Release That Witch

Chapter 267: A Predestined End

fter walking through a dark corridor and taking a suspended cage down into a giant cave located deep underground, Mayne came to the Pivotal Secret Temple again.

His Holiness O’Brien was already waiting at the door.

Mayne thought that His Holiness looked older than the last time he had seen him. He was sunken-eyed, and wrinkles around his eyes now had covered his whole face, looking like a spider web. His smile, however, remained kindly as before. Mayne could not help but kneel down in front of the pope. His nose twitched as he began to weep. “Your Holiness, we…”

“Get up, my child.” The pope sounded calm and gentle. “I’ve heard that you’re in trouble. Let’s talk about it in the hall.”

Only several candles placed in the corners of the hall were lit up, as today was not the day for incarnation ceremony where rows of candles would light up the whole place like stars. The pope sat in his chair, panted a little and said, “Now, tell me. What has happened outside?”

Mayne was clear that His Holiness O’Brien shouldered great responsibility and did not have time to take care of those trivial matters that happened outside Holy City. As one of the three archbishops assigned by the pope to assist in managing the church, Mayne knew that he should try his best to avoid bothering His Holiness with these things, but now he really did not know what to do.

He briefed the pope on what had happened.

“Heather is dead…” O’Brien heaved a sigh after a long silence. “She’s such an observant, clever and devout girl. I watched her grow up.”

“Your Holiness, please refrain your grief.”

“The murder will be punished.” The Pope nodded. “Now, Garcia and the Kingdom of Wolfheart form an alliance. Did the new poison take effect?”

“It did when we attacked Broken Tooth Castle. All its defending soldiers died after a month. When Judgement Army marched into the city, there was hardly anyone alive in the residential area. However, it didn’t seem to work when we attacked Wolfheart City. The resistance of the enemy is still strong at present,” Mayne reported.

“You made two mistakes. The people poisoned will get sick and die in seven to ten days. You should have launched an attack when they were in the peak incidence of poison disease and cured the residents in the city to reduce their hostility toward us after you seized the city. Don’t forget that what we need is people not empty cities. It’s the first mistake,” O’Brien said slowly.

“The second mistake you made was that you had waited for a month before you launched an attack. By doing so, you could reduce our casualties but meanwhile you gave more time for your enemy to find treatment. The new poison is in fact made from demonic beasts. Based on what’s recorded in ‘Canon of Magic’, there’re over 70 kinds of magic abilities which could stop the infection spreading. There was probably one witch who happened to have such an ability in the city. It’s not a rare thing, given that there’re tens of thousands of people in the city.”

“You mean, they’re in collusion with witches…”

“When it comes to life or death, who’ll care whether the witches are demon minions or not. That witch might come forward to treat the people by herself or was forced to do so as someone discovered her ability. Neither situation is good news for us. If they really manage to resist our attack with the help of the witch, they may make another disruptive move. They’ll accept the witch or even worship her as a hero,” the pope said calmly.

“It’s all my fault,” Mayne said, lowering his head in agony.

“It is, but not a very serious mistake. After all, to minimize the loss to Judgement Army and God’s Punishment Army was the reason for you to set such a strategic direction.” O’Brien tapped Mayne shoulder with his scepter. “And it’s an opportunity for us, as Princess Garcia of Graycastle and the King of Wolfheart are in the same city.”

“Oppor-opportunity?” The archbishop was dumbfounded.

“Yes, an opportunity to get them all,” O’Brien stood up and said to Mayne, “Follow me.”

Guided by guards, Mayne walked behind the pope. They got out of Pivotal Secret Temple and went deeper into the cave inside the cave. In the beginning, Mayne could see the road in the weak light of a large God’s Stone of Retaliation, but it was gradually dimming as they moved forward. When Mayne could not help but turn around to look, he found that Pivotal Secret Temple and the God’s Stone of Retaliation were already far behind them. At this time, the guards lit up torches in case that anyone stumbled on gravels on the ground.

“Where… are we going?”

“We’ve arrived, my child.” His Holiness O’Brien stopped and panted heavily. “Oh, well, I’m really old. Walking such a short distance can make me so tired now…”

A guard came up to support him and said, “Your Holiness, let me carry you.”

“No, thanks. I’ll be alright with some rest.” O’Brien stood at the place for a moment and then said, “Light up the braziers.”

The archbishop had not noticed until now that besides the guards who were holding torches there were several high iron shelves standing by the stone road. It was hard for anyone to see these metal things in darkness. After the guards climbed up the shelves to light up the rosin basins on the top, dazzling flames gushed out all of a sudden. Mayne squinted at first to adapt to the change in light and then looked forward.

In flickering firelight, he saw something tall and huge covered by a dusty sailcloth.

“As demonic beasts are growing stronger, I’ve planned to put it to use later, but now it seems that I have to use it ahead of the scheduled time.” O’Brien waved his hand. “Remove the cloth.”

“What’s…” Mayne could not believe what he saw now when the thing was unveiled. It was a huge, ferocious-looking iron four-wheeler. It had no carriage, but each of its wheels stood even taller than himself. The thing was mounted with dreadful embolons and an animal bone holder with a bone shield set in the middle. The shield was as large as three to four door plates combined and covered with barbs. Two pointed-end iron rods were stuck out from two holes in the shield, looking like arrows ready to shoot. On both sides of the iron four-wheeler, there were a dozen of iron spears like that. Each spear was thick as his thigh, with dull metallic luster.

“It’s referred to as Siege Beast in ‘Canon of Magic’.” The pope walked to the iron four-wheeler and patted a sturdy iron rod. “It’s controlled by magic power. Three to four witches have to work together to operate this thing. Siege Beast’s shooting range is much farther than that of a mangonel or ballista. Generally speaking, city walls can hardly resist its iron spear shots, and sailing ship built of giant logs will be as fragile as a piece of paper facing its attack. It’ll easily destroy the walls of Wolfheart City and stop Blacksail Fleet.”

“Is… it a weapon created by Pivotal Secret Temple?”

“No.” O’Brien shook his head. “You should be able to guess it. It comes from our enemies—the demons in the hell. That’s why the church has to hide it in the depths of the cave. When you use it, remember to try your best to hide it from the civilians?”

“Got it,” Mayne replied while lowering his head.

“How come the witches are able to manipulate a demons’ weapon? Do the demons also have magic power?” Instead of raising those questions, Mayne pressed down his suspicions, as he knew he was not entitled to know that until he became the next pope.

“Besides, to prevent Garcia and King of Wolfheart from fleeing this time, I’ll send two pure witches to assist you in the battle. No one can escape from them… Go ahead, use those devils’ blood to mourn Heather,” the pope said solemnly.

