Chapter 176: Observations in Suishi Cheng, the Sturdiest Building in History

The sky was gradually darkening as Jier rode his horse, accompanying Mr. Bogete Boshitafa toward the west gate of Suishi Cheng.

Mr. Bogete brought along several attendants and guards, while Jier also brought an ox cart, which carried the old Dwarf and the strongest combatants from the old Dwarf's side. Although it was just to attend a banquet, the old Dwarf still brought along "Shishou" and the Wild Power God priest from his team, so that if any unforeseen incident occurred, "Shishou" alone would be enough to protect him and help him escape Suishi Cheng.

There was no helping it; the soldier captain from the mine had disappeared during an outside scouting mission, which forced him to be on high alert during any potential contact with human Nobles!

After all, statistically speaking, that former soldier captain had likely died in a conflict with human Nobles, which was why there had been no word from him. That Dwarf soldier captain had been very strong—according to the old Dwarf, stronger than both "Shishou" and Jier—yet such a powerful individual had died without a sound. Looking at it now, only a battle against high-ranking human Nobles, who also possessed sufficient combat power, could have led to this result.

Now that he was also being invited to interact with those human Nobles, he repeatedly instructed the other Dwarves in the cart on the way that no matter what happened today, unless the human Nobles harmed them, everyone was to pretend they did not understand Human Common Language and remain silent, leaving everything for him to handle.

Jier did not have as strong a persecution complex as the old Dwarf, because he judged that this was merely the Nobles of Suishi Cheng wanting to see what real Dwarves looked like. After all, with limited mobility, going out was a high-risk affair; many people, even Nobles, could live for decades without traveling far to see the scenery and customs of other places.

The reason business could be profitable was because of high margins, and another meaning of high margins was high risk.

This included the risk of failed business investments, being plundered by Bandits, climate incompatibility, the risk of disease, accidental death, and so on; these were all areas where casualties easily occurred when traveling for business.

Their group followed the wide road to the city's west gate. At this time, the sun had not yet completely fallen below the horizon, but it was actually already quite late; according to regulations, the city gates had to be closed at the designated time.

So, although the sky was still bright, the gates were already closed. Merchants familiar with local conditions would either arrive early and squeeze in at the last minute, or curse their bad luck and prepare to stay at an inn outside the gate, waiting to enter the city the next morning after the gates opened.

But when the team led by Mr. Bogete arrived, some merchants who were preparing to stay at an inn originally wanted to watch the fun, but after one of Mr. Bogete's attendants stepped forward to shout a few words and personally went up via a basket lowered from the gate, the thick, tightly closed gate was opened in less than a minute.

Now, those who had originally wanted to watch the fun were dumbfounded. They hurriedly brought their people to follow, but after Jier and the others entered through the narrow gate, the gate slammed shut with a bang! Blocking those merchants outside.

"Why? Why can they enter? Why can't we? Open the gate!"

"That's right! If it's about money, we can pay too. How much money? You gate-keeping Soldiers, give us a number!"

But the city guards on the gate ignored these people entirely. They were still leaning on the battlements watching the merchants below make fools of themselves, and some malicious fellows even took advantage of the height of the gate to spit down at them.

After these merchants questioned for a while, they likely realized something: among those few people just now, there were probably high-ranking figures of Suishi Cheng, which was why they could easily call open a gate that wouldn't normally be opened.

Therefore, these merchants soon left sheepishly and went back to rest.

As soon as Jier and the others entered the city, they could see that inside the gate was a fairly large square. At this time, bright lights were hung high over this square, and many temporary stalls of various small vendors were gathered below. Many merchants dressed in brightly colored clothes were selecting goods and discussing trades at these stalls.

"These are all temporary night markets for the first half of the night. They will all be cleared away when the curfew begins in the second half of the night," Mr. Bogete explained to Jier while riding his horse to the side.

Jier nodded and glanced over, discovering that those so-called vendors were not selling cheap trinkets, but mostly standardized product samples. The merchants gathered to inspect the goods were not discussing small trades worth a few pennies either.

Although it looked ordinary, the actual daily transaction volume here was likely quite significant.

Most importantly, the people nearby—whether those setting up stalls or those buying things—did not look like commoners; they all looked quite wealthy.

