Chapter 264: Plane Warrant

Anthony had been overwhelmed recently, so overwhelmed that his hair was falling out in large handfuls, and he wanted to give up and die. Being an undead creature was much more comfortable than being this broken acting Pope.

Anthony had over a thousand years of political experience, a large group of followers and subordinates, and countless people who believed in him, but he couldn't solve the current problem—famine. The main plane was having a famine.

"Actually, the main plane has always been having famines, having famines every year, a small famine every year, a big famine every five years, and plagues also occur from time to time." Anthony said with a bitter face: "Some landlord nobles collect taxes too harshly, and there will be small-scale riots."

These things actually happened relatively rarely under Anthony's rule, but they were very common in the Western Diocese, so the population of the Western Diocese had never been able to go up.

Famines also occurred under Anthony's rule, but he would allocate, transfer, redeem, reduce taxes, borrow, installment, and even act shamelessly, transferring the grain of landlord nobles to disaster victims or bankrupt farmers in ways that everyone didn't dislike.

If you can't pay it back next year, pay in installments. If you really can't pay it back, reduce some taxes. If you still can't pay it back, tilt the policy. As long as people are alive, there is always a way to live.

However, all the maneuvering was built on a foundation, which was having grain.

"Now, even the landlords and nobles don't have any surplus grain left. Even if I raided their homes, I wouldn't be able to seize much grain, and besides..." Anthony said with a bitter smile.

And there was another more troublesome thing restricting him, making him unable to use some relatively rough methods, such as plundering...

The Eastern Diocese had become independent. They were now called the Holy Church, and he was the acting Pope.

In order to win over those princes, nobles, and landlords to follow him, Anthony had secretly made many compromises and concessions. Otherwise, even with the dark lines he had laid out for over a thousand years, those people wouldn't have risked following him to the end.

In essence, Anthony's actions were equivalent to rebellion. If he failed, he might be beheaded. Without huge benefits, who would follow him?

However, most of what he gave up were the interests of divine power, just being generous with God's property. But similarly, he couldn't use too rough methods, otherwise the entire Eastern Diocese would be in chaos.

"As long as I dare to raid one family, the others will definitely revolt. Everyone will think: 'Is Anthony trying to settle scores and renege on his debts?'"

"Not only can I not raid their homes, but when I see people hoarding goods for speculation, I have to close both eyes and pretend I don't see it. Tell me, isn't that infuriating?"

Naigelis nodded: "It is indeed quite annoying, especially since you said so much, but the main person isn't listening, even more annoying." After saying this, it pointed to Ang, who had split his attention to farm after pulling them into the consciousness space.

Anthony sighed: "Used to it. It's the same talking to you, God of Knowledge. Ang respects your opinion."

This flattery was just right, and Naigelis's little tail went up. However, after it went up, it started scratching its head: "But you want too much, one hundred thousand tons, two hundred million jin. If you eat sparingly, it's enough for millions of people to eat."

"Yes, but the grain gap is just this big. This year, first there was a drought, then a hurricane, then a pest disaster. The grain fields of the Heishan Duchy were all destroyed. Their disaster victims all poured into our East. In the past few years, the harvest was good, and more children were born. The population of the East has been increasing year after year, and the burden is getting heavier and heavier." Anthony said distressedly.

In an era of inconvenient transportation and low productivity, population was sometimes not wealth, but a burden.

For example, a place suffered a disaster, and there were more than five thousand disaster victims. Transporting grain to save them was easy. Even if there was no road, through the wild land, the grain for five thousand people could be transported in.

But if this place had fifty thousand people suffering from disaster, the difficulty of transporting grain to save them wasn't ten times, but might be fifty times, a hundred times.

Because the wild land couldn't bear the transport of so many materials, roads were needed, roads needed to be repaired, and the people transporting materials needed to eat, drink, and excrete. On the way, more than half would be consumed. It would be good if one or two percent of the materials could be transported in.

Therefore, the management difficulty of a country with a population of millions and a country with a population of tens of millions wasn't ten times, but tens or hundreds of times.

In an era of low productivity, too many people was often the beginning of the division of an empire, until entering an industrial society, the advantage of population could be transformed into productivity through education.

Anthony was now tasting the bitterness of too many people. For example, now he was asking Ang to save his life, and he opened his mouth and asked for one hundred thousand tons. When he saved the Heishan Duchy, he only asked for one thousand tons.

