World Online

by Srtyi

Earth Online – a virtual MMORPG that takes place in the future year of 2190 – a game that everyone will bet their futures on. Set in a map that is ten times the size of real-world Earth, players battle for supremacy in the first game to feature personal adventure, territory construction, and grand warfare. For every death you experience in the game, your level would drop back to 0.

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Chapter 1 - Rebooting

Translator: TeamTWO

Editor: Levs

His mind still echoed with the last events, playing back over and over like some movie rewind…

The sky was bloody, the battlefield was torn and littered with broken arms and armor. Horses were screaming, almost human, and the wind was blowing, filling the air with the sickly sweet smell of spilled blood. Nobody was moving, they had settled into a tense confrontation. Life and death brothers that fought shoulder to shoulder a moment before were now against each other in arms. In this moment, even the air seemed to have grown firm.

Not far from the center of the fight lay the body of a large and hideous man, all stained with blood from a massive fight. He had been Song Heitar, leader of the Black Wind House, a King-level master, nineteenth on the Six Door List of villains in the game. Below the corpse, the purple glow of a mighty treasure glowed around him, waiting to be claimed.

"Why?" Spoke a handsome young man, tall and straight, clad in strong armor and with powerful gear upon him, holding his signature Cloud Dragon Halberd.

He was seriously injured, half kneeling on the ground, his bloody halberd keeping him upright as he leaned on it. Blood was pouring down his chest, soaking into his armor. Looking carefully, the wound was actually from a small, one-handed blade driven through his back into his chest, the handle shorn off by a blow from his halberd.

Opposite him stood a middle-aged man, with a dark beard, thick eyebrows, and large, intent eyes. The man wore mithral chainmail, and held a golden lance at the ready. At the left side of his waist was an empty scabbard, cold and alone and seeming to shout out the cruelty of reality to all watching.

"In order to live...a better life." The hoarse voice of the older man responded. His voice was firm, as if less to respond to the question than to convince himself of his own actions. After saying these words, he stopped speaking, calmly watching the young man dying before him.

"Ha, for that?" The younger man's face was full of ridicule, pointing at the armor under the corpse. "Just for a Platinum-level equipment, hahaha, really ridiculous." His voice became cold and sharp.

"I really did not expect that it had such a magic, to mess with people's minds like this. The one who'd always watched my back, my respected brother, turned and stabbed me in it. You were someone who was respected by everyone, and you gave up all your dignity."

He was very weak, but his black eyes were still clear and sharp. But now, there was a lingering sense of self-condemnation within them that had not been there before.

"Big brother, no matter what, in the end, it is only a game. One day, we will have to leave here and go back to the real world. I did not expect...the end of our brotherhood, five years of friendship, to be worth even less than a mere precious equipment drop in the game."

"Sorry, Third Brother." His voice was still calm and unfeeling.

"Hahaha! 'Sorry'. Haha! So ridiculous. Big brother, this is the last time I will call you this. Greed is the original sin; I do not blame you." The young man became unusually calm, his face without a trace of emotion upon it. His eyes were as bright as the sea, boundless and fathomless.

Those looking on recognized that face, which earned him his nickname, the Two-Faced Demon. When he was cold, he was terrifying to his foes; when he was warm, to his friends he was as fresh as a spring breeze.

"But the next time we meet, I will kill you," He said coldly to the older man.

He grabbed the sword impaling him, blood running from the palm of his hand. Face as calm as water, with no ripples upon it, he ignored the pain as he pulled. With a tearing of flesh, the sword was pulled free from his body in a spray of heart's blood, a bloody flower gracing the battlefield for a quiet instant.

And the screen froze.

A bloody sky, a burst of blood sprinkling upwards towards heaven, so small, so stubborn. As if it were someone else, Ouyang Shuo silently watched as he fell to the ground and didn't stand up again, bleeding out and finally dying.

This was not the first time that Ouyang Shuo had reincarnated, but this was definitely the most painful time. Reincarnation meant everything started over from scratch. Unlike other games, in this one, at every death you lost everything. Your character level cleared, and your equipment was lost. It was the cruelest ultimate death penalty.

"I will not be defeated by this betrayal. I will get back everything I have lost." Thinking of his sister, whom he was waiting for to come back from the city, Ouyang Shuo put aside all the distractions, sealing his vow in his heart, and slowly opened his heavy eyelids.

Above him was a spotless white ceiling. The walls were metallic and smooth, empty except for one thing. In addition to the bed he was on, there was no other furniture in the room, it was simple to the extreme. On the opposite wall from him there was a game poster, and that was it.

"This is...where?" Ouyang Shuo asked aloud, confused. This was certainly not a reincarnation hall. Rebirths always took place at the temple. Rebirth at the temple had always been accompanied by the wailing of ghosts, surrounded by the calls of demons as he moved towards the light of a new life.

Had he been booted back to the real world? That wasn't right, if he had come offline and back to reality, he should've been lying in the game room, rather on a bed like now.

His eyes focused on that game poster without thinking, it was hard to look at anything else, and he was instantly stunned. The poster was too familiar, how could he not recognize it? It was the announcement poster of the game from five years ago.

The first game in history to feature personal adventure, territory construction, and grand warfare in internet history, Earth Online, is expected to enter official beta on January 1, 2190, so stay tuned!

Seeing that eye-catching propaganda line stunned Ouyang Shuo, rewinding back years in time with jarring suddenness. Five years ago, this was their home. Dormant memories flooded back across his brain, tearing him from the game world and back to Earth.

In 2170, abnormal fluctuations were detected in the Earth's core. After three months of testing and observations, calculations by scientists from all over the world reached a terrifying conclusion: In thirty years or so, the core was going to explode. Molten magma would gush out of the mantle and incinerate all life on Earth. Earth was going to be like the Sun, a world of fire.

When the report was sent to the federal government, desperate panic ensued. Although space travel had developed well in the last two hundred years, such that mankind had been able to undertake long-range stellar exploration and wormhole crossings, humanity had not found another life-planet like Earth. The only extraplanetary base was on Mars, and could hold only a limited population while still needing support from the homeworld.

If Earth was going to be destroyed, mankind still had no place to live. After the road to disaster was confirmed, the government first turned to the idea of transforming Mars and making it more habitable. And then, a miracle happened.

The latest reports from the interstellar explorers had found a new life-bearing world out in the galaxy. The government didn't have time to celebrate and instead planned out a great interplanetary migration plan in under three months.

The new planet was named 'Hope', as it was the last home of mankind. In order to avoid widespread panic, immigration plans were kept strictly confidential.

The whole plan was divided into many independent parts, with different organizations and departments responsible. It could be said that except for the Federal President, no other person on Earth knew the complete plan.

'Earth Online' was an important part of the plan, functioning as a distraction and new hope for people to immerse themselves into. Naturally, the game put on layers of mysterious veils as it came about. The game's planning and design, its ability to adapt and grow to accommodate countless numbers of players, and its claims for plotlines far exceeding the tired rehashing of serial TV series - nobody could get enough details to satisfy them.

The game's template was built using the entire world as the template, with the area expanded tenfold. The game design team was only responsible for the coding architecture and game mode design, the specific game scenes and NPC were based on historical data for their templates.

The true design team would be the national historical archives, with all video content, text materials, and cultural artifacts scanned into the primary game host 'Gaia', the artificial intelligence that would oversee the game. Even the designers and programmers did not know the game outside their specific tasks and design parameters.

Fifteen years later, in 2185, the first secret tests of Earth Online started, with all participants having to sign strict confidentiality agreements. Naturally, there was much competition for these initial testing slots, some of it even bloody, but this was all quietly hushed up.

In order to ensure the relative fairness of the game, Gaia generated a new land, and the measured map did not appear in the official game material. Through the closed beta, Gaia could observe the players' game behaviors and NPC responses. Using the massive amount of first-hand observation data, Gaia kept analyzing and summarizing, constantly adjusting and perfecting the game settings.

Participation was carried out in batches, each session lasting for six months. Every time the ones testing are not the same, and the game content was not the same. After four years and a total of eight closed betas, Gaia completely shut down the game for a full year of computations and deductive calculations, with January 1, 2190 scheduled for the official public beta. Nobody in the MMORPG industry, even insiders who worked on the game, are sure what was going to happen.

On December 20, 2189, the Earth Online official website launched. It was divided into the standard three sections: databases, malls, and forums. The database had only the basic information about the game architecture, and no detailed information about the game.

In the mall, the only commodity for sale was the game landing cabin, at a price of one hundred thousand credits. The expensive price discouraged a lot of the ordinary players. Coupled with the lack of game information, even with the issuance of posters and showing some graphics, the publicity for the game did not make a big impact, merely garnering some notes that it might be a little unusual.

As a reincarnator, Ouyang Shuo knew that the abnormal marketing was the result of a compromise between several involved parties and the federal president. The purpose was very simple, and that was to slow down initial enrollment into the game by ordinary players, so that their staff gained early access and play advantages against later arrivals.

Of course, to gain such an advantage involved paying a heavy price. That price was high enough that even the most radical parties could not say anything years later when the truth was announced.

A knock on the door interrupted this river of memories in Ouyang Shuo's head. "Brother, you big lazy bum, get up! Bing'er is hungry-hungry!"

Ouyang Shuo picked up the cell phone on his bed and looked at the time. December 28, 2189. This was three days before the game opened! What wonderful moments those were, everything was like a new life…

Everything in the past is a dream, let it die with the wind, Ouyang Shuo thought. After rebirth, his knowledge of the game and familiarity of the players and all their forces, coupled with his own good talent, Ouyang Shuo believed that as long as he put in the effort, he would be able to make a new world in the game, a shelter for his sister and himself.

In that world, he would never let his sister be alone. Not only that, he would let Bing'er become the princess in the game, a real princess.

"Good Bing'er, I'm waking up to make you breakfast!" Ouyang Shuo did not notice when he became so relaxed and happy.

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Chapter 2 Sharing

Translator: TeamTWO

Editor: Jun

Note: I use 'handbrain' in place of cellphone and personal computer to denote a personal and portable computer that is a step above and beyond a mere phone, appropriate for a tech society 200 years in the future.

And apparently KFC is still in business two centuries from now.

After Ouyang Shuo got up, his sleeping bed and covers quietly retracted back into the wall of his room, leaving behind not even a bit of furniture to be seen. It was a high technology society he lived in, everything was modernized and cleverly put together.

He was in the house of his parents, a fairly high-end residence. He came into the living room, and there his sister Ouyang Bing'er was waiting on the couch, pitifully looking at him.

Bing'er this year was only eight years old, wearing pink clothing and with chubby little cheeks that people could not help but pinch on impulse. She was wearing a ball cap with a black poncho shirt, tight pants, and had small feet with red shoes, so cute that his heart felt like it would burst just by looking at her.

"Brother is always lazy, he woke up later than Bing'er today! Shame-shame!" The little girl stood up after chiding him, her eyes circling as she snuck a glance or two at the door while trying to keep her clever look off her face.

