Chapter 106 – Unexpected Encounter

Chapter 106 – Unexpected Encounter

Suddenly, Li Wanshan’s heart stirred. He seemed to have guessed what Cheng Yang was about to say and immediately spoke up, “Lord, are you suggesting that there are demonic beasts with BOSS templates outside the western passage?”

Cheng Yang neither confirmed nor denied, “I’m not sure. It’s just a guess, but I’m fairly certain there’s no territory altar outside the western passage.”

“This…” Li Wanshan hesitated. He didn’t know the basis for Cheng Yang’s speculation but felt it inappropriate to ask directly. If Cheng Yang hadn’t volunteered the information, there must be some concerns.

After a while, Li Wanshan asked, “So you’re saying the western passage is currently impassable?”

“Not entirely impassable,” Cheng Yang replied, “but the danger level might be quite high. Of course, if we’re just talking about clearing the demonic beasts along the passage, that wouldn’t be much of a problem.”

Li Wanshan knew that clearing the western passage would yield at most one item, which couldn’t compare in value to a territory altar.

“What’s our next move then?” Li Wanshan asked. “Phoenix Village is developing steadily, and both East Mountain Village and Xiang River Village are progressing well. It won’t be long before they reach level 3. By then, we’ll have over 8,000 combatants – a force to be reckoned with.”

Cheng Yang said, “Let’s wait until our first batch of combatants reaches intermediate level. Our priority now is to develop these three strongholds. After that, we can consider expanding. If we want to occupy more strongholds, we’ll probably have to cross Xiangcheng City and look to surrounding areas.”

Li Wanshan, familiar with the surrounding terrain, frowned, “The nearest city to Xiangcheng is Yanghe City, about 80 kilometers away. That’s quite a distance, and with all the wilderness in between, it won’t be easy to reach.”

“That 80 kilometers was before the earthquake,” Cheng Yang explained. “The terrain has changed significantly since then. The distance might be shorter or longer now. While it will be challenging, our development speed is fast enough that it shouldn’t be a major problem. If we can’t manage to cross cities to occupy strongholds, no one else can.”

After a pause, Cheng Yang asked, “By the way, Old Li, how are things in the territory? Are the ordinary people in the outer areas stable?”

Li Wanshan replied, “Things are going well. Our combatants bring back plenty of food daily, and during recent rescue operations, we’ve found many seasonings and grains. We’ve stored the grains and used the seasonings to prepare meat dishes. While it gets monotonous after a while, it’s still better than starving. However…”

“However what?” Cheng Yang immediately asked.

“With our increased rescue efforts in Xiangcheng City these past two days,” Li Wanshan explained, “we’ve saved many more people. The territory’s population is now close to 50,000. The daily consumption of food and seasonings is enormous, and these resources are currently non-renewable. I’m afraid they’ll run out soon.”

Cheng Yang smiled confidently, “Don’t worry about that. This is the apocalypse, not peaceful times. As you said, having food is better than starving. I believe people will endure. Besides, this problem isn’t unsolvable. I expect the number of secondary professions will increase in the future, which should resolve the issue.”

While Cheng Yang wasn’t entirely sure about future secondary professions, he knew one for certain – farming. Unlike other professions, one didn’t need to be a combatant to become a farmer. This would provide an outlet for those who couldn’t become combatants and would supply the majority of the world’s food.

Li Wanshan, trusting Cheng Yang’s judgment, felt reassured. After some more casual conversation, they parted ways. Before leaving, Cheng Yang transferred 30,000 spirit energy points from his account to Li Wanshan, instructing him to distribute them among some combatants to enable quadruple cultivation speed.

Currently, there were no restrictions on transferring spirit energy between combatants. Cheng Yang’s act was both a benefit and a way to secure the loyalty of his combatants.

Returning to his courtyard, Cheng Yang began his nightly cultivation.

The next morning, after completing his cultivation, Cheng Yang went to the territory’s profession statue. The Priest Statue in Phoenix Village had finally reached level 4 after a long upgrade process.

