Chapter 375 – Ape Island
Zhao Hai smiled and said, “Don’t worry, there should be a lot of new creatures that we could discover when we reach the deep parts of the sea. The s.p.a.ce should level up quite substantially.”
Laura nodded, right now, the most important goal that they have was increasing the level of the Farm, this way Zhao Hai affliction could be cured as soon as possible.
At this time, Meg turned to Zhao Hai and said, “Big Brother Hai, what do you think is happening back at Sky Water City? I reckon that by now, the n.o.bles should have started suppressing the Radiant Church. Do you think that they will succeed?”
Zhao Hai shook his head, “It’s hard to say whether they really can do it. It’s even harder to say whether the Radiant Church could establish their influence inside the Rosen Empire again. But I think the Royal Clan and the n.o.bles would still try and do their best, after all having the church increase its influence is very detrimental to their control of their territory. At the same time, I think that the Calci Family would certainly implement my methods in their territory since the benefits that they’ll achieve should be very huge.”
Laura nods as she added, “The one who worries the most about the potential of Dark Mages in the continent were certainly the Calci Family. The Calci Family was built up by Dark Magic, and they also had the highest status with regards to all of the Dark Mages. If the Dark Mages’ status gets elevated, the family’s status would also be elevated. If the Dark Mages’ reputation plummeted, the family would certainly follow it downward. Thus, the family should be doing what Brother Hai had proposed since it would change the people’s perception of Dark Mages. This solution is what the Dark Mages always wanted.”
Then Laura turned to look at Zhao Hai, “I didn’t think that Brother Hai would actually be able to think of such a method. To use another kind of brainwas.h.i.+ng to deal with the Radiant Church was the best way to go about it. This was also the simplest way to shake the foundations of the church.”
Zhao Hai smiled faintly, “This is a propaganda war. This is a kind of battle where swords and spears couldn’t be seen. Sometimes, this kind of war would even be more difficult to defend against than the normal open-air battles we see since it is generally very effective.”
Laura nodded then said, “Will our schools have the same subject? Even though we have a small population right now, it will certainly inflate in the near future. Having those matters taught to the children will be good for our cause.”
Zhao Hai showed a faint smile then said, “We could open such a subject, but we have to change the way we educate it. We can’t just talk badly about the Radiant Church, instead, we should teach the students about loyalty. We should let them understand who gave them their current life and who they should be loyal to. If the children have us in their hearts while they are little, it was certain that we’ll have their loyalty in the future. This way, we would not be afraid of any kind of enemy.”
Laura’s eyes lit up, in fact, this method was also used by some n.o.bles, but they were using it on their slaves. Although Zhao Hai would also do this to his slaves, Laura knew that Zhao Hai intended to change his slaves’ status to commoners. This would mean that Zhao Hai would technically use this method for commoners, something which Laura didn’t understand.
Although Laura was confused about this, Zhao Hai wasn’t. He knew that a leader needed to develop some sort of cohesion with this subjects. Only when this cohesion reaches a certain point would a leader be invincible.
Currently, Zhao Hai’s territory only had a few people, which made it somewhat easy to manage. But when spring comes, a hundred thousand slaves would arrive. With this amount of people suddenly arriving, managing them would certainly be a bit troublesome.
It was impossible to count on the slaves to have this cohesion, so Zhao Hai planned to release their slave status bit by bit, showing his graciousness while also erecting a school which would educate the slaves. After educating them, it wouldn’t matter if they were released from their slavery since they were already taught about loyalty. This was what Zhao Hai planned to do to slowly develop cohesion with his slaves.
Naturally, the best way for people to have cohesion was to have them develop a sort of collective pride. Only when they were proud about their group would they people be able to work with each other properly.
But this method wasn’t very good when it comes to slaves. Slaves didn’t have anything, even dignity, so how could they possibly have pride.
Therefore, the method that Zhao Hai could only use was this slave education. Of course, he wouldn’t treat his slaves like how they were treated before. He wanted to make them understand that they would be far worse off if they decided to leave his territory. If they leave they will only stay as slaves, but inside the Black Wastelands they were complete people.
But all of these things were only inside Zhao Hai’s head, he still needs to wait for the new slaves to arrive before proving his ideas. After all, he wasn’t afraid of them revolting. These hundred thousand slaves were nothing, even a million slaves wouldn’t be able to threaten Zhao Hai.
Zhao Hai was so deep into his thoughts that he didn’t notice Laura’s gaze of awe towards him. Zhao Hai thinks about ideas that Laura had never heard of before. Additionally, these ideas of Zhao Hai were very orderly, it made people confident that they would actually work.
