Time passed by relentlessly, and in the blink of an eye, three full days flew by quickly. During these three intensive days, Raymond had transformed into the most hardworking donkey in the entire town.
It was not like he actually wanted to exhaust himself to this extreme degree, but he simply had no other choice if he wanted to survive. The previous Raymond’s public reputation was a total, absolute mess, and the local townspeople all hated his very name to the bone.
Because of this severe hostility, Raymond spent these three days constantly moving about the ruined streets, organizing a systematic distribution of the castle’s remaining food resources directly to the starving citizens.
This calculated act of charity successfully alleviated a small portion of the deep-seated hatred the people held for him, giving him the baseline room he needed to operate.
Apart from ensuring that he established a more favorable image in the eyes of his subjects, another critical reason why he was working himself to the bone was because he desperately needed manpower to work on the basin farm.
Gideon and Harlan could not possibly cultivate that massive fifteen-hectare plot of land entirely on their own, especially in their frail, emaciated physical conditions.
He needed a significant influx of healthy, able-bodied laborers to turn the soil and plant the seeds before the frost arrived.
Furthermore, Raymond had spent a large portion of his time actively searching through the slums for any citizens who possessed enough blacksmithing or woodworking experience to forge simple farming tools for the project.
He knew that without proper tools, the entire agricultural expansion would grind to a sudden halt.
Luckily, because of his sudden change in behavior over those three days, the townspeople began to view their lord in a slightly different light.
They certainly did not trust him completely yet, but they could clearly see that he was genuinely changing for the better, and that small shift was more than enough for Raymond’s current plans.
With the ice broken, he successfully recruited about a hundred local people to go out and work on the basin farm.
The precise reason why he had to choose such a massive number of laborers was because the townspeople were all practically walking skin and bones, lacking any real physical stamina.
He didn’t even dare to let them work for more than two hours at a time; instead, he skillfully split them into small teams, rotated them every single hour, and stationed a few loyal guards around the perimeter to ensure that nothing went wrong during the shift.
Apart from managing the physical labor, during these identical three days, a strange rumor began to systematically spread across every corner of the town.
The rumor claimed that Raymond was actually a sacred, chosen Divine Emissary of the Goddess of Life, sent to deliver the barony from the brink of total annihilation.
Naturally, none of the ordinary citizens believed the rumors at first, even though Gideon and Harlan fiercely confirmed the story to anyone who would listen.
All of this was operating exactly according to Raymond’s calculated plan, as he knew that the cynical, starving populace would not blindly accept a miracle without visible proof.
He did not care about their initial skepticism; he just needed to put that little seed of doubt into their hollow hearts, and that seed was already beginning to grow rapidly in the minds of the hundred laborers after they traveled to the basin and witnessed with their own eyes how the barren earth had miraculously transformed into rich, black loam.
On a small, freshly raised wooden platform erected at the edge of the vast farming basin, Raymond stood tall against the dry, howling wasteland wind.
Little Lily stood directly by his side, her tiny hands clutching her massive, baggy maid uniform to keep it from blowing over her head in the heavy drafts.
His three towering Silver Rank knights stood like immovable steel pillars at the outer perimeter of the platform, their sleek, dark armor reflecting the intense glare of the afternoon sun.
Stationed right below the wooden stage was Captain Boris along with a dozen of his newly converted, fiercely loyal guard units, all of them holding their iron spears at perfect attention.
Before the raised platform stood a massive, silent crowd of over a hundred malnourished townspeople, with Gideon and Harlan standing proudly at the very front of the assembly.
The citizens all looked up at Raymond with deep confusion and intense curiosity swirling in their dull, yellowed eyes, completely unsure of why they had been gathered here today.
Raymond looked out over the crowded field of skin and bones, a soft, composed smile spreading across his face as he prepared to execute the final phase of his agricultural loop.
He stood perfectly still, letting the dramatic silence hang over the basin for a few moments to maximize the psychological tension of the crowd. He slowly raised his left hand toward the clear, cloudless sky, maintaining a perfectly elegant, priest-like demeanor that commanded absolute attention.
Internally, however, Raymond was already accessing the deep recesses of his system interface, his consciousness tapping directly into the glowing blue inventory screen.
He bypassed the summoning tickets and the land metrics, focusing his mind entirely on the blurred milestone reward he had successfully unlocked after converting the two farmers.
With a silent mental command, Raymond triggered the extraction process, causing the golden blur over the item slot to instantly dissolve into a cascade of pristine text lines.
A sudden, sharp digital chime rang out inside his brain, accompanied by a massive, semi-transparent notification prompt that manifested right before his eyes.
[ Ding! ]
[ Item in use: The Descent of the Verdant Rain (Consumable) ]
[ Description: A high-tier elemental world-building card. Upon activation, it permanently overrides the local atmospheric
pressure of a barren region, summoning a localized, nutrient-infused rainstorm over a 5-square-kilometer radius. The water
generated is enriched with high-density mana, accelerating root absorption and guaranteeing the rapid growth of the crops. ]
[ Do you, the Host, want to utilize this card right now?]
[Yes] / [ No ]
Raymond stared at the magnificent green and gold script of the system interface, his heart rate spiking with pure, unadulterated exhilaration.
This unique card was the ultimate solution to the massive water crisis that had been threatening to ruin his entire agricultural blueprint.
With this artifact, he could completely bypass the dry, hostile climate of the Zulor Region and force life into the soil.
He didn’t hesitate for even a single millisecond. He raised his right index finger and slammed it directly against the glowing blue [ Yes ] icon floating in the air.Instantly, the cold, mechanical voice of the system echoed deep within his mind, locking the command into the territory metrics.
[ Ding! Command acknowledged. ’The Descent of the Verdant Rain’ is officially in use. Commencing localized atmospheric restructuring. ]