Fairy Tale Survival with Ability Copying

The 9,600 strip fields...

Each strip field measured 40 by 20 meters, for a total area of 800 square meters—slightly larger than a traditional acre equivalent.

All of these fields had already gone through one round of salt absorption using Bittervine, reducing the degree of salinization somewhat. Of course, the salt content in the soil was still extremely high, far too high for ordinary crops to survive.

But Bittervine could still be planted there.

Those 9,600 strip fields ultimately produced 100,000 pounds of starch.

On average, each strip field yielded 10 pounds of starch.

Ten pounds of starch could be baked into twenty 1.5-pound Bittervine loaves.

If mixed with other foods, it was barely enough for someone to survive for a month.

In other words, one strip field could support one person.

Well... one adult.

Barely.

So Levi distributed the farmland among the more than eight thousand refugees. Each person received one strip field, while the remaining roughly one thousand fields were retained under the direct ownership of Levi, the lord.

Naturally, these fields were not being given away for free.

Levi established that fifty percent of the output from each strip field would be paid to him as the purchase cost of the land—for five consecutive years.

Starting from the sixth year onward, the residents would no longer need to hand over such a large portion. They would only need to pay one-tenth of the harvest as field tax to the lord.

However, even with that arrangement, relying on a single strip field still would not be enough to fully meet a resident's survival needs.

So Levi issued another decree for frontier expansion.

Across all of Hornreach, any unclaimed saline-alkali land could be reclaimed by the residents. They could receive Bittervine cuttings for propagation, and any newly reclaimed farmland would be divided equally—half belonging to the lord, half belonging to the resident who reclaimed it.

However, they would still need to pay fifty percent of the harvest for five years, and in daily operations, they would be required to prioritize maintaining the lord's fields first.

Because Bittervine was extremely hardy and not picky about environmental conditions, reclaiming farmland was actually not very exhausting. It was a genuinely profitable opportunity.

These refugees already had experience with it, so they understood the situation very clearly. One person managing thirty strip fields was not much of a problem.

Even if fifteen of those fields belonged to the lord, the remaining fifteen strip fields could still produce 150 pounds of starch.

Well, not actually that much. Since second-generation Bittervine only yielded half as much, the true output would probably only be around seventy or eighty pounds.

Half of that still had to be handed over to the lord, leaving only thirty to forty pounds of starch in their hands.

Those forty pounds of starch could be baked into eighty Bittervine loaves, though flour would still need to be mixed in.

The stuff tasted terrible, but eighty Bittervine loaves was absolutely enough to feed two or three people.

In other words, the residents' lives would gradually become fairly decent.

The early stage would simply be difficult.

There was also another issue.

Now that Levi had distributed farmland to them, it meant he would no longer provide them with food unconditionally.

But these refugees had already been wandering homeless for a very long time. The only clothes they owned were ragged and torn, and almost none of them possessed any extra money.

Without money, how were they supposed to survive the one-month period after planting Bittervine?

But Levi had already anticipated this problem.

He distributed two hundred thousand Bittervine loaves, lending them to the more than eight thousand refugees under the agreement that after the second month's harvest, they would repay the debt using Bittervine starch.

Naturally, the bread was not handed out all at once.

There was only a single bakery in town and only a few ovens. Even if they pushed those ovens until they exploded, there was no way they could produce that much bread immediately. The loaves could only be distributed gradually over the following days, little by little.

On average, each person would receive twenty Bittervine loaves.

The refugees calculated things quietly in their heads. It still was not enough, but if they rationed their food carefully, they should barely be able to survive.

As long as they endured the first month, life afterward would become much easier.

And so, after Levi's orders were announced, following a brief silence, overwhelming cries of gratitude soon erupted from the more than eight thousand refugees like a tidal wave.

One after another, they knelt toward the castle where Levi resided, tears glistening in the corners of their eyes, their expressions filled with determination.

After wandering homeless for so long, Levi had finally given them a stable home.

He had given them hope.

Their loyalty toward Levi had all risen above eighty points, and many of them had even become fiercely loyal followers.

One could say they had become Levi's core foundation.

Loyalty!

However, this was only the first strike of Levi's three-part strategy.

After distributing the farmland, the second thing Levi did was establish multiple work teams and workshops. The teams mined cut stone, clay, coal, limestone, and other materials, while the workshops handled more technical work, such as firing pottery, baking bricks, and producing modern cement...

And for all of this, Levi provided compensation—or rather, wages—with different levels of pay depending on the type of work.

These jobs were also open to the original residents of Coldwind Keep Town.

On top of that, Levi established a city construction department directly under his authority as lord. Experienced builders were recruited according to Levi's instructions to begin preparations for constructing a new city.

In Levi's plans, this city would far surpass the original Coldwind Keep Town in scale. The interior would be orderly, with clearly divided functional districts.

Just describing so many tasks already made things sound overwhelmingly complicated.

Fortunately, Levi possessed Detection.

And after upgrading, Detection could now display far more information than before.

With a single glance, Levi could not only see through a person's background, but also detect their areas of expertise.

Some people did not even realize they possessed those talents themselves.

But Levi knew.

