The Duke of Paul, not knowing whether he was loyal to Louis or had another purpose, did not declare independence, but continued to obey orders from the imperial capital. It's just that the current province of Aquitania is not his domain alone, but dozens of dukes and kings share this rich and fertile land with him.

Antony of Salz, under the instigation and persuasion of a group of staff driven by the desire for profit, also declared independence half a month ago, proclaimed himself the Grand Duke of Salz, and a group of staff assistants under him also became knights. One of the first things Anthony did after declaring independence was to widen and raise the walls of Salz, recruit and train to form an army, and send small forces to the villages and towns near Salz to loot people and resources.

In addition, Anthony strengthened his ties with Kingston in order to give himself a consolidated and stable rear. In this way, Anthony, although greedy for money and stingy, still knows what a stable rear means to him.

Salz City was surrounded by two independent city-states of similar strength, and Antony had some grievances with Antony before, and now Antony repeatedly and brazenly sent troops to the villages under their jurisdiction to burn and plunder, which immediately provoked the first battle after Salz's independence.

The Salz, with their unfinished but much higher walls and a thousand soldiers, repelled the two "kings" from their own commands. However, during the battle, the city of Salz was smashed by trebuchets outside the city with hundreds of houses, more than five thousand casualties, and three hundred thousand ore in the value of consumables.

Although the Saltz had made a huge fortune in Kingston during these two years, the war would probably not be able to sustain it if it were protracted. Coupled with the fact that the city-states' roads were now restricted and heavily checked, and business travel was inconvenient, even Kingston's economy was greatly affected, and Salz was even more embarrassed.

Salz has six external passages, and Anthony sent people to build fortresses on six passages, manpower and material resources have made Salz's financial book deficit repeatedly, although there are a lot of financial savings, but the money allocated like water finally made the stingy Antony's heart like a knife, and finally he pointed the knife to solve the problem of hemp to Kingston.

The first time, 300,000 ores, the second 500,000, the third 800,000 ores, plus 3,000 migrant workers............

In the face of Anthony's repeated stretching out his hand to threaten him, Aaron didn't think about infiltrating Salz City to kill this despicable villain, but when he stepped on the spot for the first time, he immediately dispelled the idea of assassination and retreated.

It turned out that in recent years, Anthony, who has a lot of money, has expanded a lot of contacts through the three religions and nine streams that come and go to Salz, and has hired a group of strong people to enter Salz. After the beginning of the troubled times, Anthony recruited many warriors with good fighting power before declaring independence. In addition, according to information from the Commission's intelligence agencies, Anthony is secretly cultivating a Dark Knight force of unknown size.

It seems that this Anthony is stingy and happy on the outside, but the city on the inside is not shallow.

Since the other party's strength is stronger than your own, it is even more important to clamp your tail and be a man. In addition to the funds needed to maintain the daily basic operations of Kingston and deal with Anthony's endless extortion, Allen spent the remaining fifty or sixty percent of his resources on the production of magic costumes.

In the Enchanted Forest, Aaron built a magical costume production line in a large underground cavern, and the alchemist moved into the Enchanted Forest on the day the production line was completed. The production cost of a low-level magic costume is staggering, reaching 100,000 Ores. At present, Aaron's alchemy team system can produce magic costumes below the intermediate level, and the cost of a single piece is between 500 and 700,000 ores.

A small number of demonic troops may not be able to face the powerful Douqi Magic Army, but once the demonic troops are formed, the power is difficult to estimate. With the current environmental situation and Kingston's own financial resources, Aaron can barely maintain a production line. However, as long as there is no accident in the Chaos Crystal Mine on the other side of the border, another production line can be opened in half a year, which will not only double the production speed, but also theoretically reduce the production cost of the magic suit by 20%.

The high cost of construction has discouraged many organizations and countries on the mainland. But Aaron firmly believes that existence must have its necessity. The production line can solve the expensive cost of small production, but even if you have to maintain a magic production line, the capital is not something that ordinary people can afford.

Alun's current magic costume production line can produce 500 low-level magic suits or 50 intermediate magic suits per year. For a lord like Aaron, who is in desperate need of self-preservation, the magic suit is the most suitable equipment for a person like him who has stable financial resources and production conditions to pursue self-preservation ability in the short term.

The Enchanted Forest, which is still the forbidden land of Kingston as always, has now become Aaron's Warcraft Farm. Under the killing aura of the spatial rift, the demonized creatures in the forest not only began to appear in the rank and rank with the characteristics of real monsters, but also attracted some demonic beasts from the rift to enter the magical forest.

