Chapter 140 [0138] The Three-Year Period Has Expired

Three years is just a short moment for the entire Runeland.

However, for the reborn Zaun, these three short years are enough to change the world.

There are still tall buildings and factories everywhere; the various residential buildings in the city are still eclectic and lined up.

But the difference is that there will no longer be sewage flowing here, and there will no longer be suffocating haze.

This improvement is partly because Zaun closed the sewage channel of Piltover and shut down the highly polluting industries; on the other hand, it is also due to Zaun's effective proactive governance.

When the three-year plan just started, Zaun's runestone industry had not yet been put on the right track, and a large number of highly polluting factories were closed, leaving many workers with nothing to do, Lux took them to the streets of Zaun and launched a vigorous battle against dust.

Start with the simplest road repair.

In the past, most of the roads in Zaun only connected the elevators to Piltover and the factories of the Alchemist Baron. Although there were streets inside each block, they were often "ruins" from who knows how many years ago.

Heavy rain turned into a river, and light rain turned into mud.

On weekdays, the residents of the block would at most pool some money to clean up the area - considering the poor salary level of the people of Zaun, this cleaning would take ten years.

Now, led by Lux and funded by the Zaun government, one road after another connecting the various blocks and factories in Zaun was quickly paved.

A large number of workers who originally worked in the factory assembly line were transferred to construction workers on the spot and began to contribute to the city construction of Zaun.

When the skeleton of the road was initially completed, the runestone industry finally took the first step.

Because the technology was not yet mature, the number of by-products in the early stage of the runestone industry was astonishing.

Among the many by-products, the number of rune tree scraps was the largest - after research, they were first used in the construction industry.

These rune tree scraps with low purity that cannot be used in rune stone manufacturing are crushed and mixed with the same crushed limestone powder for calcination. The final gray powder solid is the Beggar's Version of Forbidden Magic Stone.

Its anti-magic performance is very different from that of the real Forbidden Magic Stone, but its advantage is that it is highly plastic and has stable physical properties.

Therefore, in the next stage of urban renovation, these gray Beggar's Version of Forbidden Magic Stone were used in the construction of buildings.

As these Beggar's Version of Forbidden Magic Stone were used as building materials to replace the old and dangerous houses in the past, the appearance of Zaun City has undergone earth-shaking changes in just over a year.

New roads have been built on the main streets, and the buildings have also been completely renewed - however, unlike the solemn and majestic Demacia-style white Forbidden Magic Stone buildings, Zaun's Beggar's Version of Forbidden Magic Lime Buildings are gray and inconspicuous, and look extremely low-key.

This low-keyness obviously does not conform to the aesthetics of the people of Zaun.

Naturally, all kinds of graffiti art full of Zaun style came into being.

On the gray walls, the Zaun people wantonly splashed their pursuit of art.

In the past, graffiti was also very popular in Zaun, but at that time, graffiti mostly used paint as pigment, and the style was known for its bright colors and bold shapes.

Nowadays, due to industrial transformation, many paint factories have stopped production due to serious pollution. In addition, Zaun does not have extra gold hex to buy paint from outside. The new Zaun graffiti, pigments have once become a problem that troubled the Zaun people.

But soon, the Zaun people found a way - with the start of the rune steel production line, a large amount of iron smelting waste was processed after simple treatment and made into red pigment.

Because this red pigment is made of iron smelting waste, its quality and color are unstable. If it is placed in other places, it can only be regarded as an unqualified product, and even pigs will dislike it when it is used to paint pig pens.

But in Zaun, these unqualified red pigments were played with by the "graffiti artists" on the streets.

Red, bright red, pink, reddish brown...

These different red graffiti may represent some kind of commemoration, or mean some aspirations, or simply be beautiful curves and graphics. Soon, together with various slogans, they quickly spread all over the streets and alleys of Zaun.

The different reds on the gray walls interweave into the common and vibrant dreams of the Zaun people, completely changing the spiritual outlook of the entire Zaun.

