bookandnovel Chapter 6: Lesser Spells
Chapter 6: Lesser Spells
Old Hall thought for a moment and nodded, pointing to the stone chairs and tables he had made outside the adobe house, indicating that he should sit down. At the same time, he took out a thick book, but the paper was parchment. It looked very thick, but the contents were not as much as expected.
"Lower-level spells are divided into three types. The first type is transformation, which transforms an equivalent item into a ready-made item, such as transforming wood into a wooden chair. This is very easy to learn. As long as you can visualize the transformed item in your mind, young master, it is simple. However, it requires you to have sufficient knowledge. If the model is blurry or incomplete, it cannot be manufactured. Therefore, architectural mages are keen to discover new things."
Old Hall took a sip of water: "The second one is solidification, which is to solidify fragmented materials into larger pieces. For example, if there isn't enough wood to make beams or pillars when building a house, we can use the solidification spell to solidify wood chips into a stake or beam."
Ron's eyes lit up as he listened, which made him think of many things.
"Finally, there's civil engineering, which is the simplest of tasks. It mainly involves casting spells to dig holes, dig irrigation ditches, and cut down trees. This is a required course for most apprentices when they start out." Old Hall looked at Ron with the same gaze one might give a monster when he said this.
After all, Ron was only a mage apprentice and he could build houses on his own, but he knew nothing about the most basic civil engineering spells.
Under Old Hall's guidance, Ron quickly mastered the three lower-level spells. Rather than saying he mastered them, it would be more accurate to say that the system enabled him to master them, allowing Ron to cast them skillfully.
Ron grabbed a handful of sand from the ground, and with the help of the system, he directly solidified the sand in his hand into a long stone.
Old Hall looked at Ron, his eyes shining.
"Young master, you learn very quickly."
That night, in Harland Territory of Blackthorn Wasteland.
Grayson knelt on one knee in a stone hall.
Haaland had his back to him, looking at a map on the wall.
"Four mud-brick houses," Grayson said. "Five wells, and the foundation for the wooden fortress walls has been laid."
Haaland did not speak.
"From the time we arrived in the wasteland until now, five days have passed, but we've only actually built up our territory for a maximum of three days."
Haaland's finger stopped on the map, and he turned around.
"What level is that building mage?"
"At least a formal architectural mage." Grayson paused. "But from what I've observed, that lord named Ron is also learning; he should be an architectural mage apprentice."
Haaland's eyes narrowed.
"A fully-fledged architectural mage, and an architectural mage apprentice." Harland rolled up the map. "Grayson."
"exist."
"Get ready, I'm going to see for myself."
With the system's assistance, Ron quickly mastered the three major building-level spells.
What delighted him most was the Transformation Technique. With his knowledge, once he mastered the Transformation Technique, he could create many things that did not exist in this world.
On the attribute panel, magic power has increased to 29.
The 5 points were gained from 24 hours of meditation practice, and the remaining 4 points were gained from building an adobe house.
The first thing I do every day is build an adobe house.
The territory now has five adobe houses, and more than forty other adobe huts are scattered around them. A pit 1.5 meters deep has been dug into the ground, with the entrance on the side. The roofs are covered with thorny bushes by two wooden beams, and then covered with a layer of soil.
The insulation is okay, but it's dark and stuffy inside.
Shanlier emerged from a mud hut, saw Ron, and hurriedly bowed.
"Didn't I tell you to live in a mud-brick house?"
Shanlier smiled and pointed to the earthen hut behind him: "My lord, my whole family lives here."
Ron understood.
Most of the migrants brought their families with them, unlike the criminals who were alone.
A dirty little child emerged from the entrance of the earthen hut, his face covered in snot and clutching a piece of black bread in his hand.
"Big brother, you have to go to work, here's some bread for you."
Ron looked away.
This is the current state of the territory: the water supply problem has just been solved, housing construction has just begun, and farmland is nowhere to be seen.
"Shanlier, how many people are in your family?"
Five people.
"I need to requisition this area of mud houses. Your family will have to move into the newly built mud houses first."
"You'll stay here and help me today. I need to requisition all these mud houses. You'll have to move to my newly built mud houses first."
Shanlier immediately nodded excitedly, "My lord, I will make the arrangements right away."
Civil engineering work is similar to 3D drawing. You draw a model out of thin air, connect the four dugout areas, and draw a square pit that is eight meters deep and fifteen meters long and wide.
The sand was extracted like water from a pool, and it took shape in half an hour.
Looking at the huge pit in front of him, Shanlier was shocked and couldn't understand why the lord wanted to dig such a big pit.
"Is it for building a water storage tank?"
Ron jumped into the pit and carved three semi-circular caves on each of the four walls, each four meters high, eight meters deep, and five meters wide.
The conversion technique involves directly pressing the excavated soil into red bricks and reinforcing them with vaults.
A ventilation duct, which also serves as a light source, is dug every meter in the cave ceiling. The light source has a built-in prism to refract and disperse the sunlight.
The ventilation duct is raised half a meter, and the air outlet is made into a T-shaped bevel and covered with a mesh screen.
It won't let water in when it rains, and it also prevents mosquitoes, snakes, and rats from getting in.
When the first cave dwelling was completed, Shanlier immediately cleaned it without any instructions.
Ron sat on the stone bed, feeling the temperature inside the cave. It was over thirty degrees Celsius outside, but only a little over twenty degrees Celsius inside.
"My lord, this cave is so comfortable! It's bright and cool."
Before Ron could answer, Old Hall's voice came from the top of the pit: "Young Master! Are you down there?"
"Old Hall, I'm here!"
Old Hall leaped down the eight-meter-deep pit as easily as stepping down a staircase. Ron pulled him into the cave, and he didn't think much of it at first, but he was stunned after entering.
Without candlelight, the cave was brighter than an adobe house, and more importantly, it was cool.
The daytime temperature in the Blackthorn Wasteland can reach 40 degrees Celsius, and after a few days, quite a few people have suffered from heatstroke.
Old Hall had long since had enough.
"Young master, this house is very suitable for the wasteland." Old Hall conjured a stone chair and sat down. "However, it is built underground, which is not in line with the status of a nobleman. If it is surrounded in wartime, it will become a graveyard."
Ron nodded; he had already planned this.
"I've already chosen the location for the castle." He pointed southeast, "to that hill."
That was the only high point within a radius of dozens of miles. The reason for setting up camp there was simply because there was an underground river below.
The slightly better oases in the wasteland have already been occupied by other forces, and with their current strength, they cannot compete with them.
A look of satisfaction appeared in Old Hall's eyes.
Before he could finish speaking, a guard rushed in.
"My lord! A cavalry caravan has been spotted to the north, much larger than the last one! Captain Fanta has already gathered his men."
Ron and Old Hall exchanged a glance and simultaneously leaped onto the ground.
Smoke and dust billowed on the northern horizon.
The Black Hand Wheat Banner billowed in the smoke and dust. Unlike the one Grayson had brought last time, this banner had a red ribbon on its flagpole, a sign of the lord's presence.
The cavalry consisted of about thirty riders, in well-organized formation, and better equipped than Grayson's.
Leading the way was a black horse, and the rider was burly, dressed in wilderness fur, with an old scar on his left cheek that stretched from his cheekbone to his jaw.
Fanta had already deployed his men behind the wooden stockade wall: twenty guards and thirty young refugees who had just taken up arms. This was all of Ron's current armed forces.
In reality, many of the prisoners were desperate criminals, far more capable of fighting than these militiamen; it's just that Ron didn't dare use them at the moment.