Time passed, the village was rebuilt, production was restored, and the lives of the people of Linfeng City were getting back on track in an orderly manner.

As the general staff officer, Nolen is replanning the army's armament to help the Linfeng army improve its combat power as soon as possible.

"It's time for the City Lord's Mansion to form its own alchemy factory."

In his office, Noren was instructing his men, "Open recruitment of alchemists and apprentices to the city, we need more people to make alchemy weapons for the army." ”

After the war, most of the combat power of the army in Peak City was lost, and because of this, it was necessary to make more alchemy weapons to make up for the lack of manpower.

For example, a chariot equipped with a new magic cannon is a very good strategic alchemy weapon, as long as it can be mass-produced, it can strengthen the combat effectiveness of the army in a short period of time, so as to cope with various crises that may come at any time in the future.

He had already obtained permission from the city lord Evelyn to form a gold alchemy factory, which may be why Evelyn and Ryan hired him as a general staff officer.

The alchemical weapons he created have always been of great use in warfare, and he has proven it with facts.

Since she chooses to believe in his ability, Evelyn will use the power of the city lord to support his plan, and even reform the system.

"Lord Nolan, if you need to make a batch of new weapons, wouldn't it be okay to send a commission directly to the Alchemy Society?"

Richard wondered, "Since the past, including during the war, the City Lord's Mansion has always done this, huh?" ”

He is an alchemist consultant hired by the City Lord's Mansion, and is responsible for representing the City Lord's Mansion and the Alchemy Society, and is considered a subordinate of Noren in terms of position.

Of course, Noren knew that the City Lord's Mansion did not have its own alchemy team, just like the previous maintenance of the city's defense magic cannon.

Whenever there is a problem, the government has always relied on temporary commissions to the Alchemy Society to solve the problem.

"It's always been that way, right?"

Noren raised his eyebrows and said, "From now on, Peak City will firmly pursue a policy-

"That's the 'Alchemy Power'."

Of course, to be precise, it should be "Alchemy Strong City", but it doesn't matter if it's called it like this, anyway, he doesn't need the subordinates in front of him to understand, he just needs to carry out his own orders.

In fact, before the start of the war, Noren found that because the development of contemporary alchemy was not very mature, Linfeng City, or the entire Roland Empire, did not attach special importance to talents such as alchemists.

They would rather hire transcendents into the army with high salaries, and are rarely willing to spend more money to recruit an alchemy team that regularly serves them.

In case there is a matter of having to rely on alchemists, just summon them temporarily, and I am afraid that those powerless scholars will not be able to disobey their orders?

Why pay them a monthly salary and spend a lot of money to reimburse them for expensive experimental materials?

The Superior are not interested in waiting for some alchemical breakthrough that alchemists have spent so much time, brain, and money to make, and who can guarantee that these strange inventions will always be useful and will help them immediately?

If you have extra financial resources, it is better to feed more cultivation resources to the transcendents under your command, which is the means to truly strengthen your own power.

It is precisely under the influence of this short-sighted concept for a long time that alchemists have always been in an embarrassing position in the Roland Empire.

And now, he, Nolen, is going to reverse that notion.

He wants to prove that the alchemist is not a bargain that comes and goes at a moment's notice, he can play a big role, and one side must hold this precious talent resource in its hands.

Forming an alchemy factory and recruiting alchemists and apprentices to work for him was the first step in his plan.

It is also important to give the alchemists a fixed structure, so that they can see the completion of the factory commission as their first priority.

And it can also buy hearts and minds and increase their loyalty.

"I guess it will be more difficult to recruit them."

Richard said with some concern, "The Alchemy Guild manages the information and contact information of all alchemists in the city, and if we want to recruit alchemists, we must cooperate with the Society.

"But this is not a special time, the Society has no obligation to cooperate with our City Lord's Mansion, they may refuse to cooperate with us, after all...... We're kind of stealing people from them. ”

The Alchemy Society is in charge of the local alchemist resources, and it is also one of its profit points to issue alchemy commissions to them and earn intermediary fees from them.

In layman's terms, they are alternative mercenary guilds, except that the mercenaries under them are alchemists.

In the past, the City Lord's Mansion issued a commission to the Alchemy Society, and the Alchemy Society could more or less make some profits from it, so it was naturally willing to cooperate.

