Surviving The Fourth Calamity

Hill quietly reflected on the birth of Little Flower Fairy, certain that his memory was absolutely correct.

Little Fairies, of course, could form families, and could even sacrifice a part of their power to transform into humans or elves after falling in love with adults.

However, children born in this way would basically become part of the adult race with a trace of fairy bloodline, and could not become true Little Fairies.

This was also the reason why the Joyous Court placed great importance on bloodlines, as Little Fairies only have pure lineage. Hence, except for the occasional human or elf who wandered in, Shady Home would not allow other races to enter, even those with Little Fairy blood.

Little Flower Fairy was not unable to give birth to male offspring, but those born were wingless Fairy Spirits who, although very beautiful, lived on the ground and subsisted by controlling the Fairy Insect Tribe.

Though they lacked wings, their combat abilities were much stronger than those of the Little Flower Fairies.

Hill quietly glanced at the male Little Flower Fairies flying with Vila, who were engaged in an animated discussion about those tiny and exquisite magical curios that even Little Fairies could play with in their hands.

The only male deity in the Joyous Court who would transform into various races and ventured outside was probably Vila's father, Oberon, the Lord of Beasts.

How should one put it—it's no wonder he stood out among a group of Little Flower Fairies, his beauty truly ranked amongst the top, and he presented a different style compared to Coron.

His strength was not insignificant; in the realm of Little Fairy Spirits, his combat prowess was considered very powerful. However, the Fairy Court was a matriarchal society, and all his titles had to be placed below the rank of the King's Consort of the Joyous Court.

The most powerful Divine Artifact of the Little Fairies was the thrones of Joy and Sorrow in the two courts, but as the names suggest, only females could sit upon them.

Sitting on those two thrones, even if Oberon's wife, Titania, originally had less power than him, she eventually suppressed him to the point of helplessness.

Hill decided to wait until they all left before entering, for Oberon, feeling a bit inferior, did not like to interact with people.

It was quite normal for him to like the environment Hill offered here, as Oberon was more inclined towards Druidic practices and was skilled at using Sun domain spells.

Most importantly, he was an ally of the Elf Deity System, especially with Coron and his current Queen.

For such a silent but responsible King's Consort to visit an ally's domain for his daughter, whom he had not seen for a thousand years, it was indeed very much in character.

Moreover, even if Titania always worried about Oberon, she couldn't ask him to return, especially since Vila had, in practice, been abandoned. The Joyous Court had long confirmed Vila's demise, otherwise, they wouldn't have recognized her as the head of the Little Flower Fairies with merely demigod status, without the Queen officially granting her the title.

Watching the number of Little Flower Fairies in his study increase, Hill decided to step out, as the fairy voices were quite high-pitched and fast, and it really became noisy as their numbers grew.

After handing over the small parcels to List to deal with, Hill descended to the ground, of course, slightly concealing his appearance.

Even without using it, the hairpin Fran, his maternal grandfather, had given him was always hidden beneath his long hair.

Despite having recently gone through a war, the commercial street at the port was still bustling.

Perhaps because the shops owned by Hill were in this area, even though those craftsmen had their own stores in Agleya City, many people still came here to shop.

Especially the food and speciality store, which never lacked customers.

Hill had never intervened in the pricing of other items, but for food, it was always fixed at 110% of the purchase price, though there was a quota, which kept the frequency of purchases by the residents fairly high.

Hill watched with pleasure as people flocked into his Magic Curio Shop and then emerged either heart-achingly or triumphantly, when suddenly, he remembered that he seemed to have rarely profited from the Undead Tribe's money!

Hill thought about it and still reluctantly gave up the idea—he couldn't just stop others from entering his store to buy things.

Selling some common magical curios to the Toril people was one thing, but those items with significant enhancements, he better not take them out to avoid causing himself trouble.

Let the Undead Tribe use the standard equipment! That was already much better than what most High-level Professionals in Toril had, and even Lynn, who was considered wealthy, was envious when he first saw the Undead's full set of gear, not just because of the quality but also the exquisite designs clearly made by masters.

No mention was needed for the Elf Crusade; their armor and weapons were indeed nice, but they couldn't compare to the Undead's full set.

That was normal, even if Coron didn't personally get involved, his Divine Kingdom had plenty of artists who could tackle such tasks, and for the God of Time and Space, as long as he figured out the production methods, setting up an assembly line would be no problem.

Hill pondered that if these Elves really were willing to stay in Agleya City as the Guard Corps, he indeed should provide them with benefits beyond their salary. He believed the Temporal Artifact would sell him some equipment.