“Supreme Pontiff’s Pure Witches!” Mayne was thrilled. All the pope’s witches had abilities amazing enough to be recorded in “Canon of Magic”, as he had chosen for himself the strongest pure witches, who were raised up and controlled by the church. Heather, Tayfun, and Mayne had pure witches, too, but the pope’s pure witches were way out of their league. Now that His Holiness had said the enemies could not escape, they were doomed.

“Yes, Your Holiness,” Mayne excitedly said.

Chapter 268: The First Plenary Meeting of Border Town’s Senior officials (Part ?)

oland convened the first plenary meeting of Border Town’s senior officials in the reception hall of the castle.

The City Hall which had started with only Barov and a dozen of his students now employed nearly 100 staff. Among them, there were broken nobles, captured knights and their squires and local people who had completed primary education and received diplomas.

Thanks to population growth, departments of the City Hall had come into being one after another. Now, it was finally one step closer to what the prince had expected it to be. Instead of doing everything by himself, he could rely on the City Hall departments to carry out what he decided and planned, which made him felt satisfied.

The senior officials attended this meeting were heads of the departments, including Minister of Agriculture Sirius Daly, Minister of Education Scroll, Acting Minister of Chemical Industry Kyle Sichi, Minister of Construction Karl Van Bate, Commander of the army Iron Axe and City Hall Director Barov Mons. In fact, the City Hall had another department, Ministry of Industry, but it was under Roland’s direct supervision due to the fact that no one else knew industrialization better than him

A bucket of ice water was placed besides each attendee to maintain a cool temperature in the hall. Candle had filled the ice inside the water with enchantment to ensure that they would not melt in the whole morning even when the sun was scorching hot outside the castle.

“Well, it’s time to hear each department’s report on recent work. Let’s begin with Ministry of Agriculture.” With these words, Roland picked up a kettle in the ice water bucket to pour himself a cup of ice water.

“Yes, Your Highness.” Sirius rose and bowed. He spread out a scroll that was prepared in advance and began to report. “Ministry of Agriculture has collected about 17,000 Hu (850,000 kg) grains from serfs, enough to meet the town’s need for grains in the following year. In addition, according to your request, we also offered to purchase surplus grains at the market price from the serfs but have collected only 4,500 Hu (225,000 kg) in this way by now, as much fewer serfs were willing to sell their remaining grains to the City Hall, compared with the number of serfs turning in grains.”

The “Hu”, a vessel made of woven bamboo strips, was used to weigh wheat by people in this era and one Hu equaled 50 kilograms. Roland only knew it as a unit of measurement but had no idea how many kilos or liters one Hu of wheat was. As long as he knew the grains that the City Hall had collected were enough to feed the people of the town, he would never bother himself with this kind of trifles.

It was the grain purchase situation reported by Sirius that gave him cause for concern. In accordance with the City Hall’s regulation, 70 percent of the harvest should be handed over to the government and a large proportion of the remaining 30 percent should be sold to it. After deducting the portion of grains that the serfs kept for food and seeds for the next year, the amount bought by the City Hall should be around 7,000 Hu (350,000 kg). The current amount of purchased grains suggested that some serfs chose to hoard grains privately in their wooden sheds.

Roland had foreseen such a problem but still could not help but sigh when hearing this. The cause of it was obvious. Some people planned to store up grains to corner the market. Once the town could not offer sufficient grain supply or was hit by some natural or man-made disasters, they would sell out their grain stock at a much higher price. It might even be a dozen times as much as the market price now.

To prevent such a situation from disturbing the market, Roland had made grain an exclusive commodity controlled by the City Hall and required all the grain buyers to show their ID cards first. The town’s economy was still at its initial stage of development. Its grain reserves were quite low and grain prices could greatly affect its stability. Under such circumstances, he must adapt those restriction and real-name policies to stabilize the grain prices. If he did not restrict the sale of grains, the cornering and profiteering in the market would easily bid up the price.

“Your Highness, why not force the serfs to sell their wheat to the government? After all, in accordance with law, they’re not allowed to sell it to anyone else,” Sirius felt confused and asked.

“No, their remaining wheat is their private property. They’ve got the right to deal with it according to their will. The regulation doesn’t forbid serfs to keep grains for themselves. That means, they’re allowed to store some away. As long as it isn’t banned by any regulation, it’s allowed,” Roland answered.

The last sentence of Roland made Sirius even more confused. The other officials also knitted their eyebrows, except Barov who revealed a thoughtful expression on his face.

Seeing them, Roland gave no further explanation. He expected them to digest this idea of following rules and procedures in doing their jobs by themselves. Only when they fully embraced such an idea, they could be regarded as qualified officers of the new era. Of course, this idea might also lead to another extreme, bureaucracy, but Roland believed that it was at least better than disorder. He took a sip of his ice water and asked Sirius, “Anything else you need to report?”

“Uhm… Yes.” Sirius Daly shook his head to straighten his thoughts. “As all crops in the fields have been harvested by now, are we going to leave the land fallow for the coming year?

“No, don’t let the fields lay fallow.” Roland waved his hand. “The excrement piled beside the fields is organic fertilizer for the soil. After harvest, you can instruct the serfs to shovel it into the fields and thoroughly mix it with the soil. Remember that the place left empty beside the fields should be reserved for new organic fertilizer.” The excrement would need merely two months to decompose in the summer, and four months in winter. Given that, in the next spring, the town’s fields would, for the first time, have improved soil fertility and a new batch of organic fertilizer as a starter treatment. That meant, there was no need for a fallow period.

Chemical fertilizer aside, this practice of using human and animal wastes to fertilize the soil was already a huge improvement in agriculture of this era.

“Well, yes, if you insist.” Sirius touched his head. “Here’s another thing… Your Highness, if we continue to plant wheat next year, the stone mills we’ve got now won’t be able to meet the future demand. I propose to build a new mill by Redwater River and I hope that it’ll be driven by a steam engine.”

“Good, I agree. You submit a proposal to Barov first to get fiscal funds, and then you can discuss the construction plan details with the Ministry of Construction,” Roland nodded and said, happy to see such a progress. Except him, now there was finally another one who took the initiative to use the new technology.

“Thanks, Your Highness,” Sirius said, “The last thing I want to report is about the entitlement of free citizens. This time, 516 serfs in total are qualified for the entitlement. As the qualification was decided according to the weight of wheat they turned in on the spot, no one raised an objection. I’ve already submitted the name list to Lord Barov.” Sirius stood up again to bow. “My report is over.”

“Well done.” Roland clapped his hands to show encouragement. Sirius who had been a young knight serving the Wolf Family now seemed to have well adapted to the new life of the town and did a good job in the City Hall, making an excellent example for the broken nobles and knights in the stronghold. Roland believed advertising Sirius’ story would help him a lot in recruiting more of those people.

Scroll was the second to report. She had done her long hair up behind her head, and dressed in a neat, white shirt and a plain, black long dress without decoration or lace, she looked mature and capable. It was hard to imagine that only half a year ago, she had still been a homeless witch, wearily running from the church.

