The town of Dodan is located between the central gorge of the Thorny Mountains, where the glaciers at the top of the Thorny Mountains melt and the clear water flows down the river, the source of which is west of the town of Nantu, and flows eastward through the town of Dodan to the Three Rivers Gorge before joining the Torrens River.

At the beginning of August, the weather is not very hot, and the night of the Dodan River is quiet and magnificent, and the sound of the river flowing is like the most beautiful music in nature.

A faint mist evaporated from the surface of the river, forming a wall of fog that completely separated the north and south banks.

Surdak sat on the platform of the riverside wooden house that extended into the river, cross-legged and silently felt the divine aura in his body, all the nodes of his upper body were lit up by the divine breath, and the feeling was like countless stars dotted in the night sky, and each node extended countless thin lines outward, connecting with other nodes.

…… It's like a star map.

A steady stream of divine aura emanated from these nodes, nourishing his body.

And the lower half of his body is a different kind of scene, and when his perception extends into it, he will enter an endless void, where there is nothing, and this huge dark star is born in the void, and this dark star has endless suction power, and seems to be able to swallow everything that breaks into this space.

Feeling that his perception and mental power were stripped away by the dark star, Surdak decisively cut off the probe.

How to get rid of this dark star, Surdak has been thinking about this question lately. Cooper hadn't seen that before, and couldn't give any advice.

Nika and Signa were also sitting on the wooden table.

Signa sat on the edge of the wooden platform and plunged her little white lotus roots into the river.

Nika sat across from Surdak and took the opportunity to ask Surdak for advice on how to guide the use of the Light's power, and she had been spending most of her days studying the power of her body except for taking care of the wounded soldiers in the barracks with her medical team.

Her power is completely different from that of Surdak, whose power of light naturally has healing and restorative effects, but the power of light contained in the magic pool in Nika's body has no healing effect, and she can shoot out the light elements in her body into the purest beam of light, like a beacon beacon in the dark night.

Knowing that the light she was shooting out had no healing power, it made Nika depressed for many days.

Surdak returned from Wilkes City and brought her to the platform to make all kinds of attempts, and she could have condensed the light long ago.

This time, under the guidance of Surdak, the flame of light in the palm of his hand turned into a beam of light, which could actually penetrate the mist on the Dodan River and slanted into the night sky.

The river swelled, Selena splashed like a silver carp, and her head emerged from the water, the clear water flowed down the top of her head, and her long silky hair clinged to her body, and she supported Surdak's big body with her arms. legs, tilting his chin slightly, said to everyone: "The river is still warm, aren't you going to come down and swim around?" ”

Surdak stretched out his hands, held Selena's wet face, lowered his head and kissed her on the forehead, and said:

"In a little while, the temperature of the water in this river will come down, be careful of the cold, hurry up and ......"

Selena pushed her hands on the wooden platform, leaning on her back like a sea otter, and kept splashing with both hands to swim away again.

Surdak didn't expect her to be so good in the water, watching her swim in the river, I couldn't help but think of the Cana mermaid I met in the river in Wilkes City, and I guess she should have escaped from Wilkes.

When Selena swam back again, she stretched out her arms to Surdak.

Surdak pulled her up and draped a towel over her, and after nearly a month of not seeing her, Surdak felt a fire almost ignite in his heart.

Selena took the opportunity to sit between Nika and Sighna, reaching out and twisting her long wet hair.

"I didn't even know your water was so good!" Surdak said.

The towel was wrapped around Selena's plump body, and the horse lamp hanging from the wooden pole emitted a soft warm light, and her face and chest were white. The water droplets in front of it are particularly sparkling.

"As long as I have the blessing of the goddess at night, I am not only watery......" Selena said ambiguously.

"Selena, can you cast a dark spell on Nika that won't hurt her, I'd like to test my guess." Surdak said.

Selena glanced at Nika before saying, "Good! ”

Now she is very skilled at performing rudimentary dark magic, such as 'pain'.

