To replenish food consumption, Hua Tianxiong had Zhang Rang lead one hundred soldiers to the edge of the Tieshi Mountains to hunt large low-level Demonic Beasts for the city residents to eat. At the same time, he sent Li Liang to Bohai Commandery and Lincang City nearby to purchase a large quantity of grain for emergencies, though Hua Tianxiong made one small request: to also buy various kinds of crop seeds.
In the blink of an eye, ten days passed, and all the teams returned. Regrettably, Gao Cheng'ang, Zhao Yanyue, Zhang Haicheng, Li Jianjun, Chen Li, and the others failed to find any refined iron ore or ironwood trees. After giving these two groups a brief three-day rest, Hua Tianxiong sent them back into the Tieshi Mountains to hunt Demonic Beasts and build up food reserves for the growing population. After all, with the Star Realm Cauldron, there was much more space to store food; relying solely on storage bags could not solve the long-term storage of massive supplies. Inside the Star Realm Cauldron, however, it was different—if it was not planted with Spirit Medicine and used entirely to store food, it would be more than enough to feed the current population of Shicheng for two full years, not to mention that the space would continue to expand as Hua Tianxiong's cultivation increased. At the same time, clearing the Demonic Beasts from the areas where mineral ores and ironwood trees had been discovered would allow the Ministry of Works personnel to go all out in excavating minerals and felling ironwood trees.
By this time, Gongsun Shang of the Ministry of Works had already led two hundred Ministry of Works soldiers to build more than one hundred sets of temporary housing, reinforced the defensive structures at the pass, and prepared a large quantity of siege-defense supplies. The pass connecting Shicheng and the Zhao State was shaped like a megaphone—one man can guard the pass, and ten thousand cannot break through. Coupled with Wu Tian's ninth-tier Martial Master cultivation, while not completely impregnable, it was sufficient to defend against small groups of enemies. Therefore, Hua Tianxiong did not pay excessive attention to the security defenses of the pass, focusing his energy instead on how to resettle the fleeing refugees.
Within ten days, the total number of refugees exceeded two thousand, basically filling the Prince's Mansion barracks and the newly built houses to capacity. To make full and effective use of these refugees—a small portion of whom were scattered retreating soldiers from the Zhao State, with the majority being Zhao State farmers and artisans—Wang Yuan, He Jiong, and Ma Chen conducted a statistical survey and assessment. After the refugees recovered from their injuries, over three hundred soldiers who had fled from the Zhao State were incorporated into the Shicheng army, distributed among the five teams led by Gao Cheng'ang, Zhao Yanyue, Zhang Haicheng, Li Jianjun, and Chen Li.
This increased the number of soldiers hunting Demonic Beasts, improving the quality of life for the entire city's residents. Every ten days, everyone could eat a meal of Demonic Beast meat, which helped build up their strength considerably.
At the same time, more than five hundred artisans skilled in construction and manufacturing were incorporated under the Ministry of Works, more than doubling the speed of house construction. It was projected that one thousand sets of temporary housing would be completed by early October. Most importantly, there were over six hundred farmers from the Zhao State. Under Wang Yuan's arrangement, these six hundred farmers were assigned to the surrounding areas of Shicheng to reclaim the land in preparation for sowing after the Beast Tide passed next year.
Meanwhile, City Lord Li also recruited over three hundred skilled craftsmen from Shicheng, primarily talents in mining, metallurgy, and manufacturing. Of course, most importantly, a branch family of the Mo family joined Shicheng.
Speaking of the Mo family, the people of the Great Qin Empire all knew that the Mo family were undisputed experts in metallurgy and manufacturing, with Mo family disciples spread all across the Great Qin Empire. Being able to pull even a branch of the Mo family into the construction and development of Shicheng fully demonstrated the immense prestige of City Lord Li.
Upon learning of the support from the Mo family branch, Hua Tianxiong immediately rushed to the City Lord's Mansion and issued an order appointing Mo Di, head of the Mo family branch, as the head of manufacturing for the Ministry of Works. He instructed Gongsun Shang of the Ministry of Works to build factory workshops for the Ministry of Works, extending five hundred meters outward behind the eastern city wall adjacent to the City Lord's Mansion, to prepare for future iron ore smelting and weapon manufacturing.
Since the personnel in the Ministry of Works had increased to over one thousand people, the temporary housing for the refugees was quickly completed. Hua Tianxiong gave the Ministry of Works a one-month deadline to swiftly build and commission the smelting and manufacturing bases.
After appointing Mo Di as the head of manufacturing for the Ministry of Works at the City Lord's Mansion, Hua Tianxiong returned to the Prince's Mansion before dusk. After instructing the guards that no one was to disturb him, Hua Tianxiong skipped dinner and went straight into the cultivation room. Filled with anticipation for the harvest of the Spirit Medicine, he locked the cultivation room from the inside and, with a single thought, entered the interior of the Star Realm Cauldron.
At this moment, the concentration of spiritual Qi inside the Star Realm Cauldron was already twice that of the outside world. The first batch of matured Spirit Medicine was releasing its densest spiritual Qi, while the second batch was also nearing maturity, their verdant leaves emitting even more spiritual Qi than before. Looking out, the interior of the Star Realm Cauldron had become a sea of Spirit Medicine.
Seeing this, Hua Tianxiong thought to himself that if he were to have all the soldiers cultivate inside the Star Realm Cauldron in the future, everyone's cultivation progression would undoubtedly accelerate by leaps and bounds. As far as Hua Tianxiong knew in the Huaxia Continent, apart from the four great empires and a few major sects that possessed exquisite Secret Realms where cultivating could accelerate a Martial Practitioner's cultivation speed and breakthrough of martial bottlenecks—things Hua Tianxiong had only heard of without knowing the inner workings—he figured that possessing the Star Realm Cauldron was already his own supreme fortune, so why bother thinking about others!