Lord: Starting with Summoning the Regular Army of Earth

Chapter 128 What exactly does he want to do?

As night fell, the hustle and bustle of Jinshi Ridge gradually subsided. Inside the lord's study, the candlelight had burned out and quietly went out.

Matthew lay sprawled on the large desk covered with drafts, a quill pen still loosely in his hand, fast asleep.

His breathing was even, but the tension and excitement of the daytime still lingered between his brows, leaving behind a deep weariness.

On the table, several parchment sheets covered with strange symbols, connecting lines, and scribbled annotations were barely held down by a paperweight, the ink still wet.

From the shadows in the corner of the room, a slender figure quietly emerged—it was Ye Ge.

She transformed back into her teenage form, quietly approaching the table without making a sound.

His deep purple pupils gleamed faintly in the darkness. He first glanced at the sleeping Matthew, a hint of approval flashing in his eyes.

The emotions.

But her gaze was soon drawn to the messy drafts on the table.

Especially the top one, which depicts an extremely strange structure made up of twisted and combined basic runes.

The side was covered with dense annotations, repeatedly using words she couldn't understand at all, such as "current," "continuous," "output," "loop," and "power generation."

Ye Ge frowned and began to "read" carefully.

She believed she had a deep understanding of the principles of energy circulation, but the structure before her, composed of basic runes such as "guidance," "constancy," "shaping," and "transformation," pieced together in a clumsy yet strangely rational way that she had never imagined, left her bewildered.

"It's not an offensive spell—it lacks a burst point and projection trajectory. Nor is it a defensive or support spell—its structure is unstable, and the energy flow is deliberately maintained in a fragile dynamic balance, like—like a river that has been forcibly connected end to end, yet is expected to keep flowing?"

Night Song tried to analyze it, but the more she looked, the more confused she became.

"Trying to guide elemental charge with conversion runes? Foolish! Elemental charge is a byproduct of the Thunder Arrow, a momentary manifestation of magical effects in the material world. It is inherently unstable; how can it be stabilized or guided? And you think you can extract it?"

She looked at the boxes that the connecting wires pointed to, labeled by Matthew as "physical wires" and "loads," and the conjectures in smaller print next to them:

Can it be enhanced through metal resonance?

Is insulation material required for isolation?

How to convert between mana consumption and electrical output?

I don't understand at all.

These words, when put together, formed an intention she could not comprehend.

It was neither for destruction, nor for the creation of a specific magical object, nor for communication or protection.

It seems—is it to create some kind of "state"?

A continuous, usable "state of energy flow"?

"What on earth is going on in her head?" Night Song asked, arms crossed, looking at Matthew with curiosity.

His view of magic differed from that of all other mages.

Those people learn magic in order to control power and to cast spells.

He was like someone taking apart a toy, looking at what parts were inside, and then thinking about how to use those parts to assemble something completely different and new that he wanted.

She couldn't understand Matthew's ultimate goal, but that didn't stop her from being excited and curious about his whimsical idea.

After all, Matthew and the guys he summoned had given her a lot of new and interesting insights over the past period of time. So, at this moment, she was more curious than questioning, and she really wanted to know what kind of "miracle" Matthew would achieve.

Looking at Matthew's furrowed brows and slightly tired face, her eyes flickered, and then she gathered a ray of golden light, like warm sunshine, at her fingertips and poured it into Matthew's brows.

Matthew's furrowed brows immediately relaxed, and his breathing seemed to become steady and powerful.

An invisible force enveloped his body, lifted him from the chair, and then silently followed Ye Ge's figure, drifting to the bed in the next bedroom, where the blanket automatically covered him.

Ye Ge's figure then disappeared into the night.

The next morning, Matthew opened his eyes. He had no recollection of when he got back to bed, but that didn't matter, because more important news had arrived.

The military team annihilated the eighteen Giant God soldiers stationed at the coal mine with zero casualties, and captured five Humvees, weapons, leather armor, and other supplies.

By the time Matthew finished breakfast, the first batch of coal wagons had already returned to Emberstone Ridge.

Matthew will also increase his exploration efforts on the wind-eroded highlands to continue searching for the possibility of iron ore and veins.

Subsequently, Matthew rotated the summoning of all summoned units within his territory in batches.

He then summoned members of the chemical engineering team.

The first group of members consisted of five people.

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Professor Lin Zhiyuan is the main researcher. He was formerly an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry at a 985 university, specializing in industrial catalysis and reaction engineering.

