Wizard's Journey

Chapter 533 The Moth-Frog City Lord (Bonus Chapter for Recommended Votes)

Four months later.

All the descendants of the Heart of the Underworld lineage crossed over to the Nine-Headed Wrath Wizard Academy. After a brief ceremony for the academy's deans, Dadaron, Peranos, and Utopia, all the third and fourth generation disciples began their real assessment, which lasted for fifty years.

Moth Frog City, the city randomly assigned by the Netherworld Heart Ancestor for the Green Assessment.

Mothfrog City has a population of 70,000, and is surrounded by nine towns and 342 villages, with a total population of 257,000. It is the earliest city developed by the Nine-Headed Wrath Wizard Academy and is famous for its unique creature, the mothfrog. It is located a short distance from the Nine-Headed Wrath Wizard Academy and the Nine-Sky Knights.

Green sat at the table, carefully reading the resource and population information of Mothfrog City.

In the hall sat more than twenty nobles of all ranks from Mothfrog City, their eyes filled with anticipation as they looked at the wizard wearing a gray-white mask with spiral patterns.

Xiao Ba stood on Vivian's shoulders, following behind Green.

After a while, Green put down a large amount of documents and looked at the many nobles in the hall, saying slowly, "You already know the purpose of my trip, so let me tell you my plan. First of all, my goal is to increase my wealth."

There are three ways to increase the population: increase the birth rate, reduce the death rate, and attract immigrants.

Having wealth would make completing the first two tasks easy, which was indeed Green's first priority.

Upon hearing about wealth, the eyes of several nobles who had initially come merely to appease them immediately lit up with fervor.

Marquis Gumoza revealed his few remaining withered, yellowed teeth and asked with great interest, "Master Green, do you have any ideas on how to increase the wealth of this small town?"

"From now on, call me City Lord."

After correcting his words, Green pondered for a moment, recalling some of his experiences from his detailed conversation with Amlund.

Picking up the documents again, Green asked, "Besides the naturally cultivated crops mentioned in the documents, such as moth frogs, fireflies, oak trees, jujubes, and rye malt, are there any mineral resources?"

After exchanging glances, the old Marquis Gumoza said, "Actually, there is a gold mine in the Broken Tooth Mountain beyond that corrosive swamp to the west."

"Huh?"

"what?"

Behind Green, Xiao Ba and Vivian exclaimed in surprise, "There's a gold mine in this small town and no one has developed it?"

Green frowned, surprised, and asked, "What's going on?"

Old Gumoza sighed, "First, there's a man-eating monster called the Crypt Demon that inhabits the gold mine. They're good at digging holes in ore and soil. Even if we organize a group of knights to exterminate them, we can't kill them all. Instead, we suffer huge losses ourselves and can't recruit any miners. Second, there's a corrosive swamp there. The air is humid and there are a lot of mosquitoes. People who live there are prone to all sorts of diseases."

Green nodded, but then another nobleman suddenly interjected with information about mineral resources.

"A few dozen miles east of Mothfrog City, there is another iron mine and a precious blood agate mine, but they were seized by the knight legion organized by the nobles of Lingwei City fifteen years ago. The knight legion there is too powerful."

Iron mines represent farming tools and the harvest from cultivated land, while blood agate represents the fact that the small town can post quests at the Nine-Headed Wrath Wizard Academy and apply to become a wizard apprentice to solve some tricky problems.

"Huh!? Damn it, young master, we absolutely have to take them back! No, not only do we have to take back these two mines, we have to take back the ones from other mines too!"

Upon hearing that its mineral resources had been stolen, Xiao Ba was so angry that its fur stood on end, and it started yelling.

Green thought for a moment. It seemed that Lingwei City was managed by one of the students of the Nine-Headed Wrath Master Uncle. The assessment stipulated that conflicts between cities could not be resolved by the wizards themselves, and the wizards were just playing the role of city lords.

Later, the nobles reported some information about poor mines, but it was of little value. Of course, these nobles must have some private mine resources in their hands, otherwise this Moth Frog City would have become a Moth Frog Town long ago.

……

"Senior, what should we do?"

Vivian asked in a low voice.

After glancing at the tax revenue he controlled, Green rubbed the worried brow beneath his Face of Truth and said, "Vivian, go investigate the area around that town of Elode and find out what's going on with that group of roving bandits. If you can recruit them, bring them here to be the city guard. If that doesn't work, kill the leader and dismiss the others. If that still doesn't work, kill them all or... send them to Lingwei City."

"Uh... okay."

Vivian nodded and left with the knight sent by the town of Elord.

"Xiao Ba, you come along too, and keep an eye on Vivian."

Green quickly took the opportunity to get rid of the overly ambitious and controlling Little Eight, otherwise Green, who was already extremely irritable, would have exploded. Managing the livelihoods of these ordinary humans was too tiring, because for these underdeveloped and backward wizarding academy areas, there were too many thorny problems that ordinary humans, who were too fragile to solve, could not handle.

"Huh? Okay."

Little Hachi flapped its wings and flew away.

"Sheriff!"

After Green shouted, a knight with a large belly ran in from outside. He was dressed in iron armor, carrying an axe on his shoulder. He was incredibly strong and knelt on one knee, slightly panting.

Having grown up in the lower strata of Bisserl, Green was well aware of some of the city's shady dealings.

"Organize the city guard. I'm going to inspect Mothfrog City, and you'll all come with me."

The "you" I'm referring to are naturally the nobles in the hall.

"Yes."

The sheriff rushed out to assemble the city guards, while Green, as the city lord, led a large group of nobles out at a leisurely pace, seemingly putting the plan to increase wealth on hold for the time being.

Half an hourglass time later.

Among the hundred or so knights in the guard, Green led the many nobles through the busiest streets of the small town, watching as the townspeople watched. Suddenly, he pointed in one direction and said, "This way."

The sheriff dared not disobey and quickly led his knights to change direction.

After traversing vast stretches of muddy, filthy shantytowns, Green finally found what he was looking for.

He dismounted and said coldly, "Surround this area."

"yes!"

A large number of poorly trained city guards surrounded the street, and Green inspected each house one by one, followed by a tax official.

"Does this tavern ever collect taxes?"

The tax official replied in a deep voice, "No."

"Hmph, no? Whose shop is this?"

Green sneered and followed the tax collector's gaze to a nobleman behind him. The dark wizard's cold and cruel gaze immediately made the nobleman tremble with fear, not knowing what to say.

And so, after circling the street once, Green returned to the city lord's mansion.

The next day, a large number of bribes appeared on Green's table, including some "shares" in the shady business world.

Green gave a cold laugh and then said to one of his henchmen behind him, "Give this money to the accountant and tell them to stockpile a batch of grain. We're going to organize the city's homeless and poor people to receive wages and food to start quarrying."

Green's goal, of course, was to build roads and improve traffic.

Only by making full use of and exploring resources can they be transformed into wealth.

This is why the wealthy central area of ​​Santa Fe must have an airship port; it represents the convenience of resource and information exchange and the full utilization of resources.

However, it is clear that this amount of bribery and the remaining tax revenue in the accounts are far from enough to cover the funds needed for Green's second phase of the plan.

With that thought in mind, Green flew alone toward the difficult-to-develop Broken Tooth Mountain gold mine.

(End of this chapter)