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While Hobert was chairing a meeting on immigration progress, his vision was suddenly covered by a gray mist.
Then, a tall young man wearing classical clothing appeared before him: "… Respected Mr. Fool, please tell Mr. Emperor that we will set off tomorrow to explore the Giant King's Court again.
Please have Mr. Emperor ready. We expect to reach the destination in six days, and I will summon Mr. Emperor in seven days. Please ask him to act with us."
Immediately after, the figure disappeared, and Hobert heard Conrad's report on the progress of immigration again.
Because he was still attending the meeting, Hobert did not respond immediately.
Conrad's report elaborated on the immigration situation since November of last year. As of August of this year, a total of 700,000 people have been immigrated from the Northern Continent, basically completing the previously set plan.
After the land reform was completed nationwide, new statistics came out, and the entire country had a population gap of about 1 million people.
These gaps mainly come from the Highlands County and Cullen County, as well as the newly occupied Salto area.
A single Yason City needs at least 150,000 people to fill it, and the Highlands Kingdom previously exploited its citizens quite severely, greatly limiting the population.
The Salto area is sparsely populated because of its harsh conditions.
However, according to surveys, the Salto area is rich in minerals and has a lot of arable land.
The local nobles know that mining is profitable, so they basically use manpower for mining.
The natives are unwilling to cultivate. Generally, the places with better soil do not belong to their territory. It is easy for them to cultivate the land well, and after several years of management, it finally becomes fertile land, but it is taken away by colonists or local nobles.
Even if it is fertile land, it can only grow one season of grain a year. For colonists, the initial development cost is too high, and they will not go there to build manors.
This has resulted in a large amount of land that could be used for farming not being developed.
The fact that places suitable for growing grain have not been developed makes Hobert feel very uncomfortable!
In His eyes, leaving such places idle is an unforgivable waste!
So Hobert chaired this meeting to prepare for the launch of the second round of immigration operations.
Now the war in the Northern Continent is in a stalemate. A large number of people have lost their jobs or land due to the war. Many refugees have poured into Backlund, bringing a considerable burden to this international metropolis.
In such an environment, some people are willing to immigrate, which can completely fill the population gap in the Southern Balam Duchy.
Hobert asked the county government to speed up the pace of immigration and complete the second phase of immigration work within half a year.
Because in His view, after the end of the war in the Northern Continent this winter, the diplomatic relations between the Loen Kingdom and the Southern Balam Duchy will be full of uncertainty.
During a break in the meeting, Hobert took the opportunity to go to the washroom to pray to "The Fool", telling "Little Sun" that he would adjust his time.
At the same time, Hobert realized that the City of Silver's second exploration of the Giant King's Court was ahead of schedule.
In His impression, this exploration and the battle of the gods in the Northern Continent were probably at the same time.
Now it is only August, and Loen, which has shrunk its defense line, can still hold on for a while with the supply from the east of the kingdom.
Hobert recalled that Klein's hunting of the Dark Demonic Wolf was also brought forward. Then, the residents of City of Silver and Moon City will arrive earlier.
So, after a new round of meetings began, Hobert asked about the construction of New Lanark City.
After the completion of Angel City, all construction workers went to Lanark Port to start the construction of the new city without any rest.
According to the plan, it will be basically completed in October. Hobert nodded, the time is completely sufficient.
At that time, the weather will be relatively hot, and there will be no problem living in unfinished houses. The specific decoration work can be handed over to "Little Sun" and the others to complete themselves.
The agenda of the meeting continued, and everyone discussed the bumper harvest of grain this year. This year, the Southern Balam Duchy can be described as "good weather".
If there is any need for rainfall or wind reduction, Hobert directly handed it over to Medici and Raymond. With two "Weather Warlocks" here, of course, they cannot be wasted.
Although Medici always looks impatient every time he receives such a task, officials in the areas in need say that Medici also looks happy when facing the gratitude of the people.
Raymond is generally very obedient, and he will make it rain as much as he is told. He is just short of asking how many raindrops there are.
Because of the extraordinary power, no place in the Southern Balam Duchy has suffered any natural disasters this year.
It is certain that there will be a bumper harvest with twice the yield of previous years. With so much grain produced at once, the county government must coordinate the storage work, after all, it must be enough for the entire country to eat for a year.
The last topic of this meeting was the issue of internal conflicts among the people.
At present, the Southern Balam Duchy has Loen people, East Balam people, West Balam people, Highlands Kingdom people, Longtail Island natives, Feynapotter people, and many ethnic minorities with small populations.