The brother and sister were too familiar with one another, and with one look at her eyes, Ouyang Shuo knew what she was thinking. Today was the weekend, so he did not have to work. Yesterday he told Bing'er that he would take her to the playground to play. Because of that promise, the lazy her who needed his wake-up call every day, shockingly got up early. She even put on some kind of makeup.

Ouyang Shuo did not tease her, instead going to the sofa and sitting down. He then picked up the little girl and set her on his lap. He rubbed his chin on her forehead, provoking a giggle of laughter as his scruffy beard tickled her.

"Bad brother! You are bullying me…" Bing'er laughed.

"Well, today the pretty little princess is really beautifully dressed. I'll go make you some breakfast, and afterwards we will go down to the playground to play, okay?"

Hearing that her brother didn't forget his promise, the little girl smiled so hard her eyes were squinting, and gave him a happy kiss on the cheek.

Good times were always fleeting. He spent the entire day with her in the children's play park, taking her out to KFC afterwards to eat a whole bucket of chicken. Bing'er was so happy and excited after her wonderful day that she could not sleep. Finally, after reading her a third fairy tale, she finally fell asleep.

The night was now quiet. It was a good time for Ouyang Shuo to go over his past, and consider what he was going to do for his new future now.

He was definitely going to quit his job. Anyways, he had worked there for less than six months, and did not have any great loyalty to the place. As far as assets went, the most valuable thing he had was this house he was living in. His parents' bank account had lasted him throughout his university years, but it was running out.

This was also why he'd found a job quickly after graduating college. But in this highly mechanized and technology-driven era, more than 90% of the work out there had been replaced by machines. There were a lot of people who had no jobs and were unable to find work.

The government had been forced to develop a comprehensive social welfare system in order to insure everyone's basic safety and lifestyle. Now, a single institution, Skynet, had been put in place to monitor everyone and everything with a harsh and even eye. Its influence extended across all sections of society, and general crime had fallen greatly under the ever-watching eye of Skynet's monitors.

The bitter fruit of this was the division of society into two levels: the wealthy and politically connected, generally formed of large consortiums or families in political positions, and everyone else. It was a division of society that was difficult to overcome.

At the same time, the general age of the people was rising. Depressed young men and women were often unwilling to have children and put up with the additional costs and demands of parenthood, resulting in a negative worldwide population growth for the last twenty years. The global population had fallen down to under 1 billion people, and forty percent of them were elderly. Even in the densely populated areas of China, the total population was falling.

Right now, Ouyang Shuo didn't even have enough money to buy the game cabin for Earth Online. Fortunately, due to his rebirth, he knew what was coming, and so he had insights that others did not. Within a year after the interstellar immigration started, all the fixed assets and housing on Earth would become little more than wasted construction, worthless. Accordingly, he planned now to sell the house they were now living at, and take the money to rent a temporary house to live in.

With that in mind, Ouyang Shuo opened up his handbrain, the ubiquitous personal and portable computer everyone on Earth possessed now. Locating the official real estate trading site rapidly, he went to the quick sales channel, marked the price as 10% below the current market value, and immediately sold it off to the real estate transaction center.

An information society as advanced as this was very convenient. Ouyang Shuo didn't have to even leave the house, let alone go to a government office. Because all of his personal information was stored in Skynet, as long as his handbrain could dual certify his fingerprints and retinal scan, it took only half an hour to complete the entire transaction. After he was done, Ouyang Shuo's account was promptly credited and grew by more than two million credits.

Taking advantage of the late hour and quietness, Ouyang Shuo began looking for the right rental housing online. Bing'er was still in primary reading school, so they couldn't move too far away, no farther than a nearby district. This was a bit difficult to work with. According to the advanced search parameters he had input, the system recommended a house in Tianyuan community which had three rooms and one living room, with a monthly rent of 3000 credits.

Coincidentally, Bing'er attended a school in Tianyuan community very close to that, making this even more convenient for Bing'er. But the house was shared, the lessor was not the owner himself, but a tenant, which made Ouyang Shuo a bit hesitant to accept.

Adopting an attitude of 'let's see what happens', Ouyang Shuo dialed the video phone. Appearing on the phone promptly was the image of a twenty-year old girl, with a beautiful oval face and willowy eyebrows. She looked like she'd just come out of a bath, with her hair wet, and was wearing a pink kitten style of pajamas, incredibly and unexpectedly cute.

Ouyang Shuo was more than a little embarrassed. After all, men and women living together was all well and good for the romantic serials on TV, but in reality was something that was very uncommon and rarely happened before marriage. However, this girl was the opposite of what was expected of women, immediately taking the initiative on him.

"Hello? Who are you? Are you looking for me for something?" she asked him.

"Hello! I was linked to you through the rental network. The rental information that I saw was very in line with my needs. I did not think you were a girl, I am sorry if this is inconvenient." Ouyang Shuo was ready to disconnect, having little hope of anything coming out of this.

"Oh!" she answered, a little surprised at him. "I have two rooms to rent here, but you are only a single person, this is a little strange…" She did not directly refuse, instead asking a reasonable question.

"Ha, I am sorry, I did not explain clearly. I have an eight year old sister; her school is near your location, so…" Ouyang Shuo said hesitantly.

Hearing that he had a young sister seemed to reassure the young woman a lot. "Oh, in that case, you look pretty honest, so I agree! It's almost the end of the month, you can help pay the rent, hee hee!"

It was so simply and unexpectedly agreed to, it caught Ouyang Shuo by surprise. He was wondering if he had unknowingly become much more charming and handsome to convince her so easily.

They discussed the specific rental matters, and through the network signed an electronic contract. Ouyang Shuo found out that the girl was named Sun Xiaoyue, and was a junior student at the Jiao State University Department of Architecture.

He agreed to move in tomorrow, and was about to hang up the call when he heard, "Hee hee, I'll finally have the money to pay the rent!" His ego and self-image took an immediate blow as he realized why she had agreed so quickly.

The next morning, Ouyang Shuo told Bing'er that they were moving. Bing'er found out that they were going to live with a beautiful big sister, and close to the school, so she had no objections. They spent all morning packing up their luggage and few belongings, and called a moving van to take them to their new home.

They arrived at Tianyuan community quickly, and actually found Sun Xiaoyue standing in the doorway, holding onto her handbrain and waiting for them. It was surprising that she was so courteous.

Bing'er was carrying her little pink bag and holding the hands of a tiger doll as she opened the door of the taxi. After getting out, she looked around fearlessly, not afraid at all of the strange new environment. Her expression was one of curiosity and mischievous intent.

Seeing the lovely little girl, Sun Xiaoyue's feminine heart was instantly touched. She quickly stepped forward with arms outstretched. "Wow, such a cute little girl! Come here, little sister, and let me hold you!"

Bing'er smiled and retreated a step, saying sweetly, "Beautiful sister, hello! My name is Ouyang Bing, sister you can call me like my brother does, Bing'er!"

Sun Xiaoyue was not embarrassed and did not hold it against Bing'er for ducking her embrace. Instead, she smiled and said, "Ouyang Bing'er, a good name. I am Sun Xiaoyue, you can call me Sister Xiaoyue. Does Bing'er like it here?"

"I like it, it is as pretty here as at our home, but there is a more beautiful sister here, Bing'er is very happy, hee hee!" Bing'er smiled back.

Sun Xioayue completely forgot all about Ouyang Shuo, tossing him out of her mind before directly taking Bing'er's hand to take her upstairs. Bing'er turned her head to look at her brother; he merely nodded, smiled, and indicated that she should go ahead. She quietly followed Xiaoyue upstairs.

Seeing Bing'er so adorable, Ouyang Shuo's heart was a bit jealous. Maybe, he thought, he could take her to Jiao State University and walk around with her, attracting a pretty girl who he could marry, hehe…

"Boss, move your things?" the driver of the moving van asked, interrupting his private fantasies mercilessly.

"Oh! Yes please, up to the fifteenth floor. Follow those girls in front of us, quickly!" Ouyang Shuo snatched up his suitcase and hurriedly chased after Sun Xiaoyue.

Sun Xiaoyue lived in room 1503, and coming inside, his first impression was that it was very clean. There were three bedrooms, a main and two smaller ones; she was living in one of the smaller ones. Ouyang Shuo brazenly claimed the main bedroom, Bing'er living opposite him in the other small bedroom. After arranging their rooms, bringing in their luggage and other belongings, it was already five in the afternoon.

In order to express his gratitude to Sun Xiaoyue, and to celebrate their moving, Ouyang Shuo treated everyone to a good meal. After buying food from the local supermarket, 'mighty chef' Ouyang Shou even took over the kitchen to fix it.

He did the usual good food; fish, pork, sweet and sour pork ribs, boiled beef, roasted lungs, and seven or eight other dishes. All this cooking inspired little kitten Bing'er to slip into the kitchen in the middle of his labors, and her little hands snatched up the ribs to eat. However, she declared she was doing it to help him out and test the taste, so as not to shame him in front of her new elder sister.

After the sumptuous dinner, the three of them retired to the living room to sit around and chat, and gain a more mutual understanding of one another. Bing'er was lying on the couch, her belly bulging out. With her satisfied expression, she looked deadly cute.

"Xiaoyue, why do you have such a big house for rent?" After getting more familiar with one another, Ouyang Shuo had no scruples and directly asked this question to clear his heart of any doubts. This girl didn't seem like a wealthy person, muttering about not being able to pay the rent. But she still rented a house with three bedrooms, that was kind of stupid, right?

"Oh, big brother Ouyang, don't mention this, blame my two girlfriends who are off with their boyfriends. Originally the three of us signed the lease for this home, to live together until college graduation. Both of them have moved out to live with their boyfriends, leaving me here alone. In order to pay the rent, I had to rent out the rooms they were staying in. If you had not come in time to pay a share, I would have been eating instant ramen every day," she explained, with a resentful look in her eyes.

It seemed her irritation with her former roommates was quite deep, and she was quite willing to keep talking about them. Ouyang Shuo knew that continuing to ask about this topic was probably not a good idea, and quickly turned their chatter to more about school.

He had also graduated from Jiao State University, so he could actually be seen as Sun Xiaoyue's senior. Thus, they had a lot of things they could talk about. It was past ten o'clock before everyone finally retired to their own rooms.

Finally settled down, Ouyang Shuo knew he could start playing the game tomorrow, it was the fundamental part of his plan for his new life. With great expectations for the future, Ouyang Shuo fell asleep on the second night after his rebirth.

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Chapter 3: Creating a Role

Translator:ryangohsff

Editor:ryangohsff

In the morning, Ouyang Shuo used his handbrain to access the Earth Online official website. He first went in and explored the forums, noticing that there weren't many posts, and that most of them were complaining about how expensive the game cabin was.

A member called Gong Chengshi had made a post called the The Pros and Cons of the Personal Adventurer and Kingdom Building Path, which caught Ouyang Shuo's eye.

