97: Chapter 97 Termination of Contract

enlightenment mountain and the Eye of Truth—these two Epic Grade buildings.

Lin Xiao really wanted to build them immediately.

However, doing so would be extremely difficult.

For one, the Materials were hard to come by; the requirements for Epic Grade buildings were simply too high.

The second reason was even more troublesome: there was no more room in his city.

The higher the quality and Rank of a building, the larger its footprint and the wider its area of influence.

This was clearly evident just by looking at his three Epic Grade barracks.

When Lin Xiao had first planned his city, he hadn't thought too much ahead. The entire city only spanned a single square kilometer. With such a small size, he had even enclosed two of his barracks inside...

In fact, the current city had long since become unrecognizable.

To accommodate the two Epic Grade barracks, Lin Xiao had taken the smallest territory fragments obtained from destroying other territories and stuffed them into his city. Relying on these new patches of land, he managed to push the barracks out of the city, placing them on the north and south sides respectively.

However, as a result, the layout of the entire city had become an eyesore.

If he wanted to place down new Epic Grade buildings, he would have to generate even more territory inside the city, and the layout would look absolutely ridiculous...

Not to mention that Lin Xiao hadn't gathered all the construction Materials yet—even if he had, he wouldn't want to place them down like this.

"Forget it, I'll build them once I reach the Second Source Sea."

Lin Xiao thought about it. He planned to wait until he upgraded to a Level 4 territory. He would use the territory adjustment opportunity he'd get then to completely redesign the layout. At that point, he would naturally free up a large enough area to place these Epic Grade buildings.

In truth, even top-tier lords of Yager and Wei Xuanqi's caliber, despite having the capability and financial power, wouldn't build too many Epic Grade buildings in their own territories.

Epic Grade buildings took up a massive amount of space, yet their power wasn't necessarily stronger than rare grade or perfect-grade ones.

Instead of building them, it was better to construct more rare grade and perfect-grade defensive structures, which would actually yield a higher defensive strength for the territory.

The limit of the Second Source Sea was Epic Grade; that was where they would truly shine.

Aside from enlightenment mountain and the Eye of Truth, the other Epic Grade items were: Hero Token ×3, troop talisman ×8, Equipment ×9, and Building Blueprint ×2.

The variety was a bit lacking.

But this was normal. After all, this was the First Source Sea, where many Epic Grade items couldn't unleash their full potential. Aside from the essential Hero Tokens and troop talismans, only equipment and buildings—due to their sheer durability—were of some practical use.

Following his usual practice, he hoarded the Hero Tokens and troop talismans, keeping them saved just in case.

Once they went to the Second Source Sea, even Lin Xiao couldn't guarantee that his army would maintain zero casualties.

The other two building blueprints were both defensive structures.

One was the earth meteor cannon, and the other was the falling star magic tower.

Lin Xiao had read the descriptions of these two defensive structures. The former was a devastating weapon against ground forces, while the latter was specialized for anti-air.

Combined with the gravity magic well and star dome barrier he had acquired earlier,

once he built all these defensive structures, his territory's defense would be incredibly formidable.

As for the final Epic Grade equipment, Lin Xiao summoned his four heroes. He picked out a dagger from the collection and tossed it to Qian Ying, and then gave a heavy, dragon-shaped set of armor to Zhong Yue.

The Void Sky Dagger and the coiling dragon armor.

"Thank you, Lord."

Qian Ying's eyes lit up, and she quickly caught it. An Epic Grade dagger was far superior to the two perfect-grade daggers she currently held.

Zhong Yue also voiced his thanks and quickly changed into the coiling dragon armor.

Aside from his Battering Ram, his previous equipment had all been shattered under the enemy's frantic onslaught.

With the coiling dragon armor, his lack of defense was instantly remedied.

"Ah..."

Tu Lie watched from the side with wide, longing eyes, his expression filled with sheer envy.

Everyone else had Epic Grade equipment—Zhong Yue even had two—yet he didn't have a single one.

"Those who didn't get anything, don't worry,"

Lin Xiao glanced at Tu Lie and said calmly.

The other Epic Grade equipment wasn't suitable for Tu Lie and the others, so Lin Xiao didn't distribute them, planning to trade them with other lords instead.

Equipping all his Troop Types with perfect-grade gear and all his heroes with Epic Grade gear was his next goal.

...

Compared to the Epic Grade items, the quantity of perfect-grade items was far greater, numbering in the thousands.

The variety was also much broader than that of the Epic Grade items.

Lin Xiao kept all the useful equipment and building blueprints.

There was also a massive amount of rare grade and fine-grade items.

Lin Xiao took a cursory glance and didn't find anything worthy of his attention.

He didn't have much to say about this.

Selling these useless items would at least allow him to trade for things he actually needed.

"Oh right, there are also merits and slaughter points."

Aside from the massive harvest from opening the War Chests and relics, Lin Xiao hadn't forgotten about his intangible gains: merits and slaughter points.

He took out his Merit Token and checked his current merits.

merits: 15,200

Seeing this number, Lin Xiao couldn't help but show a look of satisfaction.

Ten times merits was indeed powerful.

Under normal circumstances, to obtain fifteen thousand merits, he would have to kill over 15,000 veteran Third-Tier Lords, or 1,500 top-tier Third-Tier Lords...

Leaving the former aside, for the latter, he might not even gather that many even if he stayed in the First Source Sea for a full hundred years.

He had truly made a massive fortune.

Then, Lin Xiao opened his attribute panel and cast his gaze toward the slaughter points column.

slaughter points: 120 million

This was quite decent. After all, having killed so many heroes and Troop Types, the small amounts added up. Besides, he had already accumulated a portion of it during his previous frantic farming of slaughter points.

Of course, given Lin Xiao's demands, no matter how many slaughter points he had, it would never be enough.

...

After taking stock of his harvest, Lin Xiao opened the regional channel and sent a message to Jin Ruxuan.

"The contract is complete. Everything good on your end?"

"No problem at all."

Jin Ruxuan replied instantly, his face filled with excitement.

He hadn't expected that in such a short time, Lin Xiao would completely clear away all threats hindering the reconstruction of the Jinshi Chamber of Commerce.

Now, he could boldly and safely rebuild the Jinshi Chamber of Commerce in the First Source Sea.

"Lin Xiao, words cannot express my gratitude."

"According to the contract, I will prepare a thank-you gift and reward for you. Just say the word for whatever you want."

Jin Ruxuan spoke with utmost sincerity.

Whether it was due to the stipulations of the contract or to curry favor with Lin Xiao, he would show the greatest sincerity.

"Mm, there's no rush. We can talk about that later,"

Lin Xiao was in no hurry.

"But there is one thing I hope you can handle for me."

"Just say it. As long as it's within my power, I will absolutely not decline."

Seeing Jin Ruxuan's reply, Lin Xiao nodded and didn't beat around the bush: "Do you remember the temporary protection contracts I signed before?"

"I want you to negotiate on my behalf to terminate those temporary protection contracts. I will pay the penalty fees."

Lin Xiao said.

He would soon head to the Second Source Sea. Separated by an entire source sea, he wouldn't be able to provide protection to those temporary subordinates.

This was a force majeure. Therefore, the moment he departed for the Second Source Sea, all temporary protection contracts would automatically dissolve.

Although looking back, the meager Source Crystals those people had handed over didn't actually play much of a role,

a contract was still a contract.

Lin Xiao simply wanted to part on good terms.