The Cornflower Witch

Sinking Fog Season, Year One · Fog Spring

Spring had arrived, but without the refreshing clarity of life-giving rain from years past. The land remained shrouded in a hazy mist. If there was any difference to speak of, it was perhaps the crystalline dew that had gathered on the blades of grass.

After Sylutia led her people back to the Mage Alliance, a steady stream of supplies flowed from the Mage Alliance to the borders of the Hidden Grove Alliance. There, the two sides conducted trade and exchange, bartering produced mechanical creations and goods for large quantities of grain crops.

The food provided to the Mage Alliance was considerable, but due to the lack of suitable and convenient transportation, the transport process incurred significant losses. Often, for every three portions of food prepared, only one would reach the border—the other two were consumed along the way.

Most of the Hidden Grove Alliance's nations were situated in mountainous regions and forests. In the past, they had been self-sufficient in food production, so such concerns never arose. But now, if they wished to transport food out, they required substantial manpower and animal labor. Those massive pack beasts, though capable of carrying great loads, also consumed enormous amounts of rations and fodder.

"...That's why mechanical creations for increasing crop yields need to be put into use as soon as possible." The Blue Witch said this to Sylutia.

"I understand." Sylutia nodded in agreement.

Over the following week, she and a group of mages began teaching the local residents how to use machinery for plowing, sowing, and harvesting. Throughout the process, quite a few wizards and witches came by to observe, driven by curiosity.

Out in the fields, once the steam engine was started, the iron plow began to turn, continuously churning up clumped soil and breaking it apart. Underground weed roots and insect eggs were flipped up and rolled over, mixed with straw, and then removed through burning.

Next came sowing. The machine would punch out a furrow, then automatically drop grain seeds into it. Before long, a field spanning tens of thousands of square meters was fully planted.

Then there was the issue of irrigation. This required specialized digging machinery to construct channels for diverting water, along with water pumps to extract groundwater for use.

Though mages had never been particularly skilled in agriculture, the use of mechanized tools had indeed greatly improved production efficiency over the past two years, allowing fields that were previously impossible to cultivate by manpower alone to be brought under the plow.

𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

"It's really astonishing. In just two short days, the cultivation of such a large plot of land was completed." A wizard marveled.

"But these things aren't cheap either. It's fine now during the Sinking Fog season when grain prices are high, but once the Trade Wind Season arrives and grain prices drop, using machinery might not be cost-effective anymore." Someone assessed.

"Who knows? The Sinking Fog season still has sixteen years left. Let's just get through the immediate crisis first."

"Actually, over here in the Hidden Grove, we don't urgently need machinery to expand production. If it weren't for trading with them, our self-sufficiency would be more or less sufficient."

"That's true, but aside from machinery, the resources provided by the mages are considerable too—especially things like gems and metals."

"Have you heard? Several Lizardmen lords from the Redwood Marshland have come to blows over the precious gems shipped in by the Mage Alliance. Quite a few small skirmishes have broken out, and several Lizardmen tribes have drawn blood over it."

"Ah, over there—Lizardmen inherited the True Dragons' obsession. They have no resistance to gems and gold."

"It's actually a result of their local environment, I think. In the swamp jungles, many things easily rot and corrode. Only gems and gold resist decay. In many Lizardmen tribes, proposing marriage requires a gold necklace. The locals place great importance on that."

"The Lion Covenant is much the same. They took a large portion of the metal the Mage Alliance shipped this time, mostly to forge weapons and armor. Who could resist a heavy, razor-sharp battle axe? In the eyes of a beastman, that's the most praiseworthy thing imaginable."

"The Knight Sanctum has it a bit better. Though we also need weapons and armor, in the past most were forged by our own hands. This time it only meant fewer options and supplements—not much of an impact."

"The Golden Harvest Horn places more value on the Mage Alliance's daily necessities—things like fresh-keeping boxes, fog-purification devices, indoor temperature regulators, music boxes, fashionable clothing styles, and so on. Oh, and weapons and cannons too—we're very fond of those."

"There's a delegation from the Golden Harvest Horn stationed just outside the forest sea right now. We've been busy learning how to operate those machines and inquiring about the uses of various new inventions."

Amid the chatter, after a few rounds of mechanized farming instruction, many of the trainees quickly grasped how to operate the machinery.

Two weeks later, official mages were no longer needed for such teaching and training—many apprentices could handle the instruction themselves. Sylutia also found herself with more free time, and began discussing with the mages who had come along how to compile basic educational materials and conduct introductory science lessons for the children.

Three months later, several basic machinery operation manuals were compiled and published, detailing operating procedures, safety precautions, the functions of each component, and simple maintenance methods. Anyone who was literate and had received basic education could understand them.

But even so, teaching these farmers still required literate, educated individuals—a resource that was scarce in the countryside.

"Popularizing mechanized agriculture is still a long and arduous road." Sylutia sighed as she summarized the results of these past few months.

Everything was interconnected—one move affected the whole. Only when you actually got down to doing it did you realize it wasn't so easy.

In truth, many of the machines transported by the Mage Alliance this time were intended for industrial production as well, but there were equally many problems there.

Take, for example, the large steel-smelting equipment. First, starting such equipment consumed massive amounts of metal ore. If production was halted midway, the cost of restarting and maintaining it was extremely high.

So how did one obtain large quantities of ore? That required large-scale mines, which meant organizing large numbers of miners and establishing suitable transportation to haul the raw materials from distant locations. Yet most nations within the Hidden Grove Alliance lacked smooth, level roads.

Building such roads was a massive project in itself. "If you want to get rich, build roads first"—truly a maxim of timeless wisdom. Not a single step of the development path traveled in the past could be skipped.

Furthermore, starting any large-scale project required people with basic education. Basic education wasn't just about literacy and reading comprehension; the collective learning and living experience in schools also cultivated the most fundamental sense of cooperation—knowing to follow arrangements, not to act recklessly on one's own, and to work according to standards.

Otherwise, things you took for granted were things that wild-growing humans simply didn't understand or couldn't do.

In human cities and towns, such manpower was relatively easy to find. But once you ventured deep into the mountains, among the barbarians, beastmen, Lizardmen, and other races living in tribal societies, there was absolutely no such awareness. They even resented knowledge, because learning was actually an unpleasant process that required constant thinking and effort—whereas hunting and fighting with claws and blades felt far more straightforward and satisfying.

After surveying conditions across the Hidden Grove's various regions, within just a few short months, Sylutia had abandoned many of her previously planned projects, replacing them with more practical and feasible plans.

In short—build the road first.

Sylutia wrote this line in her notebook.