The post only used limited game data and previous gaming experiences, and Gong Chengshi had noted that the Lord path required players to be adept at territory and resource management while at the same time needing a continuous investment of funds. He did not recommend it for the average player. Otherwise, it was far too easy to lose money without recourse if one's territory was captured.

Seeing such an accurate prediction, Ouyang Shuo suspected that Gong Chengshi was probably a beta tester. He wrote down Gong Chengshi's ID number, and then left the forums, heading directly to the mall area to buy the game cabin online.

The cabin had different models corresponding to different heights and body sizes that needed to be chosen. He rapidly completed the payment while online and was told that his new game cabin would be delivered that afternoon.

This wasn't some light novel where the MC had to wait in a long line under the hot sun to purchase the game. Nope, that was definitely a thing of the past. For more than a hundred years now, basically all product buying was now done online.

TL: Author is throwing shade at another novel, Shura's Wrath, which is also on GT

At 3 PM, the doorbell rang with the delivery for his new cabin. The whole body of the cabin was a silver-gray color and was beautifully styled, sleek and advanced. Under Ouyang Shuo's direction, the staff quickly brought it upstairs and installed it into his bedroom.

Sun Xiaoyue was a bit surprised to see the delivery arrive so quickly but not overly so. After all, in this day and age, there were countless online virtual games. Thus, getting a game cabin to play games in was very normal.

The next day was New Year's Day. Ouyang Shuo spent all day playing with Bing'er. Xiaoyue also joined in, which drove Bing'er into a frenzy of excitement!

This was hardly unexpected, because Ouyang Shuo was normally very strict about Bing'er studying and learning. After all, no matter what era it was, knowledge should never fall behind.

The reason Ouyang Shuo was spoiling Bing'er so much was because he would have little time to do anything with her when he started playing. The early stages of the game required a lot of time investment to get a foundation built, so he wouldn't have much time to spend with her after the game began. For now, it was still the holiday, and he could spend some time with her.

January 1, 2190, 8 PM. Thousands of players eagerly waited for Earth Online to officially open. Ouyang Shuo opened up his game cabin to see that the cabin was full of a half-solid gel, with a human-shaped depression at the middle. After laying himself inside the game cabin and stabilizing the pressure, the chamber sealed with a gentle hiss.

"(Ding), permission to access cyberlink?" a beautiful voice sounded from the computer.

"Permission granted!" he stated immediately.

"Connection established. Customer's personal identification information has been retrieved. May we bind your identity?"

"Go ahead!" A second later, Ouyang Shuo felt a sharp and small stab on his body.

"(Ding), personal DNA sample collection is completed and matches your personal information. May we open the nutrient pipeline to support long online playing times?"

"Open it!" A moment later, the nutrient solution tube stabbed itself into his left arm. The computer would monitor his condition at all times, and if his body emitted signs of being hungry, it would intelligently begin to start transferring nutrients to keep him alive and well.

"The nutrient solution channel has been opened. The game cabin is fully functional. Would player like to enter the game?"

"Yes!" A moment later, there was a rushing feeling, and Ouyang Shuo's mind left his body, involuntarily being sucked towards a colorful vortex in front of him.

When he opened his eyes, Ouyang Shuo looked around and found himself in an open-air pavilion, with no walls or roof. Only a light mist hung around him, and it was as if he had come to some kind of fairyland.

Standing in front of Ouyang Shuo was a very beautiful young woman. She had an exquisite face and curves in all the right places to send his heart pumping. Ribbons fluttered around her gently, giving her a cool and otherworldly temperament. She was simply the limit of the human imagination for a gaming avatar coming to life.

Legend had it that eighty percent of male players had fallen captive to the beauty of her scarlet dress. Even after his rebirth, it still took Ouyang Shuo a good ten seconds to wake up from his mesmerized stare. He knew that the fairy was actually the Skynet host AI Gaia's incarnation. He could only view it from a distance!

"Welcome to Earth Online. Please name your character. Names can only be composed of Chinese characters. No symbols or any other strange characters are permitted, and use of insulting words or terms is not allowed." The words coming off her red lips were sweeter than honey, extremely captivating...

"Qiyue Wuyi!" Ouyang Shuo replied immediately, electing not to use his ID from the past, but to take a new name. This poetic name, which was a part of a famous battle poem, for a character whose life would be spent in the battlefield, was extremely artistic, hehe!

TL: Qiyue Wuyi is a part of a Qin Poem that talks about how the officers and soldiers fought together.

"System Notification: Your name has satisfied the naming rules; it has not been previously chosen. You have successfully named your character! Please choose the game mode you will be playing in: Adventure gamemode or Lord gamemode. You may only choose one mode."

"Select the Lord gamemode," Ouyang Shuo said without hesitation. In the past, he had chosen the Adventure gamemode but this time would naturally be different. A year from now, the government would disclose the Convention Agreement, and disclose that Kingdom Building was the essence of the game. The representatives of the major powers had all chosen the Lord gamemode.

"Special Warning: Besides in times of war, Lords are not allowed to leave their territories. To compensate, players can have an Adventurer sub-profession."

'The Lords could not leave their territories' was only limited to the main system, which was also called the primary map. Battlefield maps, of course, had no such restrictions and lords could roam freely within them.

The Adventurer gamemode was divided into combat and work occupations, each player could only choose one of the two. The classes for the Chinese region were Strategist, General, Chivalrous expert, Priest, Healer, and Bailiff, so six professions in all.

The fighting occupations didn't have any further advancements, however players could freely choose their cultivation method or weapons. The chivalrous expert occupation for example, had access to nine close combat weapons, which were the dagger, sword, whip, mace, tonfa, hand axe, jo, war hammer, and morningstar, as well as nine long weapons, which were the broadsword, spear, staff, axe, trident, pike, hook sword, lance, and halberd for eighteen total in all.

However, if a chivalrous expert that used the sword didn't know any sword techniques, he would be very ineffective.

The work occupations included normal jobs from all walks of life. The primary occupations were blacksmiths, tailors, physicians, architects, breeders, fishermen, farmers, veterinarians, winemakers, cooks, carpenters, masons, shipbuilders, and various others.

The lifestyle classes had no character levels, only skill levels. The lifestyle players would also not lose experience after death. It was a type of protection for those players.

"Select General" This was his former career in his past life, a familiar path.

"System Notification: Confirming occupation, generating character attributes, please review!"

Ouyang Shuo opened the stat panel to examine his personal attributes.

Name: Qiyue Wuyi

Title: None

Territory: None

Merit: 0/100

Rank: No

Identity: Civilian

Occupation: Generally (sub-occupation)

Level: 1 (0/100)

Reputation: Unknown (0/100)

Talent: Not opened

Innate Ability: Initial values are randomly generated, maximum 20 points per stat, minimum 5 points per stat.

Friendly Notice: Innate attributes cannot be increased by level-up points. They can only be increased by using special pills or cultivation methods.

Body Structure: 18 - Affects character toughness and survival, ability to adapt to environment and ability to store Qi.

Comprehension: 20 - Affects the speed and depth of learning cultivation methods.

Luck: 5 - Affects the frequency of unexpected windfalls and the chances of loss.

Charm: 8 - Affects first impressions with NPC's as well as the difficulty of resolving sudden interactions.

Acquired Attributes: Each character's stats start with 5 initial points. Each level gives two points to be freely distributed. Every five levels raises all stats by one point. The highest point value to a stat you can have is 100 points.

Command: 5 - Has a direct impact on combat effectiveness on the battlefield, how many troops can be commanded, how easily troops can be recruited, and response time for troops on a battlefield.

Force: 5 - Has a direct effect on the power of special attacks. Affects the chance of critical hits, ripostes, and how much the player's reputation increases with a victory.

Intelligence: 5 - Has a direct impact on the duration of buffs/crowd control as well as the field of vision for troops. The development of weapons and their manufacturing time is also influenced.

Politics: 5 - Has a direct impact of policies on territorial markets and farms. Also influences the success of diplomatic negotiations.

Surplus free attribute points: 2

Cultivation method: None

Skills: Basic Gathering Technique, Basic Diplomacy Technique, Basic Weapons Proficiency

Equipment: None

Ouyang Shuo's innate stats were quite biased. His Body Structure and Comprehension were almost the full value while Luck and Charm were barely average. With a high Body Structure and Comprehension, it would contribute greatly to training in cultivation methods. With low charm or luck, he would probably very unlucky in the game, and there would be difficulty in triggering adventures.

For the skills column, Basic Gathering Technique was a general technique avaliable for all players. Basic Diplomacy Technique was a general Lord technique and Basic Weapon Proficiency was a general technique for officers.

Skills didn't have any points that could be put into them. However, there was a stat of proficiencies which could only be gained through repeated use of them. It took a certain level of proficiency in a skill for it to be upgraded to the next level.

For the acquired attributes, Ouyang Shuo chose to put his surplus points into the Command and Politics stats. As a lord, Command and Politics were his two most important skills.

"System Tip: Please select your place of birth. You can choose 'random', or specify the approximate location. There is a random chance to trigger an adventure, but there are great risks. Players, please choose carefully."

Choosing a place of birth was a hidden trap in the system. Many players, seeing the adventure chance, would choose Random with their eyes shining. They had some fantasy of being born in a cave, getting some mysterious cheats, and coming out with a big edge to rule the game.

But the greater chance was that they entered the game in a tiger's den, and had an immediate and glorious death. Less than .001% of the players had a lucky encounter or something similar from triggering the adventure system, and even then most of the adventures were very basic.

'Choosing the approximate location' was actually a stealth reward for the astute player. Lord players could make their choice based on their development plan, selecting an area suitable to them. Adventurers could be directly assigned to an area near a system-made Imperial city, avoiding the trouble of having to make it to one of the Imperial cities.

"Please specify the approximate location."

The beautiful little fairy hand waved and up came a miniature version of the 3D map of China. The overall picture was no different from reality, except it was ten times as large.

This China had no detailed outline of states, nor did it use a dynasty's markings. Instead, the game had distilled and combined five thousand years of Chinese history, selecting nine different ancient cities as Imperial Capital cities. The cities were: Jingdu, Xianyang, Chengdu, Dali, Luoyang, Changan, Xiangyang, Jianye, and Quanzhou.

Outside the regions of the Imperial Capitals was all wilderness, occupied by beasts, bandits, barbarians, and refugees, waiting for adventurers to explore them. Similarly, the territories of the Lord players were also going to be built in the wilderness. Needing to overcome all obstacles to build up your territory was not an exaggeration!

Ouyang Shuo selected his territory in southern Guangxi near Vietnam, near the shore. As for the specific location, he would only find that out after entering the game and exploring.

"System Notice: Your birthplace has been selected! Will you start the Village Building Quest?"

"Special Notice: The Village Building Quest is unique to Lord players. If this starting task is failed, player will lose the qualifications to build a village and can only play as a adventurer. This is a non-mandatory quest. Players can choose to give up and enter the game to find their Village Creation Token."

"Open the Quest!"

