16: Chapter 16 Collaboration with Jin Ruxuan

While adjusting his territory, Lin Xiao also surveyed the resource situation within his domain.

This upgrade to a Level 2 territory also brought about some new resource points.

When a territory upgrades, there is a certain probability of generating new resources within it; as the territory Rank increases, the generation of new resource points becomes inevitable.

Once a territory reaches Level 2 or higher, basic resources like timber, stone mines, and iron mines are guaranteed to spawn. The only differences lie in the scale and storage capacity of these resource points, along with a certain probability of generating higher-Rank resource points.

"Two miniature stone mines, one miniature iron mine, and a large forest."

"Hmm, there is actually a miniature silver mine too."

Lin Xiao's face revealed a pleasant surprise. His luck this time was clearly very good; he had generated quite a few basic resources, and even a silver mine.

Even if the storage capacity of this silver mine wasn't high, its value far exceeded that of the other resource points.

For Lin Xiao, who was in urgent need of massive wealth, this was undoubtedly a shot in the arm.

"Open treasure chest."

The Rare-Rank treasure chest rewarded for the first upgrade to a Level 2 territory was also opened by Lin Xiao, yielding a Rare-Rank Hero Token.

Unfortunately, he had no interest in a Rare-Rank Hero Token anymore.

Lin Xiao planned to package it together with the resource points in his territory and sell them the next time he traded with Jin Ruxuan.

Subsequently, he opened the territory panel.

[Territory: Unnamed]

[Territory Rank: Level 2]

[Territory Size: 1.9 square kilometers]

[Population: 1500 / 10000]

[Heroes: 2 / 3]

[Buildings: Lords Mansion (Level 2), Frost Fortress (Level 1), tavern (Level 1), Residence (Level 0), Watchtower (Level 0)]

As the territory upgraded to Level 2, the caps increased significantly.

Now Lin Xiao could recruit more heroes and troop types to enhance his territory's strength.

After a pause, he looked at the conditions for upgrading to a Level 3 territory.

Source Crystals: 10 million, Food: 1 million units, Timber: 1 million units, Stone: 1 million units, Iron Ore: 100,000 units, Silver Ore: 10,000 units.

Territory Size: 10 square kilometers.

Population: 10,000.

Heroes: 3.

Buildings: 5 Level 2 buildings, 10 buildings total.

Lords Heart: 1.

"Lords Heart."

Lin Xiao's expression tightened slightly. The difficulty of upgrading to a Level 3 territory was undoubtedly higher. The others were fine; they were just large quantities. Even though the required resources now included precious metals like silver ore, it was still within a normal range.

The key lay in the additional requirement: the Lords Heart.

"There is only one channel to obtain a Lords Heart."

"Kill other lords and destroy their territories to obtain a Lords Heart."

Lin Xiao's gaze became profound.

A Lords Heart cannot be traded, and the opponent's territory Rank must not be lower than one's own.

Even lords who followed a logistics path had to find ways to kill other lords themselves in order to increase their territory Rank.

The mechanism of the Chaos Source Sea encouraged them to slaughter each other. Even if they did not attack lords of their own race, they had to kill lords of other races; otherwise, if their territory Rank could not increase, they would sooner or later become livestock under someone else's blade.

Peaceful coexistence—that did not exist.

"During the Seven-Day Assessment, it is impossible to upgrade to a Level 3 territory," Lin Xiao muttered to himself.

During these seven days, they were all in a single-player state and had no ability to invade other lords. Therefore, no matter how good their family background or how deep their pockets were, new lords would be stuck at a Level 2 territory.

Lin Xiao was no exception.

To get the best rewards from the Seven-Day Assessment, the main factors were territory size, territory Rank, and overall territory strength.

Now that the territory Rank had reached the ceiling, the next step was to strive toward territory size and overall territory strength.

For territory size, he either had to use a territory expansion card or continue clearing the Void Land.

Overall territory strength was determined by multiple factors, among which the quantity and strength of heroes and troops, as well as the level and quantity of buildings, held great weight.

"Must hurry," Lin Xiao thought to himself.

He had only one thought now: to make money, and then use it to enhance his territory's strength.

For him, the fastest way to make money, besides opening regional treasure chests and selling resource points, was to collect more protection fees.

...

Just as Lin Xiao's territory upgraded, in the Morning Star No.1 High School group chat.

"Everyone, look at Lin Xiao's profile." Someone suddenly sent this message in the group chat.

Those who saw it immediately went to check it out of curiosity.

As a powerful lord in the group second only to Gao Yue, every move Lin Xiao made attracted a lot of attention.

"Damn, Lin Xiao upgraded to a Level 2 territory."

"How is this possible? Even Gao Yue only has a Level 1 territory."

Soon, the group chat became lively.

Everyone was shocked to the extreme.

You have to know, among these people, most were still at Level 0 territory, and even the publicly acknowledged strongest, Gao Yue, only had a Level 1 territory. Unexpectedly, Lin Xiao had upgraded to a Level 2 territory without a sound...

"How, how could Lin Xiao dare?"

Gao Yue was also dumbfounded. He really had not expected that Lin Xiao would dare to upgrade to a Level 2 territory so quickly.

Wasn't he afraid of being invaded to death by veteran lords of foreign races?

Gao Yue could not figure it out. It was not that he did not have the ability to upgrade to a Level 2 territory, but that he lacked the confidence to stabilize his development under the invasion of foreign race lords.

Yet Lin Xiao dared to do so.

Either he was crazy, or Lin Xiao had some unknown, powerful trump card.

"Hmm?" Just as he opened the regional channel, Lin Xiao saw his message notifications flashing constantly.

He opened the messages to take a look, then checked the Morning Star No.1 High School group chat for a while, and immediately understood the situation.

The ones sending messages were mainly the eight temporary underlings he had recruited in the group.

They were a bit panicked now.

After all, if Lin Xiao could not withstand the invasion of foreign race lords and his territory was destroyed, then their resources would have been handed over in vain.

Having paid a large amount of resources, which dragged down their own territory's development, only to receive no protection—that would be truly miserable.

If it were not for the fact that a contract, once signed, required mutual consent to be terminated, they would have wanted to unilaterally breach it.

"Rest assured, I have it under control," Lin Xiao comforted them.

Saying too much was useless; it was better to let facts speak for themselves. Anyway, the contract had already been signed, and they could not violate it—the same went for Lin Xiao.

Later, they would realize that being able to receive Lin Xiao's protection was their good fortune.

Lin Xiao was lost in thought.

Even relatively familiar classmates were wavering, which showed how difficult it was for him to collect more protection fees. Even if he showed his Level 2 territory profile, it would not be of much use. Others would doubt whether he could stand his ground under the invasion of foreign race lords, and whether he was just there to scam resources...

It would be best to have someone with sufficient credibility endorse him; only then could he achieve twice the result with half the effort.

Lin Xiao immediately thought of Jin Ruxuan.

He was from the Jinshi Chamber of Commerce, and the Jinshi Chamber of Commerce was a major commercial firm renowned across the Main World. It had a certain reputation in all cities across the Main World, and its influence in Dongzhou was the strongest.

Such a family background belonged to the top tier among the tens of millions of lords in this batch.

If Jin Ruxuan were willing to come forward and vouch for him.

Lin Xiao did as he thought, immediately contacting Jin Ruxuan. Of course, he did not bring up his idea right away, but first conducted a trade with him, dumping all the resource points and unused items in his territory.

A huge, staggering amount of Source Crystals, before they were even warmed up, were exchanged by Lin Xiao for various needed resources.