Over the next month, the land along the southern shore of the God's Eye boiled with astonishing speed.
It was as if a drop of scalding oil had fallen onto still water. News that Baron Luke Jaqenion had established his seat here, was recruiting on a massive scale, and offered generous treatnt spread like it had grown wings. It swept through the southern Riverlands, the western Crownlands, and even the fringes of the Vale.
The hungry, the bankrupt, the landless, those seeking opportunity—every kind of migrant ca pouring in from all directions, drawn like iron filings to a magnet.
Winding paths were soon filled with an endless stream of ragged families, their faces gaunt and sallow.
In front of the "migrant reception points" Luke had set up, long lines ford every day. Arthur's registration teams were run off their feet.
In just thirty days, the number of newly registered people surpassed ten thousand!
The figure left even Arthur—who had thought the first-phase target was already ambitious—feeling a chill on his scalp. At the sa ti, he worried about the sudden, crushing pressure on the fief.
Yet whenever he saw his master Luke's calm, "the more the better" expression and witnessed the seemingly inexhaustible supply of food and materials in the logistics departnt, his anxiety transford into boundless energy.
Production and construction unfolded across the board under an organization so efficient it was almost ruthless.
Luke divided the vast labor force into several large specialized "teams" according to function: Production Team, Transport Team, Logging Team, Construction Team, Road-Building Team, and Land-Clearing Team.
The Production Team was the absolute core.
They were responsible for manufacturing the "industrial" goods needed for fief construction. The brickworks, located near the high-clay zone by the Blackwater tributary, rose in only twenty days under the personal supervision of Master Craftsman Matthew.
Five brick kilns stood like silent behemoths, devouring fla and clay day and night.
The craftsn went from frantic chaos to gradually mastering temperature and mixture ratios. The red bricks they produced grew steadily more uniform in hardness and color.
At present, the brickworks' daily output had stabilized at around ten thousand qualified red bricks.
During an inspection, Luke pointed out that this was only the beginning. Once worker proficiency improved and the kilns were optimized, multiplying output five- or sixfold would not be difficult.
Not far from the brickworks, the cent plant had also been preliminarily completed. Using the nearby listone, clay, and gypsum, and following the "low-tech cent" formula Luke provided, the first batch of gray "test cent" had already been produced.
Although strength, setting ti, and other indicators still needed further adjustnt, the crucial first step had been taken.
The Transport Team was the lifeblood of the worksite.
Luke had brought forth more "magical artifacts"—large numbers of modern, lightweight, sturdy wheelbarrows and two-wheeled hand carts fitted with rollers and bearings.
These ordinary tools on Blue Star were nothing short of divine instrunts in Westeros.
Heavy loads that once required two or three n to shoulder now could be moved by a single person pushing a cart. Efficiency had increased several tis over!
On the muddy construction grounds, winding convoys of carts flowed endlessly, carrying bricks, stone, timber, cent, and food to every corner.
The Logging Team made the most noise.
They ventured deep into the vast forests south of the God's Eye. Instead of crude axes, they wielded "magic chainsaws"!
The piercing roar echoed through the woods. Thick trees that would have taken strong n half a day to fell collapsed like straw before the sharp-toothed chain.
Logs were quickly cut to length, stripped of branches, and hauled back by the Transport Team.
Timber output surged so dramatically that Luke had already begun planning a proper "sawmill" to process raw logs into standardized planks and beams, further improving utilization rates and building standardization.
Bronn, grinning wickedly while operating a chainsaw, remarked, "My lord, this magic tool would be a slaughterhouse on the battlefield. The sound alone would make enemies piss themselves. If it can saw through trees this easily, imagine what it would do to living n… the scene would be pure carnage!"
Hearing that, Luke recalled the Hollywood horror film Saw and its "Jigsaw," then praised Bronn: "You're a fucking genius. I'll knight you as Second-Class Biscuit… but chainsaws jam easily. Logging is the correct use!"
The Construction Team gathered carpenters, stonemasons, bricklayers, and all manner of artisans recruited from everywhere. They were the hands that would turn the blueprint into reality.
After a basic study of the Public Health Guidelines and so of the "modern building technique" drawings Luke provided, they began constructing the first batch of standardized simple housing (primarily brick-and-timber with basic drainage and septic tanks), public latrines, bathhouses, workshops, and warehouses around White Stone Town and within the planned Draco zone.
Though nowhere near the grandeur shown in the projection of Draco, the neat, clean, and practical style already left the migrants—who were used to crooked thatched huts—gasping in amazent.
The Land-Clearing Team faced the vast southern plains.
Although the main planting season for staple crops had already passed this year, Luke ordered: no idleness!