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When the renovation of the entire Zaun city began to show results, the translation and collation of data related to the cultivation of the forbidden magic tree in the Calican Laboratory finally yielded some results.

In the past, the Zaun people could only cultivate rune trees in the small experimental field behind the laboratory to support the newly started rune stone industry.

But with the proficiency of cultivation and the maturity of technology, Zaun finally took the next step.

According to the data and requirements left by Calican, the Zaun people began to plant the first batch of rune trees outside the laboratory in the oldest mining area in the city, the Shen Gou Mine.

Rune trees cultivated by Calican almost completely abandon the need for light in their growth, but in return, their demand for magical power in the cultivation soil is quite astonishing.

In order to meet this demand, the magic crystals that were previously mined and processed in Zaun and sold to the Piltover factory are now sent in batches to the fertilizer factory transformed from the alchemy factory. After being crushed and screened, they are mixed with inorganic salt ores associated with various mines in Zaun according to Calican's data to become magic compound fertilizers specifically for rune trees.

This step-by-step planting method has been proven to be feasible in the test field in the laboratory, but when it comes to the outside of the laboratory, everyone is still a little unsure.

Therefore, for the sake of safety, the first batch of rune trees outside the test field are determined to be sand radishes that are not picky about the environment.

The process was smooth and the results were very gratifying.

With sufficient mana supply, the first phase of the rune tree cultivation plan in the Shen Hook Mine was declared a complete success after nine months.

These sand radishes that took root in the semi-sandy soil quickly crawled all over the depths of the mine and grew into a continuous bush in the darkness.

Even though the whole process was almost "copying the steps of Calican", the Zaun people who personally participated in the cultivation and planting were still excited - the success of this planting means that Zaun's runestone industry is finally no longer limited and restricted by the output of raw materials!

Previously, because there were too few rune trees (only those in the laboratory test fields), only two of the large number of runestone factories planned were actually built and put into production - and the products were not runestones.

Among these two factories, one produces high-quality rune steel as an export product, which is sold to Shurima warlords through the Kalduga-Kenesse trade route in exchange for gold to import food from Kumangra; the other is the former gray forbidden magic stone manufacturing plant, responsible for turning the parts of the rune tree that cannot be used to produce high-quality rune steel into gray forbidden magic stone.

Now, with the successful promotion of planting in the Sinking Hook Mine, as the core of Zaun's first three-year plan, the runestone industry can finally be fully launched!

More runestone factories began to invest in transformation, and after the transformation was completed, they actively absorbed construction workers who could not find work due to the internal competition in the construction industry.

Also starting to recruit people were the Runestone Research Institute and the Zaun Security Department in Zaun - the former was responsible for leading the development of rune tree planting, and the latter was to increase the intensity of anti-smuggling and prevent some greedy guys from secretly sending rune tree seeds out of Zaun.

Although in the plan of Kalja and Lux, rune tree planting will benefit the entire Runeland in the future, it is not now.

Time flies.

In the enthusiasm of all Zaun people, the city seemed to have returned to the era when Piltover had not yet been born - at that time, Zaun had just emerged from the haze of the Rune War, and was full of courage to change the world in the future. They seemed to have wild ideas, planning to rely on human power to break through the barrier between the Sea of ​​Watch and the Sea of ​​Conquest and communicate the two oceans.

This time, after dealing with the Alchemist Baron, the Zaun people once again took their fate into their own hands. Just like they had planned to open the canal, they made a complete plan for their three years.

Three years, everything has changed.

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Time has changed not only Zaun, but also Lux.

Compared with three years ago, although Lux has not grown much taller, she has completely lost her youthfulness - her long golden hair has grown to her waist and abdomen without her noticing, and her curves have gradually become more curvy.

Lux has really become a big girl.

Although she is very popular and loved among the Zaun people, Lux has never been arrogant.