Especially that silver suit of Elven Armor inlaid with green vine patterns—the Undead Tribe didn't favor such full-body armor too much, no matter what, the green lines on the helmet were a bit too conspicuous, while the Elves from Toril were almost popping their eyes out over it.

Hill strolled leisurely as the youngest among Lynn's cousin Gaul from Lynn's Family, who lived near the port, rushed past him, flustered, heading straight for Agleya City.

Hill raised an eyebrow. What major event had occurred now?

He patted his long robe and followed suit.

Lynn, rarely seen outside his City Hall during the day, captured Hill's curiosity as he walked toward his home.

Then he saw over a hundred females of various races gathered on the front lawn, vigorously preparing all sorts of food with plumes of white smoke rising from the large ovens set up on the far left of the yard, clearly the work of dwarves.

What was Lynn up to?

Unable to resist, Hill called over Marsha and learned that Lynn was planning to use up the food stored in the city's warehouses.

"Are the warehouses about to overflow? Do I need to expand them? I thought the God of Time and Space was in charge of construction; the warehouses should be huge!" Hill asked Marsha with slight embarrassment, nearly forgetting that due to the segregation, the food warehouse might not be big enough.

However, recalling William's warehouse, which he had built, it surely couldn't be smaller than William's private stock, could it?

After all, even though the labor was provided by the Undead Tribe and Coron, the materials were all supplied by Hill!

Most of it was stone, but that doesn't mean Hill's magic power came without a cost!

"Sir," Marsha hesitated before looking at Hill, "last year... because of the Endless Thunder that brought the dragon eggs, the vitality of the entire continent was quite robust, hence the high yield of crops.

Grain surpluses hurt the farmers.

And yet, you've always bought grain at the average price of the past three years, so the price offered is probably the highest in the entire Ferun Great Land.

For more than half a year, grain merchants have been shipping the surplus of the Ferun Great Land to us.

After all, we now have a harbor!"

"The entire... Ferun?" Hill was a little surprised; he truly hadn't noticed.

"Sir, aside from the inn, all the revenue from the shopping district has been handed over to Mr. Lynn," Marsha reminded him. "To a certain extent, Agleya City is very rich.

A warehouse's worth of grain is nothing compared to a high-level magical curio. You've forgotten what amazing things you've crafted yourself?"

Agleya City hardly received any taxes; the only formal income was the former rent, and even without paying much attention, he knew such money wasn't enough to maintain a city.

Even though the harbor had been put into use, the profitable overseas trade wouldn't come to Hill's place, as this was the stronghold of the Teraxil Elves, and no captain would sail to their death.

Even if a few magic ships could ensure their neutrality, they wouldn't come to Agleya City. Deepwater City was the place to acquire a variety of goods to take back, and for the foreseeable future, Deepwater City's advantage with its magic ship spaceport and various portals could not be replaced.

In fact, the only profitable shop among all his properties was the Strange Objects Shop, largely relying on the sale of Hill's practice curios.

A newly built city with not many residents couldn't possibly have much income; surely, it was the City Lord's responsibility to provide the funds, and Hill didn't really mind.

After all, the curios he sold were mostly auxiliary, with the more damaging ones he kept to himself.

Hill's eyes gleamed as he noticed the housewives were making cakes and pastries, and he remembered the large amount of meat he had collected.

"Marsha! What about the meat? Is Lynn planning to make sausages?" Hill asked eagerly.

"Mr. Lynn has acquired some meat product recipes from the Undead Tribe, mainly various flavors of floss and jerky," Marsha spoke swiftly. "Some sausages have been made as well, with Mr. Lynn providing his recipes to others."

Hill sighed with a hint of regret, "Ah! That's not the same, Lynn's sausages are different. The recipe isn't so special, but his technique is, and with food, a different person means a different taste."

Marsha gently said, "Mr. Lynn is so busy that even the Tower Spirit feels sorry for him. He's also dealing with the Undead and Coron, so please show some mercy! If this gets out, I think Mr. Lynn might quarrel with you."

Hill blinked, "The Undead is one thing, but are the Coron giving Lynn a particularly hard time?"

Marsha looked helplessly at her happily miserable master, "What are you really here for?"

Hill 'ah'ed, "I saw one of Lynn's cousins running over with a look of urgency, and I was wondering if something had happened."

"I think you can ask Mr. Lynn directly."

With a letter in hand, Lynn was walking out, and Hill had an intuition that he was out to find him. It seemed like a truly bothersome matter.