They have different beliefs and different lifestyles. At present, many conflicts have emerged between them in the process of communication, and these conflicts are becoming more and more frequent and intense.
Hobert immediately found the root cause of the conflict: this country does not have a dominant ethnic group!
This is obviously a big problem. In Hobert's impression, the basic condition for a general power and a strong country is to have a dominant ethnic group with a population of at least 70%.
This is more conducive to unifying the values of a country and can greatly reduce internal conflicts.
At present, the immigration plan has not ended, but the drawbacks of immigration countries are about to begin to appear.
Hobert recalled the methods of self-stabilization of various immigration countries in the AD era, and realized after a while: What's the point of recalling! In the Beyonder world, this is an opportunity!
So, after the meeting, Hobert immediately asked the county government to invite professors in sociology, folklore, and linguistics to establish a department to integrate the characteristics of domestic customs, clothing, and other aspects.
Hobert will next unify the standards of clothing, language, and weights and measures throughout the country.
The first step is to do some research, combine the clothing of all parties, and leave those parts that are more practical, more beautiful, and not very difficult to make.
Then, when the nationwide large-scale construction begins in the second half of the year, taking advantage of the semi-military control state at that time, unify the clothing and weights and measures while unifying the architectural style, and promote the same language.
As long as they wear the same clothes, use the same things, and live in the same houses, most of the conflicts will not be so intense after a long time.
As for some local customs and hairstyles, they can be retained, and they are only required to speak the same language.
In at most twenty years, when the new generation who have received new education grows up, the entire country will no longer have such sharp conflicts.
Sixty or seventy years later, when all of this becomes everyone's habit, then a brand new nation with unified values will be born.
However, Hobert is not concerned about such distant things for the time being. In the initial stage of unifying everything, it will definitely be resented and resisted by the people.
And all of this will become the basis for Hobert to digest the potion, and it will also become the key to advancing to the Black Emperor ritual.
The only thing to pay attention to is that once the people's resentment leads to mass incidents, they must be resolved quickly.
It is generally impossible to reason with them. The solution is nothing more than coercion and inducement.
Conrad and others, who have experience in governing Longtail Island, are no strangers to this, so Hobert asked Conrad to prepare several contingency plans. It doesn't matter even if they can't be resolved. He will take a trip, and with a "stir", everything will be gone.
In the midst of close planning and preparation for this matter, time passed quickly, and in a blink of an eye, it was the time agreed with "Little Sun".
Hobert roughly told Audrey and Fors about his next actions, and then locked himself in the study again.
After building the "Wall of Spirituality", Hobert sacrificed himself to "The Fool" as last time, but this time "The Fool" did not respond until after more than half a minute.
Coming to the castle full of mist again, Hobert felt that the figure in the depths of the castle seemed to be full of distortion and madness.
He immediately recalled that Klein had explored the residence of the Giant King first. His shadow was taken away by the "Dark Angel" Sasrir, and his marionette was also taken away again, so his condition was very wrong.
Hobert really wanted to step forward and ask: Is your condition okay? If not, I might as well ask "The Creator" to send me to the "Forsaken Land of the Gods".
While thinking wildly, Hobert's vision darkened, and He had already appeared in the "Forsaken Land of the Gods".
Getting up from the simple altar, in the dim light, Hobert first saw Derrick Berg with brown-yellow hair and a tall figure.
Derrick was a little excited when he saw Hobert: "Mr. Emperor… How should I address you?"
He suddenly remembered that he didn't know Mr. Emperor's name yet.
Hobert smiled slightly: "My name is Hobert."
"Little Sun" also introduced himself: "My name is Derrick."
Hobert "hmm"ed, turned his head and looked at Chief Colin Iliad, who was also tall and had gray hair, and Lovia Tiffany, who was wearing a black robe and was beautiful and generous.
Both of them were carefully looking at Hobert. Derrick had already reported that he would find two helpers. At first, Colin only planned to let Derrick call one helper, so that things would still be within a controllable range.
To be precise, if Derrick and his helper had problems, Colin and Lovia could still join forces to control the situation. If there were two helpers, it would be easy to lose balance.
But when Derrick told Colin that the second helper was an angel and could enter and exit the "Forsaken Land of the Gods" relatively freely, Colin had no objection.
The reason is very simple. If this angel-level helper had a problem, City of Silver would have been gone long ago.
Colin knew that this angel must have His purpose in actively participating in this exploration, but this was also an opportunity for City of Silver.
Elder Lovia was very worried about this, because in her opinion, the power of City of Silver had lost its balance.