With some trepidation, Cheng Yang opened the Priest Statue’s attribute panel. Seeing that the number of available positions was 84, he felt relieved.

Even without his past life’s knowledge, Cheng Yang could have deduced from previous upgrades that the number of available positions doubled with each level. The level 3 Priest Statue had 20 positions, which increased to 41 due to the Statue Enhancement Stone. Now, with 84 positions (80 after accounting for Li Wanshan’s talent bonus), it confirmed that the Statue Enhancement Stone boosted the base data – an excellent development.

Eighty-four priests, while a small fraction of Phoenix Village’s total combatants, would still play a significant role, especially in large battles. Having priests healing from behind the warriors would greatly enhance their endurance.

Compared to territories without priest professions, Phoenix Village had a clear advantage in both hunting for spirit energy and battlefield confrontations. Even if other territories later obtained priest statues, they would lag far behind Phoenix Village, making their combat power incomparable.

The first batch of priests in Phoenix Village had already upgraded their Angel’s Encouragement skill to level 2, increasing attack power from 5% to 8%. For Cheng Yang, this meant an additional 5 points of attack power – a significant boost.

Previously, Cheng Yang rarely brought priests along, as his attack power was sufficient to instantly kill demonic beasts. Now, with Liu Xiyue, a priest who could both attack and buff, as his dedicated companion, things had changed.

Like other profession statues, each attribute upgrade for the Priest Statue required 2,000 spirit energy points. However, due to its Divine Grace attribute, upgrading to level 5 would require a total of 12,000 spirit energy points and take eighteen days.

The four main profession statues in the territory were still upgrading and would be completed by this time tomorrow.

Cheng Yang then gathered Chen Yun and the others to tackle the Nightmare-level Bloody Church dungeon. After about ten minutes, they emerged. This time, Cheng Yang was lucky enough to obtain a piece of equipment suitable for himself – a silver-grade mage robe. The robe had an extreme attribute distribution, adding 60 points to magic power but no defense.

This suited Cheng Yang perfectly, as he didn’t prioritize defense. The significant boost to his magic power greatly enhanced his sustainability, making it an excellent find.

With this new equipment, Cheng Yang’s magic power reached about 370 points. Even without using potions, he could easily kill over seventy mid-tier demonic beasts using just his Ice Sphere technique.

However, before Cheng Yang could fully enjoy his enhanced strength, Yu Kai hurried over.

“Old Yu, perfect timing,” Cheng Yang smiled. “I was about to call everyone for a meeting.”

Yu Kai said, “A meeting is fine, but there’s something you should know. On my way back from East Mountain Village, I encountered a team from Xiangcheng City’s main city. Judging from their formation, they didn’t seem like a loose mercenary group. Their numbers were around 1,000 – far beyond what any mercenary group could muster.”

Cheng Yang frowned, “What happened next? Did they spot you?”

“They definitely saw us,” Yu Kai replied. “They even chased us for a while. But we were faster and managed to lose them after a few kilometers.”

Cheng Yang asked, “Where exactly did you encounter them, and where did you lose them?”

Yu Kai thought for a moment, “We met them about a kilometer southeast of the northern passage of Xiangcheng City. After running south for about two or three kilometers, we shook them off.”

“A kilometer!” Cheng Yang sighed. “They’re moving fast, already approaching the passage area.”

Yu Kai added, “What’s strange is that they seemed to be searching for something specifically. They weren’t focused on killing demonic beasts and sometimes even avoided groups of them. After losing them, we spotted two more similar groups, but we were careful and avoided detection.”

“Searching for something?” Cheng Yang was puzzled. He didn’t think they were conducting rescue operations, as that would require eliminating all demonic beasts first to prevent them from targeting the rescued civilians.

PS: Seeking recommendations and collections. The book will be available for purchase after 12 tonight. Please support with subscriptions to keep me motivated.