Imperial Crown.

Chapter 33 Nancy's "Revenge" Plan

Looking at those sapphire eyes, Raven's heart moved: "What are the conditions?"

"Learn the Elvish language within half a year." There was a hint of playful pride in Lux's eyes.

"Okay, it's a deal." Raven nodded with a smile.

"Eh?" Lux was stunned for a moment: "But Elvish is difficult to learn. Do you want to..."

"No need." Raven said decisively.

Lux looked away angrily.

The history of the elves is much longer than that of humans, and their civilization was established much earlier. It can be said that it is the origin of the civilization of the entire Middles continent. Therefore, the elven language became the first language mastered by humans.

However, as the human race gradually prospered and developed their own language and writing, the Elvish language disappeared from daily life and was only mastered by the nobles, a few scholars, and priests.

Over the past thousand years, with the establishment of the human race on the continent, the inheritance of the Elvish language has gradually weakened. Except for a very small number of nobles, scholars and priests, few people can speak it anymore.

As a priest, Lux had to master the Elvish language, and the learning process was extremely painful - there was neither a language environment nor application scenarios. Now even the hymns praising the Lord of Light were sung in the Imperial language.

"Why, do you regret it?" Raven asked with a smile, "How about changing the conditions?"

“No need!” Lux turned around and stared at Raven, with a stubborn look in her eyes: “We agreed that you must learn Elvish within half a year. Otherwise, you will have to pay me back 2000 gold coins!”

"Okay." Raven nodded deeply and asked curiously, "Then, if, I mean if, I give in, what conditions do you want me to change?"

As footsteps approached, Patty brought out dinner and placed it in front of the two.

Seared beef shoulder with pickled asparagus, a bowl of cream of mushroom soup, and a small basket of freshly baked white bread.

After a day of hard work, the fragrance immediately attracted Lux's attention.

"Thank you for the gift from the Lord of Light." After praying, Lux picked up the knife, cut off a piece of beef shoulder, and began to enjoy her dinner, obviously not intending to continue this topic.

"Thank you for the gift from the Lord of Light." Raven did not continue to dwell on this topic. He also cut off a piece of beef shoulder and put it in his mouth.

It smells buttery when you put it in your mouth, and the rich gravy bursts out between your lips and teeth when you bite it. The unique delicious taste of beef fills your mouth, giving you a huge sense of satisfaction.

The pickled asparagus has a crisp texture, and the slightly sour taste dissolves the greasiness of the beef very well, making it appetite-stimulating.

Dip the white bread into the thick soup full of milk and mushroom flavor. This dinner is not rich, but it is very satisfying.

After they finished eating, a maid came up to clear the tableware and placed the dessert - two small bowls of cream ice cream.

In this era, only nobles and a few wealthy businessmen could get ice in the summer.

"If you want me to learn Elvish, you'll need to give me a textbook and find me a teacher, right?" Raven said half-jokingly, "It would be best if it was an Elf teacher."

"Don't mention you. I also want an elf teacher!" Lux snorted and said, "The Elf Empire is now hiding in the ancient forest and has not come out for hundreds of years. There are very few elves walking on the continent. How can we meet them just by saying so?"

"Then you can't let me learn it out of thin air, right?" Raven spread out his palms: "Does this matter also need to trouble the Lord of Light?"

"Don't talk nonsense!" Lux glanced at him in dissatisfaction. "I'll have someone send you the Elvish dictionary and teaching materials in a few days. When you return to Eagle Castle, I'll teach you in person!"

As she spoke, the dimples on her face appeared: "If you can't learn it by then, I will slap your palm~"

Looking at her innocent smile, Raven could only smile and nod: "Okay, I'll listen to you."

Lux yawned tiredly, and Raven also felt a wave of fatigue coming over his body. He stood up and said, "Well, good night in advance, Miss Lux."

"Good night." Lux nodded with a smile.

That night, Raven did not ask for Patty's service and slept very peacefully.

The next morning, which was the 13th day since Raven came to Goldshire, Lux declined Raven's invitation to stay and returned to the Goldshire Church in a carriage with daily necessities.

At the same time, a sneaky figure pulled away.

Her name is Jenny, Nancy's trusted maid.

She returned to the manor in the southwest of Goldshire Town and came to the door of Nancy's bedroom. She took a deep breath and knocked on the door nervously: "Miss Nancy."

After a while, the door opened with a creak, and Nancy appeared in front of Jenny.

She was wearing a slightly childish plaid nightgown and a pointed nightcap on her head. She had just woken up, and her hair was like a mess of wool pressed down her head. She scratched her hair with her pink fingers, revealing a section of her white and tender arm: "Any news? Tell me!"

