Another Witch

In the office Roland was swiftly flipping through documents of the past year's trade, taxes, expenditures, inventory, workshops etc. Due to his strong soul, he could scan all the contents in seconds, although it looked like Roland was just casually flipping through the documents, he had already read through everything.

After reading through several documents, Roland frowned. Since Roland had decided to make his base here in Border Town, he needed Border Town to be self-sufficient.

"Why did the Border Town have no trade revenue or annual taxes in the winter?" Roland asked Barov.

"Your Highness, did you forget? The Months of the Demons is during the winter. Since the town cannot guard its borders, all of the residents must evacuate to Longsong Stronghold. But rest assured, your safety is certainly our main priority." Barov couldn't imagine how the prince would not even know of the dangers of the Month of the Demons. No matter how sheltered the prince had lived in the capital, he should have at least some common sense. After all how could a small town of 2000 residents defend against those monstrous demonic beasts? The number mind sound big, but how many of them are able men? Maybe 5-600 could be drafted, but even they were quite thin and suffered from malnutrition. And just a few hundred militia certainly would not stand a chance against those demonic beasts.

"Month of the Demons?" Roland quickly recalled, those demonic beasts should be low grade magic beast equivalents, even a standard army would have difficulties fighting them.

Roland asked several questions and finally had a good understanding of how Border Town's residents survived the winter. They had to seek refuge in Longsong Stronghold, yet many would starve to death in Longsong Stronghold's slums. Only because Reynolds, the Municipal Administrative Governor refused to feed them. No wonder all the residents were looking weak and malnourished. Since Border Town is now Roland's base, he sure would not abandon it and seek refuge in Longsong Stronghold in fear of some mere low grade magic beasts.

To have a better understanding of demonic beasts, Roland summoned several guards who were familiar with demonic beasts.

After getting familiar with demonic beasts and demonic hybrids he dismissed the guards.

"But how will I defend the town..." Roland pondered, it's true that he wouldn't have much trouble casting Rank 1 spells in about 3 weeks, but if as many demonic beasts as Barov had reported will invade Border Town. Then it would be really difficult for him alone to defend, not to mention having to reveal his magic to everyone.

After a long time, Roland finally remembered his old memories from Earth.

"Gunpowder! There's already snow powder, the only difference is it's ratio of sulfur, charcoal and saltpeter. For black gunpowder it's a ratio of 1:1.5:7.5" Roland's memories of his past life on Earth was slightly fuzzy, after all he had lived in the Wizard Realm for over 60 years, and except for the knowledge he used, which was mostly physics and chemistry, he didn't remember other things as well. Luckily gunpowder is a chemical product, thus it was easier for Roland to remember the formula.

Roland ordered Barov to gather a large quantity of sulfur, charcoal and saltpeter. And continued to design a flintlock rifle. Since he had no precise manufacturing machine to produce the guns, he could only let craftsmen craft them by hands. Thus flintlock rifle was chosen.

After finishing the rifle design, he had Barov look up a few capable craftsmen to immediately start crafting.

Now he had the spear, what he needs is a shield, Roland decided to build a wall to defend Border Town.

"I'll take too long to build a stone wall..." Roland thought of building a wall before the Month of the Demons came, which was in 3 months.

"Maybe a brick wall... It'll hold against demonic beasts if it's thick enough, but not demonic hybrids. Luckily there's only about 2 or 3 of them each winter. If only I could implement it with reinforced steel..." Roland decided to build a wall with cement and bricks, since it was the fastest way, and as they only had 3 months left. He couldn't have the masons, who are totally foreign to this new building technique to learn and manage to build a cement wall reinforced with steel. Besides the cost of materials as well as the time needed to transport them to Border Town was questionable. Roland really didn't have enough time. If Roland wanted to build a strong wall with magic, he would have to choose between wood or earth elements, and either of them would need to be of a Rank 3 spell, considering the size of Border Town. And it would be too obvious if a giant and sturdy wooden wall was suddenly erected around Border Town. Roland decided against using magic to build the wall, but he could cast a few support spells to make the wall sturdier if need to be. Though unsure whether he would be able to cast Rank 3 spells in 3 months, Roland cursed the Church yet again for making his use of magic difficult.

