Chapter 120 - Foreign…

Having a conversation with Pittman wasn’t Gawain’s initial objective, but there were unexpected rewards.

Gawain wasn’t able to find out anything involved with the innate character of magic from the druids’ ritual magic. Originally, he thought he could use his transmigrator’s open-minded brain and Gawain Cecil’s knowledge to comprehend something after witnessing the druid magic from this ‘magic weirdo’. But the fact had proven that he had thought too much. On the other hand, he had heard Pittman’s ‘tiny bit of understanding’ about the druids’ theurgy and magic: ‘it isn’t because humans stole the god’s authority, but the god truncated a power that should belong to humans.’

To be honest, Gawain Cecil might be half a scholar, but it was made up of mostly bluff. He might know plenty of things, but that was only because he had witnessed many things during the pioneering expedition and had a large number of friends. Much of the knowledge in his memories were considered extensive but not refined. Take the druids’ history for example… Gawain might know that the druids were a unified religion during 3,000 years ago, but after the ‘White Starfall’ incident, the religion had split up and transformed into atheistic factions. During the process, the nature theurgy had also transformed into the current druid spells. But for the details of this history, the memories that Gawain had inherited were obviously inferior to Pittman who had received the proper inheritance from the druids (although it still seemed very improper).

Of course, the various druid factions viewed the knowledge of inheritance with great importance. As such the ‘learning of history’ was part of the fundamental lessons that druids needed to master. Furthermore, the druids’ inheritance was very reliant on the elves. Their inheritance wasn’t affected by the Dark Wave that happened 700 years ago. As such, the history of 3,000 years ago didn’t allow Gawain the ‘ancient figure’ to have a special advantage over Pittman. Thus, there were things that Pittman would know, but Gawain might not know.

It was because Pittman knew how the druid priests used theurgy 3,000 years ago and also because he knew the transformation process from theurgy to magic that Pittman was able to come up with a shocking verdict like, ‘it isn’t because humans stole the god’s authority, but the god truncated a power that should belong to humans.’

Of course, Gawain knew this verdict was only Pittman’s one-sided words and naturally couldn’t be taken as the whole truth, but in consideration of the god’s train of thought… it might be possible.

…

After sending Sir Byron out for several days, the plan to increase the territory’s population had finally turned for the better.

Just as Gawain predicted, as compared to recruiting refugees, hiring artisans, and announcing their welcome of newcomers, the truly reliable and stable source of immigrants would be to purchase serfs and slave workers.

But not everyone was so foolish; if a person had a chance to live elsewhere, would they choose to stay and work at the foot of the Dark Range?

This place was far away from civilization and close to the Gondor Wastelands. The new Cecil territory was simply constructed at the gates of hell. The southern lands had been regressing for a hundred years, and there was constant dissemination of dark stories among the people that dyed this place with even deeper and more horrific colors. Everyone believed that this place was a frightening wasteland. They felt that the old ancestor of the Cecil Clan would choose to pioneer in this place because he had been laying in the coffin for too long, and his brain had already changed. Would someone with a normal brain choose to come to such a place?

Oh, someone posted some announcements along with a few people to yell out propaganda to declare the place was safe and came with food, lodgings, and rewards. Who were they trying to fool?

In this era, the commoners were numbed beyond imagination, and their tolerance towards impoverished life was far beyond imagination too. They would rather stay in homes that had barely enough food and warmth than to take the risk and make a living in those rumored treacherous places because they couldn’t see or imagine what it was like to live in a remote place. For most of the people, the risk and costs of leaving their homes were so high that they were unable to tolerate it. If it turned out to be a wrong choice, they would be consigned to eternal damnation.

Thus, the first batch to arrive at the territory were the slaves that Sir Byron and his subordinates had bought from the nearby territories. There were serfs, slave workers, contracted slaves — all sorts of slaves. Due to the ample funding, there were more than three hundred slaves that were brought over for the first batch.

There were many other slaves that were on the way or in the cages with the slave traffickers.

Gawain naturally didn’t allow those slaves to enter the camp directly and mix with the residents. He had already ordered people in advance to level out a large piece of land at the forest towards the western side of the territory. They had also constructed large numbers of tents and simple fences. The slaves that were transported from the dock would first be temporarily quarantined at the riverside to conduct a basic identity registration and health inspection. After recording their names and making sure their bodies were healthy, the soldiers would then bring the slaves to the new camp.

At this place, the newly imported population would stay in the independent camp for at least two months. During the day, they would be led by the foremen to the various workplaces and would work together with the residents of the territory. They would be able to personally experience and learn the basic order and laws of this land. At nighttime, they would be sent back to their independent camp, and before they slept, they were required to listen to soldiers reading about ‘Cecil Clan’s basic laws’ and ‘general order of labor’. It would allow them to understand the new personnel management system in this land and most importantly…

The way to obtain freedom.

Gawain called this the ‘buffer’ process.

After two months of adapting and learning, the slaves would go through a simple observation test. It was actually for them to repeat the things that were taught to them on a daily basis and also to ask the other residents that had worked together with them to understand their work and whether they were adapting. If both factors reached a certain standard, the foreign slave would be officially accepted into the new Cecil territory. If one of the factors didn’t reach the standard… they would return to the ‘buffer camp’ and continue to receive education.

This buffer system that Gawain thought of was just at the prototype stage and was used to prevent a large influx of foreigners that might destroy the system he had painstakingly built. But Gawain knew this system had plenty of flaws — be it the time required for the buffer, the content of the education training, or the evaluation standard and accuracy afterward. Everything had to be slowly adjusted and perfected. But with this buffer process, it would prevent the risks of the situation going out of control.

