I Pioneered Scientific Magic - Chapter 521 (Patreon)

Chapter 521: It's customary in this world to keep guests in cages!

Lynn's proposal was naturally passed without surprise, and the subsequent suggestions quickly shifted from war preparations to discussions about domestic governance.

Now, the empire controls over three-quarters of the territory.

If it weren't for following the orders of a certain Star of Magic, they could have cleansed one city after another even faster.

However, the benefits of this approach soon became apparent in terms of public order, as there were hardly any major rebellions in the imperial cities they had conquered.

This was also thanks to Aila who had sacrificed countless bishops and devout followers during the battle of the Holy City, which in a sense, cleared the path for their rule.

"Is our food reserve still sufficient?" Lynn turned to the council member in charge of food production, posing this most crucial question.

As long as there was enough food, there would be no major chaos in the cities captured by the kingdom!

"The remaining food reserves might last about three to four months," Councilor Tisha said with a headache. "If we were to establish factories extensively in those conquered imperial cities and implement the same food rationing system, then the food would be far from enough."

The kingdom's citizens consume more than twice the food per day compared to the empire's poor, after all, their white flour does not contain sawdust and grass.

Although they had anticipated food shortages after reclaiming the empire and had started stocking up in advance, feeding twenty million people in the empire was not an easy task.

Their food reserves were simply not enough, even if all the elemental wizards in the council cast the Bread Conjuring Spell, it would hardly fill the gap, unless the council decided to use their precious nuclear fuel reserves to produce food.

"How can there be so little? There shouldn't be such a food shortage within the empire, right?" Victorio frowned.

"It was supposed to be that way, but those damned remnants of the church and the nobles burned all the food and equipment they couldn't take with them when they evacuated the cities. Some even set fires in the cities to hinder our pursuit..." Councilor Tisha said helplessly.

"Have those bastards been caught yet? They must be severely punished, their bodies hung at the city gates, and their souls imprisoned and tortured..." Alade, who was quick-tempered, could not stand it and roared out loud.

He believed that the council's previous strategies had been too lenient. If those against them knew they would face tortures a thousand times worse than death, no one would dare commit such vile acts.

"Not yet, but these people probably won't be able to run for long," Councilor Tisha shook his head, and with the food burnt, capturing these people wouldn't make up for the loss.

"It looks like we need to accelerate land reclamation..." Lynn pondered and had someone bring over a large map, directly marking a 200,000 square kilometer area around a major river in the central plains of the empire.

This vast area, fertile and once the empire's granary, half of which was directly under imperial rule and the other half belonged to a powerful duke, was now all under the council's control.

Lynn planned to turn this area into a dedicated agricultural zone, consolidating all fragmented farmlands and implementing magical cultivation and harvesting.

If well managed, this area alone could resolve the entire empire's food crisis!

"We should aim to complete this by this year's autumn planting. If we can get through a few months and wait for this batch of wheat to mature, the food issue will be completely resolved!" Lynn encouraged.

"That's way too large..." Councilor Tisha looked at the large circle Lynn had drawn, somewhat daunted.

The entire empire, including its desolate northern territories, was less than 7 million square kilometers. Now they were planning to transform 200,000 square kilometers in one go, which seemed utterly fantastical!

"Don't think it's too big. As long as the planning is good and we start work in multiple areas simultaneously, it's not impossible," Lynn said with a smile.

They wouldn't need manual labor to cultivate the land. The days of farmers using hoes for reclamation were long gone. The kingdom's alchemical research institute had already developed the third generation of agricultural machinery.

Not to mention, the council had previously produced a large number of armored vehicles. With the current war situation in the empire, these vehicles weren't needed on the battlefield and could all be converted for reclamation, with the army helping to level any obstructive hills in the plains.

"Let's also deploy four thousand elemental wizards to help out, and once reclamation is complete, have them stationed there to protect the farmlands and periodically cast spells to enhance soil fertility..." Lynn spoke again.

On this planet, wizards were the ultimate productive force, especially when handling delicate tasks, as wizards with atomic-level control capabilities were far more effective than machines.

With this plan, they might just manage

 to complete reclamation before autumn planting—even if only half the target is achieved, the wheat produced would be enough to alleviate the food shortage.

For the next few months, they would consider buying some food from merchants to cope with the emergency, as the establishment of workshops in various cities absolutely must not stop.

They needed to rapidly advance reforms to free the imperial citizens from their inefficient, old modes of production to utilize the massive population's potential fully.

However, Lynn's optimistic plans were vetoed by Victorio. "Four thousand wizards are too many. Other areas also need people; the council can only spare fifteen hundred!"

Despite having as many as twenty thousand official wizards, they were in high demand everywhere.

First, the newly occupied cities within the empire needed powerful and adept wizards to stabilize the situation, in cooperation with locally selected officials.

Additionally, many alchemical workshops required official wizards as senior workers to produce precise components.

Lastly, many schools had numerous wizards engaged in magical research. They couldn't possibly force these people to abandon their work and reclaim land.

"Then let's make do with fifteen hundred official wizards and thirty-five hundred wizard apprentices with over ten years of schooling," Lynn had to compromise. These experienced wizard apprentices, once augmented by the magical network's computing power, could serve as official wizards.