As her ability was the photographic memory, she could precisely report the numbers and facts without any written materials in hand. This ability made Roland envy her a lot. “We’ve seen two batches of students, a total of 85 people, finish their primary education. Most of them have studied in Mr. Karl’s college. Among the graduates, 46 chose to work in the City Hall, 21 chose the bicycle plant, 13 applied for joining the First Army.” She paused here for a while and continued, “And five applied for the jobs in chemical laboratories.”

“Only five? It seems that the investiture ceremony doesn’t deliver good advertising results as I’ve expected. Well, the three new laboratories will lay idle for some time.” Roland was surprised and could not help but look at Kyle Sichi who seemed quite displeased at present.

“At least, the employment rate is 100 percent.” Roland comforted himself in his own heart.

Chapter 269: The First Plenary Meeting of Border Town’s Senior officials (Part ?)

ow it was time to hear the report from Acting Minister of Chemical Industry, Kyle Sichi. Kyle started with a snort and said, “Your Highness, I hope you can find a real minister as soon as possible. I don’t want to take part in this kind of meetings anymore.”

“…” Rolland rolled his eyes at Kyle in his heart. How could the prince easily find a man who had an understanding of both alchemy and chemistry to replace Kyle in this era? Since he had become a leader, he had gradually realized that he had to ignore some opinions sometimes, such as what Kyle had just said. Without showing any displeasure, Roland asked Kyle, “Do you have a clue about the mass production of two kinds of acids?”

“No, that’s why I need more time and manpower to study the project instead of wasting my time sitting here,” Kyle shrugged and said. After staying in the town for a long time, Kyle had learned some “Roland Style Expressions”. “If I have to say something here, I can only tell you that the labs need more staff, the more the better. In addition, the five new, young employees turn out to be quite clever. I have to say, your primary education works.”

Chief Alchemist Kyle seemed not as reverent as the other officials, but Roland, considering Kyle’s age and his craze for chemical experiments, was not bothered by his language or attitude. When Kyle had found that he could be cured by Nana after suffering an explosion accident, the first thing he had thought of was that he could conduct any risky experiment he wanted with Nana’s help. This new finding had given him so great enthusiasm that he even wanted to taste different kinds of acids. Such a frenzy filled Roland with awe.

“Alright… continue your study. I’ll let Barov help you with employee recruiting.”

“By the way, Your Highness. Have you finished writing ‘Intermediate Chemistry’? If you could lend the book to me, I may be able to think of the mass production acid-making process earlier,” Kyle said.

“Just as what I said in the Award and Honor Ceremony, I’ll give the book to you when your students and assistants could fill all the posts of the new labs,” Roland said while spreading his hands. The real situation, however, was that the prince had not written a word for that book. As he had racked his brain to write “Primary Chemistry” which had already exhausted most of his limited chemistry knowledge, he was afraid that he could hardly piece together several pages for “Intermediate Chemistry”.

Karl Van Bate, Minister of Construction, was the fourth one to report.

“First of all, I’d like to express my gratitude to Lady Scroll.” Karl nodded to greet Scroll. “I’m happy to know that the batch of students has graduated.”

Scroll nodded back to him and said, “My pleasure.” It was obvious that this mason had a far more sociable personality than Chief Alchemist Kyle did.

Karl opened a notebook that he carried with himself all the time and started his well-organized report. “We’re steadily advancing the construction of major projects of the town, which include Kingdom Main Street, Redwater Bridge, new residential district and new city wall. It’s estimated that Kingdom Main Street will be completed in the next spring. This project has hired 4,500 workers, half of whom are from Longsong Stronghold. Redwater Bridge is also in the construction stage. We’re still focusing on the cement wall enclosure underground. The residential district has been expanded to the old city wall area, and around 1,000 people work in this project now. We’re confident to accomplish our assigned task of offering enough houses for the refugees from the Eastern Region before Months of Demons this year, as long as we have sufficient brick and cement supply.”

Given that Karl had to inform Roland of the progress of the town’s construction projects everyday, he just reported briefly here, leaving out some minor projects, such as the expansion of the castle and the construction of Witch House. As to the new city wall, Lotus was building it on her own. After the position of the wall was chosen, she constructed a wall section of about 500 meters everyday along the set line.

“Good job.” Roland nodded. As the sector in which the City Hall invested the most manpower and money, the Ministry of Construction delivered the most achievements. “While stepping up the construction of the town, remember to promote our preferential policies to attract the construction workers to settle down in the town. Even the handymen recruited from the stronghold have already become qualified construction workers after a whole year’s work here.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Karl answered.

“Now, the next… Iron Axe.”

It was the first time for Iron Axe to attend such a meeting. Feeling a little awkward, he cleared his throat and then said, “Your Highness, there’re two things about the army I want to report. First, the Second Army has already accomplished basic training and is ready to be sent to the stronghold. Second, after the recent recruitment, the First Army now has 825 soldiers. Except 350 soldiers of the Artillery Squad, all of the First Army soldiers have been equipped with revolving rifles. That’s all I want to say.” He saluted after his report.

“Good, send the Second Army out tomorrow. Remember to place some reliable men in them to continue our daily drills and ideological education in the stronghold, and require them to report to the town weekly,” Roland remarked.

Barov was the last to report. He glanced at everyone and then bowed to Roland. “Your Highness, after paying Theo and Margaret’s Chamber of Commerce’s transportation expenses, the government’s gold reserves decreased sharply. We have a harvest this year and Ministry of Agriculture is purchasing grains at market price. Now, there’re only about 2,000 gold royals left in the government’s coffers. It’s a dangerous dividing line.”

Considering what he had had in the last winter, Roland felt that 2,000 golden royals was already a huge sum of money but he also knew the situation was different now. It would cost him a bundle just to pay over 5,000 construction workers every month, let alone the better-paid positions in the First Army, plants, labs and the City Hall.

In another word, Border Town now earned much and at the same time spent a lot, even though, at present, it could still provide itself most raw materials and machines.

“I see. In the beginning of the next month, Margaret will return to the town and we’ll get much profit by selling her steam engines. Furthermore, the grain acquisition and refugee transportation aren’t regular expenses. In the next six months, the gold reserves will be able to rise back steadily. You don’t have to worry about it too much.” Roland paused a moment. “I’ve something else to tell you. You’ll get pay rise.”

“Pay rise?” Barov was surprised.

“Yes, now the City Hall is no longer a simple organization run by a dozen of people. Your workload has increased significantly, so should your payment.” The prince smiled to Barov and said, “Your monthly salary, from this month, is raised to five gold royals and that of the ministers to two gold royals. Based on this proportion, you can raise the salaries for the City Hall’s apprentices and assistants. Relax, it won’t be a large sum of money, around 20 to 30 gold royals in total.”

