Chapter 231

Plumera Imperial Academy, Plumera Imperial Hospital, Plumera Imperial Bank, Plumera Royal Merchant Headquarters and other institutions had all basically begun operations.

Two months ago, Mathias officially took office as the head of the Science Department. As soon as the Plumera Imperial Academy opened, he personally led the officials of the department to recruit the first batch of students of various ages and sizes.

The necessary teaching materials were also quickly compiled and sent to the paper mill for rapid printing.

At the time, Elara still hadn't obtained the printing technique. Fortunately, she understood the general principles of ancient movable type printing, so she gathered a few craftsmen from the Ministry of Works and rushed out a batch. For now, it was just enough.

The System also informed her that the printing technique would appear in one of the upcoming tasks. Once she finished her current tasks, she might unlock it.

Elara wasn't in a hurry. After all, her task of [using five million batches of bricks and stones to construct more than one ancient basic building] was already more than halfway completed.

Over the past three months, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry had already started building trade routes throughout Plumera. The consumption of those five million batches of bricks and stones would be completed soon.

At that time, she would also receive the "Complete Manual for Making Ancient Basic Tools," allowing her to create textile and other tools, which might then lead to unlocking the printing technique.

During Plumera's rapid development, the team Elara had sent to the Carnation Kingdom to assist with local governance had also achieved good results. As a result, Carnation had grown increasingly confident in the prophecy about Plumera and sent waves of gifts and trade goods with their envoys, even more than what the Empress of Carnation had initially promised.

The reason was that the Empress of Carnation was overjoyed to see the kingdom's two major problems finally being resolved and sent many additional gifts.

The elephant tamers Elara had sent to Carnation had successfully trained more than a dozen individuals.

When these trained elephant tamers returned to Plumera, they also brought back the three hundred adult war elephants and various elephant training tools and materials promised by the Empress of Carnation.

Carnation even sent an extra thirty breeding elephants and thirty young elephants.

In addition, somehow, they had heard that Elara liked animals, especially fierce ones. So, the Empress of Carnation also sent three white tiger cubs and three black panther cubs, allowing Elara to keep them by her side for fun.

When the thirty breeding elephants and thirty young elephants arrived, Elara immediately had the military escort them with the tamers to a suitable location near Plumera City to raise them.

As for the three hundred fully trained war elephants, she had the tamers take them to the military satellite town outside the city, where General Qi would select the bravest soldiers to learn how to ride and command them.

Elara still hadn't given up on her idea of mounting heavy repeating crossbows on the war elephants, turning them into mobile battle towers on the battlefield.

She explained the idea to the best-trained elephant tamer and had him select appropriate elephants to begin gradual training.

As for the three white tiger cubs and three black panther cubs, Elara didn't keep any. After all, her puppet army already included fierce beasts. Whenever she wanted, she could immediately assemble a tiger patrol unit to patrol the streets.

So, after asking around, Elara gave the six cubs to Mathias, Oswyn, General Qi, Scholar Fu, Kristof, and Damon.

General Qi and Damon could train them as battle pets. The other four were civilian officials with no combat skills, so keeping the cubs as guards wasn't a bad idea. Besides, they were all quite interested in the little beasts and personally came to Elara to take them home.

Before handing them over, for safety, Elara fed all six cubs dormant parasite eggs. As long as these beasts never betrayed or harmed their owners in the future, the parasites would remain inactive, and the cubs would grow up like ordinary fierce animals beside them.

Aside from war elephants, the luxury goods and gold and silver materials sent by Carnation also made Plumera's national treasury more abundant.

Because the Carnation Kingdom was located in the far southwest corner of the continent near the Forbidden Forest, the goods it produced had a very distinctive local flavor, rarely seen elsewhere.

Moreover, neither Carnation nor the surrounding nations were within the commercial network of the Zhaiyun Pavilion, so the large batch of luxury goods from Carnation were especially valuable.

Elara let Mathias and Oswyn pick what they liked. She also gave some to General Qi, Francis, Damon, Scholar Fu, Kristof, and other high-ranking officials. Then she stored a portion in the treasury, and most of the remainder was handed over to the Bai Family's Business, which sold them at high prices through the Zhaiyun Pavilion's trade channels to more than a dozen countries in the northeast and southeast of Plumera.

