Recaps

Victor inspected the Two Rivers Territory’s new Mint in Riverside Town and found its hydraulic stamping presses producing Copper Coins at high speed. He left satisfied with the coins but concerned that limited press capacity and copper supplies could slow future production.

• Victor promoted Riverside Village to Riverside Town and appointed Bob as its mayor.
• Victor visited the heavily guarded Mint and learned from Alberto that its five Hydraulic Stamping Presses and eleven Animal-Powered Stamping Presses produced about thirty thousand Copper Coins per day.
• Victor examined the newly stamped Copper Coins and asked Alberto to increase production, but learned that the machinery factory lacked capacity and was helping develop a steam-powered Coin-Press.
• Victor learned that the research institute’s proposed steam-powered Coin-Press could be twice as efficient as the hydraulic presses.
• Victor left the Mint thinking that he needed to expand copper mining before raw-material supplies became a bottleneck.

Victor showed his department heads the new Copper Yuan and Copper Jiao and asked them to decide how the coins should exchange for the old currency. Rabik proposed favorable rates for the new coins and argued that the territory should collect the old money rather than let it circulate alongside them.

• Victor returned to Wood Fort Town from the Mint and convened a meeting with the department heads still there.
• Victor showed the officials the new Copper Yuan and Copper Jiao, and they praised their weight, color, and designs.
• Victor explained the coins’ weights, metal compositions, and production costs, then asked for recommendations on exchange rates.
• Rabik proposed valuing one Copper Yuan at two old copper coins and one Copper Jiao at three copper pieces, while withdrawing the old currency.
• The other department heads unanimously agreed with Rabik’s proposal.

Victor arranged plans to expand copper-coin production and secure zinc and tin supplies, while keeping his artillery plans secret. He then reviewed the Medical Department’s staffing, training, and profitable treatment of patients from outside the territory.

• Victor approved Rabik’s proposed exchange rate and ordered increased coin production, a two-year stockpile of zinc and tin, and a reliable supplier.
• Levant proposed surveying the northern grasslands for ore deposits, and Victor assigned Powell’s office to coordinate without disrupting reclamation or immigration work.
• Victor kept his plans to cast artillery using improved Blazefire Gel private, then briefed military leaders on paying troops with the new coins.
• Victor visited the independent Medical Department, where Stanchiu reported its staff numbers, academy training plans, and Isaac’s focus on research.
• Stanchiu reported that the Foreign Medical Division had treated sixty-five patients since the start of the year and earned over two hundred gold coins.

Victor learned about an unusual four-year-old boy being cared for by Isaac, whose extreme growth reminded him of Hawke Pumpkin’s changes from exposure to Transcendent matter. He decided Isaac should form a research team to investigate the boy and compare his condition with Hawke’s.

• Stanchiu told Victor that Isaac was treating a boy from the Maroda Chamber of Commerce who was unusually tall, developed, and hungry for his age.
• Victor approved Isaac’s decision to keep the boy at the hospital and care for him.
• Victor recalled how Hawke Pumpkin had transformed after exposure to Transcendent matter and noted that his growth had recently stabilized.
• Victor decided Isaac should form a dedicated team to study the boy and compare his condition with Hawke’s.

Victor funded Isaac’s research into people with unusual transformations, then discussed plans to establish schools across his territory with Veronica. The chapter ended with Victor and Veronica sharing an intimate moment as they prepared for the twins’ arrival.

• Victor authorized Isaac to spend up to 1,500 gold over half a year and had him send students to observe Hawk in Pumpkin Territory.
• Victor returned home late, and Lady Ellie scolded him before Veronica helped him join the family for dinner.
• Victor listened to the twins’ heartbeats and talked with Veronica about their hopes for the children.
• Victor proposed paid primary schools for freemen and military families, along with a noble school for Enrique, Wendy, and the children of his vassals.
• Veronica raised concerns about talented serf children being left out, and Victor promised to expand educational opportunities as the territory grew wealthier.
• Victor embraced Veronica, and the couple shared an intimate kiss.

