Chapter 126: Discuss
Tassera, born and raised in the desert as a Blue Dragon, has a sentimental attachment to the desert. Upon hearing Leon’s words, she immediately challenged, "Are you saying the desert is a bad place? What’s so bad about it?"
"It’s bad everywhere," Leon said, "In other regions, water sources which are seen everywhere are considered important resources when placed in the desert."
Upon hearing this, Tassera fell silent, but Leon wasn’t ready to stop there, continuing, "Look at the forests, filled with trees, suitable for logging, providing timber resources, and the remaining land could be used for cultivation. There are animals everywhere, available for hunting, providing meat and fur as resources..."
"Then look at the desert, what does this place have?" Leon thought and said, "There are no minerals, sparse oases that can hardly provide any flora or fauna resources. To put it bluntly, it’s just sand everywhere, and you can’t even find stones or wood to build a house."
"In such a situation, in order to compete for the little resources available, various races living here are more barbaric than the next, with sand bandits and robbers commonplace..." Leon nodded slightly, "Of course, this doesn’t affect us much, dealing with them is a piece of cake."
Leon thought, the territory he currently possesses, granted by Efreeti, is indeed not small, but it’s insignificant when placed in the desert. One could imagine, some provinces have a county that can be larger than a coastal province, but without any resources, it’s just a county no matter its size.
Leon had reasons to doubt, his vast territory, in terms of value, might not even match up to a single village or town elsewhere.
"I’m indeed complacent, and not too interested in territorial expansion," Leon admitted his character flaw, "A big part of the reason really is that I look down on this place. Why bother expanding territory here when I could move to a resource-rich area? Easier to manage and with richer rewards."
Upon hearing this, Tassera realised that Leon had no wish to expand his territory in the desert, and if he ever wanted to expand, he’d rather leave the desert and said, "Leave the desert? And abandon the Molten Lava Lake you’ve put so much effort into building? Forget about your vast territories and your businesses?"
Leon took a deep breath and said, "If you want to grow bigger and stronger, you have to decisively leave this place, otherwise hesitations will only lead to chaos. If you can’t let go, the cost-performance ratio of expanding territory isn’t high, it really might be better to do nothing and be moderately wealthy, maintaining the current territories and businesses."
Leon’s reasoning was simple, if you want to develop, you must stay in a big city. If you can’t part with a small town’s houses and social connections and choose to stay, then it’s better to just coast along, no need to strain so hard, straining back and forth hurts the body and hardly does any good.