These nobles and officials of the countries had never really seen the luxury goods unique to Carnation. When they saw them for the first time, they were very interested. Some who failed to buy them even privately contacted Damon and the city of Periwinkle, willing to pay higher prices.

In the end, this batch of luxury goods sent from Carnation allowed Elara to make a big profit again in the business circle of Plumera Imperial Academy. This further enriched the treasury of Plumera.

After Elara wrote a letter to Leif, though Leif never found time to visit Plumera, the top manager of the academy personally came to Plumera to negotiate with Damon about the Bai Family's business.

The Bai Family's business had now basically joined the academy's commercial network. Large amounts of goods produced in their business could be sold through the academy's commercial routes to more than a dozen surrounding countries.

The Bai Family's business could also buy goods from those countries at any time. This officially opened Plumera's external trade, which greatly benefited the local economy.

After some time passed, due to the world's tradition of the System's spirit vein ceremonies, although it was not yet the end of the year, the mid-year small ceremony had come again.

Elara also ordered the Ministry of Rites to hold the ceremony according to tradition. However, the Ministry's staff were mostly people she had killed, so they no longer dared to behave recklessly during the ceremony.

Besides, the spirit vein Phoenix Token had been confiscated by Elara last time. This small ceremony passed without anything special, smoothly and quietly.

By the time the spirit vein ceremony ended, four full months had passed since Elara's ascension to the throne.

Besides Plumera's internal and external development improving under her rule, Elara herself had made great progress in these four months.

The "Divine Spirit Mystic Technique" she obtained from the Ascension Mission had been brought to level six by Uno.

This top-level heart method was found by Uno to have ten levels in total.

Because of its exceptional quality, each level had great power. Uno could not yet predict what would happen at level ten. He only knew that reaching level seven would allow mastery over the world, and the combat strength would rank among the top ten in the continent's power list.

Reaching level eight would let her rival the very top experts on that list.

Level nine would make her basically invincible.

As for level ten, even Uno didn't know the state, but he guessed that reaching it would require some unknown conditions.

Because the heart method was complicated and difficult to refine, its energy manipulation differed from native cultivation methods.

Uno himself was a martial arts genius with strength comparable to the continent's top ten. He spent four months to reach level six and also helped Elara reach level six together.

Yes, Elara's body had recovered very well under Oswyn's care. Because she had taken many magical pills in the past, Oswyn used only the continent's best medicines to nourish her. Many rare medicines that others could not get were constantly given to her for free.

This caused Elara's previously untrained body to condense powerful internal energy.

Under Uno's teaching, her body nurtured by various celestial pills showed extraordinary abilities far beyond normal people.

Her martial cultivation advanced rapidly. The internal energy she accumulated was equivalent to over sixty years of practice.

With Uno's guidance, once she truly started the martial path, her progress sped up.

Her cultivation methods were all simple and correct, so she did not need to waste time correcting mistakes. Uno had tested all the cultivation principles in advance.

With Uno's patient and responsible personal teaching, after four months Elara's combat strength soared. Her Divine Spirit Mystic Technique had reached level six, making ordinary experts unable to approach her. Only the top experts could match her.

Elara finally experienced the legendary lightness skill.

The feeling of flying like a swallow was truly wonderful.

In one word: amazing.

With enough martial strength, Elara went to the foundry to make three weapons for herself.

A long spear, a long sword, and a dagger small enough to hide in her clothes.

She often watched Francis and others training with long spears and thought it looked very cool. She planned to learn spear as well. Since Uno knew all weapons, if needed she could also ask Francis to teach her.

However, the spear was taller than her, so it took a lot of effort to master. After succeeding, she made time every day in the palace's rear garden to practice. Sometimes Uno accompanied her, sometimes Francis did, as she learned various moves.

Francis taught seriously and patiently. He taught all she wanted to learn. When she mastered the basics, he personally guided her through the unique moves of the Qi family without holding back.

Elara's special body made her learn very fast.

After she was proficient with the spear, she began to learn sword and dagger.

During that time, every morning she sought out Uno, Francis, and others with great enthusiasm for martial arts. She wanted to improve her strength as quickly as possible.

When she had learned the three weapons well enough, Elara combined her past knowledge of mechanics and went to the foundry to hire the best craftsmen to make several sets of hidden throwing weapons and wrist darts.