Five gold royals was not high salary for the position of City Hall Director, but Roland was sure that what Barov preferred was power. As Barov had been controlling the finance of the town all the time, it was easy for him to make a fortune by stealing public funds. However, by now, he had not conducted any corrupt practice like that.

Of course, as a leader, Roland could not solely depend on the officials’ integrity to maintain a clean government. Nightingale who could tell lies from truth could help him with this matter. No one could hide their bad deeds from Nightingale.

“In addition, though you may have already known it, I want to say that I’m going to establish a city here after the Months of Demons this year. The town will become a real city covering a much larger area than the king’s city or any other city of the four kingdoms. We’ll expand westward to the edge of Barbarian Land, eastward to include Longsong Stronghold and southward to the mountains and sea. The natural barriers will form our city wall.”

“So, you’ve got to speed up the progress of the work in your hand to greet the new city,” Roland paused and then said solemnly, “I hope the city will be warm as spring even in an endless winter.”

Chapter 270: High Pressure Tanks

fter the meeting, as Roland requested, all the officials left except Barov.

The prince said to his City Hall Director Barov explicitly, “Now you see, both labs and Graycastle’s factories need hands, and so do I. I plan to manufacture soaps and perfume on a large scale, but I have to wait until another batch of students, and at most 600 to 700 of them, will graduate in the following year to be recruited as the workers I need. It’s obvious that even at that time, the graduates won’t be able to meet the manpower demand. Given that, I need larger population.”

“What about recruiting more workers from the stronghold…”

“No,” Roland interrupted. “I’ll establish a city next year and by then the stronghold will become part of it. Recruiting people from there is like moving the money in one of your pockets to another. It’s pointless. I need to recruit more people from outside the Western Region.”

“It’s…” Barov seemed a little baffled. “I’m afraid it’s not an easy task, as the local lords won’t neglect it when we’re recruiting their people in their cities.”

“No, we don’t recruit from cities.” Roland dipped his finger into his cup and started to draw with the ice water on the table. “Have you noticed that since the end of Months of Demons, Graycastle has been a theatre of war. Timothy has launched several rounds of attack on the Southern Territory. He burned down Eagle City and made its surrounding villages and towns suffer a lot. After that, he charged treason against Duke Ise and waged war in the north to deprive the duke of his title and domain. In the end, it’s the attack from the sea in the east.” Roland drummed the desk several times, leaving some water stains. “All big cities there such as Seawindshire, Valencia and Crow Castle were affected, let alone the small towns around them. Based on the number of refugees in the king’s city from this area, it’s plain to see that those places must have suffered a heavy loss.”

“You mean…” Barov revealed a thoughtful look.

“Let your men advertise the Western Region.” The prince wiped out the water stains. “Over the recent six months, only the Western Region has been peaceful, without any war or compulsory recruitment. Timothy used lots of drugged men in wars. He must have recruited or even grabbed lots of civilians for military service. No one can be sure that such a thing will never happen to himself. Given that, we should focus on emphasizing the peaceful and stable situation of the Western Region in our propaganda campaign.”

“I see, you plan to attract people in the other towns and villages through promoting the safe and peaceful life here and through promising them that you’ll provide them houses, food and jobs, right?” Barov said after a thought.

“Almost.” Roland smiled and nodded with satisfaction to Barov who had been quick in mind and ready to embrace new things all along. “Besides, you need to highlight the excellent payments and conditions we offer to the literate people. I believe these will attract some broke knights and nobles in those places to seek opportunities in our Western Region.”

Most villages and towns were lesser nobles’ domains. No matter how barren the lands were or how badly they managed their domains, during peacetime, it was easy for them to have enough to live on. However, it would be difficult for them to get through the wartime when the population fell. Roland was confident that if he offered those troubled lesser nobles good opportunities at such a time, most of them would like to come to his Western Region. As for their own domains, even without any management, the lands would stay there anyway. After the hard time, they could go back with money and mercenary fighters to restart their lives on their domains if they wanted to.

Now the only problem was how to advertise the Western Region. Roland decided to leave it to Barov.

“But, Your Highness, we’ll spend lots of money to attract those people and to help them settle down here, and we need to continue the grain purchase at the same time. If our arrangement with Margaret has some unexpected changes, the government’s coffers will be almost empty,” Barov hesitated and said.

“Uhm… I see your point.” Roland touched his chin, thinking that as a new leader, he should give top priority to building his prestige and authority among the people and avoid things that would destroy his image, such as breaking his payment promises. “Well, you go back and draft a plan first. Let’s start the propaganda campaign after we make enough money from the deal with the caravan in the next month.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Barov said, with a hand on his chest.

After the talk with Barov, Roland went back to his office to think about how to complete Margaret’s hydrogen balloon order.

Each balloon was sold at 1,000 gold royals, a much higher price than that of a steam engine, but its cost was much lower. The balloon was painted out by Soraya and the other parts such as bamboo basket and hemp ropes were cheap goods. Roland had made a simple prototype in the backyard of the arsenal, which could take both Lightning and Maggie in a flight.

He had abandoned the hot balloon plan after careful consideration, as now hydrogen was easier and cheaper compared with coal gas. Given that coal gas was obtained through coal dry distillation which required a large equipment, a complicated process, and a huge amount of coal imported from the other towns, it was clearly not economical to produce coal gas on a small scale.

The balloon of the prototype was made of a flexible, watery coating which was light as air. It was painted on a large paper which was burned afterward. In experiments, it was proven to be crash-worthy, waterproof and fireproof. Maggie had transformed into different kinds of bird to crash into and peck at the inflated balloon but failed to cause any damage. Only an iron needle could pierce through this 1-mm-thick coating. Due to its light weight, a hydrogen balloon which was about five meters in diameter was able to carry an adult up into the sky.

The remaining problem was how to refill the high pressure tank that stored hydrogen.

As one DC motor used for water electrolysis was enough to provide hydrogen for all balloons, Roland decided not to sell the motors to anyone in order to generate recurring revenues for himself. For that to happen, he needed to provide his clients high pressure tanks to store the hydrogen.

With Anna’s help, he could have any tank he wanted. Even if he could only use pig iron or wrought iron as raw material, by asking Anna to increase the wall thickness of the tanks during manufacturing, he could easily make up for the material defect. However when it came to the refilling process, it was not that easy anymore. To blow up a large hydrogen balloon, the pressure inside the tank must be above 20 MPa, based on his experience in modern world. It was obviously impossible for him to refill the tanks with ordinary pumps. He needed high pressure air pump.

He thought of two different types of them, which were high pressure piston pump and turbopump. The former was included in the internal combustion engine tech tree, and the latter was a kind of turbines. Both of them required lots of time and energy to develop and manufacture, which was not what he wanted. It was already late afternoon when Roland finally thought of a solution, self-inflating inside the tank.