The Village Creation Token was the first difficulty Lords encountered. Villages were divided into four grades: bronze, iron, silver, and gold. 80% of the starting villages were bronze grade, almost 20% iron, less than .01% silver, and there would only be one gold Village Creation Token in all of China.

Ouyang Shuo knew that the representatives of China's major forces had game cabins that were custom editions provided by the government. Their custom edition had one advantage: they could bypass the Village Building Quest and instead get a silver level Village Creation Token. This was the result of a compromise between the government and these forces.

And to further balance this privilege, Gaia had the single gold Village Creation Token hidden in this Village Building Quest, to be discovered by a player.

[advantage: by having their erection in contact with her

[ cent bills: China has cents in bills called jiao

[Guoshu: Guo here means country and shu means technique

[ 190 centimeters: Over 6ft tall

[Lake Cui: Cui Hu, also means Green Lake

[hundred dyuan bills: 100yuan is their biggest bill

[Daoist Fierce Tiger: The author of this novel

[Noodles: made of wheat

[Rice Noodles: made of rice

[Zhang Tian Tian: Tian means sweet

[Bajiquan: Also known as Eight Extremities Fist, but Bajiquan sounds nicer to me

[Long Taos: side characters in Chinese operas who perform acrobatics and fight scenes

[12.47 to 13.07: don't ask me about the tree sap

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Chapter 4 - Village Building Quest

Translator: TeamTWO

Editor: Jun

With a short hum and a flash of white light, Ouyang Shuo found himself being sent away to a strange place. He opened his eyes after a moment and found himself lying on an antique wooden bed. Before he could look around any more, a relieved voice filled his ears.

"Sir, it is to our great fortune that you have finally awakened! The Black Flag Army is descending upon us tomorrow. We cannot waste any time!"

Speaking those words was a grandfatherly old man in an elegant courtier's clothing. He seemed quite shrewd and was waving a fan in his hand. His forked beard wiggled as he spoke.

Ouyang Shuo blinked for a moment to get his bearings. Waking up like this, the Village Building Quest was actually a scene quest.

This type of 'situational quest' was Earth Online's own quest system. Players received the quest and were sent to a separate quest space, automatically playing a certain role there. At the end of the quest, they were sent back to the main map once more.

Time during the quest moved much more slowly than on the main map. Spending two days in the quest amounted to only two hours in the main world. Scene tasks and hidden tasks were very rare, but once completed, the rewards could also be very rich.

Having woken up, a system prompt now sounded in Ouyang Shuo's ear.

"System Notification: Congratulations to player Qiyue Wuyi for opening the S-Ranked Village Building Quest (non-mandatory situational quest). Quest background: In XXX calendar's 15th year, October 7th, the Black Flag Army's Li Lin commanded eight thousand practiced soldiers to attack Sishui City. Sishui City is about to fall.

Quest requirements: Player is the lord of Sishui City and has just recovered from sickness. Player must control the endangered Sishui City, and repel the enemy from the city. Task Reward: Village Creation Token, Summoning Token, and a Resources Bag."

After reading over the quest tips, Ouyang Shuo formed an idea. A strong enemy was coming to attack and at this critical juncture, the lord of the city was sick and unable to maintain control. Thus, the people were starting to panic. Therefore, the first order of business was to calm the people and restore morale.

Ouyang Shuo quickly rose and told the aide to let the news of him awakening spread, and then called the principal officials of the city to the audience chamber. With the help of a maid standing by, he put on his official state clothes, and with unhurried stride and demeanor moved down the hallway towards the audience chamber.

As he walked, Ouyang Shuo slowly recalled what past players had posted about this quest in the forums, about what would happen and how to deal with the invasion. Sishui City was just a small town, the city guards numbered less than three thousand and were also untrained, with no battlefield experience. If he wanted to resist the attack of the incoming well-trained Black Flag Army, he could only rely on the city walls for passive defense.

In order to defeat the raiding army, the players had to employ many tricks and use a great deal of unconventional strategy. Fire, poison, superior numbers, and rolling stones were all used. However, most of the tactics had achieved little success.

For example, using numbers to win: If casualties reached twenty percent, army morale plummeted. Just because you wanted all your soldiers to have fearless hearts of steel and guts of iron didn't mean that it was going to happen.

One of the most famous guides was by the player who'd gotten the gold rank Village Creation Token from the quest. It was by a fellow called Xunlong Dianxue, a professional gaming fanatic known for his quest completions.

He entered the game after a week. In that time of a week, the Lord players had tried just about every method, but still couldn't reach the hidden condition for getting a gold Village Creation Token.

Perfectly completing the quest upon entering the game really showed Xunlong's skill. Ouyang Shuo remembered that this player, by dint of receiving the gold village, grew all the way to become one of China's top lords, full of glory. But this time around, Ouyang Shuo was going to shamelessly steal Xunlong's thunder. Thinking of this, Ouyang Shuo even felt a bit sorry for that person. If he had the chance, he would repay Xunlong well.

According to what the he had said, he received the quest, but didn't do things conventionally. Instead of hastily organizing the city's military as well as civilians and posting them on the walls, he kept talking with the NPC's in the city, trying to find hidden clues or some other resource he could use to complete the quest successfully.

His hard work paid off, and finally he had learned something from a water management official. A short distance to the south of Sishui City, there was a reservoir. When the Black Flag Army encamped, if someone was stationed to suddenly dig open the reservoir, the raging flood was enough to annihilate the Black Flag Army. But the approach was quite harsh, as the flood outside also inundated a great deal of farmlands and villages, who would also suffer.

If the player did not take the initiative and ask questions, the NPC's would not give the crucial piece of information needed to complete the quest. Perhaps this was where Xunlong was above everyone else. When so many people were focused on conventional defense and counter-attacks, his focus had jumped outside of the city to learn about the surrounding area and find opportunities there.

Ouyang Shuo arrived at the audience chamber, and the main officials of the city were lined up to receive him. Despite their attempts to look impassive, it was clear that they were all uneasy, with nervous frames of mind.

After bidding them all to be seated, Ouyang Shuo looked them over one by one, calmly saying, "You have no need to panic. I have already come up with a plan to defeat the enemy. What you need to do is to calm the civilians. We will impose a curfew tonight to prevent thieves and looters from robbing others. In addition, get the city guards to start fortifying the wall, and dispatch scouts to track the enemy. We must always know the location of our enemy, do not fail in this."

These actions really puzzled the officials there, but in the presence of their lord, they did not question him. That would only be inviting trouble on themselves, so they nodded obediently and went along with him.

"Sir Zhu, stay. I have something to speak with you about. The rest of you are free to go!" Sir Zhu was the old man from before and the lord's confidante.

With a concrete plan, Ouyang Shuo directly sent away the group of NPCs. As for the matter of breaching the dam, this was naturally not something he should be talking about publicly. If the Black Flag Army found out about what he was planning, the plan would be for naught.

After the rest of the officials were gone, Ouyang Shuo informed Sir Zhu of his task, and arranged for people to get to the reservoir dam that very night. Tomorrow morning, the Black Flag Army would arrive and make camp. The gates here would signal with smoke, the workers would breach the dam, and the Black Army would be washed away.

Sir Zhu heard Ouyang Shuo's battle plan, and was secretly scared. He thought that this method was quite similar to the saying, 'Lose eight hundred to kill one thousand.' But if this plan could defeat the enemy, the people would have no objections. The Black Flag Army conquering them might bring the civilians great harm. Having no other alternative, he did not raise an objection.

The next day, early in the morning, the Black Flag Army arrived as scheduled and set up their camp about five miles outside of the city. Waiting until the Black Flag Army was fully encamped with all its forces, Ouyang Shuo gave the decisive order to light the smoke signal.

As the signal came up, the people who had waited at the dam overnight immediately breached it with a great hole. In order to prevent accidents, the team had already done more than half the work the night before. In less than ten minutes, rolling floodwaters had poured out of the reservoir and like a winding dragon, heading for the Black Flag Army camp five miles out.

At this time the Black Flag Army was getting ready to make dinner and had no time to respond as the wave swept over it. Before the mighty floodwaters, both people and animals were killed. Ouyang Shuo led the city officials in watching over the devastation, standing at the top of the city walls.

Seeing the hellish scene of a drowned land before him, Ouyang Shuo's expression became solemn. Although they were just NPC, just packets of data, he could only blame the game for being too realistic, and pretend not to be moved by what he was seeing.

At this point, the sweet tone of the system chimed in.

"System Notification: Congratulations to player Qiyue Wuyi for the completion of the S-class Village Building quest, Sishui City. There have been no casualties to Sishui soldiers and the Black Water Army has been annihilated. This has met the hidden reward requirements. You are awarded a gold level Village Creation Token, an emperor-rank Summoning Token, and a intermediate rank Resource bag."

Fortunately this scene was in the quest space, so players in the quest couldn't hear outside announcements or release announcements. Otherwise, there would definitely be an uproar!

"System Notification: Congratulations to player Qiyue Wuyi for completion of the S-Rank Village Building quest with 100% completion. Additional experience reward of 10,000 experience points, 500 reputation points, and 100 gold coins will be awarded."

"System Notification: Player Qiyue Wuyi has leveled to 6!"

Note: A player's level was calculated as EXP = 30 (N3 5N) - 80, where N was the current level.

For this village quest, the more common people and soldiers died, the lower the completion number of the quest. The only way to get the gold-level Village Creation Token was to not have any casualties, which in ancient warfare was nearly impossible. Thus, only a eccentric method like this one was the way to complete it.

The Village Creation Token, Summoning Token, and Resource Bag were called the village creation set. Each of the players that finished the Village Building Quest would be rewarded these items. With full completion, naturally the Village Creation Token was upgraded to the gold level and the Summoning Talismans along with the Resource Bags would both raise a level. Ouyang Shuo could scarcely wait to see what he had received, as this was a key step in his future success or failure.

Name: Village Creation Token (gold)

Specialty: 50% increase in attracting settlers. 20% increase in attracting special talents. 50% increase in crop production. 20% increase in proficiency of production skills of residents. 20% increase in experience for soldiers.

Exclusive: Talent breakthrough success rates in this territory are increased by 10%.

Evaluation: This is a token that can increase territorial strength on all fronts and beyond the normal level of artifacts. How to use these gifts is being left for the players to explore on their own. This item cannot be destroyed or traded.

The gold grade token had tremendous advantages over other tokens. It was a world-changing level of difference.

Summoning Token (Emperor rank): Summon a random Emperor-level historical figure to your city.

Historical figures started at the King level and went up to the Emperor, Divine, and Saint rank. It was said that there was another higher level at the Almighty Saint rank for Confucius, who stood alone above all others.

In the past game, there had been no Lords who were able to get Confucius to work for them or even satisfy the requirements to even invite Confucius to settle there. The old man liked to travel around the country, never staying in one place for too long.

Resource Bag (Intermediate): 5000 units of food, 500 units of wood, 500 units of stone, 500 units of iron ore.

