Chapter 398 398 Enjoying the Shock

Chapter 398 398 Enjoying the Shock

The Mayor stared at Wolfe with confusion in her eyes.

"Wait, you can't just do that and pretend that nothing happened. Is there some trick to filling Mana Crystals that I don't know? Plus, I have so many questions about the Array for you to answer." She demanded.

"Oh, there's no trick to the mana crystals. I just have a much higher capacity for mana flow than any living Witch does, so that's how long it takes me to fill that amount of storage. It's really quite convenient since I can do it in a few seconds and then get back about my day.

If you've got a strong demonic Familiar here in town, they can likely fill it faster than most of the Witches can, and it will save you a lot of time keeping the storage topped off.

I don't know how many proper Witches you have in town, but going by the amount of power that is currently being used, it shouldn't be a big issue, even if you don't have one that's even halfway through the First Rank. But why didn't you just use a Solar Array? I've seen them mounted on top of other buildings before, those flat black panels that turn light to electricity. They're way quieter than diesel, and they smell better." Wolfe asked.

The Colonel laughed and shook his head. "If it were so easy to get them shipped here, we would have covered every roof in them. The Gormana Government is currently doing exactly that back home to try to get the number of power stations we are using under control.

We're currently shutting down our Nuclear Reactors after a series of attacks, so we need more electricity, and it needs to be something that is safe and available. That meant Solar Power since everyone was running out of oil and coal."

Ella frowned at the simple statement. "Let me guess, there is a component in the panels that isn't available to the Grand Dutchies but is available in Gormana."

The Colonel smiled back. "That's the best part. There isn't. But they don't know that. Our intelligence service has convinced them that we are using sea salt in the construction of the panels, and they're stumped trying to learn the creation process. But in reality, we have just put military-controlled desalinization plants under the factories.

They will learn it soon if they haven't gotten spies in already. But even after they understand that they were fooled, it will take them years to fully grasp the technology needed to create them at the efficiency level necessary to replace their power grid.

But at the moment, they're more concerned about the food and emigration issues, so they're not trying too hard to get ahold of our solar panel technology. They think that if they can just kidnap enough witches to serve them, they can rebuild their society with slaves and a power system like the one that Wolfe made."

Ella shook her head at their naive outlook on life. Being oppressed was what had driven so many into the Frozen Wastes to begin with, and now they were there in such large numbers that no single nation had a chance to actually capture the region from the native inhabitants.

"Have they really thought this through? I mean, there are a lot of people in the Frozen Wastes who would be rather irate if they heard about that plan, and I'm not sure that the Grand Dutchies could actually stand up to a full-scale attack if they started using the same tactics against them." Ella asked.

"What do you mean?" The Colonel asked.

"It's not only the mundane armies that can herd the Monster Tide where they want them. If the locals in the Frozen Wastes started herding them east instead of west in their search for food and breeding grounds, it would be a real mess for the Grand Dutchies, wouldn't it?" Ella replied.

The horrified look on his face told her all she needed to know. The section of the Frozen Wastes between the Mountains and the Grand Dutchies was small and rugged.

The Monster Tide naturally moved the other way, and the number of attacks that came east was very low. If that changed and millions of the beasts started to invade, they would need to pull their entire army away from the borders to defend against it, and that meant they would be vulnerable to attack from all sides.

They might win against the monsters fairly easily with their technology, but they wouldn't win against the monsters and all their neighbours at the same time.

"Enough of that for now. We should start on the fields before we get too distracted again." Wolfe suggested.

The fields for products to be shipped were all contained in the same area, with the ones for the locals spread out all over the place to help prevent losing all of their essential crops.

Food wasn't one of the largest demands in town, thanks to the years of dedicated farm growth, so they hadn't worried about giving some of the farmland over to it and then using magic to ensure it thrived. But now that they were getting a taste for the luxuries and the Gormana Government was getting desperate for any sort of oil, the chance was perfect to grow and sell as much as possible.

"This is the spot. All of these fields are Palm Oil Trees that we have just started to grow, mixed with Sunflowers, so we have some oil crops to export this year before the trees are grown." The Mayor informed the group as they reached the edge of a wide-open set of fields, many of which had been freshly cleared if the sharp edge of the forest was anything to go by.

"Now, this is a spell that every Witch should know. Ella is very good at it, so Justine and Christa, please pay close attention. We will give you more pointers later."

Ella began to invoke the charm, using a large flat rock that marked the edge of the fields as the talisman and some of the palm leaves off the ground as reagents to help ensure that the Garden Charm was properly targeted to the trees that they were trying to grow, and carefully designating the area that the charm was supposed to cover.

The power of natural magic filled the air, and Wolfe felt a warm breeze float over the area before the humidity in the air turned to a misty fog that settled onto the crops like rainfall.

The crops were drenched in only a few seconds, and the air over the fields was notably warmer than that in the rest of the area once the spell was set. Even the Colonel had no doubts that it had worked as intended, and the saplings were beginning to grow at a visible rate as he watched.

"That is incredible. How long will it last?" He asked.

Both Ella and the Mayor smiled at him, then turned to each other and giggled. "Years, as long as nobody damages that stone and the Witches keep it empowered every day. The trees will grow quickly to maturity and then will flower and grow fruits on a very rapid basis afterward.

Instead of the years needed without magic, you will have them ready by the end of the week with this spell, and the other oil crops that we have planted can be switched out soon afterward."