Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage

Chapter 786: A Single Move to Revolution

CH786 A Single Move to Revolution

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Seeing the forest ahead—one they would normally have avoided—unsurprisingly caused unrest among the peasants. However, thanks to Sinia’s presence and the vanguard’s prior clearance of the route, they gradually settled down.

As they entered the forest, a thick fog began to gather around them. Sinia immediately released her colourless Combat Master aura, drawing everyone’s attention, reassuring the crowd, and illuminating the path ahead.

The peasants focused on Sinia rather than the fog-shrouded, eerie trail.

Unbeknownst to them, they had entered an elaborate formation the moment the mist enveloped them.

The peasants felt a ripple pass through their bodies, but with the dense fog surrounding them, none of them understood what it was.

By the time they emerged from the mist, they found themselves on an open plain stretching away from the fog-covered forest behind them.

The peasants exchanged wry smiles, quietly mocking themselves for having been frightened by what had turned out to be such a short journey through the woods.

As the moon hung brightly in the night sky, Sinia instructed the group to make camp while they waited for the rest of the convoy.

A few hours later, the remainder of the convoy emerged from the forest as well.

After breaking camp the following morning, the convoy resumed its journey.

Three days later, shortly after nightfall, the vanguard once again led the convoy into another fog-covered forest. This time, however, the peasants were far less apprehensive.

Just like before, it was a short, uneventful passage through the forest, and the peasants thought little of it.

Their surprise only came three days later when they arrived at the valley entrance leading into the Frontier March.

Most of the peasants had been told that the journey would take well over a month to complete.

Yet somehow, they had reached the Frontier March in barely a week.

The Fortuna troops offered no explanation. Even those travelling alongside their own family members remained tight-lipped.

The peasants could only chalk it up to the forests they had passed through. Perhaps, they reasoned, taking those gloomy forests they had previously avoided had simply cut down the travel time.

Or perhaps the convoy’s officers had overestimated how long such a large group would take to travel.

Little did the peasants know that they were, in fact, correct about the forests shortening their journey.

Just not in the way they imagined.

Space Gates…

The real reason the journey had become so short was because of the Space Gates.

The formations Udara had set up were Space Gate formations. The four locations where she deployed them actually consisted of two pairs of entry and exit points.

The fog and gloomy atmosphere surrounding the forest paths were merely illusionary effects Alex had incorporated into the formations to conceal their true nature.

The illusion was further reinforced by the convoy’s troops flaring their aura coatings while travelling through the fog.

Their actions were less about illuminating the path and more about drawing the peasants’ attention, ensuring that most—if not all—of them focused on the troops rather than the surrounding mist, preventing them from noticing anything unusual.

Thanks to this, the convoy, which should have endured a long and arduous journey, arrived safely within the domain.

Having reached the valley entrance, the remainder of the journey became smooth sailing.

While the rear guard remained behind at the valley entrance, constructing makeshift fortifications to secure the domain’s only entrance and exit, the rest of the convoy continued onwards towards the Fonterra Bastide.

The convoy’s arrival was welcome news throughout the domain.

It breathed new life into the once-stagnant Frontier March.

The domain’s administrative staff were already waiting to record the details of every peasant in the convoy and register them within the domain registry stored on its Runic Server.

Although the process was tedious, once completed it would save the administration an immeasurable amount of time and effort in the future.

As welcomed as the convoy’s arrival was, Alex had no time to dwell on it.

There was still an enormous amount of groundwork to complete throughout the domain.

During the week it had taken the convoy to arrive via the Space Gates, Sugud had completed his survey of the surrounding mountain ranges.

The results were even better than Alex had hoped.

Although the Frontier March was not blessed with rich veins of rare, exotic ores capable of fetching enormous prices on Verdantis or back on Pangea, it did possess abundant deposits of a wide variety of industrial resource ores—materials that were indispensable to any territory with serious ambitions of urbanisation and long-term development.

‘Timber, iron, copper, tin, gold, silver, tungsten, limestone, clay, salt, mithril, orichalcum, adamantine, oil, coal, granite, marble… I knew the region was a vast mountain range, but I didn’t expect it to be this resource-rich.’ Alex’s eyes widened as he read through Sugud’s report.

‘Those foolish nobles. They were sitting on a literal and figurative gold mine, and never even realised it. All they had to do was develop the domain, and they would have become wealthy.’ He shook his head.

Then, in the next moment, his brows furrowed.

‘These resources and minerals… they’re exactly what I’ll need to rapidly develop the territory. Is this really just a coincidence… or is it the hand of Fate—or rather, Destiny?’ He wondered.

Considering the likely increase in the territory’s providence now that he had dealt with the five Castin Clans and firmly consolidated his control over the domain, perhaps this discovery could indeed be viewed as a reward born from its growing fortune.

‘Whether it is coincidence, Fortune’s reward, or Destiny’s hand, what I need to do doesn’t change.’ Alex thought to himself. ‘I need to turn these resources into strength and develop the territory as quickly as possible.’

Alex spent the entire night contemplating how to accomplish that.

He had read enough kingdom-building novels and possessed the blueprint of a modern civilisation from his previous life to give him a clear direction in which to steer the domain.

His problem was… time.

He simply didn’t have the luxury of slowly growing the territory. He needed a way to accelerate its development.

‘Is there something… one invention or creation that could revolutionise the domain’s growth?’

The thought lingered in his mind throughout the night.

Eventually, however, an answer came to him.

A single product.

One that he believed could become the foundation for the Frontier March’s rapid development—not only in the present, but far into the future.

Alex quickly drafted a preliminary design for the product.

He could handle the runic aspects of the design himself. However, the physical engineering and hardware required the expertise of a professional.

With Sugud’s assistance, Alex finalised the design of the product he believed would become the cornerstone of the Frontier March’s development… and, eventually, of his future fiefdom.

***