"Thomas, Leon — tomorrow, take Benjamin, Grant, and the others to the Sica City base and bring back a hundred natural persons. Stay safe on the road."
"Understood."
"And if they don't cooperate — don't do anything rash." Li Wei added. Though that scenario was unlikely.
"Zhao Guozhu — starting tomorrow, you'll operate as a special unit alongside the Freeman soldiers, handling daily camp patrols. Preventing raids is going to be a priority going forward. You have a heavy responsibility."
Li Wei said it deliberately. If Zhao Guozhu didn't want to go back empty-handed, he needed to show so genuine commitnt.
"You can count on , My Lord. I won't slack off." Zhao Guozhu responded quickly.
"By the way, Old Zhao — do you have any suggestions about constructing the Three-Star Tavern in the territory?"
Li Wei asked. The man was a Four-Star senior player — not soone to be dismissed like Thomas or Leon.
"My Lord, I do know sothing about this. A Three-Star Tavern isn't fundantally different from a Two-Star or One-Star one in terms of construction — you can use One or Two-Star materials to build it. You could even declare the C section of the first floor to be the Tavern right now and it would be fine. The one critical thing is the Tavern operating license — that needs to be applied for through Duke Weir's office. It's not cheap."
"Understood."
Li Wei nodded, then turned to Zhao Xuanxuan. "Xuanxuan — start looking into the Enchanting Forge situation. And help repair these few pieces of equipnt when you have a chance."
"Alright, everyone get so rest."
He dismissed them with a few brief assignnts.
Things were different now. Before, players had been the core of the camp — the ones who broke through obstacles, led projects, drove most of the critical work. But now, the Freen were taking over all of that.
Eighty percent of the territory's work was being handled by Freen, and that proportion would only continue to rise.
Without the Freen — or if sothing went wrong with them — the entire territory would collapse imdiately.
But if everything was handed to the Freen, with a qualified managent layer selected, could it just keep running indefinitely?
The answer was obviously no.
The Lord and his advisors still played an irreplaceable role.
Li Wei took out the Prestige Card and entered the Three-Star Tavern construction into the territory's task queue through the Prestige system, generating a pending territory task.
Within two days, Freeman Administrator Nelson, Engineering Group head Linus, the electrical group head, and other relevant group leaders would all receive the task notification. They would each provide feedback based on their expertise, which Nelson and the engineers would then discuss and consolidate into a preliminary construction plan within three days. After that, a project lead would be assigned, each step broken down to the relevant groups, and work would begin.
A lazy lord's dream co true.
But Li Wei had no intention of relaxing. He didn't even plan to sleep — he went straight to check on each departnt. Starting with the patrol squad arrangents.
The territory currently had six patrol squads, sixty full-ti Freeman soldiers.
Commanded by Javier, Benjamin, Santiago, Durant, Xavier, Mark, and his interpreter Carson — seven leaders in total.
It sounded excessive, but it was necessary. The territory would face all kinds of challenges going forward, and too few soldiers would be a serious liability.
"My Lord — tonight's duty falls to the First and Fifth Squads. The First Squad handles external periter patrol, the Fifth Squad handles internal concealed watch. After midnight, the Second and Sixth Squads will relieve them. Tomorrow's dayti patrol is the Third Squad's responsibility. The First and Second Squads are assigned to tomorrow's mission."
Fifth Squad captain Xavier reported to Li Wei. These arrangents had already been codified into standing procedure. Full-ti soldiers had to justify the title — results were expected.
After all, the territory still had 150 reserve soldiers, n and won both.
Once another hundred natural persons were brought back from the small city base and trained up, they could replace so of the labor force — and three more full-ti patrol squads could be ford.
He also needed to send a supply shipnt to Liang Yuzhi in two days, along with a patrol squad to be stationed there.
Thinking of this, Li Wei imdiately took out pen and paper, wrote a quick note, and woke Adai from his sleep — asking him to fly it to Liang Yuzhi and find out what supplies she needed.
Adai was deeply unimpressed. But after Li Wei produced two Three-Star premium jerky strips, he took off willingly enough.
Li Wei then went down to the first basent level, where Nelson, Linus, and several group leaders and engineers were gathered around the steam generator, deep in discussion.
"My Lord — we're debating whether to add another steam generator unit. It's almost certain that power consumption will increase significantly starting tomorrow. Nelson's suggestion is whether we should rebuild a small nuclear power plant — they're modular now, not overly complicated, but they require deep underground construction."
