Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 43: Limitations of the Era

“Look at these crystals.”

Upon seeing Herti, Gawain threw a piece of light purple crystal into her hands.

The lady looked curiously at what was in her hand, and she immediately gave a look of surprise.

“This is what you told me about earlier, the treasure house in the mountain…”

“Yes, this was taken from there.” Gawain nodded. Although he did not bring Herti along this time, he had told her about the treasure house in the Dark Range when they were in Tanzan Town. “These crystals are technology from the Gondor period. See if you can understand the rune structure.”

Any mage, who had not had their head squashed by a door, would realize the value of these crystals upon seeing them. Herti was immediately enthralled by these beautiful light purple crystals. But after some fiddling with it, she shook her head with slight embarrassment. “Ancestor… I’m sorry. I’m embarrassed that… I’m only a level three mage. I’m afraid I can’t produce something so advanced…”

Gawain looked at Herti’s eyes. “I’m not asking you to produce it, but only to analyze its rune structure. If you can, draw out this rune structure. I’m afraid no one in this era will be able to produce something like this. This was created by the power of the Well of Deep Blue poured into it.”

“Well of Deep Blue…” Hearing this famous name, Herti could not help repeating it. Then she stared fervently at the crystal in her hand. “If I am to just read the rune structure and organize it, that’s not too difficult. As long as we have a crystal resonator, we can project out the inscriptions inside. But to just read the rune structure… What’s the use of that? Without a method to inject energy and activate it, the rune structure is just a bunch of diagrams…”

“We’ll talk about that next time,” Gawain said as he nodded, “These crystals can no longer be produced. Before they are completely spent, I want to preserve as much information as possible.”

“Oh,” said Herti as she put away the crystal. She still had the tired look on her face. But after learning about the “treasure house in the mountain”, her newfound spirit made her look better than before. Gawain took the opportunity to ask about how the construction of the camp was going.

“Before the sun sets, we can set up all the tents and also a fence. I’m going to set up some magic traps and warning runes in the perimeter. Those should be more than enough to keep out wild beasts. The lumberjacks found a lot of good quality wood in the forest to the west. The timber are temporarily stored upstream of the White River. After chopping some more tomorrow, we can simply let the timber flow downstream. Also, according to the information you provided, I sent two people to the east, and we did find iron ores. But now we still have no smelting capability. We can only do it a little at a time. Now the most important problem is the shortage of manpower. The advance team’s main objective is to scout the situation and establish the outpost. We’ll need the incoming men to harvest resources.”

“In three days’ time, the main party will arrive, and by then the manpower problem would be alleviated, and we’ll also have the tools and materials.” Gawain said as he turned to look at the camp that was gradually nearing its completion.

He had many plans and many programs. His broad perspective as a transmigrator and Gawain Cecil’s wealth of knowledge gave him plenty of confidence. Thus, seeing this early version of the camp, he inevitably felt a surge of ambition…

The tents were neatly arranged according to the plan. They had also dug gutters within the camp. After channeling the water from the White River into these gutters tomorrow, it could then prevent fire, which would be the most dangerous thing that could befall a camp. The craftsmen were working on the wood, nailing them together to make the most primitive and simple fence. The fences would not provide much protection against real monsters, but they would be more or less useful when dealing with wild beasts. The lumberjacks who had earlier went to the west forest to log had returned and were resting now…

Everything seemed to be going well.

But after walking into the camp and inspecting it again, Gawain could not help but frown.

He saw the wretched look of indifference on the faces of the craftsmen and civilian laborers and their not so skillful ways of slacking off. From the tents and fences that were seemingly neat and in accordance to how they were supposed to be built, he could see lots of indications of cutting corners everywhere. The most common was the use of fewer nails, and some tents were not even tied steadily.

At least the craftsmen could complete their work with precision under Herti’s supervision, but the civilian laborers who were helping out were totally doing the work in a slipshod manner. Actually, Gawain had expected that most civilians in this era would not be educated. They were illiterate with language and also with numbers. Thus he explained to everyone in detail earlier about how these tents should be set up and how the entire camp was arranged. But from the looks of things, apart from placing the tents and fences in the places he had strictly marked out, almost every individual metric of the camp had not met the standards!

Did they not know that these tents and fences were their only protection in the wilderness for the near future?

Gawain pondered in frustration, and then he suddenly recovered from it.

Indeed. They did not know.

Because these things belonged to the Lord, not them. Even if they were given these tents to stay in, they did not believe that they could stay here forever. There would come a day when the uncultivated lands would be identified, and they would be forced to these lands. The tents would then be taken down and the land be used for the Lord’s castle and stable.

