paranoianovel Chapter 30: The Barbican
Chapter 30: The Barbican
Arriving at the earliest completed adobe city wall, he began to build the wall into a perfect template. Just as Ron had predicted, he paved the entire outer perimeter of the adobe city wall with blue bricks. In addition, the parapet only consumes 10 points of magic power, which means that rebuilding such a city wall only requires 20 points of magic power.
Ron's magic power has now reached 75, which is just enough to rebuild one side of the city wall into a brick wall today.
By the time he had completely finished the northern section of the city wall, it was already noon.
Many residents noticed the city walls and were amazed by the stone walls before them.
"The earthen walls have turned into stone walls!" Shanlier exclaimed in shock as he patrolled over.
After all, when we patrolled in the morning, it was just an earthen city wall.
Not only was Shanlier shocked, but even Tangen and Hilden came over specifically to see.
The two looked at each other. They were already shocked by the original earthen city wall, but they never expected that it would be transformed into a stone city wall in just one day.
"Those are the bricks the lord fired last night." Tang En quickly noticed the blue bricks around the city wall and couldn't help but gasp.
Hilden said excitedly, "That's right. I heard a long time ago that the first building mage to create new buildings and building materials could greatly reduce construction time when casting building spells. Otherwise, the lord wouldn't have been able to build such a long wall in just one day."
Now that they have stone walls, even if tens of thousands of goblins attack Ashwood, Hilden is confident he can hold it.
The construction of the blue brick city wall attracted many onlookers, and even Old Hall made a special trip over. Then he sent everyone away to work.
Old Hall shouted, "Nobody needs to work? We don't need today's work points!"
Upon hearing about work points, the surrounding residents dispersed and returned to their original work posts.
He had regained his magic and returned to the blue brick city wall, his smile now impossible to hide.
Ron Ashwood
Occupations: Apprentice Architect, Apprentice Knight
Physical condition: 15
Power: 12
Spirit: 9
Mana: 75
Random attribute points: 2
Completed template building: 27
"I can get a random attribute point for every ten building templates I complete. As long as I keep building, I can definitely accumulate my attributes to become a monster," Ron thought to himself.
The system suddenly displayed a notification.
The first ten random attribute points can be obtained by building ten building templates. Starting at eleven points, twenty building templates are required, and starting at twenty-one points, forty building templates are required, and so on.
Looking at the system information, Ron's lips twitched slightly.
My initial illusions shattered instantly; it seems I have no choice but to diligently cultivate.
"System, can the Knight's Breathing Technique also be practiced automatically?"
"That's possible? But only one cultivation technique can be run at a time!"
Ron shook his head helplessly; the system was trying to completely block his path to cheating.
He had already planned this area; he wanted to build city gates there.
Currently, only a gap has been left at the location of the city gate, temporarily blocked by a wooden fence. Today, he will build the city gate.
It wasn't a simple city gate; it was a barbican.
In his previous life, he had studied the history of ancient city defense. The barbican was a classic design for city gate defense. A semi-circular wall was built outside the city gate, and after the enemy broke through the outer gate, they would be trapped in the narrow space between the two gates, surrounded by enemies on all sides.
The city defense system in this world is still at the level of "a gate plus an iron fence", and the concept of a barbican does not exist at all.
Ron drew a semicircle on the outside of the gap in the city gate.
The semicircle was about twenty meters in diameter, with an outward convex arc. He then squatted down and began to carry out the civil engineering work.
The outer wall of the barbican, like the main city wall, has a trapezoidal cross-section, with a bottom width of three and a half meters, a top width of two meters, and a height of six meters.
Curved walls require more magic than straight walls, as the curvature requires fine-tuning of the angle of each section of the wall, unlike straight walls where a template can be repeatedly applied.
Old Hall arrived at some point and stood aside watching Ron work.
He didn't make a sound to disturb him, but just watched as the young master's earthwork plowed an arc-shaped trench in the ground, watched as layers of sand piled up, and watched as he occasionally stopped to rub his temples—a sign of depleted magic power.
"Young Master, there's no need for an arc-shaped wall," Old Hall finally spoke. "It consumes more magic power, and its defensive effect is the same as a straight wall."
"no the same."
Ron didn't stop. He was laying the blue brick cladding on the outer wall of the barbican. His fingers pressed on the brick joints, and lime mortar seeped out from the joints and was smoothed out by the Conversion spell.
"With straight city walls, the enemy could break through the gates and rush in. With curved walls, even after breaking through the outer gate, they would have to turn a corner to reach the inner gate. When they turned the corner, they would be crowded into a semicircle, while we would stand on the four walls and shoot arrows down."
He gestured in mid-air.
"It's not a city wall, it's a pocket; once you're in, you can't get out."
Old Hall was silent for a while, looking at the semi-circular outline, trying to simulate a siege scene in his mind.
"What's this called?"
"A fortified city," Ron said, pointing to the curved outer wall. "Like a turtle in a jar."
That evening, the outer walls and inner gates of the barbican were completed.
Old Hall once again wore an incredulous expression. He used to be able to offer some advice, but now he couldn't even get a word in edgewise.
The walls built by the young master are all the same shape.
He used to think that the curved city wall did not conform to the traditional straight lines of city walls, but after thinking about it carefully, he realized that the city wall itself was for defense, and a good wall is one that can defend against enemies.
Ron stood on the adobe wall inside the barbican and looked down.
The semi-circular wall casts an arc-shaped shadow in the setting sun, facing the flat wasteland outside.
A new message popped up on the system panel.
[First-ever building detected: Barbican.]
[This building type is the first of its kind to be built in the world. Hidden rule triggered: After creating the first building reward template, mana consumption is reduced by an additional 20%.]
[The barbican template has been entered. A single barbican consumes 80 mana and can be built in four sections.]
Ron's pupils contracted slightly.
The first-time construction bonus is an additional reduction in mana cost.
This means that all the pioneering buildings he constructed before—mud houses, pit courtyards, rammed earth walls, filters, and solar cookers—triggered this hidden rule.
The cost is reduced to one-tenth of the system's core passive, but this one-tenth base cost will be reduced by an additional 20% when it is first built.
"Eighty," he said softly, "not one hundred."
I initially thought that such a complex curved wall as a barbican would consume at least 100 mana, but it only costs 80. The extra mana reduction from the pioneering reward, combined with the increased efficiency after template-based construction, will make building a second barbican even less expensive.
He suddenly thought of a question.
If there's an extra discount on the mana cost of pioneering buildings, it means he should create as many "buildings that don't exist in this world" as possible.
Each time you create something new, you can enjoy an additional energy saving.
When the territory grows larger in the future, the magic savings accumulated from these reduced consumption will be a huge number.
Most importantly, after building a barbican, your magic power increases by five points, which is a very good omen.
But now, we need to connect the city walls.
"Old Hall."
"exist."
"Starting tomorrow, prioritize completing the main city wall. Each of the four walls, 250 meters long, will be built entirely of adobe bricks. Arrange for the necessary personnel to coordinate."
After all, the original wooden stockade walls had to be dismantled, and those were made of the finest timber. In order to gather the wood for these stockade walls, they had almost cut down all the surrounding bushes.