When Luo Lan entered the office, he was surprised to find that Wendy, not Nightingale, was waiting inside.
“What’s wrong?” He poured himself a glass of warm water. “Where’s Nightingale?”
“She’s gone to meet the sisters.”
“Is that so?” Luo Lan picked up the cup, about to take a sip, when he suddenly felt something was off. “Wait, what sisters?”
“The sisters from the Mutual Aid Society. They’ve come to Border Town,” Wendy replied.
“Weren’t they searching for Holy Mountain?” He stood up abruptly. “How many people are here? Is that person who wanted to hurt Nightingale… what was her name, Hakala the Serpent Demon, is she here too?”
“No, Your Highness… they didn’t find Holy Mountain. In the wilderness, they encountered terrible monsters, and only seven survived in the end.” Wendy repeated Leaf’s account, then bowed apologetically. “You were napping at the time, please forgive me for taking the liberty of asking Nightingale and Lightning to bring them back.”
“It’s nothing,” Luo Lan waved his hand. “You know I wouldn’t blame you for something like this. What are their abilities?”
“I’m not sure, but according to Leaf, none of them are combat-type witches, so maybe…” Wendy hesitated. “They won’t be of much use to you.”
“Non-combat types?” Luo Lan’s heart suddenly filled with anticipation. Constrained by the God’s Stone of Retaliation and the limited range of their powers, witches’ combat abilities were actually quite limited; production was their forte. If he had a witch specializing in shaping, he could solve the problem of rough processing techniques and directly enter the era of mechanized mass production; if a witch who could generate electricity came along, Border Town’s nights would be as bright as day. Next, he would become king, marry a witch, reach the peak of his life, and lead everyone to achieve the four modernizations. Just thinking about it was exciting.
“Your Highness, you don’t need them…” Perhaps his prolonged silence made Wendy worried, and she asked in a low voice.
“No, how could that be?” Luo Lan snapped back to reality and said, word by word, “I’ll take as many witches like that as you can bring.”
Just as the sun was setting, Nightingale returned to the castle smoothly with the remaining sisters of the Mutual Aid Society, and Luo Lan had prepared a lavish dinner in the castle hall as a welcoming banquet.
The witches were obviously starving, but dining in such an environment for the first time, they all seemed very restrained. Most of them were seeing the lord for the first time, let alone a prince.
Fortunately, besides Luo Lan himself, there were also Anna and Nanawa, two local witches, to set an example, and Lightning, who didn’t know what embarrassment was, livened up the atmosphere. In the end, everyone finally relaxed a little, and there was even some conversation at the banquet.
Luo Lan chewed on a fried bread slice while looking with great interest at the group of women in front of him, all with distinctly different styles but all beautiful. This was the greatness of magic—even if technology developed to the point where witches weren’t needed, their appearance would be a never-ending spectacle.
The model community being built by Carl was not yet completed, so the witches could only temporarily live in the castle. There were four empty rooms left on the second floor. Luo Lan considered it and decided to change the single rooms into double rooms. After all, the large beds were prepared for visiting nobles and could easily accommodate two people.
After dinner, the prince finally ushered in the long-awaited segment—ability inquiries.
The witches entered the office in turn, accompanied by Nightingale. Luo Lan, like an interviewer, recorded each of their characteristics, and for the first time used the God’s Stone of Retaliation to test the effects of their abilities. The whole process was like a job fair. When the last witch’s inquiry was completed, he exhaled and stretched. If he wasn’t afraid that Nightingale might be eavesdropping nearby, he really wanted to hum a super-star.
Although he didn’t find a witch specializing in shaping or one who could generate electricity, so the progress of modernization would have to be slowed down a bit, this batch of witches still brought Luo Lan plenty of surprises.
First and foremost, there was the witch named Leaf.
He spread out the recorded parchments on the table, and pulled out the one about her.
Before adulthood, Leaf’s ability was limited to amplifying the fruits of plants. After adulthood, this ability was greatly enhanced and a branch ability was derived: control of plants.
The first ability could be used to improve fruits and seeds, increase yields, and amplify the effects of herbs. The branch ability allowed her to change the properties and characteristics of plants. According to her, injecting magic into plants could make withered branches grow green leaves, could command weeds to entangle enemies, and could even merge herself with a large tree.
However, the larger the plant, the more magic it took to control. So in combat, she preferred to use weeds, which took effect quickly and cost less magic.
The ability was cast by contact and could be transmitted through a physical medium (such as the ground), with a range of about five meters.
There was no doubt that this witch with long, green hair was definitely a good helper for developing agriculture, and her importance was self-evident—industrialization required a large population, and a large population depended on enough food to feed them. This food had to be either produced domestically or imported through trade. The former, without highly efficient production capacity, would only bind most of the human resources to the land. The latter was difficult to achieve in an era when transportation was extremely underdeveloped.
Now that he had acquired a druid, Luo Lan hoped to use a small number of farmers to feed a large number of industrial workers and accelerate the industrialization of his territory.
Therefore, in terms of future practice directions, he decided to have Leaf focus on improving seeds. Whether it was wheat or barley, as long as one of them could achieve increased production, it would greatly increase the upper limit of the population that his territory could accommodate. In addition, he had heard that the Fjords produced some uniquely flavored foods, which, according to Lightning’s description, sounded a lot like potatoes and corn. If the rumors were true, then the plan to introduce these two crops would have to be put on the agenda as soon as possible. After all, wheat itself was not a high-yield crop.
After writing down the practice plan, Luo Lan put her information aside and pulled out the second sheet of paper from the table.
The second witch to be questioned was Scroll, who was also the oldest of the seven, approaching forty this year.
This was a rare age in the witch community. The older they were, the harder it was to resist the magic backlash. But seeing her ability description, Luo Lan could understand why Scroll had lived to this day.
Her main ability was a memory far beyond that of ordinary people. After adulthood, the ability was stabilized, almost to the point of being photographic, and she gained a very interesting branch ability: Scroll could turn what she had seen into a physical entity in a short period of time. Luo Lan named it "Visualization."
The main ability was in effect almost all the time, so Scroll could safely pass every Awakening Day. This was also the reason why she was able to become self-taught despite her humble background… this ability greatly improved learning, especially for learning text that required repeated memorization and practice. The branch ability would exhaust all of her magic with each use, and the duration of the visualization depended on the remaining magic, generally between a quarter of an hour and an hour.
Obviously, Scroll was a natural teacher. If he wanted to expand education in the future, she could completely dominate all fields. Hmm… as for now, Luo Lan thought, her ability didn’t require practice, so he might as well keep her by his side for now. When he had time, he could write some elementary textbooks on mathematics and physics to teach her. When the time was right, she could shine in the field of education. (。)