Chapter 47: Development of Arden Island
“I’m going to tell you a story about Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs…”
The Ardennes’ children were playing with the tree elf descendants’ lolis and shotas, telling them the stories that Bai Luo once told them about.
“Talking cat…”
The tree elf shota Billy curiously said,
“Apart from her inability to speak, Lingling really looks like it.”
“I’ll tell you a secret… Lady Lilith can also create glass slippers.”
“Wow! Then isn’t lady Lilith like the godmother from fairy tales?”
“Come on, come with us, let’s go ask lady Lilith to make us a pumpkin carriage.”
“Is there truly a pumpkin carriage?”
“Here comes the pumpkin carriage!”
Lilith loves children. Upon receiving their request, she immediately staged a magic show for them, which drew countless exclamations.
“Wow~~~~”
“Awesome!”
“It’s almost like a dream!”
“…”
“Huh? What kind of tool is this? Don’t you just need an ax for chopping trees?”
“Haha, you guys don’t know about this, right? It’s a saw!”
Because of the miracle oath, the tree elves’ descendants officially joined Arden.
This also means that the Arden clan discarded all suspicions and hard feelings towards them. From now on, they will treat them like family, without distinction.
Lilith used magic to bless some logging tools such as axes and saws.
However, these objects don’t have any intelligence or awareness, so Lilith spiritually connected them with the Ardennes, ordering these tools to follow the Ardennes’ orders and carry out the task of logging.
This is also to prevent problems that might arise with this type of magic spell.
Lilith gave the Ardennes complete command of these logging tools. Once an ax or any other tool falls out of control, starting to randomly cut down trees without permission, the Ardennes can immediately stop them.
Of course, Lilith also gave these tools an absolute order, that they mustn’t harm the Ardennes and other creatures under any circumstances.
Quite a few people entered the mountain forest, and there were more than 200 logging tools. Almost everyone can get 5 tools, then their task is to supervise the operation of these tools like supervisors.
“What kind of food is this, I’ve never seen it before.”
A tree elf lady. Well, although she is over 350 years old, she can indeed be called a lady. She looked at the flour curiously,
“It’s a bit like the golden cascading wheat powder that the old clan chief described to us.”
It has to be said that the elves are indeed a race that makes it difficult to distinguish between ages.
Just like the women in front of Emmett, most of them are over 350 years old but based on their appearance, they are almost indistinguishable from beautiful ladies in their twenties.
Tree elves are generally very gentle. The Ardennes women got along with them very well.
“This is flour, the milled powder of a grain called wheat. The noodles made from it are delicious.”
Emmett led the women of the two clans who could cook and began to prepare food for everyone.
Although there is the convenience of Lilith’s abilities, she is a bit weak in the creative department.
So in terms of cooking, Emmett improves every day and develops new recipes and exquisite food. In contrast, Lilith’s magic is more suitable for mass production.
If a supermarket is opened in Arden in the future, then canned goods, snacks, and preserved food are very suitable to be manufactured by Lilith’s power.
However, for truly delicious food, one that is made by real chefs, the Ardennes have to take action themselves.
In addition, Bai Luo also imposed restrictions on Lilith’s creative work. After all, if they blindly rely on Lilith’s convenient powers, then the Ardennes would become wastrels.
Bai Luo simply stated that in the future, in addition to the work that requires a lot of manpower and is very time-consuming, everyone should rely on themselves as much as possible, tapping into their creativity and honing their skills.
In this way, The Ardennes and the tree elves united as one, contributing to the construction of their home together.
The matter of cultivating land doesn’t need the Ardennes to take action, Lilith can take care of this with her magic.
She can directly reform land, turning it into arable land.
The land is not a raw material. She just has to roll it over and transform it a little, something that is easy to do with Lilith’s magic.
Sowing isn’t a problem either, with a wave of her magic wand, all seeds have been automatically sorted and planted.
Of course, the premise is that Lilith knows how these seeds should be planted.
Sowing is a more complicated job. Different seeds have different requirements for the environment. Lilith can’t solve everything with a single magic spell.
In this regard, Bai Luo sent out the Ardennes along with Lilith. They pointed to the field and told her how and where to plant them.
“Whoo~”
“Snap! Snap!”
Tools floated mid-air at the lumberyard. One tree after the other turned into smooth logs under their collective work, then broke apart again, turning into neat stacks of wooden stakes.
Afterward, under Lilith’s control, houses were built using these wooden stakes as building blocks.
They’re obviously just stacked together, but they have fused with each other. Moreover, whether it was in terms of details or craftsmanship, it was in no way under ones that were meticulously made by hand.
“Next is the painting.”
Lilith waved her wand and pointed at a house,
“Become pretty.”
“Boom!”
Whether it was the roofs, doors, windows, or stairs, they were painted beautifully. The house became an incredible spectacle.
