Raffles had brought chickens and ducks with him when he’d left Silver Moon City. He’d originally wanted to secretly give them to Elder Alufa but he’d totally forgotten about it after what had happened. The cloned fetuses were carefully stored in Raffles’ portable lab.

After we’d arrived in Queen Town, everyone had many tasks on hand and no one could have spared the time to take care of the incubation. So, it had been left aside all this while.

Now, this happened to be a great opportunity.

When Raffles handed the fetuses of the chicken and duck to Ledo, Ledo’s hands were trembling in excitement.

“This, this, this…” Ledo was so shocked. He didn’t dare to accept Raffles’ incubator, worried that he might break it.

The people in Zone 4 watched the box of life in Raffles’ hand curiously. They were holding their breaths in shock, as though they were worried that speaking too loudly might break the lives inside the incubator.

“Hold, hold on.” Ledo took a few deep breaths to calm himself down. Then, he rubbed his hands on his clothes to wipe off his sweat. He clenched his fists, forcing himself to not shake, before he finally accepted the incubator from Raffles.

Everyone nervously watched the box in Ledo’s hands, worried that Ledo might drop it from shaking too much.

“Brother Ledo, be careful!” Xiao Mi reminded nervously. She held the bear I gave her tightly, as though she was holding the incubator instead of a mere stuffed bear.

“Professor Raffles, this, this, this… Is this really a chicken and a… what?” Ledo stared at Raffles in disbelief.

“Duck,” Raffles reminded him with a smile. “It is warm here all year round, which can be considered an equatorial climate. The wind is mild and there is not as much sand either. This place is suitable for rearing small animals. The method to rear them is inside the incubator. Their manure can be used as fertilizer.”

“That’s, that’s great! Thank you, Your Highness, for giving us a chance to rear such precious animals!” Ledo turned to me, finally losing his usual composure.

“What are chicken and duck?”

“I don’t know. I have never seen or heard of them.”

“Brother Ledo, what are chicken and duck? What are animals?”

“This…” Ledo shook his head, blushing.

“They are two kinds of poultry,” Raffles explained to Xiao Mi. “One is chicken and the other one is a duck. There are two roosters and three hens, two drakes and four ducks. They can lay eggs and eggs can hatch into more chickens and ducks.”

“Wow!” Everyone exclaimed in astonishment.

“Can I rear them? Can I?” Xiao Mi asked Ledo with anticipation.

“Xiao Mi, don’t disturb Ledo. Let him take good care of the poultry,” the chief pulled Xiao Mi to the side. He was worried that Xiao Mi might hurt the fetuses.

Raffles rubbed Xiao Mi’s head gently. “Wait until the first batch of chickens and ducks give birth to more chicks and ducklings. Then, Xiao Mi can adopt some of them to rear them.”

“Really?!” Everyone became excited. It seemed that many of them wanted to adopt a few of their own.

Ledo immediately held the incubator firmly and met everyone’s eyes solemnly, assuring, “Everyone, don’t worry! I will definitely take good care of this batch so that everyone can rear chickens and ducks in the near future!”

“Yes!” Everyone’s faces reddened from excitement. They were looking forward to the day they could rear their own poultry.

I gave Ledo a few extra looks, slightly astonished. He really was a great leader. I smiled at him, saying, “Ledo, I now officially appoint you as the zone leader of Zone 4. Everyone is fine with that, right?” I looked around at everyone and they all nodded their heads, shouting, “Yeah! We are fine with that!”

“Brother Ledo is amazing! Xiao Mi wants to marry Brother Ledo when I grow up!” Xiao Mi hugged Ledo’s waist happily.

Ledo chuckled like he was laughing at a child’s talk.

Ledo finally regained his usual calm. Facing me, he said, “Your Highness, I hope that our brothers at the war can return soon and join us to rebuild our home.”

“They will return very soon.” I smiled gently at him.

His face seemed calm but his cheeks were blushing at my words. He suggested, “Your Highness, I heard that each zone has a statue of you. I hope that you can entrust me with the mission of building your statue!” He looked at me pleadingly. 

I was embarrassed. I still found it awkward to erect a statue of myself.

“Well, I’d like to thank you in advance, Ledo.” Raffles had no such qualms and cheerfully handed the task to Ledo. Ledo looked up at Raffles excitedly, smiling. His facial expressions were really unusually abundant today.

Raffles unexpectedly showed some hesitance. “I actually have another thing to entrust to you, but I don’t know if you would be against the idea.”

“No, no, no. I wouldn’t! Professor Raffles, tell me and I will definitely get it done for you!” Ledo promised solemnly.

Raffles looked solemn too as he said, “We require a large amount of blue crystal energy for rebuilding. So, we would need a large number of blue crystals. Previously, you have been making gemstones for Margaery. So, we are worried that…”

“I’ll do it!” Ledo replied loudly without even thinking about it. “I am willing to do anything for the Queen, for everyone of us here, for the entire Radical Star!” Ledo couldn’t control his emotions, his passion coloring his speech. “Everyone is fighting for us at the battlefront. They are fearless even in the face of death. So what if I need to make more gemstones?”

“That’s great! Thank you so much!” Raffles smiled at Ledo happily. “The gemstones we need are different from the ones that Margaery wanted. We need to put them into various machines. So, there are different requirements of sizes and standards. I will share the blueprints with you later. With energy, our communication will improve and become much more advanced. We’ll be able to use the shuttle machines too! By then, everyone can go to the other zones to trade freely!”

“That’s great!” Everyone was stirred up in excitement.

The shuttle machines had once been mere luxurious decorations. Only the zone leaders had been permitted to use them and even then they had to acquire permission from Queen Town. Plus, there were limited resources so it could only run once. Zone 2 might have had to send extra blue crystals over first before it could be used a second time.

The shuttle machine was a prototype of the space shuttle machine. Its theory was similar to space leaps. So, it required a large amount of energy. There was no need to worry about high radiation zones if we traveled in shuttle machines, as those areas would be skipped over. Thus, everyone would be able to shuttle around freely and quickly. This would in turn reduce the distance between all the zones, since the radiation zones would no longer be a barrier to meeting in person.

Free trading and convenient transportation played vital roles in making a nation prosperous! Otherwise, my country in the world I had come from wouldn’t have built highways that connected everywhere. They had built into the air and under the sea just to connect everyone together. 

Not only were we building a nation, we were also working to make Radical Star prosperous. It would become so strong that no one would dare to exploit us!

Dazzling sparks shone in their eyes. Those sparks were even more glaring than before, fueled with vigor. It was because they had seen hope, and that hope was within reach!

“Master, the representatives of Zone 6, Zone 7, Zone 8, Zone 9 and Zone 11 request to converse.” When I returned to Ice Dragon, I received the great news that the representatives in various zones wanted to talk to me.