While Vandel has learned to keep a serious face every day, Lux still has a smile on her face from the heart every day.

The lively, beautiful and kind Lux ​​naturally became the dream lover of many Zaun boys. In Zaun's graffiti, a considerable part of them are related to her.

Unfortunately, Lux has never accepted any confession, so that in some shady messages, her relationship with Ino has the fragrance of citrus.

Then again, this situation is not entirely due to her appearance and status - it is no exaggeration to say that in the hearts of Zaun people, Lux is their muse.

Although when Lux was in Demacia, the so-called art was just a tool for her to cover up, in Zaun, these "extremely useful art forms" are unexpectedly popular.

Maybe Demacians will care more about the symbolic meaning of music, painting and sculpture, but in Zaun, most Zaun people prefer "real-looking portraits and sculptures" and "good-sounding music".

Even in the avant-garde Zaun graffiti, the author often pursues only "cool lines".

With the implementation of the eight-hour workday and Zaun workers having more free time, a startling gap appeared in Zaun's entertainment industry - the flesh and blood business in the alleys was banned, the gambling industry was severely restricted, and addictive drugs, such as the Glimmer Potion, became prescription drugs produced on a small scale and used strictly according to the pharmacist's instructions... Under such circumstances, the free Zaun people were a little confused for a while.

Although Zaun itself has many entertainment industries, and there are also many entertainment facilities such as amusement parks and billiards, with the blockade of Piltover, many things gradually began to fail to maintain.

The people of Zaun are indeed well fed, but this is because they have concentrated a large amount of resources on the processing of export goods, and the former entertainment industry has been abandoned by more than half.

Realizing this, Lux, who had just escaped from the gray business, immediately set out again without stopping and devoted herself to the cultural industry.

Basic theory of painting, basic theory of sculpture, basic music theory...

These art theories, together with basic cultural courses such as language, mathematics and alchemy, have become the courses of the newly built Zaun Night School.

Unknowingly, Lux - or Lux and Kalya - have become the founders of the new culture of this city!

In the classroom, Lux's name often appears in the textbooks.

Outside the classroom, according to the book list provided by Kalya, Zaun translated and printed a large number of ancient Shurima novels.

When the members of the night school graduated, they had the first batch of "extracurricular reading materials".

"Darkness Under the Horizon", "Pulse of the Yellow Sand", "Watching the Dawn", "Song of the Elements", etc., novels once written by Kalja and Kalja's students, have been translated into a language that all Zaun people can understand, and are widely circulated in the city, unconsciously improving their cohesion and vigilance.

Although the proportion of Zaun spellcasters is pitifully low, for Zaun people, words such as the original axiom and the elemental law are familiar.

And stories such as "The tragedy and ethical sorrow caused by the loss of control of magic power" and "The walker watching the dawn on the horizon" have also quietly become the common memory of a generation.

In the last year of the three-year plan, for the first time, a Zaun took the initiative to pick up a pen and began to write a story belonging to Zaun with immature but affectionate words. Since then, Zaun newspapers no longer only publish recruitment information and policy changes, and more and more literary works are known to people in the form of short stories or serials.

Zaun even had a reminder for the first time.

In these stories, the protagonists are always full of endless fighting spirit and ambition to change the world. Most of them come from poor backgrounds, but they are unwilling to work under the existing system, and choose to use their own efforts to break a new world...

The stories are both happy and sad.

But without exception, the core of hope is full of hope, reflecting this era full of hope.

Three years have passed in a hurry.

In the amazing changes, everything is changing.

In the whole Zaun, it seems that only the song of the bluebird still echoes in the sky of Zaun as before.

The goddess should be fine, and the world should be shocked.

Kalya's small classroom·Kalya's novels:

During the Shurima period, Kalya once had the idea that "teaching magic can't save Shurima", so he worked hard to write a batch of works-but unfortunately, these works are not very popular, and Shurimans are often more interested in the stories of ascenders.