"Page eight shows the tunnel map outside Meereen. Underground at a depth of twenty to thirty meters is much warmer than the surface, generally staying at around five degrees on the Valyrian scale.
The elderly in the city, families with many children, or households with little labor power, basically anyone unable to go outside the city to cut wood, can move into the tunnels to live.
I will mobilize the labor reform prisoners to enter the tunnels and construct sewers, canals, and other public facilities. Different sections of the tunnels will also be divided into commercial streets, estates, plazas, and residential districts."
"Your Majesty, are you planning to build an underground city outside Meereen?" Imon asked in surprise.
"No, not Meereen." Dany shook her head. "The tunnels outside Meereen are only a test area. The real underground city will be in the Red Wasteland.
Over the past few days, my fire sprites have been mapping the surface temperature of the Red Wasteland. It's on page thirteen. Everyone can take a look."
The dwarf immediately flipped to page thirteen.
Ninety percent of the region was similar to Slaver's Bay, around minus three degrees. However, some areas were marked in red, indicating desert surface temperatures above zero.
Fifty kilometers southeast of "White Cloud City," there was even a stretch of Gobi desert marked with a red cross, labeled with a temperature close to ten degrees on the Valyrian scale.
"Is there really a volcano outside White Cloud City?" Jogo asked with a stiff expression.
Back then, while scouting the terrain around White Cloud City, he had passed by the place marked with the red cross.
It had been extremely hot.
When he reported it to Khaleesi after returning, she guessed that there might be a volcano beneath the red purgatory.
"There's no volcano and no magma. The crust there may simply be thinner." Dany tapped the red cross on the map. "We can use that point as the center and build ring after ring, layer after layer of underground cities.
The inner ring will have higher temperatures, suitable for planting wheat and fruits and other green plants. The middle ring will have moderate temperatures for the people to live in. The outer ring will be slightly colder, where we can sow fungal seeds to support animal husbandry."
The shelter beyond the Wall was not particularly warm either, only about seven or eight degrees. The Children of the Forest grew mushrooms and raised sheep there, and their lives were still quite comfortable.
If they could obtain a batch of fungal seeds capable of growing in darkness from them, Slaver's Bay could also build its own "shelter."
"But even if the temperature is higher, wheat still can't grow, right? Green plants need sunlight," the dwarf said in confusion.
A flash appeared in Dany's eyes. "I have fire sprites. As long as there are sufficient fire elements around, they can maintain their elemental sprite form for twenty-four hours."
In truth, firelight and sunlight were still different. Perhaps she should spend some time studying the Song of Light.
The main reason she fused with the seemingly useless Destiny of the Daughter of Light that day was to cause damage to R'hllor.
R'hllor had schemed against her many times. She had tolerated the earlier ones.
But during the Battle of Winterfell, R'hllor disregarded the overall situation and tried to take her life. That completely shattered Dany's illusion of forming a "united front to end the Long Night" with Him.
When one of your own stabs you in the back at a critical moment, the damage is enormous and the anger it brings is even greater.
In her anger, Dany did not consider what she might gain. She only wanted R'hllor to lose something.
But R'hllor's true body was split into two parts. The shadow demon was in the dark lands of the Far East, while the Lord of Light was within the core of the earth. He was almost invincible.
At least for now, Dany had no ability to threaten Him.
So she chose to initiate a struggle over the Great Dao with Him: seize His Song of Light and strip the Lord of Light of His status as a true god.
Understanding the Song of Light would take time, and it did not seem particularly useful to her at the moment. In theory, she should not waste time on it.
But to deal with R'hllor, she was willing to sacrifice eight hundred of her own just to kill ten thousand of the enemy.
Well, the Song of Light was also a Song of Laws. It could not possibly be completely useless to Dany. It wasn't truly a loss of eight hundred, at most it meant earning a little less.
The key was that it could destroy ten thousand of the enemy.