Victor resolved a conflict after Isaac blocked the Finance Department to demand funding, then left and found Orlando waiting outside. The chapter ended as Victor encountered Orlando.

• Weber complained to Victor that Isaac had demanded funding at his home and blocked the Finance Department entrance.
• Victor gave Weber an authorization and went with him to confront Isaac, who was still blocking the entrance.
• Victor told Isaac to stop disrupting other departments and assigned Stanchiu to handle the Medical Department's funding applications.
• After Isaac left, Stanchiu and Weber arranged the funding smoothly, and Victor saw Orlando outside the Finance Department.

Victor approved the Intelligence Department’s plan to gather information from nobles and merchants at the public hospital and agreed to expand its recruitment and training. After hearing Orlando’s report, Victor also decided to organize retired soldiers into border settlements rather than let them return to farming.

• Orlando proposed installing listening devices in the public hospital and placing intelligence agents among its staff, and Stanchiu agreed to cooperate if the Intelligence Department covered the costs.
• Victor approved using the Intelligence Department’s separate funding channel to pay for the hospital intelligence operation.
• Orlando reported that the Intelligence Department had established six branch stations and seventeen smaller stations across the Vela Region and had sent teams to the Raine Kingdom and East Sea Alliance.
• Victor authorized Orlando to recruit serf children for intelligence training, instructing him to protect them and send unsuitable recruits home.
• After reading a military report, Victor drafted a plan to form retired soldiers and militia into border settlements and sent it to the General Staff for refinement.

Victor gathered his vassal commanders to discuss resettling veteran soldiers and retiring auxiliary troops after the army was reduced. He began outlining a plan to put the discharged men’s experience and potential to use.

• Several regimental commanders and Lodan arrived at Victor’s office to discuss their new noble duties.
• James described the burdens of being a noble and claimed he had preferred serving as a regimental commander.
• Victor reviewed the military leaders present and noted the growing influence of the Golden Sunflower Faction.
• Victor explained that the territory would reduce its forces after rewarding soldiers and compensating them.
• Victor argued that battle-hardened veterans and young auxiliary troops should not simply be sent back to farming, then introduced his idea for resettling them.

Victor assigned retiring veterans to his vassals’ territories, where they would help defend new settlements and form the core of private forces. He set allotments by fief size and ordered officials to coordinate recruitment and construction.

• Victor proposed sending battle-hardened veterans and promising recruits to military-farm settlements and assigning other veterans to nobles’ private forces.
• James and the other nobles argued over who needed the veterans most, while Captain Jack and Sonanda stayed calm.
• Victor allocated two hundred veterans each to James and Ron, one hundred each to Santos, Marvin, and Lodan, and fifty each to Foss, Captain Jack, and Sonanda.
• Victor told the nobles to recruit veterans voluntarily, care for their families, and follow the Veterans Management Office’s oversight.
• Ron asked when recruitment could begin, and Victor said the nobles could contact veterans the next day while construction teams prepared their first settlements.

Victor summoned Saruman to deliver new orders for allocating retired veterans, then teased him about his promotion before revealing that he had an opportunity to become a baron. Saruman learned that Victor believed only he could handle the matter, and waited eagerly to hear what it was.

• Victor ordered Saruman to come to the Ducal House and gave him signed orders concerning the allocation of retired veterans.
• Victor asked whether Saruman was disappointed to have been made a knight, and Saruman said he was grateful for his title and nearly thirty-square-kilometer territory.
• Victor teased Saruman by suggesting he might offer a chance at promotion to baron to Knight Jack or Rodriguez instead.
• Saruman struggled to admit he wanted the opportunity, and Victor told him the task could only be handled by him.
• Saruman asked whether Victor was serious and waited expectantly to hear what the opportunity was.

Victor established plans for an Army War Department and a Navy War Department to manage the territory’s military forces and retain officers as the army downsized. He tasked Saruman with drafting their structure and promised to make him deputy head of the Army War Department and a baron if he succeeded.