The resource bag held four resources that players called the basic resources. Basically, everything used in developing a territory was tied into these four resources. In addition, the bag was a one-time item, and you couldn't put anything into it, only use it up. When the last of the resources were removed, it would automatically disappear.

An intermediate resource bag was five times the size of a basic resource bag, which made Ouyang Shuo much more confident of his ability to implement his early development plan. Of course, the most critical award was the 100 gold coins. This was still the early stage of the game and the main currency was still copper coins. 100 gold coins now was simply a massive sum of money!

"System Notification: The quest has been completed. Teleport back to the main map?"

"Send me back!" Ouyang Shuo ordered promptly.

There was a hum and a white flash, and Ouyang Shuo disappeared from the quest space.

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Chapter 5 - Shanhai Village

Translator: TeamTWO

Editor: Levs

With a hum and a white flash, Ouyang Shuo finally appeared back on the main map, somewhere in the wilderness. Before he could look around, his ears were deluged with system announcements.

"System Notification: Congratulations to Di Chen for the successful establishment of the first village in China - Handan Village; special reward of 1100 Merit Points!"

"System Notification: Congratulations to Zhan Lang the successful establishment of the second village in China - Blood Red Village; special reward of 1000 Merit Points!"

"System Notification: Congratulations to Feng Qingyang for the successful establishment of the third village in China - Swordsman Village; special reward of 900 Merit Points!"

"System Notification: Congratulations to Feng Qiuhuang for the successful establishment of the fourth village in China - Fallen Phoenix Village; special reward of 800 Merit Points!"

"System Notification: Congratulations to Chun Shenjun for the successful establishment of the fifth village in China - Pill Sun Village; special reward of 700 Merit Points!"

"System Notification: Congratulations to Sha Pojun for the successful establishment of the sixth village in China - Asura Village; special reward of 600 Merit Points!"

Unsurprisingly, even as Ouyang Shuo completed the quest quickly to order up a village, China already had six lords who had established a village.

In his past life, these six players were massive beings and China's six most powerful lords, called the Six Tyrants of Handan. They were representatives of major forces in real China, and using the federal version of the game cabin. With that version of the cabin, they did not have to do the quest, but instead instantly started with a silver village.

The series of announcements going off naturally caused an uproar among the player base. If one or two people got lucky in opening their village, that was understandable. However, six people, bam, just like that, opening up their village? It was obviously anything but normal.

But it didn't matter if the players protested. The official response was complete silence, and no explanation was given.

Since Ouyang Shuo knew the truth of the situation, he ignored the announcements and resumed looking at his surroundings.

Looking ahead, he could only see tall grass and weeds without end. The grasses were yellow, it was the dry season. The skies were gloomy and cloud low, kind of cool and clammy. The frontier region was never a paradise, death was the eternal theme here.

In the distance, mountains rose up, rolling into the distance like a great sleeping dragon. The base of the mountains was girt in a cloak of trees, but the tops were naturally cold and lifeless.

"System Notification: Congratulation to player Qiyue Wuyi for discovering the new map zone - Lianzhou Basin, exploration experience 100."

The main features of a basin were being surrounded by high ground, and low in the middle, as the name basin implied. It was one of the five basic terrain zones, extremely common in reality.

After the game map expanded the area of the planet tenfold, the hills were ten times higher and rivers widened by ten as well. Small basins in the real countryside, in the game, would become a basin territory as large as Sichuan Basin was in reality.

These kind of basin terrains were a favorite of the Lord class players because it was easy to defend and the edges were rich in mineral resources. The biggest forces in the game were basically built in this kind of terrain.

The Lianzhou Basin in-game covered an area of 240,000 square kilometers, as large as the entire province of Guangxi in China (or, slightly larger than Romania). The west side of the Basin was the China/Vietnam border and was modified into a rolling, stony mountain range that was impassable.

To the north was a gateway city, called Zhennan Pass. It was now occupied by a group of powerful thieves. Passing through, you entered the hinterlands of Guangxi.

To the east was the dividing line between Guangxi and Lingnan, with mountains and misty jungles. North and south of there was also a pass and then going further south one can reach the North Bay of the South China Sea. The monsoon blew in from the sea through this canyon, bringing rain and new life into the Lianzhou Basin.

In the past, the entire Lianzhou Basin was cut up piecemeal into territory for nearly a hundred players. After the later merger and reorganizations, it birthed three large territories. The three lords fought one another, but they could not completely destroy one another, and so ended up as the three pillars of the Basin area.

In his previous life, even until the fifth year of the game, there was no dominating force in the Lianzhou Basin.

This time around, Ouyang Shuo's medium-range plan was to utterly dominate the Lianzhou Basin as its overlord.

When Ouyang Shuo chose his place of birth, he deliberately chose the side of the basin close to the sea. As long as you were at the south side of the Basin, you could find the opening to the south of the Lianzhou Basin.

Before starting anything, he checked his inventory. Each newly born player was automatically given a set of course clothing and a pair of cloth shoes.

He also had an area at his waist that accessed his storage bag, initial capacity at a cubic meter. It could be upgraded later, and things carried within it were basically weightless.

Although he had the Resource Bag awards, Village Creation Token, Summoning Token, and 100 gold coins, he didn't even have a weapon. The Resource Bag was separate, and could not be put in the storage bag, so he left that on his waist as well.

Ouyang Shuo readied the Summoning Token for use, intending to get a helper. Otherwise, if he met something on the road and died, he would lose everything...

Tearing the Talisman, a white light flashed, and a middle-aged rider came towards him, riding a proud yellow military stallion.

"System Notification: Congratulations to the player Qiyue Wuyi for successfully summoning Shi Wanshui, Special reward of 100 reputation points!"

The middle-aged officer, upon seeing Ouyang Shuo, immediately dismounted and fell to one knee, solemnly declaring, "It is my honor to serve my lord!"

Ouyang Shuo hurriedly went forwards and pulled the man to his feet, patting his shoulder and smiled. "General, it is good to get your help. With your aid, it's like gifting a tiger with wings"

"System Notification: Congratulations to player Qiyue Wuyi! Because of your courtesy, historical figure Shi Wanshui's loyalty has risen by 5!"

Taking advantage of his greeting, Ouyang Shuo took a look at his general's stats.

Name: Shi Wanshui (Emperor level)

Title: Top ten fierce officers in history

Dynasty: Sui Dynasty

Identity: None

Occupation: Special officer

Loyalty: 85 points

Command: 80

Force: 95

Intelligence: 60

Politics: 30

Speciality:

Take the Lead: Morale of troops enhanced by 40%;

Conquer to the South, Fight to the North: Speed and mobility of troops enhanced by 30%;

Insightful: Attack power of troops enhanced by 20%.

Cultivation Method: Shining Sun Spearmanship (24 styles)

Equipment: Proud yellow horse, Tiger Fish Scale Armor, Black Iron Spear, Refined Steel Sword, White Birch Bow

Evaluation: A famous hero of Sui, heroic and brave, excellent at riding and shooting. Temperament upright, poor at politics. A good soldier, poor management skills.

Ouyang Shuo was very happy to get such a fierce guard. With such a defender, he had no worries about being bullied on his way. Side by side, the two of them set off towards the south.

In less than half an hour, they had made it to the southern tip of the basin. The mountains were a few thousand kilometers long and between them, there was only a 50-meter wide canyon running straight into the distance.

In the center of the canyon was naturally a river of the same width, forking five hundred meters in front of the canyon into two tributaries. It was more accurate to say that two rivers came together to form one river here.

The west river was called the Friendship River, and the east was called the Swimming River. The Friendship River was slightly wider at thirty-five meters, while the Swimming River narrowed to about thirty meters. The source of the lakes should naturally be runoff from the east and west mountains, collecting the rainwater and sending it down to them.

Carefully considering his options, Ouyang Shuo picked the west side of the valley, at the foot of the mountain. The village will be surrounded by natural boundaries. To the west was a forest, to the north the Friendship River, and to the east the canyon. The location considered both defense and available resources, while also guarding the only pathway into the sea. Overall, a very strategic location.

Now the only question was how to cross the 35-meter Friendship River, so he could build the village. Oh, and take the horse along, too.

Time for some ingenuity and a little work. From out of his Resource Bag, Ouyang Shuo pulled 10 units of wood, and with the help of Shi Wanshui, used some rattan strips to tie the wood together into a simple raft.

"System Notification: Congratulations to player Qiyue Wuyi for making a successful raft, you have gained Basic Shipbuilding Proficiency."

Raft: Simple water transport

Evaluation: This is much too crudely built and can easily be overturned by waves, please be careful using it.

Earth Online had a considerable degree of freedom of choice within it. Ouyang Shuo could, even without the basic skill, make a raft. It only required the appropriate materials, tools, and knowing the method to do so. The same principle could be applied to gunpowder, glassmaking, winemaking, and other kinds of technology, all could be achieved in the game.

The two of them rode the raft over Friendship River, drawing the raft up onto the shore and covering it with weeds. After that, they headed south, to the foot of the mountain.

The choice of where to build the village was very critical because after one ordered their village built, they could not move it. Thus, you had to plan out your future development space in advance.

The area of an ancient city design was limited, bigger was not better in this case. In general, the maximum size was 100 square kilometers or so. After that point, urban management at the ancient level of technology would get increasingly difficult. Managing population, traffic, drainage, and health would all face huge challenges.

One hundred square kilometers was ten kilometers per side of the city if it was a square city. The Lord's Manor would usually be along the central axis, towards the back.

In accordance with this plan, Ouyang Shuo would build the Manor at the golden point of 3.82 km from the southern mountain's base. It would be 10 km from the east side of the canyon, leaving a 5 km strategic buffer for defense.

He removed the 'Village Creation Token' from his storage bag and inserted it into the soil of the village. Following directions, he bit his finger and a drop of his blood fell on the token.

Instantly, the area was encapsulated in soft golden light.

The golden light rose into the sky, reaching for the heavens. It rapidly spread out in a golden halo that extended out to the limits of his territory, and then disappeared.

At the same time, in front of where Ouyang Shuo was standing, a golden stone slowly rose from the ground. The stone was three meters high and two meters wide. The front of it was blank, the back of it engraved with nine ancient characters, "Receive the mandate of heaven, live and prosper forever." Ouyang Shuo placed his palm upon the stone, and the system instantly broke in with triumphant music.

"System Notification: Congratulations to player Qiyue Wuyi who has successfully established his village, please name your village!"

Here, with its back against the mountains, along with the sea, that's how he would name his village!

"Mountain Sea Village." (Note: This is Shanhai Village in Chinese.)

At his words, on the blank front of the stone appeared three words, 'Mountain Sea Village' in ancient script.

"System Notification: Congratulations to the player Qiyue Wuyi for the establishment of China 's seventh village - Shanhai Village, Special reward 500 of Merit Points!"

"System Notification: Congratulations to the player Qiyue Wuyi for the establishment of China 's seventh village - Shanhai Village, Special reward 500 of Merit Points!"