Although his Chief Knight objected him staying during winter, Roland insisted, and didn't feel like persuading his knight. This Roland simply ignored Carter.

After several days, Roland had made big improvement, it's been a week and by practicing Belras' Undying Body while washing his body with refined mana made him progress much faster, his body was already compatible with mana, he already started gathering a large amount of refined mana in his body. Of course the refined mana was from Anna as his body is too weak to withstand the berserk mana in the surrounding. Roland reckoned that to use the berserk mana from the surrounding, he would need to atleast reach stage 2 in Belras' Undying Body. At that stage he would be stronger than 10 knights in physique. Due to this reason, he could only use the refined mana he had gathered inside his body to cast spells. And as he don't have much refined mana, since Anna only had as much magic power as a beginner Rank 1 Wizard, Roland couldn't siphon all of Anna's magic power, since she needed alot to practice her power. Roland could at most cast 2 simple Rank 1 spells with his body before running out of mana. Roland wasn't discouraged, because he know that once he reached stage 2 in Belras' Undying Body, his body will automatically absorb mana from his surrounding to supply him. To hasten his improvement he had saved as much mana as possible to fuse with his body cells and trained his body harshly everyday. As such he only had his soul form cast spells using the surrounding berserk mana.

Anna had also made alot of progress, she could now freely control her flame and have it appear from any part of her body. Unfortunately she had no way for her flame to separate from her body.

Since Roland was busy, they practiced less together, but Anna always followed the prince around whenever they weren't practicing. Roland told her that she didn't need to follow him, but since Anna insisted, he just let it go. After all Roland quite liked Anna keeping him company and had started to get used to it now.

Roland had wanted Anna to make the cement, but since Anna had no way to separate her flame, she had to inhale alot of powder during the heating process. As Roland didn't want Anna to get pneumonia he could only have himself cast fire spells, as they currently had no suitable heating tools for producing cement.

...

In Roland's office

Roland had posted on the town square's bulletin board that he was looking for craftsmen to help with constructions.

Karl van Bate was the teacher in Border Town, and also formerly the head of the Mason Guild in King's City. He had come for the stonemason job due to the good pay.

Karl had stepped into the prince's office. He bowed to the prince, in the middle of his salute to the prince, Karl jerked his body. Turning his head to look at the young girl standing behind the prince he was shocked.

"Anna! It's you!" Karl cried emotionally.

Roland was shocked.

"I didn't think someone would recognize her so quickly..." Roland thought while he waved his hand, signaling the guard to block the door.

"Professor... Karl?" Anna spoke with surprise.

Anna explained that Karl was her teacher, while Karl was emotionally touched to be able to see his student again after personally seeing her being 'hanged' for a stupid reason.

"Your Highness, thank you, thank you for saving Anna!" Karl bowed deeply to the prince.

"I'm sincerely apologetic Your Highness, I have forgotten my manners." Karl remembered he had acted out of his manners and quickly bowed again and apologized.

Karl explained his past experiences as a stonemason, the administrative officials in King's City had embezzled several hundred gold royals worth of building materials for the theater, causing the Mason Guild to build a hollow building. The building naturally collapsed and lead to more than 30 stonemasons deaths, and all the blame were put on the head of the Mason Guild. Karl was exiled and the Mason Guild was disbanded.

Roland understood human's greed, nodded his head in agreement. After Karl displayed his ability and had him create a construction plan for building the wall, Roland straightforwardly gave him the leader position for construction, giving him all the rights to decide and plan all constructions.

Before Karl left, he remembered something, there was another student of his that had become a witch. After telling the prince about it he begging the prince to save his student Nana Pine.

"Don't worry I will make sure she'll be alright, bring her to the castle tomorrow. She'll like in the castle like Anna." Roland said happily.

"And you're welcome to visit your students anytime, I'll tell the guards to let you in." Roland continued before sending Karl off.

"Another witch!" Roland smiled.