The Birth of a City-State

Rus Wang subsequently visited all the village alliances in the Levant Region to announce the handling of the recent bloodshed, and instructed the elders to gather together to discuss future trade and clear regulations for handling all matters, large and small. He caused a massive temple to rise up at the confluence of many rivers; even at night, the interior of the structure was as bright as day.

The elders and their guards traveled by small boats, all arriving safely at this towering, pure white temple under the currents controlled by Rus Wang. While marveling at Rus Wang's "earth-shattering power," they also harbored their own calculations regarding this meeting, which would determine the rules for all matters in the Levant Region.

At the meeting, Rus Wang recounted the results of the handling of the bloodshed that all the Elf elders of the Levant Region were concerned about. He announced that this meeting would revolve around preventing such incidents from happening again, allowing the elders of all villages to discuss the rules that every village must abide by from now on—that is, the establishment of laws.

The opening topic was the standardization of the chaotic barter trade that still persisted in the Levant Region. The disorganized bartering between village alliances and the methods of pricing copper ingots had to be unified, as this was the catalyst for the large-scale bloodshed that had occurred.

Once all the elders were present and the session began, Rus Wang placed a stone wrapped in copper skin and a solid copper ingot in front of all the Elf elders; they were visibly identical in size. However, as Rus Wang placed both on a device called a Balance, it showed a lopsided trend.

Among the elders of the 439 villages, some veterans reacted with a guilty conscience, while those who had been cheated loudly praised the wisdom of Rus Wang.

Seeing this, Rus Wang announced his new plan: to establish a trade center near the riverbank where the meeting was currently being held. Using the most convenient river transport, the goods produced by every village in the Levant Region would be gathered here. Each year, a Trade Inspector elected by each village would need to settle here, and after the caravans belonging to their respective villages arrived, they would be required to conduct open and transparent transactions under the witness of these inspectors.

As for the myriad of chaotic goods, copper would serve as the cornerstone for pricing. The details of the pricing would be discussed by the 439 veterans present, and passed by majority vote. At the same time, the elders needed to discuss corresponding punitive laws for various fraudulent behaviors.

Furthermore, given that so many Elves had died in this bloodshed, besides trade laws, laws in other areas were also needed. In the future, on the 10th day of the 6th and 11th months of each year, the elders of every village would need to gather here to seek arbitration from Rus Wang for conflicts, while also supplementing the laws discussed that year.

Soon, the formulation of laws was fiercely debated at the temple assembly that day. Only after Rus Wang announced a halt to the discussion to allow for eating and resting did the 439 elders, each with their own agendas, retreat in disappointment.

Rus Wang housed the 439 veterans and their guards in 439 Roman-style courtyards that had sprung up at the foot of Temple Mountain, each equipped with a protective barrier.

When the sun rose the next day, accompanied by Rus Wang's roar acting as an alarm clock, the elders finished the breakfast prepared by Rus Wang and began to form cliques, lobbying for more support to ensure that laws favorable to their respective village alliances would be passed.

Among them were Elder Osuen and Elder Liana, who had brought about the first merger of villages. The two villages had already been merged for six years, and Liana was currently pregnant with her second child; she should not have come to attend this temple assembly. However, Rus Wang had announced that the elders of all villages that had merged or formed alliances were to gather for the meeting.

Liana, the last elder before her village merged, dared not disobey Rus Wang's summons and came along with her husband.

Fortunately, Rus Wang had noticed this situation and arranged the courtyards of Liana and Osuen together, without separating the young couple.

During the second day of the temple assembly, the couple submitted a request to Rus Wang and the elders of other villages regarding their village merger: Liana's village would be considered a part of Osuen's village, and from then on, this village would no longer send an elder to attend future temple assemblies.

Many elders were happy to see one less person participating in the formulation of laws, and most Elf elders, after confirming Rus Wang's tacit approval, immediately raised their hands to pass it. But Rus Wang, thinking of the village merged by Osuen and Liana, roughly guessed the reason why they had made such a proposal.

That place had already completed the transformation from a village to an early city-state. A city-state of over ten thousand people was nothing in the eyes of Rus Wang's past life, even though the Elves in the city still had to go outside to farm and herd. However, the elders, the Peacekeepers, and the Citizens Assembly all revealed the rudiments of a classical republic.

By the fifth day, seeing that the elders could no longer think of what else needed to be added to the first edition of the Elder Assembly laws regarding the pricing of salt, grain, and copper ingots, Rus Wang announced that the Elder Assembly laws would take effect from that day forward, and would be recorded on stone tablets and placed at the trade center at the foot of Temple Mountain.

The elders were required to select supervisors within ten days of returning to their respective villages to come and settle here. At the same time, from this day on, no caravan from any village was allowed to conduct trade in private; it had to be conducted under the supervision of this center.

If this trade center proved inconvenient in the future, they could state it to Rus Wang at the second temple assembly next year.

With the closing of the temple gates, this abruptly risen complex of buildings became like a ghost town once the Elf elders and guards had left. But as caravans and supervisors from various villages arrived at the courtyards and the trade center at the foot of Temple Mountain the following day, this ghost town was lit up once again by the torches of the Elves. Thereafter, more supervisors and caravans—formed by villages or private groups due to the regulations of the law—gathered here to conduct trade.

As more and more Elf merchants gathered here, some Elves who had formed private caravans and the accompanying Elf craftsmen chose to settle down. Slowly, the trade center, which had originally served purely as a gathering place for caravans, gradually transformed into a settlement, and Temple City was born. With the increase in settlers, chaos inevitably arose; just like the early city-state governed by Osuen, a Merchants Assembly and a Magistrate emerged in the settlement at the foot of the mountain before the second temple assembly.

However, the wealth brought to the city by the trade center also attracted the covetous eyes of nearby village alliances. They carried out arrogant and mandatory levies, claiming that Rus Wang had not granted legitimacy to the residents settled within Temple City.

This not only ignited the anger of the settler Elves but also caused the market supervisors residing in Temple City to report these matters to the elders of each village. The conflicts between the village alliances did not decrease; instead, they became even more intense as some villages developed faster due to their proximity to Temple City, while others developed more slowly the further they were away.

It even crossed the red lines that Rus Wang had once drawn for the Elves more than once.