She has developed some followers of the Goddess of Darkness in Dodan Town, the most direct benefit is that she has mastered more dark magic, she closed her eyes, silently chanted a jerky spell in her mouth, stretched out her white index finger to draw a black magic pattern on the wooden board, the moment the magic pattern was successfully drawn, a trace of dark power continued to gather on the top of Selena's head, and an eyeball the size of a football appeared out of thin air.

'Hypnosis'

The moment the eyeball opened its eyelids, a black line shot towards Nika, Nika almost didn't react, her body froze in the previous second, her eyes slowly closed, her body lost the strength to support it, and she fell to the platform, and then fell into a deep stupor.

Selena's fingers didn't stop, and she drew a magic pattern on the wooden board of the platform.

'Nightmare'

A dark and void smoke rushed towards Nika's body like a running beast.

But a beam of light fell from Nika's body in a coma, and the little beast composed of black smoke dissipated immediately under the beam of light.

Selena looked up in surprise and glanced at Nika.

Nika also woke up from her dream at this time and looked around in panic.

This is a test out, and the light in Nika's body actually has a natural restraint on dark magic.

Surdak patted his forehead a little embarrassed, although he had known that light and darkness restrained each other, but he didn't expect to be so targeted, but now Nika is still living with Selena and Xigna......

"This beam has the effect of dispelling and purifying, and it has some restraining dark magic."

Selena made an assessment, glanced at Surdak faintly, and said nothing.

Nika, who was lying on the wooden platform, had woken up, and she opened her eyes in a bit of confusion and looked around warily.

"Did you just have a nightmare?"

Surdak asked as he looked down at her.

Nika nodded with some palpitations and whispered, "I dreamed that I was floating in the icy water, unable to move or breathe...... Then I prayed silently in my heart, and a beam of light fell overhead, and then I woke up. ”

Hearing the 'prayer', Surdak moved slightly and asked her, "What has happened recently that is different from before?" ”

Nika thought for a moment and said seriously: "Recently I have been having the same dream every night, there is a beautiful sister who comes to me every night, she says that she is the goddess of the morning sun, let me be her apostle......"

Surdak then realized...... It seems like this thing is getting bigger.

He looked at Selena on the side, smiled wryly and asked:

"Selena, did you say it was because we built this temple...... What attracted this goddess? ”

Selena's brows furrowed slightly, and she said, "I can try to communicate with Goddess Celine to see what kind of god she is." ”

Surdak nodded, and asked Nika again, "Nika, what are your plans?" ”

"Master, I want to promise her, I want to be like Signa...... Is it okay to be a saint in the Temple of Dawn? Nika's eyes widened and she asked Surdak expectantly

What else can Surdak say?

The water of the Dodan River had not yet cooled down at night, so Surdak dipped his hand in the water and wiped his face......

……

There is only one quarry on the outskirts of Dodan, but the town has recently been building row buildings and renovating the town's main streets, where a large number of stone slabs and strip cornerstones have been purchased, and the quarry owner has made a lot of money.

This time, Surdak personally came to the quarry, mainly to customize the boundary monument for the Invercargill Warcraft Forest, which is what a noble lord must do after expanding his territory.

Only the boundary monument indicates that this is the territory of the Grimm Empire.

After everything was negotiated, the owner of the quarry personally sent Surdak out of the gate.

Then he stood at the gate of the quarry for a long time, until Surdak's mounted figure disappeared into the mountain path, and then he turned back into the quarry.

……

Surdak obtains the right to develop the Monster Forest in Invercargill.

In fact, since the day the ant tide broke down, there was nothing left to explore in this Warcraft Forest.

The returning monsters in the forest could not stop Andrew and his cavalry battalion, many of which were hunted by Andrew and Samira, and some were forced to flee from Invercargill Forest.

Surdak signed a peace pact with the thirty-seven indigenous tribes here.

Currently, he already owns the Invercargill Warcraft Forest.

The indigenous tribes who signed the contract were actually the subjects of the viscountdom of other lands.

