In the castle hall, Duke sat on the main seat in full dress.

His face had returned to normal, and his depleted mental power and magic power had recovered a little from the rest just now, at least he didn't have that feeling of emptiness.

"Greetings, Your Excellency. The three ministers of the humerus saluted together and stood aside.

"Thanks to Lenia's help, I feel good now. Duke smiled and agreed with them, then formally thanked the Chief Knight.

The latter simply nodded and continued to stand solemnly aside, Duke had become somewhat accustomed to her reticent approach in formal settings.

"I heard from Lenia that you're going to report to me on the harvest of this fight against the beast tide?" Duke looked at Interior Secretary Vlavic, motioning for him to report first.

"Indeed, Your Excellency, there is no doubt that we have achieved an unprecedented victory this time!" the Minister of the Interior waved his arm with some excitement.

"The entire territory was not affected much, and since the battle ended quickly, the people were not threatened, and the only loss was that part of the walls were damaged. The Home Secretary paused, "However, these are within the limits of what is affordable. ”

"Wait a minute. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Joseph, interrupted the Home Secretary's words.

"Actually, it's still a little difficult for the time being. He took out a small handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his forehead, "The remaining gold coins in the treasury are no longer enough to repair the city walls, and the castle and manor will be repaired in the future......

"Wait, wait, wait. Duke was a little puzzled, "Why don't you have enough gold in the vault, besides, I remember that this year's taxes haven't been collected yet, right?"

This fat man looks at the thick eyebrows and big eyes, can't he be a corrupt official?

Duke looked Joseph up and down with distrustful eyes, considering whether to let Lenia take down the fat man and scrape out all the embezzled money.

"The treasury originally had less than five thousand gold coins, but didn't you give them all to the soldiers, my lord? Sensing Duke's ill-intentioned gaze on him, Joseph hurriedly explained, "And the annual tax revenue of the territory is less than a thousand gold coins......!

"Wait, wait, wait!" Duke, somewhat surprised, interrupted Joseph's complaint.

Less than a thousand gold coins a year in taxes?

Duke has a new understanding of the barrenness of his last possessions.

No wonder it's difficult to hire a maid for yourself, and you need a cameo from the chief knight's lady.

"Why is there so little tax revenue in our territory?" Duke, still a little reluctant, asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

"There are no specialties in our territory, and the only thing that can be traded as commodities is the surplus grain every year. However, in recent years, the population has also been lost, and a lot of land has been abandoned. Joseph looked at Duke's face cautiously.

Ahem, this duke is worse than you imagined.

It seems that he was rewarded with a year's worth of taxes by doing a single mission.

Duke stroked his smooth chin and pondered what to do.

If you don't have the money to build a territory, what kind of lord are you doing?

"But our situation will be alleviated in a few months, and we will have other gains when we clean up the battlefield. Lenia on the side reminded loudly.

"Oh, what's the catch, can you sell it for money?" said Duke's heart.

"Monster Crystal Nucleus! Thousands of Demonic Beast Crystal Nuclei!" Joseph exclaimed loudly, "I estimated that it was worth about fifty thousand gold coins, and if we didn't handle the Duchy of Hilt, we would be able to earn even more!"

Hiss......

Duke, who had just had some intuitive understanding of money, gasped, this time the beast tide had earned more than fifty years of taxes in the territory, and if he still had an epic magic scroll, he didn't mind the beast tide coming so many times a year.

At the same time, another phenomenon caught his attention.

"Duchy of Hilt, what's going on?" he couldn't help but ask aloud thinking that this seemed to be about more gold coins.

"The Duchy of Hilt is a mercenary kingdom located on the eastern side of the continent. "It is the Home Secretary who spoke out this time, "It is loosely organized, it is governed by a number of powerful mercenary groups, and you can understand it as a large mercenary union, although the actual situation is more complicated. ”

"And the other end of the dark mountain range is on the edge of the Duchy of Hilt, where there are countless low-level demonic beasts, and high-level demonic beasts basically do not intrude on the borders of humans, and are natural demonic beast hunting grounds. Joseph took over the conversation, "Therefore, they controlled ninety percent of the Warcraft crystal nucleus business on the mainland, and took most of the transaction amount as middlemen and suppliers. ”

So it was, Duke finally understood the relationship, and then he thought of another point.

"If we bypass them to sell the Monster Crystal Nucleus, will we clash with them?" After all, it sounds like this business is completely monopolized by them, and if you recruit a strong opponent for yourself because of some gold coins, it will still be a little difficult to deal with it with the current strength of the Northern Dukedom.

"No, we have the means to deal with this batch of Warcraft crystal nuclei, and this money is nothing to them. Joseph vowed that the shipment would be completely resolved within two months.

Duke always felt that things were not so simple, but for now he had to let Joseph try his methods first, and then make plans.

"If not, I'd like to tell you about our territory's future plans. Duke adjusted his sitting position, ready to get to the bottom of the territory development plan and ministers he had been thinking about for a long time, and complete the tasks assigned by the system and develop his own territory.

But he found his ministers somewhat serious and silent.

"What's wrong?" Duke, with a bad premonition, "Vlavic, tell me about it." ”

He motioned to Vlavich to explain why.

"Lord, we've made some bad discoveries when we investigated the cause of the beast tide......" Vlavich sighed and said slowly.

"In fact, we have more than 20,000 Warcraft crystal nuclei obtained this time, but most of them have been unidentified and contaminated, and only a small number of low-level crystal nuclei can be used. Moreover, the magic contained in those polluted crystal nuclei has become chaotic and filthy, and has no use value. As Joseph said this, his fat body trembled.

"After consulting the classics, we can preliminarily conclude that the crystal nuclei of these demonic beasts have been polluted by erosion. Vlavic continued.

"Erosion?" Duke, hearing the unfamiliar word, felt some palpitations inexplicably.