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Chapter 115 - Chapter 115: Water Purification Project, Second Update

Originally, Alex had planned to have Mai Mai sell his share of sanctus wine.

After all, given Rostov's initial situation, this wine couldn't just be sold at its place of origin; no one would come otherwise.

However, now, both the Ecclesiarchy and the Inquisition directly brought money on their battleships to pick up the goods, meaning Alex didn't need to worry about logistics or how to sell it at all.

Although both the Ecclesiarchy and the Inquisition had invested significant resources and money into this matter, they still had to pay for the wine they picked up from Alex.

Twenty thousand throne gelts per bottle, clearly priced, no credit given.

Yes, the price of this item had increased, and it was the Ecclesiarchy and the Inquisition who actively requested the price hike.

And this was still the price for bulk purchases by the Ecclesiarchy and the Inquisition; if sold individually to others, the black market price had already soared to fifty thousand throne gelts per bottle, yet it remained scarce.

Alex had a large stock on hand, but at the suggestion of Gutierrez, the wine distributor, Alex's stock was auctioned off in small quantities, ranging from one hundred to two hundred bottles per month, on Rostov II.

This brought a massive amount of liquid capital to Rostov.

After all, the Rostov Governor's Office's monthly income now rivaled what it used to earn in a year.

This also greatly accelerated Rostov's development and construction.

The protein factory planned by the previous Planetary Governor had long been completed, and even Rostov City, under Ovilia's direction, had been transformed into a garden city.

A giant dome was erected over the city to defend against Rostov II's drought and harsh climate.

Icy asteroids from the system's asteroid belt were towed back by cargo barges. After extracting useful components like ammonia, methane, and ozone, the remaining pure water would be supplied to the city's water system, providing clean domestic water for the city's hundreds of millions of people.

Even Alex found it difficult to ensure that every person in this city could enjoy clean domestic water, even though he had ordered the vigorous construction of water supply facilities and numerous reservoirs.

However, supplying water to a city of hundreds of millions of people was a formidable challenge, especially given the Empire's consistently inhumane habits. The city's water supply system only served the nobility and upper classes, while the middle class could still enjoy relatively clean water.

As for the lower-class residents and even lower-status prisoners, they could forget about having clean water.

The wastewater flowing from the noble and upper-class residential areas, after being treated through sedimentation and purification, became the domestic water for these people.

This was actually still considered good; fortunately, Rostov City was not a Hive City, otherwise, what they would receive would not be re-purified domestic sewage, but industrial wastewater.

Alex also had no good solution for this situation.

Although he was the Planetary Governor, the city's structure was already established. Changing it would require a significant investment of money and effort—these were manageable. A large-scale transformation of the city was not unacceptable.

But the crucial issue was that this would impact the Empire's social class structure.

After all, the Empire was a feudal monarchy. Although abstract, noble classes and privileges still existed.

Despite the common saying that a Governor in the Empire only needed to handle two things—paying taxes and believing in the Emperor—and that no one would care even if he established communism on his planet, some things truly couldn't be done just by saying them.

Some things always needed to consider what kind of impact they would have after being done.

Furthermore, there was another crucial factor: Rostov II did not possess enough water resources to provide clean domestic water for hundreds of millions of people.

Although the planet itself had groundwater, with Rostov II's recent development, the population was gradually increasing, and groundwater extraction had begun to cause adverse effects.

Ovilia reported to Alex that groundwater extraction had caused underground voids, and continued extraction would lead to geological instability and further affect the cultivation of sanctus grapes.

Upon learning this news, the Ecclesiarchy was the first to react.

They purchased a large amount of specialized water purification equipment from the Adeptus Mechanicus, then built large-scale purification tanks in their city (large enough to sail warships in), and then acquired more than a dozen ordinary cargo tugboats without Warp jump capabilities, specifically responsible for towing icy asteroids from the asteroid belt to melt and replenish the purification tanks.

Through this method, the Ecclesiarchy's city was able to first solve its reliance on planetary groundwater. In fact, those priests of the Ecclesiarchy even went to the extreme of pouring pure water melted from icy asteroids underground to replenish groundwater loss.

The Bishop of the Rostov Ecclesiarchy even made a special trip to the Governor's Office, requesting that the Governor's Office issue an order to prohibit Rostov II from continuing to extract groundwater, for which the Ecclesiarchy could sponsor Rostov City's water purification equipment.

This matter was somewhat abstract, but Alex was pleased with it.

In the Warhammer World, a Governor might not be able to deal with nobles, but if the Ecclesiarchy was willing to step in, then everything would no longer be a problem.

After all, faith, truly, could kill people.

It was precisely through this method that Rostov City's water supply situation was greatly improved.

After all, the water purification technology of the 40k era could actually purify sewage to meet domestic water standards; only severely polluted industrial wastewater could not be purified.

After Alex ordered the gradual relocation of the planet's surface industrial and mining facilities to space, industrial pollution on the planet's surface was also greatly reduced and alleviated. The only operations still running were likely the Adeptus Mechanicus's extraction of Blackstone and Xenos technology on the planet.

These would not cause severe environmental pollution, at least not in the 40k era.

After these problems were resolved, the Ecclesiarchy also began to sponsor Ovilia's research, supporting her efforts to transform the planet's environment, turning this desert planet into a paradise world.

Ovilia naturally did not decline this, and she quickly put great effort into transforming the planetary environment, striving to make this planet a model project for her research.

Alex did not stop this, after all, a paradise world was always more comfortable to live in and more pleasing to the eye than a desert world.

Although Rostov was already a garden city after the dome was completed.

The Ecclesiarchy's city did not build a dome. It wasn't that Alex wouldn't let them build one, nor was it that the Ecclesiarchy couldn't afford it, but rather that the Ecclesiarchy planned to build a grand cathedral, and building a dome would hinder the cathedral's construction.

At the time, Alex was very surprised why a cathedral would be hindered in construction by a city-level dome.

But when he saw that the Emperor's Holy Statue at the top of the cathedral in the Ecclesiarchy's plan was to be built up to the Karman Line, Alex felt that he had underestimated the fanaticism of these religious zealots.

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