Ye Yun spent two days in the Eighth Heaven before entering the game again, as Yue Xia had sent word that they had reached the location Ye Yun had specified.
Upon entering the game, Ye Yun put away the Golden Crow and flew towards the agreed-upon coordinates with all his might. Fortunately, after flying for some time, he was not far from his destination, though it still took him nearly four hours.
“Master,” Yue Xia exclaimed excitedly upon meeting him.
“Greetings, Your Majesty.” By this time, over a thousand players from various races had arrived at Wanshou Mountain. In addition to the original six hundred-plus players, others had trickled in over the past few months. All of them looked at Ye Yun with excitement, their fervent admiration unconcealed, as if bowing to a divine being they worshipped.
After all, Ye Yun had only been here for about a hundred days, yet the points he had accumulated were over a hundred times that of all of them combined! He had even personally killed the legendary ‘Wilderness Merchant.’ Such an achievement was already something they could only look up to.
“Old Yue, we are currently still in Zone One. Where do you think would be a suitable place to build a city now?” Ye Yun jumped down from the Golden Crow’s back, foregoing any pleasantries.
Among the Seven Races, only Yue Xia addressed Ye Yun as Master. Everyone else called him Your Majesty. Ye Yun’s current standing was such that not everyone could call him Master anymore.
“Master is going to build a city now?” Elder Yue Xia was clearly taken aback. Although the mall was open to everyone now, the cost of building a city was truly astronomical.
“That’s right. Although we still have few people here, our numbers are constantly increasing every day. Moreover, building a city is itself an investment. What we invest now will be recouped before long,” Ye Yun said calmly.
During those two days, the blueprint had been sent to Ye Yun’s mailbox as soon as he entered the game. Once the location was chosen, Ye Yun would simply need to spend gold coins to build according to the plan.
“Master, regarding the location, your subordinate thinks we should choose a spot in Zone Two. Although most players can only operate in Zone One with their current strength, if they are given half a year or even a year, they can gradually form groups and venture into Zone Two,” Elder Yue Xia pondered for a moment before replying.
Even he, alone, could only barely cope in Zone Two. After all, these Year Beasts often lived in groups of hundreds or thousands, like so many hornet nests.
“Yes, I think so too. You all start moving towards Zone Two. I’ll go scout ahead first and will give you the coordinates in at most four to five hours. You can then bring everyone over.”
As Ye Yun spoke, he leaped onto the Golden Crow’s back. This area was at the junction of Zone One and Zone Two. The Year Beasts within a radius of fifty thousand li had already been cleared by him, and it would take another fifteen days for them to respawn. Moreover, Yue Xia’s group of over a thousand people would be safe even traveling within Zone Two.
Three hours later, Ye Yun had ventured thirteen thousand kilometers into Zone Two. This distance was only about a quarter of the way between Zone One and Zone Two. To ensure Yue Xia and the others could travel smoothly, Ye Yun had even exterminated every Year Beast along the way.
“This should be it. There’s a lake, and most importantly, a small river,” Ye Yun said, standing on the Golden Crow’s back and surveying the area.
This map was incredibly infuriating. Electricity, water, domestic waste, and sewage treatment within a city all required players to spend gold coins to purchase corresponding building materials. Fortunately, these living facilities could operate automatically as long as there was sufficient electricity, without Ye Yun needing to spend extra gold to hire personnel.
This meant that the operation of all buildings in the city was inseparable from the electrical system. High-end structures like teleportation arrays, in addition to requiring electricity, would also cost Ye Yun a certain amount of gold for each person teleported.
If the city of Fengle City was a standard game product, then the city built here offered players greater room for improvisation and creativity, with some products even appearing somewhat futuristic.
Ye Yun opened the mall. To avoid future expansion troubles, Ye Yun directly purchased one hundred land deeds, costing him ten spirit stones and tens of billions of points. If Ye Yun hadn’t killed quite a few Year Beasts these past few days, he would likely not have had enough points to purchase other materials.
“Damn it, I thought building a city was the most expensive thing, but now I realize these points are what truly matter!” Ye Yun, clutching a stack of land deeds, felt utterly dejected. He now understood what it meant for a plan to be grand but reality to be stark.
One hundred land deeds could be exchanged for one hundred square kilometers of land usage rights. It sounded like a lot, but in reality, it was only a land parcel of ten kilometers by ten kilometers. This was nowhere near the size of the city Ye Yun had envisioned building in Xiangyang.
“Never mind, I’ll make do with this for now. I’ll think of a way later to see if I can expand this city, or perhaps build a truly grand city in Zone Four.”
Ye Yun was quite speechless about this. However, in order to return to Fengle City quickly, Ye Yun resigned himself to his fate. After all, his level had reached 100, and to level up again, he would have to go to the professional mentor for an advancement.
Moreover, Ye Yun had reached level 100, and the limitations on his innate talent improvement had been lifted. However, Ye Yun did not intend to improve his talent now, but rather to comprehend laws. Although the Emperor’s Path and the Kunlun Mirror helped conceal a lot of heavenly secrets for him, his current strength, even with their assistance, was so immense that it made the Heavenly Dao wary, and the ascension tribulation still loomed. If he improved his talent, his destructive power would double, and the ascension lightning tribulation would surely find him.
This was precisely why Ye Yun did not improve his talent the last time ‘Golden Touch’s’ cooldown was reset.
Ye Yun looked at his remaining less than four hundred million points and could only smile wryly. Calculated at one hundred square kilometers per plot, the city walls alone would be forty kilometers long, requiring three thousand five hundred spirit stones and one hundred and sixty million points! If the four individual city gates were added, the points for just the city walls would be close to two hundred million! This was a level that would make any player gasp in awe.