While thinking wildly, Colin and Lovia put their left hands on their chests and bowed to Hobert, which was the least respect for the angel walking on the earth.
"Standing before you, I finally understand what it means to have giant blood." Hobert, who was quite a bit shorter than the three of them, waved at Colin and Lovia in response to their greeting. Then, he smiled and asked, "My Jotun isn't very good, can you understand me?"
Derrick replied, "It sounds a bit awkward, but I can understand what you mean."
Hobert nodded. "How far is the Giant King's Court from here?"
Derrick pointed behind Hobert. "It's on that mountain over there."
Hobert turned his head and glanced. A beam of light illuminated a magnificent castle built against the mountain. The style of the castle was very ancient, different from any architecture on the Northern and Southern continents.
It was very grand, with a strong sense of epic poetry, and a feeling of history coming to life.
Hobert sighed, "This is the so-called Divine Kingdom. Even after being abandoned for so long, it still gives people a sense of holiness."
He turned back. "I thought there wouldn't be any light here."
"That bright light suddenly appeared just now." Derrick said, "We don't know what's going on either."
Hobert nodded. "Then can we start exploring? You wouldn't mind if I sped things up a bit, would you?"
Before anyone else could answer, Hobert had already used the 'distortion' of space to bring them to the gate of the Giant King's Court.
Derrick praised, "Mr. Hobert, is this ability a collective 'Blink'?"
"It's 'distorting' space." Hobert said without concealment.
Colin and Lovia's eyes revealed a bit of worry. When Hobert 'accelerated' just now, they had no ability to resist at all.
Hobert looked at the castle in front of him, which had collapsed in many places. "Gehrman is late!"
"Gehrman Sparrow is never late!" As soon as Hobert finished speaking, a figure emerged from behind the collapsed tower. He was wearing a black trench coat, a silk top hat, his right face was stern and rigid, and his left face was composed of transparent, distorted, constantly crawling worms:
"Nor will he be early, he will only arrive just in time."
As he spoke, he grinned, his smile very exaggerated.
The three demigods of the City of Silver immediately adopted a defensive posture. In their eyes, the man in the strange hat and coat looked more like a monster.
Hobert smiled. "That sentence sounds very familiar, like a line from somewhere."
He paused and then said, "My friend, your condition is really too bad, let me help you."
As he spoke, Hobert 'distorted' Klein's spirit body, making his originally incomplete spirit body temporarily complete. This was equivalent to Klein's spirit body, which was originally only half complete, being 'distorted' into being complete.
Klein let out a long sigh, and the half of his face composed of worms returned to normal.
He regained his usual sternness. "With you joining, it seems that this operation will be very easy."
Derrick and the others listened carefully to the conversation between the two helpers. Seeing that Hobert had easily solved the problem, Derrick was very happy, but Colin felt that the City of Silver's power seemed to have become marginalized in this operation.
"Not necessarily." Hobert said, "Isn't the 'Dark Angel' sitting in the Giant King's residence?"
"That doesn't seem to be a complete 'Dark Angel'." Klein said, "I have already opened the gate to the Giant King's residence, which brought some surprises, causing changes in the Divine Kingdom.
"The one sitting inside is more like the 'Dark Angel's' shadow, in short, it doesn't feel like a complete 'Dark Angel'."
As he spoke, he winked at Hobert, who understood and nodded slightly.
They had previously exchanged information about the 'Dark Angel' at the Tarot Club. In Hobert's description, the 'Dark Angel' was the avatar formed by the Ancient Sun God's humanity. In the process of the Ancient Sun God 'killing himself', he returned his humanity, which was equivalent to the 'Dark Angel' losing its main consciousness.
Later, the Ancient Sun God's plan failed, and his human part immediately recovered the Sequence 1 characteristic and Beyonder characteristics of the 'Hanged Man' pathway, forming the True Creator.
So the 'Dark Angel' also lost its main Beyonder characteristics.
Klein was using his eyes to tell Hobert that his information was basically accurate.
At the same time, Klein realized that the 'Dark Angel' sitting in the main hall was more like some kind of symbolic meaning, or some kind of manifestation of divinity.
But this was just a feeling in his spirituality, he didn't see exactly what it was.
Hobert clapped his hands. "Alright, everyone's here, let's set off.
"Oh, right, the three of you from City of Silver, I think Derrick has already told you my conditions, right?"
Colin nodded. "Yes."
Hobert said meaningfully, "As long as I get my reward, I will protect your safety and let you see the sun outside."
Saying this, he strode towards the gate. "Hurry up, I really want to see what the 'Dark Angel' is doing now."
