Chapter 12 – The Statues of Profession

After everyone had left, Cheng Yang walked up to the altar and summoned the attribute panel of Phoenix Fall Village. He noticed that the territory’s spiritual energy had already reached 311 points, which was enough to make a difference.

Next, Cheng Yang approached the Mage Statue. Each of the four profession statues had its own attribute panel.

To upgrade the territory, all four profession statues needed to reach Level 2 by upgrading all their profession researches. Each statue had similar upgrade options, with the only difference being the attack type enhancement – physical attack for physical classes and magic attack for magic classes.

While the upgrade conditions weren’t extremely difficult, they weren’t easy either. Upgrading all four statues to Level 2 would require 2000 points of spiritual energy. Although they had gained nearly 400 points in just an hour, that was due to the advantage of the territory occupation test.

Under normal circumstances, the respawn rate of demonized creatures around the territory wasn’t fast, and occupied territories wouldn’t attract active attacks from demonized creatures. Therefore, to quickly accumulate spiritual energy, one would have to venture further out.

However, Cheng Yang wasn’t bothered by these challenges. This was the advantage of wilderness territories. As the territory level increased, the combatants in wilderness territories would become much stronger than those in the main city. Perhaps this was also a way for the gods to encourage humans to develop wilderness territories.

Without hesitation, Cheng Yang immediately chose the Mana Enhancement option. Seeing the six-hour countdown that appeared, a smile couldn’t help but appear on his face. Before these six hours were up, this statue wouldn’t be able to research other profession bonuses.

This was the advantage of being the first to occupy the territory, as the research time couldn’t be shortened. Even if others occupied territories later, it would be impossible for them to quickly raise their territory level.

Subsequently, Cheng Yang also upgraded the Life Enhancement for Warriors and Summoners, which also required six hours to complete.

At this moment, Yu Kai and eleven others carried several huge logs from a hundred meters away. These logs, which would normally require machinery to move, were carried on their shoulders by four people working together. It had to be said that after becoming Warriors, their strength had increased significantly.

This was actually quite normal. Originally, a normal human’s physical attack power was 1, but now it had become 5. The most significant manifestation of physical attack power was in strength, equivalent to a fivefold increase in strength. If there wasn’t a significant change, that would be strange.

“Yangzi, what are these logs for? I saw some logs fall into the river during the earthquake earlier,” Yu Kai asked Cheng Yang immediately after throwing the logs on the ground.

Cheng Yang no longer hid anything, “These are needed to construct some buildings. For example, the wall that appeared earlier consumed 100 cubic meters of wood. In a short time, it would be very difficult for us to harvest wood ourselves, and we don’t have the energy for it. These logs are enough for us to do many things.”

Yu Kai nodded, finally understanding. Without professional logging tools, cutting down large trees would indeed be quite challenging.

Next, Cheng Yang opened the territory attribute panel and chose to build houses, instantly constructing 10 of them. In an instant, ten light curtains rose inside the eastern wall, forming the outlines of ten small wooden houses. After a few breaths, the light curtains dissipated, and the houses were successfully built.

The purchased wood was instantly consumed by another 100 cubic meters, making Cheng Yang somewhat helpless. After all, he didn’t have much money before. Being able to buy 300 cubic meters of wood was already quite good.

Everyone was already accustomed to this scene, as the wall had appeared out of nowhere earlier.

Cheng Yang took the time to walk around the wall and found that the frequency of demonized creatures appearing was getting lower and lower, with only one spawning every one or two minutes, and that was the total amount spawning around the entire territory. Compared to the peak earlier, it had decreased by seven or eight times. This left most people on the wall idle.

Helplessly, Cheng Yang had the people on the wall come down temporarily. With the wall’s 5-point defense, the early-stage first-tier demonized creatures outside couldn’t possibly break through. It wouldn’t be too late to kill them when a certain number had accumulated outside.

It was already past 6 PM, and there was only an hour left before dark. Cheng Yang planned to take this opportunity to thoroughly explain what needed to be done next and answer everyone’s questions.