But this was a rigid demand; that is to say, in his calculations, one hundred thousand tons was just enough to survive this disaster year. If managed well, perhaps he could suppress the grain prices and force those noble landlords and profiteering merchants to cough up a portion.

However, he also felt it wasn't very likely. Anthony could roughly calculate how much stuff Ang had, because Anthony belonged to the core circle, and Ang had nothing to hide from him.

The farm in the Palace of Rest, the two underground cities in the Abyss of Rest, plus the two World Tree protective forest farms, plus the Hope Oasis and the Dragon Fall Lake.

Among them, the grain yield of Dragon Fall Lake should be the highest, but similarly, the number of people raised was also the largest. It was really hard to say how much grain could be squeezed out.

However, if one hadn't stopped breathing, one had to be saved. One couldn't watch so many people die. If the disaster situation couldn't be controlled, at least millions of people in the Eastern Diocese would die, plus the plague, tens of millions of people might die in the next few months, and it would inevitably trigger riots.

Anthony had actually seen such things many times in the past thousand years. In an era of insufficient productivity, population was adjusted in this way.

What was different this time was that Anthony found that he seemed to be able to struggle a bit. After all, there was an Undead God covering him.

One hundred thousand tons wasn't there, fifty thousand tons was also fine, thirty thousand tons wasn't impossible. Even if there was only ten thousand tons, it could save a part of the people, right?

"Just say it directly, don't explain other things. Ang is too lazy to listen. Just say what you use to trade for one hundred thousand tons of grain, and see how much he takes out." Naigelis gave Anthony a trick.

Anthony felt this suggestion was reliable, didn't forget to give Naigelis a thumbs up, and then turned to Ang and said: "Adult, I request your support for one hundred thousand tons of grain. I am willing to trade one hundred thousand people for it."

Naigelis, who had just given Anthony a trick, exploded upon hearing this: "Anthony, you are shameless. Not only do you want grain, but you also want to dump the disaster victims as a burden on us? You are eating from both ends, shameless."

Anthony said with an unchanging face: "Lord Nai Ge adult, you misunderstood. How can population be a burden? These one hundred thousand people include craftsmen, farmers, young and strong, women, etc., just making up for the lack of population under the adult's command. If relying on natural reproduction, it won't be filled in the Abyss of Rest even after five hundred years."

"Why do we need to fill the Abyss of Rest?" Naigelis asked puzzled.

"There are people, there is faith. If the Undead Temple has tens of millions of believers, the adult can become an existence like His Majesty, maybe he can unseal you." Anthony said.

When saying the front part, Naigelis didn't take it seriously, curling its lips in disdain, which made Anthony temporarily change the last sentence.

"Unseal? My seal?" Naigelis asked forlornly.

Anthony didn't say it, and it almost forgot that it was still in a sealed state. It projected onto the dragon embryo all day long. Besides having no pain, it didn't seem to affect its life, and its relationship with Naiaili was getting better and better.

The only problem was that Naiaili's body size was getting bigger and bigger. When hugging, it was easy to break its bones. Although it didn't hurt, it was still very troublesome.

"Right, don't you yearn for freedom?" Anthony asked.

Naigelis took a deep breath, sprayed a roar onto Anthony's face: "I yearn for your Ku Ba Da, I've already died of old age! Unsealing is you wanting me to die, right? If there's no life, what's the use of freedom! If you want me to die, you die early. I'll let my grand-nephew pinch you to death!"

"No, no, no, Lord Nai Ge adult, my meaning is, don't you want to unseal the seal of the Huang Tong Book? Not your seal, but the book's seal. This is a book that can seal gods. Don't you want to take it out and smash people? It's very powerful."

Anthony covered his face to block Naigelis's spit stars. Although they were in Ang's consciousness space and all images were virtual, it would still be very disgusting.

Usually seeing some magic medicine having ingredients like dragon saliva, Anthony wouldn't eat it. Isn't dragon saliva just dragon spit? How dirty.

"Book's seal?" Naigelis was stunned.

"Right, book's seal, the seal of the Huang Tong Book."

"What can it do after unsealing?" Naigelis asked.

"Smash people. I don't know anything else, but being able to seal you, it should also be able to seal gods weaker than you." Anthony said.

Naigelis couldn't help but frown and think hard: "Are there gods weaker than me?"

However, very quickly, Naigelis came back to its senses: "Ku Ba Da, almost fell for your dog-headed man's trick. Now we are talking about you trading people for grain. You dumped the burden and traded for grain. Not doing it. Ang's grain didn't grow in the water!"

