Chapter 444: The Test of Life and Death

Chapter 443 – Life and Death Test
After killing the Legendary Undead and obtaining the Legendary Soul Crystals, Sophia once again set out to refine the Legendary Styx Potion.

Since Sophia had been promoted to the Ninth Ring, her spiritual power had increased by four points, and her level of refining potions had also increased a bit. Although the Legendary Styx Potion was difficult to refine, Sophia had successful experience in refining this kind of potion. The refining process was relatively smooth and did not waste materials.

After the successful refining of the potion, Richard personally found the Roger Kingdom and used this Legendary Styx Potion to exchange a large amount of Super Magic Metal and a Legendary Magic Core with the royal family in preparation for the manufacture of the second large magic ship.

To build a Harland Territory Large Magic Ship, not counting the input of the Legendary Magic Core, about three hundred thousand gold coins would be needed for the materials. Together with the labor input of the magicians, shipyard, metallurgical department, and other labor, not counting the technical costs, the actual cost was about thirty-seven hundred and eighty thousand gold coins.

After all, manufacturing a large magic ship requires thousands of workers and dozens of magicians to work for more than ten months.

After the massive consumption in the previous years, the Harland Territory’s super magic metal reserves were already far from enough.

This time when the two families exchanged, Pansy Grant, the president of the Grant Mage Association, used the Legendary Stygian Potion, and her spiritual power was raised to forty-two points, and she had a chance to hit the Legendary bottleneck, and the Harland Territory got the resources to build a second Legendary Magic Ship, and her military power was a little more powerful.

Shortly after the two sides reached a deal, it was the Goddess Birthday Festival again, and time just flew by, entering the year 3276 of the Morning Glory Calendar.

At this moment, it had been thirty years since Richard crossed over.

After the Goddess Birthday Festival, Richard seized the time to look at the reports sent up by various departments, and last year, Duke Harland’s Territory already had a population of more than 10 million. The comprehensive calculation, the gain on cash was as high as 5.23 million gold coins, which was a little more than the financial income of Grant’s royal family.

Even though the orc army withdrew from the Prioran region, and the Prairie Governor’s Area Eastern Front basically retreated to the eastern part of the Silver Wolf Mountain Range, in the Prioran region, the orcs still left behind their holding teams.

It had been two years since Philip had entered a factory, worked as a serf, and gotten away from his family to enter the Northern Frontier military camp over the past three years.

But because of the large-scale expansion of magic airships and the Black River Fleet, last year’s military expenses exceeded three million gold coins, and after a year’s calculation, there was basically no financial balance.

After entering the third legion, under the care of Jennings, Morgan and other elders, Philip has also experienced several battles in the past two years, except that the previous several battles, there are legion senior in the dark protection, actually no risk. But the previous several battles, also exercised Philip’s guts, the soldiers who have seen blood, after all, than the new recruits beyond a little.

After the Goddess Birthday Festival, the education department of Harland Collar started to be busy again, after twenty years of development, more than 100,000 students graduated from elementary school, and the secondary school students who entered the society added up to 10,000 people, which greatly alleviated the shortage of talents in Harland Collar.

The gold coins accumulated in the government treasury were roughly 700,000 to 800,000 coins. For the huge Harland Territory, it could only last for two to three months at most.

These vouchers were basically in the hands of the military, bureaucrats, merchants, and other upper echelons of society, and were still relatively rare in the livelihood market.

After the Goddess Birthday Festival, Philip was already fifteen years old, because all kinds of cultivation resources were very sufficient, Philip had already successfully promoted to a professional, compared to Richard and William when they were teenagers, Philip was already far ahead.

The more a Transcendent ascends, his own talent, character and perseverance play a bigger role, and the role of external resource accumulation will be smaller, despite having enough Transcendent resources, at the age of forty, Philip may not be able to ascend to a high level like Richard and William.

In terms of magical power, even the Grant royal family is likewise no match for Harland’s Domain. Nowadays, the Harland Territory could no longer be called a magical desert, despite the low number of magicians, the level of magical civilization was feared to be a bit more than even the Sacred Radiance Empire.

According to the territory’s economic department’s estimation, the scale of the currency circulating in Harland’s territory is around 60 million gold coins, and the number of vouchers is only equivalent to one percent of the circulating currency, and I am afraid that it will take many more years to replace the metal currency with paper money.

And this time the battle was completely because of an accident, Jennings left Prioran Castle with his guard squadron to inspect the frontline strongholds in the eastern part of Prioran, and happened to meet the Silver Moon Wolf Cavalry Squadron that was out scouting.

Last year a whole year, Harland collar mage association total fifty-six apprentices promoted to wizard, in the war killed in action fourteen people, now a total of three hundred and eighty-nine wizards, wizard number although far less than the east coast United Kingdom, but than the Delong grand duchy, Starnick grand duchy exceeded some.