This was the typical way of the era, and everyone had no doubt this would be how things would turn out.

Despite experiencing the disaster in the old Cecil territory, coming here together with the party in exile, having started on constructing their new home, these civilians and serfs, who had survived this stiff, rotten era, were already used to suffering and the feeling of indifference. Thus they would not bear the hopes of great blessings that might come after the passing of disasters, nor would they have the spirit and energy to build their new home.

Gawain realized that he had thought too naively and that part of the plan that he had spent so long to come up with would probably not be so easily achievable.

He immediately called Herti and Rebecca.

Looking at the tent in front of them that seemingly met his requirements, yet upon closer examination, was found to be lacking a few braces and was slanted, he pointed to the areas where corners were cut. “What do you think of this?”

Herti did not understand Gawain’s intention, thinking that he was going to blame her, she immediately lowered her head. “Sorry, Ancestor. I was the one who supervised…”

“No, it’s not a problem of supervision. You can’t be watching them put in every nail,” Gawain interrupted her. “It’s a problem of the workers’ attitude.”

“Lord Ancestor, you can’t expect too much from those civilians and serfs.” Rebecca thought for a moment and explained, “Most of them have hardly any education, except for doing the work their ancestors had been doing on farms and mines, they can’t do other, more complicated tasks. The vast majority of these people have never set up tents before. These are all too complicated for them, especially with the standards and functions you specifically detailed for these tents and the plan for the entire camp.”

Gawain shook his head. “Is this really that complicated?”

Herti nodded slightly. “Only military camps will be so strict. These civilians and serfs will not be able to meet these expectations.”

“No, this is not complicated at all. I have already broken down each step that they need to take to their most simplified level. Everyone only needs to do one thing. Hammer the nails, tie the ropes, or saw the wood. They don’t need to know the plan for the entire camp at all. The work that needs to be done is no more complicated than coolie work.” Gawain looked at Rebecca and Herti. “Do you think the civilians and serfs are so dumb that they won’t even be able to manage this? ”

Herti and Rebecca looked at each other. They could tell that Gawain was not very happy, but they did not know what the issue was exactly. As for Gawain’s question, the two, especially Herti, thought that the answer was very straightforward.

They were dumb, of course.

Being born and brought up in this era, neither of them were very knowledgeable or outstandingly enlightened individuals. It was impossible for them to have knowledge and understanding beyond this era.

In fact, Herti and Rebecca were already the odd ones among the nobles, showing extreme improvement over others. Herti had never allowed the clan’s knights or soldiers to rob from civilians and serfs and found ways to ensure that every person in the territory would not starve. What was more, Rebecca broke the cycle of serfs having to stay as serfs their whole lives. She created a path of progression for them to become free people. She also enabled civilians and serfs to have freedom of movement within the territory and for the civilians to have the freedom to run businesses…

Each of these loose policies could be said to have challenged the conventions. However, they were still stuck in their thinking that civilians and serfs were inferior.

Perhaps they might not consciously believe it, but just because they claimed otherwise would not change their subconscious beliefs.

Gawain was certainly aware of this. Thus, he did not summon the two nth times granddaughters to reprimand or enlighten them. He was not naive enough to think that the civilians and serfs in the camp could be transformed into sober, active and ambitious citizens with just a word or two from him.

This would take a long process. For now, he just needed these people to finish the work as required as soon as possible.

“Gather everyone, serfs, soldiers, all of them,” Gawain ordered, “while there is still daylight.”

Those who were working and resting were quickly summoned. Even Amber, who was bragging to Betty about her adventure to the treasure house in the mountain, rushed over curiously. Betty followed beside her with a vacant expression.

Everyone had no idea what this 700-year-old ancestor was planning to do. Even Herti and Rebecca were clueless.

The civilians and serfs gathered together as ordered apathetically. The civilians gathered in a group, the serfs gathered in another group, and the soldiers stood along the sides to maintain order.

Many people thought that their “new Lord” had more orders for them, which might be even more complicated than those “tent system”. Thus they came looking dreadful as they had initially thought they could sleep after finishing the work.

Gawain stood on a large rock and looked down at the people below, numbering more than a hundred. He had already noticed Amber sneakily hiding within the crowd. He was initially going to remove this punk, who was probably going to cause trouble, but on second thought, he just kept quiet about it.

Then he cleared his throat and said in a loud voice that everyone could hear, “People of Cecil territory, I have something to tell you. It is about your future and the new law of the Cecil territory!”