Flowers bloomed on the house, vines and green leaves dotted it, birds that came from who knows where started making homes on it, and the cute cats ran happily into the yard. Their big watery eyes scanned the Ardennes’ new houses curiously.
“Squeak.”
Bai Luo pushed aside the fence, looked carefully inside, and found that it was a rather peaceful rustic cottage. A small European-style wooden house with a pretty garden.
It’s like the magic cottage that only exists in fairy tales, the kind with its own light and shadow effects.
“So Lilith, in the end, what is the principle behind your magic?”
Bai Luo felt that it was probably his perception of fairy tales.
Just like the basic sacred pouch can pour out the mature potatoes and sweet potatoes, but not the mature ginseng, it’s based on Bai Luo’s common sense.
Of course, Lilith has no way to speed up the growth of crops.
It’s probably because he had never heard of a fairy that can affect the agriculture of an entire country by just waving her wand.
That’s no longer something within the capabilities of a fairy. It’s simply the work of a god.
“Lilith can make trees grow, and flowers bloom out of thin air, but I have no way to affect seeds.”
“That’s more than enough.”
If Lilith is all-powerful, then the Ardennes would truly become wastrels and that’s no good.
They can enjoy convenience, but they mustn’t remain idle all day long.
To be honest, Bai Luo is already extremely satisfied with the powers of his miracle.
“Is this enough?”
In the evening, Lilith was wielding her wand and shaping houses for everyone.
After building more than 10 houses in a row, Lilith continued to quickly build another 20 houses without any traces of exhaustion.
In one afternoon, the enchanted tools under the supervisors had chopped down more than 4000 trees, a third of which was refined into smooth wooden stakes.
The former is simple, but the latter is relatively time-consuming.
Normally, the most time-consuming task is definitely the construction of the houses. Fortunately, this most difficult step had been undertaken by Lilith.
“Everyone, pick up your preferred house.”
“The residence of the tree elves is over there.”
These houses belong to the Ardennes. The hollow trees where the tree elves’ descendants chose to live have easily been made with Lilith’s magic.
Lilith quickly changed the ancient trees, removing the tree’s cores and greatly expanding the hollow area inside. A circular wooden door appeared on the tree bark, followed by two windows. Finally, it was quickly embellished with branches, flowers, vines, and leaves.
With the support of Lilith’s power, the ancient trees weren’t affected, still as lush as in the past. In fact, they became even more vibrant.
Whether it was the Ardennes or the tree elves’ descendants, they couldn’t help but marvel at Lilith’s power.
“Lilith’s ability does indeed lean towards the forest system.”
Building a house takes some time, but transforming an ancient tree into a treehouse is a matter of seconds.
Bai Luo even considered whether to simply let the Ardennes live in a treehouse as well.
However, he gave up on this idea in the end. There are too many problems with living in treehouses. It might not appear now, but in the future, when the population of Arden reaches 100,000 or even a million, then living in tree houses would portray their culture as very simple, and this is just one of the many problems.
Therefore, the construction of normal houses is a must. This task can’t be avoided.
“Pitter! Patter!”
“It’s raining, everyone! Quickly go inside your house.”
The climate of islands is quite volatile. The tree elves’ descendants have been living on this island for thousands of years, they naturally have deep knowledge about this.
Grandpa Andrew shared this knowledge with the old man.
Therefore, everyone first transported food and other materials into the warehouse, urging the children to go first to the houses and treehouses. Only after finishing their tasks did they go inside their new residence to rest and enjoy the warmth.
“Drink a bowl of ginger soup, then take a bath. Otherwise, you’ll catch a cold.”
One of the many mysteries of the basic sacred pouch is that it can pour out ginger, but not ginseng, Bai Luo couldn’t help but complain,
‘Are you not considering ginger a medicine, ha?!’
The house is very warm, with iron oil lamps hanging on the walls. The orange-yellow light lighted the house, casting shadows on the walls.
“Ah~~”
Inya happily said, “It’s so warm.”
Bai Luo’s house is very simple, with only three rooms and a toilet.
The ground under the toilet has been modified by Lilith’s fairy magic, setting up qualified sewage pipes. The three rooms belong to Bai Luo, Inya, and Issafeiya.
The old man lives in another house. He likes calm and peace. Moreover, he also wanted to leave enough space for the youth to live.
As the leader, Bai Luo was the only one who could live in a two-story cottage. This was also Lilith’s intention.
In the eyes of miracle creatures, their master is their highest priority.
If it wasn’t for the fact that the construction of the castle would take a long time, Lilith would never let Bai Luo live in such a humble abode.
In fact, earlier, Lilith suggested building Bai Luo’s palace first, leaving the other to live in tents for a few more days.
In this regard, the old man raised his hands in favor.
