Knight Lord: Start with Daily Intelligence

The territory's enchanted farmlands are still relatively limited in scale, but Su Li can assert that they will be the true pillar and economic core of the territory in the future.

This magical herb farm is where Su Li, with the assistance of his intelligence system, has collected and cultivated fantastical medicinal herbs. This allows many rare medicines, which can only be found occasionally in the wild, and valuable materials to be produced in bulk in the Black Forest Territory.

Moreover, this concerns an important industry for a territory: potion making. In any world, medical care and drug production are very advanced and highly profitable industries.

A single Earthblood Potion is worth as much as 100 gold crowns. An ordinary Stamina Potion sells for as much as 50 silver coins, and a Healing Potion easily exceeds one gold crown.

High-level potions like Earthblood have annual production limits and require divine grace to create. However, ordinary Healing Potions can be produced continuously as long as there are sufficient medicinal materials.

Therefore, after Vandal's report, Su Li asked with concern, "How many potion-making talents does the territory currently have?"

The Lord Chamberlain, Laun, replied, "Including the members of the Medical Knight Order, there are currently 17 clergy members in the territory who can make potions, and 6 alchemists who can make ordinary potions. Among these 23 potion-making talents, a total of 4 can make advanced potions like Earthblood and Tears of Mercy. Without calculating additional divine grace, they can only produce 8 advanced potions per year during festivals and ceremonies."

Su Li smiled and nodded. As expected, the most important wealth of the territory is talent. With various talents, they can continuously earn high amounts of wealth.

The potions they can make on a basic level each year are worth 800 gold crowns, but in reality, how is it possible for the territory not to obtain additional divine grace?

With the daily intelligence system assisting the Black Forest Territory, they can seize every opportunity for divine grace. It is not impossible for the annual production of advanced potions to reach 1600 gold crowns.

In addition to the harvest of so many magical herbs, they can make a large number of ordinary potions. The income from potion making alone can easily exceed 3000 gold crowns.

Moreover, this increases not only the wealth of the Black Forest Territory but also significantly enhances its military strength.

The Vengeance Sun Griffon Knight Order, each knight fully armed, equipped with monster mounts, mithril rune armor, rune rings, amulets, rune swords, magic shields, and carrying an advanced potion. How could their combat power be low?

With the blessing of powerful defense, even if a dragon sweeps them away, they can rely on the Earthblood's recovery ability to climb back up and continue to fight the dragon to the end.

All of this is what Su Li has created with wealth. A single griffon knight, with just his equipment, costs as much as 4000+ gold crowns. How could their combat power be low?

As long as they are devout in their faith, brave in combat, and never abandon their honor or flee in fear, they are the absolute trump card troops on the battlefield, capable of easily piercing through the defenses of a large number of monsters.

So Su Li asked with concern, "How many Earthblood and Tears of Mercy potions do we currently have in total?"

Laun immediately replied fluently, "These advanced potions are rarely sold after we make them and are currently stored in the Black Forest Castle's treasury. There are a total of 7 Earthblood Potions and 3 Tears of Mercy Potions."

"This Tears of Mercy Potion is made by the elite knights of the Medical Knight Order. It is also thanks to the divine grace of Shalia, the Goddess of Mercy and Healing. It is said that her statue leaves behind sacred tears. As the god in charge of healing and mercy, her tears have powerful magic and are essential materials for making this potion."

"The potion, mixed with other healing herbs, allows the user's wounds to heal quickly in a short time and can remove or reduce the negative effects brought to the knight by magic, curses, and other abilities. After taking the potion, for a period of time, it will make people feel calm, reduce psychological fear and physical pain, and have a certain protective effect against mental attacks."

After listening, Su Li's eyes lit up. Although this potion and the Earthblood Potion are both healing potions, their healing characteristics are exactly the opposite.

The Earthblood Potion's short-term healing effect is not significant. Its main feature is its long-lasting effect. As long as they stand on the earth, they can continuously and slowly restore the knight's life, providing healing to the knight.

Tears of Mercy, on the other hand, is the opposite. The effect is not lasting and focuses more on instantaneous bursts. However, this short burst, which lacks continuous healing ability, is extremely dazzling. It can not only quickly heal wounds but also provide various purification, protection, and fear removal effects.

If the Black Forest Territory is strong enough in the future, they can completely let the soldiers carry two of these potions to ensure their survival rate.

However, what surprised Su Li the most and made him feel delighted was not the powerful effect of this potion.

It was the accumulation of the territory's treasury! After so long of development, Su Li's treasury was finally no longer empty.

