Knight Lord: Start with Daily Intelligence.

Chapter 267: Knight More and the Sacred Debate

During the growth of the Goddess of Dawn, in addition to directly purchasing slaves, the church also spent a large sum of money to recruit monks directly from orders in other territories and cities.

This led to the emergence of different orders under the Church of the Dawn Goddess.

Fandral explained in detail, "Our territory has undergone a period of recovery and recuperation, and the Church of Dawn has grown in size. We now have a total of 36 druids and nuns."

"These sisters currently belong to four orders: the Green Watcher Order, the Tree of Life Order, the Ring of Fertility Order, and the Nature's Wrath Order."

"What abilities do these orders have?" Su Li asked with great interest. He had a pretty good memory and remembered that Fandral belonged to the [Order of the Green Watcher], whose abilities were to make [Vitality Potion], [Purification Potion], [Healing Potion], and [Blood of the Earth].

Fandral immediately replied, "The Order of the Fertility Circle is the Order of the Dawn Goddess, who created the [Love Elixir] for our territory. They devoutly believe that Rhea's blessing can bring fertility and prosperity to humanity. They typically preside over weddings and birth ceremonies, provide assistance to infertile couples, and use small methods to increase the birth rate in the territory. The order currently has four trainees and two full-time sisters, led by the elite Sister FLS. In addition to treating civilians, the order also participates in animal taming, cleaning stone circles for Rhea worship, and promoting animal reproduction."

Sister FLS? This is a character. The future of the territory's love elixir depends on her.

Moreover, the territory cannot always rely on foreign immigrants, it must have its own internal driving force. A year passed unnoticed, and Su Li could actually wait until the newborns in the territory reached adulthood.

It takes at least two generations of effort for a territory to take shape, so the territory needs to increase its birth rate.

"The Tree of Life Convent is primarily led by Sister Isabella. The convent consists of two elite sisters, one druid, three formal sisters, and four novice sisters. They are primarily responsible for cultivating the extraordinary plants in the territory, such as the Consecrated Wisteria Fantasy Garden, maintaining the Extraordinary Spike, and promoting economic crops such as spices, herbs, and amethyst grapes."

Hearing this, Su Li's eyes suddenly lit up.

If the Order of the Tree of Life is responsible for so many things, then the size of their order is relatively too small, and they need to continue to increase their manpower.

At least this scale must be doubled or tripled! In fact, they originally had this level, but after the war with the Green Dragon, the Dawn Church also lost a large number of nuns, so this scale has not been restored.

Of course, Su Li's attention to them is extremely necessary. It can be said that this order determines at least half, or even close to two-thirds, of the territory's agricultural tax revenue!
The consecrated wisteria tree, star dew orange and moon crown tree flower are three extraordinary spiritual plants in the territory. Although they are not yet fully mature, even at the current stage of valuation, their value is no less than 20000 gold crowns!

Even for these 20000 gold crowns, it would not be excessive to form a group of nuns with 30 to 50 people dedicated to cultivating and caring for these three spiritual plants.

In addition to these three spiritual plants, they are also responsible for three other directions: the Extraordinary Ear of Wisdom covering more than 100 square meters, the expanded Amethyst Vineyard, and the even larger Vanilla Orchid.

How could this be considered? They were already short on manpower. No wonder the territory was seeking investment from merchants. If the territory had more funds and could recruit more extraordinary nuns, the territory's development level would truly improve significantly.

While Su Li was still calculating, Fandral continued, "The Order of Nature's Wrath is led by Lord Edmund. They are responsible for maintaining Rhea's seal. They believe that all priestesses and devout believers of this goddess are sacred and inviolable. The well-being of families, children, crops, and livestock is of paramount importance, as is the sanctity of life and love. Therefore, they will uphold the sanctity and authority of the church and punish those who disrespect the gods and are ungrateful. However, this order is relatively small, with only three members."

"Our order currently has over 1300 registered members, most of whom are commoners who work the land, including farmers, herbalists, midwives, food merchants, lovers, hedge wizards—all of whom hope to receive the blessings of the goddess of fertility, life, and dawn."

"The goddess is extremely generous. After the believers hung flowers, fruits and ears of wheat on the wooden statue of the goddess, the goddess bestowed abundant blessings."

"Our territory's farming business is booming. With the blessing of Goddess Rhea, the vanilla orchids have expanded to 40 mu! Furthermore, under the nuns' careful guidance, the water from the Life Spring is now irrigating all the vanilla fields, and the yield of vanilla pods per mu has climbed to 3 kilograms!"

3 jin per mu?
There was an exclamation in the conference hall, and everyone had a surprised smile on their face.

These are precious spices! They usually need to be transported from the distant East. The maritime trade route is known as the Silk Road and the Spice Road.

The territories within the empire that could grow spices were rare, even rare in a thousand! These spice-growing areas all had special springs and rivers flowing through them.

The territory is also located at the foot of the hot spring village, and is irrigated with the spring water of life, which is how this expensive spice is cultivated.