Jier soon knew why. When their group crossed this square and stepped forward into the city roads ahead, both sides of the street were shops selling expensive items and the beautiful houses of wealthy families.

Of course, there were also some Merchant Guild buildings that occupied a considerable area; Jier even saw a large complex of buildings belonging to the familiar 【Burning Furnace】 Merchant Guild.

After continuing for a distance, the buildings on both sides of the street changed into large building complexes for various Churches. The temple of the God of Crafts was towering, and many Craftsmen and apprentices who had finished work were entering it one after another to offer Prayer to the god to improve their skills.

The spires of the Sun God Church also emitted bright light at night, illuminating the entire street so that no additional lighting was needed.

The Church of the God of Wealth was even livelier; even at night, people of all kinds were coming and going in an endless stream.

Besides these, there were also some Churches of gods Jier had not seen before, which also had their own church buildings distributed here. This included the God of War, the Goddess of Luck, the God of Compassion, the God of Contract, and so on. In addition, the local Pantheon was also large in scale; next to the main building of the Pantheon, there were more than a dozen smaller, separate buildings.

Seeing Jier staring in the direction of the Pantheon, Mr. Bogete seemed to guess what Jier was puzzled about and explained: "Oh, those are the faiths of some gods who have believers and even dedicated Priests, but their scale is still small, and they cannot secure a suitable plot of land in the city to build a church building for their god. Therefore, they have no choice but to build a small place for believers to offer Prayer in the spare space of the Pantheon."

Jier pointed in the direction they had come from, where there were many Merchant Guild buildings, and many Merchant Guilds had courtyards that were not small. Theoretically speaking, there was plenty of space there, right?

"I saw on the way here that there should still be some vacant space where those merchants live, right?"

Bogete shook his head: "That's different. Not only are there regulations in the city that church buildings can only be built in the corresponding areas in the west and north of the city, but the gods also care about their reputation. Other Churches are all built together; if your church is squeezed in with residential houses, you will be looked down upon. Therefore, many Priests of the gods would rather stay in the Pantheon and occupy a spot than build a new church building in other areas."

Jier thought that made sense. Everyone saw each other constantly; if others were building churches in the prosperous church area, and you ran to the rich area or the commoner area to build your own church building, it would be out of place and embarrassing.

After passing through the Pantheon, the innermost area of this surface layer of Suishi Cheng was the residential and living area for the ruling class, such as the Bostafa Baron.

Likewise, this area was also filled with municipal buildings that managed the city, including the Government Office, barracks, Jianlao, Grain Warehouse, and other important buildings.

The Bostafa Family seemed to have many Knight Lords under them. Although each Knight Lord's mansion was not small, it was still hard to count how many Knight Lord manors and mansions there were in the ring-shaped city area.

Jier and the others moved north along the street on the innermost surface layer. Looking east, the space to the east suddenly opened up; that was the downward open-pit Dwarf mine. It occupied a large area. Jier rode his horse over and glanced at it, discovering that the buildings were dense and it was divided into several layers downward. The layer closest to the surface seemed to be inhabited by many wealthy citizen classes with some money; at least there was lighting on the streets, people were patrolling with Torches, and the houses along the street also looked quite decent.

And the layer below that was the somewhat quiet workshop area. Although most workshops had finished work since it was dark, there were still a considerable number of chimneys constantly emitting black smoke, as if they did not extinguish the fires even after dark.

Looking further down, there was the area where commoners lived, with only dots of firelight. As for the center bottom of the mine, it was almost pitch black, with only a sturdy, brightly lit tower in the very center, which seemed to be the high-security Jianlao of Suishi Cheng.

The Bandit captives Jier had handed over earlier should have been escorted there.

The strange city scene before his eyes was an eye-opener for Jier. After all, this kind of city that developed sequentially downward rather than from the inside out rarely appeared even in the world of his previous life, let alone being seen by him.

"Your Suishi Cheng is huge! It can be said to be the largest city I have seen on my way here," Jier couldn't help but exclaim.

