Chapter 723: Territory Overview, Pie in the Sky

As the Spellbook at Xia Duo's waist gently pulsed, an invisible Perception Field quietly appeared in the sky outside the villa, allowing Xia Duo's vision to spread along with it.

He had returned in a rush last night and hadn't had the chance to properly look at his Territory; of course, the poor lighting was also a significant factor.

Under Darkvision, the world that was rich and colorful under normal light transformed into a grayscale world composed only of black and white.

Although Xia Duo had already come to treat Darkvision as an innate ability, in truth, he had not possessed such an ability since childhood; he had only suddenly acquired it after undergoing Bloodline Awakening in this world of Magic.

Compared to those truly innate races that possessed Darkvision from birth, such as the Dwarf, he was far inferior in terms of adaptation to darkness.

At the very least, Xia Duo still could not map a specific shade of gray to a specific color from the daylight, whereas Buloutuo could do so with ease.

It would only be possible with long-term adaptation, but Xia Duo had long been accustomed to daytime activities; if he were to switch entirely to nighttime, he might adapt to Darkvision quickly, but it would bring about more discomfort in other areas.

Therefore, Xia Duo now simply treated Darkvision as an extra perk; he would smile to himself when he occasionally used it, but he would not deliberately think about it.

……

Moving his perception into the sky, there was no interference from the wind noise present when his physical body flew; he could occasionally hear some wind, but it dissipated quickly.

Moreover, it was currently early morning and the light was just right; as sunlight penetrated the Perception Field, Xia Duo even experienced a sense of transparency that he could not perceive when greeting the sun with his physical body.

It was as if the Lord of Radiance had personally sent warmth into the depths of his heart; if he were on Earth, he would have loved this feeling, but here—

That round, infinitely radiant luminous body in the sky was a tangible, great existence, so how could he not be cautious and wary!

However, for such an existence, how much effect could the tiny thoughts of a mortal on the ground have!

Striving to keep himself from thinking about such overly lofty questions, Xia Duo rapidly raised the Perception Field and moved it slowly toward the east.

Today's Linshui Village, if one counted the outer areas where the trees had already been cleared, could actually be considered a small town.

This was even more obvious when looking down from high altitude.

The Wolfburg River running south and the man-made Linshui River running east-west—the southeastern angle where the two intersected was now full of human traces.

The westernmost corner near the Wolfburg River contained buildings like the Altar Square, Residential Area, Canteen, warehouse, and cemetery; right next to the building area, a small patch of golden wheat waiting to be harvested was particularly eye-catching.

That was the Demonstration Field Xia Duo had previously shown the Princess, and it was also the breeding base for the Territory's future farmland.

And further out, on the scorched ground, piles of logs of varying lengths were neatly stacked; this area occupied nearly half the area of the outer pioneer zone.

Seeing this, Xia Duo realized that this timber had to be dealt with as soon as possible, otherwise, it would only accumulate more and more with subsequent expansion, making it harder to handle.

In this era, the greatest consumption of timber was likely as fuel, yet during the clearing process, the scattered branches other than the main trunks were already inexhaustible, so why would one need to specifically split the logs used as main trunks to burn?

Xia Duo temporarily kept this problem in mind, and his Perception Field followed his gaze, moving toward the east once more.

Further east, there were rarely any neat stacking areas; instead, a large amount of scattered timber was spread out to dry in the sun. The autumn sun might no longer be scorching, but it had no trouble evaporating the excess moisture from this timber.

Further away, the scorched ground had already returned to its original appearance—either deep gray filled with humus, light gray with a few stones, or the black-brown of the soil itself.

At this time, many territory residents had already arrived here; under the arrangement of their respective Working Group leaders, they brought piles of dry timber from the rear, stacked them on normal land, and then set them on fire.

According to the key points marked in Xia Duo's "Pioneer Handbook," after trees were cleared, the ground needed to be burned to eliminate hidden dangers like snakes and insects.

Judging from the large swaths of scorched land in the back, this work had been well implemented.

Further ahead was the true pioneer front—

From the sky, Xia Duo could clearly see a line that was not very straight, curving from north to south in an arc and then heading west, extending all the way to the Wolfburg River.

Along this line, trees were felled by the territory residents in divided groups, then split by a specialized cutting group and transported by a specialized transport group.

In the short time Xia Duo was observing, at least twenty large trees were felled by his territory residents, and this process was still continuing incessantly.

Although this efficiency was far inferior to mechanical tools like logging machines on Earth, the scene of highly organized group labor by these thousands of people still gave Xia Duo a considerable shock.

He could not remember the last time he had seen such a scene of collective labor.

……

After looking around, Xia Duo was generally quite satisfied; as expected, there is strength in numbers!

If there were only the few dozen people from the beginning, it would have been impossible to clear such a large area without several years of time.

And one had to consider the issue of casualties.

When Xia Duo had just swept over the cemetery, he discovered that there were nearly twenty more new tombstones in the cemetery than when he had last visited.

Only with many people could one have the spare capacity to consider protection measures, but even so, there were already dozens of death cases; if there were few people, protection alone would be difficult, let alone having the spare capacity to expand.

At the same time, having many people was also a source of confidence; the territory residents were no longer afraid to face the terrifying forest alone, but had countless companions supporting them together.

Of course, Xia Duo could see the good side, and naturally, he could also see the bad side, but in the face of a relatively perfect organization, a few lazy individuals could hardly affect the overall atmosphere of proactive progress.

Of course, all of this depended on whether the "pie in the sky" Xia Duo promised them was real and achievable; without that, even if everyone were given a Mage supervisor, the current atmosphere might not exist.

Xia Duo's "pie in the sky" was naturally real and achievable, and part of it had already been realized; some underage territory residents had already been sent into the Tower of Time.

Once they returned after completing their studies, they would not only become a fresh force for the Territory's construction, but also a real manifestation of the Lord fulfilling his promises.

This would cause Xia Duo's prestige to rise once again, not just the authority brought by his identity as a Mage, but a true manifestation of the Lord's ruling power.

However, thinking about short-term incentives, Xia Duo considered it and finally contacted the Tower Spirit, announcing a new order—

Any New Apprentice, as long as they completed the Enlightenment Class and learned Spellcasting, would receive a chance to go home and visit their relatives!

Xia Duo treated everyone equally; whether it was a New Apprentice from Daxia Territory or a New Apprentice from Savile Territory, they would all have such an opportunity.

Now, he was instead worried about whether those apprentices would give up the chance to visit their relatives in order to have more time to study.