178: Chapter 178 What a load of crap!

Seven days later.

Outside Yongyuan City.

Su Yao stood on a sand dune, staring dumbfoundedly ahead.

Because before her eyes was an endless expanse of green.

In this barren desert,

centered around the ruins of Yongyuan City,

forests stretched in patches within a fifty-kilometer radius.

The surface featured exposed mineral veins.

Stone ores were scattered by the roadside in massive, gleaming piles.

Moreover,

she saw with her own eyes a felled tree stump sprouting new shoots at a speed visible to the naked eye.

In less than ten minutes, a new tree grew out.

"This…" Su Yao swallowed hard, "Is this still the ruin I left before?"

Behind her, Zhou Ze also climbed up the sand dune.

Upon seeing the scene before him, he likewise froze in place.

"Holy shit!"

After eleven days of long trekking.

The fatigue and anxiety of the three of them were finally cast off completely at this very moment.

"Su Yao, look quickly at the regional buff."

Zhou Ze pointed at his command panel and said excitedly,

"Nearly a 300% resource regeneration rate!"

"Already saw it."

Su Yao pointed at the army of Troglodytes in the distance transporting ores,

"Look at those Troglodytes… at least twenty thousand of them."

"So many Troglodytes gathering together still can't mine the surrounding resources dry. What does that mean… do you understand?"

"Understood, how could I not understand?" Lin Feng, who had climbed up, nodded repeatedly, "This means resources are infinite, and the territory won't get stuck upgrading anymore."

Twenty thousand Troglodytes.

Gathering day and night.

They grow back as soon as they are mined.

Mined again once they grow.

Endless.

"This fucking life is what a lord should live."

Zhou Ze sat down with a thud,

"Fighting tooth and nail for a forest before wasn't even as much as what's produced here in a single day."

Su Yao nodded repeatedly.

She understood!

That feeling of fighting for one's life and pouring everything into it with zero return—she understood that all too well.

Hardly containing her excitement, she opened the human chat channel.

Su Yao · Lizard Tribe: Everyone, we've finally arrived at Yongyuan City.

Su Yao · Lizard Tribe: I'll only say one thing. Within a fifty-kilometer radius of Yongyuan City, resources regenerate infinitely.

Su Yao · Lizard Tribe: Where I'm standing right now, to the right is an iron mine, to the left is a forest, and ahead is a stone mine. They're all open-air.

Fang Che · Human: Really or fake???

Su Yao · Lizard Tribe: Wait for my screenshot, see for yourselves.

She sent a screenshot of the regional map into the chat channel.

Sure enough, the channel exploded instantly.

Chen Mo · Human: Holy shit?! These resources are ridiculously abundant!

Fang Che · Human: I'm still on the way! Three more days! Wait for me! Leave me a plot of land!

Li Ming · Goblin Race: I'm almost there too! Two more days!

Barton · Dwarf Race: ...

Li Wei · Human: ...Regret, I should have signed up earlier back then.

Zhao Ming · Human: Don't mention it, I'm running low even on timber right now.

Lord Lin Yi · Human: When will the second batch of slots open up?

Su Yao · Lizard Tribe: Slots are full.

In the channel, cries of sorrow echoed.

Those lords who hesitated back then felt like slapping themselves across the face in remorse upon seeing the resource screenshots.

Zhang Yu silently finished looking at the screenshot and closed the chat panel.

...

Three days later.

All twenty vassals were in place.

Near Yongyuan City, twenty small territories popped up, scattered sparsely around the ruins.

Winter Sovereign stood at the entrance of the ruins, silently watching every newly arrived lord.

But no one dared to glance at it more than once.

And that afternoon.

The first batch of tributes arrived on time.

...

Floating City, Combat Readiness Platform.

Xu Qin opened the command panel and looked at the long string of pop-up prompt messages.

