Lord of the Myriad Worlds

Chapter 329: The Territory's Momentum

Three days passed quickly.

In those three days, Li Wei completed work on the territory's upper-level structure, its middle-level structure, and gave some attention to the lower-level structure as well.

He made no grand demands and delivered no empty speeches. Instead, accompanied by Nelson, Linus, Grant, and others, he personally visited every married household in the territory.

He offered genuine congratulations to the couples who, even in the apocalypse, had chosen to pursue love. He praised the light in human nature for always overcoming the darkness. He also expressed his regrets — the territory still had many shortcomings — and made a promise: in time, every family would receive free housing and basic living conditions: running water, electricity, and heating. These three things were his commitment as Lord to every Freeman.

For now, words weren't enough — he needed to do something. He would personally contribute from the Lord's treasury: two gold coins as a wedding gift for every married couple, to be made a standing policy. And each time a couple had a new child, they would receive one additional gold coin as a birth subsidy.

He also instructed Nelson to establish a territory finance committee within the Internal Affairs department. As Lord, he would provide an initial allocation of 100 gold coins as seed funding, with a dedicated annual contribution going forward. The goal was to gradually, steadily, and systematically transfer responsibility for the Freemen's quarterly payments from the Lord's personal treasury to the finance committee.

It might not produce results immediately, but it laid a path for the future. Build it slowly.

Beyond the structural work, Li Wei also oversaw the selection of new recruits. Fifty new soldiers were chosen and formed into five combat squads — though in practice, some were distributed to existing squads, with veterans transferred out to serve as squad leaders and deputies.

Veterans leading new recruits might cause a short-term dip in combat effectiveness, but after a period of training, the overall level would rise.

In the end, Li Wei took the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Combat Squads with him, along with thirty couples and a full hundred academy mercenaries.Worth noting: the thirty couples' slots weren't entirely filled from the main territory, because some of the women's husbands were already serving in Javier's Fifth Combat Squad at Riverside Fortress. Li Wei brought those families along as well.

For the three combat squads being transferred, any married couples, families, or even people in a relationship — if you said you had your eye on someone, they could come too.

Humanitarian care had to extend to every corner of life.

Li Wei was fully committed to making Riverside Fortress the territory's second strategic stronghold.

Beyond the soldiers, cooks, blacksmiths, and engineers were all included in the transfer.

An outside observer might have thought he was dividing up an inheritance — Riverside Fortress the favored child, the main base the neglected stepchild.

But it wasn't that simple.

The main base had irreplaceable advantages: the Magic Ore Vein, the All-Heavens Temple, the Enchanting Blacksmith Workshop, and the future potion workshop — all the high-end industries would be concentrated here.

And once the Northern Fortress was built, hundreds of mu of farmland could be cultivated nearby as well.

With Liang Yuzhi permanently stationed here, plus Zhao Xuanxuan — what was there to complain about?

And from here on, rapid development was the order of the day. Military strength — check. Personnel — check. Organization — check. Faith — check. Rules — check. With all of that in place, if Nelson, Linus, and Grant couldn't deliver explosive growth over the next six months — if the territory's output didn't triple — then what was the point of having them?

In that case, he'd have to unleash Second Aunt.

"Leave two Enchanted Chariots here. Eight electric buses stay. The rest go to Riverside Fortress. Remember — no slacking. Fight for every minute. Give everything you have. Learn from Thomas."

With those words, Li Wei climbed into the lead Enchanted Chariot and drove ahead. Behind him, one electric bus after another rumbled to life, carrying over two hundred people and a large load of high-quality timber toward Riverside Fortress.

The main base still had six hundred people remaining.

A sharp cry from above.

Adai circled once over the convoy and flew off — his way of saying he had just completed a scouting pass and the road ahead was clear.

This winter, Adai had been genuinely busy. He had contributed four One-Star crow hunting pets to Riverside Fortress and eight more to the main base.

Unlike players, Freeman hunters who reached Three-Star with a Destiny Grid of 20 could form a basic bond with crow hunting pets. Through slow, patient training, they could turn these small crows into their own hunting companions.

No Pet Card required — which also meant no access to most hunting pet skills. But they could absolutely be used as scouts. These small crows could maintain simple communication with their hunters within a one-kilometer radius, which was a meaningful boost to combat capability.

The downside was that these crows died easily and got lost easily, and their intelligence left something to be desired. These were problems to work through over time.

