Chess Mage of Faerûn

Chapter 541 Boarding and Power Armor
Especially in their plans for the future, the professional military and industrial workers have an almost insatiable demand for free people who have left the land.

Without a large population as its foundation, agriculture, industry, and military—the three pillars of Zhang's territory—are all crippled and unable to function properly.

But where will the population come from?

The fact that High Cliffs' population could exceed a thousand was thanks to the tenacious survival of the survivors, the migration from Riverside Village, and the recruitment of refugees. Neverwinter, at most, had no more than thirty thousand people.

Deepwater City has a large population, but its abundant resources are not something that High Cliff can attract at present.

Golden alfalfa is an exception; what reason would ordinary residents have to leave big cities and move to rural areas?

Throughout the past winter, the promise of bread and shelter only managed to abduct a little over two hundred and forty homeless people from Neverwinter's beggar's nest, who longed to escape the terrible fate of becoming starving corpses.

All things considered, the current population of Gaoya has not yet exceeded 1,500.

Of course, the refugees who were recruited later did not receive the same treatment as the earlier settlers who were allocated land. Instead, they were assigned as tenants to the public land that belonged to Master Zhang.

Where are the public fields?
Apart from the manors allocated to the knights and the fields of the people, the rest were all the lord's private property.

However, compared to the tragic fate of dying in the street or becoming a serf, it was much better.

Fortunately, Mr. Zhang didn't keep dogs, and he still had a lot of conscience left. While granting the refugees a rent-free period for the first year, he allowed them to retain 60% of their farmland output thereafter.

Aside from nominally doing private work for the lord and receiving a slightly smaller share of the harvest, they were no different from other citizens.

The benefits were generous, but unfortunately, Faerûn lacked internet access, preventing job postings from flooding the city. After absorbing the small number of migrant workers from Neverwinter, High Cliff's population growth was once again in trouble.

Despite his boundless ambition, Master Zhang lacked a solid foundation and, after much deliberation, finally turned his attention to the slave trade.

Of course, such sordid dealings as keeping slaves, trading slaves, and plundering people are off-limits. After all, he is a modern person with principles and a lord in name only. He cannot do things that will make him dirty by jumping into a cesspool.

However, some minor adjustments are possible.

Zhang, a philanthropist who opposed slavery and strongly condemned this despicable act, suddenly conceived the idea of ​​liberating slaves, rescuing them from the evil slave owners, and bringing them under the banner of his semi-feudal, semi-capitalist territory so they could shine and earn a better life through their own hard work.

After all, Master Zhang was kind-hearted and couldn't bear to see the poor.

Besides, Zhang Yuan had no intention of exploiting them. They were all a bunch of poor souls who had nothing left to lose, so what was there to exploit?
We can't just open a leather factory and a soap factory, can we?
Wait a minute, it seems we actually have a soap workshop at home…

Ah this.

In short, the monk had already decided on a strategy to convert slaves into the inhabitants of the high cliffs, and his current concern was on the specific planning.

Since we can't roll up our sleeves and do it ourselves, we're left with two options: buy it, or...

Black eat black!
The huge word "rob" kept swirling in the monk's mind, making him itchy.

What could be faster than robbery? Besides, there's no psychological burden involved. But who to rob? How to rob? What are the consequences after the robbery? These are all questions.

When it comes to the slave trade, Zhang Yuan immediately thinks of his old friend Luscan. Among the many city-states in the North, Luscan is the only one that has turned the capture and trade of slaves into a large-scale industry.

Relying on their advanced shipping and formidable military strength, Captain Luscan had long ago turned the slave trade into a complete industrial chain of capture and transportation. Zhang Yuan, who had previously been a troublemaker in the City of Sails, had already heard about how deep the waters ran.

Relying on the superior performance of magical ships, it's certainly not a problem to rob and run away, but this requires sufficient intelligence support. Otherwise, in the vast sea of ​​swords, with thousands of sails competing, who knows which one is the slave trading ship they are looking for?

On the other hand, it is also necessary to understand the target's defensive forces. The planned objective is to rescue the slaves, not to fight a naval battle. If one shot sinks the enemy ship, all the people on board will also go to be eaten by sharks.

Those who follow the plummeting tide are likely not those whose own camps are veering wildly toward chaos and evil.

A boarding maneuver is imperative!
And speaking of boarding...

Several more months have passed, and the Keane craftsmen should give an explanation by now. It would be too much of a sham to keep giving the lord empty promises.

As it turns out, the Keen family are indeed craftsmen, not lazy bums. While Zhang Yuan was busy consolidating and studying new spells and making some progress in the field of arcane magic, Ryzrak finally took out the reactive armor. With the ceramic steel armor plates that had been successfully smelted before, the forging of the power armor had entered the verification stage.

"The prototype of the heavy-duty full-body power armor, Mark I, codename: Melt Steel."

A towering, fully enclosed suit of armor, nearly two and a half meters tall including the helmet, stood before the mage, with all the Keen craftsmen standing beside it.

At this moment, the one responsible for explaining the research and development results is Old Clockwork Ritotrip:
“We completed this masterpiece a week ago, but we didn’t disturb you because you were working on it behind closed doors.”

"The main structure of the power armor is made of multi-layered composite materials, and the integrated forged armor plates are connected by rivets and geometric splicing."

"The surface layer is covered with rock... oh, ceramic steel armor plates. The alloy used in the secondary layer is an active memory metal that Rizzlak recently replicated. It is made of pure iron, shadow steel, silver as the main components, mixed with other metals. It has excellent impact resistance, fatigue resistance, ductility and toughness, and also has memory recovery function."

"Oh, so you finally got this thing out?"

The mage raised an eyebrow, watching as the lumberjack pulled out a black metal plate. Accompanied by his slightly neurotic and impatient voice, he swung a hammer and smashed it down.

bang bang bang!
Shallow dents were immediately punched into the surface of the black nail plates, followed by a strange scene:
The seemingly hard and cold black metal now displayed an extremely incongruous elasticity, like human skin or fermented dough. The originally pitted and uneven nail surface returned to its previous smooth and clean state in less than two minutes after Ryze stopped hitting, as if the previous storm of hammering was just an illusion.

"Excellent, excellent! As expected of Keane Craftsmanship, it has made unique achievements in the field of metallurgy."

The mage applauded, and Old Clockwork responded with an OK sign before detaching a section of the power armor's arm. The spotlight overhead shone into its inner wall, illuminating the neat and simple patterns inside.

"The power armor uses a built-in crystal alchemy reactor on its back as its energy core, and its circuit layout and circuit architecture are the responsibility of Bosh."

“Ah, the craftsman’s skills never go out of style, see, Chanem.”

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(End of this chapter)