The same is true of other people. All of them think that their king must be treated in a manner that is worthy of a king.
However, Bai Luo refused, he didn’t want to do such a snobby thing.
Lilith was helpless, so she could only build a bigger and prettier cottage for him, as a symbol of his status.
This is also the reason why everyone could have a house to live in today.
If Bai Luo only took himself into consideration, maybe everyone would have to squeeze inside the treehouses.
“Crackle.”
In the fireplace, the charcoal fire made a crisp sound, Inya stood in front of the fire and stared blankly at it. The silly girl had been like this for a long time.
[Miracle power: 30%]
After building them houses, the miracle power of the tree elves’ descendants had increased by 5%.
Bai Luo’s guess was indeed correct, treating them kindly would result in a gradual increase in miracle power.
“There’s still 70% left…”
Bai Luo wondered about what else he could do.
“The rain has stopped.”
Soon, the endless droplets stopped falling from the sky.
This is the climate of the sea, the rain comes with the wind, and when the wind passes, the rain is over.
“Inya, come here! It’s time for dinner.”
“Dinner?!”
Hearing about dinner, Inya became more active than anyone else,
“I’m coming! I’m coming!”
The following days were very peaceful. There was no sign of the pirates returning. Perhaps, it’s because they had set off not long ago.
But even so, the old man regularly sent the white eagles to patrol around the island, so as to receive the news at the fastest speed.
The same goes for Shirley.
She needs to periodically take off to the sky with Bai Luo on her back, then using monoculars, they constantly scan the surrounding area.
“There are no islands suitable for docking around. The nearest one is in the south, and it requires a voyage of more than 1 day to reach it from here.”
“I have investigated the pirate village on this island,” the old man said.
“The number of pirates living on this island should be around 3,500. Brother Andrew also confirmed this.”
“Indeed, and even if there is an error, the difference shouldn’t exceed 100.”
Grandpa Andrew added,
“With the strength of the Arden clan and the tree elves’ descendants, as long as everyone has fine weapons, we can use the geographical advantage of the island to deal with at least 5000 pirates.”
The tree elves’ descendants were obviously vigilant of those vicious pirates, so they have conducted clear investigations of the pattern and distribution of pirates over the years.
“The farmland still needs to be cultivated, but our residence has been almost completed..”
No matter how big the farmland is, Bai Luo would never feel that it’s too big.
In the past three days, the Arden clan and the tree elves’ descendants have been working together. In addition to supervising the logging tools every day, more than a hundred people had undertaken other duties.
Their daily task is to explore the island and look for any usable resources.
[Arden Island]
This is the name that Bai Luo has officially given for this island, laying the foundation for establishing their country in the future.
The eastern of Arden Island is a grassland, while the southern part is a river valley.
The entire island has 2,700 square kilometers of land, equivalent to 4 million mu (667,000 acres).
But 60% of them are virgin forests, mountains, and rocky hills.
The remaining 40% is mostly distributed behind the port in the west, that is, a small piece of the southwest, then the southern river valley, and the eastern grassland.
Together, if they are all cultivated, they can obtain at least 2.4 million mu of arable land.
Bai Luo plans to build a city in the central area without taking away too much arable land.
Next, they will build a port and a fishing town in the west. Bai Luo intends to reserve this area for the population they will bring in the future.
Bai Luo is very particular about close and distant people.
At least for now, Bai Luo couldn’t relax his vigilance against the foreign population.
The Arden clan and the tree elves’ descendants are very close to Bai Luo. Not only that, he knows about their origins and background.
In contrast, outsiders have different qualities and different ideologies. It isn’t an easy task to make them all feel a sense of attachment and belonging to Arden.
Bai Luo would be very happy if 40 out of every 100 people he brings follow him wholeheartedly.
Of course, Bai Luo doesn’t have to worry about these things now. These are problems he would have to deal with in the future.
“Lilith!!”
This is the southern river valley.
The so-called river valley is a terrain with mountains on both sides and flat land in the middle, with a river passing in the center.
Bai Luo stood on high ground and looked down at the winding giant pieces of rock in front of him.
These are mountain forests, and Bai Luo intends to keep a large part of them as their wood source in the future.
For the rest, Bai Luo decided to plant fruit trees in their place and make them into orchards.
However, this part of the work need not be rushed, because the growth of fruit trees is too slow. They need two, three, or even four years before the trees can bear fruits.
He assigned the task of land cultivation to Lilith. These days, whenever she is free, Lilith would quickly fly over the river valley or plains.
Wherever she passed, her magic followed along, automatically rolling over the land, and turning it into arable land at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Lilith also changed the landscape and introduced water, creating paddy fields suitable for rice cultivation.
The power of the miracle fairy is breathtaking.
With her, Arden’s development speed was like a rocket. Bai Luo sighed in amazement again.
‘Miracles are the main productive force.’