Before traveling into this era, he had read a piece of news about an explosion accident in a street caused by some hydrogen balloon seller’s misconduct. Without careful calculation, the seller put dilute sulfuric acid and aluminum into a converted liquid gas storage tank to produce and store hydrogen. Unluckily, the tank’s inner pressure got too high and it exploded.

Pouring dilute sulfuric acid and some active metal into a container was a self-inflating method used to produce hydrogen. In lab experiments, zinc was the most frequently used active metal and aluminum was the one most capable of producing a large amount of hydrogen. However, in this era, he could get neither of those single metals. Given that, Roland decided to use elemental Fe (pure iron) which could be produced by Lucia as the active metal. As this choice might lead to a low-speed chemical process at ambient temperature, Roland planned to activate the reaction by heating and expanding the reaction area (such as using pure iron plates or pure iron powders). He also planned to have the interior of the tanks coated by Soraya to resist the acid.

Having decided on the plan, Roland sketched out his design of the high pressure tank. To avoid gas leaks, the tank must be manufactured by integral moulding of iron, except for a protruding threaded opening. An air nozzle with valve would then be screwed into this opening.

Once the valve was tightened, the hydrogen generated inside by the metal and acid would never leak out, thus increasing the inner pressure to the desired level. This design was easy to use, as the clients just needed to open the valve to inflate the balloon. It also solved the refilling problem. He just had to remove the air nozzle, clean out all the ferrous sulfate crystallization and dry the tank before he put in metal and acid again.

Considering that dilute sulfuric acid was an alchemical product, he could not set a low price for refilling the tanks.

“I’ll charge 50 gold royals for each refilling, and a client will get one free refill after 10 refillings,” Roland thought.

Chapter 271: The Elements

hen Kyle Sichi finished his experiments and went back home, his wife had already prepared a dinner for him. She served him toasted wheat cake, mushroom soup and a glass of white liquor.

Both white liquor and these large white mushrooms were available on the Convenience Market. The signboard outside the mushroom shop read “you can hardly find anything more delicious than our mushrooms”, and he had to agree with it after tasting the mushroom with rich flavor. Only one slice of it had led him to the endless aftertaste.

Meanwhile, this delicacy was amazingly expensive. A mushroom which was about the same size as his palm cost a silver royal. Kyle would have never bought such expensive food, if he had not been so well-paid here in the town. He found that with enough money, one could enjoy a far more comfortable life here than those ordinary nobles did. Besides good food, people of the town could buy many other nice things, such as scented soap and mirror.

Having witnessed so many eye-opening things in the town, Kyle now firmly believed that Roland was a fathomless man.

After the dinner, his wife handed him a letter.

“Where’s it from?”

“A guard sent it here in the afternoon before you came back. According to him, it’s from Redwater City,” Kyle’s wife said while tidying up the dishes.

“Is it?” Kyle immediately went into his study and used a little knife to open the seal. He took out the letter inside.

And the first line of it read “Dear mentor”.

“It’s from Chavez.” Kyle could not help but smile. He sat at his desk and read it word by word.

It turned out that since Kyle had left the Alchemic Workshop of Redwater City, another alchemist Capola had become the new chief. Capola was a narrow-minded person. He had got the firing process and formula of crystal glass left by Kyle and had falsely claimed to have worked out it together with Kyle in front of the lord. He had also seemed to wittingly push Chavez out during alchemical experiments.

Chavez sobbed out all his grievance in the letter. He had borrowed Capola’s students when he had been working on the double-stone acid-making method, but had not told Capola the results in advance. He guessed that it might be the cause for his isolation in the workshop. The other alchemists now also seemed to avoid him, which annoyed him a lot.

Kyle, however, understood what those people thought. They had believed Chavez, the youngest alchemist in the workshop, had stood out only because of luck and the fact that he was former chief alchemist’s student. Kyle sniffed at this view. Chavez was the one who could find double-stone acid-making method from saltpeter and green alum, which were common things in the workshop. Without sharp observation, good memory, bold conjecture or careful experiments, he could hardly make an important discovery in ordinary things. Kyle believed that this young man was even more talented than himself.

In the last part of the letter, Chavez added two alchemical equations which he said were his recent discoveries that he wanted to share with his mentor. Kyle recognized these neutralization reaction equations at once. Now he could write a dozen of equations like those based on the rule that an acid could react with a base to form a salt.

He put down the letter with a sigh and then looked at the book “Elementary Chemistry” on his desk, which he had known by heart.

It was this “ancient book” from His Highness that had totally changed him. If he had never read it, he would have been like Chavez, seeking and treasuring superficial achievements that he happened to meet in the chaotic world of alchemy.

He picked up the book and turned to the last page of it.

He saw a table divided into over 100 little squares.

This table would always give him goosebumps and fill him with a kind of awe which was hard to describe in words.

Each square was marked with a number written in the up left corner of it, but most of the 118 squares were empty, except for the first two rows. Some squares were filled with symbols, such as No.26 Fe and No.29 Cu.

This table was called “periodic table of elements”.

Once, with a jumping pulse, Kyle had held the book with trembling hands and asked Roland about those empty squares. Roland had answered that this table had been stuffed with symbols but he had forgotten most of them.

If Roland had not been a prince, Kyle would have slammed the book into his face.

The book claimed that all the elements in the world were included in this table. Kyle thought if there were a canon of alchemy, this chapter must have been the most glorious part of it. He was awed every time when he wondered who had mastered such a great rule and made this table. “Those people in the past knew so much, making today’s alchemists look like a joke. We’re like kids building ridiculous, improbable sand castles on the beach without knowing the glorious past of alchemy built by our predecessors at all.”

In a sudden, Kyle thought of Roland’s promise. If he could draw Chavez and some other students over to fill all the positions in the three new labs, he would get his dream book “Intermediate Chemistry”.

At this thought, he immediately took out a piece of blank paper to compose a reply to Chavez.

Kyle had not told the truth when the prince had asked him about the mass production of two kinds of acids during the meeting. He just had not wanted to waste his time on explaining something so complex and lengthy in the meeting. More importantly, he had not been sure whether his plan was feasible, as it had been the first time for him to design a process based on the principles written in “Elementary Chemistry.”

Compared with his previous alchemical experiments, his new design sounded so unrealistic, like some crazy talk. He wanted to use an unheard method to extract an element from seemingly irrelevant raw materials.

Kyle somehow felt that this method would work!

He had conducted hundreds of displacement experiments to validate the correctness of the book’s recordings.

As His Highness had told him that all the mass production methods adapted in plants could be simulated and tested in the lab, now in order to confirm his design, he needed to complete the theoretical and experimental studies in the lab first.

Kyle quickly finished writing the letter. Instead of comforting Chavez, he explicitly told his best student that he had learned in the town that alchemy was knowable, measurable and accessible. He believed that a clever, keen alchemist like Chavez would never want to miss such a chance to get to know the truth of alchemy.