But if the City Lord's Mansion decides to recruit alchemists by itself, it will be tantamount to robbing people with the Alchemy Society, which is equivalent to moving their basic plate, which will inevitably cause them to resent.

Even if he is afraid of the prestige and force of the City Lord's Mansion and will not oppose it openly, he will definitely not actively cooperate, and may even contact the headquarters of the Society to exert pressure on the City Lord's Mansion in Linfeng City.

"All in all, this is the decision of the City Lord's Mansion."

Nolan did not waver, and insisted on giving the death order, "You can go to the city to recruit people, if the Alchemy Society refuses to cooperate, come and tell me, and I will help you solve all your problems." ”

"Yes, yes...... My lord. Richard wiped his sweat and went out.

As soon as he walked on his front foot, another man came to the office, and Noren recognized him, an officer in charge of the city's logistics.

"Your Excellency."

The officer handed him a stack of papers, "The military department has just counted the post-war supplies, and this is the list." ”

"I'll see."

Nolan flipped through the papers, then frowned at one of the pages.

"There are only seven thousand merles left of the orange quality magic crystal?"

Mana crystals can be cut, and their amount is usually measured by the total amount of mana it contains, measured in "mel".

1 Mel's Mana Crystal, which contains the magical power needed to cast a standard first-order spell.

The amount of mana it takes to cast a standard sixth-order spell is around 200 meles.

At the same time, different qualities of magic crystals have different magical power in the same volume.

For example, with the size of the mana source of Valkyrie's main backpack, if you put it into the orange and yellow mana crystals used in the army, you can probably have a mana reserve of 240 mer, which is just enough to cast a sixth-order spell.

If it is a lower quality dark green level, it will not reach the passing mark of 200 meles, and it will not be able to perform a sixth-order spell.

And now the total amount of magic crystals in Linfeng City is only seven thousand merels, which is only enough for the entire army to use thirty rounds of sixth-order spells.

Isn't this almost running out of ammunition and food?

"Yes, sir." The officer replied, "We have consumed too many mana crystals in the war before, and this is one of the strategic materials that our logistics department is preparing to replenish. ”

Originally, the city's magic crystal reserves were sufficient, but in the final battle, the five magic chariots were full of firepower in order to clear the remaining combat power of the steppe people, and the results were remarkable, but also brought terrifying magic crystal consumption.

The Magic Crystal is processed from the original Magic Crystal mineral, which is a relatively rare non-renewable resource from the Magic Crystal vein.

There are no veins of magic crystals around Linfeng City, so the replenishment of this resource is completely dependent on foreign imports.

The largest magic crystal vein in the west of the Roland Empire is the Loki magic crystal vein located in the territory of "Flamel City", which is responsible for supplying magic crystal resources to many western cities in the empire, including Peak City.

Generally speaking, the orange quality magic crystals stored in Peak City require a standing stock of more than 20,000 merels.

These mana crystals are mainly used to maintain the operation of large strategic city defense weapons, such as the city defense magic cannons and barrier circles on the city walls.

20,000 merels, which is enough mana reserves for a strategic-level magic guide to cast 100 sixth-order spells, is basically enough to decide the outcome of a war.

But that's just for cities in general.

If Linfeng City takes the route of "Alchemy Power" in the future, the demand for magic crystals will inevitably increase greatly in the future.

A mere 2w Mel's mana crystal storage may only be enough for them to fight a small-scale battle in the future.

Therefore, it is necessary not only to replenish mana crystals, but also to massively increase the number of permanent reserves of mana crystals in the city.

"The logistics department must prioritize the supply of mana crystals."

Noren soon gave the order, "At the end of the year, the order for magic crystals to the city of Flamel will be increased from 13,000 merles to 40,000 merels. ”

"This ......" the logistics officer suspected that he had misheard.

After confirming that Nolan was not wrong, he couldn't help but be embarrassed, "My lord, if you place such a big order in one go, I am afraid that it will seriously affect the financial situation of the city, and the city of Flamel may not agree." ”

The Empire has laws that allow the normal procurement of resources between cities to be protected by the Empire, and the City of Flamel cannot refuse the Mana Crystal purchase order placed by Peak City.

This premise, of course, is that the purchase quota set by the empire is not exceeded.

Once the standard limit of 2w Mel Mana Crystals per city is exceeded, Flamel City not only has the right to refuse excess purchase requests, but is also allowed to increase the purchase price per unit of Mana Crystals.