"System Notification: Congratulations to the player Qiyue Wuyi for the establishment of China 's seventh village - Shanhai Village, Special reward 500 of Merit Points!"

This system announcement did not attract too much attention. After all, Ouyang Shuo was just putting up a village, the whole area devoted to China had been ringing six times with similar announcements, and the players had become numb.

Of course, others may not have cared, but the Six Handan Tyrants had noted the name of Qiyue. They were extremely clear that in the entire Chinese region there were only six special spots where you could directly get a silver village in the game.

The seventh person could actually be regarded as the first real village in China to be established by an actual player, so some attention should be expected. However, with the frontier being what it was, for a short period of time, they would be unable to get any information about Mountain Sea Village.

The first to establish a village received 1100 Merit Points, with 100 points being taken off for each successive village. After the tenth village, every village established would merely get 100 Merit Points.

For the Lord class players, merit rank was actually more important than their level and prestige. Saying that this is was their core stat was not an exaggeration. Because their merit value was directly linked to the player's title, as long as the merit value was reached, the player's title would be automatically promoted.

Earth Online divided the titles into five orders: Baron, Viscount, Earl, Marquis, and Duke. Each order had three sub-ranks of first, second and third, for a total of fifteen ranks.

The first rank of merit required 100 points, and each rank after that, the requirement doubled. Thus, to reach Marquis required 204,800 points, while reaching the highest title of Duke required a whole million merit points!

Merit points were difficult to obtain, generally gained only by contributing to your country. You could generally only gain them on the frontier, such as by establishing a territory, combating bandits and raiders, increasing the security of the people, participating in battles, great contributions to the city, and several other limited ways.

The most critical point was that title and the territorial level was directly linked. Territories were divided into the same tiers as titles, with three sub-ranks within villages, towns, counties, prefecture, and capitals. If the leader of a territory didn't meet the required titles, the territory could not be promoted.

"System Notification: Congratulations player Qiyue Wuyi for establishing Shanhai Village. While constructing the village, the Lord's Manor has automatically been built. In addition to this, the player can also choose one of three random village-level buildings to put in place.

"System Notifications: Three random buildings selected, please choose one of them to be completed! You may select the City Fence, Basic Blacksmith Shop, or Basic Market!"

"I choose the Basic Market!"

"System Notification: The building selection is finished and will start automatically!"

There were a hum and burst of white light. Where Ouyang Shuo was standing, a wooden courtyard arose from the ground, outside of a living room. At the northwest corner of the courtyard rose another wooden building, which should be the Basic Market.

"System Notification: Congratulations to the player Qiyue Wuyi for establishing your village! Your reward is 10 farmers! Please prepare to receive them! All rewards are complete, please view them at your leisure!"

Ouyang Shuo watched the golden stone slowly sink back into the ground. It would only re-emerge if the territory was upgraded or attacked.

"System Notification: Historical figure Shi Wanshui has witnessed the birth of the village, his loyalty is increased by 5!"

"System Notification: Historical figure Shi Wanshui's loyalty to Qiyue Wuyi is at 90 points, derived feature: Loyalty (enhances military morale 10%).

Ouyang Shuo did not expect to receive such a pleasant surprise. A loyalty upgrade to 90 points made Shi Wanshui increase his respect for Ouyang Shuo!

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Chapter 06 - Village Properties

Translator: TeamTWO

Editor: Jun

He would inspect the village properties later. Ouyang Shuo took Shi Wanshui with him out of the Lord's Manor, ready to go to the gate of the village and receive his ten farmers.

At the entrance to the village waited ten thin farmers wearing yellow rags. They were looking up and around curiously at the mountain village. The rags wrapped around their feet were their only other possessions.

With Ouyang Shuo in front and Shi Wanshui following, the pair found them quickly.

The group of farmers, seeing a fierce officer like Shi Wanshui, had eyes that flashed with traces of fear. Seeing Ouyang Shuo leading Shi Wanshui, however, they became immediately more respectful and cautious.

Hesitantly, one of them stepped forwards, a middle-aged man who seemed to be the oldest of them. "Please, sir. I am Zhao Dexian, I have led villagers from my village to come to your village. We wonder if you are accepting residents."

Ouyang Shuo first introduced himself in turn. "I am the Lord of Shanhai Village. Behind me is my General, Shi Wanshui."

After his introduction was completed, Ouyang Shuo continued. "I am very happy that you came. Shanhai Village is ready to get started and is in urgent need of talent, naturally I do not wish you to leave. As long as you are willing to work hard, there will be clothing to wear, food to eat, room to live, and fields to be cultivated."

This simple set of four commitments spoke right to the heart of these peasant folk, and their eyes all held that look of yearning for a better life. They started whispering to one another, talking about his offer.

"Quiet, please," Ouyang Shuo said, waiting until everyone quieted down. "We are not going to stand out here. Let's first go back to the main house and get you all settled down and fed."

Hearing that they were going to be fed, there was a burst of cheers. Being so poor, they had not eaten for more than a week.

Before going, Ouyang Shuo turned to Shi Wanshu and said solemnly, "General Shi, I have a matter to ask of you."

General Shi was surprised, but simply said, "As my lord commands, so shall it be done!"

"In order to secure the territory, I would like you to patrol the borders. If you encounter beasts, bandits, or the like, do not hesitate and clear them immediately, lest they come after us before our defenses are in place," Ouyang Shuo told him.

"I will do so!" Shi Wanshui responded. He grabbed his horse and a day's rations, and rode away with a cloud of dust trailing behind him.

Ouyang Shuo then settled the ten farmers in the east wing of the Lord's Manor and left some rations for them. Going alone back to the office of the village head, he saw that there were two items placed upon the desk, a letter and a booklet. Atop the letter was the official lord's seal, cast in brass and resembling a turtle. The book was the Lord's Handbook, which recorded the basic information of the territory.

Territory: Shanhai Village (First Level Village)

Lord: Qiyue Wuyi (First Class Baron)

Title: none

People's Thoughts: 70

Security: 65

Territory population: 12/200

Flow rate of immigrants: 10 * (1 50%) = 15 / day

Territory area: 20 square kilometers

Territorial characteristics: 50% increase attracting immigrants, 20% increase in attracting special talents, 50% increase in crop production, 20% increase in production capacity of residents, 20% increase in military promotion, 10% increase in talent breakthroughs.

Treasury: 100 gold coins

Territory Resources: 5000 units of food, 490 units of wood, 500 units of stone, 500 units of iron ore

Territorial army: None

Territory Industry: None

Political index: 5/100 (determines administrative efficiency and relationship with the people)

Economic index: 5/100 (determines trade prosperity and ability to pay taxes)

Cultural index: 0/100 (represents the degree of educational development and quality of life of residents)

Military: 10/100 (indicates military strength and morale)

Existing Buildings: Village level Lord's Manor, Basic Market

List of basic construction buildings

Simple fence: Basic fortification, Weak defense, can stop wild animals. Construction conditions: wood: 100 units. Construction time: twenty four hours.

Village level dining hall: Dining area for residents. Construction conditions: dining hall construction drawings, wood: 30 units, stone: 20 units. Construction time: twelve hours.

Village level bathrooms: Enhances sanitation and health of the village. Construction conditions: toilet construction drawings, timber: 10 units, stone: 10 units. Construction time: six hours.

Wooden small residential courtyard: Provides living space for 20 residents. Construction conditions: Small residential courtyard construction drawings, timber: 40 units, stone: 20 units. Construction time: twelve hours.

Basic blacksmith shop: Builds a variety of farm tools, such as axes, chisels, and other iron tools. Construction conditions: junior blacksmith, blacksmith shop construction drawings, wood: 20 units, stone: 10 units. Construction time: twelve hours.

Basic grocery shop: Distributes various types of daily necessities. Construction conditions: grocer, grocery building drawings, wood 20 units, stone 10 units.

Basic logging field: Speeds up the collection of timber resources, the average production is 10 units of wood / person / day. Construction conditions: Wood: 30 units. Construction time: six hours.

Basic quarry: Speeds up the collection of stone resources, the average production is 5 units of stone / person / day. Construction conditions: timber: 20 units, stone: 10 units. Construction time: six hours.

Simple farmland: grows crops, the average is 200 units of food production per mu (1/6th acre). Description: grain is planted twice a year, the first quarter of planting is during the Ching Ming Festival, the second quarter of sowing is in early July. When the best seeding time is missed, the yield is reduced by 10% to 50%.

Basic barracks: farmers can be converted into militia. Construction conditions: officers, barracks construction drawings, timber: 100 units, stone: 40 units. Construction time: twenty four hours.

According to a full population calculation of 200 residents, the village needed to build 10 residential small homes. Building all the buildings to completion would require a total of 730 units of wood, and 300 units of stone.

Currently his most scarce resource was food. The villagers needed to consume one unit of food per day, and military personnel required 2 units of food/day. With a population of 200, that meant the territory had to generate at least 210 units of food per day to meet consumption.

Game time and real time were synchronized at 1:1, but day and night were inverted. The main map of the game used the Gaia calendar. It was now the first year of Gaia, January 1, not yet rice planting time.

Therefore, for the next six months, Lords could not receive grain from their farmland.

This time period was the darkest for the Lords. To gain food, resources like wood, ore, and other resources had be sold to the system, leading to stagnant territory development. Countless territories went bankrupt because of this.

However, in danger, there was also opportunity. During this time, some Lords took the chance to develop their speciality industries in their territory early, and got rid of the food predicament. Most of these excellent lords later upgraded their territory to the state level admirably.

This was the essence of Earth Online, not letting the Lords easily upgrade their territories. All kinds of obstacles were going to start emerging, a variety of traps in the system that were not easy to detect.

Only those that could best these obstacles, and avoid the trap choices, would stand out and take the leading positions. Casual players who did not do so were destined to be eliminated early.

Back at his desk, Ouyang Shuo was most lacking in all the different architectural drawings as well as talent such as blacksmiths and grocers. His most urgent task was get the fence, dining hall, and public bathrooms built.

He wasn't in any hurry to reclaim the farmland, since he didn't have access to grains and it was the wrong season. The logging yard, residential courtyards, and quarry were now the second priorities to get done. As for the barracks, he didn't have enough people, so he was in no rush to build it.

Finishing his plan for the village, Ouyang Shuo headed back to the east wing. Zhao Dexian, the elder, had finished his lunch, and was chatting with the other men. Seeing that the village head had arrived, all of the men immediately rose and greeted him.

Ouyang Shuo smiled and asked, "Are you settling in well?"

"Of course, it is better here than where we used to live!" Zhao Dexian replied respectfully.

"That's great. Ah, we were rushed earlier and I didn't take the proper time to meet you all. How about you introduce yourselves? Zhao Dexian, you start." Ouyang Shuo pointed at the man.

