Chapter 1181
Professor Moriarty’s Successor
Coincidentally, the Anxi people could barely comprehend how such city-states functioned—because it wasn’t a “pure slave society,” not a nascent human society developed from primitive times.
The Ancient Kingdom of Anxi was an artificially created, deformed society, a crystal ball isolated from the world.
But even so, the wise among the Anxi people knew how the outside world had developed.
Therefore, “the new Lord is from out of town” was enough to explain “why he did this.”
—Because the cultural traditions of foreigners are inherently different from ours.
Heaven City was so well-advertised, so perfect, that people became suspicious.
Besides fanatical believers, only the homeless would try to go to Heaven City. In essence, they didn’t believe it was real in their hearts.
But Eivass was different.
The Moriarty Family did indeed have a transnational enterprise.
Although Eivass and Yulia had never managed it, nor even visited the company, with only the elder brother and the old butler maintaining its operations, it truly existed. And with Yulia’s ascension to emperorship, the scale of this enterprise naturally continued to expand—
Coupled with Rock Cell City being the westernmost city, transporting goods from Star Antinomy and Iris Flower was a simple matter.
The precious food, medicine, cloth, building materials, and luxury goods that those Lords spent a fortune to transport—Eivass could obtain high-quality supplies at a considerably low price.
In Anxi, there was a saying, “Fish sauce is more expensive than gold.” But whether it was Avalon, Star Antinomy, or Iris Flower, almost every fishing village brewed fish sauce.
And vegetables, in Anxi, were at least three times more expensive than meat—
The value of some rare fresh vegetables could be more than a hundred times that of meat—but shipped from Star Antinomy using the Preservation Technique, even with shipping costs, they wouldn’t be excessively expensive.
After calculating, Eivass discovered a terrifying fact—they didn’t even need Lords.
It was perfectly fine for them to transport water directly from Star Antinomy!
The Cursed Desert’s influence was merely that rivers couldn’t be directly diverted here; it didn’t mean that canned water brought from outside would evaporate.
This curse materialized as the desert depths infinitely absorbing water, thus preventing surface water storage. Water could only be stored in sealed spaces—for instance, the waterways within the city, or fountains, or pools.
Other city-states did the same.
However, the Lord of Rock Cell City had developed a new technology—they purchased alchemical stone slabs from Star Antinomy and discovered that the strength of these high-quality slabs could isolate the “curse.”
If a sealed underground city were built entirely with these slabs, and the waterways were run over the stone slabs, the water wouldn’t be drained by the desert.
Residents could then pay to draw water at designated “well shafts,” with water from different areas kept separate.
This prevented Free People or important figures around Lords from being poisoned by slaves, and it also provided some water to the slaves, unlike other city-states that “prevented water from being contaminated by slaves.” He could also leave for a period once water storage was sufficient, without worrying about the residents in the city fleeing due to lack of water.
This was why Rock Cell City was named “Rock Cell City.” These stone slab wells were its unique feature.
But perhaps due to limited vision, or insufficient funds, “Honest Afshien” did not further develop this technology, stopping after establishing the partitioned waterways.
Yet Eivass realized something—wasn’t this an underground water pipeline?
Although Rock Cell City had an internal underground water system… it was less than twenty kilometers from the Star Antinomy border?
A mere twenty kilometers, even with the need to build waterways from the border to the water station, the total distance was negligible.
It seemed, perhaps, it wasn’t that difficult to do?
After Eivass had Sherlock, who understood such matters, calculate it, he was immediately energized—
—Wasn’t this incredibly easy to do?
The underground waterways of Glass Island alone already exceeded ten thousand kilometers in total length!
If the Goblin Merchant Association were to undertake the construction, it would take at most a week. The cost would be less than one-third of building a single railroad track in Avalon.
Following this logic, if they continued to develop—if they A connected these underground waterways, wouldn’t they have water even without the curse being lifted?
With this, Eivass was no longer worried about Sherlock being bound here directly because of this Geometric Heavenly Envoy fragment.
He immediately contacted the Goblin Merchant Association, and the goblins responded quickly—they said they would dispatch a President within three days to personally meet in Dawn City.
So, Eivass waited here for a few days.
—It turned out that Eivass’s strategy of using the Desert’s Voice to spread the GG was also correct.
The Desert’s Voice organization seemed to have some connection with the resistance, so they were particularly enthusiastic about helping promote Dawn City.
Only the third day after Eivass’s GG campaign began, people started arriving hesitantly, trembling, and tentatively, wanting to sign “that” contract with Eivass.
Naturally, Eivass didn’t handle such matters himself—Lixia’s unique divine beauty was perfect for this facade.
The appearance of Elves came from Winged Ones, and the appearance of Humans came from Elves.
This was why people felt a natural sense of closeness when they saw Winged Ones.
Moreover, Lixia herself was a Fifth Tier Extraordinary on the Path of Authority, capable of signing contracts. Contracts guaranteed by the divine power of the Silver Crown Dragon were a great comfort to these slaves—they weren’t afraid of harsh contracts, but of the Lord going back on his word.
Such contracts, difficult to sever once signed, were a form of protection for the weaker party.
The first batch to sign contracts with Eivass was the private legion of the previous generation’s Lord, “Honest Afshien.”
According to the original rules, unless it was paternal inheritance, most of them would not have survived—after all, the new Lord couldn’t allow those with combat ability who had served the previous Lord to roam freely; he wouldn’t feel at ease.
Following them were his wives and concubines.
Although called wives and concubines, their status was essentially no different from slaves.
While their status was higher than slaves and even Free People, they became slaves themselves before the Lord.
If Eivass didn’t arrange a way out for them, they would tragically become slaves to others. Because, as Free People, they lacked the ability to work as Free People and could not support themselves.
However, Eivass gave them the most suitable job—that of explainer.
They only needed to constantly hold meetings, or speak in public to new immigrants about the many sins of the former Rock Cell City and how good life was in the current Dawn City.
No training was needed, nor were scripts or performances.
Because everything they said was the truth.
At this moment, Eivass increasingly understood his foster father, James—
“The ultimate purpose of all lies is to make others believe in oneself and be used for one’s own benefit… therefore, the greatest, most advantageous lie is the truth itself. A lie is called a lie merely because it does not speak the truth, thus it has a fatal flaw—it is all false. Only the truth is different—the truth speaks for itself.”
These were words James had once spoken.
—And for this reason, no lie could be more powerful than the truth.
No matter how many honeyed words were spoken to deceive people, no matter how much sophistry and sophism were used to confuse and perplex, no matter how much deception or instigation was employed, it was not as effective as speaking the truth directly.
Precisely like a sword, to speak the truth that the other party already knew in their hearts but refused to acknowledge.
At this point, a lie was no longer a lie.
It would be called “truth.”
Eivass merely spoke the words that people already knew but hadn’t uttered. He spoke the “answer” that they were afraid to say, bound by fear, rules, traitors, death, poverty, and kinship—
Just as Professor Moriarty, in the past, used the evil in people’s hearts to bewitch them.
Eivass now uses the goodness in people’s hearts to guide others.
Perhaps in the future, they would awaken on their own, perhaps they would help others too, and recognize the errors of the old society… and Eivass merely hastened the arrival of that moment, solidifying the resolve of those who still hesitated.
The wisdom to point out sin, and the violence that could change sin.
—This is hope itself.
(End of this chapter)