[Dwarf Musketeer (Tier 3) × 4200]

[Elf Archer (Tier 3) × 3800]

[Iron-Spine Lizard Warrior (Tier 3) × 6500]

[Human Heavy Infantry (Tier 3) × 5200]

[Blood-Hoof Tauren Cavalry (Tier 3) × 3600]

[Treant Guard (Tier 3) × 2800]

[Iron-Horned Battle Rhino (Tier 3) × 1200]

[Goblin Sapper (Tier 2) × 4500]

[Goblin Pyromancer (Tier 3) × 2500]

[Troglodyte (Tier 2) × 5700]

[Total: 40,000 Units]

Xu Qin began browsing through the attribute panels of these troop types.

Iron-Spine Lizard Warrior: Attack 380, Defense 160, HP 2800.

Blood-Hoof Tauren Cavalry: Attack 420, Defense 150, HP 3200.

Goblin Pyromancer: Attack 520, Defense 60, HP 1200.

...

"Not bad. This way, my troop pool can welcome a major overhaul."

He nodded with satisfaction, stood up, and walked toward the edge of the Combat Readiness Platform.

"Tian Ming."

"Present, Master."

"Kill all these forty thousand living creatures."

"Yes."

Tian Ming waved the bone emperor scepter.

Whoosh!

A dense aura of death began to permeate the air.

Then,

Bang!

The bone emperor scepter heavily slammed into the ground.

Bang!

[Bone Emperors Might]!

At the same time, Xu Qin issued the full-army attack command.

The surrounding Skeleton Archers and Musketeers opened fire simultaneously.

Dense volleys of soul energy arrows and projectiles shot toward the forty thousand troops.

Thirty seconds later.

All forty thousand troops collapsed to the ground.

Clang!

[Combat Settlement!]

[Talent "War Gift" triggered! All quantities × 24!]

[Final Acquisition:]

[Dwarf Musketeer Skeleton × 100,800]

[Elf Archer Skeleton × 91,200]

[Iron-Spine Lizard Skeleton × 156,000]

[...]

[soul energy + 7,680,000]

Xu Qin stared at that long string of numbers on the panel and couldn't help laughing out loud.

"Awesome… forty thousand turned into nine hundred and sixty thousand."

"The vassal system is fucking amazing."

He walked back to the bone throne, sat down, and opened the vassal channel to check the updates below.

...

Near Yongyuan City.

Inside Su Yao's territory.

Several vassal lords gathered together, looking at each other in dismay.

"You guys say… Xu Qin directly killed our troops?" a Goblin Race lord asked in a low voice.

"That's for sure. He's an Undead Race lord, what else would he wait for if not to kill them?"

Zhou Ze nodded with a complicated expression.

"Although I knew it would be like this, actually seeing it… my heart still feels a bit heavy."

"Worry my ass!"

Fang Che cursed right back.

"What can the few troops you're feeling heartache over even do? Fighting to the death outside before, casualties in a single medium-sized campaign were two to thirty thousand. Did your heart ache when they died?"

Upon hearing this, everyone was taken aback.

"But it's different now. We hand over 30% every month, and the remaining 70% is your own. Resources here regenerate infinitely, and territorial safety is guaranteed. You just need to develop with peace of mind."

"What about before? Before, every day you worried about your home being raided, worried about being besieged by coalition forces, worried about troops defecting. What are you worried about now?"

Zhou Ze rolled his eyes and thought carefully...

"Right, it seems… there really isn't anything to worry about."

"Isn't that it?"

Fang Che spread his hands and said with a nonchalant expression,

"This place is big enough, resources within a fifty-kilometer range are infinite."

"The nineteen of us spread out, guarding one plot each, and we won't even be able to occupy it all."

Lin Feng also chimed in:

"My Treant troops grow three times as fast on this land as outside."

"A month later, my military strength can double."

Su Yao stood aside and calmly spoke,

"As long as everyone can find their proper place."

"Although we are a farm and he is the farm owner."

"But…"

She glanced around, looking at this lush Oasis.

"Being a pig on a farm is still better than being a stray dog in the desert."

Everyone nodded in succession.

Rest assured, they could all calculate this account clearly.