Territory Development

Aside from the change in his aura, Smith's greatest transformation was his appearance. He had once been a gray-haired old man. Though his back had remained straight and his bearing elegant, every sign of age on him had declared that he had reached the final stage of his life.

Now, however, Smith had glossy black hair, and the wrinkles on his face had completely vanished. A vigorous aura of life radiated from him, making him seem like a young man in his twenties.

Yet this young man had his eyes tightly shut as he stood silently in place, showing no sign of waking.

This was normal. As before, this medicine was meant for humans, so it would not crudely transform the body like the injections used on magical creatures. That was also why the heart was the primary site of transformation.

Even after Smith woke up, he would frequently fall asleep over the coming days. The dragon blood had only just begun transforming his body. When the process was complete, his strength would undergo another leap.

"Take him back to rest." Isaac waved his hand, having Saint Lord carry Smith back to his room. He then accepted the documents Lapis Lazuli handed him and began reading them carefully.

A month had passed, and the villagers near the castle had relocated even faster than he had expected. A migration originally estimated to take three to five months had been completed in just half a month.

Part of that was due to Isaac's notorious reputation, and part was due to the cooperation from his own territory. Relocation had always been a two-way process. People moved out from one side, but someone had to receive them on the other. Housing, work, neighborhood relations, and countless other matters all needed consideration, making it far more troublesome.

They were not refugees, after all.

But that had nothing to do with Isaac. His side was only responsible for moving them out.

Once everyone had relocated, the territory's renovation plan officially began. First came the Demon Rats. They might have seemed insignificant, but now that their numbers had grown, and with Lapis Lazuli's assistance, selling the miscellaneous materials harvested from them brought in fifty to a hundred Gold Coins a month. By comparison, the Demonic Flesh essence refined from Demon Rat corpses was hardly worth mentioning.

Furthermore, Demon Rats were primarily used to create Divine Spirit Rats for Little Mouse to devour and grow stronger. They were its experience packs, so their scale still needed to expand. They would be useful sooner or later.

The only regrettable thing was that the collection of Demon Rat materials had already reached its limit. It was not a problem of production or the market. Isaac simply lacked manpower.

Legendary Wizard materials were not standardized like those of Arcanists. Materials taken from the same magical creature could have entirely different uses depending on their age. Some differed as vastly as heaven and earth!

The only reason these things could make money was the Cottage in the Woods' unbelievable transportation ability. That cottage was connected to practically every wizard. It could be said that if you plucked a blade of wild grass from the roadside, you could find someone inside who wanted it.

Of course, finding them was difficult. The Cottage in the Woods had no filtering function. Usually, Lapis Lazuli first searched through the ocean of requests for those related to rats, then returned to collect materials according to the commissions. After turning in the materials, she would continue looking for commissions, repeating the process over and over. The workload was enormous.

Thus, the current thousand-plus Demon Rats had already far exceeded Lapis Lazuli's working capacity, but Isaac still chose to continue expanding.

For one thing, selling rat materials was unlike being a chef; it could be entirely replaced by spell servants. He could solve that directly once he advanced to Grand Wizard, so there was no rush. For another, Little Mouse also needed a large number of Divine Spirit Rats to advance.

Especially during the month since Saint Lord's transformation, its enthusiasm had been completely maxed out. It had even begun studying Skeleton Divine Art on its own!

Although it had not figured anything out yet, that was already tremendous progress. Its future was promising.

As long as his Divinity Network Transformation Surgery advanced another step and surgeries could be completed directly through rituals, Little Mouse's era would arrive!

By then, demand for Demon Rats would inevitably continue rising!

Therefore, the Demon Rat farm still needed to keep expanding. Ideally, it would be expanded directly to ten thousand rats in one go.

Although ten thousand sounded like a lot, Demon Rats were very small, so they did not actually take up much space—not even as much as one Herb Field. The larger area was meant for raising Dragon Lizard hatchlings.

However, the dragonization technique for Dragon Lizard hatchlings had not yet been fully optimized and still required final adjustments. For now, they had only divided up the area and made preliminary preparations. Formal construction of the farm would have to wait until Isaac finished optimizing the dragonization technique.

Even so, one area still remained vacant.

The Demon Rats and Dragon Lizards only occupied the former Herb Field, but his territory also included the residential areas of those two or three villages, which needed to be renovated as well.

"A magic puppet factory?" Isaac looked at Lapis Lazuli as he read the proposed redevelopment plan for that area.

"This was Smith's suggestion. He believes we can turn this area into a magic puppet factory. First, the territory's operations will certainly require magic puppets. Second, Lady Sheryl already has established magic puppet factory technology. We can simply bring it over and use it, saving considerable time while opening up another source of income." Lapis Lazuli folded her fair hands over her abdomen and spoke softly.

"Hmm... That really hadn't occurred to me..." Isaac nodded. He had nearly forgotten that he was now a wizard. He could properly ask his family for money and technology.

Especially technology as unimportant as a magic puppet factory.

Of course, "unimportant" was only relative to Solomon. For most small territories, technology like this was already extremely advanced.

Magic puppets were different from golems. They were not so expensive to produce, and they could be made quickly. Naturally, their combat power was correspondingly mediocre. Especially mass-produced magic puppets—almost no one used those in battle. Using them to fight was worse than having a High Knight throw Gold Coins at the enemy. That would deal more damage.

Most magic puppets were used for production, serving as high-grade laborers, or for exploring ruins as expendable pathfinders. For example, the Black Knight Isaac had bought back then was already considered a relatively advanced magic puppet.

That type of magic puppet was not part of the mass-production line. Its primary purpose was guard duty, so its combat power had been enhanced.

The magic puppets Smith mentioned, however, were used entirely for work, such as mining.

Because this was a magical world, many Mineral Resources emitted extremely powerful magical radiation. Ordinary people could forget about mining. Never mind whether they could even dig the ore out—simply staying in the mine for half an hour would kill them.

Only extraordinary individuals could operate there for extended periods.

But once someone was extraordinary, who would still come mine?

Wouldn't that make becoming extraordinary pointless?

Therefore, such work had always been done by magic puppets. There was no need to worry about sales either. As long as his family opened up even a small part of its sales channels to him, it would be enough for him to make a fortune.