And so, from among those eight thousand people, Levi selected more than a hundred individuals for separate interviews. All of them were suitable candidates identified through Detection.

Levi assigned them to various critical positions, such as leaders of the different work teams and supervisors of the workshops.

Some of them possessed management talent, while others had specialized skills—masons, potters, blacksmiths, weavers, or literacy.

Mixed among the refugees, they had been discovered by Levi and placed where they could best be utilized.

With those people in place, Levi's entire system began operating, stumbling at first, but gradually becoming smoother and smoother.

The whole of Hornreach was filled with scenes of bustling activity.

Clay, coal, limestone, and all kinds of raw materials were mined or gathered before being transported to the industrial district.

There stood massive cement kilns along with many other furnaces.

Those raw materials were fired into blue bricks, pottery, and modern cement before being transported to warehouses for proper storage.

The refugees worked extremely hard.

In fact, one could say they worked even harder than before.

Because now, the more work you did, the more you earned.

This was no longer the old communal soup-pot system.

If you performed well, you genuinely received greater rewards.

Those rewards might come in the form of full portions of Bittervine starch, salted whale meat, coarse grain flatbread, and other rations—or copper coins that could directly be exchanged for goods.

Payment was settled daily.

Naturally, the refugees became highly motivated.

At that point, this mass of refugees was no longer a burden waiting for relief aid. Instead, they became the largest consumer group within the territory itself, forcibly giving birth to a complete internal demand economy.

Individually, each person's purchasing power was low.

But there were simply too many of them.

After receiving their daily wages, they immediately began spending.

Some bought pottery.

Some went into town to purchase clothes from the tailors.

Some ran to the fishermen to buy salted fish.

Others bought mugs of ale...

The consumption generated by these thousands upon thousands of residents brought life back into the town's previously stagnant economy.

The taverns reopened.

Customers once again visited the blacksmith shops.

Tailor businesses became prosperous.

And there was no need to even mention the bakery and the mill. After taking on Levi's massive orders, they were already overwhelmed with work.

The fishermen sold fish and then used the money to buy bread.

The tailors earned money making clothes, then used it to pay off their tavern tabs.

The blacksmith shops rang nonstop with the sound of hammering metal.

The entire territory became lively once again.

Then there was another professional with actual urban construction experience.

His name was Jeff.

He had not come from among the refugees. Rather, Levi had discovered him among the castle's original staff through Detection.

To the current Levi, Jeff was practically an S-rank specialist.

Although Jeff had originally been close to the former steward Mott's faction, what did Mott matter anymore?

Everyone had already witnessed the new lord's strength.

Levi merely spoke with him briefly and offered him proper compensation, and Jeff immediately became willing to devote himself wholeheartedly to Levi's service.

Leading a team personally selected by himself, Jeff carried out a full survey of the terrain and landforms across the planned site of the new city. He precisely marked elevations, salinity severity, and the tidal influence zones, completely avoiding low-lying flood-prone areas and regions with excessive salinization.

Following Levi's instructions, he finalized an overall layout centered around the central plaza.

The chosen site for the central plaza stood at the highest elevation in the entire region. It possessed wide-open visibility, excellent ventilation, and dry ground conditions. It would serve not only as the geometric center of the future city, but also as the core venue for future gatherings, trade, and public activities.

Levi personally outlined the dimensions of the plaza, demanding a length of fifty rods and a width of forty rods. The entire surface would be leveled and paved with cement, while space would also be reserved for a public well, simple rest platforms, a grand theater, a library, and other future buildings.

The rod was a local construction unit of measurement, with one rod being roughly equivalent to five meters.

As for systems of weights and measures, the entire continent was a complete mess.

Levi had considered founding an academy in the future to standardize these systems.

But that was something for later.

Levi's current objective was to build a city!

To build Coldwind City!

A chaotic settlement like Coldwind Keep Town—with its random construction, lack of planning, and total disorder—was something Levi absolutely refused to accept.

The Coldwind City he intended to build would be a great orderly city built upon the principles of "cement as its bones, strip fields as its grain supply, the plaza as its heart, and coastal defenses as its shield."

It would be fully adapted to the coastal climate of the region while balancing survival, production, defense, and trade.

At that moment, Levi stood atop a watch platform on the high ground overlooking the planned site of the new city.

Beneath his feet stretched a vast gently sloping terrain that had been surveyed through Detection.

Behind it lay shallow hills and rolling slopes.

Ahead of it opened the inland bay of the territory.

The location avoided the direct path of storm surges while remaining close to shallow underground freshwater flows.

To the left spread orderly salt-resistant Bittervine strip fields, with neat ridges and interconnected irrigation channels.

To the right, hidden among the mountain hollows, stood expanding clusters of cement kilns, brick kilns, and quarries.

Levi's plan was to establish the central plaza as the city's absolute core axis, dividing the city into four major functional districts.

The districts would be connected through cement-paved main roads, with clear boundaries and minimal interference between areas. At the same time, sufficient room would be reserved for future expansion to accommodate population growth and industrial enlargement.

In this era, he intended to construct a sturdy, orderly, self-sufficient coastal metropolis.

---

I will post some extra Chapters in Patreon, you can check it out. >> /TitoVillar

---