Chapter 67: Summoning the Town Hall

The vitality-rich essence of the Moon’s Essence, combined with the purifying effects of the potion, creates benefits that are incomparable for a warrior when these effects work together.
Marquis Vincent Ansel felt the effects of the potion just a few breaths after taking it. Without needing to channel his sword energy, the potion’s power penetrated throughout his body on its own. One stream spread throughout his body via his abdomen, while another flowed directly to his brain. The former gradually dissipated the internal injuries and stagnated blood caused by past battles and forced training. Though the process was slow, the results were significant. At the same time, a weak but pure stream of vitality was replenished into his body.
Mentally, his sword intent also became purer and more resilient under the purifying force, less extreme and more refined—like a once-sharp but fragile sword to which rare metals were added and then reforged by a master blacksmith.
“Huh!”
Finally, the marquis exhaled and said, “If I can keep taking these potions, I’m confident I can break through to the upper stages of the Golden Rank within half a year, reach my peak, and then strive full-force to enter the Legendary Realm.”
“Really?” “That’s great, Vincent!”
Ferdinand and Edwina cheered in delight together.
“Don’t get too excited. If the Legendary Realm were that easy to attain, the previous generations of the Ansel family heads wouldn’t have spent their lives at the Golden Rank. I merely have the opportunity. Besides, my understanding of the laws is still superficial—I’m not even close to mastering them!”
Seeing the two so excited as if he had already achieved breakthroughs, the marquis immediately dampened their enthusiasm.
“What are you talking about? How can one break through without confidence?”
The wise marquise knew her husband was joking. She gave him a glance, discussed things with him for a while, then said seriously to her son, “The deal with that baron will bring tremendous benefits to your father and our family. Since all he wants are resources like magic cores and crystals, it’s much simpler. The wealth our family has accumulated is useless just stored in warehouses. As for those refugees, Ferdinand, try your best to meet their needs and secure more benefits for our family.”

“Especially since this young and promising mage is also a rare summoner, backed by powerful forces, we can offer him appropriate assistance while he’s still developing. In the future, our family will gain a strong ally. And since you’re all young, it would be even better if you could become true friends with him!”
As the princess of Celt, the sister of King XV, Edwina has been helping her husband handle some government affairs since marrying into the Ansel family. Coming from a royal family and having studied at the mage tower, she knows more about certain matters than even the marquis. Moreover, as one of the kingdom’s top silver mages, her status is extraordinary.
Even she values Donald’s potential highly, which shows that Donald’s role in the northern kingdom of Celt will become increasingly important in the future.
Back at Darknight Manor, a few days later, Donald’s new territory had been surveyed and boundary markers were officially set. Donald rewarded generously those from the Giantstone City nobles’ administration who ventured deep into the forest to survey his land at the risk of being attacked by magical beasts. Jesse, the leader of the group, received an especially large share.
The celebration banquet was approaching, and before heading to the capital, he still had one task to complete: establishing a small town.
That’s right—building a town.
One of the conditions of Donald’s deal with the Ansel family was the provision of settlers. His territory was in need of development, with little in the way of actual settlers despite owning land.
He wasn’t targeting the commoners of the Northwest Province but rather the mountain people who had left their homes due to orc invasions to escape the chaos. These mountainers were nominally under the rule of the Ansel family, but the Northwest Province didn’t lack population, and the mountainers were stubborn and unruly. The Ansel family didn’t pay much attention to these few thousand people, allowing them to fend for themselves.
The north has always had a sparse population. Initially, not many people were willing to follow the Celt family here to build new homes. After nearly several hundred years of development, the entire kingdom’s population was only two to three hundred thousand, not including those who migrated from the continent after the kingdom’s founding.
However, having a small population also had its advantages—less consumption, abundant resources like land, and a stable national strength. In terms of power, it was on par with the established kingdoms on the continent.

