Chapter 122: Development

Chapter 122: Development

In the first year of Li Hongshen’s territorial industrial reform, his sales team lived up to his expectations, successfully establishing the "Hong City" brand at the gathering point.

Over the following few years, thanks to high-quality craftsmanship, cost-effectiveness, and high production volume, Li Hongshen seamlessly integrated into the gathering point’s trade system.

By the fifth year of the reform, Li Hongshen decided to introduce specialized technologies from other domains—such as the cultivation of spirit rice—to achieve his goal of full-population awakening within his territory. This super spirit rice, originating from the 41st domain, was acquired through the connections of Li Fugui, sourced directly from the Yuan family.

This variety of spirit rice is high-yield and relatively easy to cultivate. Especially in an environment like Phoenix Valley, which boasts abundant spiritual energy and the nourishment of growth laws, Li Hongshen was able to supply his own citizens while still having a surplus to sell on the market.

During these five years, the electrical technology Li Hongshen introduced also fully covered this mid-level gathering point in the 44th domain, turning the nights there into a blaze of light. Looking down from the sky, one would never guess it was situated deep within the Great Wilderness.

These achievements spread his reputation to the upper and lower levels as well. After some negotiations, Li Hongshen began contracting the electrical renovation work for the lords of those levels. The massive scale of these projects brought him significant income and numerous allies. For orders he could not handle alone, he would break them down into components and distribute them to his trade partners. Finally, the parts would be assembled and tested in Hong City before being sent in batches to the target cities for installation.

This model was designed to accelerate engineering speed while preventing him from hogging all the profits and risking burnout. By "scattering wealth," he ensured that many lords remained clustered around him. Most of these lords were from Peng City No. 1 High School and the 44th Domain Central High School, where Li Fuqiang was based. After all, his foundation of interpersonal connections lay there, and to expand, one must first stabilize their base.

By the tenth year of the reform, Li Hongshen completed his first contract with the Lord of Tiantian. He then took the initiative to visit Jingji City, where he humbled himself to secure a strategic partnership agreement. This led him to lament that "clinging to the thighs of the Mining Sister" was truly rewarding. In the early stages of his reform, many lords gave him a chance solely because he was her partner, and he had seized that opportunity to reach where he was today.

He could no longer stop, as the current development system no longer belonged solely to Hong City; it concerned the interests of numerous lords, with Li Hongshen serving merely as the helmsman. Driven by these shared interests, he deepened the reforms. After reaching an agreement with the Mining Sister, he recruited many lords who owned mineral resources to form the Steel Alliance. He began promoting reinforced concrete construction, providing services to senior peers whose city areas were restricted, and helping them restructure their urban planning.

By the twentieth year, Hong City opened its gates, allowing citizens from other territories to visit, study, and enjoy various services, such as highly sought-after medical training and the medicinal baths and beauty massages that were particularly popular among female lords.

Li Hongshen’s prestige reached its peak, yet he also felt an inexplicable pressure. He sensed he was becoming too famous, pushed into a somewhat precarious position. Consequently, that same year, he resigned from his post as Executive of the Steel Alliance, allowing another lord to take the role. Simultaneously, he began authorizing certain technologies to others, such as first-generation engineering machinery. This allowed capable and ambitious lords to take these technologies to gathering points in other domains to secure contracts, which in turn brought a share of the profits back to Li Hongshen.

He began transitioning to a low-profile mode, voluntarily reducing his influence and acting more as an ordinary member and technical advisor within the alliance. Of course, he maintained his connections; staying low-profile did not mean abandoning the network he had painstakingly built—it was merely a change in his personal style. He had long passed the stage where he needed to fight for fame; his seniors knew him, and even trade caravans from distant domains had heard his name and were familiar with his background.

By the twenty-fifth year, Li Hongshen began to focus heavily on military development. His territory started engaging in frequent external combat. Having achieved full-population awakening, he took the drastic step of requiring universal military service and participation in war, willing to endure casualties to achieve the effect of training his troops. He also redirected most of his spellcasters toward military research to upgrade weaponry. After all, for the past twenty years, the military technology tree had largely stagnated, as most efforts were focused on converting military tech into civilian applications to improve livelihood.

By the thirtieth year, Li Hongshen opened his factories to accept OEM orders from other lords. With his mature assembly lines and a large force of skilled workers, he could rapidly transition experimental prototypes into mass production. He charged only the cost of materials and a small processing fee, leaving the bulk of the profit to his partners. Adhering to the spirit of "the partners eat the meat, I drink the soup," his factories maintained around-the-clock operations even in the post-electrification era, ensuring that neither his workers nor his spiritual machinery sat idle.

During this stage, Li Hongshen launched a military product that swept the market: the "Bomb Sphere," which came in two varieties—the "Thunder Sphere" and the "Flame Sphere." These were energy bombs, inspired by the "rasengan" technique from a manga in his past life.

The process involved engraving a Spirit Gathering Rune and an elemental rune onto a Spirit Silver core, fixing it with a Spirit Gold thread inside an iron sphere, and engraving a Spirit Caging Rune on the inner wall of the iron shell. Once filled with energy, the Caging Rune kept the internal energy stable. The moment an external force shattered this balance and tore the Caging Rune, the energy inside would turn violent, resulting in a "boom."

Li Hongshen calculated that lightning and fire elemental energies were the most volatile and effective, hence the Thunder and Flame Spheres. Tests showed that from the moment the Caging Rune was torn until the explosion, there was a window of about four to five seconds. If the timing was accurate and practiced, anyone could toss these into a beast herd; if used with a large slingshot, the lethality was even greater.

When this product was released, the scene was truly spectacular—gongs and drums beating, firecrackers popping, flags waving, and crowds gathering. Numerous lords emptied their pockets to purchase them. After testing, they flocked back to Li Hongshen, resources in hand, to sign supply agreements. This brought Li Hongshen, who had only been low-profile for a few years, right back into the spotlight.