Ard with sharp modern iron tools—hoes, shovels, sickles—the team cleared brush and weeds, leveled land, and dug irrigation ditches across large designated areas.
What they reclaid was not only next year's farmland but the future granary and the foundation of the fief's stability.
Luke even instructed them to experint with short-cycle vegetables or green-manure crops to improve the soil.
The Road-Building Team's task was equally heavy and vital.
Luke knew well the saying "to get rich, build roads first."
Besides temporary transport roads between construction sites, he planned two strategic "high-standard" routes.
One was the widening and straightening of the mountain path they had taken over the White Ridge, linking White Stone Town to the Kingsroad in the east, so it could accommodate larger caravans and strengthen ties with the Crownlands and King's Landing.
The other ran along the northern shore of the God's Eye toward the massive, ominous silhouette of Harrenhal.
This road held military significance and would promote trade and exchange with the heart of the Riverlands, especially the remaining powers around Harrenhal.
Using simple but effective tools—and incorporating the "three-part concrete" subgrade concept Luke had taught—the team cut through hills and bridged streams, starting with basic wooden bridges. Progress was slow but the direction was clear.
Such large-scale construction and the extrely high manpower consumption ant gold dragons poured out every day like water.
Basic worker wages, food consumption, tool wear, raw material purchases… every item was a massive expense.
To an ordinary noble, this would have looked like suicidal extravagance.
In the Seven Kingdoms, only a handful of lords could make such a "commotion"!
Yet Luke sat steady as a rock.
The reason was simple: the money he spent was nothing compared to the fortune he earned back.
Ever since word of his settlent here spread, sharp-nosed rchant caravans had arrived in droves.
They ca from every corner of the Riverlands, the Vale, and even the edges of the Stormlands and Westerlands.
At first they ca for Luke's already legendary "magical goods"—snow-pure Mithril Salt, sweet and delicate Velvet Snow, intoxicating Celestial Dragon wines, novel and practical magic lamps (flashlights and rechargeable lanterns), fade-proof pencils and ballpoint pens, lightweight yet tough paper, soap, toothpaste…
The rchants brought grain (though Luke had no shortage), local specialties, tool materials, or simply heavy sacks of gold dragons in exchange for these insanely profitable items.
Luke accepted everyone, rely adjusting prices slightly to account for higher transport costs, yet still letting the rchants leave with overflowing profits.
Even more, Luke began using these rchants' channels to place massive reverse orders: huge purchases of grain, iron, horses, leather, wool… every material the fief needed for construction and growth.
With his endless supply of modern "magical goods" and apparently inexhaustible gold dragons as paynt, he quietly drew the comrcial networks of the Riverlands and beyond into his sphere of influence.
Every day, the gold dragons flowing into the fief outnumbered those flowing out by a thousandfold—ten-thousandfold!
This terrifying "trade surplus" made the numbers on Steward Arthur's ledger grow at a dizzying speed. His earlier worries had long vanished, replaced by boundless admiration for his master's ability to turn stone into gold—or rather, "magic into gold."
The once rundown and quiet White Stone Town, under the dual waves of construction and comrce, grew rich almost overnight.
Narrow streets were packed with rchants here to trade, migrants seeking work, and supply caravans.
Makeshift warehouses, taverns, and blacksmith shops sprang up like mushrooms after rain.
The air was thick with the fresh scent of timber, the earthy sll of new bricks, the aroma of food, the odor of horse dung, and the faint clink of colliding coins.
It was noisy, chaotic, yet bursting with vigorous life.
People began to refer with awe to the enormous, day-and-night bustling worksite to the west—its outline already sketched out by the foundations of towering walls—as Draco.
There lay the site of the legendary future miracle city, the embodint of Baron Jaqenion's ambition, and the wellspring of hope for countless new lives.
"Go to Draco to find work!"
"Lord Jaqenion is recruiting again—pay is generous!"
"I hear even won and children can find light jobs there, and they feed you!"
Such rumors acted like the most effective recruitnt order, drawing even more desperate or dream-filled people toward the southern shore of the God's Eye and the increasingly noisy, prosperous land.
A colossal force—with Draco at its core, modern organization as its skeleton, and transcendent goods and financial power as its blood—was quietly taking shape in the heart of Westeros.
At the center of this storm stood the young baron on Dragonrise Plateau, calmly overlooking the tide of the era he himself had stirred. His gaze was tranquil yet far-reaching.
He knew the real challenges and covetous eyes had only just begun.
But with the surging power before him, he feared nothing.
Anyone who dared reach out would have their hand chopped off and fed to the dogs.
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