Norton's back is getting more and more hunched over every day.
The bulge on his back made it look as if someone was hunching over him, and it even extended to his thighs, making his originally slender and perfect figure look particularly strange and terrifying.
However, as the bulge behind him grew larger, the Blood Court also flourished under his leadership.
After disappearing for thirty years, the Blood Clan Progenitor Norton, returned to the throne. Upon his reappearance, he resumed his previous practices, embarking on large-scale construction projects and imposing heavy labor, often conscripting tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of Fourth-Generation Vampire for forced labor.
However, this large-scale construction project is completely different from the previous architectural wonders; its construction direction has shifted to the people's livelihood in an unprecedented way.
He proposed the bizarre idea that "to get rich, build roads first," and ordered 100,000 fourth-generation Vampire to work all night to build the Blood Court Road, connecting the entire Blood Court area with a spider web of roads to facilitate travel and trade and accelerate development.
To ensure unobstructed passage and minimize frequent dangers, he ordered the recruitment of Second-Generation Vampire- and Third-Generation Vampire to don steel armor and launch a large-scale campaign to conquer all the forests and dangerous areas within the Blood Court, wiping out all monsters stronger than mortals to reduce the difficulty of travel.
To better cope with floods, the progenitor Norton even proposed a dam strategy, recruiting a large number of Fourth-Generation Vampire to build dams along various major rivers in order to make people's lives more stable.
To motivate humans, whose lives are already free of pressure, to continue striving for improvement, he proposed an optimization method of replacing Vampire labor time with artificial time, thereby encouraging humans to engage in labor or develop creativity.
Although the humans of the Blood Court are no different from domesticated pigs, humans are ultimately intelligent beings and are naturally prone to involution.
Over the years, humans have made various attempts to reduce the corvée time required to become Vampire or even directly become Third-Generation Vampire. These attempts included bribing the local Blood Red Church or the local Vampire clans in charge, hoping to skip the hundred-year corvée period for Fourth-Generation Vampire or pursue higher Vampire status...
Norton relieved them of the pressures of work and life, but they created the pressure of becoming Vampire for themselves.
Everyone tries to gain higher status and power in order to better bribe the local Blood Red Church and Vampire clans, so that they can directly become Third Stage or even Second-Tier Vampire. As a result, the so-called wealth gap has reappeared in human society, and competitive pressure has been brought back.
However, this competitive pressure is actually beneficial to human self-development, so Norton didn't pay any attention to it.
After all, whether you are Third-Generation Vampire, Second-Generation Vampire, or First-Generation Vampire, in the eyes of His Majesty the First, you are still just a slave. The division of ranks and status is only to give them hope for advancement, so that they don't all become complacent and give up or rebel.
Norton even used this competitive mentality to open the door to development for all Vampire and humans.
Norton encouraged creativity, invention, and humanistic thought; his approach to education was completely different from that of the Papal State, which suppressed intellectual development.
However, this also led to the Blood Court becoming increasingly powerful over time. Although its technological level did not make much progress, its various systems gradually matured, and new things continued to emerge.
Because of his enlightened rule and the construction of roads and dams to improve people's lives, Norton's reputation as a tyrant has been steadily improving, and he has even been called "Holy King" by the people of the Blood Court.
There are even many books praising the progenitor Norton within the Blood Court. Perhaps thousands of years from now, when future generations see these books during archaeological digs, they will truly believe that the progenitor Norton was some kind of wise and sage ruler.
As Blood Court flourished, the Boya Empire and other nations that had reunited economically also developed rapidly during its period of unbridled growth.
The statement that war is the best catalyst for human development is absolutely true.
The pain of twenty years of stagnation with the Papal State and the subsequent domestic uprisings was completely washed away. The powerful oppression of the Papal State spurred the emperors of various countries to become exceptional individuals, devising all means to develop their power and counter external threats.
Among them, the newly enthroned Emperor Yalian III of the Boya Empire was particularly wise and powerful.
Domestically, he implemented sweeping reforms in the Boya Empire, using various incentive policies to stimulate national development, emphasizing education and skills transmission, and cultivating various talents through the Royal Academy, thereby accelerating the country's economic development.
In addition, like Norton, he mobilized a large army to wipe out monsters, beasts, and thieves within the country, thereby increasing the safety of the people's travels, encouraging commerce, and promoting the development of various family businesses, in order to cultivate super-large conglomerates to assist in managing the country and mobilizing resources.
This is mainly due to the lessons learned from the Papal State in the war. After all, the Papal State ' terrifying level of command execution back then is still a nightmare for all the countries involved.
At the same time, it also wins over its allies and establishes trade relations with other small countries to deepen cooperation and use trade surpluses to make its domestic development more cost-effective and rapid.
It even attempted to establish contact with the Blood Court, the Vampire Empire, seemingly seeking to forge a cooperative relationship in order to win over the Vampire Empire and protect the Yalian Imperial Family during its war with the Papal State.
It can be said that both the Blood Court and the Boya Empire seem to have shown signs of developing capitalism. If they continue to develop, the next step will inevitably be similar to Portugal and Great Britain, with rampant plundering and conquering cities and territories to satisfy their desire for capital expansion.
In contrast, the Holy Lord Empire, relatively conservative, feudal, and backward, even choosing to close itself off from the world to ward off the cholera outbreak caused by Vampire, seems to have regressed in all aspects, becoming stagnant and self-imposed isolation, as if it is truly heading towards its final decline through gradual internal decay...
This scene seems somewhat familiar.