Klein realized: Hobert might also be here with a mission, like the True Creator and Amon, the 'Creator' might also want to know the current state of 'Dark Angel' Sasrir.
Ahead was a double door tens of meters high, with a gray-blue tone, and the surface was inlaid with golden nails.
Hobert really wanted to go up and see if those nails were made of real gold, but he felt that this move was not in line with the identity of an angel and would lower his price, so he could only pretend not to see it.
Inside the gate, on both sides, stood a five- or six-meter-high guard with great pressure. They were wearing exquisite and solid silver full-body armor, one holding a greatsword, one holding a giant axe, and behind the masks, there was a group of orange-red light.
Colin and the others stopped advancing within a safe distance, only Hobert was still walking forward unhurriedly.
Derrick was about to call out to Hobert to discuss a tactic, but Klein stopped him. "He can handle it himself."
He knew that Hobert had already advanced to Sequence 1, and he had acted with Hobert not long ago. At this time, Hobert could kill a 'Miracle Invoker' as easily as playing, and two Sequence 3s were nothing.
Hobert stepped forward step by step, and the huge steps in front of the door, about one person high, seemed to suddenly shrink and become the size of normal steps under his feet.
After reaching a certain distance, the two 'Silver Knights' reacted, their necks turned stiffly and looked at the intruder Hobert.
Hobert snapped his fingers very smartly and 'tampered' with the weight of the two 'Silver Knights' armor.
Their hands trembled, as if trying to pick up their weapons, but the greatsword and giant axe gradually sank into the mud under their feet.
At the same time, because the armor was too heavy, the 'Silver Knights' were pressed to one knee, as if they were welcoming Hobert.
Hobert came to the two Silver Knights and looked at them curiously: "So you can still stay here until now because your spirit body is so special.
"Was it affected when fighting the undead bird?"
"But it doesn't matter anymore, you have become history, rest in peace."
Hobert took out the 'Death Domain' of '0-73' from the 'Nation of Disorder' and stuffed their spirit bodies into the underworld.
Dong~
The giant sword fell to the ground, and the two 'Silver Knights' knelt there motionless.
Hobert snapped his fingers again, and two 'Silver Knight' Beyonder characteristics were immediately extracted.
After collecting the spoils, Hobert waved to the back: "Let's continue forward."
After a second or two, Derrick reacted. The two 'Silver Knights' who had been bothering them were actually solved just like that!
He looked at his two companions with excitement. Colin seemed to have figured it out and no longer had any doubts about it.
The chief was now very sure that the other party's strength was enough to easily destroy City of Silver, and there was no need to use any complicated means to do it.
But the other party didn't do this, which meant that at least for the time being, the other party had no malice.
Lovia's expression was very solemn, and her eyes were still full of worry.
But she was also very clear that her worry was useless.
Seeing the reactions of the two companions, Derrick also restrained his excited expression, but his heart was still very happy: I have known Mr. Emperor for two years, and I know him… no, I know Him better, otherwise a helper so powerful would suddenly appear in front of me, and I would also be suspicious.
Continuing forward, they saw a black 'lake' blocking the way.
These lakes looked very unusual. Under the 'water surface', there seemed to be invisible whirlpools, and even spirituality could be sucked into them.
Hobert pointed to a brick on the ground, and then waved his hand slightly, the brick rushed to the other side like a cannonball leaving the barrel.
But this very fast brick suddenly began to fall in the 'center of the lake', dropping into the lake in a parabola that violated the laws of mechanics and approached a right angle.
Then Hobert raised his hand and pushed forward, and a large area of space in front became chaotic, but the chaotic space also fell into the lake one after another.
Klein said: "Even Beyonder abilities can fall?"
Hobert smiled slightly: "It seems that the 'Dark Angel' has had a great influence on this castle."
He pondered for a while and said: "Get ready, we have to pass through here quickly."
Saying this, he grabbed the Uniqueness of the 'Black Emperor' from the 'Nation of Disorder' and stayed on top of his head, and then made a downward chopping gesture forward.
Whoosh~
The black 'lake water' split from the middle, revealing a road that had been dyed black.
Hobert used the ability to 'tamper' with the position, 'tampering' from this side of the lake to the other side.
He put away the Uniqueness and smiled slightly: "Fortunately, the one sitting inside is not a complete 'Dark Angel'."
Derrick on the side breathed a sigh of relief and said in his heart: Fortunately, I asked Mr. Emperor to help, otherwise how could this 'lake' trap us.
Continuing forward, they saw the road composed of steps extending all the way to the most magnificent Giant King's residence.
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