Published: March 12, 2025
Chapter 353: Tianshui City
Zhao Hai looked at the docks and turned to Stark, saying, “Brother Stark, why are there docks here? Are these docks also managed by Tianshui City?”
Stark nodded, “Yes, Tianshui City is a natural harbor, but there are too many ships—ocean ships and riverboats—filling it up every day. Many ships can't unload their cargo and end up building these small docks in places where they can. Although this place is a bit far from Tianshui City, after unloading, they can transport the goods overland into the city, which is better than waiting there.”
Zhao Hai nodded, “That makes sense. Can we reach Tianshui City tonight?”
Stark shook his head, “We won’t make it tonight. We'll find a dock to rest at for the night, and tomorrow we can reach Tianshui City. The Shelley family has a dedicated dock there where our ship can dock without competing with other vessels.”
Zhao Hai nodded, gaining a new understanding of the Shelley family's influence in Tianshui City. From what he gathered over the past few days, Tianshui City is indeed prime real estate. Having a private dock there indicates the Shelley family's significant power.
In the evening, Stark docked the ship at a place called Mercenary Dock. Just from the name, it was clear that this dock had many mercenaries. Here, one could see mercenaries everywhere—some acting as bodyguards for cargo ships, while others were surprisingly doing manual labor at the dock.
Mercenaries doing manual labor? That sounded absurd, but it was not. Many of these mercenaries were ordinary civilians who had lost their land for various reasons. To survive and avoid becoming slaves, they had no choice but to become mercenaries.
However, due to their weak combat abilities and the need to support large families, they dared not accept dangerous missions, sticking to low-risk jobs like delivering messages. Such tasks were not very dangerous, but their pay was also extremely low, just enough to scrape by.
Even these low-risk jobs were not always available, so what could they do when there were none? They had to resort to manual labor, making it difficult to distinguish between mercenaries and laborers at times.
As this dock was on the outskirts of Tianshui City, the Karlqi family did not have strong management here. Moreover, with mercenaries from all walks of life, this dock had a characteristic of being chaotic—very chaotic.
So when the ship was to dock, Stark advised Zhao Hai not to go out. Although Zhao Hai was strong, it was best not to provoke trouble.
Zhao Hai did not want to go to the dock anyway; there was nothing to see at such a small dock. Besides, the mercenaries were rough individuals, and if they saw Laura and the others, who were beauties, who knows what they might say? Zhao Hai certainly didn't want such an incident to happen.
On the ship, they indeed did not worry about the mercenaries; for them, the people on the ship were their lifelines, and usually, no one would come aboard to cause trouble.
After resting on the ship for a night, Zhao Hai and the others set off towards Tianshui City the next morning. After more than two hours of sailing, they could vaguely see the city walls of Tianshui City.
The closer they got to Tianshui City, the more surprised Zhao Hai felt. He never imagined it would be so vast—larger than Lüjiang City. Lüjiang City, with a population of over a million, was dwarfed by Tianshui City, which must have at least three times that number, implying a population possibly exceeding three million!
In a place like the Ark Continent, such a large city was astonishing. The fact that the Karlqi family could maintain control over such a city, even the king of the Roson Empire could not intervene, was even more surprising. Zhao Hai gained a very intuitive understanding of the Karlqi family's strength.
Zhao Hai didn't believe the Karlqi family had dark mages; the church of light had no knowledge of it. Even if they knew, they couldn’t do anything to the Karlqi family, which just demonstrated how formidable they were. No wonder the Karlqi family could organize the dark mage alliance; they truly had that strength.