Chapter 175: Establishing the Root

Owen, feeling at ease, ate, slept, and lived his life. After a while, seeing that his Progress Value had mostly recovered, he decided to build the portal.

In reality, Owen didn’t need a portal to return to that world, as there was already a portal there for positioning, but others couldn’t use it.

Moreover, if Owen went there and wanted to come back, he would have to lock onto Ai Mi Er again.

If he happened to encounter her bathing, it would be fine, but if she was in the toilet or with Bella, Owen couldn’t even imagine the scene. It would probably leave a long-lasting psychological scar.

Furthermore, Owen planned to develop that world, and he couldn’t do it without solving the transportation issue.

Owen had built a portal once before, so doing it again was a piece of cake. It was completed quickly. The next step wasn’t difficult either, because Samui and Shinobi had Owen’s mark on them. After activating the portal, they followed the passage that opened between the two doors and arrived in this world. The price was that Owen’s newly recovered Ancient Bloodline fell dormant once more.

Obviously, this method was only suitable for a small number of people unless Owen could improve the portal.

The problem was that this technology was too advanced. Owen first tried to imitate it, then had Warm Baby continuously calculate, and then repeatedly experimented in the Domain. In the end, he only solved the most basic stability and positioning issues, and this was still relying on his own Ancient Bloodline. Otherwise, it would take forever to see any results.

Therefore, perfecting the portal was not something that could be achieved in a short period.

Moreover, even a true portal could only perform spatial teleportation within the same world. To cross worlds, he still had to rely on the Ancient Bloodline and the Interdimensional Gate. This meant that Owen needed to fuse the two, and the difficulty of this was off the charts.

But there was no need to rush now, because both territories in the two worlds were developing well, and there was no need for large-scale mutual support.

The most significant meaning of the other world, besides gathering precious resources, was that it provided Owen with a fallback option.

His previous concerns stemmed from the fear of being targeted with nowhere to run.

Now he was not afraid. Even if he was cornered or faced with a life-threatening situation, he could just cross over. There would always be a chance to start anew.

With the coordinates of the other world and the ability to cross over at any time, Owen felt much more at ease and had fewer worries. He even planned to delegate more authority to Flame Empress and Maya, letting these two women, one real and one virtual, handle things while he only needed to be their strong backing.

Of course, although he said that, it didn’t mean Owen would completely let go and ignore everything. He wasn’t that foolish; otherwise, he wouldn’t have chosen to summon Samui and Shinobi across worlds.

Firstly, he had Samui establish the territory’s intelligence organization, named Root.

Forget the name, just the fact that Owen specifically exchanged for these two female ninjas showed that he didn’t trust the Black Hand, and that was the truth.

Who would dare to entrust intelligence to others? The Black Hand was allowed to remain in the territory only because the territory’s intelligence network was almost non-existent.

But just because it didn’t exist now didn’t mean it wouldn’t exist in the future. Owen naturally had to plan ahead.

As for why he exchanged for two female ninjas, who would exchange for two males given the choice?

Next, Owen planned to expand the first floor of the dungeon as the base for Root and transfer the authority over the ninjas and witch hunters to Root.

This was far from enough. Besides facilities and equipment, personnel was the key to an organization’s growth and development. So, in addition to expanding the ninja team, Owen also planned to train the next generation of witch hunters, making Root grow larger and larger until it could deter the entire dark world. At that time, he would be known as the man with the massive Root, a legendary man.

As for ninjas, he could exchange for them or train them in that world. The Tenshu had buildings for ninja training. However, they were not as elite as the exchanged ninjas and could at most be considered stealthy shinobi, suitable for use in specific environments like forests at night. However, they were sufficient as cannon fodder.

Witch hunters were a bit troublesome; their number depended on the number of witches in the territory.

Moreover, the territory needed to cultivate its own magic users. It was impossible to train all of them into witch hunters wielding a longsword in one hand and a magic potion in the other.

It seemed that the territory needed to increase its recruitment of witches and try to increase their number. This task could be entrusted to Ai Mi Er, or they could be purchased through the Black Hand, as human trafficking was also part of smuggling.

It had to be said that having women was great. After Owen thought of these things, he could just delegate them.

However, he couldn’t be idle either. He had to familiarize himself with the territory’s development and changes, establish Root, and adjust some of the territory’s development issues. Owen, who had originally wanted to live off his women, had to become busy.

Although he had a fallback option, unless absolutely necessary, Owen was unwilling to abandon everything he had built and start over. So, development was possible, but it had to be cautious.

For example, Maya’s planned city construction. Currently, the territory’s population had exceeded five thousand, barely qualifying as a small city. However, as long as the city walls hadn’t been upgraded, it couldn’t be considered a true city, because only something impervious to an army could be called a city.

But Maya also had concerns. Because anything Owen could think of, she would only think of more.

However, compared to Owen’s concern about provoking a backlash and siege from the Northland Barbarians, Maya considered the Empire more. Because she was very clear about the significance of the first city in the Northland.

It could be said that as long as they controlled the first city in the Northland and formed a chain of interests around it, they could control at least thirty percent of the entire Northland’s interests.

Such enormous benefits, even the Empire wouldn’t ignore them, let alone the greedy nobles and various forces.

Therefore, the territory must have the military strength to confront an army of over ten thousand, enough high-level combat power, magic users, abundant financial resources, sufficient material reserves, and most importantly, allies with enough weight in the Empire to help mediate. Only then would they be qualified to maintain their sovereignty.

Even then, they would have to share at least fifty percent of the benefits to weave a strong web of interests.

Even Maya didn’t dare to be careless in any of these aspects. A slight oversight could put the territory in danger of destruction.

Therefore, Maya was actually holding back on the territory’s development, not daring to utilize too many of the mechanical puppets in the dungeon.

In Maya’s plan, it would take at least five years to accumulate foundation and find suitable allies.

Maya wasn’t too worried about military strength and resources. Although she didn’t know how her master had done it, the continuous flow of troops and resources gave her some confidence. Otherwise, she would have arranged a marriage for her master long ago.

An early marriage would have put the guest in a dominant position, after all, a small Northland Viscount wasn’t really anything.

Although this would mean losing some sovereignty, at least it would preserve the Hydra family.

But once a city was built, it meant the Hydra family gained the initiative and had more options.

Her master’s mystery gave Maya the capital to gamble, but Owen didn’t know any of this yet.

However, the two of them had a consensus on accumulating foundation and diverting attention.

The territory’s development, at least on the surface, must proceed steadily, making people estimate that it would take at least five to ten years before it was ripe for picking. Then, even if there were no enemies, they had to find some, making outsiders mistakenly believe that the territory was in trouble. Only in this way would they not actively cause trouble for the territory.

At the same time, they needed to find suitable allies as soon as possible.

Allies within the Empire were a must. Otherwise, once Owen built a city, some people could directly accuse him of siding with the barbarians and send an army to suppress him. This wasn’t impossible, but rather very likely. Therefore, they needed someone in the Empire’s political circles to speak up for them.

With sufficient strength and someone to mediate within the Empire, the Hydra family could truly rise to prominence.