Chapter Summaries

Victor inspected the expanding settlements along the Great Fish River and found that many lacked proper wooden housing. Sam explained that construction crews had been reassigned to dredge the river so migrant boats could pass, and Victor recognized that low spring water levels had exposed an oversight in the development plan.

• Victor traveled along the repaired road and saw migrants heading toward Blue Lake as riverside garrisons grew into settlements.
• Victor found that land reclamation was advancing faster than construction, leaving many serfs in reed huts without proper shelter.
• Victor questioned Sam about the lack of wooden houses and demanded to know why the responsible departments had not reported the problem.
• Sam explained that Powell had paused settlement construction and redirected crews to dredge the low Great Fish River so migrant boats could get through.
• Victor heard Sam's explanation and realized that spring glacial melt had left the rivers unusually low, revealing an oversight in the development plan.

Victor inspected the Lime River dredging project and proposed building diversion dams and sluice gates to address recurring floods and improve navigation and irrigation. Sam accepted that the plan would slow this year's land reclamation, leaving some of it to be completed over the next two years.

• Victor asked Sam where Zarack was and went to find him at the Lime River dredging site.
• Zarack reported that most repairs were complete and the remaining stretch should be finished within half a month.
• Victor warned Zarack that floods from the Great Fish River would refill the Lime River with debris and make repeated dredging necessary.
• Victor marked locations for diversion dams on a map and explained how sluice gates could regulate water levels, support boat traffic, and provide irrigation.
• Zarack helped refine Victor's proposal and said it would require more workers, potentially affecting reclamation and migration.
• Sam agreed to reduce the area reclaimed this year and make up the difference over the next two years.

Victor inspected the former Fourth Military Station and Blue Lake Bay Outpost, finding both settlements expanding and Blue Lake’s farms and copper mines developing rapidly. Satisfied with the progress, he returned to Wood Fort Town, ending his inspection tour.

• Victor stayed overnight at the former Fourth Military Station and learned about recent developments from the garrison commander.
• Victor crossed the grasslands where he had captured an argali and encountered caravans traveling to and from Blue Lake Bay Outpost.
• Victor learned that Blue Lake’s copper mines had begun large-scale extraction and that the ore helped offset the cost of immigration.
• Victor found that nearly a thousand immigrants had arrived at Blue Lake Bay Outpost and reclaimed fifty hectares of farmland.
• Victor spent a day at Blue Lake Bay Outpost, approved of its progress, and returned to Wood Fort Town.

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.