Chapter 008: Reflections

Seeing the holy smile on Du Fan’s face, Elsik felt a sense of reassurance. He thought to himself, “Truly the most devout priest—having such a city lord is their luck.”
Du Fan brought out the map. Once Elsik got to work, he became completely focused, with only one thought in mind: to have Du Fan’s room rearranged. He then concentrated entirely on the map.
“Don’t touch the site designated for my mansion here for now. Give top priority to building residential houses. If we can construct city walls, that’s great; I won’t force you. Don’t rush. It’s not that I doubt your ability to work—just let me finish speaking.”
After calming Elsik, Du Fan continued, “Let’s ignore the large-scale projects outside the city for now. We should first improve the inner city before considering the city walls. Let’s talk about those five major bandit groups first. How much do you know about them?”
Elsik thought for a moment and said, “Not much. Province Rose is getting worse by the day, while the bandit groups are growing stronger. There’s no comparison between the two. The last city lord died a tragic death—his private troops were completely useless…”
At the end, Elsik grew embarrassed. “Last time, the city walls weren’t even built yet. If we had walls too, as long as they were sturdy enough…”
“If the enemy has at least four level-8 warriors, do you think our walls would still be useful?” Du Fan cut him off mercilessly.
Elsik clearly found Du Fan’s words unbelievable. Stammering, he repeated, “At least… four… four level-8 warriors?! How is that possible?!”
Du Fan casually created a silence barrier—he didn’t want to cause panic in the already failing city of Doha. “You heard me right—four. And that’s just the minimum. You know about the robberies we encountered on the road, right?”
Elsik nodded reluctantly. It was simply too unbelievable!
“What do you think the strength of those four fierce beasts is?”
“What strength?” Elsik seemed stunned and repeated the question before screaming, “There can’t be a level-8 warrior among them!”
Du Fan nodded. “Not one. There should be two. And the other two are level-7 warriors.” He even gave a wry smile—this reality was truly… disheartening!
“Two level-8, two level-7… We don’t have people that strong!”
Du Fan’s expression darkened. “I know. But I won’t give up on you! I won’t give up on my territory! And I certainly won’t yield to them!”

Elsik, who had been a bit distracted, also showed a resolute expression upon hearing Du Fan’s words. If Du Fan, a nobleman, wasn’t afraid, what was there for him to fear?
“The lord is right. We won’t give up on ourselves, nor on our hometown, and we certainly won’t submit to them! If they want us to yield, they’ll have to kill us and trample over our corpses!”
Du Fan nodded. “Actually, we’re not completely without skilled fighters.”
He touched his nose. “You’re all warriors, and at least I can contribute something.”
Elsik had also heard about Du Fan’s heroic deeds along the way—how he had killed two level-8 and two level-7 enemies single-handedly. Their city lord was truly reassuring. Thinking of this, Uncle Elsik’s eyes shone as he looked at Du Fan, causing Du Fan to feel goosebumps. His orientation was normal—he only liked beautiful women!
But clearly, Elsik didn’t notice Du Fan’s strangeness; he was only thinking about a better life in the future. Yet soon he sobered up. With just one skilled fighter—the city lord—it was manageable against four enemies at levels seven or eight. But the fourth-ranked thief gang already had two level-8 fighters, so the other three gangs would likely have at least two each. That meant at least eight in total. Even if Du Fan had dealt with two of them, six would still remain. And this was just the minimum. Du Fan couldn’t handle all of them alone.
At this moment, Du Fan explained the situation to himself partly to prepare mentally, but surely he also had some solution in mind.
Sure enough, Du Fan continued, “That’s why I told you not to build a city lord’s mansion. It would be a shame if it got destroyed after being built. Also, aside from where you live now, ignore everything else for now. As for strategies to deal with them…”
Heh, there was something called trench warfare. And since they were still in the age of cold weapons, what if magic, poison, and gunpowder were added to the mix?
A cruel smile appeared on Du Fan’s face, which made Elsik, who had seen some of Du Fan’s cunning, shiver—seemed like someone else was about to suffer.
Du Fan explained the strategic ideas of trench warfare to Elsik, who quickly came up with several application methods, growing more excited by the moment. In the end, Du Fan thought it was a pity Elsik hadn’t been born in that era.
Du Fan also mentioned using poison and setting traps, but Elsik hesitated. “Are these… a bit too much?”