Mr. Bogete Boshitafa smiled proudly: "Actually, it's not as big as you imagine. Because it centers downward, you can see almost the entire city, which is why you feel our Suishi Cheng is large. If you spend time walking around, you will know that the surface, which has the largest area, is actually mostly occupied by Merchant Guild buildings and warehouses, but there aren't many people."

"The middle is densely packed with buildings, but in reality, the population isn't actually that large, because nowadays the development of the entire city no longer relies on the various workshops below or on forging. It might have been like that in the early years, but in recent years, our Suishi Cheng has gradually become the largest cargo transit and storage center in the Southern Province."

He pointed to the rich areas and Merchant Guild buildings within the city walls; these places occupied the most space in the city: "These Merchant Guilds and wealthy merchants pay far more in taxes every year than the black-smoke-filled forging of the past could ever collect."

He seemed to recall things from the past: "When I was a child, the entire Suishi Cheng didn't have those Merchant Guild buildings in the outer circle, and there weren't many Churches either. At that time, inside the city walls, there were mostly small hills of various minerals transported from all over the territory piled up in the open, as well as large, large piles of coal and wood. And the entire city was filled with black smoke from chimneys everywhere, and the land around the city couldn't even grow crops."

Smiling, Mr. Bogete joked: "I was even required by my mother to take a bath every day, otherwise my head and body would be covered in a layer of soot. I could also always blow small black particles out of my nose."

As they talked, they followed the curved, patrolled road to the innermost surface area on the north side of the city.

Here, there were several stone castles and continuous luxurious buildings. Even at night, many lights were still on; this was clearly the area where the Bostafa Family lived. Because the entire family had multiplied here for many years, the family population was large, and the number of servants serving them was even greater.

This entire complex of buildings was owned by the various branch families of the Bostafa Family.

Mr. Bogete Boshitafa led Jier and the others all the way to the entrance of a castle in the very center. Unlike other parts of the city, one could actually see some Dwarf architectural styles here.

Upon seeing this, the old Dwarf, who had been silent for most of the journey, finally spoke: "Hmm, so it was the former mine management center. No wonder it looks somewhat familiar."

Mr. Bogete, who had been paying attention to the old Dwarf, asked curiously: "You say this is the 'mine management center'? I only heard that this was the building first discovered and inhabited by our ancestors when they led the people to migrate here. The Dwarves took most things away, leaving only the endless mines and the Dwarf buildings that were everywhere at the time."

He scratched his head embarrassedly: "But I heard that later, most of the ordinary Dwarf buildings on the surface were demolished and moved to build the city walls—that is, the towering walls surrounding the entire city that we saw when we first entered the city. The surface is a city wall in our human style, but inside, it is actually all built with large bricks and stones left behind by Dwarf buildings."

Mr. Bogete pointed to the castle in front of everyone: "But this one is different. This castle is too sturdy. Like the other two castles nearby, everyone tried to demolish it for a long time back then but couldn't damage this building at all, so they had to use the original foundation and renovate it into the family's castle."

The old Dwarf hummed twice: "Of course. The copper mine managed by this management center was the largest copper mining and smelting center of our Dwarf Aimuli Kingdom back then. Sigh, losing this place, I reckon the entire Kingdom suffered no small loss. Let's talk about this building; I remember it was built using High-performance Artificial Rock Magma, mixed with a Metal Forming Skeleton, plus the blessing of four powerful Dwarf gods and multiple pre-embedded Self-charging Rune Stones."

"The entire building can even withstand powerful Magic attacks of natural disaster level, or the direct Divine Power bombardment from the Divine Kingdom of the gods in the sky without being destroyed. I can guarantee that in this Saint Hors Kingdom of yours, or even in most human societies, the sturdiness of this thing is top-tier. Even we ourselves would find it almost impossible to destroy it."

Mr. Bogete listened quite happily and even whistled a lighthearted tune: "I'll have to tell the elders of the family about this later. If we promote this in the future, I reckon many master architects will come here to research and study."

The old Dwarf was noncommittal about this. He did not think humans lacked similar technology, but the problem was that while they, the Dwarves, had sufficient productivity and resources to build this kind of building, the cost of this building alone was likely such that even if the Bostafa Family, who possessed the construction technology, tried to do it, they would go bankrupt before they could build this thing.