Pioneer Lord: Starting From Daily Intelligence

Chapter 112: Chapter 54: The Beautiful Witch and the Destiny Talisman

In the past few days, Su Li finally experienced the ease and enjoyment of being a lord.

During this time, apart from holding a grand funeral, he didn’t do much else, just occasionally reviewed some intelligence and guided the development of the territory.

He worked for only about a minute each day, leaving the remaining 26 hours free for rest.

Indeed, the imperial calendar is a bit different from Earth’s, with each day having 26 hours. An imperial year consists of 400 days rather than 365, divided into 12 months, each having 32 or 33 days, plus 6 ”intercalary days” serving as important commemorations or festivals, not counted in any month.

The weekly cycle consists of eight days: ”Week Start Day,” ”Workday,” ”Tax Day,” ”Market Day,” ”Baking Day,” ”Tax Filing Day,” ”King’s Day,” and ”Rest Day.”

Notably, taxation and military duties are unavoidable, with each Rest Day serving as a training day for militia members at the monastery.

After the Sun Goddess Monastery was established in Hesse Territory, Captain Rong’en accepted Su Li’s appointment to stay in Hesse to serve as the monastery priest and also act as a religious advisor to the territory.

Every cycle, he lectures the citizens and knights on tactics, guides in martial arts, and instructs formations at the monastery.

Though his cultivation is gone, his past experiences and knowledge as a Divine Chosen Level Knight remain. Even Knight Oerstein, the Commander-in-Chief, has greatly benefited from his martial instruction, and the combat effectiveness of Hesse’s army has advanced rapidly.

Su Li feels that this army is already on the verge of becoming a Divine Chosen Army.

Apart from the Divine Grace of the Sun Goddess Monastery, the Dawn Goddess Monastery also received reassuring Divine Grace.

After planting the Holy Purple Vine Tree, Vandar, the priest of the Dawn Goddess, sensed the approval and gifts from the Divine Spirit, producing three Earth’s Blood Potions in the monastery.

In the last battle against the goblins, only the Beast Slayer Jerald consumed one Earth’s Blood Potion, while Knight Oerstein and Hilude kept theirs unused.

This means the territory now has five Earth’s Blood Potions in reserve, with potential for more.

Because there’s less than a cycle left before the Summer Solstice arrives.

The Summer Solstice here is unlike Earth’s; it is the day when the Divine Spirits make their presence.

This festival is of great significance to the Reya Church and the Tal Church, signifying the handing over of the annual rings from the Dawn Goddess to Tal, the God of Summer and the Wilds.

Priests from the two churches often jointly organize celebrations, during which Divine Grace descends.

Throughout this significant period, irrespective of territory, north or south, all priests will bathe in Divine Grace, and, with adequate power, can create an Earth’s Blood Potion as a benefit for the entire religion.

Hesse Territory is preparing for this celebration, mainly because Lord Su Li is very interested in it.

The Summer Solstice is a day to celebrate fertility and life energy. Following church traditions, people will hold various celebratory activities to thank nature’s gifts and pray for a bountiful harvest and prosperity.

Young couples adorn themselves with flowers, dance, revel, and sing praises to Tal and Reya to celebrate fertility and the cycles of nature.

Children born on the Summer Solstice are considered blessed, believed to grow into intelligent, vibrant adults destined for greatness.

Additionally, priests can utilize the special energy of the Summer Solstice to create a talisman to protect themselves and their families.

People choose natural materials like stones, feathers, herbs, and flowers, weave or bind them to form a small talisman, and concentrate their thoughts to infuse it with blessings and protective intentions in sunlight or by flame.

However, the most popular activity for Su Li is the water purification ritual held that day.

On the Summer Solstice, water holds purifying and healing meanings.

Ladies dressed coolly gather by streams and lakes, sprinkling water over themselves or scooping it up to splash gently on their faces and bodies, savoring the refreshing and purifying flow.

Afterwards, they sit, close their eyes, take deep breaths, absorb nature’s essence, and express gratitude to nature.

Su Li naturally also wishes to express gratitude to Tal. With so many elegantly dressed ladies sprinkling water on themselves and sitting there with closed eyes for men’s admiration, isn’t it something to be thankful for?

Women, too, enjoy this festival, as knights also take off their armor, revealing their toned bodies, and receive the purifying waters of the festival.

The significant point is the staggered schedule: ladies typically perform the ritual in the dawn and evening hours, while men partake at high noon, when the sun is most intense.

Su Li can’t help but admire Tal for being the God of the Wilds—truly wild by nature.

He even suspects Tal arranged this event specifically to admire the beauties among his followers.

After all, in remote, untamed places, some traditional sacrificial practices remain, where pure, beautiful maidens from the territory are offered to serve the Divine Spirits.