Anthony spread his hands: "Then I can only buy it with money. Twenty thousand magic crystals, how about it?"

"Pfft, not as good as one hundred thousand people. You are too ruthless in cutting prices, right?" Naigelis said.

"Adult, this is just grain after all. How much money do you want to sell it for?" Anthony was also speechless.

Also right, don't look at grain being very important, but the price isn't high. When Ice City bought grain from the main plane, it was only one magic crystal per ton. Anthony estimated that what he wanted to buy was the grain of Dragon Fall Lake, not cross-plane, being able to produce two magic crystals was already very high, at least five times higher than the normal grain price.

Not involving gods and magic things, things that can be mass-produced, things that ordinary people need, the unit price definitely can't be expensive.

But Naigelis clearly didn't look at this kind of small business, feeling it wasn't as good as one hundred thousand people.

"Then one hundred thousand people plus twenty thousand magic crystals, how about it? If you are not satisfied with this price, then you are slaughtering me." Anthony muttered.

"Bah!" Facing Anthony's behavior of getting cheap and still selling well, Naigelis could only protest: "I don't care anymore, you ask Ang, I don't know if he can take out one hundred thousand tons of grain."

Anthony turned to Ang and said: "Adult, I hope to use one hundred thousand people and twenty thousand magic crystals to buy one hundred thousand tons of grain. Is it okay?"

Ang tilted his head, flew up directly, the Ring of Balance emerged on his body, pointed to one of the soil-less magic rice in the waterway, and said: "Seven thousand tons."

Flew to another area, pointed to this area, and said: "Fifteen thousand tons."

Flying and pointing all the way, adding up on one side, soon it added up to seventy-five thousand tons.

Anthony was already stunned. How long has Ang been in this plane? How did he plant so much grain? And still floating on the water surface to plant? This is too magical, right? And still said it didn't grow in the water?

The number of seventy-five thousand tons had already far exceeded his expectations. When Ang flew to a piece of immature rice field, Anthony hurriedly said: "Almost there, almost there, a little less is also fine, a little less is also fine."

Ang didn't pay attention to him, landed directly on a floating gel board, stepped on a footprint forcefully, the rice field grew rapidly, blossomed, bore fruit, matured.

Doing the same, after a few times, Ang pointed to the last piece of floating gel board and said: "One hundred thousand tons."

Anthony's overwhelmed state turned into painful but happy. Happy was that the most troublesome problem was solved, but painful was, how to move so much grain back?

A few days later, a team of holy knights teleported to the Fresh Water Plane and presented a document to the person in charge on Bright Island, that slick divine official.

"Transferred? For no reason, why transfer us away?" The divine official couldn't believe it.

Although transferred to a different plane, poor mountains and bad waters, lacking entertainment, but also far from the center and power struggles, no one managed, life was very comfortable. Why transfer himself away for no reason?

"We don't know either, divine official, execute the order. This is an order personally signed by the acting Pope Anthony of the Holy Church." The holy knight said with a straight face.

The divine official hurriedly held the holy knight's hand, and a little "heart" slid into the holy knight's sleeve.

The holy knight's expression softened a bit, whispering: "A big shot has taken a fancy to this plane. There is no oil and water place, hurry up and leave. The big shot revealed that he will arrange a good position for you when you go back."

Big shot?! The divine official immediately thought of the big shot on the airship with the young married woman adventurer four months ago, swaying on the sea. Could it be him?

A plane where the power of the Light Church didn't occupy an advantage, abandoning it was abandoning it. The hundreds of people on Bright Sandbar withdrew cleanly very quickly, leaving only those adventurers.

Immediately after, two people covered in cloaks came here through the teleportation array. They didn't take a boat, ran directly to the sea, a horse condensed from under their crotch, dragging death energy all the way from the water surface straight to the distance.

"Polke? Why are you here?" It was the two Black Knights under Anthony.

"His Majesty asked us to send a gift to the adult, Plane Warrant. In the name of the Holy Church, recognize that this plane belongs to Ang adult. As long as you don't want to be an enemy of the Holy Church, don't deny its ownership. However, to avoid suspicion, His Majesty registered it under the name of Mercenary King Vegetable Bone."

Polke knelt on the ground, holding the thing in his hand high above his head. ===== CHAPTER 265 =====

Bo'erke knelt on the ground, holding the object in his hands high above his head.