Doomsday Lord Ch. 24 | Title

It would be at least another day until mega-herds with hundreds of monsters would begin to form. Thus, even if they traveled more than a kilometer past the Settlement walls, it wouldn’t be too dangerous for the Citizens of Phoenix Village.

While this Soul Fragment gold mine still existed, it was vital that Chéng Yáng fully excavate it. He brought the new Players out beyond the walls for live combat training, and a few hours later, left them alone under the command of Zhào Chuān.

He planned to use the Soul Fragments his Citizens earned to first fill the remaining slots on each Class Statue. Then, to procure the funds needed to finish the last two rounds of Research. It would take a lot of work, but it was just barely possible.

At around 5:30 PM, Chéng Yáng walked up to Lǐ Wànshān to let him know it was his turn to allow some of his chosen to become Players. The other three team leaders had already gone, leaving only a single Cleric slot left open. Since that was the case, all Lǐ Wànshān had to do was find someone with the talent to become a Mage and have them become a Cleric.

Despite having been dismissed, Lǐ Wànshān hadn’t left. He seemed conflicted, as if he wanted to say something.

“What is it?” Chéng Yáng asked.

“Boss, do you want me to take care of that Hú Jūn fellow? He used to be the mayor and he’s clearly displayed his hostility. If we’re not careful he might stab us in the back.” Lǐ Wànshān voiced his doubts.

Chéng Yáng chuckled.

“So you heard about his outburst? Don’t worry about that Old Lǐ. If he had any chance of posing a real threat to us I would have killed him. I’m not so soft-hearted as to spare someone who wants me dead. Besides, a moron like that can make a useful example. Hú Jūn will remain a normal person for the rest of his life. When the other normal people realize these are my intentions, they’ll stay in line.”

“How thoughtful. As long as he’s always miserable, no one will be willing to come into direct conflict with us.”

“Indeed. Keep an eye on the people Hú Jūn interacts with. He should have some connections among the other normal people, including his brother Hú Yáng. Anyone seen interacting with him will also be barred from becoming a Player until they stop. Let’s see how long they let him drag them down.”

“Yes, boss!” Lǐ Wànshān responded crisply.

“Old Lǐ, you don’t need to call me boss. It sounds really weird coming from you.”

“That just won’t do. Let me tell you as a business owner, without a clear delineation between boss and employee, no one will respect you. If you want the Settlement to be run efficiently, little details like this matter. If you don’t like the title boss, we can use something else. Since Phoenix Village is more like a town than a company, what about mayor?”

The word mayor made Chéng Yáng think about Hú Jūn and he grimaced. Now that he thought about it, it was pretty common for Lords in his previous life to use ostentatious titles. Ancient titles like king, emperor, sultan, and caliph came back into vogue. Since that was the case, it wasn’t strange for him to do so as well.

“You’re right. I do need a title.” Chéng Yáng said after some contemplation. “In my system pane, my title is Phoenix Village Lord, so we’ll go with that.”

Yes, my Lord.” Lǐ Wànshān replied. He didn’t care about the actual title used. He was just happy that Chéng Yáng had listened to and accepted his advice. It meant that Chéng Yáng held some respect for him and his views.

“Old Lǐ, my friends and I are young and haven’t experienced much of the world. I foresaw much about the apocalypse, but I have blind spots when it comes to interpersonal relationships. I hope that in the future I can continue to rely on you to supplement me in that regard.”

“Thank you, my Lord, you can count on me.”

Chéng Yáng sighed after Lǐ Wànshān walked away. He must have died in the first few days or even hours of the apocalypse in his previous life. Otherwise with his Innate Ability and adaptable personality he would have occupied a position of important in one of the Settlements surrounding Xiāngyáng.

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The Class Statues completed the fourth round of Research at 8:00 PM that night. Unfortunately, despite his efforts, Chéng Yáng hadn’t been able to gather the funds needed to have each of their start their fifth round of Research on time. It wasn’t until an hour and a half later, at 9:30 PM, that the last Class Statue started the fifth round of Research.

Another complication was that the collection rate for Soul Fragments was going down. So, at midnight, when the Blood Soaked Cathedral refreshed, he planned to have the group he’d brought with him the first time clear it on their own.

The two biggest obstacles for clearing the Instance Dungeon were the mini-bosses and the boss. Previously, without Chéng Yáng present, both were insurmountable. Now that Phoenix Village had a batch of Clerics, the first obstacle was meaningless. Even if the Warriors took a large amount of damage, they wouldn’t have to worry about dying to the self-detonation of a Mephit if a Cleric was constantly healing them.

For the other obstacle, there were two reasons Chéng Yáng believed that someone other than him could pull off the strategy to cheese the boss to death. The first was that he’d obtained some high quality ear plugs from the ruins in Huìmín. With them, you could completely block out the roar of a Low-Grade Greater Mephit. The second was that four rounds of Research had been completed, buffing the Attributes of the Citizens of Phoenix Village significantly. Now, so long as the person responsible for dealing with the boss wasn’t a Mage, there was no way for the boss to kill them before they were able to climb the tree.

Despite these reassurances, Chéng Yáng still chose to let the two remaining runs for the day go to waste. The strategies to beat the Instance Dungeon were simple, but Chéng Yáng was worried that if he sent in people who’d never run the dungeon before they would make a fatal mistake at the last moment. He only trusted Yú Kǎi and Niú Bīng, who knew the layout of the cathedral and the location of the organ to attempt the strategy to cheese the boss.

Chéng Yáng split the four people who had cleared the Instance Dungeon with him that morning into two teams; the first team paired Yú Kǎi with Lǐ Wànshān and the second paired Niú Bīng with Liú Hào. He then filled out the rest of the team such that each had two Knights, a Druid, a Ranger, and a Cleric.