The spice currently grown in Hesse is vanilla. The main part of this spice is the fruit pod it produces, which can be widely used in cooking, baking, desserts and beverages.

Currently, the nuns of the Dawn Church in the territory can already make vanilla pods. When making beverages, fruit tea, and milk tea, they will split the vanilla pods in half and scrape out the vanilla seeds inside, which are the main source of fragrance. These seeds are then scraped into the brewed hot black tea.

The shell of the vanilla pod also has a fragrance and can be dipped into hot black tea to enhance the aroma. After steeping for about 5 minutes, remove it. The vanilla pod shell can be reused 2-3 times until the fragrance is completely gone.

This cooking method shows how expensive this natural spice is. A pound of vanilla seeds can cost up to 1000 gold crowns.

The territory caravan currently mainly transports shelled vanilla pods to Maleburg, with the price per pound ranging from 57 to 65 gold crowns.

Even if calculated based on 57 gold crowns, the profit is as high as 56 gold crowns!

This stuff is extremely profitable. 99% of every pound sold is profit.

The territory's current 40 acres of vanilla pods will produce 120 kilograms next year.

Apart from leaving a few pounds for seeds and expanding the vanilla area, the remaining profit is 6000 gold crowns!

6000 gold crowns! If you raise elite knights, you can supply 120 elite knights for a whole year.

This means that the vanilla from these 40 acres alone can support the territory with just one squadron of elite knights.

The spice industry is indeed a highly profitable industry.

Su Li immediately asked with concern: "How much profit did vanilla bring to our territory this year?"

Fandral didn't shy away from answering this question, answering frankly, "According to our calculations and the audit by the Provincial Council, this year's vanilla revenue totaled 873 gold crowns. This is mainly because the vanilla cultivation area wasn't built overnight. It was cultivated bit by bit with the help of the druids, and most of it is still not mature."

"Also, many of the harvested vanilla pods are saved as seeds for the expansion of vanilla planting area next year, so the income is very limited."

Of course, there is another problem that Fandral did not say directly, that is, a considerable portion of these vanilla pods were enjoyed by Su Li.

This kind of spice was originally a luxury item favored by the nobles and used to satisfy their enjoyment.

When Phyllis was around, she liked to make fruit tea for Su Li to taste.

It was only after Phyllis left that these things were taken out of Su Li's vault area and sold directly in the territory.

The territory was now full of wealthy merchants and large farmers, and even a few pounds of vanilla pods were easily snapped up. These knight families and large farmers were actually quite wealthy. As long as the territory prospered, businesses flourished, and products were plentiful, selling products to them would earn them a fortune.

Fandral said confidently, "The income from spices this year is indeed not great, but after the Spring Creation Ceremony next year, the vanilla will flourish, and we can earn at least 6000 gold crowns next year. Then, based on this foundation, we may even cultivate an industry with profits exceeding 10000 gold crowns the year after."

"However, at present, the scale of this industry will probably only be limited to 10000 gold crowns. If the Lord does not give us new guidance, it will be difficult for us to make further breakthroughs."

"One of the limitations is the number of Dawn Church nuns in the territory, and another is the size of the Spring of Life. The spring water flow in Hot Spring Village is not large, and at most it can only irrigate a little over 100 acres of vanilla fields. If we want to continue to expand the scale of the vanilla field, we have to turn Hot Spring Village into a hot spring town."

The rest of the territory was truly helpless in solving this problem. They could only rely on Su Li's intelligence and guidance, either to increase the number of hot spring bases elsewhere or to expand the vanilla fields from this area to other areas.

If there are three or five hot springs irrigating hundreds of acres of vanilla fields nearby, the vanilla industry in the territory can develop further.

But Su Li felt that this was not that easy. Although Heisen Territory was at the foot of Heisen Mountain, there couldn't be earthquakes every day, right?
What's more, even if there are several earthquakes every year, it will not produce a fixed hot spring.

If the vanilla industry wants to develop further, the territory still has to find a way to increase the flow of the spring of life in the hot spring village and turn the small water pipes into large fountains or waterfalls.

So Su Li pondered and said, "I will pay attention to this issue. I remember that Duin's Claw has a similar ability."

Fandral nodded and said, "Yes, my lord. After the Duinclaws build their nests, they can form a magical spring at the bottom of the lake. However, their main function is to improve the water quality, and they don't increase the water flow much."

This is not a big problem. Since there are organisms that can improve water quality, there must be organisms or gems, pearls, or even water element crystal cores that can increase the flow of spring water.

Even if the water level of the Fountain of Life can be increased by 20% at a time, if it continues to expand, the scale will eventually be very considerable.

However, since he was concerned about this issue, Su Li simply solved all the problems. He continued to ask with concern: "Are there any other problems with vanilla planting?"

Fandral thought for a moment and said, "There aren't many problems with planting, but we've encountered some obstacles in terms of doctrine and theory. That is, will continuously using divine magic to catalyze the growth of seeds and herbs cause backlash?"

"Backlash?" Su Li raised his eyebrows and looked at Fandral cautiously. This world is an extremely dark and desperate world, which means that doing anything has a price.