He, like other lords, dragons, warlords, etc., had his own treasury, which stored a wide array of advanced treasures, precious potions, powerful armor, and so on.

These 10 potions alone can guarantee that he can pull out a reliable force anytime, anywhere for combat, suppression, and so on.

And the treasury contains far more than these, such as advanced armor like mithril rune armor, advanced weapons like rune swords, rune warhammers, and the most sacred holy relics, which are not directly distributed to the knights but are left in the Black Forest Castle's treasury, armory, and arsenal.

The knights usually only wear fine-grade training armor and carry their own weapons.

Those powerful weapons and slowly influencing armors are managed by the High Stewardess Hilde, who manages everything inside the castle and distributes those powerful forbidden equipment to the knights before the war.

In fact, this is not a perfect or sound system. The High Stewardess originally manages hundreds of elite direct servants, and letting her manage the strongest weapons and equipment means that she can easily raise a fully armed army within her authority, which other armies can hardly resist.

But who told the High Stewardess to be Hilde?

Hilde can guard Su Li with a sword when he sleeps.

This trust is unique.

Su Li believes that even if anyone betrays him, Hilde will not.

She is his intimate person who is willing to accompany him to wander the world and make a comeback after Su Li loses everything.

If he can't trust Hilde, his closest person, the confidant he cultivated bit by bit from scratch, then he will truly become a lonely man.

However, people's hearts cannot withstand the most tests and trials, and Su Li doesn't want to deliberately challenge human nature just to test how loyal Hilde is to him.

After finding a suitable candidate, Su Li will appoint several heads of the armory, treasury, and armor depot separately.

Su Li thinks Vandal is good. First of all, he doesn't have any military power, and secondly, his interests are aligned with Su Li. Su Li serving as the lord of the territory is most in line with his interests because Su Li likes to lie down and basically leaves the territory's farming and development to the Dawn Church. This is very beneficial to the development of the Dawn Church.

Moreover, Su Li's governance philosophy is very in line with the teachings of the Dawn Goddess Leia. He attaches great importance to the farming industry, which is of unparalleled significance to the growth of the Leia Church.

Vandal can't find anyone whose interests are more in line with their Dawn Goddess Church than Su Li serving as the lord. Even if Vandal himself usurps the throne, it is not as good as the current situation. After all, after he usurps the throne, he will still face many knights who are dissatisfied and rebellions are rampant, etc.

It is precisely because Su Li's rule is extremely beneficial to their Dawn Goddess Church that Vandal's work is very attentive.

Su Li had just digested this news, and he continued with his new report.

"The extraordinary farm just mentioned is mainly on the north side of Black Forest Castle, and even some of the magical herb fields are inside the castle, located in the open space between the outermost city wall and the castle. The main function there is a training ground, and it also undertakes the task of protecting the Lion's Mane Mushrooms."

"The second extraordinary farm is at the Starlight Pond in the holy land of the Dawn Goddess Church. After our church's request, the Provincial Council and Marshal negotiated and agreed to have the Vengeance Sun Griffon Knights stationed there to guard our holy land and the Rose Dew Farm."

"Two formal nuns from the Dawn Church are stationed here. In addition to guarding the church's holy land, they are also grafting the Rose Dew fruit trees. This grafting is not the usual grafting of fruit farmers, but cutting off a section of the Rose Dew's branches and inserting it into the ground or other fruit trees. Then, the formal nuns guide the Gale Wind to promote the rapid growth of the branches, thereby cultivating new fruit trees."

"Then, at the appropriate time, watering it with the lake water of Lake Reveleen and the Starlight Pond will increase fertility and promote its growth."

"This process is not fast, but it is very costly. Whether it is the vitality potion to replenish the magic power of the formal nuns or the transportation of Lake Reveleen's lake water, it will consume a lot of wealth. We strive to expand the cultivated area to 20 acres before the fruit trees mature next year. At that time, calculated at a yield of 5,000 pounds per acre, we can harvest 100,000 pounds of Rose Dew, which is a considerable income of 50 gold crowns."

Perhaps after hearing about projects with hundreds or thousands of income, it is difficult for this mere 50 gold crown farm to attract everyone's interest.

But Su Li is very clear that this farm is the true source of specialty products for a territory and is an important plant that can lead the territory to become rich and strong.

Because this kind of Rose Dew apple can be planted on a large scale, as long as it is around the holy land of the Dawn Goddess, it can even be planted for dozens of miles, replicating the great project of Bjorn Bay.

Moreover, after this variety matures, ordinary farmers can take care of an orchard.

Bjorn Bay was built with the full effort of the entire territory, and the planting area is only dozens of miles.