Shortly after the new student enrollment, Philip of the Northern Border is about to have his first life and death test.

Although compared to the population of more than 10 million, the literacy rate of Harland’s territory is still very low, and the quality of the population is not high, but the number of schools is still increasing rapidly, with more than 30,000 new students every year, and now the number of primary and secondary school students in Harland’s territory adds up to more than 130,000, and the number of secondary school students is as high as 20,000, which is almost on par with the number of military personnel.

It had been almost three years since Philip’s decentralized exercise.

But in the long run, Philip was actually far less talented than his father and grandfather. The only reason why he was ahead of Richard and William at a young age was because he received more transcendent resources.

After three years of grueling exercise, Philip’s body gradually grew up and his character began to mature.

After the Goddess Birthday Festival, Richard had planned to transfer him back to Fort William as a grassroots civil servant for two or three years, but he didn’t expect that before the transfer order was issued, Philip experienced the first grueling battle in his life.

Because of the expansion of the market scale, the number of coins is not enough, Harland’s collar printed more than three hundred thousand vouchers at one time, before barely plugging the money shortage gap. After so many years of accumulation, the vouchers circulating in Harland Collar had exceeded six hundred thousand gold coins.

At the beginning of this year’s school year, the Magic Academy recruited more than three hundred new students, and the number of Harland Mage Association increased to sixteen hundred, already far exceeding the Grant Mage Association.

The orcs responsible for holding back the Harland’s territory’s army, despite their small numbers, were all all-professional armies such as Silver Moon Wolf Cavalry, Orc Archers, and Hawkman Scouts, which were actually very difficult to deal with.

Over the past two years, the humans and orcs in the Prioran region had actually fought a very large number of battles. Because of the superior air power, the Orc elite soldiers had suffered some hardships and gradually didn’t dare to show their heads in the Prioran region.

I didn’t expect the orcs to be so adventurous after the start of spring this year, and the Silver Moon Wolf Cavalry unit dared to go deep behind the enemy lines.

The Silver Moon Wolf Cavalry troop among the orcs was an all-professional army, and ordinary human elites were no match at all. Generally speaking, the fighting ability of this kind of troop exceeded the same number of magical beast cavalry brigades by one step.

Although the Third Legion Guard Squadron under Jennings’ command was of good quality, it couldn’t stand up to the orc Silver Moon Wolf Cavalry in the field. If it wasn’t for the fact that there were a few powerful experts in the legion’s headquarters, they would be even less of a match for the orc professionals.

Last winter, Jennings’ professional level went further and became a ninth-order warrior. At less than forty years of age, promoted to the ninth ring, thus showing Jennings’ talent.

It was by relying on Jennings and a few other experts, along with the alchemy bombs that were equipped, that the Guard Squadron was able to hold back the attack of the Orc Silver Moon Wolf Cavalry. Seeing that Jennings was so fierce, wearing gorgeous enchanted armor on his body, and the fighting strength of the guards around him was also very impressive, the Silver Moon Wolf Cavalry Squadron Leader who was leading the squadron knew clearly in his heart that this battle was bound to capture the big shots of the Duke of Harland’s collar.

With bloodthirsty, excited eyes, this fourth-ranked wolf squadron leader fervently asked the guards around him, “Carefully identify if this person is a big shot of Duke Harland’s collar?”

The orc guard took out an atlas, carefully flipped through it, and said with slight hesitation, “It looks like it should be Jennings, the leader of the Third Legion.”

“What is this person’s relationship with Duke Harland?”

“Jennings is Duke Harland’s cousin’s husband and Duke Harland’s right hand man, considered to be the top ranked heavyweight officer of Harland’s collar, a real big shot.”

The Silver Moon Wolf Cavalry Squadron Leader suppressed the joy in his heart and said, “Immediately notify Ralph and tell him to quickly rendezvous with us, and make sure to kill Jennings before the enemy reinforcements arrive, so that the Duke of Harland can also taste the pain of losing a loved one.”

Although the Silver Moon Wolf Cavalry’s combat strength was stronger, the Jennings Guard Squadron was equipped with a large number of Alchemy Bombs, and the Silver Moon Wolf Cavalry tried to launch a charge that didn’t break the Guard Squadron’s line, but instead killed more than a dozen soldiers. Among them, four Silver Moon Wolf Cavalrymen died at the hands of Jennings.

Although Jennings’ individual combat strength was strong, it was far inferior to Sylph’s after all.

If it was Sylph, a person encountering a squadron of Orc Silver Moon Wolf Cavalry could easily break the enemy’s encirclement and rout the opponents. Jennings, despite being promoted to a ninth rank warrior and fighting with an all-professional army, was still no match for the Silver Moon Wolf Cavalry Squadron. If he had not relied on the protection of the guard squadron, he would have died at the hands of the enemy.

