Chapter 357 — The Public Order Problem
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
In the third week of the Month of Revival, Cecil Territory received a small rainfall.
Norris, the head of agriculture, stood before a field that had just been leveled, watching the farmers hurry back and forth across it. On their backs they carried metal boxes shaped much like the combat packs of the soldiers, and from each box ran iron pipes and pump levers; as the user worked the levers, the nozzles at the ends of the pipes sprayed out liquid in a steady, generous stream.
That was the "sprayer," newly built this spring by the third workshop of the Machinery Works. It was said to be Miss Rebecca's invention, and it contained not the slightest magical apparatus; even the dullest man could learn to use one after a little training. With such a sprayer, a single farmer could do in one day the work of several, and its function was simple: to spread alchemical agents over the fields quickly, efficiently, and evenly.
The mist from the sprayers gleamed with a faint blue-green luster in the sunlight. Steeped in magical power, it acted the moment it touched the soil, soaking into the earth, breaking down the plant debris within it, and releasing the harmful magic that had accumulated there. As plants grew, they continually concentrated certain kinds of magic or elements in their root systems, and this accumulation caused crop yields to fall year after year while the plants rapidly reverted to the wild. This was common knowledge among farmers, and there were only two ways to deal with it: either leave the land fallow and rotate crops, trading two or three years of rest for a rebalancing of the soil's magic and fertility, or use druid potions or divine arts of fertility to adjust the land.
The former cost time and wasted land; the latter was expensive and could not be counted on.
But in Cecil Territory, none of this was a problem.
The alchemical factories coming into production had brought this land a supply of alchemical agents abundant beyond belief. Agricultural growth accelerants and Land Rejuvenation Potions, forever in short supply under normal circumstances, were here rationed out directly by the Bureau of Administration into every farmer's hands. It was for this reason that the farmers of the spring plowing could use devices as frighteningly efficient as the "sprayer" to spread precious alchemical agents, giving every inch of soil ample care.
Watching the mist soak into the soil little by little, until the whole field seemed to float on a pale shimmer of magic, Norris himself felt as though he had finally tasted sweet rain after a long thirst. He knew how much more grain land could yield once it was properly tended, and grain was the very lifeblood of the people. For all of this, thanks were owed to the lord and to the clever minds in the territory's various research institutes.
So what other unexpected things might those clever minds produce in the future, things capable of transforming the entire territory?
In the Bureau of Administration at the heart of the territory, Gao Yang met Heidi, who had just finished the latest census.
"We have welcomed the territory's thirty-thousandth settler," the beautiful lady announced cheerfully the moment she saw Gao Yang. "On the cargo ship that docked at the Whitewater River wharf this morning, a group of farmers from the western regions completed their registration. They have already reported to the buffer camp."
At the Bureau, Heidi usually wore a plain black skirt suit and pinned her hair up high. Looking at her like this, the words "workplace elite" would rise unbidden in Gao Yang's mind. Hearing her report, he could not help but smile. "It seems the West District, which just finished its expansion over the winter, will soon be bustling."