If the Starlight Pond can also plant dozens of miles of orchards, then this orchard, with tens of thousands of acres of land, can allow every resident to have a lot of wealth.

Ordinary residents cannot imagine 10,000 acres of farmland. But 10 acres of orchards, the free people are afraid of rushing to build.

At that time, an ordinary farmer will have an income of 50 gold crowns, and this Rose Dew, as a specialty, will truly benefit thousands of households in the territory.

Undoubtedly, this requires a large number of Dawn Church nuns to help develop, and they cannot be ordinary nuns.

Otherwise, their spiritual energy will not be able to keep up, and ordinary residents may not have so much wealth to ask these extraordinary nuns to help them transplant and graft their orchards.

Su Li needs to expand the scale of the Dawn Church and improve the strength of the Dawn Church priests at the same time.

So Su Li said, "The autumnal equinox is coming soon. At that time, the Gale Wind of the territory will gather, and there will be an invisible magical rain. These magic powers fall on the ground like raindrops, forming pools that only fine and Gale mages can see."

"Your Dawn Church sends people to cooperate with the engineering masters to lead these magic pools to the holy land of the Dawn Church, and then summon all the nuns to pray devoutly in the holy land. I hope your monks can gain a lot of breakthroughs in this prayer."

Hearing this important information, the wrinkles on Vandal's old face gathered together like flowers with a smile, and he immediately assured, "Lord, don't worry. We will definitely pray with great devotion. Leia is an extremely generous god, and I think our effects in spreading the doctrine are significant. This time, there will definitely be a lot of breakthroughs."

Su Li nodded slightly. This is the best situation.

If the priests of the Dawn Church improve their strength, the territory's various undertakings will achieve rapid development.

Vandal also continued, "The next farm is also related to the priests of the Dawn Church. It is the Amethyst Grape Farm north of the Amethyst Manor, which is exclusively responsible for by the pure nuns of the Dawn Church. Although there is only a little more than one acre of vineyard now, I asked Sister Merian, and she said that only these 4,000 pounds of grapes can probably be used to brew 100-160 bottles of Golden Amethyst Brandy, worth 2000+ gold crowns."

Unlike the last farm, which has promising future prospects, the effect of this wine farm came too violently!

The wealth created by a nun and a brewing wizard is as high as more than 2000 gold crowns. This profit ratio is too high.

This is definitely a luxury product with huge profits! Not to mention that a bottle of brandy is equal to the output of a farmer for a year, in the Black Forest Territory, it is equal to the output of more than 2000 farmers!

Even if this model is extremely difficult to promote, it is not a big problem for the Black Forest Territory.

The Black Forest Territory can spare no expense to recruit beautiful nuns. What about 10 nuns taking care of 10 acres of vineyards? That's also 20,000 gold crowns.

This is equivalent to the wealth that 20,000 farmers can produce.

Based on the current scale of the Black Forest Territory, it may take several years to develop to 20,000 people!

This aspect is something that the Dawn Church must go all out to do, and Su Li is personally involved in the brewing industry, so Vandal did not continue to say much.

He continued to report: "In addition to these three farms, the last extraordinary farm is the Hot Spring Village on the east side of the Emerald Valley. Here we have developed a hot spring bath, and the spring water inside has a very significant effect on purifying corrosion, restoring physical strength, and healing diseases, which can attract a large number of nobles, knights, and merchants to visit. The specific profits here will be reported by Lord Chamberlain Laun."

"The hot spring water I'm talking about flows down from the mountains and is diverted by hydraulic engineers into the water conservancy project of the hot spring village at the foot of the mountain, used to irrigate the local farmland. After research by the State Council, we did not plant crops in this important area, but instead planted precious herbs."

"Herbs?"

"Herbs?"

Vandal's report immediately attracted the attention of the ministers in the hall.

This was indeed a corner that most people in the territory had not paid attention to, mainly because it was far from the prosperous towns of the territory, in the northeast corner of the Green Leaf Hills, very remote.

Only a few people remembered that there was an earthquake here, and then the lord specifically ordered the construction of a hot spring resort.

However, due to the inconvenient transportation and the lack of manpower in the territory to build a dirt road that was tens of miles long, few people except the dwarves and the Church of the Morning Light had been to this remote corner.

Unexpectedly, the Church of the Morning Light had quietly created such a valuable farm here!

Herbs, this is the most sought-after plant in the empire. Its role is not only to develop leisure and sightseeing farms, extract herb essential oils, make perfumes, and so on.

More importantly, it is the most sought-after spice in the empire, a luxury that is essential for the empire's nobles in all activities such as cooking, living, and socializing!

