14: Chapter 14 Spirit Gathering Array, Jin Ruxuan's Importance

At this moment, there were not many Orcs left in the northern Void Land, and they no longer posed any threat.

Tu Lie led the Dragon Cavalry into the depths of the gray mist, searching for any potentially existing monster nests.

It didn't take long for them to find their target.

Guided by a Dragon Cavalry who had returned to report, Lin Xiao soon saw the monster nest.

It was a strange, rugged, and primitive-looking structure emitting endless black mist, covering an area of several hundred square meters; every so often, the black mist at the nest's exit would surge, and an Orc would emerge.

"This is a Void Monster."

Seeing this scene, Lin Xiao felt a bit emotional.

The Orc race was originally supposed to be one of the Lord races to descend upon the Chaos Source Sea, but they were defeated and completely wiped out by other races, thus turning into Void Monsters.

As Void Monsters, they were no longer normal living beings.

Their reproduction was handled by the monster nest.

As long as the monster nest existed, it could continuously spawn Orcs; if it sensed danger, the monster nest would even accelerate its spawning speed, so trying to fight a war of attrition against them was clearly unrealistic.

If the battle dragged on for too long, I fear this entire Void Land would be filled with Orcs.

Although it still wouldn't pose a threat to Lin Xiao, the difficulty of conquering it would certainly increase significantly.

"Boom, boom, boom~"

Without needing an order from Lin Xiao, Tu Lie had already led the Dragon Cavalry to attack the monster nest.

A white energy shield could be seen enveloping the entire monster nest; Tu Lie's powerful attacks, capable of easily slaughtering Rank 2 monsters, landed on it, yet only caused the energy shield to tremble slightly and its light to dim just a little.

To destroy the monster nest, one must first break the energy shield on the outside.

This thing wasn't unique to the monster nest; the Lords Mansion had it too, as both were their respective cores and naturally had corresponding defenses.

The Frost Giants and Black Armor Soldierss also joined in the attack on the monster nest.

Fortunately, the monster nest was large enough that they could swarm it without issue.

Only Jiang Yao remained guarding by Lin Xiao's side, occasionally firing an arrow that would land on the energy shield.

No matter how thick the monster nest's health bar was, it couldn't withstand this level of attack intensity; the energy shield weakened at a speed visible to the naked eye, and after just one minute, it shattered with a loud crash.

Having lost its energy shield, the monster nest could not stop the attacks from Tu Lie and his troops, and in the blink of an eye, it was razed to the ground.

The moment the monster nest was destroyed, the few remaining Orcs in the Void Land silently turned into black mist and vanished.

A golden-glittering regional treasure chest appeared on the ruins of the monster nest.

Lin Xiao stepped forward to open it.

[You have opened a regional treasure chest and obtained the following items: 90,000 Source Crystals, 9,000 units of food, 8,000 units of wood, 10,000 units of stone, 1,000 units of iron ore, Low-level Spirit Gathering Array ×1, Hook and Sickle Spear (Common)]

"Spirit Gathering Array."

Lin Xiao was pleasantly surprised; his luck with the regional treasure chest was quite good this time, as he had actually obtained a Spirit Gathering Array.

This was a Formation that could assist with Cultivation; once the Spirit Gathering Array was activated, it could gather Spiritual Qi from the surrounding area, increasing the concentration of Spiritual Qi within the Formation several times over, effectively accelerating the speed of Cultivation.

Although it was only a low-level Spirit Gathering Array, it could still accommodate ten people to Cultivate inside.

"Continue."

After converting the northern Void Land, the territory's military force turned toward the other three sides.

Clearing out a Rank 5 Void Land was nothing; for Tu Lie and his troops, it didn't take much effort at all, and they were fully capable of continuing the fight.

Wherever the military force pointed, they were invincible.

The Void Lands on the east, south, and west sides were broken through one after another, eventually being converted into territory and integrated into Lin Xiao's territory.

There were no monster nests in the Void Lands in the other three directions; they were all filled with wild monsters.

The numbers were quite large, reaching tens of thousands.

Fortunately, each one killed was one less, with no way to replenish them, and the strength of Tu Lie and the Frost Giants was too overwhelming; even with tens of thousands of Void Monsters, including Rank 1 monsters and elite monsters, it was not enough for them to kill.

Returning to the territory and arranging for the heroes and troops to either Cultivate or rest, Lin Xiao opened the territory panel.

[Territory: Unnamed]

[Territory Rank: Rank 1]

[Territory Size: 1.9 square kilometers]

[Population: 550 / 1000]

[Heroes: 2 / 2]

[Buildings: Lords Mansion (Rank 1), Frost Fortress (Rank 0), residential house (Rank 0), tavern (Rank 0)]

Compared to the requirements for upgrading the territory to Rank 2, the heroes were sufficient, and the territory size exceeded the requirement by quite a bit, but as for the other conditions, there were still some deficiencies.

The Black Armor Soldierss and Dragon Cavalry were Rare-grade, Rank 1, and their population share had become 20, while the Frost Giants were Perfect-grade, Rank 1, and occupied a population share of 50.

Therefore, although there were only 23 units, because their quality was so high, they occupied a full 550 of the population.

However, they were still quite far from a population of 1000, and Lin Xiao prepared to continue recruiting Frost Giants.

Opening the regional list and glancing at the Morning Star No.1 High School chat group, he found no news worth noting; Lin Xiao collected a batch of resources from his eight temporary underlings, and then opened the dialogue box with Jin Ruxuan.

Opening the four regional treasure chests had gained Lin Xiao a large sum of resources.

Of course, if he really wanted to use them, it was still far from enough.

So this time, he was also prepared to sell something else.

"Selling ore?"

Seeing the message sent by Lin Xiao, Jin Ruxuan was not surprised; mineral resources were certainly most profitable when mined oneself, but mining was time-consuming and labor-intensive, and it would occupy a significant population, which for those War Lords anxious to improve their territory's strength...

...cashing in the resource points in their hands as quickly as possible and converting them into units and strength was the most correct choice.

This Lin Xiao was clearly following a war-oriented path.

After thinking for a moment, Jin Ruxuan opened Lin Xiao's profile to take a look.

"1.9 square kilometers of territory."

"He has already finished clearing the Rank 5 Void Land?"

Jin Ruxuan was greatly astonished.

Among his clients, there were many Lords who had already finished clearing the Rank 5 Void Land, and the top-tier batch had even upgraded to Rank 2 territory.

But those were all Prodigy descendants from major powers and Families who had made full preparations before entering the Chaos Source Sea; they had "blood bags" transporting supplies for them, held countless resources in their hands, had at least Perfect-grade heroes and units under their command, were well-equipped with strong troops, and possessed numerous Rare-grade equipment and items.

Rapidly upgrading to Rank 2 territory was a given, and easily clearing the Rank 5 Void Land was also normal.

But Lin Xiao...

...was simply not a member of any major power or Family; otherwise, he wouldn't need to buy Perfect-grade units from him, and even his territory Rank was only Rank 1, yet he was biting tightly onto the heels of those top-tier Lords, unlike Gao Yue who had already fallen behind.

This was somewhat astonishing.

Jin Ruxuan had no interest in exploring Lin Xiao's secrets, but silently raised the level of importance he placed on Lin Xiao in his heart.

In his eyes, Lin Xiao had already become more important than clients at Gao Yue's level.