Feng Chou put down the textbook in his hand and looked at the five youths. The five pairs of eyes did not look away.
He said, "I think you should have already felt that you are different. You are much smarter than the average person, and what I need is your intelligence. Knowledge is like a tool to a man. Without tools, even the strongest man would not be as strong as a gorilla. But once you have tools, you will be able to stand above all animals."
"I bought you because I need your wisdom. I taught you knowledge in order to give you the tools of wisdom. Once you have mastered this tool, you will have the qualifications to serve me, and I will pay you the remuneration you deserve."
After hearing Feng Chou's words, the youths looked away in disbelief. Feng Chou continued with his lesson.
Apart from teaching these geniuses, Feng Chou would also teach Natasha's knight apprentices. When facing these naive knight apprentices, Feng Chou would not hesitate to feed them the chicken soup for the soul that he had carefully prepared!
Apart from these orphans, Feng Chou did not plan to let go of the other geniuses in the slums.
A manor of seventy thousand acres was enough to feed two thousand people. Not to mention, Feng Chou also had a port, a small town, and tens of thousands of acres of grassland and olive trees.
Such a manor could easily accommodate four to five thousand people.
However, when recruiting the geniuses with families, Feng Chou did not plan to directly use the Qiankun Pagoda. Qiankun Pagoda was his biggest secret in this world. He should not reveal too much about it.
Feng Chou planned to rely on money and worldly power to slowly absorb them. After all, it would take two years for the territory to be completed.
After observing this group of youths, Feng Chou made some adjustments to the absorption that was to follow.
Feng Chou realized that if it was only used to manage the territory, geniuses with high intelligence were not suitable. On one hand, for those with high talent, managing the territory was like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. On the other hand, those with high intelligence were not necessarily suitable for managing the territory. This was because emotional intelligence was more important to a manager.
Therefore, Feng Chou adjusted the conditions and let Qiankun Pagoda select a group of people with an intelligence of around fifteen, high emotional intelligence, and upright character to manage the territory. Of course, it would be better if these people also had some talent as warriors. In that case, they could be trained as military officers.
However, this condition of Feng Chou's made Qiankun Pagoda quite difficult. This was because emotional intelligence, integrity, and courage could not be directly obtained through scanning. It required a psychological test, or a long period of observation to come to a conclusion.
When the fourteen orphans were adopted, Qiankun Pagoda tested them through Qiankun Pagoda's illusion in order to kick out those who had mental or psychological defects.
Fortunately, although these children had their own shortcomings, they were all within the acceptable range.
The talents that were to be absorbed next would not be through Qiankun Pagoda, so naturally, there was no way to test them.
Since there was no way to conduct a psychological test, they could only choose through long-term observation.
To conduct long-term observation, Qiankun Pagoda was naturally unable to do so. Fortunately, after the upgrade, Qiankun Pagoda's ability to create items had also greatly increased.
Qiankun Pagoda created a simulation of an eagle. The back of the eagle was brown, gray, and green protective colors, while the belly was blue and white protective colors.
This simulation of the eagle used magic gems as its flying power source. It was installed with a small motor that converted magic into electricity, which was used to drive the internal electronic signal exchange system. The most complicated part of the eagle was a simple command chip. This was the key component that allowed the simulation of the eagle to fly and possess simple intelligence.
This simulation of the eagle, which combined magic and technology, was the highest manifestation of Qiankun Pagoda's current manufacturing ability. In terms of magic, it was at most a level one magical item. In terms of technology, it was not considered complicated. However, this thing was enough to show that Qiankun Pagoda's understanding of the rules of this world had reached a higher level.
Two simulation of the eagle, which served as signal relay stations, rose into the sky. Qiankun Pagoda then installed a large number of data acquisition devices in the two civilian areas.
This time, the data acquisition devices were no longer simple cameras. Instead, they were replaced with a scanning device similar to Qiankun Pagoda's scanner.
Although this scanning device did not have the ability to scan down to the atomic level like Qiankun Pagoda's scanner, which could carry out comprehensive and detailed analysis of living creatures, it could penetrate buildings and collect sounds, images, and life information from inside. With the reduced functions and the sufficient energy provided by magic gems, the scanning range of this scanning device could reach up to a radius of 50 meters.
When he found out that Qiankun Pagoda had actually produced such a thing, Feng Chou immediately recalled the magnificent feat of installing surveillance cameras everywhere in Antalya.
This gave him a crazy idea. What would happen if he filled the whole of Casablanca with this kind of scanner?
After asking Qiankun Pagoda and finding out that the cost of this scanner was almost equivalent to a level-one magic item, he gave up on this crazy idea. The cost was too high!
If he wanted to cover the whole of Casablanca with this scanner, he would need at least tens of thousands of scanners. That would be a cost of five to six million, and it would not be done once and for all. If he continued to operate it, he would have to replace the magic gems for each scanner every six months. This would undoubtedly be a huge maintenance cost.
Moreover, according to Qiankun Pagoda's tests, this scanner could not penetrate a magic maze.
According to Qiankun Pagoda, the so-called maze was the magical world version of the mountain protection array. If a magic ritual was the combination of multiple magic arrays on the time axis, then a magic maze was the combination of multiple magic arrays on the space axis.
A maze, even the simplest one, was formed by dozens of interconnected magic arrays. It was used to provide comprehensive magical protection to an area.
In Casablanca, almost all the important places, such as the church, the arcane academy, the parliament, the city hall, and even the mansions of some important people, were protected by a maze.
If the maze could not be penetrated, the value of the information collected by this scanner would be greatly reduced.
In the end, Feng Chou made more than seventy scanners and installed them near the residences of the seventy or so targets that were screened before. While observing the targets, they could also observe and analyze the teenagers of the right age within the scanning range of the scanners.
Other than that, Feng Chou also made more than thirty scanners and installed them in some of the high-class social places in Casablanca, such as some of the high-end clubs and the top theaters, to collect information.
Feng Chou could not afford ten thousand scanners, but a hundred of them were nothing.
…
In the blink of an eye, one month had passed. Feng Chou received the first work report from Nelson, Chapman's son.
After reading the letter, Feng Chou suddenly could not sit still. The development of the territory described in Nelson's letter immediately aroused Feng Chou's curiosity.
Feng Chou decided to go to the new territory in person to inspect it.