Some rumors say that this is because the men of the empire, especially the knights, have a very strong body odor and need herbs to cover it up.

But regardless of whether the rumors are true or false, there is no doubt that the empire, from top to bottom, is filled with a thirst for herbs.

However, the empire produces very few herbs. This branch that is fragrant all year round, remains even when withered, and is known as the "natural perfume bottle that smells fragrant in all seasons" can be said to be worth as much as gold in the empire!

One pound of herbs can be exchanged for one pound of gold.

The main way for the empire to obtain herbs is by going to sea, crossing the terrifying Gray Mist Sea and then crossing the vast Storm Ocean, arriving in the distant East, in that distant country where tiger people appear, buying their precious herbs, and then crossing countless ocean storms, avoiding countless dark arks and vampire pirates, to bring this precious herb back to the empire for the nobles to enjoy.

And within the empire, every territory that can produce herbs is filthy rich.

So when he learned that the territory's hot spring village could produce spices, military commander Orstein immediately became excited. The wider the planting area of the spice farm, the larger the scale of the army that the territory would build.

He immediately asked with concern: "How large is the territory's current spice farm? How many spices can it produce?"

Vandal replied calmly: "Currently, we mainly plant vanilla orchids. The main part of this spice is the pods it produces, which can be widely used in cooking, baking, desserts, and beverages."

"Currently, the nuns of the Church of the Morning Light in the territory can make vanilla pods. When making drinks, fruit teas, and milk teas, they will cut the vanilla pods in half, scrape out the vanilla seeds inside, which is the main source of the fragrance, and then scrape these seeds into the brewed hot black tea."

"The shell of the vanilla pod also has a fragrance and can be immersed in hot black tea to increase the aroma. Soak for about 5 minutes and then remove. The vanilla pod shell can be reused 2-3 times until the fragrance disappears completely."

"As I said, everyone can feel how expensive this natural spice is. The price of one pound of vanilla seeds can be as high as 1,000 gold crowns."

"Even if the vanilla pods with shells are sold to Maleburg, I think one pound can earn 50 to 60 gold crowns."

"Currently, the vanilla orchids we artificially planted are not yet mature. Only one acre of natural hot spring vanilla orchids are mature, and the yield per acre is only a little over two pounds."

Hearing Vandal's report, Su Li immediately took a deep breath.

One acre only produces two pounds of vanilla? This is still the result of the territory's various bonuses.

Then, if it is naturally planted, the yield per acre would be only a little over one pound?

No wonder they say this thing is equivalent to gold. One pound of vanilla pods can really be exchanged for one pound of gold.

This means that the price of the fruit tea he drank in the morning may be close to 1 gold coin.

He instantly understood why they all said that the lives of the nobles were extravagant.

The price of the fruits, milk, hot tea, vanilla, and spices in his cup of tea is equal to the annual income of a farmer!

The hard work of the farmers for a year was all drunk up by him in one gulp.

Which farmer wouldn't be jealous?

However, Su Li quickly threw the guilt behind him.

A cup of vanilla fruit tea, who hasn't drunk this thing on Earth?

What Su Li wants is the common prosperity and development of the territory, not the equal poverty of everyone!

All current contradictions come from insufficient development.

When the territory achieves great development and spices are popularized to every family, then what he drinks is just an ordinary drink.

Problems encountered in development can only be solved by development!

This is also the meaning of his large-scale farming.

So Su Li immediately asked with concern: "Can this vanilla planting scale be increased? Has your Church of the Morning Light expanded the planting area of this vanilla?"

Vandal quickly replied: "Lord, our Church of the Morning Light has already researched this. Unlike spirit medicines and amethyst grapes, which require special care from the nuns of the Church of the Morning Light, vanilla orchids can grow as long as they are irrigated with hot spring water from the Green Leaf Hills. This valuable spice does not need to be given any special value and can be sold well inside and outside the empire. Therefore, the people can completely plant this spice near the hot spring village and open up spice gardens."

"We have already planted 3 acres, mainly because there are no more vanilla seeds. We are working hard to acquire them. We strive to expand this scale to 10 acres next year and 50 acres the year after."

Su Li said decisively: "Select a group of clever and loyal slaves to go there. I want to expand the area of vanilla as soon as possible."

"In addition, I will allocate 300 gold crowns to you for the purchase of vanilla orchid seeds. I hope you will expand the planting area to 50 acres as quickly as possible."

This is different from brandy, which requires Su Li to build a reputation for it. As long as vanilla pods are produced, there is never a worry about sales. All the empire's caravans and nobles are willing to pay a tempting price for it.