Liu Qian: Senior R&D engineer at a multinational chemical company, proficient in inorganic chemical process design and optimization, especially skilled in "simple implementation" and process simplification.

Xu Minghui: A chemistry major who later became a top-notch laboratory glass craftsman. With steady, strong hands, he possesses an almost instinctive control over silicates and flames. He can blow intricate glassware that is unimaginable in this era, making him a "magic hand" for laboratory equipment.

Wang Nan: PhD in Materials Chemistry, specializing in novel functional materials and nanocatalysis.

Cheng Yufei: A workshop director at a long-established state-owned chemical plant, he has spent his entire life dealing with reactors, pipes, and valves. His experience is so extensive that it borders on the "mystical." He can judge the reaction situation by the sound and know where the leak is by the smell.

Matthew summoned the five people in two separate sessions. Since the newly summoned human units were all naked, he summoned them in batches according to gender to avoid awkwardness.

Without much small talk, Matthew simply welcomed the five men and then had someone take them to familiarize themselves with the territory so they could get to work as soon as possible.

"We're still missing five members from the magic research team," Matthew thought to himself, but according to the agreement, they were to be summoned in the evening.

Thinking of this, Matthew couldn't help but recall his brilliant idea from last night. Perhaps once the magic team arrived, someone would help him study the feasibility of this concept.

Of course, this process would also be inseparable from Evelyn's alchemy support.

Having completed the task of summoning personnel, Matthew quickly arranged for carriages and "goods" to be prepared for the journey to Ironrock, and also invited Conrad to accompany him.

On the way, Matthew also mentioned helping Conrad redeem Nightshade, and only then did he learn from Conrad that Nightshade had already been bought by the Earl's mansion.

This complicates the matter.

If Nightshade were still in the hands of the horse merchant, or sold to an ordinary family, he could still settle things with money, but if it were bought by the Earl's mansion, things wouldn't be so easy to deal with.

It wasn't hard for Matthew to guess that the Earl's family must have recognized Conrad's horse, which was why they bought it.

There's even a high probability that it was done by that boring guy Renault.

He just suffered a loss with me, so if I try to buy a horse from him now, he'll definitely make things difficult for me.

"It seems I need to find an opportunity to pay my respects to the Earl," Matthew thought to himself. When he first came to the Western Province, Earl Kress claimed to be ill and refused to come out, clearly unwilling to get involved in his and Emberstone Ridge's "trouble."

Now that he has established himself in Jinshi Ridge, it would be unreasonable for him to avoid him.

Of course, there is another way: when he plants the flag of Emberstone Ridge in the Ironrock City Lord's Mansion, Nightshade will naturally return to Conrad's side.

Taking Ironrock City is a key strategic goal for Emberstone Ridge's development, but "wanting to take it" and "being able to take it" are two different things.

To rashly take action against the Kress family now would be tantamount to courting death.

First, the Reiss family has been entrenched in Ironrock City for generations, with deep roots. The family commands no fewer than ten high-ranking knights, a well-equipped and formidable private army.

In addition, the Earl's mansion also supports a mid-level mage advisor—meaning that the advisor possesses extraordinary power to instantly change the course of a battle.

More importantly, even if Matthew had a clever way to take Ironrock, rashly taking it would face serious political risks.

The Kress family is a legitimate noble family that is granted a title by the kingdom and rules Ironrock.

If one launches an attack without a legitimate reason, it is tantamount to openly rebelling against the kingdom and disrupting the noble order.

At that time, not only would the royal family send punitive troops, but nobles from the western provinces and even other surrounding areas would also likely do so under the guise of "maintaining order."

They attacked him en masse for his reputation.

Emberstone Ridge will instantly become the target of everyone's attacks, isolated and helpless.

This is probably the situation Robert really wanted to see.

So Matthew waited.

Either Emberstone Ridge already possesses a trump card that can rival the entire kingdom, or it will have to wait until the kingdom itself is mired in an even greater crisis and has no time to look westward.

He believed that day was not far off.

The situation within the kingdom is far from optimistic, with natural disasters and man-made calamities in the north, and cults running rampant.

The wife of the Grand Duke of the South, who is also Robert's sister Lanny, is ambitious and allied with her second brother, and may turn against Robert at any time.

His opportunity will come as soon as civil war breaks out.

Of course, he had to make more preparations beforehand and absolutely could not risk his life.

The people you summon can be resurrected if they die, but if you die, you are truly dead.