The old village chief's explanation concluded swiftly. It had to be said, as a former leader, he was cut out for this kind of work.
Unlike the corrupt Master of Lake-town who rose to power by inciting the masses, this village chief had been legitimately chosen by the majority of people, who believed in his ability to lead. Although Levi hadn't said anything, the chief proactively took on the responsibility of supervision, preventing the villagers from his community from doing anything foolish.
In reality, even without his supervision, these residents wouldn't dare to slack off or play tricks. Their lord's reputation was simply too formidable, so much so that even when they were camping in tents in the wilderness outside the walls, no orcs or bandits dared to approach.
This legendary reputation was already enough to suppress any deviant thoughts. Now that the people also knew this lord possessed magic that could track every contribution they made to the territory, the residents became even more self-motivated to maintain order.
However, Levi did not yet know that the enthusiasm the residents would show for this kind of tangible progress would far exceed his imagination.
While the residents were orderly receiving their tools and starting basic production work, Levi found an empty space within the city, poured lava around it, and then placed the fire dragon egg in the very center.
Feeling the heat from the surrounding lava, the dragon egg immediately entered an incubation state. To be honest, Levi couldn't quite tell which mod this egg was from. When the egg suddenly appeared in his inventory, the crafting table unlocked items from two mods simultaneously: one was Ice and Fire, and the other was Dragon Mounts.
Regarding this dragon egg and the dragon inside, Levi guessed it was likely a compatible entity, with characteristics that were universal to both mods. The dragon egg flickered occasionally, showing its vitality, but after a long wait, there was no sign of it hatching.
It seemed it wouldn't be emerging anytime soon.
Levi shook his head, went to the warehouse to get some sturdy, fire-resistant building materials, and completely sealed off the area. This way, even if the dragon egg suddenly hatched when he wasn't aware, it wouldn't cause any trouble.
Clang, clang, clang!
The first thing Levi did after leaving the incubation pool was to go to the smithy and enchant his ancient Elven sword with Knockback. After some thought, he also gave it a new name.
In fact, ever since he had cut a bloody path through Ravenhill and obtained the title Orc-Bane, Levi had already decided on its name.
Bane
Its meaning was simple: anyone who stood against Levi and this sword would feel as if they were facing their own destruction. Levi drew the sword, carefully examining the new inscription on it that represented its name.
From this day forward, this too would be a named sword. It had slain thousands of orcs and wargs combined, including two orc chieftains. In the future, even if Levi wasn't present, just throwing this sword into a horde of orcs might be enough to make them scatter in terror, not daring to approach.
To orcs, this was a weapon with a built-in fear aura. Seeing it would be like the Free Peoples seeing Sauron's blood-soaked, evil mace; they would feel terror from the depths of their hearts.
After enchanting the sword, Levi looked at another material in his inventory. Dragon scales. Armor made from this item had a defense value six points higher than Netherite, but there was a problem: it didn't provide knockback resistance. This meant that if he swapped his Netherite gear for those six points of armor, he could be knocked back or even sent flying by powerful attacks in the future.
Like Azog's mace or the massive slap of a troll or giant beast. That impact force was not something an ordinary person could withstand. If not for the knockback resistance of his Netherite armor, Levi would have been sent flying several times at the Lonely Mountain.
After careful consideration, Levi ultimately chose to stick with his Netherite armor for the time being. For the current combat intensity, it was completely sufficient. If he were to change armor, he could wait for the fire dragon to hatch and forge Dragonsteel. Armor made from that material had a full 34 defense points. Once he put on Dragonsteel armor, even Sauron himself might not be able to break through it. To even breach his defense, Sauron would probably need to be in his prime with the One Ring on.
Shaking his head, Levi walked to the vicinity of the Nether portal. He suddenly remembered something else and immediately opened his map to take a look. The straight-line distance from Roadside Fort to Dale was about 1,100 kilometers.
This was a hair-pulling distance. A round trip between these two territories, even traveling through the Nether, would be a journey of 140 kilometers. If he wanted to pursue ultimate efficiency and build a Nether highway from Roadside Fort to Dale, even a one-block-wide road would require at least 140,000 blue ice blocks.
Nine regular ice blocks could craft one packed ice, and nine packed ice could craft one blue ice. This meant that 81 regular ice blocks were needed to craft one blue ice. By that calculation, building this road would require 11,340,000 regular ice blocks, enough to fill more than three thousand large chests.