They lived in the realm and were required to pay taxes to Surdak under the laws of the Grimm Empire.

However, the contract signed by Surdak not only did not require these indigenous tribes to pay taxes, but also required him to set aside thirty-seven territories from the part of the territory he had allocated to these indigenous tribes to manage.

According to the terms of the contract, these indigenous tribes were completely self-governing, and they only sent their young men to serve in the private army of the lord of Surdak every year.

Surdak also made a written promise: 'Each young tribe will only need to serve for four years to obtain imperial citizenship, and it will be a very considerable wealth to obtain merit in the army.' ’

This time, in addition to building a copper mine in the Invercargill Warcraft Forest, Surdak also had to bury many boundary monuments on the border of the Invercargill Warcraft Forest.

This strip of forest, called Invercargill, stretches for more than 600 kilometres, stretching from the Three Rivers Rift in the east to the Anya Marsh in the west, and is slightly narrower in depth from north to south, but also more than 300 kilometres in length.

To encompass this area, Surdak needed to plant a boundary monument every 500 meters along the border.

Based on this calculation, at least more than 2,600 boundary markers are needed to cross the nearly 1,300-kilometer forest border.

And Surdak's own cavalry battalion alone to lay these boundary pillars is probably at least more than half a year.

Of course, this is also the largest single business of inscription steles that the Dodan Town Quarry has received in recent years, and each stele has an individual number.

Eighteen thunder rhinos carrying 2,600 boundary monuments set out from Dodan Town, passing through Dodan Canyon, hilly and highlands, and entering the Invercargill Warcraft Forest that grows new leaves, there are currently 23 indigenous tribes settled in the hills and mountains, and the remaining 14 indigenous tribes are distributed in the middle of the Invercargill Warcraft Forest.

This time, Surdak used the Thunder Rhino to send these steles to the border line of the Invercargill Warcraft Forest, and the task of laying these steles was ready to be handed over to the fourteen indigenous tribes.

Of course, this is not for these indigenous tribes to do unpaid service.

Surdak had prepared a large amount of wheat flour, and for each boundary marker, the natives received a bag of whole wheat flour.

This time, Surdak entered the Invercargill Forest with eighteen thunder rhinos, and in addition to delivering the boundary monuments to the indigenous tribes, he also asked the patriarchs of each indigenous tribe to determine the land they needed to manage.

He wanted to expand the fertile lands of Invercargill Forest and remove the poor mountains and waters into the public realm.

It's just that this fragmented territorial division has caused considerable trouble for Surdak to divide the territory in Invercargill Forest.

Aside from the territory occupied by the thirty-seven indigenous tribes, Surdak was not able to choose too much territory for himself, except for the two most important copper and iron mining areas and the dense forests where iron and wood were buried, the remaining territory was basically to be able to join the land occupied by the thirty-seven indigenous tribes and put them together as much as possible.

For the demarcation of the territory and the erection of boundary pillars, Surdak was busy in the Invercargill Forest for more than a month.

The hilly terrain is almost entirely enlarged into the territory, and the Invercargill Forest is fragmented, with a territory that resembles the patterns of black and white cows.

He slept in the forest, lost weight twice, and his complexion became wheat-colored, but he looked more energetic.

During this time, he also found time to live for a few days in the copper mine, which had not yet officially started mining, but only built a large shed in the southern part of the mining area, but a few tribal natives tried to dig up some ore and piled it up in the open space in front of the shed.

Surdak plans to return to Bena Province to hire a manager who is proficient in mining to help him take care of the mines.

As for the iron ore vein, Surdak only fenced off the land, and waited until the copper mine was up and running before further development of the iron ore area.

And those precious ironwoods buried in the edge of the Dark Worm Valley, Surdak happened to pass through there when he was transporting the boundary monuments this time.

Surdak reluctantly selected a severed canopy of ironwood, sawed it open, and transported it back to Dodan by eighteen Thunder Rhinoceros.