Lord of Reclamation: I Can Unlock Abilities By Building Civilizations
Chapter 42: Thousand-Acre Gift

Chapter 42: Thousand-Acre Gift

Early June.

The cold Northern Borderlands finally welcomed warmth.

Even without working, there was no need to bundle up in thick outer clothing.

Under the slaves’ backbreaking effort, the 6,600-foot-long canal was finished, and Thane began building the river bend dam.

He also built fishing pools.

What Thane wanted wasn’t just casual fishing, but winter catches that could feed them for months.

The Northern Borderlands couldn’t farm in winter, so Thane hoped for such a storehouse of fresh food reserves.

Therefore, Thane planned to expand and deepen the river bend.

Thane found a narrower river channel upstream from the bend and had slaves build a temporary diversion canal on the opposite bank.

After finishing the diversion canal, they used sandbags to build a dam, sending most water to the opposite diversion canal, cutting off the river bend.

Next was waiting for the bend water to drain completely before expansion, building it into a large reservoir capable of storing fish.

Of course, they had to catch fish before construction.

Early summer was when many cold-water fish began breeding. Thane had slaves dig small pools nearby to store smaller fish ahead of time.

Slaves placed sandbags in the downstream channel, leaving only ten to thirteen feet with large nets stretched across, waiting quietly.

As river water kept draining, the bend’s water level dropped fast. Rushing currents became slow trickles, and deep pools became scattered puddles.

Standing in them barely covered your ankles.

Countless fish struggled in the puddles. In the largest central puddle, thick schools were nearly packed together, constantly churning.

Silver scales glittered in early summer sunlight, making the riverbed look like scattered silver coins.

Before even getting in the water, Thane could see foot-and-a-half-long silver redfin culters, plump grass carp, catfish, salmon, and more.

It made your mouth water.

Then sixty slaves jumped into the channel to catch fish.

Or rather, collect fish.

Some slaves simply swung baskets hard through the water, coming up with half-baskets of jumping fish.

But Thane strictly put the kibosh on such lazy behavior.

Such rough handling could easily kill many small fish.

Thane still planned to raise them.

Including prep time, over three days yielded nearly 6,600 pounds of large fish, plus countless small fry.

On top of that there were river crabs, mussels, and shrimp totaling about 1,800 pounds.

Most were river shrimp, salted and dried like fish.

Dead crabs couldn’t be eaten, so they were steamed that day for the table.

River mussels were too dirty and time-consuming to mess with for little edible meat, so they were all crushed for composting.

These large fish were all cleaned, with organs partly fed to slaves and partly composted, while fish meat was salted and dried for keeping.

These 6,600 pounds of fish ate up over 600 pounds of salt. If Eliric hadn’t just gotten back from the salt mine with 4,400 pounds, Fontdmer Town wouldn’t have had enough.

Worth mentioning, Thane’s salt mine was quite rich—with full mining, it could produce 4,400 pounds of salt weekly.

To keep slaves fully focused on mining, Thane specifically sent four female slaves to cook for them.

The mine shaft was currently small—more people wouldn’t help.

Women handled the salted fish while river bend construction kept going.

Slaves not only dug the bend deeper but expanded it to both banks, finally achieving a trumpet-shaped reservoir eighty-six feet wide at its broadest point.

Due to soil permeability, overall channel depth could only be dug about three feet before calling it quits.

To deepen the bend, Thane could only have people raise the banks as much as possible.

To prevent bank collapse, they used wooden stakes for retaining walls, filled with clay, gravel, and bundled thorns.

The dam’s main structure was similarly rot-resistant pine framework with angled wooden boards covering the water-facing dam body, then filling the wooden frame with stones and clay mixed with chopped grass, packed down layer by layer.

The boards were also coated with pine resin as protective layers against rot.

Gates were made from four-layer mortise-and-tenon joined boards, surfaces similarly coated with pine resin protection, sides set into chiseled stone grooves, then built into lifting gates through pulleys and counterweight stones.

It sounded simple, but actual construction involved tons of details.

This was Thane’s first time actually taking part in design and construction. He worked with carpenters non-stop on design and research, constantly adjusting.

Even when dreaming at night, he’d dream of brushing resin and hammering boards.

Just as Thane was mentally drained, a system notification suddenly appeared.

[Territory has cultivated 5,000 acres, unlocking trait: Crop Lord]

[Crop Lord (Purple): Common food crops in your territory respond to your call and grow vigorously, base yield increased by 100%]

Pfffft!

Drinking water, Thane spat it out!

Simple words, plain effects, yet mind-blowing!

No wonder it was a purple trait!

Absolutely divine!

This was truly a proper Crop Lord!

Thane quickly did the math—this meant his 1,000 acres of intensively farmed land could yield up to 1,320 pounds per acre!

This could match low-yield regions from his previous life!

Once food production doubled, Thane could support more slaves and double the military-to-civilian ratio!

For example, if previously one hundred people supported five soldiers, now Thane could have one hundred people support one hundred ten soldiers!

Because that doubled extra grain had no one eating it—it could all go to supporting troops!

And the better the farming, the more grain would double!

Of course, this was on paper—actually supporting troops required more resources.

This involved taxation and economics unless pushed to the breaking point.

But it meant food would never again be Thane’s stumbling block!

Along with the ability, Crop Lord also filled his mind with all kinds of crop cultivation knowledge and farming tool construction methods.

Not just wheat, rye, potatoes, but also corn, rice, and other crops Shadowpine Ridge hadn’t grown yet—vast as the ocean.

This meant Thane could build up his territory just by farming grain and selling it to buy slaves!

Of course, that method needed time.

Thane felt like a new man and quickly checked the next trait.

[Next trait: Successfully obtain four traits [Crop Lord], [Mineral Lord], [Breeding Lord], [Hunting Lord], unlock: Natural Great Lord]

Crop Lord was in the bag, Mineral Lord needed one more, while Breeding Lord and Hunting Lord series had none unlocked yet.

The nearby carpenter saw Thane standing stock-still, squinting at him with deep eyes and slightly raised mouth corners.

Was it because he hadn’t done well?

The carpenter couldn’t help shivering.

"My lord, do you have any orders?"

Thane snapped out of it and calmly instructed, "Go tell Pamin to meet me in the hall!"

Thane strode back to the manor. Soon Pamin hustled over.

Before Pamin could speak, Thane waved grandly.

"Convert all militia and fifteen reserve slaves to regular army for full-time training!"

"Also pick ten top performers from slaves and townspeople for militia training."

Militia were reserves who trained now and then while working normally.

"Huh?"

Pamin was floored, unclear why the lord suddenly changed gears so drastically.

"Spring plowing is done, fish pond foundations are set. The rest and canals can be built slowly. If we need to, we’ll head to the border city in a few days to buy more slaves."

Though Crop Lord’s effects couldn’t show up now, it meant Thane could be bolder without stockpiling so much grain for winter.

The gold coins in hand could also be spent more boldly to speed up development.

Training soldiers wasn’t something that happened overnight. With confidence, Thane had to hustle on preparations.

Having more grain without raising troops—wouldn’t that grain go to waste!

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