After quite some time, Zhao Hai recovered. He looked at Laura’s eyes and smiled, “Right now, we still need to find a good island. We should also determine if the island’s environment is acceptable, and most importantly, safe. It was a pity that the map that Big Brother Smith provided us only depicted the sea, it is of no use at this time.”
Laura smiled and replied, “It was not only Big Brother Smith who didn’t have a complete map of the seas, n.o.body in the continent did. The land could be said to be the domain of the human race, but the sea belonged to the sea-dwellers. Sea-dwellers are very mysterious, there were only a few humans who was lucky enough to spot some of them. But they truly exist, they compose of both Magic Beasts of the sea as well as Merpeople. They are very formidable in water and treated humans coming to their territories as invaders. They wouldn’t think twice of hunting humans down, not even 9th ranks were spared.”
Zhao Hai stared at Laura before he said, “So it was this, no wonder Brother Smith prohibited us from going to the deeper parts of the sea. But we still reached here, why didn’t you say anything?”
Laura faintly smiled, “We have the s.p.a.ce, if we are in danger, even if we are inside sea-dweller domain, we could still escape. How could they possible harm us?”
Zhao Hai stared blankly for a moment before he laughed, “No wonder you didn’t remind me, it was actually because of this. You are right, n.o.body would be able to capture us, even those formidable sea-dwellers. Hahaha. But we still need to avoid their territories. I don’t want to be enemies with them.”
Laura nodded, “It is truly a great idea to avoid becoming enemies with the sea-dwellers while we are at sea. I don’t know how they do it, but almost all of the beings at sea could be used by these sea-dwellers to become their scouts. If we offend them, our s.h.i.+ps would certainly be unable to sail anymore. This was even more so if we aren’t the ones manning it, our s.h.i.+ps would certainly be sunk. This is also why we need to have an island base.”
Zhao Hai knit his brows and said, “It would be nice to find a good island, but if it was also easily discovered, then there would be no point for us to make it our own base.”
Laura shook her head and replied, “We don’t need to worry about finding an island, there are plenty of them out at sea. People who often travel here wouldn’t choose islands for supply points if it has a supply of freshwater as well as have a lack of fierce magic beasts. We don’t actually need those criteria to choose our island. The only thing we care about is the topography and terrain of the island. Brother Hai, how about we ask the original captain of this s.h.i.+p. He should know a thing or two about the islands around these parts.”
The Haven s.h.i.+p that they were currently on board was originally the Poseidon. Its previous crew were all killed and turned into undead to help Zhao Hai sail the s.h.i.+p. In fear of losing their skills, Zhao Hai decided to turn all of the s.h.i.+p’s crew into advanced level undead. This was the reason why Laura suggested to ask the s.h.i.+p captain since he should have kept his memories when he was still alive.
Zhao Hai nodded and immediately called the captain over. The captain looked very ordinary and wasn’t that tall. Probably because he had been sailing on the sea for years, the captain’s skin looked very tough. Even after being converted into an undead, the skin quality of the s.h.i.+p’s captain remained still the same.
The captain was named Jinan. When Jinan arrived, he immediately gave a bow to Zhao Hai and said, “This one has seen the Young Master.”
Zhao Hai nodded and said, “Jinan, I want to look for an island to become my base. It doesn’t need to have a good environment, but it’s topography should be very good. Ordinary s.h.i.+ps shouldn’t be able to pa.s.s it. Do you know of any places like this?”
Jinan immediately replied, “I do, there are a lot of these islands around here, the most famous one is Ape Island. It’s shape looks like the head of a giant ape, it was very feared because of the large amounts of reefs that surrounded the island, s.h.i.+ps simply couldn’t approach it. But there exists a route towards it. Some people once followed that route and went to the island along with a Water Mage. But upon arriving, they immediately discovered that the island was filled with fierce Magic Beasts, mostly 6th and 7th ranks, their leaders even reached 8th rank. The group decided to retreat, but when they came back to their s.h.i.+p, they were surprisingly attacked by marine magic beasts. Their s.h.i.+p was almost destroyed, fortunately they had a Water Mage to a.s.sist them so they were able to survive. The island is a good place with lush forests and a freshwater source. Because of the fierce magic beasts as well as the difficult route toward the island, it was possible that n.o.body had visited it for years.”
Zhao Hai nodded, he didn’t fear the magic beasts of the island. There was only one route towards the island, if he manages to block it off, then the island would effectively be his own. When hearing Jinan say that the island had a good environment, Zhao Hai decided that this was the kind of island that he was looking for.