hadn't finished reading, ate something simple, and then went out again.

……

Concealing his figure, Xia Duo flew into the sky and looked down at the ground; from time to time, loud shouts such as "Working Group 26 can go back to eat!" reached his ears.

At the same time, in the direction of the Canteen, teams of territory residents were coming and going in an orderly fashion. Xia Duo had a rough idea in his mind; the number of people in the territory was increasing, and the original Canteen now seemed very inappropriate.

The territory residents were now finishing work, returning, receiving food, and going home in batches. After watching for a while, Xia Duo flew toward the periphery again; the several teams of soldiers who were training outside were pulling their defensive lines back to facilitate nighttime vigilance.

Afterward, Xia Duo flew a circle around the micro-lake near the Elemental Channel. There was no change here compared to the last time he came. Of course, if there were changes, he would have to doubt the engineering quality of the Hand of Secrecy!

Reaching out to scoop in the spring eye of the Elemental Fountain, the small stone he had put in before had now become somewhat transparent. Xia Duo couldn't help but let out an exclamation, "Eh—"

He hurriedly summoned a ball of light to illuminate the small stone in his hand. Although Darkvision could allow him to see in the dark, it only had changes in black, white, and gray, losing many elements.

And under normal light, this small stone was not only somewhat transparent but also slightly blue; it really was transforming into a Gemstone!

This Elemental Fountain, including the micro-lake, was built by Priest Eikesuosi of the Hand of Secrecy leading his subordinate Arcanists.

At the time, the other party promised that this would be a permanent landscape, and even if the Magic Net chaotic areas within the Mythallar Ruins were completely repaired, this place would not disappear.

Moreover, in the spring eye of the Elemental Fountain, a water-element-inclined Gemstone could be transformed every once in a while; even after the Magic Net chaotic areas were completely repaired, the yield would just be a bit lower.

Xia Duo was not optimistic about this. After all, even if Five-Colored Gems were transformed through the Element Pool of a Mage Tower, the time span would be very long. As far as he knew, many Mage Towers, including the Tower of Time and Giles Tower, had not modified their Element Pools to enable them to transform Gemstones.

Only some low-end Mage Towers were heard to produce Gemstones; normal Mage Towers had too many ways to obtain Gemstones, and it was not worth affecting the Element Pool for this.

The most critical issue was the yield. If the yield were extremely high, building a Mage Tower specifically for producing Gemstones would not be out of the question, but Xia Duo had never heard of such a Mage Tower.

Now this Elemental Fountain had been built for almost a year, and it hadn't even completely transformed a small stone into a Gemstone. With this efficiency, if he really were counting on this to break even, he didn't know how long he would have to wait!

Xia Duo felt a bit of heartache for the 100,000 Gold Coins he had offered for this Elemental Fountain. Although these construction costs had not yet been delivered, the one-year delivery deadline was approaching. As soon as he thought about the 100,000 Gold Coins' worth of supplies about to leave him, he felt extremely reluctant.

"My one hundred thousand Gold Coins!"

Of course, the purpose of building this permanent landscape was mainly to prevent the Elemental Channel here from transforming into a Magic Net Dead Zone after the Magic Net chaotic areas were repaired.

And the reason for building the Elemental Channel was to alleviate the Magic Net riots within the Mythallar Ruins, facilitate those visiting Arcanists in carrying out repairs, and at the same time reduce the pressure from the outside on the Tower of Time, indirectly increasing its energy storage speed.

Thinking of this, Xia Duo suddenly felt that this money didn't need to be paid by him at all.

Although the Mythallar Ruins, the Elemental Channel, and the Elemental Fountain lake landscape were all on his Territory, and all kinds of decisions were made by him, wasn't all of this for the Tower of Time!

But thinking about it again, wasn't the Tower of Time also his? Although it was jointly owned with Niya, thinking about it carefully, it still made his heart ache.

"Sigh—"

Casually throwing the Gemstone that hadn't been completely transformed back into the spring eye of the Elemental Fountain, Xia Duo decided to stay away from this sad place.

……

When Xia Duo returned to Linshui Village, the sky had already completely darkened. If it were in other territories, ordinary territory residents could have started making babies by this time, but in Daxia Territory, there was still a very important activity—

Night School!

The literacy rate of the Netherese was not very low; many men had the experience of being Apprentices in Mage Towers, at least that part of the territory residents who came from Savile Territory did, but they just hadn't been able to become Official Apprentices, which was why they left to find their own way after the three-year term expired.

Although they hadn't been able to learn spells, as long as they had stayed in a Mage Tower, literacy was basically not a problem. In Laidun's territory resident statistics, the number of territory residents who had the experience of being Apprentices at the Tower of Time was clearly marked.

Almost 50!

This number seemed a bit low compared to the more than one thousand territory residents currently in the territory, but one had to know that among the more than one thousand territory residents in Daxia Territory now, only half came from Savile Territory.

A literacy rate of almost one-tenth was already quite high, and this didn't even count those soldiers; soldiers were generally literate.

However, Xia Duo was not satisfied with this literacy rate, so he let Laidun set up a "two hours at night" small classroom, right on the Altar Square in front of the Lord's Villa.

Laidun used bright Radiant Holy Power as a teaching tool, teaching illiterate territory residents to read by preaching the "Sacred Proverbs of the Lord of Radiance" and the "Lord's Quotations" compiled by Xia Duo, while also cultivating their sense of order.