R'hllor, who had already been half-crippled by the extinguishing of the sun and the arrival of the Long Night, would fall completely into the mortal realm once he lost the Song of Light.
Simply put, without the Song of Laws, R'hllor would no longer be a true god. And a R'hllor who was not a true god posed far less of a threat to Dany.
Yet over the past few days, when Dany tried to comprehend the Song of Light, she discovered that she had gained far more than eight hundred. The Song of Light helped her far more than she had previously imagined.
Between light and fire existed a strange bond.
Perhaps she had gained eight hundred thousand instead.
"What about water resources and fertilizer? The Red Wasteland must lack water, and how could crops grow in desert soil?" the dwarf asked again.
"Is there something wrong with your brain? It's snowing everywhere right now. How could there be a shortage of water?" Count Shattered Chains mocked loudly.
"I thought it would be a cold, barren Gobi desert," the dwarf said in surprise.
"With snow, we might even find underground rivers," Dany nodded.
"There are plenty of wells in White Cloud City. We can dig wells," Jorah said flatly.
"As for fertilizer, cesspools will collect human and animal waste through the sewer system."
"One last question. The straight-line distance from Meereen to White Cloud City is about a thousand kilometers. Crossing mountains and valleys along the way would only make the actual journey longer.
Moving hundreds of thousands of people, along with their food supplies, over such a distance would already be a disaster. The dragonworms cannot endure the cold, so they probably wouldn't be able to burrow all the way there either.
I heard from Jenny that the dragonworms are already sickly and close to dying," the dwarf said with a frown.
"You'll find out in a few days." Dany glanced at him before moving on to the next topic.
In truth, the underground city beneath White Cloud City was not meant for the freedmen of Slaver's Bay.
After all, Dany also held the title of "King of the Khals," and she still had more than five hundred thousand Dothraki to take care of.
The underground city alone certainly could not support the lives of half a million people.
Furyhowl City (the Bayasabhad conquered by Dany, the city-state of the Ruby female warriors) housed two ten-thousand-man commanders. Including their families, there were about fifty thousand Dothraki.
Another fifty thousand Dothraki were at the foot of Mother Mountain.
"Khaleesi City," built on the southern bank of the Lhazar River, had gathered at least two hundred thousand people, including the Ruby female warriors who had migrated there. They were currently on their way south toward White Cloud City.
The remaining Dothraki continued to roam the great grasslands and the plains of the Lhazar River in the form of khalasars. The Long Night had descended less than a month ago, and they had not had time to return.
If the underground city proved especially effective, then another portion of them could be relocated there. In that way, the burden on Slaver's Bay would be greatly reduced.
After the meeting ended, the others took their leave. Only Tyrion and Imon remained behind, each with a different expression on their faces.
Dany glanced at the dwarf and asked in a mocking tone, "You're quite proactive today. Did you learn your true identity and decide to serve the Targaryen dynasty properly?"
Seeing that her expression was natural and her attitude was no different from before, still the same as always, Tyrion, who had been somewhat nervous, suddenly relaxed.
Yet while relaxing, he also felt an inexplicable sense of disappointment: toward him, her only close relative, she seemed not to care much at all.
"Your Majesty, I have always been willing to serve you loyally, as long as you don't send me to my death." His words also carried a sting.
"You still owe me 500 lives. You must risk your life for me 500 times. It is a sacred oath that no one can violate," Dany sneered.
Tyrion's face began to twist. "You tricked me!"
"What trick did I play on you? Didn't I save your life? Didn't I grant you divine power like a god descending to earth? Didn't I help you grow taller? Five hundred lives are the price. Even if Rhaegar came, that would still be the price."
"The VIP treatment plan included granting me extraordinary power, but the reason I can master fire sorcery is entirely due to my own bloodline," Tyrion said angrily.
"Didn't you try the glass candle that day?" Dany asked in return.
Tyrion's expression froze.