"Sir, our former village, called Zhao Jiagou, was quite isolated. Half a month ago, a wounded bandit inadvertently broke into our village. We didn't know he was a bandit. We kindly dressed his wounds. We let him stay in the village to recover, but after doing so, he immediately left. The very next day, his associates came and looted our village. Out of more than three hundred people, only ten of us escaped. These past days we have been in the wilderness, and suffered greatly. Fortunately, sire has not only let us enter his village, but given us shelter." Speaking of this sad past, the elder could not help but have tears come to his eyes.

"It's okay, the deceased are gone. We need to look forward. Zhao Dexian, what did you do previously?" Ouyang Shuo, not really knowing how to comfort a group of people who had suffered through so much, immediately changed the topic.

"Sir, during our time in Zhao Jiagou, thanks to everyone else, I was proud to serve as the village chief."

This was an unexpected joy, as Ouyang Shuo did not expect to get someone skilled in administration. He took an immediate look at the attributes of Zhao Dexian.

Name: Zhao Dexian (Bronze)

Identity: Mountain Sea villager

Occupation: Civil servant

Loyalty: 75 points

Command: 15

Force: 20

Intelligence: 20

Politics: 30

Evaluation: Chief of the original Zhao Jiagou village, reserved and dignified, cares for his people, good at agricultural water management.

A round of introductions followed. Of the remaining nine people, there were two fruit farmers, named Zhao Youde and Zhao Youcai, who were brothers. There was a village carpenter, Zhao Youfang. There was also a mason, Zhao Dewang. The remaining five men were pure farmers.

Half of the group were special talents! This wasn't part of Ouyang Shuo's prize, but a hidden reward of the system. The system couldn't really give you ten pure farmers, or you would never be able to put up a house.

After coming to a mutual understanding, Ouyang Shuo immediately appointed Zhao Dexian as leader of the construction squad, arranging for him to lead five people in building a wooden fence. At the same time, he arranged for Zhao Youfang to take the other three remaining people to build a basic logging field as soon as possible to aid in collecting wood.

Ouyang Shuo was ready to directly start his fence following the standard of a third-level village, and it required 600 units of wood. If he had been stuck with the starting original supplies, he would have fallen 170 units short, and if he didn't start harvesting, he might not have been able to keep up with the speed of construction.

In accordance with the game design, only the Lord's Manor would upgrade with the village. The rest of the buildings would stay as they were and not be upgraded.

In order to facilitate replanning of the territory, the game built in a recycling function. Buildings could be recycled and moved, placing them in a more appropriate location. But the replacement was not free, every adjustment of a building required an additional charge.

Therefore, visionary Lords had to carefully plan the general village layout before making changes to the territory. Of course, other players didn't know what kind of buildings were coming, and had to do a much rougher plan.

As for now, Ouyang Shuo was planning his village directly towards the protection of the level-three fences. He would be able to also match the layout of the buildings in accordance with the contents of a grade-three village.

This was Ouyang Shuo's advantage as a reincarnator. To be able to undertake this kind of extremely foresightful planning, others would certainly envy him greatly.

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Chapter 7: Markets and Dogs

Translator:ryangohsff

Editor:ryangohsff

After sending Zhao Dexian and the others off to work, Ouyang Shou did not sit idly. He was ready to go shopping in the Beginner Market to see if there was a chance to get some good things.

The Basic Market was located in the northwest corner of the village, close to the village's entrance. The market covered a large area. Besides a small wood building used to make transactions, the west side had an open area to receive goods.

He headed into the small building, which was empty. On the left side of the hall was a display, much like a computer monitor. To the right was a teleportation formation, lit by magical lights with a touch of mystery to it.

The market in the game was far beyond the timeline of the game that it was set it. On the left side was a product of technology, while on the right was a product of magic. To achieve long-range transport of goods, these two things had to be achieved and combined.

The transaction area of the Basic Market was in the surrounding area of Dali City. The transportation crystal could not send a living body, and all transactions by the seller had to pay a 20% transaction tax.

Ouyang Shuo went to the left side of the display, discovering that the entire trading program was divided into four sections. They were the Material Trading Platform, the Special Items Trading Platform, and two greyed out areas that had not opened, the Limited Time Auction Platform and the Negotiation Cooperation Platform.

Opening up the Material Trading Platform, it had everything from food, wood, ores, clothes and even salt. The only thing was that weapons and armor and other military supplies were prohibited items and could not be sold.

Looking at the prices, a unit of grain was 10 copper, wood 20 coppers, and iron ore 100 coppers, definitely not cheap. In his territory the thing he needed most was wood resources, so he directly purchased 500 units, spending a gold coin.

He was really interested in the Special Items Platform. Opening the screen, he found that the special items were also divided into four areas. They were architectural blueprints, articles manufacturing, skill books, and others.

Needless to say, every building in the territory required building drawings to put up and there were basic, intermediate, advanced and special sets.

For territory construction, in addition to upgrading the necessary buildings, extra construction of other buildings was completely unrestricted, as long as you met the construction requirements.

As an example, as long as you had the brothel's building blueprints, then you could build it in a village even though it was normally a grade three county building. As for whether you could run the brothel normally, that was a different matter.

Even so, most of the players would build up their infrastructure step by step, instead of leaping tiers. The main reason was that high-level building blueprints were too expensive.

A brothel building blueprints cost 1000 gold coins. Just ask any village head if they had so much money. Even if they had the money, no one would be stupid enough to waste it on one building like this at this point.

Ouyang Shuo first needed to buy construction blueprints for the dining hall, the public bathrooms, the courtyard residential buildings, the blacksmith shop, the grocery store, and the barracks. They each cost 2 gold coins, and so he spent a total of 12 gold.

Actually, doing this was kind of unusual, most players weren't willing to go directly into the market to buy blueprints. Building blueprints were among the more commonly dropped items obtained by killing bandits. All human NPCs had a distinct chance of dropping such plans on death.

Ouyang Shuo was doing so to bring his 100 gold into rapid play, using his money early in exchange for rapid development of his village. He wanted to get one step ahead of everyone else.

In addition, he spent another 15 gold to buy three more special plans: ferry construction blueprints, dock construction blueprints, and shipyard construction blueprints.

These were water-related buildings, and could only be built close to the shoreline. Therefore, they would not be included in the territorial upgrades of essential buildings, as they were special.

After buying the blueprints, Ouyang Shuo pointed to the article manufacturing and technical manuals area. This area was about making specific items and starting an industry using special conditional manufacturing technology advances, not general skills for people to grasp a talent.

For example, a master class winemaker could, in theory, brew a variety of advanced drinks. But, in fact, he has no way to brew a specific advanced liquors from the "Heavy Earth Pub". Why? Because the formulas were confidential. Without the technology, the skill was useless.

Ouyang Shuo chose the Salt Water Technology Manual, and the South-pointing Chariot Technical Manual. Two technical manuals, the first 20 gold, the second 10 gold. In reality, in ancient times, salt was sold by officials of the government. The game was not the same. Except for military goods, anything could be traded.

If the seaside Lords didn't master the technology to get salt out of sea water, they were simply wasting their natural resources. As for the compass wagon, it was a key item to completing a certain task later. The reward would be comparable to getting a gold level Village Creation Token.

The third type of skill books contained all the professional skills, and some special ones on top of those. There were skill books for players only, NPC's could only learn them through being mentored. Ouyang Shuo chose the Beginner books of riding, swordsmanship, archery, and scouting, spending a gold coin for each book.

The fourth category of items were varied, all kinds of strange items could appear. It was more about luck than anything else to find something.

Ouyang Shuo was disappointed, nothing was practical or affordable. As he was ready to close the screen, it suddenly refreshed with a new list.

A new item popped into his eyes: Mazu God Statue (Broken), priced at 20 gold. Looking at its properties, Ouyang Shuo didn't hesitate to buy it.

Name: Mazu Idol (Broken)

Grade: Silver rank

Evaluation: This is a broken Mazu idol, with a weak trace of the Mazu god powers. A long period of veneration will be necessary to restore the statue.

Properties: Sea god's blessing (Maritime navigation to survive storms increased by 40%)

In order to offer prayer to the Mazu gods, Ouyang Shuo also had to buy a village temple building plan. A village temple was a must for a level three village upgrade and would cost another 10 gold.

After these big purchases, Ouyang Shuo only had 11 gold left, he had really gone through his money like water. After completing his purchases, Ouyang Shuo headed over to the crystal on the right side of the hall.

The crystal flashed with a white glow, and like that, the ten building plans, two technical manuals, four skill books, and a statue were sent over.

As for the 500 units of wood, it was directly in front of the small building's entryway. He put most of the items into his storage bag, but used the skill books straight away.

"System Notification: Congratulations to the player Qiyue Wuyi for mastering Basic riding."

"System Notification: Congratulations to the player Qiyue Wuyi for mastering Basic swordsmanship."

"System Notification: Congratulations to the player Qiyue Wuyi for mastering Basic archery."

"System Notification: Congratulations to the player Qiyue Wuyi for mastering Basic law."

Outside the small building, Zhao Dexian and his seven man crew were in full swing building the fence. Ouyang Shuo couldn't really do much other than manage them. A level-three village area covered a kilometer square. The whole fence would be 4 kilometers long, a big project.

In Ouyang Shuo's plan, the fence in the middle of the north side would open a main door. At the same times, there would be side doors in the east and south sides for convenience. The logging field was being built in the west side of the territory, as well as subsequent quarries. Therefore, the west side's role would be regulating the import and export of resources.

Similarly, the subsequent docks and shipyards would be built on the eastern side of the river, so the eastern door will connect the village and docks. Drawing a line between the side doors with the central axis divided the village into four parts.

The buildings along the central axis would form the most prosperous area of the village, while the territory will be divided into East and West. At the southernmost area of the axis was the Lord's Manor already built. In front of the Lord's House was an open area, reserved for use as the Town Square. To the north would be a street of commercial buildings. All shops, inns, training halls and other buildings will be distributed to the commercial street's two sides.

West of there would be a residential area. The southwest area would be residences for the agricultural workers, such as farmers and lumberjacks. The northwest area would be arranged for industrial workers, such as the miners, blacksmiths, tailors, masons, businessmen, and other craftsmen. Northwest of the northern area was already occupied by the Beginner Market.

The Eastern District would be a military zone, science, and educational training area. The southeast area would be zoned for science and education, with the private school, hospital, ancestral hall and village temple located there. The northeast area would be the military zone, with weapon repair workshops, strategic granaries, and the upcoming barracks all to be located there.

Ouyang Shuo spent the afternoon near the fence, while going over the plans for his town. The fence was already a quarter built, with tomorrow bringing in more people, he should be able to get it all built in just one more day.

At dusk, General Shi finally returned from his patrol. From the side of his horse hung pheasants, rabbits and other game, while on the other side, things were moving in the bag.

Ouyang Shuo stepped forward and saluted in greeting. "General, it seems you worked hard, and your harvest was not small?"

General Shi quickly dismounted, his hands cupped in salute as well. "I only encountered a few small thieves, not worth anything. I also brought sir a play thing, I hope sir enjoys it."

"Oh, what is this? If my general saw it, I am naturally convinced it is a good thing."

