Pioneer Lord: A Leisurely Imperial Life

Chapter 252 Ancient Trees of War

Edge of the black pine forest.

A wide, flat stone-paved road stretches straight into the depths of the pine forest.

The pine bushes on both sides of the road have obviously been trimmed, with the low and protruding branches cleared away, leaving only the high crowns, creating the charm of a tree-lined avenue.

Darian rode on the spotted rock lizard, looked down at the stone-paved road, then looked up at the end of the road, and couldn't help but sigh.

"This road is really wide! There are even houses for resting on both sides. It's more spacious than the main street of Frost City!"

Baron Blackthorn nodded in agreement.

"To pave such a stone-paved road in the black pine forest, clearing the tree roots alone must have been a major undertaking. Viscount Chiffon must have put in a lot of effort."

Baron Ashvale noticed something else.

"Look at this road surface. The seams are almost invisible. It doesn't look like it was made of stone slabs. It looks like it was made by grinding a whole boulder. This craftsmanship must have used some kind of special magical artifact."

Paul didn't join their discussion; given Chiffon's previous construction speed, building such a road wasn't unusual.

What intrigued him even more was what kind of city lay at the end of the road; Oscar's descriptions were always different, leaving him eager to find out.

...

It was noon.

After running wildly through the black pine forest for several hours, the area suddenly opened up ahead, revealing a vast wilderness at the end of the black pine forest.

On this desolate land, a towering city wall rises from the ground.

The bluish-gray stone bricks were stacked tightly together, reaching a height of at least twelve meters. Above the city gate, a huge storm cloud emblem was spelled out in white seashells.

Inside the city walls, the canopies of more than a dozen giant trees towered far above the top of the walls, their huge leaves layered upon each other, shimmering with a faint fluorescent blue light in the sunlight.

The tree canopy is like a giant umbrella, and on the trunk of one of the trees, there seems to be an exquisite wooden viewing platform with a spiral staircase winding upwards.

Darian restrained the spotted rock lizard, looked up at it for a long while, and then murmured, "The leaves glow, that must be a magic tree, right? It's even taller than the city wall!"

The nobles were all astonished by the dozen or so giant, fluorescent blue trees that were taller than the city walls, and began to whisper among themselves.

There are good places in the far north, such as Blackpine Forest, but they are extremely rare and belong to Frostfox.

In most places, it's considered a blessing if weeds can grow, but here such a huge magical tree has actually grown.

Unbelievable!

Compared to ordinary trees, magic trees are definitely more than just beautiful and aesthetically pleasing.

Tree sap and leaves contain a trace of magic and can be used to make potions. Wood is also the raw material for arrow shafts or some magical items.

Although there are magic trees within the empire, they are relatively few, and consumption cannot keep up with production, so they need to import them from the Golden Forest every year.

This is also why it is difficult for organized marksman squads to develop.

Chiffon City has more than a dozen such tall magic trees, and every once in a while, quite a few branches are pruned off.

From another perspective, this is a money tree; every now and then, a shake of it will cause a lot of coins to fall out!

...

Paul, Melanie, and the other nobles exchanged glances, all of them inadvertently glancing at Earl Golden Lion.

He had previously implied that Chiffon was a newly rich family with no heritage, but he was proven wrong in the blink of an eye by these dozen or so magic trees.

Humans can live for a hundred years or so at most, but trees are different.

The Black Pine Forest is full of ancient pines, not to mention magic trees, which are definitely part of the Chiffon family's heritage.

...

Lawrence, riding on the scorpion-tailed lion, was also completely bewildered; he had seen the ancient war tree of the elves before.

Although these are not the same species, judging from their astonishing height, they must be enormous creatures that have been growing for countless years.

But how is that possible?

This wasteland simply doesn't have the conditions for the magic tree to survive, so where did Chiffon come from?

Could it be that the Wolfman intervened and had the Darkmoon Elves use some kind of secret method to plant it?

It should be impossible.

Even if the elves had that ability, they would only cultivate magical war trees for the Golden Forest, not hand them over to others. Besides, even Wolf Territory doesn't have one!

In comparison, the exaggeratedly tall city wall becomes somewhat inconspicuous.

After all, everyone was invited to attend the opening ceremony, so Qi Feng must have already built a town. Subconsciously, they wouldn't be too surprised by the appearance of this new city.

...

Just then, the city gate slowly opened, and ten knights galloped out on horseback.

They were all unicorns, clad in bright silver magical heavy armor, with tiny frost flowers constantly drifting across the surface of their armor.

The nobles' gazes lingered on the unicorns for a long time.

Ten more!

Including Lucy's unicorn, how many unicorns does Chiffon actually have?!

The Wolves do indeed possess a secret method for taming the Dire Wolves, but even for the Wolves, it would take decades to multiply their pack to its current size.

How long has chiffon cake been around?

Even if they inherited the technique of taming monsters from the wolf and started raising them from scratch, there shouldn't be this many!

Once a certain number is reached, coupled with the secret techniques for taming wolves, these unicorns can be raised in captivity for generations.

hiss...!

In the future, selling unicorns alone will be a considerable fortune, right?

Darian opened his mouth, but seeing that the nobles around him were only exchanging glances and no one spoke first, he swallowed back the words that were on the tip of his tongue.

If Chiffon only had one secret, they would be very curious, but now that Chiffon is full of secrets, continuing to be curious is definitely not a wise choice.

If you look at it from a different perspective, you'll understand. Nobody likes being questioned by a weakling. A minor nobleman has his own self-awareness.

Lucy was different.

She had only seen a small part of the Chiffon Legion, so she simply looked around in amazement along the way.

Her Richard had said that he would tell her the secret after the opening ceremony, which she was very much looking forward to.

...

The lead knight dismounted, removed his helmet, revealing a weathered yet vigorous face.

"Good day, sirs. I am Karl, the commander of the Chiffon Guard. I am here on the orders of the lord to welcome you distinguished guests."

His voice was loud and clear, and he slammed his right fist heavily onto his left breastplate.

"Please hand over your warhorses to my men for temporary shelter, and follow me into the city on foot."

Foreign warhorses are not allowed to enter the city; this is a common rule in all territories of the Star Empire.

So the nobles dismounted their horses and were led by soldiers to a special area outside the city gate.

A sunshade and water troughs had been set up there, and several soldiers were patrolling around the area, clearly indicating that it was specifically set up to receive guests, warhorses, and knights.

"please."

Karl stepped aside to make way, but as the nobles approached the city wall, everyone instinctively slowed their pace.

Because they all vaguely sensed an extremely faint yet unusually stable magical rhythm emanating from deep within the city walls.

It's a magic circle, and it seems to have more than one layer!

What shocked them even more was that these magic circles did not seem to be activated temporarily, but rather seemed to be integrated with the city walls, circulating on their own under some kind of mechanism.

There are only two explanations for this situation.

Either there's some extremely powerful defensive device continuously operating beneath the city walls.

Either a bunch of magic circles are set up, which will exist permanently unless they are destroyed by human intervention or the magic power is insufficient.

Regardless of which one it is, it signifies that Chiffon's accumulated expertise in the field of magical technology far exceeds everyone's imagination.

yes...

Chiffon has dozens of war mages, and it's rumored that Viscount Richard has even improved the war magic, which seems to be true!

Renowned author Zang Tianmin has joined Cola Novels with his new work, "The Pioneer Lord: A Leisurely Imperial Life"!