Thus, it was easy for the Ansel family to accept Donald’s request to relocate hundreds or even thousands of mountain dwellers—this process would likely take about ten to fifteen days. Therefore, Donald had to build the town before the people arrived, so as to avoid being unable to accommodate them immediately.
“The territory is still just undeveloped wilderness; a single manor alone cannot sustain thousands of people. Fortunately, I was foresighted enough to purchase a large amount of supplies when I was in Flashgold Town, including enough food to feed a thousand people for a month!”
So, in addition to building the town, Donald also sent his butler to Redmaple Town and Stone City to buy more food, hoping to sustain the population until the harvest from the manor’s farmland in autumn. By then, if a few more farms could be cultivated and wheat planted in winter, the territory would enjoy a good harvest the following spring.
At this time, Ferdinand, who had been away for a few days, returned to Darknight Manor.
“Donald, my father is very satisfied with your goods. I am extremely grateful. These are my thanks to you.”
The Marquis Ansel’s family paid tens of thousands of gold sols in magical beast cores for those precious potions and scrolls last time, along with ten standard cubic units of medium-element crystals, as well as the mountain dwellers from several villages on the border of the marquisate that bordered the orcs, who came at their command.
“As for those refugees, they have already begun to migrate, but it will still take about ten days to reach the North County!”
Donald’s territory needed population, which led him to consider those mountain dwellers. Meanwhile, the remaining orcs in the Ansel border also required time to deal with. How to accommodate those refugees within the territory became an issue. Donald’s conditions solved a problem of moderate size for the Ansel family, so both sides quickly agreed to this essentially mutually beneficial deal.
In reality, Donald only paid a few hundred gold sols in element crystals for this deal. The profit disparity was almost a hundred-to-one, so the more such deals were made, the better.
Looking at the magical cores and crystals before him, Donald nodded in satisfaction and said, “These are exactly what I needed. There’s no need for thanks. We can say we’re helping each other. I feel very confident dealing with the Ansel family. I’d like to do more such deals!”
A territory as vast as a county, with hundreds of years of earnings, could support an entire kingdom. Moreover, the Ansel family had a legacy of over a thousand years, with accumulated wealth far beyond Donald’s imagination—these were probably just a drop in the ocean.

Ferdinand also smiled happily upon hearing this and said, “That’s great! What have you brought this time, Donald? Is it another teleportation scroll? To be honest, has your teacher already been promoted to an Alchemy Master? Otherwise, such rare teleportation scrolls have been lost for a long time—no one in the entire kingdom can find two of them!”
Donald chuckled inwardly. The reason he had dared to show that teleportation scroll earlier was because he had his teacher’s backing. As expected, Ferdinand immediately associated it with his teacher, the top mage of North County, Messel.
“Of course not. Do you think teleportation scrolls are just ordinary parchment? The cost of creating one is enormous. I do have one left in stock, but it’s a last-resort item for my own safety. If you, Ferdinand, can bring a rare item of equal value, maybe I’ll trade one with you.”
Despite Donald’s casual lie, Ferdinand believed it and nodded, saying, “Indeed. The value of teleportation scrolls is no less than that of enchanted equipment produced by the Ancient Magic Empire. I can’t give you an answer right now. Let’s conduct other transactions first. How many more potions can you provide?”
“I only have one of each for now. If you can wait a few days, I can gather the same amount as last time. If we want to trade again, it will have to wait until next month. After all, the production of Moon Essence is beyond my control.”
Ferdinand wasn’t too disappointed. Having the same amount as before would be enough for his father to last another half month. Relying on potions and external aids for cultivation wasn’t something that could be achieved overnight; everything needed to be in moderation. Overuse wasn’t only wasteful but could also lead to other negative consequences.
Then Donald said, “It will take some time to prepare the potions. But I have another little item here—I wonder if you’ll be interested!”
“What is it?” Ferdinand knew Donald wouldn’t show him something trivial to deceive him, so he asked curiously.
Instead of explaining, Donald kept it mysterious and said, “You’ll know once you see it!”
With that, he turned and left for a while, actually going to another room to open the Book of Truth and exchange it for a spatial backpack used by farmers of the four races among magical beasts.
When he returned to the room, he handed Ferdinand a somewhat old-looking but exquisitely crafted backpack.
“What’s this?”
Looking at the backpack in his hands, Ferdinand asked in confusion.

“This is a newly developed small space device, simplified based on the principles of dimension bags. Its storage capacity is limited, but it can be used by ordinary people—roughly enough to hold the contents of half a carriage.”
“A space device?”
Ferdinand was initially shocked, then overjoyed. Upon opening it, he found only about two cubic units of space inside. The device itself was much larger than the legendary dimension bags, making it less convenient to carry. Yet such a space storage device was a rarer item even more valuable than teleportation scroll sheets. After all, teleportation scrolls could still be obtained from some powerful mages, but true space devices were so scarce that even the royal family had only a few! They were practically unobtainable even with wealth.
The other party was willing to part with such a rare device just for elemental crystals and magic cores—unknown whether it was easy to acquire or for some other reason. Ferdinand stayed at the manor for half a day before hurriedly returning to the northwest with his gains.
Meanwhile, Donald devoted himself to planning the territory. He needed to draft a rough plan before heading to the capital so that he could leave the construction of the territory in the hands of the butler after his departure, thus avoiding unnecessary delays.
Building towns was now a very simple task for Donald. With ample funding and the elemental crystals obtained from the Ansel family’s transactions, the energy reserves from the Book of Truth had reached an unprecedented level. Finally, he had enough to cover the costs of constructing large structures like a human main base town hall.
That night, Donald left the manor alone to take care of the matters. Now that everything in the territory was on track, he decided to head to the capital ahead of schedule to avoid missing his coronation ceremony.