Chapter 1140 - 177: Harvest Season and the Growth of the Flying Horse Herd (2)

Chapter 1140: Chapter 177: Harvest Season and the Growth of the Flying Horse Herd (2)

The nuns of the Dawn Church, dressed in green magic robes, moved back and forth among them. The simple magic staffs or rune tools in their hands flickered with a faint light, carefully guiding the magic power, ensuring that the energy of these precious crops would not dissipate during the harvest. The serfs worked under the nuns’ direction with reverence and excitement; each harvest was full of ritual. They watched baskets and carts filled with fruits shining with strange light being transported to rune-reinforced, constant temperature and humidity magic storerooms, faces brimming with pride and hope. These were more than just food; they were symbols of the territory’s power, wealth, and future!

What excited the Hesse Territory more was that, at the end of winter, their year-long cultivation of the herb garden finally brought a harvest!

The territory’s spice industry concentrated primarily in two areas, one of which was Vanilla from Hot Spring Town.

Yes, Hot Spring Town.

The Healing Hot Spring, which initially was just a small village with a mere hundred people, has now developed into a small town with a population of over 600 people.

Here, the industry isn’t only about spices; everything here originates from the hot spring. After being developed into a hot spring bath industry, it began to prosper. The spring here has very notable effects on purifying corrosion, restoring physical strength, and healing diseases, thus attracting numerous nobles, knights, and merchants to visit.

Nobles, Knight Clans, and giant merchants, dwarf masters both inside and outside the territory, nearly visit every month.

This has led to a rapid gathering of population here to provide services for these visitors.

Simultaneously, there are many farmers engaged in production locally who need market trade, thus forming the first small town in the territory.

This actually satisfies Su Li even more than a standalone herb garden, indicating that it is a forced project needing the territory’s support.

Whereas the rise of Hot Spring Town demonstrates that the local economy has entered a good cycle, establishing a complete ecological system. Without requiring support from the territory, they can keep expanding.

The emergence of this small town has finally allowed the Hesse Territory to develop from a city-village binary structure into a city-town-village tiered system.

In the future, as more areas within the Hesse Territory develop into small towns, spreading influence around, the economy will flourish. The domain wouldn’t be sparsely populated but bustling and prosperous like the interior of the Empire.

At present, however, the most important financial revenue for this town clearly still comes from vanilla.

The harvest of Vanilla is quiet. Short vines cling to specially made frames; the dark green, long, dagger-like pods hang heavily.

Experienced gardeners and nuns of the Dawn Church silently move between the vine frames, precisely cutting those mature pods whose colors have turned dark brown, with tips slightly cracked, using carefully honed small knives. Actions must be extremely gentle; any slight bruise could destroy the essence brewing inside the pods.

These precious pods are carefully placed into wicker baskets lined with soft moss and will be transported to a cool, ventilated fermentation workshop, undergoing a long and crucial maturation process.

The air is filled with a faint, complex sweetness, a budding aura of vanilla fragrance worth its weight in gold. Every harvester knows the value of what they hold, handling it with nearly reverent caution. Armed guards patrol around the garden, their eyes sharp, guarding against any possible covetous threats.

Contrasting with Vanilla’s understated harvest is the collection of Rockmoss Lilac. This eastern species, which bears great hope, showed far exceeding life energy on Hesse’s land. They are not small shrubs but grow into robust-trunked, vigorous-branched small trees. At the end of winter, the deep brown branches, after flowers have faded, are densely packed with nearly black clusters of dry small buds. These buds hold Lilac’s real value—imbued with extreme spicy and bitter power.

Harvesting Rockmoss Lilac is a task requiring strength and skill. Hela personally tends to it, meticulously trimming the full flower branches with specially designed long-handled shears. The buds are small and hard, like countless tiny iron thistles. The cut flower branches are piled on coarse burlap covered ground like heaps of strange ores awaiting smelting.

Baskets of precious Vanilla pods are sealed and stored, bundles of deep brown Rockmoss Lilac flower branches are packed. The first abundant outputs from the herb garden are continuously being transported to safe storage points and processing workshops. This is the result of Hesse Territory’s patient cultivation and significant effort investment.

This winter, Su Li hasn’t stayed at Bjorn Shallow Bay. He brought along guards and nuns from the Dawn Church, arriving above the White Castle of the North Blood Plateau.

The bitter north wind roared across the Blood-red Plateau, sweeping up dry snow grains, whipping against exposed rocks and low dark-colored moss.

Standing amidst this reddish-brown plateau, at a cliff’s edge, lies the ruling core of Hesse Territory’s northern frontier—White Castle.

The castle itself is built from locally quarried harsh, gray-blue rocks, its lines rugged, angles sharp, towers low and solid, walls high and sturdy, carrying an aura of desolate aloofness. It guards the gut of the plateau, an outpost and symbol for defending against unknown northern threats and monitoring the plateau’s movements.