292: An Qian takes office as city lord

The issue of food shortage in Beian City did not just arise today.

It had already become apparent more than ten days ago.

Wen Zhiyuan spread his hands and said sincerely, "The city's food supply is about to run out. If we don't solve this problem soon, Beian City will be filled with starving people in a few days."

His implication was, you, An Qian, are about to become the City Lord; surely you can't ignore the problem of everyone going hungry, can you?

It probably wouldn't be appropriate to hold a grand inauguration ceremony without first solving the food problem.

Tan Anguo also chimed in, "Now that the insects have completely surrounded Beian City, we are completely unable to go out and search for supplies. If we can't solve this problem, we will truly be trapped and starved to death."

Through their explanations, Qin Shilei learned that Sect Leader Feng Yuxin of the Heavenly Demon Sect had already led over 300,000 people to leave Beian City and head south yesterday.

Currently, Beian City still has approximately 1.2 million people.

The daily food consumption of these over one million people is an astronomical figure.

Qin Shilei said calmly, "Tomorrow, arrange An Qian's inauguration as City Lord in the Tianan Prefecture's assembly hall. As for the food problem, I will solve it."

"You'll solve it?" Wen Zhiyuan asked with a face full of disbelief, "How will you solve it? This isn't a problem for ten or twenty thousand people, but for over a million."

Qin Shilei glanced at Wen Zhiyuan and said flatly, "Is ten thousand tons of food enough? If not, then how about twenty thousand tons?"

Food, for him, was no problem at all.

Not only did his Qiankun Ring contain tens of thousands of tons of food, but mutated corn had also been planted on a large scale. With the energy richness of mutated corn, as long as it was harvested, there would be no food shortage problem at all.

Tan Anguo asked with a hopeful expression, "Can your Hope City really produce twenty thousand tons of food, and can it be transported to Beian City quickly?"

These past few days, he had worried himself sick over the food problem, and now hearing that Qin Shilei could solve it, he immediately felt a sense of relief.

Qin Shilei shook the Qiankun Ring in his hand, "The food is in my ring. However, this food isn't free. I will provide a portion as disaster relief food, and the other portion will require everyone to purchase it with the crystals they possess."

Everyone immediately showed shocked expressions upon hearing this.

They were astonished both by Qin Shilei's possession of such a large-capacity spatial ring and by his immense quantity of food.

Could this fellow have emptied a large food base?

Qin Shilei then asked, "Chief Tan, the country should have many food reserve bases. Why don't you transport the food back from them?"

Tan Anguo replied, "What could be taken has already been taken. The rest has either been destroyed, or occupied by mutated beasts and zombies. There's also a portion that hasn't been checked yet due to the extremely long distance."

Qin Shilei suggested, "Give me the maps of those material bases, and I'll give you five thousand tons of food."

Tan Anguo thought for a moment, then nodded, "Alright, I'll have someone organize the maps right away."

Even if those materials weren't destroyed by mutated beasts, leaving them there would just be a pile of waste.

Now, exchanging them for a large amount of food with Qin Shilei not only solved Tianan Prefecture's food problem but also allowed those materials to be utilized. Why wouldn't he do it?

Of course, he wouldn't hand over all the material reserve bases to Qin Shilei; at least those that still had a chance and ability to be retrieved in the future would not be exchanged.

Qin Shilei spoke again, "As for the insects surrounding Beian City, everyone should organize people to clear them out. Eventually, they can all be eliminated.

I have also found the Space Rift where the insects are appearing, and I will find a way to curb the speed at which they appear."

Now that the food problem was solved, relying on the advantage of the city walls, clearing out the insects was not a big problem.

The two problems raised by Wen Zhiyuan and the others were basically resolved.

Everyone had no choice but to proceed with arranging An Qian's inauguration.

Qin Shilei and An Qian decided to use the former site of the Heavenly Demon Sect as the location for the City Lord's Mansion.

After selecting the City Lord's Mansion, An Qian opened its gates wide to recruit talented individuals.

The first group of people she accepted was Jin Hongye's Canglang Gang.

Besides the Canglang Gang, many small and medium-sized factions also pledged allegiance to An Qian, the City Lord.

These small and medium-sized factions had previously only survived in the crevices beneath Beian City's major powers.

Now that the City Lord's Mansion was newly established, it was a good time to pledge allegiance.

As long as they latched onto the City Lord's Mansion, they might soar to success and live a life of wealth and glory from then on.

Qin Shilei and An Qian completely disregarded the small calculations in these people's minds.

They merely carefully selected over 30,000 people from them to form the City Guard Army.

To help An Qian manage the City Guard Army, Qin Shilei even made a special trip back to Hope City and brought Zhang Qiang, Xie Haimei, and over a dozen captains from the Panshi Battle Group to Beian City.

Currently, Zhang Qiang and Xie Haimei are both at Silver Nine-Star, ranked 79th and 83rd respectively.

In Beian City, they were top-tier, peerless experts.

With their assistance, plus the more than ten captains from the Panshi Battle Group,

They believed that the City Guard Army would soon be trained into a reliable force.

Speaking of the rankings, Qin Shilei and An Qian still held the top positions, far ahead of the rest.

Cultivation Ranking:

First Place: Qin Shilei, Cultivation: Golden Two-Star.

Second Place: An Qian, Cultivation: Golden Two-Star.

Third Place: Steve, Cultivation: Silver Nine-Star.

Fourth Place: Caesar the Great, Cultivation: Silver Nine-Star.

Fifth Place: Mary, Cultivation: Silver Nine-Star.

Sixth Place: Ye Litian, Cultivation: Silver Nine-Star.

Seventh Place: Zeus, Cultivation: Silver Nine-Star.

Eighth Place: Apollo, Cultivation: Silver Nine-Star.

Ninth Place: Ito Hirobumi, Cultivation: Silver Nine-Star.

Tenth Place: Kim Chang-tae, Cultivation: Silver Nine-Star.

After advancing to the Golden Realm, the experience needed for further upgrades was extremely vast; it required a full one million experience points to advance from Golden One-Star to Golden Two-Star.

Because the spiritual energy on Blue Star had increased by nearly a thousand times compared to before the apocalypse.

Besides absorbing crystals to upgrade, humans could also cultivate by absorbing spiritual energy from the air during normal times.

Perhaps An Qian intentionally yielded, or perhaps Qin Shilei cultivated more diligently. Three days ago, Qin Shilei finally surpassed An Qian again, winning the top spot on the rankings.

Zhang Xiaoli and Kong Qingshu were ranked 18th and 25th respectively.

Another person from Hope City also made it into the top hundred of the rankings, and that was He Kaige, at 94th place.

In fact, for the first forty to fifty places, everyone's experience should be the same, all at the peak of Silver Nine-Star, only one opportunity away from advancing to the Golden Realm.

.......

Prestige Ranking:

First Place: Qin Shilei, Prestige: 210953

Second Place: An Qian, Prestige: 207549

Third Place: Zeus, Prestige: 31792

......

On the prestige ranking, Qin Shilei and An Qian were even further ahead of everyone else by a large margin.

An Qian's inauguration as Beian City's City Lord proceeded smoothly and without incident.

After watching related videos on the chat channel, the survivors of Beian City enthusiastically expressed their thoughts, and then threw themselves into the action of clearing out the insects outside the city.

As long as the insects outside Beian City remained, everyone's mood could not relax.