"Not yet. Add the steam generator unit for now."
Li Wei settled it decisively, overruling Nelson's more ambitious idea.
It genuinely wasn't necessary. The Magic Shield would be up in two years — and at that point, who knew what the situation would look like? Would they be fully elevated out of this world, or would the Magic Shield simply function as a special kind of wall?
That was worth asking Liang Yuzhi about in a letter.
He then checked on the electric truck progress. It was going well — many components had been salvaged and repurposed from existing vehicles.
The current challenges were chassis calibration, center-of-gravity calculations, and various other technical paraters that sounded complicated even to describe.
"You should ask Master Zhao about this. I'd bet she can solve your problems."
Li Wei smiled. Zhao Xuanxuan had genuinely co into her own now — Enchanted Iron Hamr in hand, she moved through the world as though she had grasped so fundantal truth. Nothing couldn't be fixed by a well-placed strike.
The principle, specifically, was using resonance to identify structural flaws.
After checking all the departnts, Li Wei finally went to sleep.
He woke at exactly four-thirty in the morning. He dressed, put on his armor, took up his weapons, and went downstairs. Aside from the two squads currently on patrol and watch, the other four squads were already assembled and ready — morning training.
This had been a tradition from He Yuying's ti. It had been suspended during the Radiation Storm month. Now it was ti to revive it — and Li Wei intended to personally train every soldier.
"Attention!"
"My Lord — morning training duty commander Grant reporting. Training squad assembled. Forty present, forty accounted for. Awaiting orders."
When Grant delivered the formal report, Li Wei nearly did a double take. Was all this formality really necessary?
Were they perhaps getting a bit ahead of themselves — this was a feudal lord's era, not a modern military academy.
Li Wei felt genuinely self-conscious. But when forty elite Freeman soldiers fixed their steady gazes on him, sothing surged in his chest. It was exhilarating. A man ought to carry a blade and march to the ends of every world.
"Begin," Li Wei said calmly. He couldn't embarrass himself.
"All units — follow the Lord! Full kit, cross-country run, twenty kiloters!"
The thunder of boots shattered the morning quiet.
Cold air hit them in the face. Autumn seed to have ended overnight.
Breath ca in white clouds. Winter was arriving early here.
Half an hour later, dawn light was just beginning to show. Li Wei ran back to the territory walls in full kit — forty Freeman soldiers behind him.
Not bad. No one had dropped out.
"Halt!"
"My Lord — morning twenty-kiloter loaded run complete. Zero dropouts."
"Good. Ten minutes to loosen up, then move to the next training block — ranged archery and crossbow, and javelin throws."
Li Wei was the temporary instructor. He had no brilliant teaching thodology — he simply aid for every Freeman soldier to be accurate with a bow or crossbow, capable in close combat, and versatile at both ranges.
For ordinary soldiers, that would be a fantasy. But the weakest of these Freeman soldiers had already achieved Level 1 Awakening in at least one attribute — Life, Stamina, Strength, or Agility — which gave them a significant natural advantage in developing multiple skills.
Those with Hunter Profession Cards used Two-Star plain bows made by Zhao Xuanxuan. Those without used siege crossbows.
The standard wasn't unreasonable: hit every fixed target within 100 ters, and land eight out of ten shots on moving targets within 50 ters.
Each soldier fired thirty arrows or twenty crossbow bolts every morning.
Then ten javelin throws. Then close-combat training.
Two hours total.
Li Wei personally sparred one-on-one with each Freeman soldier, precisely identifying their weaknesses, demonstrating proper force application, correct posture and movent.
This would beco daily routine.
Every day, except for squads assigned to missions, the remaining soldiers would train for twelve hours.
At seven o'clock sharp, a red sun rose in the east. Morning training ended. Li Wei glanced up at the sky out of habit — strange. Adai hadn't returned?
That shouldn't be the case. A round trip of 500 kiloters was nothing for Adai.
Had sothing happened at Liang Yuzhi's end? Or had she made so arrangent?
Li Wei wasn't too worried. Today was only the first day of the month. Even if other factions wanted to raid, they'd need to complete reconnaissance first, then assess the situation.
And everyone had their own camp to protect. It wasn't as though everyone would suddenly beco cooperative and converge on Li Wei together.
The deterrent effect of killing Scar Glenn wasn't nothing.
Any faction thinking about a raid would have to weigh the options: send their best and risk being raided in return, or send half their best and risk being wiped out.
Raiding, after all, was a skilled operation.
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