Elf Kingdom Development Adjustments

[Note: Post-publication, notices will be placed in the Author's Note section.]

[Front-page notice: I usually wouldn't single out a specific reader's comment for a response, but given the severity of the misunderstanding—which suggests they might not have even read the first three chapters—I am addressing this separately for the sake of the book's reputation.]

[Regarding this reader's first question, the timeline is not unknown. I explicitly wrote the current time in Chapter 1: the 85th year of the 10,000-year interval between the Douluo Dalu II: The Unrivaled Tang Sect and Douluo Dalu III: Legend of the Dragon King. Anyone who has read the original work should know that the interval between Dou 2 and Dou 3 is ten thousand years.]

[As for the second question, there was no mention of where development was headed, and the protagonist's intentions are also clear. A paragraph in Chapter 1 explicitly stated Rus Wang's plan: as long as he integrates the 44.76 million square kilometer continent beneath his feet and unifies the Chinese-style Western Fantasy Elves, he is confident that he can use this two-thousand-year protection period to develop a nation with the technological level of Call of Duty 13, where Soul Beasts and Elves coexist as equals.]

[Regarding the third question, why is there still opposition between Soul Beasts and Elves? In the third chapter of the novel's main text, when the Female Water Dragon Thalassa first encounters the Elves, it is clearly mentioned that upon arriving at the Zheer Continent, Thalassa discovered a group of upright, two-legged creatures that looked very much like humans. However, their long ears and Soul Power reactions, which were so low they were practically non-existent, left her feeling puzzled. She did not choose to retaliate against these creatures as if they were human kin, but instead chose to observe quietly. During this period, she frequently saw several other Soul Beasts who had fled like her launching retaliatory massacres against these two-legged beasts.]

[To this reader, I hope that when you write comments, you can carefully read the content of the novel's chapters first before making rational comments.]

"Grandfather."

Ever since that encounter, Rus Wang had been permanently stationed at Herundis Manor. This was the reason why Toriya was able to converse with Rus Wang so quickly after agreeing to Venicia's request at the curry shop at noon. Even when Rus Wang was not at the manor, Toriya had many ways to contact him while he was away.

"Um, could I ask you for a favor?"

Looking at Rus Wang, who was sitting in the office in the form of a middle-aged man, Toriya knew that her grandfather was not in a good mood today because, in the royal capital of Ravenna, thousands of Elf workers had gone on strike once again this year.

"Oh, it's not often that little Toriya asks her grandfather for a favor. Tell me."

Toriya didn't beat around the bush with Rus Wang; she spoke directly.

"That is how things are."

Toriya watched her grandfather Rus Wang's reaction; his pupils seemed brighter than usual, and then... her grandfather started to laugh.

"Grandfather?"

"Little Toriya has a heart for the people, which is excellent. But national governance is a delicate matter where one move affects the whole; especially when it comes to systemic issues, it's not something that can be solved by just tweaking a few regulations... Here, granddaughter, come, sit."

Rus Wang looked at Toriya with gratification. Despite being raised in luxury, she had not fallen into the habits of the nobility. On the contrary, her experiences playing in the Nanshan Rainforest often made her act like a wild child. And the fact that she relied on her own strength to reach high school, maintaining scores around 130 out of 150 in every subject during monthly exams, showed that she was more than capable of advancing to university.

Rus Wang walked over to the sofa on the side and patted the empty space on the right side of the loveseat.

"O-okay."

After Toriya sat down, she seemed a bit restless. The night seemed very quiet today...

"Grandfather, what is this for?"

Toriya asked.

"You'll know in a moment."

Soon, the rhythmic sound of rubber soles hitting the hardwood floor came from the doorway, accompanied by a knock on the door.

Rus Wang's relaxed expression toward his granddaughter instantly turned serious as he said to the presence waiting outside the door: "Come in."

The person who entered was someone who could make children stop crying throughout the entire Elf wealthy circle and civil service circle: the son of the Elf Kingdom's First Prime Minister, the second strongest in the entire Elf race, the owner of the Robin-Sick Hotel group, and the highest Grand Mentor of the intelligence and internal audit agency, the Grey Feather Division, Ulides Roderick.