• Victor told Saruman he would establish an Inner Court and create separate Army and Navy War Departments to address the territory’s lack of military administration.
• Victor tasked Saruman with designing both departments and staffing them with officers displaced by the planned reduction of the forces.
• Victor outlined the departments’ responsibilities and clarified that the Territorial Legion’s senior officers and appointments would remain under his authority.
• Victor and Saruman refined the departments’ structures, including the Navy War Department’s need for additional equipment specialists.
• Victor promised Saruman the role of deputy head of the Army War Department and the title of baron if he completed the plan, then told him to submit a detailed proposal.

Victor oversaw the creation of the Army and Navy War Departments before turning his attention to Veronica’s costly experiment at the research institute. Octavia reported that the underwater telegraph cable and high-power transmitter had succeeded, and Victor went to see them.

• Victor approved Saruman’s plan to establish the Army War Department and Navy War Department, appointing Baron Wembley as Army Minister and Jack Dayezao as Navy Minister.
• Victor gave Baron Wembley the honorary Court Noble title of Viscount Wembley.
• Victor reassured the nervous Veronica as she worried that her experiment had consumed the research institute’s budget and the copper mine’s stockpiles.
• Octavia and the other students rushed in to report that they had received and decoded the agreed-upon signal from the Sea Song Town Group.
• Octavia confirmed that the underwater telegraph cable and high-power transmitter had succeeded, and Victor asked to see them.

Victor witnessed the successful test of an improved telegraph machine and praised the researchers for their work. He promised rewards, half of which would fund education for serf children, and announced that one researcher would receive a knighthood and two would become honorary knights.

• Victor inspected the batteries, telegraph machine, and insulated wires before ordering the researchers to send a message to Vincent.
• The machine transmitted Victor's message, and the operator quickly decoded Vincent's reply: he was there and sent greetings to Lord Marquis.
• Victor congratulated the researchers and promised each at least thirty gold coins for their achievements.
• Octavia asked Victor to use the reward money to educate serf children, and the other researchers agreed to give up their bonuses.
• Victor proposed giving half the rewards to the researchers and placing the other half in a fund managed by Veronica for schools, teachers, and student lunches.
• Victor announced that one researcher would receive a knighthood and two would receive honorary knighthoods.

Victor distributed generous bonuses to the researchers and arranged protections for Octavia after her actions risked making her a target. He planned to strengthen the research institute’s security while Veronica prepared to choose honorary knights to support Octavia.

• Downs delivered 3,000 gold from Victor’s Inner Treasury, and Victor distributed it among the researchers, giving Octavia the largest bonus.
• Veronica gave the researchers two days off to consider making donations to the fund.
• On the carriage ride home, Veronica thanked Victor for protecting Octavia from being ostracized.
• Victor promised to cover any shortfall if the fund raised less than 1,500 gold and planned to grant Octavia a knight’s title and name two of Veronica’s students honorary knights.
• Victor ordered stronger security at the research institute, including a garrison and personnel placed within its teams, and Veronica agreed to make the arrangements.

At Octavia’s knighting ceremony, a telegraph demonstration amazed the nobles and sparked a dispute over whether the machines should serve civilian administration or the military. Octavia revealed that the costly wires, not the machines, made expansion prohibitively expensive, leaving the nobles to reconsider their plans.

• Victor’s research team demonstrated the telegraph, and a doubting noble confirmed that messages reached Wood Fort Town and returned before riders could make the trip.
• The civilian officials and military officers argued over where to install the telegraphs, while the nobles forgot the ceremony and focused on securing the machines.
• Victor and Veronica explained to Octavia and the two researchers that many of his nobles had risen from commoner or serf origins, and promised that their contributions could make them independent nobles.
• Victor proposed publicizing that anyone, even a serf, could earn nobility through merit, then ordered the nobles to stop arguing and plan telegraph placement.
• Octavia explained that each machine cost at least fifty gold coins, while the lines cost over four hundred gold coins per kilometer and the Wood Fort Town–Sea Song Town connection had used roughly nine thousand gold coins.

