Chapter 414 Brad’s Work Problem

Liszt plans to build a modern castle.

With rubber and ironwood, many plans can be realized—of course, there is no money to build the castle now, so he has to live on a tight budget for a few days.

This doesn’t stop him from planning the castle’s location, size, and height.

A subordinate castle is probably the tallest building in a city. The nameless small castle in Flower Town is only two stories high, generally, nameless castles are around two or three stories.

Named castles are mostly four stories, and many viscounts and earls typically build four-story castles. In addition to the four-story main structure, there might be a slightly taller spire for lookout and defense. Tulip Castle is a four-story castle, but built along the mountain, it looks especially grand.

High-ranking nobles generally choose steep mountainous areas to build castles, easy to defend and hard to attack.

The most magnificent castle Liszt has seen is Longtaro Castle, a five-story castle that seems to blend into the mountain range, a marvel of engineering built with rocks.

"In the future, this rocky beach will become the castle’s construction site. To the east and north, the castle’s auxiliary buildings will be built gradually, and to the south, a stone road will connect to the port city. As for the planning of the port city, I hope it will be mid-sized."

Incidentally, Liszt also outlined his vision for the new city.

Generally, lords’ city development happens spontaneously, slowly accumulating population and expanding scale. As a result, the city becomes chaotic and filthy, with sewage and waste flowing freely. Liszt does not want his city to become such a cesspool.

Sewers, toilets, and septic tanks are must-haves for his new city and town construction.

Separating commercial areas, workshop areas, and residential areas is also his vision for urban planning; such a city can be called the light of civilization.

...

Night.

Liszt summoned the smoke mission: "The new castle’s location is set—it’s definitely here."

The threads of fate moved, the smoke twisted into small snake-like trajectories, forming a piece of serpent script: "Complete the mission, reward advanced mana technique manual 'Red Sun Rising Fire Burning.'"

The advanced mana technique manual has likely arrived, kept in Tulip Castle.

He turned his attention to the new task.

"Mission: Crystal craftsman Brad is unemployed. All the town's stock of volcanic glass has been carved into utensils, and his crystal workshop is completely idle. As a lord, it’s your duty to find him work. Reward: Mutant strain of corn grass."

"Mutant strain of corn grass?"

Corn grass is currently grown as fodder, with a large planting scale, already reaching 300 acres. It’s regularly harvested as feed for Black Blood horses and dragon milk cows, boosting their nutrition.

Liszt's mind raced: "Is the mutant strain of corn grass developing towards magic herbs? Or towards... corn?"

Corn grass is not corn.

According to Earth's species classification, corn was domesticated from wild corn grass by humans ten thousand years ago, and only today has it become the staple crop corn with large corn cobs. This shows that corn grass and corn cobs are somewhat related. In this world full of magic power, it is not impossible for corn grass to mutate into corn.

Compared to the forage attribute of corn grass, the grain attribute of corn cobs is the real game-changer.

"I remember that corn is not only high-yielding but also the simplest to plant compared to other grains..." Liszt recalled watching some small videos about Africa.

Africans love to plant corn because they can directly plant it in the fields, with no need for weeding or fertilizing. When the mature season comes, after the weeds wither, they find that corn can actually produce corn cobs!

Corn can be processed into cornmeal, making their staple food "Sima"—similar to corn porridge, which can be eaten by hand.

"If it mutates into corn, that’d be fantastic. Black Horse Island is huge, and I don’t have enough serfs to farm it, but with corn, once it’s planted,"

Just leave it alone. By harvest time, the yield may not be high, but it's better than planting other crops that could be overrun by weeds and yield nothing. This is a hopeful outlook.

In order to obtain possible corn cobs, Liszt decided to seriously address Brad's employment issue.

Brad is a crystal carver who makes a living by carving crystal items. He earned a good income in Coral City, placing him among the wealthier commoners. However, due to the secrecy surrounding the telescope, he was sent by the count to Flower Town, becoming Liszt's subject and settling there.

With no need for telescopes or volcanic glassware, he has nothing to do all day.

"I originally planned to have Brad make glass in the future, but now it seems that glass production won't be developed anytime soon... Even if it is developed, glass seems very fragile and difficult to carve, as if glass is all 'blown' out." Liszt recalled seeing glassmaking in his memory.

Red-hot glass is blown, expanded, and then manually shaped to produce glass products like wine glasses, tea cups, jars, etc. There's also a flat pressing method, where glass solution is pressed into flat panes for windows.

Unfortunately, the items produced by these two methods seem unrelated to Brad's profession. It doesn't make sense to have him, with his fine carving skills, switch to handling high-temperature glass solutions. As for finished glass products, they don't require further carving or processing.

"Should I have him learn other forms of carving?" Liszt thought again.

But he quickly dismissed the idea, since craftsmen usually pass their skills down through generations, with sons taking over their fathers' trades. It would be very difficult for Brad to switch to other types of carving.

His mindset has already become set; it was evident that he was reluctant when asked to carve obsidian.

Moreover, the craft of crystal carving also requires continuous practice to maintain.

"I might as well provide another batch of crystals for him to work on. After all, once the castle is built, we'll need plenty of crystal decorations. By the time he finishes this batch of carvings, it'll be time to mine more obsidian, keeping him busy... Those five revived Fire Dragon bones are still waiting for me to restore."

Having made a decision, he could rest easy.

...

Early the next morning, riding his chocobo, Loki, to the pasture, he switched to Lightning, the king of Black Blood horses.

Truthfully, he no longer needs such a common dragon-breed horse, but to show that the lord is with his follower knights, he still needs a fine steed—even the Sapphire Duchy has a Blue Blood steed, often charging with his knights.

Lightning is the link between Liszt and his knights.

"Giddy up!"

Accompanied by his squire knight, he headed straight to the three green tea trees on Ice Grass Hill's northern slope. The green tea is still being harvested continuously, thriving this season.

The tea produced can satisfy Liszt's personal drinking needs.

Using the Magic Eye, it's easy to see that the largest green tea tree in the middle has already nurtured a spirit insect: "Carl, this green tea tree has nurtured a spirit insect. Protect it, and let me know as soon as the spirit insect is born."

"The glory of knighthood be with us!"

Carl Ironhammer said excitedly: "Please rest assured, my lord, I will carefully protect the green tea tree and the spirit insect, ensuring it suffers no damage!"