If Aaron had a manticore, I'm afraid these demonic beasts would have surged out of the Magic Forest to kill their own people. The juvenile manticore is undoubtedly powerful, and its strength is comparable to that of a tenth-level golden power. Coupled with the three powerful servant corpses that had continuously absorbed the violent qi and faintly showed signs of breaking through the bottleneck and advanced, those demonic beasts and monsters that came from the spatial cracks did not dare to be presumptuous in front of the superiors, and obediently wandered in the rather vast magical forest.

As the number and race of monsters of all kinds continue to increase, Aaron no longer needs to spend huge sums of money to buy food to support these monsters. The law of the jungle, the law of the jungle. Powerful monsters hunting down weak monsters has become a common thing in the Enchanted Forest. In this case, instead of decreasing the number of monsters in the Magic Forest, more monsters were attracted to run through the spatial rift as more and more monsters continued to grow stronger.

Whether it is a demonized plant, an energy body, or a demonic beast, the stronger they are, the stronger the killing aura and power fluctuations released from their bodies, and the monsters that are more powerful than them will be attracted. The cycle is interlocking, and Aaron doesn't have to worry about the soul used to equip the magic costume at all.

On the Chaos Crystal Mine on the border, Aaron built a medium-sized teleportation array to transport the hedron produced, and at the other end of the teleportation array was in a huge underground cavern in the Enchanted Forest, and obscured the boundary mine with the Necro Mist. In addition, two zombie servants were dispatched to the Chaos Crystal Mine through the teleportation array to guard the Chaos Crystal Mine to prevent outsiders from stepping in.

With the gradual increase in the input of the Chaos Crystal Mine, the output of each batch is also getting larger and better, and the quality is getting better and better. Achieving a good progress in such a short period of time is all due to the fruits of the valuable experience accumulated in the amethy mine. Now, Chaos Crystal no longer needs to look for a big customer like Amare to make a large purchase.

The use and value of Chaos Hedron determines that it is an extremely easy commodity to get rid of and easy to obtain with high value. Coupled with some mysterious caravans that venture to Kingston in pursuit of high profits, the Chaos Crystal is just what these merchants need for high profits. Although the Chaos Crystal is a strategic resource and is strictly controlled by the city-states of the continental countries, the binding force of the empire has been greatly weakened by the war, so the price of the Chaos Crystal is flying all over the sky, one price per day.

Although prices in Kingston have risen somewhat due to the impact of the war, they have not had much impact on the people of Kingston who have a lot of money in their pockets. Zabas has also focused most of his efforts on curbing soaring prices and inflation, and has achieved good results compared to the surrounding city-states.

The gradual stabilization of prices also contributed to Kingston's positive development in the midst of the war. Although the momentum of development is not as rapid as before, the positive momentum has allowed Kingston to maintain a good environment to attract foreign investment.

The smuggling of Chaos Crystals gradually flourished, and Kingston also injected new vitality into the development of the economy with this smuggling storm, and became the largest smuggling center of Chaos Crystals in the southern part of the empire. Aaron also gradually let go of his hands and feet from the beginning and no longer covered up, and the imperial capital was powerless to control this. The war on the Northwest Front is getting hotter and hotter, and the Empire is busy with things over there, so how can it have the energy to take care of the smuggling in Kingston!

The high profits of Chaos Hedron have brought Kingston back to life, and the value of related industries and services driven by smuggling is incredible. Nowadays, almost everyone on the mainland knows about Kingston.

In this case, Aaron did not declare autonomy or complete independence like other lords, which did not benefit him at all, and might even cause the encirclement of the imperial army. Although the huge beast of the empire was crumbling and in danger of dying at any moment, Aaron had no doubt about the terrifying power of this beast's dying blow. What's more, with Kingston's current strength, although the total economic aggregate is much stronger than the surrounding city-states, it is too weak militarily in comparison.

Kingston continues to be the engine that stimulates and boosts the region's economy. In this role, although you will be blackmailed by the surrounding city-states from time to time, the advantage is that you will not be invaded by the powerful city-states. On the contrary, these extortion rogues also facilitate Kingston in some ways for a variety of reasons.

For example, a caravan was going to Kingston, but it had to pass through the lands of several independent city-states on the way. If it were to be a different destination, the rulers of these city-states would not allow them to go or force them to conduct commerce in their own cities. This kind of banditry can be very disgusting to anyone, so some business trips that are not to Kingston for business activities also change their destinations to Kingston in this case.