He folded the letter, put it into an envelope and then sealed the envelope with wax. Tomorrow, he would hand it to a merchant who was willing to deliver it to Chavez.

After that, Kyle looked at “periodic table of elements” again.

If the table could only remain incomplete, he would lose all his interest in life. Fortunately, His Highness Roland had told him something else. Those words had made him thrilled at that time and now still reverberated in his ear.

“Don’t give me that look. The elements on the table are arranged following a certain rule. You can fill out the blanks by yourself.”

“A rule? You mean the unknown elements can be derived out, like alchemical equations?”

“Exactly, even though you’ve never seen those elements, you can still know their appearances and characteristics based on the rule.”

“What… is that rule?”

“You want to know? It’s in the book ‘Intermediate Chemistry’.”

Chapter 272: The North Slope Mine

he deeper they walked into the cave, the more humid it became.

Sylvie carefully avoided the water droplets above her head, and slowly walked into the cave carrying a torch. Even without the light, the Eye of Truth would not be hindered by the dark. She was only doing so to save her magic power.

“We’re at the junction.” Nightingale who was walking in front stopped. “What’s the number of the cave?

“It’s the first fork of the second door of the 23rd cave,” Lightning took a glance at the record book.

“Hopefully, this is the end,” Sylvie muttered, opening the eyes that were completely formed by magic power, “On the left… separate from the mine area, no mine. On the right… the same.”

Lightning noted the results, “Well, there’s one last door to check in this cave.”

“Let’s go,” Nightingale went from the front to the back of the line, taking everyone with her. Her ability was not simply becoming invisible. Sylvie could only faintly see Nightingale’s changing magic power, but she could not capture her stature or action. Apparently, she was the most powerful combat witch in the Witch Cooperation Association.

This was perhaps the reason Roland had asked Lightning to follow Sylvie. There were rumors that the mine was once the cave of an ancient monster, and several miners had gone missing in the past. Before they departed, Prince Roland, His Highness had repeatedly reminded them to be careful and that if they encountered any unknown situation, they should withdraw from the mine at once, and report to him.

Sylvie did not need to worry about this. No monster could escape the investigation of the Magic Eye. She could even see the corpses of dead animals and twisting mollusk worms clearly.

There were four people in the “expedition”. Aside from herself, there were also Nightingale, Lightning, and a little girl named Lucia. Every time she found a mine, she would transform the material into various crumbs, and carefully classify them before putting them into her pocket. She said that it was for His Highness’ verification.

Lightning was responsible for drawing the topographic map of the mine. Of course, according to her argument, she must join for any of the adventures. Her proud tone reminded Sylvie of a captain who had stayed temporarily on Sleeping Island.

The 23rd cave was a massive hole, deep in the bottom of the mine. It was divided into three junctions after hundreds of steps and there were more endless interwoven pathways walking deeper into the mine. It almost extended out of the scope of the mine. There was little possibility of there being a mineral vein, so they would stop after this section.

When they came back to the first junction which was also the “door” Lightning recorded, Sylvie cast her ability to observe the situation of the 23rd cave with three doors.

The wider the gaze of the Eye of Truth, the greater the amount of magic power was consumed. It was also a heavy burden to her body, so she chose to observe only once at each junction and explore the various channels one at a time.

“Another three doors… Ah, no mine, there’s something at the end…” She was shocked. “There’re five junctions and one of the junctions seems to turn back around from the bottom.”

“From the bottom?” Lightning repeated.

“Indeed, it’s so,” Sylvie said. The slender passageway turned around straight towards the mine after going downwards for a short way. She felt a strong dizziness in her mind when she wanted to continue exploring along the junction, interrupting her contact with the Magic Eye. “I think it may lead to a mine.”

However, this explanation was very farfetched. The intricate cave in the North Slope Mine was clearly not an artificial digging, and it would not link directly to the mine. The unknown mineral vein they had discovered previously was caught in the middle of two junctions. It was simply not possible to find a pile of metal stones hidden in the mud and stone walls without the Eye of Truth to overlook the obstacles.

“No matter what it is, let’s just go and take a look.” Nightingale shrugged.

They entered the cave from the third door and reached the end of the channel after about 15 minutes.

The passageway was divided into five paths and the narrowest one did not allow anyone to walk through but had to be climbed into instead. The strange passageway Sylvie had seen previously was located in the middle of five junctions. The terrain drifted down, forming a steep slope to the ground on which they stood.

“It looks pretty deep,” Nightingale said, peering forwards with the torch, “I feel that the cave here is somewhat similar to the cliffs in the Impassable Mountain Range.”

“Let’s go back after checking.” Lucia could not help but tightly hold onto Nightingale’s arm. “I don’t like it here. I keep feeling like there’s something staring at us in the cave.”

“There’s nothing in the cave, except for mud and stones,” Sylvie said. She did not like this damp, silent place either but her ability was telling her that there was no danger here. “The four junctions on the left and right don’t have any mines, away from the mining area.” She quickly glanced through the straight junctions and shifted her gaze to the middle one. She was shocked. “…Ah?”

“What’s the matter?” Lightning asked.

“I… can’t see the situation at the bottom.”

“Can’t see?” the little girl was surprised. “Is it because you’re too tired and your ability is fading?” “Take a rest.”

“No, it’s not an ability issue.” Sylvie closed her eyes and reopened them. It was still dark, and it felt like her vision was deprived. She held on to her aching head and further expanded the scope of her vision, but the results were still the same. The surrounding soil was clear and visible, but the center was completely enveloped in a darkness as thick as ink. “There’s something blocking my vision.”

“Stay here and don’t move.” Nightingale pulled out two shining silver blades. “I’ll go down and explore the situation, and I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t go!” Sylvie pressed on her painful forehead and stopped Nightingale. “There’s only one thing that could produce such an effect. You’re going to be in danger if you go.”

“What’s it?”

“God’s Stone of Retaliation.” She clenched her teeth. “There’s a God’s Stone of Retaliation below and it’s covering the entire area!”

…

When Roland received the news, he immediately gathered the First Army soldiers into North Slope Mine.

The final result of the investigation was just as Sylvie had guessed. There was a huge amount of God’s Stones of Retaliation hidden in the cave below the mine.

After making sure that there was no danger, Roland entered the 23rd cave under the protection of his guards. He wanted to see what it looked like with the entire bottom full of the God’s Stone of Retaliation.

“Please be careful, Your Highness.” Carter reminded. “The exit is right in front.”

“You can’t use magic power inside, and it’s safer for you to stay here.” Roland looked at Anna, Nightingale, and Lightning behind him. “Isn’t it good to learn from Sylvie?”

“I’m still more powerful than you without magic. If you can go, of course, I can go.” Nightingale pouted.