That classic inquiry – so what’s the price?

On Earth, this might be just picking on something, but here in the Empire, it's a real problem that needs to be faced.

Of course, it may also be because the organization asking this question is in an environment similar to that of the empire.

So I can always come up with some angles that ordinary people can't think of.

Fandral said cautiously, "This question was not raised by our church, but by His Excellency Otus Siziki, a priest and elite knight of the Morr Church. When he passed through the hot spring village, he had a heated debate with our nuns on the issue of 'life and death.'"

"They disagree on whether the rebirth of crops from the earth is akin to necromancy."

After hearing Fandral's narration, the people in the room had different reactions. Some sneered, with a scornful arc on their lips and a glint of disdain in their eyes: "This is simply nonsense!"

But some people were deeply shocked, with their brows furrowed, as if trying to digest this seemingly absurd but profoundly philosophical question.

Su Li belonged to the latter, and his mind was also greatly shocked. The world is so big, and there are always such guys who can always find some weird angles that ordinary people can't think of.

Do sane people really consider whether crops reborn from the earth is akin to necromancy?
Under normal circumstances, Su Li would definitely scoff at it. The rebirth of crops is a natural law. How can it be considered necromancy?
But now that the Gilen mages are using the divine spell [Vigorous Growth] to continuously accelerate the growth of plants, is this really not considered necromancy? If this continues, the magical wind in the ground may become too strong, causing distortion, causing all the vanilla orchids to twist and degenerate, becoming chaotic plants.

This kind of philosophical thinking was obviously not suitable for the current meeting of the territory. Su Li couldn't come up with a conclusion for a while, so he asked directly: "Doesn't your church have any doctrines and explanations on this matter in history?"

Fandral spread his palms and said, "Our church's doctrine is rather loose, and each priest uses different rituals to teach Rhea. The first written doctrine was in the Sacred Dialogue, published in 1782 of the Imperial Calendar and immortalized forever. The doctrine states that grains were domesticated by Rhea for us humans and are natural laws. Even if humans don't cultivate them, plants in nature will continue to cycle through the seasons and revive. However, the doctrine doesn't explain in detail whether the large-scale use of [Growth Vitality] is different from necromancy."

"Our church urgently needs a chosen one to help plan and guide the territory."

The Chosen One?
Of course Su Li also wanted a chosen one, but how could it be that easy?

Just look at the dwarves, who guard the Gray Mountain Province, where a large number of mountain dwarves live. A dwarf jewelry master who came to Suli to settle down caused a sensation at the championship level.

In this case, where can we find so many chosen ones?
Although Su Li had the guidance of the intelligence system, he was unable to recruit any God-chosen Knights. The only two God-chosen Knights in the territory were trained by him with great difficulty.

The only chosen one to join the territory was Oliver, the dean of the Provincial Council, but he was a genius from the Royal Griffin Military Academy of Oldham.

This shows how rare the Chosen Ones are. Generally, such talents would not come to the border princes. They would be treated with courtesy by the various dukes within the empire.

So Su Li simply waved his hand and said, "I'll keep an eye on the information regarding the Chosen Ones. What about the Knight Otus of the Mor Church you mentioned?"

Fandral was also aware that finding a Chosen One of the Church of Dawn wasn't easy. After briefly mentioning this, he continued his report, "Our territory has just experienced a number of famous and tragic wars, so a group of Morr's ravens have arrived. Otus is their leader. However, they are not interested in politics and only seek to appease the dead. Therefore, they have not joined the territory's archbishops and have kept a low profile."

The Raven of Morr, that is, the knight who watches over Morr, the god of death.

Many gods have their own symbols and sacred animals. For example, Tal's sacred animal is the giant herder, Ulric's symbol is the white wolf, Violet's symbol is the scorching sun and the golden eagle, and Mor's symbol is the sickle and the raven.

His followers can enlighten the dreams of the living, preside over funerals, and bless the dead, so that the dead will not be tortured by necromancy and their souls will not be filled with resentment. Thus, they can enter the realm of the dead safely, die smoothly, and rest in peace.

The arrival of these people in the territory is undoubtedly a good thing for the territory, and it can bring peace of mind to more people in the territory.

But they were so low-key, which was beyond Su Li's expectation. Otherwise, he could have talked to these people about forming a Black Watch Cavalry Regiment of Morel.

Among the many church knight orders of the empire's gods, in addition to the Knights of the White Wolf, the Knights of the Flaming Sun and the Knights of the Hammer of Redmar, Mor's Knights of the Raven, the Knights of the Black Rose and the Knights of Mor's Black Guard are also very outstanding legions. Due to their long-term contact with death, they are more indifferent to death, so they are usually immune to fear, and their combat effectiveness is not even much lower than those of the church knights of the gods of war.

Su Li felt that after the meeting, he could take the initiative to talk to these Hessen hermits and even provide them with some financial support, allowing them to build a few more churches in their territory, which would surely attract more Morel ravens.

(End of this chapter)