"This is probably the day I've seen you lie the most," Nightingale said as she emerged from the Mist after Tyler left.
"He's the high priest of the church." Roland spread out his hands. "How about it? Can you tell if he's lying?"
"No. Everything around him is swallowed up by the God's Stone of Retaliation. I can only see darkness."
"It's a pity that I can't treat the high priest like a noble," Roland thought regretfully. He put the two pills on the table and asked, "Do you think this thing is as magical as they say?"
Morphine could relieve pain. As for giving soldiers great strength, it sounded like the effect of adrenaline. The problem was how to extract these two substances and make them into pills. The church should have conquered the world a long time ago.
"Wait..." Roland suddenly thought of a possibility. Could it be related to magic power?
"Can you see the flow of magic power?" He looked at Nightingale and asked, "Is there magic power in these two pills?"
Nightingale observed carefully and said, "I can't see magic power, but it's a bit like the God's Stone of Retaliation."
"God's Stone of Retaliation?" Roland was stunned.
"Yes." She nodded. "You've seen the world under the Mist. There are only two colors, black and white. But that kind of black is different from the darkness formed by the God's Stone of Retaliation. The latter is more like a hole that swallows the surrounding world. I don't know how to describe that feeling... "Nightingale hesitated and said," It's better to say that there's nothing in the hole than darkness. "
"Nothingness?"
"That's right, it's nothingness." She nodded and said, "These two balls also have traces of nothingness on them, but they're very subtle, and … they're not circular holes, but more like flowing black threads."
"Can this nothingness affect your ability?"
Nightingale grabbed the pills and released the Mist. She quickly retreated and said, "It doesn't seem to affect me."
"It seems that it's necessary to find a death row prisoner to try these two pills." Roland carefully wrapped the pills with paper and put them in his arms.
"I didn't expect the Church to think so highly of you," Nightingale said gloomily as she returned to the prince's side.
"If the high priest wasn't wearing a God's Stone of Retaliation, I bet nine out of ten of his words were lies." Roland pursed his lips. "Most importantly, what they're doing and what they're asking for don't match."
"Why?"
"Look at what they want: more churches, more believers, a prince or a king that they can support, and from then on, they will spread the word that the monarchy is divine. A stable country was better for them to recruit believers and develop their influence. Otherwise, the churches and monasteries would become targets of looting by refugees and nobles. "
"But aren't they interested in the stability you can bring to the people?"
"That's not the case." Roland shook his head. "Stability comes from unity or balance. Even if the king eats, drinks, and plays every day, the people of a unified country will live better than the refugees in the flames of war. So it's not strange for them to support the Second Prince or the Third Princess, but it's strange for them to support me — especially when Garcia has won a great victory. "
At this time, if the Church fully supported Garcia, King's City and the Eastern Front would be swallowed by her in less than half a year. By then, 70% of the land of the Kingdom of Graycastle would be in the hands of the Queen of Clearwater. Roland thought that the pressure he would face would increase greatly. Instead of helping the strong, they chose him, who seemed to be the weakest. It seemed that the Church's decision was beneficial to him. But if he accepted their support, the situation between the two kings of Graycastle would become even more chaotic. The direct result of the Three Kingdoms War would be a sharp decline in population, a rapid loss of wealth, and the spread of war to the whole country. The date of unification would be delayed again and again.
How would this benefit the Church? Not to mention increasing the number of believers, he was afraid that all the churches built in various places would be demolished.
"I don't understand you nobles' thinking, always beating around the bush." Nightingale sighed.
"Well," Roland replied with a smile, "except for me."
"…" The witch narrowed her eyes, tilted her head and stared at the Prince for a long time, "Strange, why is this sentence also true?"
Three days later, Roland finally emptied the castle and the Longsong Stronghold library. Satisfied, he boarded Little Town and embarked on his journey back home.
Along the Redwater River, he approached Border Town. The scene on both sides of the river had changed. On the opposite side of the town, on the open space burned by Anna, many people were busy – looking at their clothes, they should be the serfs who had been transported to Border Town. On the side near the Impassable Mountain Range, many simple wooden sheds had been set up. Some people were faintly moving in the wooden sheds. Roland guessed that these people were the serfs' families.
These people had been tied to the land for generations, and their children were also serfs. Because they could not see any hope, most of them lived a numb life. They worked not because of the desire in their hearts, but because of the whips and ropes in the hands of the slave owners. The low production efficiency was simply a great waste of human resources.
There was no doubt that slavery was the enemy of industrial production, it was a system that must be abolished. But Roland did not intend to wave his hand and make them all free people. Instead, he wanted to provide a channel for them to see the hope of being promoted to free people – because there were precedents of masters being kind enough to free their slaves from slavery. Even if this compromise was spread out, it wouldn't have too much of an impact. At most, it would make other nobles think that he was just a good person.
When the time was ripe in the future, he would fully implement the abolition of slavery, and the resistance would be much smaller.
The pier was crowded with sailboats, it was clear that this small pier could no longer bear such heavy transport pressure. Fortunately, Little Town's draft was shallow, so they could directly dock without the pier. It seems that the expansion of the pier also needs to be listed on the agenda, Roland thought.
After the group returned to the castle, he didn't have time to rest. When he returned to the office, he immediately called Barov and asked him to report the situation of receiving supplies.
The assistant minister was already prepared, he pulled out a roll of parchment from his pocket and spread it out on the big wooden table.
"Your Royal Highness, the things you brought back to the castle these days really scared me." Although he said so, the overflowing wrinkles on his face betrayed his mood. "The twelve apprentices tossed and turned all night, only to count all kinds of coins, a total of more than 14,000 Golden Dragon coins! Your Royal Highness, this is equivalent to the annual income of an ordinary town! "
The Duke probably spent more than 20 years to accumulate these Golden Dragon coins, Roland thought. They came from the plundering, plundering, and exploitation of the people of the Western Territory. He wanted to turn them into food, steel, and machines as soon as possible. "What about those gems, jewelry, and handicrafts?"
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