“I’m wherever the adventure is.” Lightning lifted her chest.

Anna did not say anything but just stared at Roland quietly. Looking at the pair of clear eyes reflecting under the torch, Roland knew that whatever he said would be useless.

“Alright.” He sighed. “You must follow beside me and don’t get too far away.”

They came to the end of the path walking along the steep cave and Roland suddenly understood the meaning of the “exit” the chief knight mentioned.

Their sight was suddenly lit up as a huge cave appeared in front of him.

He could clearly see the entire cave without a torch. The light came from the God’s Stones of Retaliation, and it sparkled like a crystal prism. They sprang up from the ground and each had a diameter of 20 to 30 meters. It looked like a giant neon tower standing in front of him.

Chapter 273: The God’s Stone of Retaliation

oland quickly estimated the size of the underground cave. It was almost the size of a football field and was surrounded by steep mountain walls. The junction that connected it was right in the center of the mountain and there was a narrow stone staircase beside the cave that extended further down.

“I guess you didn’t cut out these steps.” He squatted and put the torch near the ground. The carving marks on the stone steps could be seen clearly under the light and there were a lot of chips and dust accumulated in the carvings.

“Of course not, Your Highness. The stone steps were already here when we found it.” Carter shrugged. “I’m guessing it’s been there for decades.”

“Or centuries,” Anna suddenly said.

“I think so too.” Lightning nodded. “Border Town has only been established for 70 years so far, so the stone ladder is unlikely to be related to the locals or the kingdom.”

“Was there anyone in the western region centuries ago?” Carter questioned, “The Kingdom of Graycastle had not yet been established.”

Roland patted the knight’s shoulder and said, “450 years ago, there was a group of people who were forgotten by the history.” Then, he lifted the torch. “Let’s go down to take a look.”

The soldiers of the First Army had surrounded the bottom of the cave accordingly. He went straight to the side of God’s Stone of Retaliation with the knights and the witches. The greatness of the huge God’s Stone could only be felt when they were standing under the stone pillars. It was more than 10 times the length of stretched-out arms and they could only see its top when they lifted up their heads. The tallest purple-colored God’s Stone of Retaliation was close to 30 meters and it was almost equivalent to the height of an eight or nine storey building.

In theory, the glowing stone was likely either made of a radioactive material or it contained fluorescent ingredients. However, the light of the God’s Stone of Retaliation was obviously irrelevant to both of them. The former’s luminescence came from the ionization of the air caused by the decay of the element itself. The shorter the half-life was, the greater the brightness was. According to the brightness, the soldiers who entered first would die from ionizing radiation after only for a few minutes. The latter needed light to shine and there was no light source underground which was able to support it to emit such a cold light continuously.

Roland also noticed that although the stone was in a common crystal prism shape, the surface had no crystal lines and was as smooth as flat glass.

“If a thumb-sized God’s Stone of Retaliation can be sold for several gold royals in the church, then such a gigantic one… It can easily empty the treasures of all the four kingdoms,” Carter could not help but say emotionally.

“Sell them to the nobles with the purpose to kill the witches?” Nightingale fiercely stared at him.

“Uh, I didn’t say that.” The chief knight unconsciously shifted his sight.

“It’s my first time to see a God’s Stone of Retaliation in this color. Shouldn’t it be white and transparent?” Lightning looked at the stone pillar and curiously asked, “We would not even need to light a candle at night if we brought a piece back.”

“I’d rather be in a hot room with a dozen of candles than use it for light,” Nightingale held her arms in front of her chest and said, “To a witch, it’s a cage, a shackle and an accomplice of the church! It would be great if there were no such stones in the world.”

“Well, sister Nightingale, you don’t read in the evening anyway…” The little girl licked her lips, picked up a stone and looked at Roland. “May I take a piece back as a trophy for the adventure?”

Roland nodded. “If you don’t react to it.”

She picked up a stone with her hand and threw it to the corner of the prism with all force, but she only heard a crisp sound of “ding”, the stone crashed and the prism did not even bear a scratch.

Carter could not help but feel curious. “How could it be… Aren’t the God’s Stone of Retaliation normally fragile?”

“Perhaps the one that’s lit up will be different.” Lighting patted the stone chips off of her hand, pulled out a dagger from her pocket and began working around the prism. Ultimately, it was futile. She had even used all possible methods, such as scraping, slicing, cutting and picking.

Roland could feel that something was wrong, he looked at Nightingale and said, “You try.”

The latter nodded. She pulled out her flintlock and pulled the trigger after pointing it directly at the other prism. Suddenly a huge roar echoed in the cave and some sparks came out from the God’s Stone of Retaliation which was shot. After the smoke of gunpowder had cleared, they walked over and found that the bullet had left a shallow mark on the surface of the God’s Stone.

It meant that in terms of strength, it had exceeded a homogeneous steel plate.

“Even the flintlock was useless?” Carter frowned. “How did the church cut it off to sell it?”

No one could answer the question and this was also different from everyone’s usual impression.

Previously, Roland smashed the God’s Locket of Retribution that was around Anna’s neck with a brick and it only took two or three smashes to crush the crystal clear stone into a pool of white powder.

Anna, who had been silent, suddenly said, “Your Highness, do you remember the ‘treasure map’ drawn by Morning Light Ferlin Eltek? ”

“Treasure map?” Roland was shocked. He vaguely remembered that there was a triangle on the drawings that occupied half of the area, there were three vertexes pointed to Holy City of Taquila, the stone tower of Misty Forest and the North Slope Mountain. “North Slope Mountain?” He suddenly saw a flash of lightning in his mind. “Could it be…”

“I don’t think that’s pointing to Northern Slope Mine, but here…” Anna slowly said, “the underground cave has many hidden God’s Stones of Retaliation.”

…

After some careful searching, there were no other valuable discoveries other than the indestructible God’s Stone in the cave.

There wasn’t so much as ancient books or remains, it was incredible that there were not even the tools used to carve the steps left behind. According to the present technical level of civilization, it was absolutely a huge and arduous project to chisel a ladder on the steep cliff. The accidental falls, missing tools and so on should be common. However, there was only stone and more stone at the scene as if they had cleaned the cave thoroughly before they left.

Roland summoned Scroll when he returned to his office, he wanted her to show him pictures of the Morning Knight on the Book of Illusion again.

According to the pattern in his memory, the southernmost point was indeed located at the foot of the North Slope Mountain, .

If Anna guessed right, could it be a map left by the church when they were searching for a new God’s Stone of Retaliation mineral vein? But why did they abandon it after spending so much effort to cut out those steps that could lead directly to the bottom? If the church, as early as 450 years ago had established a Border Town church, today’s Border Town would probably appear to be totally different. In accordance with the price and the use of God’s Stone of Retaliation, this mine did not look like a resource that could simply be abandoned.

