Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 371 Intelligence Feedback
As soon as Wayne and his two companions escaped from Fengyuan City, the Eye of Illusion immediately sent a message to Harvey using the magic brain device it carried with it.

[Eye of Illusion: Sir Harvey, the deterrence operation against Duke Ralph was completed three days ago... I'm sorry, because you previously granted us the authority to act freely during the operation, Mr. Wayne attempted to directly kill Duke Ralph during the sniper plan, but unfortunately he was unsuccessful...]

[Eye of Illusion: We left Fengyuan City immediately after the attack and are currently on a merchant ship returning to Sancha Town... According to an informant from the Dragonstone Chamber of Commerce, Fengyuan City has been completely sealed off, prohibiting anyone from entering or leaving. We haven't been able to find out the Duke's specific condition, but it's likely only minor injuries... After all, he possesses some strange defensive magical device that activates automatically without the need for magical guidance.]

[Astrologer: But almost everyone in Fengyuan City knows about the Duke's attack. Whether in the merchant houses, taverns, hotels, or even in the streets and alleys, everyone is discussing it privately, and the story is becoming increasingly outrageous. Some even claim to have witnessed a legendary spellcaster descend into Fengyuan City and directly attack and kill Duke Ralph...]

[Eye of Illusion: Haha, the contents of the warning letter we left before leaving the attack site have also been leaked from the tightly sealed Duke's Mansion. This has caused a sensation among the local nobles. Many people believe that the Federation is using us to eliminate Grand Duke Saint Valen's top vassal.]

After quickly browsing the messages from the two forum members, Harvey felt completely relieved. He had anticipated that if Wayne were in charge of this mission, given his ruthless and decisive personality, he would have taken a risky attempt to kill the Duke directly. He hadn't expected the two high-level spellcasters to actually agree with this idea and fully cooperate with him in this risky attempt...

Thinking back to the early days of the forum, when members first united to launch a revenge operation against the church witch hunters, Mr. Eye of Illusion seemed to be unusually active, taking the initiative to step forward and take on the task.

"I didn't expect that this high-level wizard who looks elegant and gentle is actually a warmonger..." Harvey smiled bitterly and shook his head.

Seeing that he had no intention of getting up from the desk, the servant quickly brought him a cup of freshly brewed black tea. Harvey took the cup and took a sip, then exited the one-way chat section of the forum and entered another "encrypted channel" independent of the forum.

This is an intelligence communication network specially set up for the "secret police" trained by Asdalen.

[Codename 091: According to the intelligence currently gathered from Fengyuan City, the Duke's vassal nobles and vassals have not reacted violently, but the Ralph family has urgently recalled their direct family members stationed in the surrounding counties... perhaps fearing a large-scale assassination attempt against the family.]

[Code 088: The Duke's residence has been sealed off for three full days. Archbishop Fengyuan was summoned the day the Duke was attacked, but he has not been seen leaving the residence since... Therefore, I speculate that Duke Ralph may have been seriously injured.]

[Codename 085: We followed our original plan and secretly used various news channels to portray this as a joint effort by the Union and the Northern Wasteland to warn and punish Duke Ralph for his excessive taxation and looting of the people in his fiefdom and surrounding villages and counties... This was an obvious fact, and many people believed it.]

The list of "secret police" who had sneaked into Fengyuan City in advance to collect intelligence was exactly three people, which perfectly matched the number of code-named members who were currently sending encrypted messages on the communication channel.

Harvey sighed, hoping that this deterrent action would temporarily halt Duke Ralph's atrocities and buy him some breathing time to quickly absorb and win over the population.

At this moment, Asdalen gently pushed the door open and walked in.

"My lord, the secret army that Duke Ralph sent to Frostflower County suddenly abandoned the mercenaries and civilians they had recruited and captured at noon today and marched lightly towards the Divine Spine Mountains..."

Harvey raised his eyebrows and asked in surprise, "Oh? They received the news of the Duke's attack so quickly?"

It seemed the deterrent effect was truly remarkable. Duke Ralph, completely overwhelmed by fear and anger, had given up on the slow, human-wave-attack tactics and planned to launch a direct attack across the Divine Spine Mountains towards the Frontier Territory. This was exactly what Harvey had hoped for… There was nothing more satisfying than a weak opponent offering themselves to your door.

"By the way, where's Reiner? He actually didn't bother me during my lunch break today, which is unusual... Normally, he loves to pick this time to report to me on work."

Asdalen smiled and said, "The snowstorm has stopped in the past few days, and the weather has improved a bit. Refugees transferred from Sancha Town have been pouring in, almost filling up the entire Grizz Fort dock. The city hall has sent three groups of personnel to provide support, but it's still a bit stretched... Reiner couldn't stand their work efficiency and went to Grizz Fort himself."

Fortunately, there is no need to worry too much about plague and infectious diseases in the dead of winter. Otherwise, this group of refugees transported from the south of Saint-Valen would not only need to register their identity information in a tedious manner, but also have to deal with quarantine and epidemic prevention work, which would keep the already short-staffed city hall busy.

"I've already asked the Ministry of Construction to begin renovating the abandoned refugee resettlement site outside the city. This will at least prevent these refugees from coming from afar from freezing to death in leaky, damaged shacks in the icy northern wilderness."

……

Arturo Lambert put down the thin paper in his hand and kept muttering to himself, "I see...I see."

Senator Prall looked at him in a trance and asked worriedly, "Speaker? Is there something wrong?"

Since officially starting to conduct new research in the soul field, Arturo, the patriarch of the Lambert family and also the chairman of the Undead Cult, has immediately surpassed others in the progress and results of his experimental research.

The reason is simple. As an alchemical life that has just been successfully transformed, Arturo has truly experienced what it means to be an "innate scientific research holy body" - there is no need to eat or rest. As long as he ensures sufficient infusion of magic energy, he can conduct various experimental research without sleep, and no longer has to worry about the weak body of a research-type spellcaster.

No wonder Sir Harvey believed that the development potential of the soul realm far exceeded the traditional realms of flesh and blood transformation and death energy spellcasting...

"We have indeed been following the outdated and backward research direction of the past. It wasn't until today that I truly realized what Sir Harvey meant by... the wrong path..."

There is no need for ancient and complicated taboo rituals and blood sacrifices, nor is there a need to take the huge risk of life and death to try to transform into a lich. Just extracting the soul completely from the weak flesh and blood body and transferring it to a customized rune alchemical prosthesis can allow the undead spellcaster to completely break free from the shackles and truly enter the transcendent realm of "eternal life of the soul".

Arturo moved his mind, raised his metallic mechanical arm, and gently waved to several experimental alchemical beasts that were stagnant at the wall of the laboratory. He used the unique soul connection characteristics of alchemical life to activate them all, and began the busy experimental preparation work under his control again.

These were a group of experimental assistant-type alchemy beasts specially customized for Arturo by Reiner, a fellow alchemist, taking into account Arturo's sleepless work habits... There were almost no normal magic apprentices who could become his experimental assistants - after all, those young people were still living humans and could not withstand the cruel torture of 007.

Arturo was naturally grateful for this. "When this new experimental project makes progress in a few days, I'll ask Sir Harvey to equip me with a set of alchemical mechanical tentacles... just like the ones my fellow tribesman, Sir Reiner, has."

(End of this chapter)