Unknown Knight

Over the next few days, the construction of the mound progressed very smoothly. Not only were the left and right sides opened up, but Aix began to have the craftsmen and laborers dig a hall more than ten meters wide in the center of the cave.

The entire mound is more than 30 meters high. Aix planned to design it in three layers, with each layer being more than ten meters high. However, the workload is too large, and they are currently seriously short of manpower, so they have to start excavating the first layer at the bottom.

Speaking of manpower, Aix has been thinking about this issue these days. Buying it from Rogge is a good idea, but they have to wait for a while for the next batch of slave ships. The only reliable manpower they can get right now is the men of Zeb and Old Mike.

According to the information obtained from Bolcha, there are no less than four to five hundred outsiders like them in the entire city of Zion. Their origins are very complicated. Most of them are escaped slaves, members of caravans trapped here, people who wandered here, those who came here to take risks and pan for gold, and even wanted fugitives, and so on.

There are many ruthless and extraordinary characters among them. These people are usually either recruited and raised by local masters, or join mercenary groups to do some bloody jobs. They live quite well in this lawless place.

However, such people are a minority after all. More outsiders are suppressed in this isolated city by local forces by means of water and food. In addition, the extremely harsh environment of the Death Desert, like a vast ocean, has trapped Zion into an isolated island, making it difficult for them to leave here and escape. They can only be exploited and driven by local masters like slaves.

These outsiders who were oppressed at the bottom of society had deep resentment in their hearts and had long hated the local family forces that oppressed them. This allowed Aix to see the "mass base" and find a way to solve the current manpower dilemma.

As a great lord with tens of thousands of subjects under his command, Aix knows that no matter where he is, if he wants to accomplish anything, he must have his own base. People like Niza, Bestul, James and others who follow him are all extraordinary people, and some are even heroic figures. At a critical moment, they can easily fight ten or even a hundred enemies alone.

But these people were too few in number, and with the newly joined Bolcha, there were only ten of them. How many pounds of nails could they hammer with iron? In addition, they were all his relatives, friends, and confidants. If he asked them to charge at the front line at a critical moment and suffered losses, he would not feel good about losing any of them.

Therefore, he needs more manpower and at least a basic base that allows him to gain a foothold. These outsiders who are oppressed at the bottom are his perfect targets for development.

He first revealed in a seemingly unintentional way during his conversation with Bolcha that the main reason why he established power here was to accumulate strength so that he could lead his subordinates back to his hometown in the future.

Also let Niza, Bestur and James communicate more with Zeb, Old Mike and others. Given their personalities, they will definitely talk to these two about the great achievements that Aix had made, as well as the richness and abundance of the Aix territory, etc.

Sure enough, within two days, the two leaders came to Aix and expressed their intentions. They wanted to bring their subordinates to join him, and they also hoped to use Aix's power to get out of the predicament they were in.

Of course Aix gave them a warm welcome, not only promising to provide them with food and drink here, but also making big promises to help them escape from the suffering here and take them back to their hometown.

The two leaders were so moved that their eyes filled with tears. They pointed to the heavens and the earth and swore to follow Aix wholeheartedly and sacrifice their lives for him. Aix looked extremely excited but his heart was not moved at all. He had seen such scenes many times. The real way to conquer someone is not through various formal expressions, but through actual actions in the future.

However, Aix was not worried at all. He had once been able to win over tens of thousands of his subjects, not to mention their less than a hundred people. Aix was confident that he could slowly train these people into his base here.

Soon, news about the savior Lord Aix spread among the lower-class people in Zion City. It was said that Lord Aix was wise and brave, hated evil, and all his subordinates were warriors with extraordinary martial arts skills. This lord was generous and magnanimous to the poor, and could not bear to see them being oppressed here. He was determined to lead these lower-class people out of suffering and realize their dreams of being well fed, well clothed, and well housed.

Under the deliberate spread of news by Bolcha who sneaked back into the city, and the personal testimony of Old Mike and Zeb when they returned to the city to gather their subordinates, an undercurrent began to surge secretly in Zion, and the lower-class people in the entire city were telling each other about the news about Aix.

Those who could speak came to find the three and inquire about information about Aix, and those who couldn't speak asked people they knew to come and inquire about the news.

Soon, more than a hundred people chose to join Aix's forces. They were mainly subordinates of Old Mike and Zeb, accounting for more than half, and the rest were people who were familiar with them. These people had some skills, otherwise they would have died long ago and would have sold themselves to become slaves of local families.

Among them was a mercenary team that was originally a caravan guard. There were nearly twenty of them in total. It was said that there were nearly forty people at the most. They were trapped here for half a year due to the hot Death Season and spent all their savings. In the end, they had to stay here and formed a mercenary team to make a living. However, when they were escorting another caravan back to Calradia, they were ambushed by the big bandit Hassan, and less than twenty people escaped.

They were all so thin that they were almost skin and bones. Usually they could only help others collect debts and act as thugs to earn a little money. Apart from that, they had no extra income. Fortunately, their weapons and equipment for eating were still there, so everyone could have a usable weapon.

In addition, Rogge also found Borcha. He was probably afraid that things would get complicated later, so he wanted to make some money as soon as possible. At the same time, he also wanted to see if Aix had the strength to become a long-term partner of one of the five major "families" in his city.

For this deal, he ignored his family's doubts about the sudden increase in the death rate and directly selected twenty healthy slaves from the existing slaves and took out a hundred bags of stored food for the deal. He was really bold. If the fleet transporting the slaves could not arrive in Zion within a month, he would have no food to eat.

As a result, Bolcha sent a message saying that Aix agreed to his deal and hoped that he could sell some weapons and equipment. The price was negotiable, and if that didn't work, selling some iron would be fine.

Rogge was delighted when he heard this, and immediately packed up all the excess weapons and equipment in the city's military arsenal, appraised their value, and sold them to Aix.

For safety reasons, this transaction was carried out by ship from the slave trading dock exclusively owned by their Ogebai family. The ship transporting the goods was a small sampan that could only accommodate twenty people.

The main function of this ship was to dispose of corpses. Since the locals disliked the bad luck brought by the dead, the city had to load the dying slaves onto this ship and sail to the deep sea at a certain distance from the shore to dispose of the bodies.

Since all these dying slaves would be packed up and given to Aix in the future, Rogge, considering the sixty gold coins he got this time, waved his hand and gave this small sampan to Aix, so as to facilitate future transactions and transportation between the two families.