Considering that in the past four years, although Yao Die had spent at most half her time in the game world, her current points were only around seventy million, not even enough for one land deed.
“Use land deed!”
“System prompt: Please select a piece of land around yourself. After you select it, the system will automatically delineate the surrounding land into your usage rights based on the number of land deeds you possess.”
Well, this immediately eliminated any possibility of cheating.
Under the system’s automatic operation, red lines appeared crisscrossing the ground below, dividing the land around Ye Yun into square kilometer plots. After Ye Yun confirmed the plot beneath his feet, the red lines around that plot instantly turned green, signifying that Ye Yun now possessed the usage rights for that land.
One hundred square kilometers, meaning one hundred squares.
“System prompt: Congratulations, player, on obtaining the usage rights for one hundred square kilometers of land at Wanshou Mountain. You may proceed to the next step. If the player does not construct any buildings on the land within one month after confirming the usage rights, the rights will be revoked. If the player does not achieve fifty percent saturation of internal city buildings within one year, they will be charged an additional fee of one hundred million gold coins per square kilometer per day.”
Ye Yun looked at the system prompt, feeling nothing but speechless. If some players who had just met the minimum requirement ambitiously wanted to build their own city, they would undoubtedly be utterly crushed by this game. Furthermore, the most deceitful aspect of this game was that these resources and points were non-tradable and non-transferable!
“Build the city walls along the outermost perimeter, with the height set to the minimum requirement!” Ye Yun no longer wanted to build city walls over fifty meters high, nor did he have the ambition he had when he held over ten billion points.
“System prompt: The construction of the city walls this time will require 17,361,100 stone bricks, 3,473 spirit stones, and 173,611,000 points. Player currently has 117,000,000 points remaining.”
As the system prompt appeared, a gray shadow instantly formed on the ground beneath Ye Yun, and a progress bar appeared above that shadow.
Remaining construction time: 47 hours 59 minutes.
Pfft…
“What the heck, how could such a high-level Heavenly Dao game have adopted Tencent’s marketing strategy? This approach is one after another!” Ye Yun stared blankly at the golden hammer logo behind the construction time, feeling completely dismayed.
As Ye Yun looked at the logo, a message automatically popped up before him.
“Instant completion of construction requires 48 spirit stones and 48 points.”
…
It didn’t seem as… expensive as he had imagined?
However, Ye Yun, who had been deeply influenced by the online games of Blue Star in his previous life, knew the hidden trap. This was just a ‘first-charge bonus.’
And considering it, forty-eight spirit stones, that’s four hundred and eighty billion gold coins. It would require killing forty-eight Level 1 Year Beasts to compensate for this construction time. How many players at this stage could achieve this?
However, Ye Yun also knew very well that although this seemed like a series of traps, it could indeed allow wealthy players to get ahead, while others could only lie low.
Ye Yun clearly remembered a previous online game he played. He had played for three full years to barely overtake the top player, a wealthy player who had only played for less than a month when the game opened by continuously spending money.
That single month was equivalent to Ye Yun’s three years of playing day and night in that game!
“Damn it, I have to spend money.” Ye Yun cursed, and without hesitation, he directly used the instant construction function.
Ye Yun wasn’t impatient to wait two days, but this ridiculous game could only construct one building at a time. Once completed, the next building could be constructed. If he waited like this, it would take more than a year, perhaps even two, to reach fifty percent saturation of the city’s buildings.
It was just the beginning, and Ye Yun already deeply felt the presence of a boss who was even more predatory than Old Ma, and Old Ma at least gave a polite reminder.
Boom…
As Ye Yun spent the money, the ground beneath him exploded, and before Ye Yun could even react, a ring of dark black city walls appeared before his eyes.
What you pay for really is different! In less than a second, a ten-meter-thick, twenty-five-meter-high city wall, entirely built from stone bricks, was completed.
But… what was with the Lv.1 on the city wall?
Did they really have to mess with him like this?
Ye Yun controlled the Golden Crow, landed on the city wall, and looked at the desolate interior of the city, feeling somewhat disheartened.
This pit seemed to be boundless.
“System prompt: Player’s city wall construction is complete, but it has been discovered that the player has not set up city gates or constructed a City Lord’s Mansion. Please place city gates and construct a City Lord’s Mansion as soon as possible, otherwise, the city walls constructed by the player will collapse and become dilapidated within two weeks due to the lack of prerequisite buildings.”
At this moment, Ye Yun’s face had turned ashen, and he was on the verge of a violent outburst. Having prerequisite buildings as conditions yet not giving prior notice! If his points were insufficient, would the spirit stones and points spent on constructing the city walls so far go to waste?
Ye Yun looked at his remaining over one hundred million points and took a long while to recover. Even with his strong mental fortitude, honed by the various traps of Blue Star, he felt deeply hurt at this moment.
Constructing a city gate required ten million gold coins and ten million points. To be safe, Ye Yun only initially set up the South and North gates. He then spent another twenty million gold coins and ten million points to construct the City Lord’s Mansion. He also spent over a hundred spirit stones and points to complete these three buildings instantly. At this point, Ye Yun had only eighty million-plus points remaining.
From over ten billion points down to just eighty million, how outrageous was this?
“System prompt: Congratulations, player, on constructing the first city at Wanshou Mountain. You have been awarded the title of First City Lord of Wanshou Mountain. Reward: 10,000 spirit stones, one defensive building (arrow tower), and one spring eye.”
“System prompt: Congratulations on constructing the city. Please name the city.”
“Tengcheng,” Ye Yun replied speechlessly, feeling somewhat intoxicated by the very generic reward of ‘First City Lord.’
First City Lord (Wanshou Mountain exclusive title): Players with this title gain an additional 20% experience from killing any Year Beast within Wanshou Mountain.
…