Naturally, the Cleric on Niú Bīng’s team was Páng Shān. Then, to make the number of S-Ranks on each team equal, Chéng Yáng had Zhào Chuān join Yú Kǎi’s group. With these line-ups, it was almost impossible for them to fail.

Chéng Yáng drilled the necessary strategies into their minds, then sent them into the Instance Dungeon. With this, two of the three runs for the day were accounted for.

As for the last run, Chéng Yáng would clear it on his own. With his strength there was almost no danger in doing so, and it allowed him to monopolize the Soul Fragments and equipment that dropped.

By relying on his high Movement Speed, Chéng Yáng kited the Lesser Mephits in the courtyard. Whenever he needed to Meditate and replenish his Mana he would climb onto the roof of a cloister.

Forty minutes after entering, Chéng Yáng had successfully completed the Instance Dungeon. The other two teams had been a bit faster than him and were already outside waiting for him.

Chéng Yáng’s first reaction upon seeing them was relief; nobody had died! The second was jealously. Between the two groups they had five new pieces of Black Iron equipment and four new pieces of Green Bronze equipment!

On average, clearing the Normal Difficulty of the Blood Soaked Cathedral provided three pieces of Green Bronze equipment and one piece of Black Iron equipment. At minimum you were guaranteed two pieces of equipment, one from the boss and one from the end chest. The boss had a 40% chance of dropping Black Iron equipment and the end chest had a 75% chance of doing so. The chance of not getting at least one piece of Black Iron equipment was pretty low.

As such, Chéng Yáng had expected to make quite the profit by completing a run on his own, but only two pieces of Green Bronze equipment had dropped! None of the mini-bosses had dropped anything, and both of his guaranteed drops had been Green Bronze equipment! Moreover, one of them was a Cloak so he couldn’t even use it. In the end, all he got was a Hat that gave him twenty Mana. It was better than nothing but compared to the others it was too pathetic.

Chéng Yáng could only curse his bad luck. He passed off the Cloak to Zhào Chuān and funnel his anger into farming more monsters.

This time, Chéng Yáng was able to collect enough Soul Fragments to start the final round of Research for each Class Statue right as they finished the previous ones. The monsters in the surrounding area had almost bee completely exterminated, but it had been enough.

Tomorrow morning, when their final Research was complete, the Class Statues would level up to the Standard-Grade. This would increase the number of Citizens that could register with each one, allowing the Settlement to fulfill that upgrade condition. Once it did, the only thing left would be to collect a thousand Soul Fragments and level up the Settlement!

Unfortunately, Chéng Yáng was already scraping the bottom of the barrel when it came to Soul Fragments. Unless he was willing to risk the safety of his Citizens by provoking a large herd, there was no way to quickly raise the funds he needed. Since leveling up the village a couple hours early wouldn’t provide any particular benefit, Chéng Yáng wasn’t willing to endanger his Citizens. Especially since their Innate Abilities were all top quality!

The Settlement wasn’t the only thing growing at an astounding rate, Chéng Yáng was too! His large Mana pool meant he spent less time resting, and more time fighting. Since he was strong enough and nothing particularly strong had spawned yet, he had also done his farming solo to maximize his gains. As a result, he managed to level up his Magic Missile skill! This had taken him two weeks in his previous life, but in this one it took him less than two days.

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Magic Missile (Standard-Grade)
Gather Mana into a rapidly rotating, condensed sphere, then fire it.

Damage: 24.6	Cost: 6 Mana
Range: 30 m	Cooldown: 2.95 sec

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You couldn’t tell when just looking at the description, but the damage ratio had changed. Chéng Yáng only had 20.5 Ability Power, but his Skill did 24.6 damage, meaning it did 120% of his Ability Power instead of the 100% that it did at the Low-Grade level!

Upgrading his Skill wasn’t the only benefit Chéng Yáng gained from these past few hours. Of the nearly three thousands six hundred Soul Fragments raised, Chéng Yáng accounted for nearly thirty percent! Just from that, he had 1,162 Soul Fragments! Enough to unlock eight times training speed even if he couldn’t actually use it.

But that wasn’t all. One of the conditions Chéng Yáng had imposed on the people he had allowed to become Players today was that they needed to pay back the money needed to appraise their talents and perform their Transcendence Ceremonies. In total, they owed 1,420 Soul Fragments. A Low-Grade Village couldn’t collect debt because there was no way to accept donations. There also weren’t any stores or services to ban someone from until the debt was paid. Since that was the case, it was better for Chéng Yáng to embezzle the funds for himself!

Once he counted the Soul Fragments the new Players had paid him, Chéng Yáng had over two thousand Soul Fragments! Enough to support his use of eight times training speed for a few days.

During his cultivation session, Chéng Yáng burned more than three hundred Soul Fragments to supplement his training, filling his experience bar up to the 10.24% mark. Although it was common for the leaders of large factions to consume that many or more every day in his previous life, it was unprecedented to do so this early into the apocalypse!

Chéng Yáng’s team leaders were also able to make significant progress in their cultivation. When they cleared the Instance Dungeon they each gained twenty Soul Fragments. Combined with the surplus of Soul Fragments gained during their fanatic farming session, each of them had unlocked four times cultivation speed without even having to pool their resources.

Some of the Mages and Rangers among the old Players had also managed to unlock four times cultivation speed for an hour or two. Compared to Warriors and Druids who spent most of their time entangled with a single opponent, ranged Classes could farm more efficiently.

The new Players, on the other hand, had unlocked two times cultivation speed at best and some of them had struggled to do even that. Part of the problem was that they had to pay back part of their harvest to Chéng Yáng, however, the primary reason was that they were simply far less efficient than the old Players when it came to farming monsters since they weren’t used to their abilities left.

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