Powell secured a 20,000-gold order for telegraph equipment and lines after finding extra funding in next year's flexible budget. Octavia said it could connect towns along the existing route, though expansion beyond them would require more money, manpower, and time.

• Powell asked Weber to find more funding, and Weber said the Finance Department had little flexible money available.
• Powell persuaded Weber to include next year's flexible budget, and Weber confirmed they could raise 20,000 gold without touching the funds reserved for deposits.
• Powell offered Octavia a 20,000-gold order to install telegraph equipment throughout the territory.
• Octavia said the money could extend the experimental line to towns along its route, but would not reach Red Soil Town or other large settlements and could not be completed until next year.
• Powell agreed to expand the telegraph network one step at a time.

Victor ordered the telegraph network expanded across the Two Rivers Territory and beyond, and established a merchant guild to build and operate it. A foreign merchant caravan’s successful use of the first public telegraph service sparked widespread interest, leaving a growing queue outside the Telegraph Office.

• Powell approved a twenty-thousand-gold-coin investment in telegraphs, and Victor ordered plans for wider coverage, cheaper production, and a merchant guild jointly funded by himself, the Government Affairs Office, and the research institute.
• Victor opened the Wood Fort Town–Sea Song Town telegraph line for a low-cost trial and arranged patrols to protect it from copper thieves.
• A merchant caravan manager visiting Wood Fort Town sent a telegram to the caravan in Sea Song Town, asking it to bring its goods upstream.
• The caravan received the message and arrived in Wood Fort Town that afternoon, where it quickly opened a temporary shop.
• The manager praised the telegraph, news of its success spread, and a long queue formed outside the Telegraph Office the next day.

Victor asked Rabik to assess the Telegraph Office's early revenue after its managers worried that 110 gold coins over three days was not enough to justify their investment. Rabik predicted much lower earnings over the next month, and Victor reassured the managers that the telegraph project could develop gradually.

• Victor questioned Powell, Weber, and Octavia for treating the Telegraph Office's 110 gold coins in three days as a major success.
• Powell argued that the revenue showed the telegraph line could repay its construction costs and become a major source of income.
• Victor summoned Rabik and asked him to forecast the Telegraph Office's revenue for the next month.
• Rabik explained that early curiosity had driven revenue, while repeat demand and the limited route would likely keep next month's total below 150 gold coins.
• Victor told the managers not to rush to recover the investment and said the telegraph project could develop over time.

Victor inspected the transplanted crops in Two Rivers Territory and urged the Agricultural Department to develop high-yield fiber crops for local clothing and textile production. He offered substantial rewards for successful results as Red Hemp and Long-Staple Cotton began adapting to the territory.

• Victor praised Sam and the Agricultural Department for helping the crops collected during the Civil War take root in Two Rivers Territory.
• Sam and the agricultural experts had worked with experienced serfs to plant and adapt the crops, and most varieties were growing well.
• Victor emphasized the importance of Red Hemp and Long-Staple Cotton for providing affordable clothing materials and supporting a future textile industry.
• Victor told the technicians to select the best seeds and promised noble titles, land, or wealth for outstanding results.
• The technicians reacted with excitement and looked forward to earning Victor's rewards.

Victor discussed the sugar trade and crowding in Wood Fort Town with Rabik, then directed him to preserve existing contracts and find space for more lodging. Rabik agreed to arrange accommodation for visiting merchant guilds while the Sugar Refinery continued selling its surplus.

• Victor chose to visit the beet fields instead of the crowded Sugar Refinery, where merchants were clamoring to buy white and brown sugar.
• Victor told Rabik to fulfill signed orders first and protect the territory's business reputation.
• Rabik assured Victor that he had delivered orders on time and was selling visiting guilds only part of each sugar batch.
• Rabik reported that Wood Fort Town's inns and campsites were full, with some guild leaders waiting aboard ships at Sea Song Town.
• Victor ordered Rabik to arrange inns or hotels for visitors and told him to ask Levant for a plot of under ten mu on land reserved for town development.

