The Journey Thrush, the Kingdom Capital, Bridge Street.

In the winter sky tinged with leaden gray, light white snowflakes danced down, first tentatively and gently, then cascading in dense clusters, finally hurling down in competitive swarms, cloaking the entire Kingdom Capital in a silvery white garment.

It's really snowing after all...

After catching the falling snowflake in his hand, Leon recalled the morning broadcast from the apartment loudspeaker, where the witch had solemnly declared that after observing the stars last night, she was certain it would snow today. Now stepping out from home, Leon couldn't help but click his tongue, feeling slightly strained.

According to the details hammered out at the Twelve Kingdoms assembly with Veronica, the twelve realms in the current world should gradually disengage from their original independent states and form a relatively generalized alliance.

This new form of alliance, while strengthening and clearing interbureau cooperation, should also facilitate internal exchanges, each exporting their surplus "productivity" in exchange for various resources previously hard to access for ordinary individuals.

The greatest significance of this new alliance is that it massively strengthens the interaction among the Twelve Kingdoms, enabling everyone to gradually get accustomed to viewing the entire present world as a whole, and seeing each of the Twelve Kingdoms as a "component" within it.

The core benefit of doing this is to eliminate many overly "inefficient" production relations.

For instance, with the Clean Bureau's backing ensuring no food issues, the Northern Kingdom, which spends half the year under snow, no longer needs to devote massive manpower and resources to maintain its pitifully low-yielding farmlands.

And the Green Shade Country, where land is so fertile rice grows by itself, can focus on exporting grain, shutting down many pollution-laden factories without worrying about lacking industrial goods due to trade barriers.

This new alliance, which is gradually unfolding, provides the Twelve Kingdoms with a relatively stable environment under the powerful assurance of the Clean Bureau, allowing each major realm's constrained productivity to be liberated as much as possible without the emergence of industrial revolution-level new products.

At least it was supposed to be like this...

Rubbing the snowflake in his hand and flicking away the melted clear snow water, Leon couldn't help but sigh with some headache.

In these months without tasks and free time, he helped Veronica preliminarily roll out the Twelve Kingdoms Alliance plan, only for the excellent "productivity" outputted by each realm to greatly exceed their expectations.

Take the Northern Kingdom and Green Shade Country, according to Leon and the Journey Thrush's "think tank," the two characteristically unique realms, the former would presumably export high-quality meat, oil, and Northern-specific minerals, while the latter would primarily output various high-yield grains.

And while reality largely aligns with expectations, both realms effectively fulfilled their "assigned" tasks within the alliance, exporting grain, meat, and minerals, among other resources.

But beyond those predictable items, the two realms also exported vast amounts of totally unforeseen things.

The former's best-seller in the realms' bulk trade wasn't high-quality meat as anticipated, but snow fox-whiskers renowned for their excellent aphrodisiac effect, which all realms scrambled to snatch up in just four hours.

Meanwhile, the Green Shade Country, whose culture is rather... open, aside from exporting vast amounts of grain, also sold out a large number of various publications... of a less serious nature, and thanks to higher unit prices, even sales revenue compared to grains measured by tons wasn't bad.

This... indeed, could it be that sensuality is truly the number one productivity?

Thinking about the major trade products revolving around the lower half from the two realms, Leon couldn't help but twitch the corner of his mouth, deciding next time to slightly tighten up regulation. Though mutual exchange is a good thing, the overly absurd part still requires some oversight.

Hmm... and the "productivity" exported by the Witch Kingdom needs to be monitored a bit too!

Glancing at the queue outside the newly opened fortune-telling shop on the street, even in snowy weather, Leon couldn't resist clicking his tongue before turning and walking towards Charl Department Store.

Before the Twelve Kingdoms Alliance truly rolled out, nobody expected that the Witch Kingdom's primary exports wouldn't be materials or distinctive products, but various shamans, astrologers, and even witches themselves.

Discovering partly relaxed border controls in other alliance member realms, numerous formerly struggling society members within the Witch Kingdom suddenly identified new horizons ripe for exploration.

Blessings, consecration, seeking marriages, academic protection, granting children, prophecy for safe deliveries, destiny adjustments, summoning spirits, and spirit possession...

These red-ocean businesses that are fiercely competitive within the Witch Kingdom due to an excess of capable individuals, found pure blue oceans in the other eleven realms, with no competition except for a few scammers and those churches under Clean Bureau crackdown.

Previously starving half-baked witches who couldn't land business within the Witch Kingdom, with a crystal ball and a pirate ship, can open a street shop in any major realm and earn substantial profits.

Moreover, it's not just these relatively "traditional" businesses; members from various societies within the Witch Kingdom have even infiltrated numerous niche industries and official departments in each major realm.

Take, for example, the witch-turned-weather-forecast broadcaster this morning, using her astrology-based weather forecasting skill to directly deal a crushing blow to the Kingdom Capital's original weather bureau. She singlehandedly made the fifty-person scholar team redundant.

Though abstract, astrology-based weather forecasting has some semblance of academia and passes for technical innovation, feeling less out of place.

But those psychologists who read minds to guess customer pricing; curse masters using Curse Technique for mass painless slaughter of livestock to preserve meat quality; and dancing girls from the Dancing Society whose performances naturally conjure charm effects, have genuinely slaughtered their way through, almost threatening to shatter local industries in each realm.

For instance, around the Clean Bureau's police department where Leon works, officers originally practicing criminal investigations have not yet been dismissed but have nearly all been forced to change roles. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

There's no choice; seeing an elderly couple's corpse suddenly stand up and furiously questioning their son-in-law for pushing them down the hill truly stunned the old investigators, who resorted to switching roles or they'd have no work left.

And aside from all this, recently it seems as if a bunch of priests and totem masters arrived, seeking out the transportation department minister, claiming they could install totem posts along the major roadsides in the Kingdom Capital.

When a carriage speeds, the totem posts would directly mark that person's scent, leading the priests to use Tracking Secret Technique to pursue penalties from door to door. If they manage to pull that off, no doubt the traffic police would also start contemplating switching roles.

How unexpected... expecting massive developments in technology and humanities after attempting to liberate productivity, only to witness a wild pivot towards the mystical side...