54: Chapter 54 Territory Level 5, Evolutionary Choice

Xu Qin continued scrolling down.

He saw that the topics in the chat channel had shifted from sharing the joy of a successful defense to how to band together in the future.

Barton · Dwarf Race: "Brothers, now that the protection period is over and wild resource points are decreasing, the risk of fighting alone is too high."

Barton · Dwarf Race: "Should we form an alliance?"

Irene · Elf Race: "Agreed. I propose establishing a temporary trade alliance. Everyone can bring out their surplus ore, timber, and grain to trade with each other."

Li Wei · Human Race: "That works. But we must set rules. Whoever betrays the alliance, the others will gang up and beat them."

Barton · Dwarf Race: "Obviously. However, the alliance needs a scope; we can't accept just any trash. Those who are too weak will only drag us down."

Seeing this, Xu Qin raised an eyebrow.

Sure enough, the next second, the topic in the channel took a turn.

Li Wei · Human Race: "By the way, what about those from the Undead Race? Should we pull them in?"

Irene · Elf Race: "We can cooperate, but we can't coordinate in battle."

Barton · Dwarf Race: "Exactly."

Li Wei · Human Race: "Why? I see that Wang Zheng and Zhang Yan have both survived and are developing quite well."

Barton · Dwarf Race: "Don't you know? When near the Undead Race's units, my Musketeers' morale starts to drop. Although it's not obvious, it definitely decreases."

Irene · Elf Race: "My Archers are the same. As long as they are near the Undead Race territory, their morale automatically drops by a level. That aura of death really affects morale too much."

Zorn · Goblin Race: "My Goblins don't really feel anything..."

Barton · Dwarf Race: "In short, we can trade resources with the Undead Race, but let's forget about anything else."

Barton · Dwarf Race: "The stronger they grow, the harder it will be for the surrounding living races."

Iggy · Gnome Race: "Sigh. Resources can be traded normally, just don't get your territory too close. It's amazing how the Undead Race can pollute the land."

Li Wei · Human Race: "Fine then, shall we discuss the trade rules first?"

Barton · Dwarf Race: "Sure, let's confirm locations first and try to open up trade routes."

Xu Qin closed the light screen, sat up, rubbed his chin, and said:

"What they say makes sense, but it can't be helped. The Undead Race follows a different path; we really can't see eye to eye with the living races."

The Undead Race comes with a built-in hatred aura and can convert living races into soldiers.

Once the two sides meet, it's considered restraint if they don't start hacking at each other immediately, and being close also lowers morale.

"Doesn't matter, I'm not short on resources anyway, I'll just solo it."

Indeed, Xu Qin didn't take the matter of an alliance to heart at all.

The reason is simple.

So-called alliances are actually just products of lords huddling together for warmth.

The reason this concept exists boils down to two fundamental causes.

First, individual strength isn't strong enough,

Second, resources are distributed unevenly.

This operation of trading with each other is called cooperation and win-win in nice terms, but to put it bluntly, it's just a few people getting together to scrape by.

And what about Xu Qin?

Of course, he's not lacking anything!

Besides.

The advantages of an alliance are also its fatal flaws.

Things like alliance pacts are ostensibly about "sharing joys and facing hardships together."

In practice, it's just "you help me, I help you, and after helping back and forth, you end up with a pile of messes."

If an ally gets attacked today, you have to go save them,

Tomorrow if an ally needs resources, you have to share yours,

And the day after, if an ally screws up, you have to clean up their mess.

Good grief, it's like staging an epic drama, "Game of Thrones."

Leaning against the Bone Wall, eating freshly roasted Warthog meat, Xu Qin felt a lingering fear just thinking about it.

That's how alliances are; a lone wolf only needs to think about how to strengthen themselves, but an alliance has to consider so much more.

"I'm not stupid, there's no need to fight for this bit of pride; surviving is what really matters."

He tossed the bone aside, stood up, and began to patrol his territory.

For the next twenty-plus hours, the territory was exceptionally peaceful.

Well, it's an Undead Race territory; there was never any singing birds or fragrant flowers to begin with.

The four sides of the Bone Wall were tightly enclosed,

and the soul energy light orbs on the sentry towers emitted a faint, eerie blue glow.

Illuminating the entire area like a horror movie set.

Tian Ming, Blade Guard, and Shadow took one group to clear the northeast direction,

while Bull Demon and Jackal Hunter led another group to the southwest.

The two lines cleared out all the Erosion Beasts within a fifteen-kilometer radius around the territory.

Every three or four hours, they would return to the city with the Bone Transport Cart loaded with spoils.

Xu Qin couldn't stop grinning every time he tallied the results.

Soul energy poured into the warehouse as if it were free.

He had accumulated over eight hundred elite soul cores, and the Abyss Bone Seeds were piled up like a small mountain.

After the Dark Erosion Crystals broke the two-thousand mark, the upgrade materials for the Forge and Workshop became completely abundant.

The heroes' levels were also steadily climbing.

Tian Ming had reached level 19, Bull Demon level 16, Blade Guard level 13, and Jackal Hunter level 9.

Among them, Shadow leveled up the fastest, going from level 21 to 23.

Although this guy couldn't lead troops, his solo efficiency was ridiculously high.

He would sneak into an Erosion Beast nest alone, use Shadow Leap to get in, deliver a fatal blow, and come out.

After harvesting, he would stealth and run away; the whole process was smooth and fluid.

Xu Qin planned out all the resources and began a long wait.

During this time, he opened the chat channel a few times.

The topics in the channel had shifted from "how to form an alliance" to "how to expand territory."

Lords of various races were discussing tactics, exchanging resource coordinates, and occasionally arguing over the ownership of a certain mineral vein.

Xu Qin watched with amusement but didn't reply to a single message.

"Let them argue; by the time they're done, the grass on their graves will be two meters high."

The next day, at nine o'clock in the morning sharp.

Xu Qin was napping on his animal skin bed.

The command panel suddenly popped up a series of golden notifications, chiming non-stop.

[Graveyard upgrade complete!]

[Detected that the lord's core building has reached the level five threshold...]

[Branch evolution route triggered!]

"Branch evolution?"

Xu Qin sat up with a start and opened the command panel.

He saw two large blocks of information pop up simultaneously.

[Branch Route One: Undead City]

[Description: Retains the traditional territory form, allows for the construction of subsidiary branch cities, and significantly expands the territory range. The core building upgrades to the Lords Hall, unlocking Teleportation Arrays, Bone Walls, branch city construction permits, etc.]

[Branch Advantages: Large territory area, stable resource output, suitable for steady development.]

[Branch Route Two: Floating City]

[Description: Abandons the traditional territory form, merges all buildings and ascends into the high altitude, transforming into a mobile war fortress. The core building upgrades to the Floating City Lords Hall, and the remaining buildings become functional areas of the Floating City. Unlocks brand new functions such as the descent platform, Combat Readiness Platform, and Floating City movement.]

[Branch Advantages: Extremely high mobility, can actively choose the battlefield, ignores terrain restrictions, suitable for aggressive expansion.]

When Xu Qin saw the second option, his mind buzzed.

Floating City?

Mobile fortress?