Du Fan snorted and said, “It’s either they die or we perish! Do you really think it’s acceptable for our people to die? Or that our relatives should be killed one by one by them?”
“Are we cruel? Weren’t they cruel when they killed us? Weren’t they cruel when they killed the previous city lord?”
Elsik could say nothing more. He said seriously, “I was soft-hearted for a moment. Such things won’t happen again!”
Du Fan nodded. “Next is gunpowder… Forget it, I’ll figure it out. Prepare the ingredients for gunpowder—sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal…”
Du Fan didn’t just want to reuse the existing gunpowder. He had already come into contact with alchemy, and the origin of gunpowder came from Chinese alchemy. After encountering alchemy, Du Fan found some highly unstable elements that could be used as materials for potions. He just hadn’t yet found the formula for the base yet. As long as he had this mindset, it wouldn’t be difficult to create it.
Realizing that Du Fan wasn’t as pure and easy to manipulate as he seemed, Elsik became somewhat curious about what gunpowder was. He also thought there was nothing wrong with Du Fan being like this. Du Fan was truly kind and merciful. But when facing enemies, he wouldn’t show weakness due to kindness; instead, his attitude would be more resolute than anyone else’s.
With such a kind and leadership-oriented person as their lord, Elsik believed Du Fan would surely enable them to live a good life—even a better life than they could ever imagine! His steps behind Du Fan grew even more determined!
When no one else was willing to lend them a hand, it was Du Fan who gave them a new life!
Du Fan sensed Elsik’s change but didn’t mention it. In his view, although his words had great power, using them wasn’t as effective as making people truly loyal to him. He didn’t need everyone to be loyal to him; it was enough to ensure that most people were loyal, and those who stood by his side—the leaders of the followers—were absolutely loyal to him.
“How many cities in the Rose Province still have people?”
Elsik had already investigated. In his opinion, they should gather those people together, as that would strengthen their strength and make them easier to manage. But this also had a downside: after moving the people away, those cities would truly become dead cities. It wouldn’t be easy to restore their former prosperity, which would be detrimental to future development.

“There are seven more… Do you mean not to let them take them away? Instead, use this… tunnel warfare to strengthen their defenses and give them the ability to protect themselves?” He remembered that although he knew it was not conducive to future development, there was no future now anyway, so he still told Du Fan about it. But after reading the documents, Du Fan did not nod in agreement.

This time, Du Fan wore a broad smile and nodded, saying, “Well? Do you think it’s feasible? I’m not very familiar with the situation in Rose Province, so I need you to put in extra effort on these matters.”

Seeing Du Fan’s courtesy, Elsic was somewhat flattered and said, “I will do my best! This method is certainly feasible—it’s easy to set up and not easy to detect. It can be said to be easy to defend but difficult to attack; it’s much better than cities!”

Du Fan had already made up his mind. Although defense was easier, attack was better. As long as he devoted time to it, he would eliminate those threats one by one! If it came to raids and battles, the air force was still the best. However, Du Fan hadn’t yet figured out what to replace “airplanes.”

Perhaps he could try to find oil, but he didn’t know much about airplanes. After all, men liked fighting. Du Fan knew a bit about military aircraft, but only their appearance; the interior was beyond his understanding.

But machinery wouldn’t work—this wasn’t his Earth from his past life. It was indeed an age of cold weapons, but there were also things on this place that didn’t exist on Earth, such as magic.

Making a wind mage fly into the sky was a bit easier than making someone fly on Earth, but also somewhat more difficult. The key was how Du Fan could apply wind magic to “airplanes,” and how to enhance that magic was also a challenge.

But in an era without an “air force,” any aerial capability gave one an advantage! Right now, he didn’t need to deal with those thieves—tunnel warfare could still hold them at bay for a while, keeping them undefeated! So he still had time.

Perhaps he should move an entire city into the sky—how could they attack then? Unless there were a large number of wind mages! Of course, if wind mages transported people up there, his city wouldn’t be completely defenseless. But then again, how could a city “fly”?

Du Fan dismissed his fanciful ideas and brought his thoughts back to reality.

He failed to build an aerial city, but instead created an unprecedented super underground city, along with a magnificent aerial garden! That aerial garden eventually became a legend, as no one was able to recreate the “Miracle Garden.” Of course, if it could be recreated, it wouldn’t be a miracle anymore.
Not even Du Fan had anticipated all this. His “aerial city” turned into an “aerial garden” due to a small accident.
Du Fan and Elsik discussed the current situation and decided to halt construction of the city walls and focus on building the underground city instead. Du Fan had many suggestions regarding the underground city, all of which were technical breakthroughs that directly influenced its construction! A truly epoch-making city took shape amidst internal challenges and external threats…
After arranging everything, Du Fan rested for a night before leaving the city and heading toward the forests in the south. He was alone, and he had to sneak away, otherwise Old Mark would scold him again.