In fact, when fighting more than a hundred heavily armed all-professionals head-on, even a Legendary Warrior might not be a match. Only a Legendary Knight, who had mastered the power of spells, would be able to easily defeat an army of over a hundred All-Professionals.

Typically, the combat power of a Legendary Knight was often equivalent to three to five Legendary Warriors. There were some Legendary Warriors with weaker combat power that might not even be a match for a Ninth Order Knight.

If there was no Philip by his side, Jennings could still let go and fight with the orcs, but with Philip by his side, Jennings could only try to avoid tangling and fighting with the orcs in an unfavorable situation. Once Philip had an accident, the consequences would be too much for the Harland Territory to bear.

The two armies fought and stopped in the field, confronting each other for more than three days, and fought four or five small-scale battles.

Three days of hard fighting, Jennings guard squadron attrition of more than half, killed in action up to more than sixty people, and the orc silver moon wolf cavalry, the same loss of more than forty soldiers, attrition of about one-third of the final or Harland collar army has the advantage of the inner line, snatched at the orcs before reinforcement over, drove away this difficult opponent.

In this battle, despite the protection of two middle-ranked magicians, Bella and Harrison, Phillip was wearing precious enchanted armor, and Bella also carried precious magic scrolls, but the battlefield was blinded by swords and spears, and Phillip was still injured, his chest’s enchanted armor was broken by the orcs, and his thighs were slashed, and the wounds were deep enough to see the bones.

After experiencing this battle, after personally feeling the threat of death, Philip first became clear about the cruelty of the Northern Border War.

After Philip was injured, Richard immediately transferred him back to Fort William.

Philip’s injuries were not particularly serious, and after being treated with spells, he could soon walk on crutches. After he walked out of the hospital, Richard transferred Philip into the civilian ranks.

If Philip wanted to manage the territory, he had to be both civil and military. Not only did he need to receive exercise in the Northern Frontier and experience the life of a soldier, he also needed to be proficient in the rules of local management and learn to master the civil service.

The Harland Territory had a special physique, so a military general could easily transform into a civil official, but it was basically impossible for a civil official to command troops in battle.

Because of the transcendent power, the individual combat power of the Morning Glory Realm is very prominent, and to a certain extent, high-ranking professionals can determine the victory or defeat of a battle.

With this social status quo, it was simply impossible to establish a so-called civilian government. It was simply impossible for high-ranking officers to accept the command of amateurs, and it was impossible for the overall will of the army to accept a weak lord.

In terms of social status, the status of military generals was far beyond than that of civilian officers as well. Especially the higher ranked officers, many of whom were hereditary nobles.

Hereditary nobles and commoners, legally from their political status, were almost two different creatures.

This social status quo led to very intense competition within the nobility, and every succession of titles was usually accompanied by intrigue and killing.

After two years of accumulation, the defense line of the Priland region was gradually stabilized, on this defense line, there are now nine baronial nobles, in addition to the seven who are mercenary chiefs, the rest of the Audaye and Imhotep are Harland collar capitalists, they seized the opportunity to go further in their social status.

Because the Harland Territory was still established for a short period of time, the accumulation time was not enough, the Monopoly with assets of more than 100,000 gold coins was very rare, and amongst the entire territory, only Audaye and Imhotep were able to come up with a large amount of belongings. Through the power of gold coins, they obtained enough soul crystals to be promoted to hereditary nobles.

In fact, in other territories, merchants with more than one hundred thousand assets were also very rare.

The status of merchants was not high in the major kingdoms of the Morning Sun Plane. The big merchants were all smart people, and when they developed to a certain extent they would control the scale of commerce and then marry with hereditary nobles to infiltrate the noble class.

Basically the affluent merchants would not let their capital exceed 100,000 gold coins and become fat meat around the mouths of the nobles.

After Harland’s Collar formulated a decree to encourage business development, a large number of wealthy merchants from Grant Kingdom entered Harland’s Collar, including merchants from Nolan, and many of them shifted their focus of operation to Harland’s Collar. Together, these people brought millions of gold coins to Harland Territory, greatly easing the Harland Territory money shortage.

Even if you add up the merchants of the Grant Kingdom, the size of their assets exceeded that of Audaye, and Imhotep’s was very rare.

After all, Audaye, Imhotep is a factory owner, factory owner after the industrial revolution, the scale of industry hangs traditional merchants, their development in a year, can be equivalent to the traditional merchants ten years, a hundred years accumulation. Asset scale can be compared to Audaye, Imhotep merchants, basically are big nobles white gloves, operation can not be autonomous.

After Odaye and Imhotep were promoted to hereditary nobility, they were considered to have opened a new path for those who came after them. Harland’s Hayden, Logue, are all prepared to be promoted to hereditary nobility in this way.

(End of chapter)