On the tenth day after arriving in the Dwarven Valley, late September, just days away from October, Li De met an old acquaintance.
Valen Brutehammer.
This dwarf he had captured had earned most of his freedom by forging perfect-grade armor for Kosso and Castro. He had been living quite comfortably in Dawn City during this time.
At least, that was how Li De saw it.
And in fact, it was true, even Valen had to admit that Dawn City, this city ruled by vampires, was the most comfortable place he had lived in all his three hundred years.
The city was clean and tidy, without a trace of filth or disorder.
There was no one urinating or throwing trash onto the streets. The sewers never stank with a nauseating odor.
At night, no underground gangs prowled the alleys for extortion. Even at midnight, you could walk the city and feel completely safe, never worrying that something wicked might suddenly appear before you.
Every resident here was kind and warm-hearted. No one ever discriminated against dwarves. In fact, Valen had already become close friends with several neighbors thanks to good wine.
Almost every evening after work, he would gather with a few human friends to have a few drinks.
Valen had grown fond of living in this city.
Here, he could feel that he was truly alive, genuinely alive, and not merely a dwarven grandmaster desperately fighting for the tribe.
So when City Hall put out a call for people knowledgeable about mining mithril veins, Valen volunteered on his own.
This was also thanks to how much he enjoyed sitting in the square chatting, during which he had inevitably received many, many sessions of ideological education.
Every resident of Dawn City should contribute to our shared homeland.
Regardless of race, regardless of age, regardless of gender, regardless of strength.
As long as you are a resident of Dawn City, you can contribute your strength.
These sentences had kept echoing in his mind. Valen didn’t know why he had become this way, but he had truly found a sense of belonging in this city.
It was a completely different kind of belonging from that in the Brutehammer clan.
In the Brutehammer clan, it had been more about responsibility, he had to struggle for the survival of all his kin.
But in Dawn City, there was no such burden. He simply needed to complete a set amount of work each day, after which he could collect a generous wage and happily enjoy fine wine and food with his friends.
He had never been this relaxed.
“Good day, Lord Kachar,” Valen pounded his chest in salute to Li De, his expression respectful.
At this moment, the dwarven Grandmaster Smith was worlds apart from the uncompromising dwarf he had first met.
Li De keenly perceived Valen’s transformation and smiled slightly.
“Good day, Grandmaster Valen. I will be counting on you for the mithril mining.
This place will become the most important source of ore for Dawn City in the future, and only you in all of Dawn City have the skill to design a more efficient way of mining.”
Valen nodded, his expression tinged with the pride of a dwarf. “No problem, Lord Kachar. How many miners do I have at my disposal?”
At that question, Li De turned his head toward the tents stationed within the valley.
He spoke calmly.
“Five thousand beastmen.”
Five thousand beastmen?
Valen was shaken, staring at Li De with disbelief. “You enslaved five thousand beastmen??”
That was simply too astonishing.
Even at its peak, the entire dwarven clan had barely over a thousand members. Now he was casually deploying five times that strength.
Though he knew Li De was powerful, every move this man made still brought him fresh shock.
The five thousand beastmen were thanks to how unexpectedly smoothly Li De’s plan had gone these past days.
Because of food shortages and the imminent arrival of the Months of Deep Winter, many beastman tribes had sunk into a despair that words could not describe.
At that moment, the mighty Lionmane Tribe announced they were recruiting new people and could provide ample winter rations. They even had sturdy armor and warm winter clothes.
This made many weaker tribes, who were barely surviving at the subsistence line, tremble with longing.
Having the protection of a strong power was far better than struggling alone on the Barren Plains.
On top of that, the Lionmane Tribe’s name carried weight, so large numbers of small tribes flocked to them, some came in groups of over a hundred, others only a dozen.
But bit by bit, within just ten days, the Dwarven Valley gathered more than five thousand beastmen.
If Li De hadn’t instructed Craig to raise the threshold at the last moment, the numbers would have been even higher.
Craig, this Level 16 wolfman warrior, was in awe of Li De’s methods.
According to Craig’s thinking, it would have taken the most direct means to conquer, but in efficiency, his way was inferior by countless degrees.
To grow to five thousand people, it would have taken two or three months at least.
With forcibly annexed beastmen, in the beginning, you might manage to keep order, but once the numbers grew, those with hidden resentment or defiance would become harder and harder to control.
There would inevitably be rebellions, escapes, and other such incidents.
But now, since these beastmen had come of their own free will, such problems hardly needed worrying about at all.
Abundant food, sturdy armor, warm winter clothes, this top-tier treatment had firmly secured the beastmen’ loyalty.
Coupled with Craig’s strength, all the beastmen were convinced. All this had allowed this newly rebuilt tribe to become a real tribe.
Though the revived Lionmane Tribe could not yet compare to its might under Kap, it now possessed a respectable strength.
“These beastmen, aside from the one thousand assigned to military duties, will all be under your command.
I have only one requirement: you must extract the mithril ore as quickly as possible. The Months of Deep Winter are nearly here, our armies need stronger armor.”
Valen nodded solemnly.
“As you command, Lord Kachar. I will do my utmost!”
“This place is yours and Stanley’s to oversee. I will leave five cyclopes here for your use, and take all the others back to Dawn City.
Also, if you encounter any difficulties, you can report them at any time.
Until winter arrives, the mithril vein is Dawn City’s most important concern.”
With that, Li De summoned Stanley and Craig, formally entrusting the construction of the Dwarven Valley to Valen. In both mining and city reconstruction, the two were to follow Valen’s instructions completely.
As a bloodline descendant, Stanley’s loyalty ran in his very blood, and Craig as a Temple Warrior was equally devoted. Obedience to Li De’s orders was absolute.
Having settled these details, Li De prepared to return to Dawn City.
And at that moment, the smithy and the mage tower joined forces for the first time, beginning to build the running water system with stone.