Having said that, Nancy turned back into the house, sat in front of the mirror, swinging her fair legs, and began to put on her makeup.

"Yes..." Jenny lowered her head and reported, "Yesterday, the Eagle Town priest Lacus went to see Raven, visited the military camp with him, and had lunch together."

"Priest Lux stayed in the government hall of Shimmering Gold Town at night and did not leave until this morning."

With a click, the wooden comb broke into two pieces in Nancy's hand. She turned around and frowned and asked, "Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

"Because...there really is nothing going on between the two of them." Jenny whispered, fearing to anger this unruly young lady: "Lacus is a priest after all..."

Nancy understood what Jenny meant. She knew Lux's background much better than a little maid.

Although she is just a small baron priestess, her teacher is the seventh-level divine magician Crouch, the most famous ascetic monk in the empire. She may break through to the eighth level at any time and even have the possibility of becoming a holy realm divine magician.

In terms of background and status alone, she is probably even superior to Nancy, the earl's daughter.

Such a priest was not someone that a mere baron like Raven could offend.

"Damn Raven!" Nancy threw the half-broken comb into the trash can and angrily slammed the table. "He's just a lowly and vulgar guy, how could he deceive the priest of the Lord of Light? That Lux must be a big-breasted and brainless guy."

Speaking of big breasts and no brains, her eyes fell on the mirror, and she tried to straighten her waist, looking at the barely protruding outline, and finally pursed her lips helplessly: "Is there no other news? Has he really been so honest in the past ten days?"

Jenny nodded silently: "That's true, Miss. We monitor the government hall day and night and found that Raven's life is very simple..."

"Apart from the government hall, it's the training ground, right? I've heard this seven or eight times!" Nancy rolled her eyes: "You are a bunch of useless people. Why is it so difficult for me to find something to hold against you?"

"This month and next month, all your salary will be deducted!!"

As she spoke, Nancy stood up and rubbed her little butt.

That hateful guy!
Although the pain is gone now, she stayed in bed for three days after coming out of the government hall.

When she returned to the manor that day, her mind was full of grievances and despair - she was doomed, and if the news of being spanked got out, how would she face people in the future?

But afterwards, it was as if what happened that day had never happened. Although there were some rumors in the market, they were all groundless and unfounded.

But this also means one thing, that is, Raven himself has the leverage over her, which makes her worry all the time that Raven will expose this matter, or even use it to threaten her one day in the future.

It’s scary to think about being threatened by a little bee.

I wanted to go to my father to complain, but I had no reason.

Should I tell my father that Raven bullied me and his way of bullying me was to spank me?
So she sent her maids to monitor Raven's movements, hoping to catch him.

Isn’t his name “Little Bee”?

Then take advantage of the opportunity when he is looking for a woman. There is no shortage of women who are willing to sell their bodies in Shanjin Town.

It is an open secret that the nobles are extravagant, but a little gossip after marriage doesn't matter, but before marriage such behavior will cause their reputation to plummet and it will be considered a scandal of some magnitude.

Nobles with a reputation for being "dissolute" find it difficult to find equal marriage partners, both men and women, and can only be compatible with those below them. This is an unspoken secret in the aristocratic circle.

By then, I will have the leverage over Raven, and Raven will also have the leverage over me, so it will be a draw!

But this person couldn't even catch any signs of this.

The more she thought about it, the angrier she got. Nancy said angrily, "If you can't find him, just keep monitoring him. I don't believe that I can't find his flaws!"

Jenny looked worried. After all, she was a maid, not a spy. It was too hard to be exposed to the sun and wind all day. "Miss Nancy, I don't think this is a solution..."

"Oh, what do you mean? Are you trying to say I'm stupid?" A flame ignited in Nancy's hand.

"I dare not!" Jenny quickly put her head on the ground: "I just think that since his nickname is 'Little Bee', is it really...useful for you to collect all this evidence?"

A breeze blew through the hall, and the room became so quiet that you could hear a pin drop.

Nancy was stunned for a long time, then her breathing became more and more rapid, her face flushed red, and she realized that she had been thinking in the wrong direction: "Damn it, why didn't you remind me earlier?"

For a good girl like me who keeps herself clean, reputation is of course very important; but for a guy like Raven who comes from a low-class family, what does it matter if his reputation is ruined?
"Well, Jenny, what do you think we should do now?" Nancy asked guiltily.

Jenny really didn't want to be out in the wind and sun anymore, so she thought quickly, "I think... Baron Raven seems to be very short of money right now."

"Then let's go rob his vault?" Nancy's eyes lit up, and then she shook her head: "No, he still has an army at his disposal. It would be terrible if we were discovered."

