In the end, the Blessed warriors still failed to satisfy Yupa.
Three days of hellish training had officially begun.
Leaving aside the "inhuman" treatment Por and the others were subjected to, Mu En turned his attention to development within the Valley of the Wind for the time being.
The biggest advance was that the number of Blessed in the Valley of the Wind had surpassed thirty.
Every day, Mu En selected a few people from those previously chosen for commendation and transformed them.
Of course, they would not all be assigned to the Blessed warriors, as many tasks urgently required the help of the Blessed.
The task that needed the most help was clearing the contamination from the valley.
With the Blessed helping, the contaminated soil that no one had known how to deal with and could only dump into the sea had become a treasure in Beruto's eyes.
All they had to do was pile it up and have a Blessed use the Law of Regression to remove the toxins of the Sea of Corruption, turning it back into fertile soil.
Grace crops were not a long-term solution. Land that had been so thoroughly stripped of its fertility would probably take a year or two to recover.
If they could not obtain chemical fertilizer in large quantities, then the original farming methods were the proper way forward.
Besides that, the mining industry, which required a great deal of heavy physical labor, also needed these immensely strong Blessed.
A skilled Blessed miner could extract nearly three times as much Ceramic Steel as before.
And whether they were trading for vital supplies with the merchants who would soon arrive or making equipment for the Blessed warriors, they needed this precious metal.
With the Blessed driving things forward, the entire Valley of the Wind seemed to have pressed the fast-forward button. The long-absent bustle was back in the air.
Today, however, was an important day that had the valley residents putting down their work early and gathering together.
At the edge of the village stood the granaries.
The cleanup of the two burned-down granaries was nearly finished.
Only a few charred pieces of wood and the remains of grain were left to tell of the recent disaster.
As evening fell, many valley residents who had finished their day's work gathered in the open space in front of the granaries, waiting expectantly.
As usual, rations were distributed every three days, and today was distribution day.
Many still savored the memory of the delicious food at the festival banquet a few days ago, looking forward to receiving the grace grain bestowed by Lord Erdtree.
Since the chief had announced that the famine was completely over, surely grain distribution would return to normal?
In the past, the granary guards and the farmers' foreman had usually handled this together.
People only had to collect prepacked bags of grain in the amounts allotted according to their registered age and occupation.
But for some reason, the person in charge of distributing grain today was the agriculture elder, Beruto himself.
He sat leisurely at the entrance to the last surviving granary, behind a long table that had been brought over for the occasion.
On the table was a new notebook that appeared to have just been printed and bound using coarse paper, along with a leather pouch whose contents were unknown.
At the appointed time, the valley residents lined up and stepped forward one after another, ready to collect the grain that sustained them and their families.
But when the person at the front held out a hand as usual...
"What did you say? What do you mean you won't be handing out grain anymore!?"
The words were like water splashed into boiling oil, causing a huge commotion in the line.
"What do you mean, Elder? Why won't you give us grain?"
"Yeah, I saw the grain in the granary!"
"Give us grain! Give us grain!"
The crowd shouted and began pushing forward.
Beruto, sitting behind the wooden table, remained perfectly calm. He casually spat out the fresh stalk of wheat he had been holding between his teeth and slowly rose to his feet.
"Shut the hell up, all of you-!!!"
As a Blessed, his powerful bellow, backed by his astonishing lung capacity, drowned out everyone else.
Coupled with his tough, scarred face, which commanded respect even without anger, it was as though the agitated crowd had been seized by the throat. The clamor stopped abruptly.
"What are you all making such a racket for? Didn't you see the notice in the castle square this morning?"
Beruto barked irritably.
A notice?
The people exchanged looks.
Normally, notices were only posted in the castle square for major matters, such as a change of chief, an enemy invasion, or a celebration like yesterday's Festival of Grace.
But the Valley of the Wind had been peaceful for so many years. Where would all those "major matters" come from, and who would normally make a special trip to the square to look at that bare wooden board?
"Make way up front! Don't block me from collecting my work points!"
Just then, a tall, burly man covered from head to toe in dust from the mine pushed through the crowd and shouted.
"Elder Beruto, I'll go first. My name's Sura." He came up to the long table and forced a flattering smile.
Sura's appearance immediately stirred up discussion.
He was one of the people who had been commended before, and also one of the newly Blessed.
Beruto nodded, picked up the thick ledger on the table that had just been compiled, and ran his finger down the list.
"Sura... Sura the miner. Today you mined three kilograms net of Ceramic Steel, plus twenty kilograms of scrap metal... Hmm, let's make that ten work points."
The conversation between Sura and Beruto left the many valley residents behind him even more bewildered.
"Work points?"
"What are those? A new crop? Can you eat them?"
Beruto reached into the leather pouch on the table and pulled out ten coin-shaped wooden discs, which he handed to Sura.
The people behind him craned their necks and saw that each disc bore a golden mark.
Sura carefully accepted the discs, his face lighting up with delight.
Then he hurried excitedly over to a guard at the granary entrance.
A wooden board that few people had noticed before stood there, covered in densely packed small writing in charcoal.
He opened his eyes wide and carefully scanned the board back and forth, earnestly choosing something.
"Um... I'll take a bag of 'grace wheat' and a bag of 'festival vegetables'..." He paused, looking as though it pained him, but finally gritted his teeth and said:
"And a bottle of olive oil and a bottle of fine salt!"
Having made his selection, Sura handed over all the wooden discs in his hand.
"One point for a kilogram of grace wheat, two for a bag of vegetables, and three each for a bottle of salt or oil... Nine work points total. Here."
The guard counted out nine discs and returned the remaining one to Sura, then turned and went into the granary to fetch the food he had exchanged them for.
As he handed over the bags and packages, even he could not help showing envy.
"My wind god, that's so much food!"
The lavish haul in Sura's hands caused an instant sensation, and gasps rang out through the crowd.
Leaving aside the large sack of wheat, weren't the contents of that wicker basket the delicious vegetables the divine tree had bestowed at the festival a few days ago?
And the two palm-sized glass bottles actually contained emerald-green olive oil and snow-white fine salt, things they rarely even got to see!
A man who knew him soon grabbed him, unable to wait any longer to ask:
"Sura, what's going on? How did you get so many good things?"