Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

  Sui Xiong didn’t care about the fame of making the most important thing in the country, but he was in favor of the Rune God’s idea.

  The foundation of a country was no nothing more than military and civil affairs. To put it more bluntly, it was money and knives.

  Money was another matter. The knife just represented the military construction of a country. However, the army needed people, weapons and armor.

  Then where did weapons and armor come from? Most Hill Lords chose to purchase them from others. As for those slightly more powerful lords, they preferred to buy steel to make their own armor. Only the really powerful lords could produce everything by themselves, from the raw materials to the final product.

  For those who purchased weapons and armor from others, even if they had enough money, they would not be able to buy enough of them in a short period of time. Even if they could, the quality would not be guaranteed. Even if the quality was good, there would be wear and tear on the weapons and armor; it had always been troublesome to repair them and supply new ones.

  Therefore, only those who could produce their own weapons and armor were qualified to talk about things such as conquering other states and becoming the leader of the world. In this world, that was the same.

  For example, the Commonwealth of Gold Coins was not a country, but different feudal territories built by dozens of businessmen and nobles. There had been endless attacks and fights between them for nearly 100 years.

  Finally, several major forces rose in the fight. They had their own smelting and forging workshops, as well as the ability to produce weapons and armor steadily.

  \r \r \r

  It was also true that with this kind of productivity, they could manage to defeat those old rivals in the war lasted nearly 100 years. It was just like the competition of being the leader in a pack; only the strongest ones could remain alive in the end.

  However, under the mediation of the Goddess of Wealth, Manissy, these powerful forces did not have a final battle. They chose to compromise with each other and form a federation, and that was the current Commonwealth of Gold Coins.

  On one hand, none of them was confident enough to defeat the others and be the last remaining winner. On the other hand, Manissy’s strategy helped a lot.

  There was not only mutual cooperation but also great contradictions and conflicts between monarchy and theocracy. In countries where monarchy was consolidated, theocracy was often weakened; in countries that had a stronger theocracy, they usually had a weaker monarchy.

  What the nobles pursued was obedience and honesty of their residents. They did not want a god who stood beside the residents and restricted the power of the nobles. Despite the actual benefits, the Hill Lords that used to be decisive always felt annoyed about the god’s endless suggestions.

  As for the church, they wanted people to be devout to the god, and they wanted the Hill Lord to encourage such devotion and promote the construction of the church. However, a lecherous Hill Lord would obviously hinder the stable life of the people. and without a stable life, would there be the construction of a church?

  Moreover, when people had faith and a church, they would have an organization. Thus, would they be obedient to the rule of the Hill Lord? Would they live honestly under the oppression of the Hill Lord?

  Therefore, in the long history, the contradiction between monarchy and theocracy had been consistent. Neither of them had been the winner, and there had rarely been peace between them.

  Over the years, the biggest exception had been the Republic of Northwest. There, nobility was just an honor and did not represent any actual ruling power. The political activities of the Void Mask Church were strictly limited to the perspective of supervision and justice. Sui Xiong had never allowed the church to cross the line.

  For example, in every town, the Void Mask Church had a special job of collecting public opinions and suggestions about the government. These opinions and suggestions would be examined. If they were true, they would be summarized and transmitted to the government for processing. If the local government couldn’t deal with them or people were unsatisfied with the results, the problems would be reported to the higher-level church and eventually directly to Sui Xiong’s altar.

  Of course, there had never been such a big event in the past few years. On one hand, under the supervision of the church, officials were more cautious and honest in their work. On the other hand, the Republic of Northwest was currently under rapid development, so people were living quite a good life now, and they didn’t have too many complaints.

  Thus, in the Republic of Northwest, theocracy, and monarchy, assuming they did exist here, coexisted with each other peacefully. Actually, they were even complementary to each other.

  However, even in the Mifata Federation, where there had been a better situation, the conflict between theocracy and monarchy was extremely serious. Various fights between the two constantly emerged, and even means such as assassination were frequently used.

  The fight between theocracy and monarchy had naturally hindered the development of the country. It was like that in a factory, where the leaders were divided into several parties. They were busy with setting traps or playing tricks on each other, and the workers didn’t have enough food to eat or clothes to wear. There were complaints from the workers every now and then. In that case, it was totally impossible for the factory to seek any development.

  But the Republic of Northwest was just like this mineral processing factory in front of them. It was stable, strong and in good order. Everyone here was treated well, and they were all working hard for a better tomorrow. That brought a positive atmosphere here.

  The Rune God smiled calmly, and he didn’t explain to Sui Xiong what “the most important thing in the country” meant.

  In fact, to the Rune God, this factory was not the most important thing in the country. Although it could rapidly produce a large number of weapons and armor and could expand its scale in a short period of time, it was not. Instead, it was the positive atmosphere in the factory, the joy, self-confidence and positive attitude he had seen in the faces and hearts of the researchers and craftsmen. This was the most important thing in the country; this was what he had praised highly.

  I’ve never seen such a scene before. This white-haired dwarf god smiled but sighed in his heart.

  Since the defeat of the dwarfs in the war, they had to retreat from the eastern plain, the most fertile land in the Main Plane, to the Mountain of Broken Clouds. Just like that, the positive atmosphere of their race was gone.

  Since then, the habit of drinking spread among the dwarfs. For many older dwarfs, instead of liking the taste of wine, they just gave themselves up to the wine so that they wouldn’t think of the many years after the war or of their original homeland; then they wouldn’t be sad.

  The Rune God was also an old dwarf of that generation. Even though he had become an immortal god, many past events were still clearly engraved in his heart.

  Not only him, but also the other dwarf gods were all thinking about where the future direction of the dwarfs would be. What on earth could they do to make their race develop again?

  Now, the Rune God saw hope in this big factory of the Republic of Northwest.

  The biggest problem of the dwarfs was that they had a small population. People were the most important productive force. With such a small population, they wouldn’t have a large enough workforce. But in this factory, the number of workers was obviously much less than that of ordinary factories. According to his estimates, if the dwarfs wanted to build a factory of the same size as this, they would need at least three times as many workers!

  If they could save manpower in production, they would be able to have a stronger productive force with their current population.

  Perhaps that was the direction that the dwarf gods had been looking for!