Victor visited the Sugar Refinery and learned that merchants had caused a disturbance while competing to buy scarce white sugar. After approving Rabik’s response, Victor decided the territory needed a dedicated security department to handle law enforcement.

• Victor saw more than thirty merchants’ carriages gathered outside the Sugar Refinery, where the merchants waited in the heat to buy white sugar.
• Rabik told Victor that merchants had tried to seize a shipment after most of the sugar was reserved for contracts with nobles.
• Rabik explained that the garrison had arrested the troublemakers, fined each one hundred gold coins, banned them from land, and given their caravans ten days to leave.
• Rabik revealed that the deadline would give the refinery time to prepare stock for the merchants’ subordinates to buy.
• Victor praised Rabik’s plan, then realized the territory lacked a proper law enforcement agency and considered establishing a security department.

Victor heard merchants struggling to buy enough white sugar and learned how Rabik managed sales with a price limit, purchase caps, and a randomized queue. He approved the system and explained that sharing profits with other powers would help protect his young territory from stronger nobles.

• Merchants with numbers fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen collected their white sugar while the others worried about long waits and purchase limits.
• Victor asked Rabik about the merchants' complaints, and Rabik explained the two-hundred-kilogram transaction limit and randomized queue.
• Victor praised Rabik for selling to many merchant guilds while keeping the price controlled and preventing auctions.
• Victor explained that his territory monopolized white sugar but could not keep all the profits without risking conflict with powerful nobles.

Victor watched merchants compete for newly purchased White Sugar, then visited Two Rivers Territory’s sugar beet plantation and ordered its planting area doubled despite concerns about labor, processing capacity, and sales. He planned to use the kingdom’s three-year tax exemption to expand sugar sales and said he would seek markets in the kingdom’s heartland in August.

• Victor and Rabik watched merchants bid against one another for White Sugar outside the Sugar Refinery before heading to the Sugar Beet Plantation.
• Victor’s tax benefits and reduced White Sugar price helped him plan to use the three-year exemption to expand sales across the Vela Region and into the kingdom’s heartland.
• Rabik reported that more than three thousand mu of sugar beets should yield over eight thousand tons of crops and about fifteen hundred tons of refined sugar.
• Victor judged the expected output insufficient and ordered the sugar beet planting area doubled again next year.
• Rabik warned that expansion would strain the plantation’s labor, the Sugar Refinery’s capacity, and the market for White Sugar.
• Victor said Powell could send immigrants, the Agricultural Department could provide tools and animals, and the Machine Factory could increase refinery capacity; he planned to find buyers in the kingdom’s heartland in August.

Victor ordered Rabik to expand sugar production and proposed a profit-sharing bonus for workers and department staff. Rabik accepted the plan, and Victor urged him to increase production quickly to fund the territory’s coming needs.

• Rabik doubted the market could absorb a major increase in sugar, but he prepared to follow Victor’s order.
• Victor proposed forming a sugar merchants’ guild and distributing part of its profits as bonuses.
• Rabik realized the bonuses would include plantation serfs and refinery workers, making the individual shares more reasonable.
• Victor explained that bonuses across the territory would give more people money to spend and strengthen the local market.
• Victor told Rabik to expand production quickly because the territory needed funds for its plans over the next two years.

Victor inspected the Sugar Beet Estate, praised Rabik’s work, and set expectations for the sugar industry and its bonuses. He also checked the rapidly advancing dam project before reminding Zarack that he would leave the territory in August to travel to the Raine Kingdom with Duke Alex.

• Victor pulled a beet from the newly cultivated field, questioned Rabik about its planting and harvest schedule, and teased him about his stewards’ flattery.
• Victor told Rabik he could earn a share of the Sugar Industry Merchants' Guild profits, but required him to ensure every worker, including the serfs, received at least one gold coin.
• Victor stressed that the sugar industry would become a major source of funds and said Rabik’s success could bring an even greater reward.
• Victor inspected the dam construction, praised Zarack’s progress, and learned that the smaller dam should be finished by the end of July.
• Victor told Zarack he would be leaving the territory in August to travel to the Raine Kingdom with Duke Alex.