But this also inspired her thoughts. She took a step and turned around in the room. With her loose nightgown, she looked like a lively morning glory. "Got it!" Nancy clapped her hands vigorously. "You said before that he met with these businessmen to build a workshop, right?"

She smiled with mysterious confidence: "He created the Angel's Tears before and built a workshop. He will definitely make bigger moves. When the time comes, I will sneak in and steal all his secret recipes. Then the Angel's Tears will be mine!"

After that, she looked at Jenny who was kneeling on the ground and asked, “Why aren’t you talking? Isn’t my plan good?”

Jenny was a little speechless. Stealing secret recipes was really not something a noble lady should do.

However, considering that the workshop has not yet started construction, it will take at least one or two months to complete. It is still unclear whether Nancy will be here by then.

And the most important thing is that this way, I don’t have to go out every day.

Jenny raised her thumbs up with her hands on the ground: "Great, Miss Nancy, absolutely wonderful!"

"Humph, I told you my idea is correct." Nancy jumped to the window, opened the curtains, and smiled brightly at the sunlight: "Just wait, Raven, offending me, Nancy Fox, will be the biggest mistake of your life!"

Under the same bright sunshine, private soldiers were training hard on the training ground northeast of Shanjin Town.

Raven, the lord, stood at the front of the team. Whenever his eyes fell on a private soldier, the latter would puff out his chest proudly.

They all hoped to be chosen by Raven to become his personal soldiers. After all, the salary of his personal soldiers was three times that of ordinary soldiers like them.

But Raven's attention was not on them.

We have been in Goldshire long enough, and the recruitment of construction workers has been almost completed. All we have to do now is wait for the construction materials to be delivered, and then we can break ground on the Riverside Workshop.

And Raven didn't have to wait too long.

On July 1193, 7 of the Guangming calendar, the first batch of building stones moved along the road into the town of Shanjin. It was also on this day that Raven ordered the newly recruited soldiers to escort the stones to the north bank of the upper reaches of the Jinsha River in the northeast of Eagle Town.

In the past ten days or so, Old Gordon has organized his subjects to level the land, clear away the weeds and gravel, and even paved a gravel road leading to Eagle Town.

That night, Raven returned to Eagle Castle, which he had not visited for a long time. As soon as he entered the door, he received a piece of news that surprised him: "What, Denise is gone? When did it happen?"

"On July 7th," said old Gordon.

"It's been almost half a month..." Raven frowned slightly, and said in a serious tone: "Then why didn't you tell me the first time?"

"Mrs. Denise said that you don't need to be informed." Old Gordon said cautiously: "Besides, she is your aunt after all..."

Old Gordon also had his own selfish motives for this matter.

Raven always ran into Denise's room. He saw it all, and although he didn't say anything, he did not approve of Raven's behavior and actions, and he was deeply dissatisfied with Denise's "improper behavior".

Now that Denise has left, he thinks it is a good thing for both Raven and Denise herself, so naturally he doesn't want to inform his baron right away.

"Forget it, let's just go..." Raven sighed.

If it weren't for Angel's Tears, Denise would probably have left long ago. Now that the output of Angel's Tears is becoming more and more stable, her departure is not so surprising.

But Raven still felt a little lost.

His eyes fell on old Gordon's face, and he said with a slightly unhappy look: "Mr. Gordon, I hope this is the last time."

"I don't have many years left to live, sir." Old Gordon bent down and said in a respectful and humble voice: "Your will will be carried out."

A loud drum does not need a heavy hammer. Raven did not give him any substantial punishment. For a smart man, one sentence is enough. More words will destroy the relationship between master and servant.

That night, Patty was in a very bad condition.

The next morning, the construction of the riverside workshop officially began.

According to Raven's idea, this workshop will become the center of the Eagle Town Industrial Zone in the future, so it covers a large area, 50 meters long and wide, and 15 meters away from the river, which is convenient for fetching water and extinguishing fires.

But on the second day of construction, a problem arose: it was too close to the river and the groundwater was too abundant, so sewage gushed out like a fountain two meters into the foundation.

After careful consideration, Raven had to move the workshop's address fifty meters northwest, re-level the land, dig the foundation, and give up the idea of ​​building an underground warehouse.

However, not all the previous work has been wasted. The previously excavated foundation can be widened on the original basis to serve as a small canal connecting the workshop and Jinsha River.

On the fifth day after construction began, the foundation was excavated and most of the cornerstones were buried, but then a heavy rain hit.

The buildings in this world are mainly made of rocks and supplemented by wood. The stones are mostly bonded together with lime slurry, which needs to dry slowly on dry days to ensure adhesion and strength. It cannot withstand the erosion of rainwater at all.

