"It's not going to snow tonight. ”

Standing behind the windowsill, Alexei saw through the frosty glass and saw the lively crowd outside.

Behind him stood Cherriman and Hilfa at the outpost, who, along with the mage, watched as the workers from Winterfell and Feldenburg erected their stakes and covered them with fur and cloth.

Rimge, who was in charge of personnel and construction arrangements, had previously submitted layout plans and plans to Alexei, and he probably knew what the construction team would do in the next few days.

In contrast to the dwellings that are now being built, a few simple fences that have been driven into the ground have long since enclosed the pack horses and carts, and a large amount of supplies have been removed from above, and the food in them can meet the needs of a hundred people for ten days. As the first builders to arrive, they will, under the orders of Count Longverd, cooperate with Alexey's intentions, and spread the building outwards with the outpost as the center.

Residential areas, warehouses, roads, and corrals for livestock, pack horses and donkeys. A large-scale construction is in full swing, and the prototype of a city comes from here.

"Simple tents are enough for the workers, but some of the managers, I still want them to stay at the outpost. ”

Alexei lightly stated his request to the two apprentices: "I need at least five empty rooms, and I have to temporarily requisition your laboratory." ”

"I knew that it was a bit unruly for me to go straight into the lab before Bancheni came back, but I had some of my experiments that needed to be carried out urgently in these two days, and there was no way to wait for someone who was indefinite. ”

"Of course, I'll only be in Norf for two days, and our lease agreement is for two days. ”

After speaking, Alexei saw the two apprentices behind him tugging through the reflection on the glass, and finally said to Alexey with a sad face: "Even without Count Longverde's handwriting, we can meet most of your requirements, but ......"

"But we can't sign a warrant for you to enter the lab. ”

As if to ease Chelliman's nervousness and uneasiness in front of Alexey, Silfa, who was standing aside, hurriedly added: "Only Mentor Bancheni can open the secret lock of the laboratory. ”

After they finished speaking, they all subconsciously glanced at each other, and the two of them separated under eye contact, and Sylfa on the right continued to finish with the reason just now: "Your Excellency Elemental Child, please forgive me, it's not that we are unwilling to provide you with laboratory equipment, but we are also powerless, and that door can only be opened by a mentor. ”

"Secret Lock....... It's a real problem. "It's not that you can't unlock it, but if you rashly use other means to unlock it, it's easy to be seen as a provocation by the owner of the secret lock. Knowing that Alexei was still going to build a city based on the location of the outpost, he didn't really want to offend the research team in the Glio Davido Academy, which knew a lot about this place and had a long foothold.

He had a lot of resources at the disposal of Bancheni and his gang, and the map around them alone was a huge boon, not to mention the griffin domestication techniques he had recently developed. As far as Alexei knew, the domestication of large flying beasts such as griffins had always been a large-scale research and development project supported by the Empire's official support, and the funds in it had been spent countless and finally produced results.

But the cooperation of these projects is not only something that can be done by a piece of paper from Count Longved, the Elector of the Northland can not influence the mages in the eastern part of the empire, in addition to making some fuss about the supply of outposts, as for other interference, the big deal is to pay a little more honorarium.

Therefore, the earl can only sell Alex to the academy for convenience. To rely on Longved's support to share the cake from the academy is tantamount to a fantasy and a pipe dream.

As a result, Alexey, who had a plan in his heart, no longer insisted on it, and the study of Olmeia and the Infinite Holy Grail could be postponed, and it was also a long-term process of enlightenment for the integration of the resurrection method on the skull. He thought about it, relieved himself, and told Celliman and Silfa to prepare the empty room, and then stopped talking about the laboratory.

"I have to get the books from Darune to Norf as soon as possible. ”

Alexei, who had a new idea in his heart since he got the skull, was ambitious, and he quickly drew a new blueprint for his life in his mind, preparing to use the icy and uninhabitable Norf as his new base to create a mage kingdom that was extremely suitable for the undead to play to their advantage.

Alexei has done several tests on this and the figures are unsatisfactory - a lizardman corpse is roughly as strong as an adult man, but it is much stiffer in muscle joints, and the problem of corpse decay and the spread of the epidemic has always been a repressed concern for Alexei, and if he does not solve these problems, he will never be able to render necromancy harmless in order to achieve his goal of integrating into the world.

Even without practice, Alexei can know just by imagining it, and accepting a dead thing that doesn't harm him and staying with the source of the epidemic are definitely two very different feedbacks. Although the former is difficult, it is not without room for maneuvering, while the latter is a normal person with a little thinking ability, except for a fool with low intelligence, as long as he has a little thinking ability, I am afraid he will not agree.

Disagreement means opposition and rebellion, and even if Alexey is superb, he cannot be the enemy of the world.

In this regard, he listed two parallel development routes, and was prepared to act according to them first, and then make targeted corrections when problems were encountered in the middle.

The first is to solve the possible opposition from the spiritual level: some of them have stubborn ideas, no, it should be said that most of them are stubborn and cannot enjoy the benefits of necromancy in the first place, and mortals will subconsciously resist the undead. In order to dissolve this part of the mood, Alexei prepared to return to Darune, and after a deep discussion with several theological masters in the city, and then buy some religious texts, after research, spend money to recruit a group of people, write a new canon for himself, so that he can spread the idea that the undead are harmless and beneficial, and can also use this to gather a group of subordinates, and with the cooperation of the Blue Brotherhood, establish a basic organization to infiltrate the lower people of the kingdom and the empire.

The second is to solve the possible obstacles from the physical level: Alexei is going to establish a large mage academy in the center of the city, since he has obtained the infinite chalice that can be exempted from the most expensive part of the process of cultivating mages, the requirements for the selection of students will not be too harsh, talent is no longer the biggest threshold to determine when a mortal becomes a mage, as long as he can find a sufficient number of mentors, and then partially streamline the course, a large number of junior necromancers will provide Alexei with a powerful mage officer corps and a large number of undead creatures in three to five years。 At that time, he will have enough military strength to stretch his wings for the time being, and he will not have to hide under the protection of the nobles.

But these two routes did not only rely on the holy weapons and magic that Alexei possessed, but also required a lot of money to be carried out correctly, a sum so large that Alexei could not have budgeted for it on his imagination.

Ore trading alone is not enough, according to the agreement with the Earl of Longverd, although the ore of Norf is very easy to mine (a large number of open pit veins) and the quality of the minerals is high, if it is only a supplier of raw materials, the ore business is just a wedding dress for the Ortarion family, and the majority of the profits will still be looted by the giant bears of the Northlands, and Alexei will be able to drink a mouthful of soup at best.

This is not enough to support Alex's grand hegemony, and he still needs to find more ways to make money.

Then he thought of the statue of the blue jade—the pure-blooded elven archmage, the emperor's royal magic advisor, the fifth seat of the Unko Mage's Council, and the daughter of Lady Frankieka Helif Cattoli, known for her wide range of friends, erudition, and beauty.