Chapter 200: The Flood
It was summer. Several months had passed since the night banquet at the castle. Continuous heavy rain lashed the entire High Tower Territory. The gentle River of Luminous Light gradually became violent in this torrential rain, carrying a surging flood that battered the newly born Nightlight City.
Nightlight City was transformed into a waterlogged country almost overnight. Ace led the apprentices, using Water Element Magic to diligently divert the flooding into the river, but losses were inevitable.
The farmlands outside the city promptly cut off canal connections with the river. Braving the rain, apprentices built river embankments near the farms, successfully preserving the grain harvest in this heavy rain.
Ace stood by the river embankment, watching the surging flood, his mind filled with countless thoughts.
Fortunately, the entire Nightlight City was on relatively high ground. As long as the rain subsided, the waterlogging would slowly recede. But this was not a viable long-term strategy. If the city flooded every year during heavy rains, wouldn’t the trouble be endless?
It must be solved thoroughly! With a large population gathered, water usage had also become a major issue. The water supply and drainage canal system of Nightlight City must be built. Ace made up his mind.
He did not intend to build a modern water supply and drainage system that surpassed the current status quo. Long ago in his past life, the developed tap water supply and drainage systems of the ancient Roman era were already world-famous.
The technological level of mortals in this world was fully comparable to that of the ancient Roman era. Constructing a grand and complete classical aqueduct and drainage system posed no technical difficulties.
After the heavy rain passed, Ace organized the apprentices to excavate the upper reaches of the river. The River of Luminous Light gathered only four tributaries throughout the valley and did not form any intermediate lakes.
After several days of investigation, Ace finally selected a higher-elevation river section where all four tributaries converged. They would use Lesser Stone-to-Mud here to excavate a large artificial reservoir.
This reservoir would serve multiple functions: storing water for flood control during heavy rains, storing water for irrigation during normal times, supplying water to the city through aqueducts, and releasing water during dry seasons.
This was a massive project. If not for the magical infrastructure team composed of Wizard Apprentices, given the reality and productive forces of this world, it would be absolutely impossible for Heroes to engage in such lowly work.
Relying solely on mortals, even with tens of thousands of people, it would take two or three years, along with the design and calculations of excellent scholars, to possibly complete such a complex and comprehensive “three-in-one” project of water storage, supply, and drainage, including the reservoir, aqueduct system, drainage canal system, and tap water pipeline system.
The construction method of the magical infrastructure team was completely different from the past and different from his previous life. Ace directed the apprentices to convert all the soil on both sides of the river into solid rock, ensuring the normal flow of the river, and then used Lesser Stone-to-Mud to soften all the land around the river.
Daina skillfully used Mana Crystal Shaping spells to create soil excavation tools, rapidly hollowing out the soil in her assigned construction area.
Other Wizard Apprentices exchanged points for Daina’s technique through the Grimoire and used similar Mana Crystal Shaping spell techniques to construct rapidly. It was estimated that they would finish in another two days.
Ace had opened a new point exchange function. Social Practice Points and Combat Practice Points could be exchanged at a ratio of 2:1. Apprentices could accumulate enough points of both types for advancement even if they only engaged in social practice.
Because apprentices exchanged points for her Mana Crystal Shaping technique, Daina obtained a large number of points far exceeding the requirements for advancement, getting closer and closer to the points needed for graduation.
In about three days, under Ace’s leadership, the Wizard Apprentices had preliminarily excavated a giant pit with a water storage capacity of over 100 million cubic meters.
Caruso was skillfully using Mud-to-Stone to produce standard stone bricks. This spell was the one he had used most frequently in the past six months, and it was also the most frequently used spell by the vast majority of Wizard Apprentices.
While Caruso was producing stone bricks, Daina walked slowly up to him. With a serious expression mixed with appreciation, she said:
“Caruso, we need to build a semi-circular main dam fifty meters high and three hundred meters long. Because of your excellent performance in building the city wall earlier, I recommended you to Lord Ace to be responsible for a section of it. Come with me.”
Hearing Daina’s words, the lean Caruso converted the last mud brick in his hand into stone, stood up, and followed Daina.
If one looked down from the sky, they would find that the valley where the High Tower Territory was located had a terrain trend of high in the northwest and low in the southeast. The entire valley was fan-shaped, widening toward the southeast, where the vast majority of the plains were located.
Ace’s reservoir site was located exactly at the transition from the mountains to the valley. The terrain dropped steeply here, making it a perfect location to build a reservoir.
Because of Daina’s recent good performance in infrastructure construction and her decent leadership skills, Ace appointed her to be fully responsible for the construction of the reservoir dam.
Under her leadership, the apprentices took about a month to successfully build a giant stone dam about fifty meters high, three hundred meters long, and ten meters thick. They also piled a large amount of earth on both sides of the stone dam, thickening it to nearly thirty meters.
Directly in front of the dam was a gate group about fifty meters long, with a total of thirty pairs of inner and outer gates. The gates were specially made Mana-contaminated iron gates, inscribed with Reinforced Rune Arrays, and connected to movable pulley systems on the dam with iron chains.
After the dam was completed, Ace led the apprentices to cast spells, converting the solidified rocks on both river banks into loose soil. The uncontrolled river water quickly broke through the original banks, slowly spreading to fill the entire reservoir.
Ace entrusted Daina to continue leading some apprentices to build five arched aqueducts to channel the reservoir water into the city. He returned to Nightlight City and summoned Chief Magistrate Leon:
“Leon, you are responsible for arranging personnel to manage the reservoir’s water storage, flood discharge, and water supply. I will assign some apprentices to go there for protection. This reservoir is our most important water conservancy facility and must be managed by reliable people.”
After arranging work for Leon, Ace paid no further attention. He summoned Betty and put her in charge of the construction of the water supply and drainage pipeline network for the entire city.
Betty had performed well in the previous mining area management, so Ace planned to entrust her with heavy responsibilities to temper and improve her.
As the leader of an organization, Ace needed assistants who could handle things on their own, so he seized opportunities to train them as much as possible.
Ace did not plan to build metal water supply pipes. Not only were they expensive, but no substance similar to chromium had been found yet, so stainless steel could not be made, posing a significant hidden danger with metal pipes. He planned to use a stone pipeline network reinforced by the Mud-to-Stone spell instead.
As long as this water supply and drainage pipeline network could supply water to the water distribution towers in each block and drain water into the River of Luminous Light through the underground stone pipeline network, the project could be considered a success.
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