Levi thought about the blue ice inventory he had accumulated over the entire past winter. It really wasn't much, not even enough to build a tenth of the highway. After all, he had been distracted with other things that winter and hadn't been guarding the ice farm from morning till night.
Phew.
Taking a breath and leaving the warehouse, Levi felt this matter required long-term planning. But speaking of which, the current climate was already quite cold, approaching freezing temperatures. It was clear that winter was just one snowfall away. Soon he could start collecting ice again. The highway didn't necessarily have to be made of blue ice; packed ice would also work, just a bit slower. The maximum speed of a boat on blue ice was 72m/s, while on packed ice it was 40m/s. It was usable, and in any case, faster than a horse. Compared to blue ice, the latter was slower but saved nine times the materials. With some effort, he could definitely collect enough in one winter.
As Levi was thinking about these things while walking towards the castle, he suddenly saw a person standing at the castle entrance. It was the old village chief.
"Is there a problem?"
"It's like this, my lord, we do have some questions..." the old village chief said, shifting his weight awkwardly. "I didn't mean to disturb you, but there are some things everyone really wants to know, so they entrusted me to ask."
"It's no problem," Levi smiled and said. "If you have any questions, just ask. Don't be afraid, I'm not a troll."
Hearing this, the old village chief relaxed a little and began to state the townsfolks' questions one by one. However, the content made Levi feel a bit amused.
"Someone asked if they could take the extra magic seeds back to plant in their own house yards." After asking, the old village chief added, "If this request is too forward, I ask for your forgiveness. Most of us are farmers by trade, and having experienced hunger and wandering, we just feel an urge to plant something in our own homes upon seeing things that can be grown. We have absolutely no other intentions..."
"It's fine," Levi replied. "Feel free to take them and plant them. The seeds here can mature once every three days, and pumpkins can grow several in a single day. You can plant as many as you want. Just go ahead and do it."
"But although there is a lot of food, I must remind you not to be wasteful."
"Th-three days?" Hearing this, the old village chief's mouth dropped open. Levi hadn't mentioned this to him before. Now, hearing it for the first time, he was completely stunned. He had thought the magic crops here were just resistant to cold and lodging, and could be planted in winter, but he never expected their growth speed to be so fast.
"I, I understand. We will definitely not waste this food. Thank you for your generosity." Receiving Levi's response, the old village chief seemed quite excited.
A thought occurred to Levi, and he suddenly asked, "What's your name?"
"My name is Vide, my lord."
"Alright, Vide. I see you have a lot of prestige among the residents, and you were their original village chief. How about this: from today onwards, you will serve as the representative of this community."
"As a representative, your job is to collect the residents' opinions and then report them back to me."
"But you must remember the meaning of the word 'representative.' It only represents. You can provide feedback on behalf of the residents."
"I understand. I will definitely do this job well, my lord." Old Vide gave a bow, looking slightly thrilled. He had heard of similar 'representative' positions and could understand it. It was about summarizing the residents' problems and relaying the message. He had done this kind of thing before, but usually, he was also the one who had to come up with the solutions, as he was the village chief. A village chief's job was to solve problems for the villagers.
Watching old Vide's excited expression, Levi suddenly thought of another issue. The refugees Vide represented had all experienced a normal life. They were excited to see the crops here and knew the difference between this place and the outside world, but their descendants might not. This led to problems in education.
Levi certainly didn't want a future where his citizens thought that crops outside also matured in three days. Children spoiled like that would suffer greatly if they ever went out into the world. Therefore, a certain level of common sense education was necessary.
This matter was also entrusted to Vide. After Levi's reminder, the old village chief clearly realized the problem. He said he would work with everyone to figure out a way to properly educate the children about the world so that future generations could distinguish between life inside and outside the territory.
After discussing the issue of common sense education, old Vide continued to raise the residents' questions, but most were minor, trivial matters similar to the 'can we take seeds home to plant?' question. Some people even asked if they could work all day long. These were the ones who liked to hustle. Levi's reply was that it would speed up their process of becoming official Residents.
Vide returned with Levi's answers. As for Levi, he went back to the castle, rested for a while, looked at the sky, and then at his territory.
At this moment, he no longer had to collect the basic resources within the territory himself. The residents carried out their work in an orderly fashion, continuously throwing the collected materials into the hoppers, replenishing the inventory. These basic materials would become the guarantee for building various large-scale projects in the future.