In just one night, the buried foundation was soaked and rotten, and ditches had to be dug in advance to drain the accumulated water.

Looking at the muddy construction site, Raven sighed in his heart.

I really want cement!

It's not that he hasn't thought about inventing cement in this world, but the problem is that it is beyond the scope of nine years of compulsory education. Even if Raven knows its approximate formula, he has no way of mastering the proportions, and at least for now, it doesn't have such a wide range of applications.

This kind of industrial product must be placed in the hands of a big force to see profits, but in Raven's hands it will only result in losses.

If I really want to smash it out, I have to wait until I become a viscount.

Raven once again began his life of going back and forth between two points. It was like this in Shining Gold Town and it was also like this in Eagle Town.

Previously it was from the government hall to the training ground, but now it is from Eagle Fort to the construction site.

Although he didn't need to be on the construction site all day, he always came back covered in dirt, which kept Petty very busy.

On the 9th day after the construction started, August 1193, 8 in the Guangming calendar, with the busy work of hundreds of craftsmen, the four city walls basically took shape and the foundation of the factory building inside was also dug, but problems were encountered during the construction process.

Raven originally wanted to build a huge workshop in the workshop that could accommodate hundreds of people working at the same time, but this was impossible with the construction technology of this world - or to be precise, with the construction technology of the people Raven could find.

The foreman said: "Sir, you want a palace, but we have only built a manor at most!"

In that case, let’s change it!
The factory building originally planned to be 40 meters by 40 meters was changed into nine independent workshops of 12 meters by 12 meters arranged in a nine-square grid.

On the contrary, there were no major problems with the planned warehouses and workers' dormitories, as these local craftsmen all had some experience in building hotels.

In addition to the work on the construction site, there were many matters that Raven had to handle personally - such as the storage and distribution of the transported livestock, which old Gordon did not dare to do alone.

On the 16th day after the start of construction, the construction of the Riverside Workshop was on track, and the architectural plan was basically finalized. The only things left were details, and Raven could finally shift his attention a little and focus on other things - such as learning the Elvish language.

Picking up a book thicker than the Xinhua Dictionary, Raven's brows twitched, and for the first time he felt that his choice might have some problems.

This is just the Elvish dictionary.

The real teaching material was two feet long and one foot wide, and as thick as a whole piece of beef ribs. Raven had no doubt that he could kill a pig by swinging this thing.

Of course, he couldn't really experiment, and he didn't even dare to be disrespectful to the book, because it was a "Record of the Holy Words", which recorded the teachings of the Lord of Light and the various miracles He had performed, written in both Elvish and Imperial.

"My Lord has said: Anyone who sees the light will see the true meaning of kindness..."

It’s true that the Elvish language is magical. Raven started to feel drowsy after reading the first two sentences.

"I've been fooled." Raven stretched and gently patted his cheeks to cheer himself up.

He thought that Lux would come to tutor him personally, and with her by his side, studying would not be such a boring thing.

But he was only half right. Lux did agree to be his teacher, but this teacher was really irresponsible. She only taught him the basic phonetic symbols and never came again, saying that she would proceed to the next stage of the course only when he could recite a passage of the Lord of Light accurately in the Elvish language.

But the problem is that the pronunciation of Elvish is extremely strange, very much like the Slavic language of his previous life, with all the rolling and flicking of the tongue, which made Raven's tongue a little knotted. If he read it too fast, it sounded like he was singing RAP.

Forcing himself to read two more lines, Raven was about to try to speak it in Elvish when he heard a hurried knock on the door.

“Who is it?!” Raven was interrupted and shouted impatiently, “Didn’t I tell you not to disturb me when I’m reading?!”

"Baron... it's me!" Fili's cautious voice sounded outside the door: "Everything you want has arrived."

"This guy actually came to report himself. He's really good at flattering people." Raven smiled helplessly, slammed the book on the table and walked out. He saw the gold teeth showing in Philip's brilliant smile: "You mean, everyone is here?"

"That's right, sir." Fili rubbed his hands and said, "Twenty first-level magic cores and two sets of alchemy equipment have been delivered to your warehouse."

"Among the common magic cores, the prices of earth, water, fire, wind, steel, blood, etc. range from 2.9 to 5.7 gold coins. Other than that..."

"Good job!" Raven patted him on the shoulder and interrupted his offer: "Go find old Gordon and settle the balance."

As he spoke, he walked out with the sound of the wind and ordered, "Volaf, send the magic core to the dungeon immediately!"

"Mosingam, send me a live pig, two live chickens, and two rabbits, also to the dungeon, and put them in different cells!"

Raven's eyes sparkled with anticipation.

It's time to test whether the magic core can be used on other living things!
……

(End of this chapter)