Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation
Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
For a faction to run well, it naturally could not be separated from powerful financial support.
War depended on the economy, and so did development.
It was the same for vampires.
Reed’s agriculture program will require a lot of financial support, and that was a reason why he was so eager to purchase a guild.
Once the grain acquisition is completed, Reed will pump in another round of capital for the Goldwheat Guild to operate normally.
With a high mage like him as a patron, the Goldwheat Guild would no longer be indefinitely exploited by those greedy nobles and could develop far better than it had.
Plus, the vampires had hundreds of intermediate-level mages, and just taking half of them out to create magical items itself was enough for the guild to make a fortune.
The reason mages were the envy of all occupations was not only because mages were powerful, but also their outstanding ability to make money.
Magic potions, magic scrolls, equipment enchantments, and so on all required the use of magic power.
These industries made windfall profits, even more so than the arms industry.
The Progenitor Vampire was arrogant and cold, and would not use the vampires to make money. Not to mention that the vampires were never short of money in the first place.
But now, things were different. The funds needed for the agriculture program was akin to a bottomless pit, and the wealth accumulated by the vampires would all be spent sooner or later. If he did not plan ahead now, he would be faced with the dilemma of fund shortage in the future.
This was also the reason he was ready to groom the apprentice mages, but now he was still at the stage where he needed to commence the agriculture program, money-making matters would need to wait until everything got on track.
Without enough humans entering the castle, his thoughts now were nothing but a reflection upon the lake.
Only by having tens of thousands of humans will the vampires be able to get rid of the dilemma of them risking arm and limbs to plunder the humans at the Farmountains.
Only then would they be able to control their destiny with their own hands.
And in his plan, the castle would be home to more than just tens of thousands of people, as the fertile lands behind it could feed hundreds of thousands.
By the time the most primal of uneasiness were resolved, Reed believed that the ancient castle would definitely become a powerful force to be reckoned with.
The potential of the vampires was no lesser than Grimm, a large city of a million people.
By that point, he no longer had to worry about those troll and noob players who were out to cause trouble.
After five apprentice mages escorted Laurent and the chestful of gold Pykes out of the mage tower, Viena came excitedly before Reed.
Her blue, bright eyes were like the spring azaleas and looked straight at the master of the Vermillion Tower.
“Master Reed, you had helped answered everyone’s magic questions didn’t you?”
Seeing the envious glow in the girl’s beautiful eyes, Reed nodded gently.
“Yes, you, Karl, and Cain, come to my study. I’ll give you, three another lesson.”
The girl’s eyes instantly became crescent-shaped, as the joy in her heart was overflowing on her face.
Karl and Cain, who already had a bounty of knowledge gained earlier, did not expect that Master Reed would be giving them personal lectures.
While the other apprentice mages were envious but were also self-aware, they knew that all of them did not match the three in terms of talent.
“All of you don’t have to be envious. Their level had already exceeded yours by a huge margin. Work hard, and strive to catch up as soon as possible, and when that day comes, I too will give you personal tutoring.”
These words instantly had all of the apprentice mages excited.
“Yes, Master Reed.”
“Rest assured I will work hard.”
“Thank you…”
Seeing their excited expressions, Reed nodded and walked to his study.
Since he had decided to nurture this group of apprentice mages, he would do his best. The sooner these apprentice mages became full-fledged mages, the more help they would be to him.
…
The efficiency of the vampires far exceeded Reed’s expectations.
On the third day of returning to Grimm, when Laurent was still running around trying to purchase a large quantity of food, Eudes had sent a messenger bat to inform him that the cleaning works of the southern area of the castle had been completed.
The cleared area could provide space for more than eight thousand humans to live in, and they had managed to dig out thousands of winter clothing from the warehouse.
Reed was relieved when he received the news.
Half of the preparatory work for the agriculture plan had been completed. Now the next phase of the plan can be started once the Goldwheat Guild had purchased enough grain.
Of course, he would not be waiting until all 1,800 gold Pykes are spent before proceeding to the next phase.
The moment he had one-third of the food needed, he could start the plan to raid for the population.
“Eudes, quickly send 50 of our kinsmen to the south of the Farmountains and get information about the refugees from areas affected by the Orc Empire’s invasion. If you encounter a large number of refugees, send our people to follow them. Stay away from the main battlefield, and avoid the Orcish wyverns.”
He wrote the local common script using a quill pen on a snow-white paper, which was hieroglyphic script that had nothing to do with Chinese characters.
Reed rolled the paper and tied it onto a special alchemic storage bag on the bat’s belly.
Flap, flap, flap~
The tamed bat was then released by Reed and it fluttered its wings out of the mage tower through the half-opened stained glass window.
Reed looked down at Grimm through the translucent stained glass window and was lost in thought.
Due to the invasion of the Orc Empire, there were more and more border refugees inside Grimm. If Grimm, a city hundreds of miles away from the border was like this, one could foresee the war at the border must have been far worse than previous years.
Reed could obviously feel the atmosphere in the city had become much more tense in the past few days as the number of beggars and refugees by the street was more than usual.
At this point in time, he needed to send the vampires out to gather intelligence, and once Eudes was done with the information gathering, the grain purchase by the Goldwheat Guild would also definitely be completed.
It was a two-pronged approach.
Once the food reserves had reached the one-third mark, he could commence the plan to raid the refugees.
His plan was simple and straightforward, that was, to find refugees and take those who had lost their homes to the war back to the castle.
Raiding the human population.
If normally when the vampires raid the human lands for people, it would have been a disaster if they were discovered… The vampires, whose entire body was alchemy materials was definitely a creature a mage would like to meet the most.
But now was different. The orcish army had broken through the border, and no one would care about the disappearance of a group of refugees.
So, this was a good time to expand the population, and if he missed this time frame he might need to wait until the next orcish invasion in the following year.”
Due to the lack of food in the winter, the orcs would invade the Norland Empire every year. After plundering enough food, they would retreat back into the Wastelands when spring comes.
The wealthy and agricultural Norland Empire had been regarded as a breeding farm by the orcs, and they would come to fetch food during winter.
However, as the orcs would retreat every year, the Norland Empire’s resolve to fight against the orcs was very weak, and those nobles were even more unwilling to fight against the brutal orcs just for the sake of the civilians at the borderlands…
In any case, the orcs will retreat when spring comes, and since there was no loss of land, what does that have to do with them.
And thus, the civilians living at the borderlands would become the sacrificial lamb, and this would occur every year.
But it had to be said that the lands at the border were indeed fertile. Even if they were hit every year, the civilians by the border would always recover in the shortest of times.
And the population living along the border had also always maintained a relatively stable number.
It was precisely because of this historical background that Reed had confidence in his plan.
However, he could already foresee the problem of the population. Once the agriculture program was commenced, it will be a pain point that the castle would have to worry about for a long time in the future.
After all, snatching five thousand people was not the same as snatching fifty thousand.
And the number of people he had in his plan, for the castle population, was hundreds of thousands.