Chapter 4: The Lord's Power is Unlimited

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The next day, early morning.

When dew was still condensing on the grass, Moor had brought over yesterday's slaves.

They had set out at the crack of dawn.

Roman, too, had woken up at this time.

The Riptide Family, like many noble families, had rather strict family disciplines. The Grand Duke of the First Generation Riptide was renowned for his martial prowess and demanded that his descendants rise before dawn and train with the family knights.

Of course, once they had their own fief, this was no longer required.

Without the constraints of rules, they could sleep as long as they wanted.

Thus, many nobles rapidly declined upon acquiring their own land, their martial skills gradually neglected.

But Roman had not yet had the chance to fall into decay.

He had slept very late the night before, and his body's biological clock had automatically awakened him.

Upon waking, he saw Aaron and Green training on the grass in front of the log cabin, their steel Big Swords infused with mountain copper slicing through the air with ferocious power, their impressive force evident even from a distance.

They did not spar with each other; the high-intensity clashing would cause the weapons to wear out swiftly, greatly reducing their durability.

Back at the Riptide household, there were people responsible for maintenance, but in Sige Town, such facilities were not available.

Roman didn't join them; he simply cleared the surroundings of the cabin, removing weeds.

[Planting Experience +1]

Last night, Roman had thoroughly studied "Noah's Ark."

The primary mode was "Breathing Story," which included nine types of Life Skills.

Construction, Planting, Gathering, Breeding, Hunting, Cooking, Medicine, Manufacturing, and Forging—it could be said to encompass every profession thoroughly.

He couldn't be in two places at once; it was impossible to level up all these skills simultaneously.

For now, he had no choice but to focus on the important skills.

They say "the whole year's planning lies in spring," and with spring beginning, the importance of the Planting Skill was self-evident.

In most places, farmers had to cultivate sixty acres of land a year to feed their families.

To be more precise, in this era, the per-acre yield of land was less than a hundred pounds, and the soil utilization rate was extremely low.

Although there were exceptions, they were merely that—exceptions.

And Sige Town was like most areas, perhaps even more backward, with barbaric cultivation based entirely on empiricism.

"We can't let those idiots continue to spoil the land like this."

Roman squatted on the ground, cursing as he plucked the weeds.

Passing maids and male slaves all carefully avoided this area, realizing the Lord was in a rather unpleasant mood, fearing they might provoke his ire.

At that moment, the sound of footsteps approached, and Roman lifted his head to see Moor walking over with cautious steps, calling out respectfully, "My lord."

Roman looked expressionlessly at the fool before him for a moment, making Moor's heart pound.

Then, he turned his gaze toward the slaves shivering in the cold wind.

Roman stood up.

This place was a basin, naturally shielded by surrounding mountains from strong cold air, but that didn't mean it was spring all year round. In this time when winter had not yet completely passed and the sun had not fully risen, the spring chill was still torture to the slaves in their tattered garments.

Moor watched as Roman casually tossed a handful of weeds into a pile of grass.

He still didn't understand what the honorable lord was doing.

But he knew Roman held the power of life and death over everyone, so he served him with great caution, ready to cooperate even if he didn't understand many things, otherwise not even his father's uncle would be able to get him out of the pigpen.

"Bob, cook a pot of barley porridge, enough for fifty bowls," Roman instructed as he led Moor to the retinue's head cook.

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Commoners and slaves typically had two meals a day, one at noon and the other in the evening, while it was quite normal for nobles to have four or five meals a day.

"Master, one pot can't cook that much food." Head Chef Bob furrowed his brows in worry, knowing from the task at hand what Roman intended to do.

Roman lifted his chin, "Then cook several pots."

Wasn't that an obvious solution?

Roman wasn't a tyrant; he wouldn't be so cruel as to make slaves work on an empty stomach—the slavery system was too backward anyway, even some form of feudalism would be better, even emperors don't starve their soldiers.

"Master, I'm afraid we don't have enough food for you to fully demonstrate your benevolence," Deacon Seth said, appearing beside Roman.

"Are you saying I'll starve to death?" Roman glanced sideways at Moor.

The pressure was suddenly on Moor.

The latter immediately bowed his head in loyalty, "I will send all the reserve grain from Sige Town to the Master right away."

"If I may say so, this action does not conform to any rules," Seth felt Roman was going a bit too far.

If he could still comprehend Roman's actions from yesterday, today Seth found he couldn't keep up with Roman's drastic changes.

This was challenging the bottom line of the era!

In his recollection, Roman had always been dismissive from a young age, an arrogance ingrained in his bones, rarely revealed. Seth had always felt that Roman regarded no one with respect.

On the other hand, from his youth, Roman had been impeccable, proficient in both culture and martial arts, standing out among his many siblings, or else he wouldn't have received the Grand Duke's approval.

That's why he agreed to follow Roman to these barbaric lands to develop.

But now something felt off. The arrogance that used to be concealed was suddenly overflowing, as if free from all shackles and constraints.

Was he no longer pretending now that he was on his own territory?

"I am the rule," Roman said, patting Seth's shoulder, taking Moor with him away from the temporary kitchen.

His power as a lord was boundless.

"That's just crude!" Seth frowned, disdainfully looking at the dog... the fingerprint left on his shoulder, lightly dusting off the residual dirt before turning to prepare the upcoming utensils.

They had no bowls for the slaves, so they had to bring out the noble's tableware, and they would never be able to use them again—how could nobles use bowls that a slave had touched.

This was very bad.

Seth wondered if he should continue working here, as he might have to start paying Roman, lest Roman runs out of money to pay him his salary.

Roman didn't care about Seth's feelings; he said to Moor, "There are three things I want you to do."

"At your command."

Roman raised a finger, "First, bring over all the records of Sige Town and hand them to Deacon Seth."

"I'll do it right away!"

Roman continued, "Second, I'm giving you two clerks, and you have only three days. I want to know all the population and professions in Sige Town and its villages. Do you understand?"

"I... I understand."

Moor was silent for a moment, uncertain.

He nervously wiped the sweat from his forehead. Gathering all the population data in three days was a huge challenge for him.

Previously, he had never accounted for Sige Town's exact population.

Every year he would swallow half of Sige Town's harvest into his coffers and paid the fixed taxes to the Duke Domain; there was no need for such troublesome tasks.

But now it was time for nobles to govern.

Lastly, Roman said, "Third, if the information you gather is very different from what I have, then prepare to eat black bread in the pigsty."

Moor forced a smile more pitiable than crying, yet internally he scoffed: as if he'd even get black bread in the pigsty.

"Go," Roman patted Moor's back, watching the steward, who looked like a fat white pig, mount his horse and gallop towards Sige Town.