The White River’s dock was busier than any of the previous days. A cargo ship hired from Tanzan Town had just unloaded a new batch of serfs and mining slave workers. The Cecil Clan warriors that were fully equipped with extraordinary equipment were monitoring with full concentration and maintaining order… Although there was a lack of ‘gentility’, those noisy serfs and slave workers would only get into the queue obediently and enter through the reserved opening in the dock’s fence when the soldiers drew their weapons.

Heidi led a group of literate people from the hundred-person aid team to record the basic information of the registered slaves. When one of the slaves walked away from Heidi, she couldn’t help but rub her temples.

That was already the third ‘Sam’ she had encountered.

None of the slaves had proper names, and no one would seriously give them names (including their parents). Only when a buyer was found would the slave traffickers give some random name, and what kind of proper names could those uneducated slave traffickers come up with?

The better ones would give names like ‘Sam’, ‘Holme’; the bad ones would just give names like ‘Fool’, ‘Tall Guy’.

Furthermore, most of the slaves didn’t clearly know their age or native homeland. When they were asked about their expertise, they weren’t able to think of any skills but would reply ‘strong’, ‘hardy’, ‘fast eater’, and all sorts of answers.

But Heidi still had to carry on with the registration of the people as most of this information was better recorded than not.

It was fortunate that the old ancestor had foresight and had the idea to give these people serial numbers. Even if they had a set of names that appeared in high frequency, there was no worry of a repeat if they were given serial numbers. Furthermore, they only had to remember their own serial number right now, and they wouldn’t possibly forget about the number, right?

Heidi lowered her head and was sorting out some newly filled-up particulars. At this moment, a particularly tall figure stood in front of her and blocked out the sun.

She lifted her head and saw that it was Gawain.

She panicked and wanted to stand up. “Ancestor, you’re here!”

“You can just remain seated.” Gawain shook his hand and looked at the dock. He noticed there were much fewer people, and it seemed like today’s registration work was nearing the end. “How do you feel?”

“To be honest, I feel that the ‘organization management’ that you mentioned to me previously is getting increasingly necessary.” Heidi nearly wanted to cry as she said, “I never imagined that writing down particulars would actually exhaust me to this extent… How good would it be if such work could be handed to someone else?”

“General education and night classes have already started. There are more literate people on the territory now. Furthermore, I have already sent Sir Byron a letter to seek out secretaries and teachers. We will need to hire a few even if we need to pay them higher salaries. The situation will improve.”

“I hope so.” Heidi massaged her waist by beating on it and said, “You have asked me to plan a large management organization, but around eighty percent of the positions are empty. Who knows how long I will need before the members are filled up?”

Gawain laughed before changing the topic. “Are there only serfs and slave workers today?”

“That’s right, only serfs and slave workers.” Heidi took a glance at the paper in her hand and said, “Ah no, there were refugees too… a family of three. They probably had no other way to survive. They had the mentality that they would either die in the Dark Range or die of hunger outside the town and had boarded the ship that Sir Byron arranged. I have already arranged a dwelling for them according to free-citizen standards.”

Gawain frowned and said, “Only three, huh…?”

“There is nothing that can be done.” Heidi let out a light sigh and said, “Even those homeless refugees wouldn’t willingly come to the Dark Range. They don’t know the actual situation here and don’t dare to come.”

“I have already asked Sir Byron to use his ‘channels’ to disseminate the information.” Gawain’s brows quickly smoothed out, and he said, “To many of the residents at the lowest rung of society, information disseminated from taverns and wanderers are much more reliable than information posted by the nobles. I believe once information is spread through those lesser channels, more refugees would be willing to try their luck in this place.”

Heidi blinked her eyes before her expression turned strange. “Back when you headed to the royal capital, did you use the same kind of dissemination… method?”

She actually wanted to say ‘trick’, but when she considered that she was already of a certain age and if the old ancestor had to correct her words, it would be rather embarrassing. Therefore, she used a neutral way of speaking.

“Please call this ‘influencing public opinion’.” Gawain gave a serious rejoinder.

Right at this moment, a lazy voice suddenly drifted through the air from his side. “Your mouth is truly able to come up with all these strange and bizarre words, huh~~”

Gawain didn’t even need to turn his head around to know who was talking. “Amber, can you use a normal method to travel? Do you always have to travel using Shadow Walk?”

As soon as he spoke, Amber indeed appeared out of midair. The half-elf hopped out from the shadow state and didn’t pay any attention to Gawain’s lecture. “Let me tell you, the camp is about to start the meal soon. I am here out of goodwill to ask you over to eat…”

This fellow would only appear according to the meal time.

Gawain didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as he looked at Amber, and just as he was about to say something, a clamor echoed from a nearby distance.

Gawain looked over while following the voice and saw the last slave at the registration who stood near another registration point. The clamor came from the person responsible for recording the details. That recorder spoke loudly, “Name. I am asking for your name… Don’t keep swaying around!”

The slave in front of the recorder just stood there blankly as though he had some illness to maintain balance as he constantly swayed his body and couldn’t hear a single thing.

The recorder’s voice got louder, “Hey, is there something wrong with your ears?! I am asking for your name! Or are you unable to understand the common language?!”

The slave finally reacted. However, he looked at the recorder with turbid eyes. His swaying was getting more intense, and he seemingly started to tremble.

When the recorder was getting stared at by the turbid and lifeless eyes, he couldn’t help but get scared, “What—what is the meaning of this?! Soldiers, soldiers!”

Right at this moment, Gawain suddenly sensed extremely unstable magic rapidly increasing in the slave’s body!