841 Dragon Island Part 2 (1/2)
”Give me the schematics!”, the water puppet threw out a demand all of a sudden. Tam'enm dug out the power room's schematics from their bangle without giving it a thought and handed it to the water puppet.
The water puppet smirked and threw the schematics to the Mechanical Soul. It had finished repairing the damages it suffered, and opened its mouth to swallow the schematics. The schematics were unraveled once they were inside Mechanical Soul's stomach. Its soul flame went on to cover the schematics, copied the item and stored it deep within its soul flame.
”So the warship's greatest assembly of mechanical systems are placed right beneath the flooring here then, with the power coming from the core, the magic power furnace.” The Mechanical Soul finished analyzing the schematics in a second and was elated. It would have been able to fuse with the great mechanical assembly right beneath them, giving it control of the entire ship.
Since Saleen did say that it was not to leave the ship without his orders, it would be best for it to simply make the warship its home then. Such a huge assembly of mechanical systems would be able to enhance it to terrifying levels, which would mean...
Darn it! It hardly mattered how powerful it would have gotten! The exterior of that broken jade deep within its soul flame had a flash of electricity jumping, reminding the Mechanical Soul that it belonged to Saleen forever as his slave.Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please clickfor visiting.
”Alright, speak. How can a grand duke have more than a dozen sorcerers under his control?”, the water puppet continued pursuing its original question after asking for the schematics.
”Sir...,” Tam'enm gave a bitter smile and spoke, ”Cloudflow is different from Qin. The lands under control of the royal family are not all that vast. The nobles along the seaside control a great number of islands at the southern seas. Some islands are even the size of ten-thousand square miles. The power of the three grand dukes combined is enough to rival that of the royal family.”
”Nonsense. Why haven't these grand dukes rebelled then?”
”Why would they need to do so? They control everything going on at sea. The royal family hardly has twenty percent of the naval trade profits. If they were to rebel and became emperor, their bases would have to be moved to Misty City, which would diminish their control of the seas. Worse still, their islands might end up being taken by other nobles.”
Saleen was at a loss for words at the moment. While he did have some understanding of Cloudflow's internal affairs, he never would have thought that the royal family had so little control over the nobles. If things were really such, then the plan to invade Cloudflow was to be delayed. The strength of regional nobles had gotten too large, resulting in Cloudflow's invasion of other states being diminished, as very few nobles would sincerely backed the royal family. If external threats were to knock at their doors, the invaders would be required to deal with adamant resistance from the regional nobles.
”Islands with an area of over ten thousand miles wide, eh? Such places are even bigger than Lex's Bitterwater prefecture. No wonder they have so many sorcerers to spare. The ones killed by the water puppet were all grade-7 newbies. These people have probably advanced after power across the entire plane was raised, making them a bunch of weaklings at battle. These sorcerers were probably grade-6, or even grade-5, grand mages just three years prior.
”Tell me then, how powerful is Grand Duke Iron Blood?”, seeing how Saleen did not press on with questioning, the water puppet continued without giving Tam'enm pause or time to think, asking the most direct questions.
”Grand Duke Iron Blood has control over one-hundred islands, and about two-thousand square miles of estate near the sea. More than half of these islands have had no royal documents from the Cloudflow Empire left on them, meaning that these are all the grand duke's personal islands. Even if Cloudflow Empire was to fall, it would have had little effect on him.”
”What I meant was, how many mages does Grand Duke Iron Blood have serving him? What is the size of the population of his lands?”
”The grand duke has about one-thousand mages serving him. It felt weird as of late though. A good bunch of grand mages advanced into the ranks of sorcerers. I'm not quite sure what the grades of the mages serving him are. The people living on his lands are of a population of about twenty-eight-million, according to official records. If you were to count the ones living on the islands, there would probably be even more. From what I heard, the revenue gained from taxes on the islands is more than six times than that collected on land.”
”More than one-thousand mages!”
Saleen was shocked at hearing such numbers, as Cloudflow was not known for having a lot of them. The number of mages serving under the grand duke almost rivaled that of Bitterwater prefecture. About seventy percent of the over one-thousand mages would have been white-robed ones, twenty percent gray-robed ones, and about ten percent being sorcerers.
”That is to say that there are about one-hundred sorcerers serving under Grand Duke Iron Blood!”
That amount of power had greatly exceeded Saleen's imagination.
It seemed that humans across the entire plane were advancing. With that said, the population of the grand duke's territory would definitely have neared one-hundred-million. There would not have been so many mages around otherwise!
”What did you say about Dragon Island again?”
”Grand Duke Iron Blood found ruins of ancient dynasties and discovered methods of keeping giant dragons. Dragon Island is an island specifically made for keeping dragons. This Ancient warship was also found in the ruins. The ancient warriors within have all lost consciousness. There were only eight of the ancient warriors in the entire ship that we were able to control.”
”Eight!” Saleen figured in his mind that that meant there were still three other active warriors lurking in the warship, under someone's control. They would surly attack his people anytime. That would prove troublesome.
Saleen also recalled the time when he first went to Alchemy City, encountering an injured Tiago dragon along the way. The dragon was obviously injured by a powerful one. It was also very possible that the Tiago dragon escaped from Dragon Island.
”Grand Duke Iron Blood is capable of keeping dragons then. Such powers are indeed terrifying!”
More than a dozen drills scurried out of the Mechanical Soul's stomach, intending to drill into the flooring beneath, but its strong spirit metal drills were all rendered half a foot shorter from the drilling, and yet no holes appeared.
The Mechanical Soul then crawled near the magic power furnace, weighing the possibility of eating the gigantic device. The elemental fires burned fiercely still in the furnace, and it triggered the Mechanical Soul's sense of danger. If it was to devour that thing, it would have ended up being assimilated instead.