Ulides, who brought a Grey Feather Division adjutant into the office, saw his resolute expression shift by a few pixels after seeing Toriya beside Rus Wang upon entering, but he quickly returned to his original state and reported to Rus Wang: "Reporting to Your Majesty, all factory owners in every city who violated government laws by forcibly extending workers' hours have been arrested along with their families and taken to the Robin-Sick Hotel. Their thug organizations, along with local gangs, have also been completely cleared out, awaiting your disposal."

"Conduct the trials according to the legal statutes." (Note: The Elves have a legal statute here: when a factory owner implements working hours of 11 hours or more for over a month, or triggers actions by Elf citizens to defend their own rights, the former situation, if confirmed, leads directly to execution; the latter is judged based on the actual situation, determining whether the factory owner and management should be executed, imprisoned, or fined.)

"Yes."

As the adjutant beside Ulides picked up the soul-guided communicator and sent the command signal, Grey Feather Division agents at the Robin-Sick Hotels in various provinces picked up soul-guided firearms and walked into the room numbers of the hotel guests...

After Ulides withdrew, Toriya asked her grandfather in a low voice.

"Grandfather, isn't the adjutant beside Uncle Ulides that Spirit Douluo Irwin, whom Father accompanied Mother to test a few months ago?"

"That is indeed her."

Speaking of this adjutant who could follow by Ulides' side, her life story is not simple. During the abrupt transition from the Classical Period (see Chapter 11 for details) to the Steam Age, there was a small change within the Elf Kingdom, and many high-level seats were vacated.

She was rescued by Ulides when the Grey Feather Division was wiping out the underground black market that had formed again in the royal capital. At 32, she was not illiterate; she was even a doctor who had passed the classical examinations and become a temple priestess. However, she had been kidnapped into that place, and she knew very well that it was caused by powerful people coveting her body. After being rescued by the Grey Feather Division, her body had suffered from various poisons, her meridians had been destroyed so she could not use Soul Power, and she was nearly crippled. Her eyes were filled with malice toward the powerful.

In Ulides' eyes, this was undoubtedly the most suitable second-generation Grand Mentor of the Grey Feather Division to inherit his father's thoughts and his own mantle. He requested that Rus Wang provide medicinal herbs to repair this child. Rus Wang agreed and personally used a small stamina potion from Seer for this Elf, repairing her meridians. That was the moment she, as a priestess, saw the patron god of the Elves at the closest range.

Since then, she, who already had faith in Rus Wang, became fanatical. But the more fanatical she was, the more normal she appeared in daily life. Ulides, the Grey Feather Division Grand Mentor who had always looked at Rus Wang as an elder, was also aware of this, but as long as it did not affect the work of the Grey Feather Division, he would only let Rus Wang, the elder, worry about it himself.

After Ulides left with his adjutant, a carriage arrived at Herundis Manor. The current Prime Minister of the Elf Kingdom, accompanied only by a coachman and a document he carried, entered the manor in a low-profile manner. (The Elf Kingdom now has soul-guided cars hand-crafted by Barus, but he, as a dragon, puts his main energy into researching the two-corner seal, while Elf professors and college students are working on the industrialization of this aspect.)

"My Prime Minister, regarding the riots that have occurred in city areas implementing market economy management models in recent years, has your cabinet come up with a solution in the pilot cities?"

"Your Majesty, we have indeed explored a set of relevant solutions in the pilot cities."

"From now on, the whole country will fully implement a planned economy, comprehensively dividing the demand side, production side, and supply side into the national eight-year plan."

During this nationwide protest, the Elf Kingdom's cabinet had previously focused its main energy on the kingdom's land reclamation and rural construction, only implementing a planned economy in areas outside the cities—that is, the construction corps for land reclamation and the state-run farms established after reclamation. The agricultural output of those private farm owners and farmers accounted for only 0.8% of the national agricultural production value. Furthermore, the government adopted an incentive policy for unemployed Elves, vocational students, and junior college students in cities to go to the countryside to receive government positions—that is, encouraging the urban population to join the construction corps and transfer their household registration to the corps.