"By the way, I remember the church has a divine spell called 'Blessing Rain' that can make plants grow quickly. Why don't we copy it and improve on it!" Lynn suddenly thought of this.

Although the church's clergy were limited in their education, they had developed quite a few interesting divine spells over centuries, and Blessing Rain was one of them!

After a half-day of discussions and refinements by the councilors, the magical kingdom's first semi-annual plan was officially launched.

In essence, it boiled down to eight words: stabilize domestic affairs and prepare for war.

They just hoped that the so-called Lord of Necromancers would discover the portal later, giving them more time to prepare.

Lynn thought he might ask that crow for some more information after returning.

...

After ending today's meeting, Lynn hurried back to his estate in the capital. He then partially opened the cage—from a completely sealed structure without any gaps to a neatly arranged cylindrical frame structure.

However, just as the cage's form changed, a black streak of light immediately shot out, attempting to escape through the frame's gaps less than a centimeter wide!

But how could Lynn be unprepared for this? He had constructed a force field magic outside the cage, which was the real means of trapping the other party.

The black crow tried several times to escape but, finding it impossible, became infuriated, jumping around in the cage and continuously spewing harsh curses.

"You foolish native, how dare you offend the messenger of the great God of Life and Creation, your soul will be enslaved by the Lord of Necromancers, and your world will turn into a lifeless prison because of your foolish actions..."

Lynn didn't argue, just leaned back in his chair, comfortably listening to the crow's curses.

After the previous imprisonment and verbal probing, Lynn realized, aside from verbal threats, this crow seemed to have no real means against them.

Lynn thought there might be three reasons for this.

First, this universe had not fully connected with the so-called main world, so even if the other party was a god, they could not cross worlds to kill or punish him.

Second, the godly realm connecting this universe was under the control of the Lord of Necromancers, meaning anyone coming over would have to pass through there and get past the Lord of Necromancers, which could potentially trigger a godly war prematurely!

Third, this crow was not as important as it claimed to be; it was just a common messenger, and a slight offense was not enough to enrage the God of Life and Creation.

Lynn's mind whirled with thoughts, and he waited more than an hour, until the annoyed crow had cursed enough and tired out, finally calming down with no more harsh crowing to be heard. Only then did Lynn come back to his senses, smiling and saying.

"We really mean no harm, great messenger of the stars; on the contrary, we are very grateful for the message you've brought."

The black crow looked at the cage that confined it with a weird expression, annoyed at Lynn on the outside.

Is this how you show gratitude?

Lynn shrugged and continued, "As ignorant natives, we know very little about your gods and the main world, so we cannot verify the truth of this message. Therefore, we kindly ask the great messenger of the stars to stay in this specially made residence for a while."

"Also, this is not an offense or imprisonment but rather a... well, a special custom!" Lynn looked at the cage he had made, very sincerely saying, "Yes, indeed, keeping crows in cages is actually a custom in our world!"

The black crow rolled its eyes very humanly, clearly not so easily fooled, but

 it was too tired to speak.

Lynn smiled, skipped over the topic, and instead asked, "Great messenger of the stars, you must have come to our world on a mission, right?"

The black crow haughtily held its head high, too disdainful to reply to Lynn's words.

"I think this task must be related to dealing with the Lord of Necromancers, which means our goals are actually aligned, and we can cooperate," Lynn stated seriously, reflecting the council's stance—they were willing to cooperate but not accept unilateral commands.

"Cooperate?" The black crow seemed to hear the funniest thing in the world, disdainfully saying, "The power and greatness of gods are not something you can understand!"

Only beings of equal status could truly talk about cooperation.

Lynn was not bothered by the black crow's disdain; instead, he acknowledged it, "Please forgive our limited perspective as natives. I want to know, can a god completely destroy a world?"

The black crow paused, then cawed, "In past godly wars, the destruction of a realm was not uncommon."

Lynn was somewhat surprised; conquering a world and destroying a world were entirely different concepts, and he had to reevaluate his view of gods.

Whether this realm was like a planet or not, it surely wasn't a whole universe, right?

"How did you find our world?" Lynn pondered and asked a second question.

According to this crow, the Lord of Necromancers controlling the opposite godly realm hadn't found any portals yet, otherwise, they would have invaded already, but the God of Life and Creation was able to send a messenger first to warn them.

This was also why Lynn had been skeptical of this star messenger.

"The God of Life and Creation is great; He knows everything, understands everything!" The black crow arrogantly stated.

Knows everything? Understands everything?

Lynn was very skeptical of these claims because the Lord of Necromancers clearly did not have such abilities.

If there was such a vast disparity between two gods, and they had significant conflicts, then the Lord of Necromancers would likely have ceased to exist long ago, unless it was some kind of special prophetic ability.

As Lynn was contemplating this, a gentle knock came from the door.

"Speaker, Ms. Ivina says she has important matters to discuss with you and has brought a prisoner, likely a knight of the Divine Punishment Legion."

Lynn glanced at the crow in the cage, thought for a moment, and without any intention of re-imprisoning it, straightforwardly said, "Let her in."

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