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Chapter 257: Divine Walls of Elestria
[Name: Divine Walls of Elestria
Description: Elestria was a great city of the past, with walls as white as snow that, strangely, never seemed to get dirty. They were equipped with various fortifications, including several functional mana cannons and arrays that formed powerful barriers capable of holding off even sixth-stage warriors for several days.
The wall is made of a mixture of white concrete reinforced with refined steel to impart magical metallic properties.
The current wall possesses only one of the five fragments of its core. Gather the other fragments to restore it to its full power.
The wall is ten meters high and three meters wide.
Price: 1,000 gold coins per KM.
Effect: +30% morale, +200% magical density within the wall’s interior, + 500 prestige for the Lord.
Note: A magical vein is required for this wall to function!]
Ethan didn’t hesitate for a single moment upon reading that it would boost the density of mana and aura within the walls.
That was a wall that would normally cost millions.
The reason it was so cheap boiled down to two things: the fact its power was just a fragment of the past, and the need for a magical vein.
His fingers moved nimbly, clicking to purchase it on the spot.
But of course, before finalizing the purchase, he first had to decide where Goldenveil’s new wall would stand.
At present, Goldenveil occupied a narrow strip of land roughly five kilometers long, squeezed between the Eternal Mountains on one side and Lake Azur on the other.
Ethan was still a little hesitant to seal off that passage completely, but after a moment of pondering, he concluded it was the best choice.
After all, he still had the system’s protection against outside threats, and by the time that protection lifted, he’d already be strong enough to defend his region on his own.
With his lips curving into a satisfied smile, Ethan began sketching out the future of his city.
First, he marked out the inner ring, a five-kilometer wall that embraced the Eternal Mountains like a stone necklace.
Next, he traced the middle ring, which began at the base of the mountains and encircled both the inner ring and the current built area of Goldenveil.
Upon reaching Lake Azur, the middle ring curved inward, running across the snow-white sands until the circle was complete.
Aligned along the edge of this wall, steel towers rose a few hundred meters into the lake, connected to the main wall by floating concrete walkways held up by colossal pillars.
Massive steel chains stretched between them, sealing off the harbor and blocking any attempt at invasion from the water.
This ring extended five kilometers beyond the mountains before closing in on a gate that stretched for another five kilometers.
Finally, the outer ring expanded both east and west, closing perfectly around a gigantic region. This time, the entire lakeshore was sealed off by imposing walls.
In total, the noble ring measured five kilometers, the civilian ring fifteen, and the outer ring twenty-five.
Together, they made up forty-five kilometers of walls and roughly one hundred sixty square kilometers of protected ground—an immense space capable of sheltering hundreds of thousands of people.
It seemed ridiculously large and impossible to defend, but in truth, they would only need to protect the outer wall—and more specifically, a particular section of it—since the lake and the mountains safeguarded the rest.
Goldenveil could mobilize two thousand five hundred men to any of these walls at a moment’s notice, and those men would only need to defend a section roughly five kilometers long.
That, of course, assumed an attack from only one direction.
It was a considerable challenge, but given their current strength and the enemies Goldenveil would face in the near future, they would be up to the task.
A sizable portion of the inner space would also be set aside for food production. At least for now, the Eternal Forest was far too dangerous for ordinary farmers to work outside the walls in safety.
With those changes, Goldenveil would stretch eleven kilometers from east to west and five from north to south. A second-stage warrior at full sprint could cross it from end to end in just six minutes.
A fourth-stage warrior could do the same in mere seconds.
With that in mind, Ethan didn’t hold back on the wall’s size.
Finally, without further hesitation, he clicked to complete the purchase and stepped back, eager to see what would happen next.
[You have purchased 45 km of Elestria’s Divine Walls for 45,000 gold coins!]
[Resources along the wall’s path will be extracted at a fifty percent efficiency rate, totaling 4 million tons of wood.]
[Attention! Sewer system detected. Do you wish to integrate it into the wall?]
[Attention! Urbanization blueprint found. Do you wish to integrate it into the wall?]
[Attention! Magic vein found! Do you wish to integrate it into the wall?
The integration cost for the magic vein is 2,000 gold coins for integration into the walls only and 20,000 gold coins for full integration.]
Ethan smiled as he read the final notification, his eyes sparkling with excitement.
Goldenveil, it seemed, would never have to worry about magic cores again!
Now, all those cores could go straight to Windmere, which would need them far more than Goldenveil ever would.
Without further hesitation, Ethan clicked to integrate everything, dropping a total of seventy thousand gold coins in the process.
At that moment, a wave of pure mana swept across all of Goldenveil, rippling through the air like an unseen tide.
The population froze in place, eyes wide with astonishment, as the walls began transforming before them out of nowhere.
The stone walls started radiating an intense blue light that pulsed like a living heart. With every pulse, a low, resonant hum trembled through the stone.
As if by magic, the wall began stretching beyond the reach of the eye, shifting in shape and size.
New sections sprouted from the ground as if cultivated by the earth itself, soil parting and stone rising in their wake.
They climbed far more imposingly than before, reaching the promised height of ten meters and gleaming under the sunlight like freshly fallen snow.
Several defensive towers rose around each of the three walls, their sharp peaks piercing the sky.
Two gates appeared to the east and west of the outer wall. The same happened on the middle wall, where two more gates emerged in perfect alignment with the first—along with a third that opened toward the beaches where the future port of Goldenveil would be built.
The noble ring had a single gate, aligned with the one leading to the harbor.
There were two main avenues in total. The first ran east to west, splitting the city perfectly in half.
The second ran north to south, stretching from the harbor to the heart of Goldenveil, where Ethan planned to build his palace.
The avenues stretched twelve meters wide—wide enough for four wagons to travel side by side—and were flanked by broad sidewalks. Both avenues and sidewalks were paved with elegant basalt cobblestones.
The entire population stopped what they were doing, gazing at the walls with wonder in their eyes.
Only Doran’s heart sank, his face twisting with horror.
How the hell was he supposed to defend all of that?
Apparently, it was time for Goldenveil to embark on the most aggressive expansion in its short history—growing the population, recruiting more soldiers, and finally forming the city’s first full legion.