“After experiencing the battle just now, what are your thoughts?” Cheng Yang got straight to the point.

Everyone looked at each other, and Li Wanshan said, “Young man, you said earlier that the entire world has become like this? Is that true?”

Cheng Yang nodded very affirmatively, “Indeed! This isn’t just a disaster for Xiang City, nor is it a disaster for any single country. It’s a disaster that has affected the entire world. Right now, almost all buildings in the world have collapsed, and the terrain has undergone tremendous changes. What was once a plateau may have become a plain, and plains may have turned into oceans. But these aren’t the most serious changes. The biggest change now is the alteration of the world’s rules, which you’ve already deeply experienced. The abilities you possess now are absolutely unimaginable in the past.”

Niu Bing suddenly asked, “Yangzi, how did you know this was going to happen?”

Cheng Yang sighed. He knew this question would eventually be asked, and it was also the most difficult to answer. Fortunately, he had prepared for this, “I can’t explain it either. This morning, a piece of information suddenly appeared in my mind, about the impending apocalypse. This information came very strangely, as if it was directly engraved in my mind. Because of how bizarre this was, I believed it somewhat, which led to the preparations I made later. Some of what happened just now confirmed it, while some things were beyond my knowledge.”

In fact, Cheng Yang had no choice but to say this. Rebirth was too bizarre, so he had to come up with a more acceptable explanation.

Although everyone around didn’t completely believe Cheng Yang’s explanation, it seemed to be the most reasonable one. While it sounded somewhat strange, now that something as bizarre as the global gamification had occurred, what couldn’t be accepted?

Thinking that the entire world was now suffering a great disaster, everyone’s expressions turned grim. After all, besides Cheng Yang, who among them didn’t have family? Earlier, they were facing survival threats and hadn’t given this much thought. Now that they were temporarily safe, their anxiety began to surface.

Cheng Yang roughly guessed what everyone was thinking and calmly said, “There’s no use in being anxious now. The most important thing for us is to improve our strength. Only with sufficient strength can we establish ourselves in this new world and even save our families.”

Li Wanshan frowned and said, “My family is in Xiang City, only four or five kilometers from here. Judging from how we killed those demonized creatures earlier, as long as we stick together, those things shouldn’t pose a threat to us, right?”

“Yes, we need to return to Xiang City immediately. I can’t abandon my family. My son is only five years old,” a thirty-something driver said anxiously, wishing he could return to Xiang City right away.

Cheng Yang shook his head, “With our current strength, I’m afraid we don’t have the ability to cross this area and enter Xiang City. Don’t be fooled by the few monsters around our territory; that’s only because we’ve killed them. In other places, as time passes, monsters will gradually gather and eventually form large groups. It’s been over an hour since the disaster struck. I’m afraid most demonized creatures outside have already gathered. Small groups of a few monsters are manageable, but if we encounter a large group of dozens, our current numbers wouldn’t even be enough to fill their teeth.”

Seeing that everyone remained unmoved, Cheng Yang said, “You might think I’m exaggerating, but later I’ll take some people out of the territory. Then you’ll see for yourself whether what I’m saying is true or not.”

Li Wanshan and the others were immediately overjoyed. They felt that as long as they worked hard, returning to Xiang City wouldn’t be a problem.

Cheng Yang felt a pang of sorrow for them in his heart. If he, as someone who had experienced this before, didn’t know the difficulty of returning to the city, who would?

“Yangzi, just tell us what to do next. We’ll all listen to you,” Liu Hao said.

Cheng Yang said, “This territory will be our foundation, our place to establish ourselves. So the top priority is to develop this territory. And to develop the territory, we must have enough spiritual energy.”

Then, Cheng Yang explained the benefits of territory development and the sources of spiritual energy to everyone present. Finally, he said, “Time is life now. So tonight, I’ll take half of the people out of the territory to kill the demonized creatures in the forest outside. Although this is somewhat risky, as long as we’re careful, it shouldn’t be life-threatening. The rest will stay in the territory to protect it and start cultivating.”