Chapter 884 - 109: Festival Summary and Massive Profits

Hearing Vandar’s introduction, Su Li’s eyes lit up, and he asked, "Are a large number of Medical Knights joining our territory?"

Vandar nodded solemnly and explained, "This is an unexpected gain for us. Initially, when we organized the Radiant Competition Festival, we thought it would mainly attract followers of the Sun Goddess. But surprisingly, in terms of absolute proportion, it was the Medical Knights who overwhelmingly joined the territory. We suspect it could be related to the territory’s large herbal production."

This guess makes sense. After all, the Knights of the Sun Goddess can undergo trials anywhere. Members of large knight orders, like the Flame Sun Knight Order, have specialized trial paths and will be distributed to farms, waystations, and other places to test their abilities. After the Holy Great Expedition began, they were more inclined to join the Bauhinia Expeditionary Corps than to join directly in the Hesse Territory.

On the contrary, members of the Medical Knight Order tend to settle in a large territory stably. In this aspect, the Hesse Territory has a great advantage. Whether it’s the dense Wind of Jilun from the Holy Purple Vine Tree or the vast spirit medicine fields, all are suitable for Medical Knights to improve themselves.

Vandar then provided a very exciting figure: "During just the Radiant Competition Festival, nine Elite Level Medical Knights, fourteen Formal Medical Knights, and twenty-three Apprentice Level Medical Knights joined our territory, and the followers of Shalya are more than a hundred."

This is truly a delightful number, as the number of Medical Knights is almost equal to a warband (60 people).

With their followers, they could help open a hospital for the territory, at least shaping and staffing the hospital in Flash Spear City.

Then Su Li asked, "How many other knights and population have joined the territory?"

Oliver replied, "Since the day before yesterday, applications and population joining our territory have been steadily increasing. So far, we have absorbed over 500 knights and over 2,000 people."

This scale is indeed very considerable, reaching almost one-tenth of the visiting crowd.

There is no doubt that the territory is still very attractive to followers of the Sun Goddess. In the face of such an exemplary land, a large number of knights are willing to settle here and bask in the more intense Divine Grace.

An increase of over 2,000 in a single cycle is an enormous gain that Su Li couldn’t have imagined last year.

Su Li immediately instructed, "Try to disperse these people. Assign them some land in White Castle, Flash Spear City, and Blood Pine Forest, encouraging them to expand our strongholds."

The progress at White Castle is racing ahead, and it can support the development of even larger-scale animal husbandry around it.

The Shepherds of the Hesse Territory can now be regarded as an important force of the territory. Currently, the territory hasn’t mobilized them, but if they did, a few squadrons of Shepherd Corps could be formed. They use slings to throw stones from afar and carry a type of long axe popular in the Empire’s eastern province for close combat. It features a small, light head and a long handle. For over a thousand years, mountain folk from the Empire’s Black Mountains and World’s Edge Mountains have carried such axes as hiking staffs and used them as weapons against beastmen and bandits.

The key is that once White Castle is fully established, with thriving animal husbandry on the northern highlands of Gao Liang, these Shepherds could act as a maintenance-free force, able to muster a thousand men at any time. With such a formation, the territory could be said to have firmly established itself in the Bloody Highlands.

Oliver was very attentive to this aspect and promptly responded, "Lord, our Provincial Affairs Council will do our utmost to arrange all these matters, strengthening our comprehensive management capability over the entire territory."

Su Li trusted Oliver’s capability, nodded, and said, "The specifics of governance are in your hands, the Provincial Affairs Council. Please continue to report the financial gains during the Radiant Competition Festival."

This was his most important achievement, so he immediately straightened up and, with pride, detailed the information: "Firstly, our revenue from this competition festival mostly came from the casino, where we earned over 21,000 Golden Crowns directly from the casino."

Su Li took a deep breath. More than 21,000 directly? Does that mean a daily average revenue of about 3,000 Golden Crowns?

This implies that the wagered amount must have been at least 800,000! It might even have reached a million-level turnover.

Seeing Su Li’s face full of shock, Oliver explained, "Lord, the wealth circulating in our territory couldn’t possibly reach a million. According to the Provincial Affairs Council’s estimates, the sum of gold coins and wealth generated since the creation of our territory is around 300,000."

"The reason we could collect so many Golden Crowns is that these wagers circulate in the arena daily, allowing us to charge multiple fees. It’s like a sieve filtering fine sand. With a lot of soil on top, constantly moving back and forth, it eventually sifts out a great deal of fine sand. These fine sands are the fees we collect. After several rounds of filtering, the circulating wealth in the arena diminishes steadily, with substantial amounts of wealth being drawn by us."

This vividly explains why gamblers, no matter how much they win initially, end up losing it all—the house always welcomes gamblers, for eventually, regardless of their winnings, most wealth flows to the house.