Chapter 198: Building the City

Regarding the construction of the entire Nightlight Town, Ace overturned his initial concept. He decided to build a city capable of housing 30,000 permanent residents all at once, avoiding future expansions.

This decision was made due to the immense productive force unleashed by the Wizard Apprentices. The vast majority of apprentices had mastered the three spells: Lesser Mud-to-Stone, Lesser Stone-to-Mud, and Spell Hand. This gave them the essential qualifications to become magical infrastructure workers.

Almost every one of them possessed infrastructure efficiency dozens of times greater than that of ordinary people. They could ignore the technological gap of mortal production, directly producing high-quality building materials in a single step and constructing rapidly.

The mortals of the entire Nightlight Town had been evenly distributed under ten groups of Wizard Apprentices, performing auxiliary tasks. The entire Nightlight Town, the northern mining area, and the farmland along the river were all bustling with activity.

The irrigation canals for the farmland along the river had been completed, and sowing was quickly finished. All that remained were the daily tasks of composting and guarding.

There were also some open-pit copper and iron mines in the northern mining area. Betty and others led the apprentices from the former Enchantment Enthusiasts Research Group. In a few days, they constructed the open-pit mining camp. They mined rapidly, using forging spells derived from Fire Element Magic.

Inside the camp, iron ore was piled high in the central clearing. A muscular man casually picked up a piece of iron ore, tossed it into the air, and Mana began to pulse in his hand.

About two seconds later, a Spell Model structure appeared in his hand. As Mana gathered, flames fanned out like a torrent from the Spell Model.

“Smelting Torrent!”

The muscular man roared. Powerful flames instantly washed toward the sky, rapidly smelting the iron ore into molten iron.

About four or five seconds later, the flames receded, and the scalding molten iron fell. He narrowed his eyes slightly, roared, and Mana Crystals appeared, instantly wrapping the molten iron and cooling it into a square iron block.

“Lucilu, doing it that way consumes too much Mana. The key is that the efficiency is too low!”

Betty tossed a piece of iron ore into the air and pointed casually. A precise flame ray appeared one meter in front of her index finger. If one looked closely, they would see an intricate Spell Model appearing almost instantly one meter in front of her index finger.

The flame ray quickly hit an iron ore the size of a head. The moment it hit, Betty’s gaze focused. Under her manipulation, the flame ray rapidly changed, becoming a fireball that wrapped around the burning iron ore. The orange-red fireball quickly melted the iron ore.

Betty’s index finger moved again. A Spell Model appeared, and a rectangular earthen groove quickly formed in the soil below the molten iron.

Lucilu listened to Betty’s words, his expression unchanged. In fact, he didn’t mind internally. Betty’s arrogance was well known. After all, she was the only Mid-level Wizard Apprentice in the mining camp, and her spells were exquisite and powerful.

As long as she is willing to teach me her improved excellent spells, her attitude, whether arrogant or peaceful, doesn’t matter, Lucilu thought.

Under Betty’s command, the apprentices divided into two groups: one smelting iron ore and the other solidifying iron blocks with Earth Element Magic. Watching the smelted iron blocks pile up one by one, Betty was overjoyed.

In her eyes, these were not iron blocks, but new Apprentice Model 1s, or even future mechanical titans!

Where the original settlement stood, the current Nightlight Town was now a bustling construction site. New-style buildings of varying heights rose from the ground. These buildings were somewhat similar to the apartment buildings of the ancient Roman era in Ace’s past life. As the main architectural form of the residential area, they were characterized by being square, structurally solid, and capable of housing many people.

The scenery along both sides of the river was pleasant. Many exquisite three-story villas were under construction. Several single-arch stone bridges were being built across the river for future pedestrians and carriages.

Single-arch bridge technology was the essence of bridge-building technology in this era. Ace himself didn’t know much about bridge building; he only knew that the first arch bridge in his past life came from ancient Rome, called the Alcántara Bridge. This era was similar to the ancient Greco-Roman era of his past life, so having similar technology was normal.

The entire Nightlight Town, or rather Nightlight City, formed a rectangle. The city wall crossed the river. Inside the walls were orderly buildings typical of Medimus City-State style. Straight paved avenues crisscrossed, dividing the city interior into functional blocks. Along the river was the central district, integrating high-end villas, commercial districts, and municipal buildings.

The future city square, Administration Office, schools, hospitals, public baths, and other buildings would all be located here. This would be the core area of the city.

Apartment-style residential areas were distributed in the southeast of the city, with commercial districts interspersed among them. In the southwest, besides the Magic School castle, there were many workshop-style buildings. Numerous handicraft workshops and future magical industrial workshops would be located here. Notably, the prison would be adjacent to the school castle.

The northeast of the city was reserved for military use. Ace planned to develop firearms after the city construction was completed. He would first arm the mortals with the famous flintlock muskets and cannons, giving them the ability to fight Monsters and protect themselves.

From the perspective of Fire Element spells and Mana Crystal Shaping spells, making flintlock muskets posed almost no technical problems. Any technological gap in the mortal view could be easily surpassed by Magic. Magic is the primary productive force.

The northwest of the city was left blank and would be planned accordingly based on future changes.

The large area of farmland outside the city was designated by Ace as a unified farm, managed under the Administration Office. After months of busy work, a burgeoning, exquisite town was about to appear.

At the North Gate of Nightlight City, a paved avenue made using Lesser Mud-to-Stone was extending toward the northern mining area. The stone bricks made by Lesser Mud-to-Stone were solid and strong but too rigid. For the longevity of the road, the entire road used a method combining stone paving and soil filling.

Daina was leading seven or eight Wizard Apprentices, busily using Mana Crystal Shaping spells to rapidly pave stones. Perhaps she herself had never thought that the Mana Crystal Shaping spell, used for killing, could one day shape paving tools at will and become a pioneer in road construction.

“Perhaps this is the difference between us and Teacher Ace. The spells in our eyes are merely learned from Monsters and imitated from Heroes. We never thought they could be used for production and life.

But Teacher Ace is different. He not only discovered the bottom-up path to the supernatural for mortals but also found the point of convergence between Magic and life. This is the wisdom of a leader!

Maybe we can really build our own magical society here!”

Daina’s eyes were filled with longing. A city built with Magic, a society full of Magic, a future full of opportunities. She suddenly thought of her family, her younger brother. She wished her family were by her side at this moment.

Advance chapters at Nightjar Reads · nightjarreads.com