In other words, if the purchase volume exceeds the standard line, there is a possibility that they will ask for a sky-high price.

"It's okay, you go talk to them first."

Nolan said slowly, "For them, the magic crystal is just a commodity, and if you talk about it slowly, you can always talk about it." ”

In the Roland Empire, magic crystals are not very precious items, at least not yet.

The magic components in the magic crystal contain impurities and are not pure, and cannot be directly absorbed by the transcendent, so its main function is to provide magic power to the magic guide.

However, due to the limitations of alchemy in this era, as long as there is no qualitative theoretical progress in the magic circle, the role of the magic guide will always be limited.

Correspondingly, the Mana Crystal, which can only power the Wizard, is less important.

Mining Loki's veins and selling mana crystals are the main sources of income for Flamel City, and it doesn't hide them as treasures.

"Yes, yes......" The logistics officer also wiped his sweat and went out.

After instructing these two things, Nolan leaned back in his chair, still frowning, and as he thought, his fingertips slowly tapping on the tabletop.

The so-called inappropriate family does not know that firewood, rice, oil and salt are expensive, and now that I have become a general staff officer, I have found that there are still many difficulties to be solved urgently on the road of becoming a strong country through alchemy.

Such as recruiting alchemists are trivial matters, and if they don't solve the energy problem of Linfeng City in the future, there is no way to talk about an alchemical powerhouse.

Therefore, it is imperative to reach a long-term cooperation with the city of Flamel and find an opportunity to complete the self-sufficiency of the magic source.

"Flamel City ......"

With its name in mind, Nolen quickly recalled the city's message.

The city of Flamelmel, also known as the "Alchemy City", is located on the other side of the Peak Mountains, not very far from the city.

As the nickname "Alchemy City" suggests, the headquarters of the Alchemy Society is located there, and it is also the city where the alchemists of the Roland Empire gather the most, and it is also the place where alchemy is most developed.

Its name "Flamel" is taken from the legendary alchemist Edward Flamel hundreds of years ago, who is considered to be the grandfather of alchemy, and single-handedly laid the theoretical foundation of alchemy.

The first to put forward the concept of "magic guide", draw the first magic circle of high-level spells, formulate "Mel" as the unit of measurement of magic crystals, and make the first alchemy potion that can improve the cultivation qualifications of ordinary people......

The list of achievements he has made in the history of alchemy is too numerous to mention.

The city is the hometown of Flamel, and it is named in his honor.

And it is this alchemy city that happens to master the empire's largest magic crystal vein, the "Loki Demon Crystal Vein", which may also be an inevitability by chance.

The first batch of alchemists who were born there back then, perhaps by studying how to use these magical ores, created the magic rune system crookedly, and invented the magic guide driven by magic crystals and centered on the magic circle.

Because of the worship of Flamel, a large number of alchemists gathered there, and the academic atmosphere was quite strong.

It is said that the alchemists who lived there also had the highest status and treatment of any city in the empire.

It can be said that the city of Flamel is the holy city in the hearts of all the imperial alchemists.

"That's funny......" Noren curled the corners of his mouth slightly.

As an alchemist, the city naturally piqued his interest.

If he had the chance, he really wanted to go there and see it, and he didn't know how many surprises the alchemists over there and the most advanced alchemy of the empire could bring him?

It is also a city that attaches great importance to the cultivation of alchemists, hoping that with alchemy as an opportunity, Linfeng City and Flamel City can become the best allies and form a long-term friendship with each other.

With this anticipation, Nolan waited for a few more days, and then waited for two bad news one after another.

The first piece of bad news: Fast, the president of the Alchemy Society of Peak, rejected his request to hire a large number of alchemists on a permanent basis.

He believed that this was not in line with the Empire's long-standing tradition of commissioning alchemists, and that the city lord's mansion in Linfeng City was suspected of oppressing alchemists and forcing them to work for them.

If the Lord's Mansion enforces this policy, the Society does not rule out the possibility of reporting the violation to the Flamel City Headquarters and complaining to the Imperial Capital about its violations.

And the second piece of bad news is that Flamel City rejected the large order proposed by Peak City to import 40,000 Mel Magic Crystals.

Thanks to the original assault on Jiegang and the reward of Xianghequ

(End of chapter)