Chapter 1216
Immigrants from Anxi
Ancient Kingdom of Anxi, Heaven City.
Although Lord Adil was dead, the Red had not attacked to the end at that time.
Perhaps it was because the power when Amber opened her eyes and instantly destroyed the artificial sun in the sky was too astonishing… or perhaps it was because Fiery Fist Hassan himself suffered a backlash, and the Red chose to retreat despite holding a significant advantage.
Undoubtedly, if they had continued their assault, Heaven City’s defenses would have collapsed immediately—with the death of the Lord, the river outside the city no longer flowed with water endlessly.
The remaining water became calm and began to decrease at a visible rate.
Barring any accidents, the river encircling the oasis would completely dry up in about a week.
The city itself could hold out longer—Adil had built a water tower, which would allow the city’s residents to survive for another month. This was a facility that many Lords would prepare to “allow themselves to travel far,” though the Lords’ specific ideas for it varied.
However, it was precisely because Adil had left some buffer that the residents of Heaven City now had a chance to survive.
—This was actually the normal speed of water depletion when a Lord died.
Rock Cell City had no water reserves at all because all of its water had been contaminated and solidified by a petrification curse. This was why Adil had to use the power of the Amber Egg to curse-kill all the citizens of Rock Cell City—if the Lord of Rock Cell City, Afshien, had died for other reasons, the residents of Rock Cell City would have immediately discovered that their water reserves could still be used for a very long time.
Because of the words Adil spoke before his death, the believers in Heaven City truly regarded Eivass as Adil’s brother—even though Adil was dead, they did not revolt because of it.
Eivass took over temporary command without hesitation.
Under his command, the residents of Heaven City began to orderly evacuate to Rock Cell City.
Of course, Rock Cell City could not accommodate such a population; Heaven City was simply too large…
So, Eivass wrote a letter directly to Yulia, asking her to prepare to receive these immigrants.
People from other places might not agree to immigration, but the residents of Heaven City, who had been completely brainwashed by Adil, agreed without hesitation. They did not question Eivass’s promise at all, nor did they suspect that Eivass intended to trick them into a sacrifice… or perhaps, even if Eivass intended to sacrifice them, they probably wouldn’t resist.
Coincidentally, Star Antimony was currently at its lowest point in terms of population and talent.
The residents killed by the Fallen Heavenly Envoys, and those who had fled elsewhere during the economic crisis caused by the Goblins, had left many cities in Star Antimony lifeless.
Even including the cities ceded to the Mist Demons, there were still many empty spaces. Furthermore, the Mist Demons had made their own cities too humid, even creating various rivers—this intense humidity, which the Star Antimony people avoided like the plague, was exactly the dream paradise that the Anxi people craved, perfectly suitable for relocating them to cities around the Mist Demons.
At the same time, the Anxi people could restrain and complement each other with the Mist Demons. And this population, skilled in rituals, curses, poison, and medicine, was exactly what was needed to fill the gap in Star Antimony’s Transcendent Path lineages.
And the technological level of the Free People of Anxi was indeed excellent. Anxi was, after all, an ancient empire with thousands of years of heritage. Although it had gone through several periods of decline, its foundation was still there. Although these Free People lived lives inferior to even feudal societies, their technological and cultural/educational levels far surpassed Star Antimony’s.
Meanwhile, the slaves could also get good jobs.
Star Antimony workers were severely dissatisfied with the working hours and wages, which required them to work fourteen hours a day, six days a week, just to support a family of four—after all, in the neighboring Iris Flower, the same type of work allowed for two fewer hours a day and one fewer day a week, with higher wages, and Avalon workers earned even less.
Although Yulia had been working hard to raise national wages and reduce working hours since she took over… to her confusion, even so, no one returned to work.
Even with the same wages, they preferred to live in Iris Flower and Narcissus, where the cost of living was higher, and even local Avalon workers were constantly leaving.
As a result, the economy was clearly and spontaneously concentrating in the already wealthiest Iris Flower region.
Yulia’s staff were adept at the political machinations of intrigue, but few understood how to revitalize the economy.
The New Hrasal Empire appeared prosperous and flourishing… yet it faced many intractable problems such as extremely uneven development, severe regional xenophobia and even mutual animosity, lack of space for high-end talent to utilize their abilities, and an extremely sluggish bottom-level market.
This batch of immigrants from Anxi could at least greatly alleviate this problem—
For those slaves who were not even allowed to eat human food, who had no place to live and were confined to living underground, let alone paid wages… just providing them with three meals a day, clean new clothes, and well-lit four-person dormitories would be enough to make them work with all their hearts.
Not to mention, their working hours were much shorter than in Anxi, and one person could easily support a family—they could save money and even send their children to school!
—Perhaps because of the pain she had endured and the loneliness of not being able to attend school, Yulia’s first initiatives after taking office were medical subsidies and compulsory education. Although this was a costly endeavor, the legacy of the Hrasal Empire alone was enough for her to spend for decades.
Although the residents of the New Hrasal also felt grateful and praised their young empress… they probably could not comprehend how shocking it would be for the Anxi people.
“What? Only need to work ten hours a day?”
“What? A month’s wages could buy three live sheep?”
“What? Medical expenses are reimbursed by half? Fully covered after thirty years of service?”
“What? Learning knowledge is free? City libraries can be entered for free?”
“…What? The water here is free?”
Although the New Hrasal was still an emerging capitalist country, and capitalization would undoubtedly become more severe—
However, for the slaves from Heaven City, who had just left a slave society, struggled to survive until the next day, and were even executed for eating a bite of meat or drinking clean water…
This was undoubtedly a true paradise.
And with “money,” they could buy all sorts of useful and useless things. Because they had not experienced an economic crisis from wealth to sudden poverty, they even felt that they had enough to eat and drink, and had no further pressing needs…
This, in turn, would revitalize the local economic market.
With these people as examples and models, Eivass could continuously rescue people from Anxi.
He did not want to help the Lords, but he also did not want to help the Reds.
Although the former possessed ancient heritage and a glorious past mission, they had now completely degenerated into selfish and arrogant beasts. Eivass had not personally killed them all because he was too busy to do so for the moment…
The latter were clearly the “Red Gloves” driven by Calamity Red. They constantly instigated and started wars, thereby solidifying the precarious conceptual path of Calamity Red, which had just been born.
Their choice of Heaven City, which had the highest happiness index, as their first target, rather than other more “sinful” city-states, was not because Heaven City was the most sinful; precisely because Heaven City was the least sinful, it had to be eliminated first to prevent it from attracting talent from other cities and becoming stronger.
This was no longer “revenge.”
Moreover, as the Lords gradually died off, it became increasingly necessary to consider how to save the remaining people—the Reds clearly did not fear this; they even slaughtered civilians for amusement.
But Eivass was bound by morality instead. If Eivass killed the Lords, he would first have to figure out how to protect and resettle the remaining people. Otherwise, he would not just be killing a wicked Lord, but also tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of civilians.
Then he would be no different from the Reds.
Eivass had originally wanted to popularize underground sewers, and with the Abyss Heavenly Envoy’s descent, water would be free. But now, it seemed this approach would not work…
—Then the best solution would be to send these people to New Hrasal!
If Eivass actively emptied these city-states… then he would no longer need to care about the descent of the Abyss Heavenly Envoy!
A master of all tactical transitions!
