Cheng Yang and Liu Wei stayed out hunting monsters until ten that night. Once he returned, Cheng Yang had permanently transferred a hundred thousand Experience Fragments to Liu Wei for her training. It was a lot, but Cheng Yang couldn’t help but care about her. At the very least, he could justify it since she was the first member of his special guard squadron. Then, he bought the remaining Stones of Return from the Grocery and listed them on the Auction House.
A few hours, people purchased all of the stones, and Cheng Yang’s total number of Experience Fragments had reached 1.22 million. Cheng Yang’s assets had grown eleven fold. It was so amazing that Cheng Yang felt like shouting to the world: “Let the profits keep rolling in!”
Unfortunately, Cheng Yang knew that high-profit margins would become a distant memory tomorrow. Once people realized the supply was so high, very few people would pay more than the base auction price.
Ever since he listed the other Stones of Return, Cheng Yang had been focused on brewing potions. Not only would it be a decent source of income, but he was also close to becoming a High-Grade Alchemist. Once he did, he would be able to make High-Grade potions that blew anything else available out of the water.
Once he used up his Energy for the day, Cheng Yang went to find Old Lee. He’d seen him return to the village a while ago and needed to talk to him.
“Old Lee, how are you? Is everything going well?” Cheng Yang asked.
“It’s not bad. There aren’t any dangerous hordes nearby anymore, so the last few days have been slow. If we didn’t have to watch over the Bone-Eating Ant Nest, I’m afraid my soldiers would be bored to death.” Old Lee replied with a chuckle.
“That’s good to hear.” Cheng Yang paused for a moment. “Anyways, I’m going to give your battalion a hundred thousand Experience Fragments. You can’t use them to buy things or consume them during training. I’m giving them to you so that you can accelerate the training speed of your soldiers. You can decide whether to use it all yourself or distribute it to your subordinates.”
Old Lee frowned. He was currently using sixteen times training speed and was barely keeping up with the consumption costs.
“My Lord, they won-“
“Don’t worry about that.” Cheng Yang interrupted him. “Even if they can’t support that level of training speed yet they will someday. I just need you to decide how to allocate those Experience Fragments quickly. I have a hunch that people won’t be able to transfer Experience Fragments to each other for much longer.”
“Why do you say that?” Old Lee asked. “Isn’t it allowed under the gods’ rules?”
“Its exactly because its the gods’ rules that I’m worried. If they can allow it, they can ban it too.” Cheng Yang said with a wry smile. “They changed a bunch of the rules regarding safe zones earlier, and the people who relied on them are probably crying tears of blood now. Since the gods will try and patch any loopholes they left open, I’m worried they’ll see what we’re doing and move to restrict it.”
Old Lee didn’t know where Cheng Yang’s confidence came from, but since it wouldn’t hurt to be prepared, he stopped arguing.
Cheng Yang transferred the funds to Old Lee and then sold half of his potions to the Alchemy Tower manager.
Finally, cheng Yang visited the Nirvana Feather Meditation Hall to train for the night. Since he still had over a million Experience Fragments, Cheng Yang was able to utilize sixty-four-times training speed. It was really gratifying since his experience bar would noticeably fill while training.
If he were able to maintain this pace, it would take less time for him to reach the second stage of evolution than it would for someone to enter the Standard-Grade. Of course, that was only if they didn’t boost their training speed at all.
The next day, Cheng Yang cleared the Nightmare Difficulty Blood-Soaked Church and, after so many days of bad luck, finally had another piece of Red-Gold equipment drop.
It was a ring that increased his Magical Attack by six, and his Mana regen by ten percent. At this point, his damage was so high that this hardly mattered. Most monsters could only survive two strikes from him, and the only ones they couldn’t, Bosses, wouldn’t be affected by a small increase.
The Purple-Silver protective gear he found was even more inconsequential. His Physical Defense was more than enough to stall any monster that wasn’t a Bone-Eating Ant.
Once he was out, Cheng Yang visited the class change statues. Three days ago, he started the research to increase damage. Now that it was finished, he could pick another. Three of the five research options were complete now, so soon, the statutes would level up again.
Once the statues leveled up, Cheng Yang was willing to let the people who performed class change ceremonies be Adventurers. After all, the village wouldn’t be able to support a bigger military.
After selecting the Physical Defense research option, Cheng Yang summoned Lau Hui and Liu Wei.
While he was waiting, Cheng Yang bought the day’s Stone of Return supply and listed them on the Auction House. However, this time he kept three stones in his ring.
Shortly after, the people he summoned arrived at his Meditation Hall.
“Hey, Ox. I need you to arrange something for me. Have your second-in-command lead your battalion for today. I need you to come with me to do something.”
“Of course, my Lord.” Lau Hui replied happily. “Let me go settle that.”
With a salute, Lau Hui turned and walked away.
“We are we going today Cheng Yang?” Liu Wei couldn’t help but ask. Usually, it was just the two of them, so it must be a special location if he was bringing someone else.
“You’ll find out soon enough.” Cheng Yang said with a sly smile.
Liu Wei understood that Cheng Yang wanted to be a surprise, so she stopped asking.
After a while, Lau Hui returned with a grin. “It’s done, my Lord.”
“Alright, let’s go then.” Cheng Yang said before leading them to the Southern gate.
After they walked more than ten kilometers away from the village without any signs of stopping, Lau Hui couldn’t help but as: “Yoko, are we just exploring the wilderness today? If you wanted to do that, I could have brought the rest of my battalion.”
Cheng Yang smiled. “If we wanted to clear the wilderness, they would be useful, but we’re doing something an army can’t help with.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Do you know what’s over there?” Cheng Yang asked while pointing in the direction they were traveling.
“Well, we’re going south, but I don’t know what we’ll find. After the earthquake, it could be anything.”
“If we keep walking that way, we’re going to find Yicheng. No one from Yicheng has posted anything on the forums yet, which means there’s not a safe zone there. My visions say the same thing. Anyways, it must be tough for anyone still living out there.”
“Yoko, you’re not planning on saving the people of Yicheng, are you? With just the three of us?”
“Yep, we three are going to save them.”
At this point, despite her trust in Cheng Yang, Liu Wei had to say something.
“Cheng Yang, how do you plan to save them with just us? You’re powerful, but if we have to escort those people several kilometers through the wilderness, even you won’t be able to protect them.”
“We’re not going to bring them back. My visions also showed me that there’s a Territory Altar near Yicheng. We’ll clear out any big hordes near the city then allow them to perform class change ceremonies in a village.”
Liu Wei and Lau Hui looked at each other, no longer able to refute Cheng Yang’s claim. As long as they provided a way for the citizens of Yicheng to become Professionals, the three of them could help the citizens help themselves.
Cheng Yang wasn’t initially going to visit Yicheng even though there were two Territory Altar there. However, after what happened yesterday, he realized it would be foolish not to expand his strength as quickly as possible.
Although the Bone-Eating Ant Nest might have appeared in his last life too, after hearing that the gods were watching him, Cheng Yang grew paranoid. Most of his geographical knowledge was probably still accurate, but everything else was starting to change. He could no longer expect the little details from his previous life to carry over.
He now, more than ever, needed to solidify his position of power, and expanding the number of territories under his control was the best way to do so.
XMTL 