Indeed, when he first arrived at Slaver's Bay, he became the Wildfire General and was responsible for managing a group of fire mages. Naturally, he knew the method for testing supernatural talent: holding a glass candle and meditating.
At that time, he had not lit the glass candle. That was a fact.
"But Jenny said my bloodline is noble…" he muttered.
"The VIP treatment can make you taller. Naturally, it can also make you 'noble.'"
Tyrion said helplessly, "I killed the Long-Nosed King, infiltrated Jenny's side to extract knowledge of sorcery, even killed her, and tampered with the trap she arranged. Surely that should offset dozens of those life-risking missions?"
"Fine then, it offsets once," Dany said reluctantly.
"Once is too little."
"Your main task was to lock down the position of the elephant troops before the Battle of Meereen. The mission failed, so everything that came afterward was merely making up for your mistakes.
"And you didn't even fully write down the sorceries 'Flame Demon King' and 'Fire Armor.' As for the Valyrian steel forging technique, you didn't even manage to record it."
The operation to steal knowledge from the sheep egg that day had only been completed forty percent. One reason was that Tyrion wrote everything by hand, which was too slow. Before his body collapsed from exhaustion, the sorceries had not yet been fully written down. Another reason was that when Dany helped burn away the dwarf's chaotic memories, a large portion of the sorcery inheritance was burned away as well.
Only seventy percent of Flame Demon King remained. The remaining thirty percent was burned away.
Fire Armor had only sixty percent remaining because Tyrion could not endure it and stopped early.
The Valyrian steel forging technique had not even been recalled in time.
However, the dwarf had indeed extracted quite a lot of sorcery from Jenny.
For example, purifying one's bloodline using dragon blood and dragon-worm blood.
For example, like Jenny, implanting "worm eggs" inside the body, merging with dragon worms through powerful blood sorcery.
For example, the complete set of sacrificial rituals and the Valyrian High Priest meditation method (not the archmage version).
Well, they all seemed to be rather crooked and unorthodox things.
Two days later.
In the Great Pyramid garden, now fitted with a double-layered glass dome, a small sun floated beneath the dome, radiating light and heat.
"By the Horse God, how did he become so beautiful? He looks like a woman!"
"Seven gods above, I'm actually feeling something for a dwarf."
"Mother above, Uncle… is that really you?"
Tyrion walked in from the stairway with his head held high. It seemed as though all the light in the world had fallen upon him, dazzling and radiant.
The Dothraki maidservants, Myrcella, red-haired Laila, and the other women all cried out in shock.
"I'm truly too handsome." The dwarf touched his face and sighed with a complicated expression.
"Ahhh~~~" Making such a "melancholy" expression with the face of young Leonardo triggered another wave of screaming from the maids.
"Compared with the Valyrians, he's not that good-looking, is he?" Dany said speechlessly.
At midnight two days earlier, the Dragon Queen had fulfilled her promise and replaced Tyrion's appearance of "Prince Leo" with that of "Leonardo," and also stretched his height another five centimeters.
A height of 1.4 meters, topped with the face of Leonardo in his prime, along with the dwarf's distinctive heterochromatic eyes, one black and one blue, was indeed very handsome.
But in this fantasy world, the Valyrians were practically cheats when it came to appearance.
Especially the Targaryens, who were cheats even among cheats.
If Rhaegar and Prince Viserys were still alive, even if the dwarf stood beside the two brothers with Leonardo's face, he might not attract more attention.
Not to mention that if Dany changed into men's clothing, she could instantly outshine a 1.4-meter Leonardo.
"It's not that we're exaggerating. His transformation is just too exaggerated. If you personally saw a pile of dung turn into an apple, wouldn't you be shocked?" the plump maid Jiqi argued confidently.
"Dung?" The dwarf's handsome face began to twist. "So in your eyes, I was dung before?"
"To be honest, I'd rather look at the dung I produce myself," Jiqi said frankly.
(End of chapter)
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