After Li De’s order to rebuild the Lionmane Tribe was conveyed, Harrison immediately arranged for City Hall to handle it.
City Hall had already established an efficient administrative mechanism. Any order issued by him, no matter what it was, had to be processed with top priority at once.
This absolute control over Dawn City allowed Li De’s will to be carried out in the best way. As the great dictatorial boss, the direction of Dawn City’s development was always firmly in his hands.
Moreover, the advantage of Li De establishing this system was that he didn’t need to personally deal with these trivial matters at all times. He only needed to check the progress periodically.
This was the advantage of being the boss.
Once Craig began preparations to head to the Barren Plains to rebuild the Lionmane Tribe, Li De thought of another matter that had been weighing on his mind.
“Harrison, how much iron ore do we currently have in reserve?”
Li De had always been preoccupied with running water. Apart from the livestock farm, Dawn City had never been able to build it.
The moment he heard Li De’s question, Harrison immediately understood what he was thinking and shook his head.
“Patriarch, although the Giant Valley has brought in a large number of beastmen to mine ore, our consumption is also extremely high. Half of our previous stockpile was used to forge armor for the patrol squads.
Especially after you established the Blade of Kings, we’ve stored even more armor and weapons.
Additionally, the dwarves have recently been working on improving our farming tools. At present, they’re forging large quantities of new equipment.
And just now, you issued an order to forge 2,000 sets of armor and weapons for the rebuilt Lionmane Tribe.”
Sure enough, hearing this, Li De immediately felt a headache.
You don’t know how difficult it is to run a household until you manage one yourself.
Although the Blade of Kings was a newly formed army primarily composed of humans, drawing from the foundation of the patrol squads, since it had already been established as a formal army, naturally he wouldn’t leave it idle forever. So it was perfectly normal to prepare armor and weapons in advance.
And there was no need to say more about farming tools. As key productive assets, the more advanced they were, the better. Coupled with the order he had just given, even though the Giant Valley’s iron ore output was high, consumption was obviously even higher, so not only had the reserves not increased, they were now almost gone.
After Harrison finished reciting the long list of places that required steel, Li De was momentarily speechless.
The importance of running water to a city was beyond question. This wasn’t merely about convenience, it could provide tremendous benefits in all areas.
Not only could it greatly save time and improve labor efficiency, but it was also indispensable for industry.
“Patriarch, didn’t you say before that we’d wait until after the Months of Deep Winter, after we’d seized more population, before we began constructing the running water system?” Harrison asked, somewhat puzzled.
Li De shook his head with an exasperated smile. Who told him to have spent ten days back on Earth?
At night, when he turned on the tap and instantly had hot water, life was ten thousand times more convenient than having servants fetch water just to take a bath.
Having grown used to such comfort, returning to Dawn City’s primitive environment felt unbearably awkward in every way, never mind that running water would bring immense benefits to the entire city.
For such infrastructure construction, the earlier it was built, the better.
“Running water is so convenient. Sooner is better than later. I believe you’ll come to love having it in your daily life.”
Harrison shook his head. “Patriarch, I can use water magic.”
Li De’s face stiffened. He had forgotten that, although Harrison didn’t like offensive spells, his progress in learning support spells far surpassed his own.
“Forget it, we can’t touch the iron reserves, I’ll think of another way.”
He refused to believe that, without one butcher, he couldn’t eat pork without bristles.
Finding an excuse to send Harrison out of the office, Li De returned to Earth.
He immediately picked up the phone and called the Data Analysis Division of Crimson Moon, explaining the difficulty he was facing.
Of course, he didn’t reveal any information about Dawn City. He only asked them to think of a way to construct running water in a city lacking steel in Glory.
He had to admit, this was money well spent, hundreds of millions in funding had not been wasted.
In just a dozen minutes, the Data Analysis Division combined the information he provided and came up with several reasonably feasible solutions.
First, find a suitable plant, such as bamboo, and use magic to make it more durable so it could function as piping.
Second, find suitable animal intestines, and similarly treat them with magic to replace pipes.
Third, directly melt rock with magic to use in place of steel as water pipes.
Li De was immediately drawn to the third suggestion.
Yes, he could use magic to melt rock to carve out reservoirs halfway up the mountain, so why couldn’t he also melt rock to create water pipes?
On Earth, steel was chosen for water pipes because it was durable, easy to manufacture, and cheap.
But Glory was different, its steel was a strategic resource used for forging weapons. Under such resource scarcity, it was perfectly reasonable to find substitutes.
Melt rock to forge water pipes, it sounded absurd on Earth, but here it was perfectly viable.
And he didn’t even need to make them all of stone, only the underground sections needed to be replaced with rock. Once the pipes connected to households, he could swap them for steel, avoiding the problem of stone being fragile or too heavy.
Doing it this way could save at least 90% of the steel consumption.
The most important point was that rock was everywhere. Even if some pipes were damaged, it would be easy to find replacements.
They wouldn’t even need blacksmiths for this step. They could simply create a mold, pour in molten rock, let it cool, then assemble the sections and melt the ends together with magic to fuse them.
Compared to welding, this was ten thousand times better.
And how durable was rock? Steel could rust, but stone wouldn’t change much even after a thousand years of use.
This wild idea made Li De feel the money he had spent was worth every coin.
Returning to Dawn City, he couldn’t wait to summon Harrison back with a trace of excitement.