Now that the Holy City of Taquila had become a restricted area that was unreachable, perhaps these answers would only be found after arriving in the stone tower… if they are ever found at all.

Chapter 274: The Test

fter dinner, Candle went to the castle’s hall early.

Scroll taught in the hall ever night. It differed from the noble colleges in the big city in one key aspect, and the students who attended Scroll’s classes were the witches of the Witch Cooperation Association.

But she was not the first to arrive in the makeshift classroom. Evelyn who had arrived before her was sitting at the long table and waving to her.

“Has His Highness given you any missions recently?” Evelyn impatiently asked as Candle just sat down.

She still remembered that she had duly called Roland ‘The Lord’ when she first came here. Candle was secretly laughing at the bottom of her heart. “Yeah, he told me to cast my ability on some strangely shaped metal bumps and solidify them at the room temperature, but I don’t know what their use is.”

“Is… is that so?” she said with her eyes dimmed, “His Highness hasn’t asked me to do anything.”

“Even the practice content isn’t specified?” Candle curiously asked.

“No, I’ve just been simply practicing by myself.” Evelyn shook her head and continued to say. “He only occasionally lets me taste a newly brewed white liquor.”

“Perhaps His Highness sees this. You used to serve in a tavern and you’re very familiar with the tastes of different liquors. There aren’t many witches like you.”

“However, liquor tasting doesn’t really need a witch.” She protested. “A gold royal is enough to hire a professional winemaker.”

“Uh…” Candle patted her shoulder. “I think His Highness certainly has his plans.”

“Scroll was also comforting me like this. But, even I myself… don’t know what to do with my ability. I can’t simply transform water into liquor… Unless His Highness wants to make the best liquor and sell it? But common people can only afford low-quality ale. The nobles have individual tastes…” Evelyn rested her chin on the table and depressedly said, “The liquor His Highness made… It’s become more awful to drink, and I’ve suggested that he mix it with water or juice, but he seems to only want to make the strongest liquor.”

Candle did not know what to say for a moment. She was on the same boat with Evelyn regarding this. After going to Sleeping Island, they could only do some chores for most of the time. With the increasing abundance of the fish oil resource, consolidating candles had become dispensable and drinking was prohibited by Lady Tilly.

On Sleeping Island, the materials were often allocated according to a witch’s ability at a critical time. Candle sometimes only received a salt-free grilled fish for an entire day. She did not have a problem with this approach and was also willing to give more food to those witches that consumed more magic, but the witches had divided into groups accordingly and the vaguely exclusionary feeling made her feel uncomfortable. Fortunately, Lady Tilly took good care of them and she apologized for the distribution method, promising to adjust it when there were sufficient resources. As a result, those witches did not express their discontent at the exclusion too obviously.

But the situation that she was experiencing in Border Town was something she had never seen before. Sitting at the same table as His Highness to enjoy a meal, what the witches wore and what they were allowed to use was also so different. Most importantly, they would receive the same treatment, regardless of their ability. It could be seen from how they got along in their daily life. She had deeply felt it even though she was only in Border Town for two weeks,

The witches here treat each other like real sisters.

It made Candle extremely envious.

When all the witches were seated, Scroll came in with a stack of white paper. “I’m not teaching new content today, but I’ll conduct a comprehensive test of what we’ve learned.”

“What’s that?” Lightning was the first to raise her hand and ask.

“Coo, coo?” Maggie followed her closely to ask.

“You’ve been studying for almost three months now, and His Highness believes that it’s necessary to test the results of your studies.” Scroll laughed and continued to say, “All the questions are listed on these papers, and it’s divided into three parts, Kingdom Language, Mathematics, and Natural Science, a total of 60 questions. You’ll get a mark for each correct answer. Of course you’re not allowed to raise your hands to ask if you don’t understand a question. And, I believe you have a preliminary grasp of reading and writing, otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to answer even if you know the answer.” She paused. “By the way, His Highness has said that only those that answer more than half of the questions correctly may enjoy the ice-cream dessert on weekend afternoon. The rest would not be qualified for afternoon tea.”

Candle heard a noise at her back. She turned around and found Nightingale in shock, and her charcoal pen had fallen to the ground and broken in two.

“His Highness has specially mentioned that the five witches from Sleeping Island aren’t included. You all can either stay back to answer the questions with everyone else or you can take a rest today.” Scroll looked at Candle, Evelyn and others before continuing to say. “No matter what scores you get, you would still be able to enjoy the delicious afternoon tea.”

“Phew,” Evelyn patted her chest, turning around and whispered, “I don’t even know all the words yet so I thought I would certainly have no ice-cream.”

Honey and Lotus happily stood up and bowed to Scroll before leaving the hall.

Except Sylvie who was absent due to her unwell body, there were only Evelyn and herself from Sleeping Island.

“Do you want to stay?” Candle whispered.

“I want to try.” Evelyn nodded. “Hasn’t His Highness mentioned that knowledge could enable the evolution of our abilities?” “If I don’t work harder in this aspect, I’m afraid that I’ll never be comparable to them.” She slyly smiled. “I’ve been practicing writing in my room after the classes. What’s more, Lily and Mystery Moon have also taught me some common words.”

The frustration in her tone had dispersed and her eyes became shiny. Candle could not help smiling upon seeing this.

“Is it? I’ll try it.”

…

“Your Highness, here are the test results.” Scroll submitted a summary sheet to Roland.

“You’ve worked hard.” The recent discovery in the North Slope Mine area confused him, subsequently, it was difficult for him to even concentrate on his daily work, and thus he would rather simply concentrate on easier matters. “Oh, Nightingale actually passed?”

“Yeah, her score was within the top three and she scored 100% in the Kingdom Language,” Scroll smiled and said, “After all, most of the questions you asked were very simple. She knows how to read and write and that makes it easier for her than other witches.”

“Tsk tsk.” Roland smacked. “I thought that the test could make her eat fewer desserts.” Before he finished saying that, he felt a heavy pinch on his shoulder. “In short, the result looks pretty good. All the members of the Witch Union scored over 60. It seems that your education is very fruitful.”

“It’s a testament to the efforts they put in.”

Roland looked down and said, “Only two of the witches from Sleeping Island participated in the test?”

“Yeah. Evelyn scored five points and Candle scored 36 points. The latter should have a certain foundation. Most of her score had come from the Kingdom Language questions,” she replied.

They only joined two weeks ago and they were able to score on the written examination. Their individual qualities were indeed amazing. Witches indeed continuously improved both internally and externally. Their very own witches, such as Lily, Hummingbird, Mystery Moon and the others were equally excellent. They only took three months to learn from a being completely illiterate to being able to basically master both reading and writing, which was obviously better than the ordinary people.

If the people could completely set aside their prejudices and work together with the witches to promote social and civilizational development, what would the future look like? Roland was full of expectations in his heart.