53: Six months later, the initial city was completed.

The delegation from the Marquiss Mansion stayed for two days before departing. Until they left, Olivia never revealed her identity.

Arthur did not know that in Olivia's heart, he had already become a mysterious and ambitious person.

However, before leaving, Paul also extended an invitation to Arthur, stating that in nine months it would be Olivia's eighteenth birthday, and the Marquis would hold a banquet for his daughter, hoping Arthur could attend.

This request was normal, and Arthur naturally agreed. After the delegation from the Marquiss Mansion left, Arthur, who had rested for a day, suddenly remembered that he had not yet completed this month's transaction with the Dawn Merchant Guild.

He immediately purchased thirty sets of gold knight armor from the Portable Shop and handed them to Victor, instructing him to go trade them at the Dawn Merchant Guild branch in Mad Lion City.

A few hours later, Victor returned with the gold coins from the transaction.

“My Lord, the matter of asking the Dawn Merchant Guild to search for Cultivation elixirs has yielded results, and they were traded over this time as well.

There are a total of eleven elixirs: five bottles for Bronze Knights, three bottles for Silver Knights, two bottles for Gold Knights, and the last bottle is for Earth Knights.”

“The interval for taking these elixirs is the same: taking one bottle per month is equivalent to three months of Cultivation progress.

The prices are 10,000 gold coins, 30,000 gold coins, 50,000 gold coins, and 100,000 gold coins, respectively, so the eleven elixirs cost a total of 340,000 gold coins.

Thirty sets of gold knight armor yielded 10.8 million gold coins. This space ring currently holds 10.46 million gold coins. Please inspect it, My Lord.”

Hearing this, Arthur took the space ring containing the gold coins and elixirs, but he did not inspect it closely, as he trusted the figures he had summoned.

He merely took out a few bottles of the elixir to look at them.

“You've worked hard this time. But this elixir is truly rare; the Dawn Merchant Guild only managed to collect this much in a month!”

“My Lord, the Dawn Merchant Guild apologized for only collecting these few bottles of elixir. They said that if My Lord requires more, they can provide a similar quantity every month in the future!”

Arthur had the Portable Shop, and as long as he had one bottle of an elixir, he could copy it and purchase it infinitely, so he did not plan on making repeat purchases. He said:

“There's no need for those we already have. Next time, inform the Dawn Merchant Guild that we also need elixirs for Sky Knights, or even Legendary Knights, to Cultivate, but only one bottle of each will suffice!”

“Understood, My Lord!”

Speaking of which, a month had passed since Arthur last took an elixir. So, Arthur immediately went to the training grounds, drank a bottle of Bronze Elixir in one gulp, and began to train rigorously.

Half a day passed, and Arthur felt that the medicinal power in his body was almost digested, and his strength had improved significantly.

Arthur estimated that if he took another bottle next month, he should be able to Break through to Bronze Late Stage. Elixirs truly lived up to their rarity; the progress in strength was indeed miraculous.

Considering that he still had three bottles of Silver Elixir and two bottles of Gold Elixir, and copying only required one bottle, Arthur later found an excuse to give one bottle of elixir each to Silver Rank Karona and Gold Rank Chris.

He received their thanks!

Time flew by; half a year passed quickly, and the time arrived at February of the new year.

During this half-year period, relations between the Kate Kingdom and the Orc Royal Court remained relatively stable, with no major conflicts occurring.

Arthur's Initial City was thus built step by step. Thanks to the help of the Earth Elementalist, this magnificent mega-city, capable of accommodating a million people, was finally completed two weeks ago.

The walls of this new Initial City were fifty meters high, and the exterior was paved with a ten-centimeter layer of obsidian, making it look impregnable.

The entire city covered an area of thirty square kilometers, shaped like a rectangle, five kilometers long on one side and six kilometers long on the other, giving the city walls a total length of twenty-two kilometers.

Therefore, paving the surface of the city walls with a ten-centimeter layer of obsidian cost Arthur 1.1 million gold coins.

In fact, the main structure of the entire city was mostly complete after two months of construction; the following three months were spent on fine-tuning and finishing work.

Although the Mega-City was finished, the population within was far from sufficient.

Due to the scarcity of population in the Barren Plains, Arthur's Initial City currently only had about 200,000 residents, making this new Mega-City feel somewhat empty.

To better guard this Mega-City, Arthur increased the number of regular soldiers to 50,000.

Among them, 20,000 were crossbowmen equipped with gale repeating crossbows. The extra 16,000 gale repeating crossbows cost Arthur nearly eight million gold coins.

As for Arthur's strength, boosted by the elixirs, he finally Broke through to Silver Early Stage within this half-year. He was currently just seventeen years old, two years faster than his elder brother Art's Breakthrough to Silver Rank.

This was the power of money ability!

In fact, the Count could afford the 10,000 gold coins for the Bronze Elixir for his elder brother Art. It was just that elixirs were too difficult to purchase—they were things money couldn't buy, which is why his elder brother did not use elixirs to Cultivate.

Arthur, however, was able to purchase them because he had a major collaboration with the Dawn Merchant Guild, which spanned multiple countries.

Additionally, Karona Broke through to Silver Middle Stage thanks to the elixir.

As for Chris, although Arthur gave him a bottle of Gold Rank elixir every month over the past half year.

His strength had already reached the Peak of Gold Knight, and Breaking through to Earth Knight was not that easy. Therefore, his strength remained unchanged, though his foundation had become deeper.

Transactions with the Dawn Merchant Guild remained normal. Over six transactions in half a year, Arthur gained a total of sixty million gold coins.

As for the elixirs Arthur asked them to search for, which would aid Sky Knights, or even Legendary Knights, in their Cultivation.

One bottle of Sky Knight Rank elixir was found, but there was still no news regarding the Legendary Knight Rank elixir.

After all, Legendary figures are true powerhouses, and items that can supply their Cultivation are not easy to find.

Arthur was not anxious about this, as he and those around him still had a long way to go before Cultivating to the Legendary Rank!

Furthermore, besides the revenue stream from the Dawn Merchant Guild, Arthur opened up another source of wealth during the half year: the Gold Mine Sprite.

Since the Kate Kingdom was situated on a peninsula with the ocean nearby, Arthur dispatched Victor, giving him a map and instructing him to search overseas for uninhabited small islands.

Such small islands were easy to find because some islands were extremely barren, incapable of supporting crops, and the sea also contained magical beasts, making fishing difficult.

If people couldn't survive there, naturally no one would live on them.

And these despised small islands were useful to Arthur!

After all, as long as the Gold Mine Sprite was placed in the soil, it could continuously generate gold mines; barren land had no effect on it.

Arthur's Portable Shop only allowed him to purchase one hundred Gold Mine Sprites per year. Now that the new year had arrived, Arthur's purchasing quota allowed him to buy a total of two hundred.