But these Elves were not the main personnel of the construction corps; the bulk came from those born in rural areas and state-run farms who, in the national primary school joint examination, failed to enter the top 5% of the national ranking required for free promotion to junior high school, and whose families could not afford the tuition.

Elves living in the countryside were the main contributors to the Elf Kingdom's population growth. These underage Elves who could not afford junior high school would be arranged to join the state-run farms where they were born for training. When they reached a certain age, they would be screened, and those with good comprehensive abilities would be selected to enter the construction corps, while the rest would be filled into newly built state-run farms.

In this era, if an ordinary Elf failed to enter the top 5% of the national primary school ranking in the joint examination and obtain tuition-free status, the tuition required for one year of junior high school was equivalent to the average salary of an ordinary Elf for five years (don't talk about compulsory education up to university; that is something only a few Elves can obtain through their brains and grades). Therefore, after six years of preschool education and three years of comprehensive compulsory primary education, where the government covered 50% of the costs, the state only opened free promotion to a very small number of Elf students.

During this period, these Elf students also had to go through the screening of the top 40% of the national ranking in the junior high and high school entrance exams (in high school, they have to learn differential and integral calculus in mathematics; just think about the difficulty of the college entrance exam). Therefore, those who entered university were people capable of becoming doctors and leaders in their fields, belonging entirely to the college students produced by elite education.

As for the various processed materials and mechanical equipment needed to build state-run farms and construction corps, the government would distribute orders to various factories in cities that implemented a market economy system (in cities, the government mainly formulated and enforced laws, supervised market order, and ensured fair competition), and would levy a 60% tax on each factory at the end of the year.

They would take back a portion from the bags of money that the factory owners clutched tightly to fill the huge loopholes caused by national expenditures. If the remaining loopholes were not to explode next year, the cabinet could only keep asking for money from Rus Wang's private treasury (yes, asking, not borrowing, because since the 198th year of Levant, the government had never repaid the money it asked from Rus Wang, and Rus Wang would not take the initiative to mention it).

However, it now seems that the two economic systems of the country are clearly no longer suitable. After enjoying the dividends of the steam engine for 58 years, those factory owners can no longer control their greedy desires and have begun to ignore the government's swords, attempting to squeeze the workers' survival limits to the maximum.

The Prime Minister's eyes turned cold; those pot-bellied factory owners had likely forgotten one thing, which was that every Elf was a being who possessed Soul Power.

If it weren't for His Majesty Rus Wang acting as the strongest combatant, suppressing the entire kingdom and establishing the orderly society they had today, creatures like them who hadn't even reached level 30 would have long since been beaten to death by the pressure-filled Elf workers. (Elf Legal Code: Within cities and rural areas, adult Elves are prohibited from using Soul Power to fight outside of martial arts halls. Violators face 1 year of imprisonment; those with serious circumstances face 5 years; those who commit the offense more than three times or cause death shall be sentenced to suspended death or immediate death based on the actual situation.)

"Very well, convert private enterprises to state-owned ones, and implement it comprehensively."

Rus Wang was very satisfied with the success of the reforms in the pilot cities. Although the problems of the Soviet Union might appear in the future, Elves were very long-lived, so such issues were unlikely to arise for a very long time.

"Regarding the working hours and hourly wages for the Elves, has your cabinet finished the discussions?"

"We have already listed a series of hourly wage specifications, with a minimum hourly wage of 3 copper coins. Afterward, we will increase the hourly wage based on the technical requirements of each Elf's job position to ensure that the public can mostly accept it (a salary arrangement that satisfies everyone does not exist)."

"You've worked hard, Prime Minister. Go get a good night's sleep tonight."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

After the Prime Minister left, Toriya, who was standing beside Rus Wang, looked somewhat dazed.

"So, the government departments had already been trying to solve this problem for several years, but they needed to confirm whether the effects of the reform regulations were reasonable in the pilot cities first, which is why they kept suppressing it and didn't move?"

"A very clever summary, little Toriya. Governing a large country is like cooking a small fish; governance requires caution. One must intervene sparingly and maintain policy stability to avoid frequent changes. If the entire national governance system were changed just because of a few years of protests, it would only lead to chaos."