Chương 155: Written Characters (Part 2)

One-Ear's explanation caused Li Qinwu's eyelids to twitch violently. He stared intently at the crude notebook clutched in his hands, took a deep breath, and asked, "Are you telling me that these five hundred-odd characters were entirely engineered by you behind closed doors, pulled straight out of your own head?" One-Ear rubbed his heavily bruised, sleep-deprived eyes and nodded with a look of deep grievance.

"Yes, Boss. I had absolutely no choice. Those absolute morons under my command can't even count basic numbers. Initially, I just wanted to draw a simple pictogram to represent Earth Dragons, but as I kept drawing, random strokes and strange symbols kept flashing across my mind in rapid succession.

Every single time I hit a conceptual wall and didn't know how to express a specific meaning, all I had to do was close my eyes, and those glyphs would naturally float to the surface of my consciousness like objects rising from water. I simply sketched them down as they appeared." Hearing this, a metaphorical explosion detonated within Li Qinwu's mind, thoroughly validating the hypothesis he had formed back at Gob-Burg. This was absolutely not a stroke of random creative genius or autonomous baseline invention.

This was a textbook manifestation of a racial bloodline inheritance! Due to the ancient, sweeping curse manifested by the Goddess of Life, the cultural spark of the goblin race had been thoroughly snuffed out, relegating them to the status of low-born, mindless monsters for millennia.

Yet now, as the sovereign population of the Alliance expanded exponentially, the brutal administrative pressures of managing a rising state acted as a massive sledgehammer—shattering the genetic shackles buried deep within One-Ear's DNA and tearing open a massive rift into his ancestral memories! These contorted glyphs that triggered an inexplicable sense of profound familiarity within Li Qinwu were none other than the ancient script utilized by the primeval ancestors of the goblin race!

"Splendid! Absolutely magnificent!" Li Qinwu burst into a booming laugh, slapping One-Ear heavily on the shoulder and causing the poor administrator to wince in pain. With the sudden acquisition of a baseline written script, this ragtag, makeshift organization officially known as the "Sovereign Alliance of Intelligent Creatures" finally possessed a true stepping stone toward achieving high-tier civilization.

Suppressing his laughter, Li Qinwu began to meticulously study the four hundred-odd primeval characters scrawled across the ledger. Cross-referencing them with the annotations, definitions, and sketches One-Ear had mapped out using the Human Common Tongue, he realized that these ancient characters possessed incredibly strong pictographic and ideographic properties.

For instance, the character for "Mountain" was constructed from three sharp, overlapping angular peaks, radiating an underlying aura of absolute mass and permanence. The character for "Soldier," on the other hand, mirrored the distinct silhouette of a spiked shield, practically bleeding raw, martial intent from every stroke.

"One-Ear, you have rendered an absolute, monumental service to the state." Li Qinwu closed the ledger, his expression turning deeply solemn as he locked eyes with him.

"These characters cannot remain confined to the dark corners of this records room. The root cause of our abysmal administrative efficiency stems entirely from the fact that our low-level military officers and civil officials are completely illiterate." The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. One-Ear threw his hands up in a gesture of absolute helplessness.

"Boss, I want nothing more than to educate them, but those absolute morons get a massive headache the second they look at these characters. They turn around and forget every single stroke instantly! I've been using a leather whip on them daily, and it hasn't yielded a single shred of progress!"

"That is strictly because your educational methodology is flawed, and you lack a system of institutional coercion." Li Qinwu let out a cold sneer, a flash of absolute, pragmatic ruthlessness cutting through his eyes. Since he had officially returned to assume direct governance, it was time to thoroughly overhaul this archaic, inefficient administrative apparatus.

He immediately dragged a heavy sheet of coarse paper across One-Ear's desk and began to map out a sequence of sweeping state mandates with a charcoal pencil: Administrative & Cultural Reformation Blueprint Implementation of the Grand Literacy Campaign: Utilizing the 500 core characters formulated by One-Ear as the official state baseline, the administration will compile the first edition of the Alliance Foundational Literacy Manual.

Every single hundred-goblin labor village chief, military centurion, and civil administrator of various echelons is strictly mandated to master a minimum of 200 foundational characters within a three-month deadline. Establishment of Mandatory Night School Institutions: The grand mess halls of both Iron-City and Gob-Burg will be converted into dedicated literacy night schools immediately following the conclusion of evening meals. One-Ear and Gob-One will personally oversee the periodic testing arrays.

Any official who fails to pass the testing parameters will have their meat rations immediately docked; three consecutive failures will result in immediate stripping of official rank, followed by forced deployment to the frontiers to clear wild lands alongside the Earth Dragons! Formulation of the Alliance Civil Bureau: The state will officially formalize its bureaucratic hierarchy, with One-Ear formally stepping in as the inaugural High Chancellor of the Civil Bureau.

The state will actively recruit literate human individuals from among the 13, 000 human residents to serve as official state instructors and imperial scribes, systematically merging the ancient goblin bloodline script with established human administrative methodologies. Staring at the sequence of ironclad state decrees mapped out by Li Qinwu, One-Ear's heavily fatigued spirit experienced a sudden surge of absolute adrenaline. His elongated green ears began to twitch frantically with unmitigated excitement.

"Docking meat rations! Stripping official ranks! These methods are absolutely genius! Boss, those absolute morons only respond to the threat of physical misery. Let's see if any of them still dare to accidentally route the provisions of Village 13 all the way to Village 28 after this!"

"Alright, settle down and stop celebrating just yet." Li Qinwu gave him a playful, good-natured kick.

"I promised you a solid month of leave, and I intend to keep my word. Throughout this month, I will personally oversee the structural formulation of the Civil Bureau. You are to lock yourself in your quarters, eat well, sleep soundly, and get your brain back into working order. One month from now, I expect to see an Iron Grand Chancellor capable of flawlessly orchestrating the administrative logistics of hundreds of thousands of citizens. Do I make myself clear?!"

One-Ear's eyes welled with sudden emotion, and he bellowed at the top of his lungs: "Crystal clear, Boss! I will work myself to the absolute bone for you!" Having thoroughly settled the deeply grateful One-Ear, Li Qinwu clutched the invaluable字帖 close to his chest and strode out of the administrative facility. Standing upon the dusty streets of Iron-City, he gazed out across the sprawling, hyper-active construction zones grid-ironed across the horizon, his grand blueprint for the future growing infinitely clearer.

The seeds of written language had officially been sown. Before long, this primitive Monster Forest would birth a level of structural cohesion and state solidarity that would make the entire human world tremble in absolute terror.

However, prior to diving into that grand endeavor, there remained another hyper-pressing operational issue that required his immediate attention—how to effectively deploy Suokushou, his newly recruited Necromancer NPC, to thoroughly transform the hazardous sulfur mining sectors into a completely automated, tireless undead manufacturing line.