Speaking of beautiful maidens, one cannot overlook a recent visitor to the castle, Lady Ingrid, the Forest Witch from the Mirror Swamp, who, feeling the powerful Wind of Jilun, also paid a visit to the Holy Purple Vine Tree in the castle.

He also gave Su Li a bag of Crying Beauty seeds. This flower, known as Crying Beauty, is also called the Golden Radiance Flower or Fool’s Delusion, because many believe it can lead one to find gold, though the luck required is as elusive as finding the end of a rainbow.

Lady Ingrid only sent this to Su Li after seeing the clover under the Holy Wisteria tree, hoping it would bring him good fortune.

However, potion masters are usually more pragmatic, primarily using it as a key ingredient in antidotes.

With various seeds in hand, Su Li spent his days cultivating a spirit medicine field under the Holy Wisteria tree.

He was quite bored, and couldn’t spend all day practicing knighthood with Philis.

Having consumed elk finch meat and trained daily, his cultivation tier had already reached the High Tier Apprentice Knight, soon to become a formal knight.

With daily training, he couldn’t help but want to do something to add some fun to his life.

Under his leadership, the last few days had seen the cultivation of 10 acres of medicinal fields under the Holy Wisteria tree.

With the exuberant vitality of the Holy Wisteria tree, the Calming Flowers developed extremely well. Except for the dead seeds, the rest sprouted successfully. This germination rate wasn’t achievable through farming techniques, but rather through the infusion of spiritual power.

In his boredom, Su Li counted the successfully sprouted seeds, which came to 327 plants.

This was enough to make over two hundred doses of Earth’s Blood Potion.

Currently, his castle’s warehouse stored 86 doses of Vitality Potion, 23 doses of Antidote, and 12 doses of Healing Potion.

Once the Swift Grass and Falling Grass matured, the territory could produce 9 to 12 potions daily.

Su Li even hoped to move the Forest Witch, Lady Ingrid, into the castle. This witch was very seductive, always wearing a dark green or fiery red hooded cloak when visiting, her voluptuous and long legs wrapped in enticing black stockings, and her ample, full and fair bosom threatening to burst out of her fitted magic robe.

Lords from various regions liked to employ witches as courtiers because it was purely a comradeship. Witches were generally reclusive and isolated, remaining unaffected by the fires of war, and thus did not impact the territory.

Yet, whether Lady Ingrid had guessed Su Li’s intentions or simply due to her reclusive nature, she politely declined Su Li’s request, choosing to remain in her forest treehouse.

Of course, Su Li’s enthusiasm wasn’t entirely fruitless.

With the added effect of the Holy Wisteria tree, Lady Ingrid did agree to come to the castle every two or three days.

The main purpose was to craft protective talismans under the tree. Simple talismans like Cold Resistance Runes or Reconnaissance Guards could be made in her treehouse.

Under the spirit tree, however, she crafted powerful talismans, notably the Destiny Talisman, which could allow the wearer to dream of omens before a battle, knowing the enemy’s fatal strike, thus enabling a knight to completely block a deadly blow.

The effectiveness of this item on the battlefield was yet to be seen, but for a lord, it was practically a divine artifact against court assassinations.

Su Li decisively spent a fortune to purchase this talisman, equipping it on himself.

Lady Ingrid sold it to him for only 200 Golden Crowns, and after tax deductions, it actually only cost Su Li 80 Golden Crowns.

No wonder every lord welcomed having a prophet’s treehouse or a witch’s hut in their territory.

By just engaging in transit trade, he could make a substantial profit.

So how could this be a cursed witch? Clearly, she was his money tree.

To win favor with this witch, Su Li specially crafted her a swing on the wisteria tree, allowing her to be closer while crafting runes.

To bind this witch to the territory, the lord personally did not hesitate to sacrifice his charm, using the ’handsome man strategy’ on her.

Su Li was contemplating under the tree how to improve the layout of the square and the planning of the medicine fields when the excited voice of Knight Stein came through.

”Lord, the troops we dispatched to the Blood Pine Forest have returned successfully.”

The Blood Pine Forest was relatively far from the territory, especially since entering the dense and dangerous canopy required a large number of armed attendants with the army.

Thus, it took so long for the knights cleaning the forest to return.

Upon hearing Knight Stein’s voice, Su Li immediately asked with concern, ”How were the results of this expedition into the forest?”

Soon, Knight Stein brought Jerald under the Holy Wisteria tree. Champion Knight Jerald, a follower of the Winter God Yurik, did not attend the Sun Goddess Church gatherings on his rest days, making him the Commander-in-Chief of this forest expedition.

He immediately reported to Su Li, ”Lord, our exploration and clearing were very successful. We successfully defeated a Forest Robber Gang and two Green-skinned Warbands, capturing 65 prisoners, and retrieved the Holy Relic of Glory - Eye of the Drowned.”

”Additionally, following your instructions, we found the valley shoal of the Brionne River to the northwest of the forest, successfully collecting a Magic Tide Clam from that water area.”