Since Chief Administrator Farr simultaneously held the position of Adventurer's Guild president, for the convenience of managing affairs on both fronts, the newly built city hall was situated diagonally across from the Adventurer's Guild, with only a wide street separating the two.
Such close proximity would inevitably cause some minor issues in matters like future expansions.
But at the current stage, for Farr personally, this layout undoubtedly brought tremendous convenience—he found it quite handy.
In a reception room with simple yet respectable furnishings, Farr had just concluded a brief meeting with two officials from Yufan Port and Norwide respectively.
After some routine friendly pleasantries, Farr handed over the subsequent detailed negotiations to his deputy, Mirabel.
These two officials had come to "learn from experience." They hoped to replicate Mushroom City's successful system for managing Puffshroom Masters and efficiently cultivating Mushroom Fields in their own cities, yet throughout the entire meeting, they cleverly avoided any topic concerning what costs or compensation they would need to provide.
Farr was fully aware of those two city lords' attempts to get something for nothing, but he didn't care in the slightest.
With Mushroom City's development momentum currently soaring, such trivial gains no longer caught his attention.
He only clearly stated one core requirement: whether in Yufan Port or Norwide, any "Puffshroom Master Guild" established there must maintain complete consistency with Mushroom City headquarters in all rules and regulations.
After both sides reached consensus, the remaining detailed negotiations and paperwork became Mirabel's task.
With the Mycelial Network unstoppably expanding toward neighboring cities, the monopoly advantage of Mushroom Fields clearly couldn't be maintained for long.
Judging by the surrounding cities' response efficiency and the creep's spreading speed, Mushroom City's high-speed development period driven by mushroom dividends would last about another six months or so.
If they wanted to continue maintaining their leading position, they couldn't place all their hopes on Mushroom Fields alone.
In Farr's view, the next key opportunity lay in "Puffshroom Masters" themselves.
Leveraging Mushroom City's geographical advantage of being closest to Puffshroom Dungeon, further perfecting the Puffshroom trading, appraisal, and even selective breeding systems, and building Mushroom City into the entire region's—even the entire kingdom's—undisputed "Puffshroom Master hub" was the only way to maintain advantage in the next development phase.
And the crucial link in all this was the power to set standards and control industry discourse through the "Puffshroom Master Guild."
Clearly, those two city lords next door had not yet realized the importance of this point.
Currently everything was progressing smoothly, with only two matters drawing Farr's particular attention...
When half a day had passed and Mirabel returned to the office after handling the negotiation affairs, Farr looked up and tapped a finger on a report on his desk, asking: "Mirabel, why is there absolutely no mention of emerging gang situations within Mushroom City in this recent comprehensive summary?"
The gang problem was almost an inevitable byproduct of every city. Back when Mushroom City was just a small town, its scale was too small—there was no soil for gangs to survive.
But now, Mushroom City had become an emerging city with a population of tens of thousands and frequent mobility—the emergence of gangs was almost inevitable.
According to traditional urban governance experience, if one wanted to identify and eliminate these gangs one by one, it would not only require enormous manpower and resources, but the results were often limited.
Take down one batch, and soon new ones would pop up.
In fact, even if left completely alone, most of these so-called "gangs" would naturally die out for various reasons.
However, this didn't mean Farr should turn a blind eye to the situation.
Having a small number of personnel monitor them, understand these gangs' movements and scale, and strike in time when a certain gang showed signs of developing into a behemoth—this was undoubtedly a necessary preventive measure.
Therefore, not seeing the gang situation summary that should have appeared in the routine report made Farr feel a trace of dissatisfaction, wondering whether Mirabel had been negligent and failed to give this issue sufficient attention.
Facing the city lord's questioning, Mirabel hastily explained: "Lord City Master, it's not that I deliberately neglected it or was unwilling to include it in the report, it's just... the current situation doesn't have any content worth writing about!"
"What do you mean?" Farr pressed.
"Currently within Mushroom City territory, no established gang organizations have appeared. What exists are merely some small groups that call themselves 'gangs' but actually only have three to five members—completely lacking any value worth reporting." Mirabel's tone carried a hint of helplessness. "We have indeed received some intelligence about gang existence, but often by the time we go to verify it some time later, we discover the other party has already disbanded on their own and vanished without a trace. There hasn't been a single one that could continuously exist and develop."
"That strange?"
Mirabel nodded affirmatively.
Farr initially wanted to have Mirabel strengthen vigilance and guard against any deeply hidden gangs secretly operating, but on second thought, gangs were different from assassination organizations or spy networks—wanting to hide completely was almost impossible.
Perhaps the gang development speed on Mushroom City's side was just slower than expected?
In the end, he shifted the topic to another matter that concerned him.
"What about that newly discovered stone forest to the east? I didn't see any follow-up investigation results in the report either."
The stone forest Farr mentioned was an area recently discovered and reported by adventurers, located deep within the uninhabited forest east of Mushroom City.
According to the adventurers' description, the trees there, and even parts of the terrain, had been petrified by some force.
"The detailed report on the stone forest just arrived and hasn't been compiled into the summary in your hands yet." Mirabel quickly found the stone forest report from another stack of documents.
"The petrification cause has been preliminarily determined—it's caused by a special type of unique Puffshroom in that area. This Puffshroom can emit a weak but continuously effective petrification ray that has altered the environment."
"However, because the petrification equally affects the creep and other Puffshrooms, creating endless internal conflict, the petrification range has been restricted to that area without expanding. A Puffshroom Master in the guild has already successfully captured a specimen for research."
"Petrifying Puffshroom, huh..." Farr nodded thoughtfully. As expected, more and more strange changes on this land could ultimately be connected to Puffshrooms. "It would be best to send people for in-depth investigation to figure out the specific environmental factors spawning this special Puffshroom. At the same time, arrange for dedicated personnel to regularly monitor the stone forest area—report immediately if any signs of its range expanding are discovered."
Meanwhile, a group of packaged evil mages also left Imperial territory.
The purpose of this journey was to venture deep behind enemy lines to hold a dark ritual in a special area deemed "relatively safe."
The risks involved were self-evident. Once discovered by humans, in enemy heartland, they would have virtually no chance of survival.
Precisely because of this, many evil mages who were initially attracted by the generous compensation and signed up became pale-faced and backed out after learning the specific details and location of the mission.
However, great rewards breed brave souls.
In the end, nearly half the people, unable to resist the compensation promised by Duke Sigismund, chose to join this team.
Varen was naturally among them!
(End of Chapter)
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