Chapter 84: Reflection
With the house elf preceding them, upon seeing the slime maid, the three of them managed to maintain their composure, but their actions involuntarily became much lighter, and at the same time, they felt more restrained, which was precisely what Owen desired.
The true history of the Hydra family only spanned twenty years, which was practically a joke. Therefore, Owen needed to create an air of mystery to establish his authority. Otherwise, even displaying his strength would be far from sufficient.
As the facade of the castle, the hall, after Maya’s numerous renovations, embodied the essence of understated luxury. Especially the magical items and furniture from Hogwarts, with histories ranging from centuries to millennia, made the three men, seeing them for the first time, understand what true heritage meant. They could no longer regard the Hydra family as a Northland noble family with shallow roots.
Could this be the alternate account of some great noble family?!
Not only Howard, but even Correns had this thought surface in their minds.
At this moment, Owen was in his study, waiting for time to pass. Due to the disparity in status, even if he had nothing to do, he couldn’t appear so quickly. Otherwise, wouldn’t it make him seem cheap? Moreover, the air of mystery he had previously cultivated would also be greatly diminished. So, he left the three men in the hall, restless and fidgeting with their teacups, tempering their patience, and letting them thoroughly understand who was in charge here.
Since there were no women around, not even the slime maid, Owen, in his idle waiting, fell into a rare moment of contemplation.
He didn’t know why, but his mind was suddenly flooded with a multitude of inexplicable thoughts. Some were about Maya, some about himself, some about the territory, and some about talent.
From a hapless wretch living in constant fear, to a Northland noble with the potential to dominate a region, Owen had only taken a few short years. Logically, he had enough to be proud of, but he understood that he had never fully utilized the power of the system.
The territory’s achievements in these few years were eighty percent due to the system, thirty percent due to Maya, and as for why there was an extra ten percent, that was because he had negated it.
In reality, Owen felt troubled about himself. Although his age wasn’t young before transmigrating, due to his lack of ambition and his easygoing nature, he hadn’t made much progress. To put it bluntly, all those years were wasted.
If you don’t learn and you don’t strive, even living to a hundred is worthless. So-called life experience is of no use.
This wasn’t him belittling himself. Owen, despite his numerous shortcomings, had two strengths. One was self-awareness, and the other was entrusting matters he couldn’t handle to others, which was also his excuse and reason for his lack of progress.
The problem was, in his previous life, he could get by with slacking off. But in this life, after transmigrating to a magical world, unless he hid in the mountains and forests, relying on the system to exchange for supplies and lived a life of idleness, he couldn’t avoid trouble coming knocking, nor could he escape danger as the territory developed.
Moreover, while he could maintain a low profile at the beginning, as his strength grew, being overly low-key would be detrimental to the rapid development of the territory, which conflicted with his principle of keeping a low profile.
For example, now, if the territory lacked an influx of external population, solely relying on him to exchange for people from the system using Progress Value, who knew how long it would take.
But breaking the border blockade to bring in a large population, how could that not attract attention?
Additionally, talent was also a problem. Relying on the system-converted population’s adherence to rules and obedience to orders, the current management difficulty wasn’t too great. Even so, with one for the military, one for civil affairs, and one for commerce, these three aspects alone were already giving Owen a headache, let alone the increasing demand for talent as the territory expanded.
Although Owen could directly exchange for talent using the system, it wasn’t cost-effective and carried risks. Firstly, the talents he deemed worthy had high prices, and secondly, the more talented they were, the more distinct their personalities were.
The problem was, these talents weren’t from this world. Ordinary soldiers were fine; they were similar across worlds, especially soldiers in the age of cold weapons, who were mostly illiterate. No one would be interested in a bunch of rude soldiers who couldn’t read, let alone try to gather intelligence from them.
However, talent often implied having received an elite education, and elite education was often only accessible to a select few. Simply put, the circle was small. Even if they hadn’t met, they had heard of each other. The sudden appearance of one or two could be concealed, but a whole bunch couldn’t be hidden.
Of course, the solution was simple: a large enough territory.
A vast territory and a large population could nurture sufficient talent and conceal many things. Therefore, it wasn’t that he couldn’t exchange for talents from the system, it was just not feasible now. Unless he had the ability to cover it up, Owen wouldn’t rashly take risks to blindly exchange for talent.
Furthermore, Maya and Charle were good examples that real-world talents could also be utilized, without needing to consume a large amount of Progress Value.
Besides talent, Owen also felt that his haphazard approach was no longer suitable for the territory’s future development because the Progress Value couldn’t keep up.
The system was indeed powerful, with hundreds of games inside, all serving as his “golden fingers.” There were ancient games like “Tank Battle” and “Galaxian,” as well as classic games like “Warhammer,” “World of Warcraft,” and “Diablo.” No matter what type of game, under the system’s influence, the originally static backgrounds were fleshed out, becoming independent worlds.
Theoretically, as long as he had enough Progress Value, Owen could exchange for anything from these games, including but not limited to equipment, troop types, treasures, buildings, and so on. It was no exaggeration to say that he held a multiverse in his grasp, with an unlimited future.
The problem was, his virtue didn’t match his position. Owen was like an ant that had fallen into a granary. The rice grains before him were already dazzling enough, let alone effectively digesting this wealth and making plans.
This led to Owen lacking a systematic approach in his actions, often acting on whims.
Don’t tell him anyone could do it. Those who could become big bosses were either those who had climbed their way up from the bottom step by step, or second-generation successors who had received an elite, noble education. Vision and ability weren’t things that could be changed just by transmigrating.
A deeper look into the backgrounds of the world’s wealthy would reveal that although there were genuinely capable individuals who started from scratch, they were far fewer than imagined.
It was like those who suddenly became rich by winning the lottery. Those who could use their money to make more money and smoothly enter the ranks of the wealthy were few and far between. Most would squander their wealth within a short time, then live a worse life than before, unable to accept reality.
Owen wasn’t much better. The system gave him the capital to be capricious, but there was no one to guide or discipline him. It was already considered self-controlled that he was like this now, at least he only had two women at the moment.
However, his foundation was weak in the beginning, so no matter what he fiddled with, it was all meat on his plate. Now, it was different. The Wild Bull Territory’s iron mine, the Magic Horn Forest’s ruins, the goblin town, the wooden fortress on the forest’s periphery, the dungeon under the territory and the castle that had been halted since its commencement, and finally, the underground tunnel that had always remained in the planning stage ━ these things were too scattered, failing to effectively utilize the resources at hand.