But with Adai around, there was a steady supply of mutant crows and magpies to recruit.

And Adai seemed to be quietly building an elite crow honor guard of his own lately.

These crow honor guards could apparently be brought out of this world and housed together in a Five-Star Pet Card.

The future looked bright.

"The question is how long this peace will last."

Li Wei felt a quiet unease. He needed calm time to develop.

"Right now, no one should be looking to raid us. Socrates and Ron definitely won't — they've both activated the hidden city-building mission. Their immediate priority is building cities, and both of their territories are now split in two. That kind of situation makes it easy to be stretched thin."

"But Zhao Kewu hasn't triggered the hidden city-building mission. Is he choosing not to? Or does triggering it require establishing a knightly order first? That shouldn't be it — binding a rare title to a territory should be enough to trigger the Light of Divine Favor..."

"And then there's Hathaway. What is she doing? It's already February. She has Lu Ziming, a Five-Star Cross-Border expert, at her side. How is her progress this far behind?"

Li Wei turned it over in his mind. Hathaway's strength was beyond question — she'd be more capable than Scar Glenn. Her abilities were exceptional too. Killing the second year's hidden boss and obtaining a rare title shouldn't be difficult.

But that step didn't trigger a territory-wide announcement. She'd need to eliminate another faction and merge a Pioneering Card to get one.

"So if I'm reading this right, we should see results by the end of this month."

After thinking it through, Li Wei's mind shifted back to Riverside Fortress.

The fortress's position was undeniably strong. To the south, a substantial river. To the north, over 50 kilometers of flatland before the mountains began — running east to west, just like the terrain around the small city base and the main base.

Base 379 was also built deep in the mountains.

If you treated that southern river as another east-west mountain range, then Riverside Fortress, the small city base, and the main base formed a straight corridor.

Interestingly, the river was only about one kilometer from Riverside Fortress. Only a few kilometers from the small city base. And the main base was roughly fifteen kilometers from the river in a straight line.

Once the fortress structure was fully established, the main base to the east could block the eastern approach — any enemy would have to cross the river to attack Riverside Fortress directly. Similarly, once Riverside Fortress developed further, enemies from the west would find it equally difficult to push through.

Combined with crow scouts and Enchanted Chariot patrols, this entire corridor was already under Li Wei's strategic control.

It was just a matter of having enough time to develop it.

"The Frost Duke feels like a ticking bomb. And his approach to harnessing chaotic magical particles is genuinely logical — scientifically sound, even if it violates ancient human ethics. But once you shed those constraints, the possibilities are enormous."

"A shame I haven't had time to go east and see for myself. I don't even know where the Frost Duke's stronghold is."

Li Wei sighed inwardly. Too many things to do. Being a Lord was genuinely exhausting.

The brain cells he'd burned through in the past three days alone were beyond counting.

Hm?

Li Wei glanced in the rearview mirror. In the two buses behind him, the newly arrived mercenaries were waving at each other, calling out greetings, their faces bright with youth and energy. They were even singing to each other — happy as if they were on a school trip.

But what could you do? These were all eighteen and nineteen-year-olds.

Genuinely full of life.

"It's fine. Think of them as a flock of good-luck charms."

Li Wei wasn't particularly bothered. The night before, he had spent some time reading the book he'd received as a reward — Foundations of Combat and Warfare. It was a genuinely excellent book. It systematically covered the daily training and combat techniques for Warriors, Rangers, Knights, and Casters.

Dry, certainly — about as engaging as a high school math textbook.

But Li Wei had found himself absorbed. Many of the descriptions gave him a sudden clarity — not the kind of revelation that instantly granted godlike mastery, but the fundamentals: force generation, control, balance, stability, spatial awareness, understanding of speed and positioning.

The book also covered two-person, three-person, five-person, and up to ten-person combined techniques, with detailed notes and key points for each.

The kind of content that was easy to understand, felt familiar, and yet — the moment you tried to actually apply it — revealed exactly how far you had to go.

Only a master-level warrior of genuine wisdom and ability could have written something like this.

When Li Wei thought about the academy mercenaries in Weir City's Lord Academy studying from textbooks like this, he felt a pang of envy.

Then again — wasn't it the same back home?

Every textbook he had studied in school was written by the finest minds in their fields. Every mathematical theorem, every principle of physics and chemistry — all of it came from giants of science.

At the time, it had all seemed so ordinary.