General Shi laughed, and turned back to the squirming bag on his horse. Opening it up, a pure black young wild dog became visible to Ouyang Shuo.

The little dog was obviously born very recently, still a puppy, with squinting dark green eyes, extremely cute.

"Is this a young wolf cub?" Ouyang Shuo asked uncertainly.

"Very good, the little guy should be a good hunting partner."

Shi Wanshui was quite happy, "Haha, to be accurate, it's the cub of a Black Wolf Dog. Although it looks like a wolf, it isn't a wolf."

"Black Wolf Dog? Not bad, not bad. He'll be a great help in hunting in the future."

Zhao Dexian and the others had also come around, looking curiously at the bag with the little pup. Despite trying to look complacent, they could not hide their interest.

Ouyang Shuo didn't want to dampen their spirits, so he asked curiously, "General, you had such a good harvest while on patrol, there must be a story to go with it! Since everyone is here, tell us your tale, let us know what happened." Ouyang Shuo quickly had the workers sit down on the floor, making a circle.

General Lui laughed, having no problem with stage fright. He also sat down, and began to narrate his experiences.

"According to lord's command, I left the village at noon, and began to explore the territory. It was calm along the way, but there were pheasants and rabbits here and there, and it was simple to shoot them down. Occasionally, I would encounter one or two bandits, so poor that they did not even have mounts. I went up and killed them. On the way back, however, I met a group of wolves harassing a pack of wild goats. I said nothing more and burst forward into their midst, killing most of them before they could get away. Following them, I actually stumbled on their den. I surprisingly saw this little pup and thinking he might be of use to the lord, so I brought him."

Hearing that the general had encountered wild goats, Ouyang Shuo was silent for a moment, already making a plan for tomorrow. It was too late to set out again today.

Before long, Zhao Youfang's work crew came back, having set up a Basic logging camp. Starting tomorrow, the logging field can be officially opened and become operational. Taking this opportunity, Ouyang Shuo proposed to everyone that there would be a double dinner tonight which will be considered as a celebration of the formal establishment of Shanhai Village.

The only fly in the ointment was that it was a group of working men, and none of them could cook. Fortunately, there was a lot of wild game to add to the fun, or else they'd have little to celebrate with. Ouyang Shuo was really looking forward to tomorrow's settlers coming in, hoping for a chef to help with the cooking.

Quarters for Shi Wanshui were arranged in the east wing while Ouyang Shuo went back to the hall of his own room, ready to rest.

Lying on the hard bed, his eyes closed, Ouyang Shuo sent out mentally, "Log out of the game!" When he opened his eyes, he had quit the game.

[advantage: by having their erection in contact with her

[ cent bills: China has cents in bills called jiao

[Guoshu: Guo here means country and shu means technique

[ 190 centimeters: Over 6ft tall

[Lake Cui: Cui Hu, also means Green Lake

[hundred dyuan bills: 100yuan is their biggest bill

[Daoist Fierce Tiger: The author of this novel

[Noodles: made of wheat

[Rice Noodles: made of rice

[Zhang Tian Tian: Tian means sweet

[Bajiquan: Also known as Eight Extremities Fist, but Bajiquan sounds nicer to me

[Long Taos: side characters in Chinese operas who perform acrobatics and fight scenes

[12.47 to 13.07: don't ask me about the tree sap

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Chapter 8 - Ideas

Translator: TeamTWO

Editor: Jun

Opening the game cabin, Ouyang Shuo found that it was already 6 AM. After a simple wash up, he grabbed his workout clothes, ready to go downstairs for a run.

Having just moved to the district, he was not familiar with the surrounding area, and was ready to run a few laps around the block to see everything. To one side was a row of trees, with several older men doing tai chi.

In the square, there were some older women also up early, moving to some music, practicing a communal dance. It was such a peaceful scene and being just out of the game, he almost fell into a trance.

After his run, he found a breakfast shop, and picked up soy milk, fried dough sticks, buns, and sugar packets. He headed back home and quickly downed the breakfast. Needing a change of clothes, he decided to take a hot bath. Opening up the bathroom door, he was instantly stunned.

He saw Sun Xiaowei sitting there on the toilet, her eyes hazy with sleep, hair a bit of a mess. She was wearing a printed pajamas top, the bottoms under the soles of her feet. She had her kitty-kitty underpants in her hands, ready to stand up.

Her forbidden white thighs were exposed to his sight, and the black hair between them was clearly visible. She looked up to see Ouyang Shuo standing there, and her narrow eyes instantly opened very, very wide.

"AHHHHHHHH, PERVERT!!!!!!" she screamed, voice rapidly ascending somewhere beyond what Shuold've been humanly possible.

Ouyang Shuo's natural reaction was to turn and flee. He slammed the door closed, subconsciously wiping his nose with his hand. "Ah, close call." He muttered. Fortunately, he hadn't gotten a spontaneous nosebleed, or he would have been really embarrassed.

Through his mind repeatedly flashed the picture of those flowery white thighs and the naughty black hair… No, no, don't think about it, it is too evil, hehe...

In order to avoid even more embarrassment, Ouyang Shuo went to Bing'er's room. The little girl had not gotten up. It seemed yesterday had completely worn her out, and she hadn't even stirred.

Opening the door, Ouyang Shuo first opened the curtains, letting warm sunlight into the room. Going to her bedside, he saw his sister with her hand in her mouth, and the other one stretched out onto the quilt, exceptionally cute. He pinched her little nose, saying softly, "Little lazy pig, get up now!"

She shoved his hands away, her eyes not opening, whispering in confusion, "Bad brother, you are bullying me again. Let Bing'er sleep for a while. I'm sleepy."

"Baby sister, you cannot sleep anymore, or else you will be late for school."

The little girl reluctantly opened her eyes, then hurriedly said, "Ah! Bing'er forgot today was a school day, smelly brother did not wake me early." Quickly she clambered up from the quilt, dashing to wash up.

Back in the living room, Xiaoyue had already changed her clothes and was ready to go out. Seeing Ouyang Shuo, her face flushed a bit as she stared fiercely at him.

Ouyang Shuo was indeed a bit embarrassed. Although he did not intentionally do anything wrong, the other side was a girl, and he was clearly at a disadvantage. As a man, he had to put on a strong front, and pretend nothing had happened. "I bought breakfast, let's eat!"

Xiaoyue didn't seem to be that kind of fake person, so there was no need to be overly polite as she simply nodded in agreement. They waited until Bing'er had washed and changed into good clothes. The three of them sat down and enjoyed a delicious breakfast together.

After breakfast, Xiaoye was the first to go. Ouyang Shuo let Bing'er run quickly back to her room for a dress. Today, he was personally going to walk her to school.

Along the way, his little sister was smiling. Her brother was personally walking her to school, how could she not be happy?

Getting back from the school, Ouyang Shuo opened up his handbrain, heading for the game forum. The forum ID was naturally associated with the game ID, but most people posted anonymously.

The top post was made by someone called Big Butler. The title of it was "High-Priced Acquisition of Game Currency, effective long-term!" The post mentioned that Big Butler would be paying a credit point per one bronze of ingame currency, with unlimited amounts acceptable.

The posted price point was basically one million credits for one gold piece.

There was an immediate uproar after the post came out. Players were rejoicing, looking at overnight riches.

The indirect result of this post was that there were now countless professional studios turning their eyes to Earth Online. Countless top players now settled into Earth Online, ready to get to work.

Ouyang Shuo knew the person posting. In his past, Big Butler was also a very famous person. He was one of the Six Tyrants of Handan, working as the financial director for Chun Shenjun.

Chun Shenjun's real life identity was the first successor of the Tianhe Consortium, Zhao Mingcheng. He had a blend of a businessman's cunning nature and a old world strategist's ruthlessness, a very contradictory figure.

Tianhe Consortium was one of the largest consortiums in China. They were skilled in high-end equipment manufacturing, especially in regards to aerospace equipment. Earth Online had been commissioned under the name of Tianhe Consortium Manufacturing Enterprises. The company's space exploration branch was the largest of the commercial space companies, possessing every bit as much technology as the Federal Aviation Administration.

While the Handan Six held a tight hegemony, at their core they were quite alike, possessing great pride. The other people were not like Zhao Mingchen who held such a high profile, but they also lacked gold coins, and so they agreed to secretly arrange acquisitions. Naturally, with his financial strength, Mingcheng really was worthy of being the first amongst them.

Ouyang Shuo was not worried that the Tyrants could buy a lot of gold coins. Earth Online was a very balanced game, with the personal adventure path design very close to reality.

For now, the players could only afford the basics, maintaining their food and clothing. Buying equipment was hard; money was very precious. It would be at least a month before the high-end players starting overcoming the starting money hurdle and began to profit. Starting up a gold farm operation was clever, but they had to obey the basic laws of the game.

Naturally, the forums were divided with bitter complaints, whether they were lords or adventurers. The game was too real. Nobody could afford much of anything, and non-humanoid monsters would only leave bodies and nothing else.

Humanoid monsters would drop money or equipment but at this point, nobody had money or equipment, and most bandits were not something people could compete with. Store-bought goods were expensive and on the first day of the game, very few people even had bronze-class weapons. Even with weapons, maintenance costs would keep draining their cash.

Lord class players weren't doing much better. There were too many things to build. Building a village from the basic resource base was very difficult. They couldn't afford to buy building plans. If they went in the wilderness to try their luck, they had no soldiers behind them which meant that fighting bandits was simply unrealistic.

The players who had gotten officers from their Summoning Talismans had an easier time. At least, the officers could fight a little bit. Those who summoned administrators were unlucky, their territories were completely undefended.

With such contrasts, Ouyang Shuo finally realized how lucky he was. If he had not completed the Village Building Quest with 100% which made all of the rewards better by one tier as well as a hundred gold, he would've been far behind.

At the same time, Ouyang Shuo had to keep in mind that he had to stay alert and not become complacent. He would have to work hard to keep his early advantages, transferring them into the potential of his territory and developing them. More accumulation would lead to more advantages, building the foundation of his dominance.

After all, this dilemma of the players was only temporary. As long as you could make it through the early accumulation period, the gaps would all soon shrink. This was especially true of the Six Tyrants of Handan, who as representatives of power groups had a great deal of money and backers. In contrast, he was very alone. Earth Online was all about team building, so there wasn't a great solo player who could defeat ten thousand people at once.

According to what he remembered, at some point in his past life, people had started looking for other lords and formed alliances. A good territory would also attract talented players. Ouyang Shuo believed in his own ability and in his ability to direct others.

Otherwise, people who tried to build by themselves could fall easily; it was difficult to grow. If the timing was right, roping in others could be done.

People thinking about the recruiting players would have to wait a full year. At that point, the nobody would have to worry about their life and people would be on the same starting line. This way, lords didn't have to worry about real life issues by strong factions. Closing the forum, Ouyang Shuo began to look up all kinds of historical information on the internet. The past game had a famous saying: If you are not familiar with history, you are not a qualified Lord.

The whole game world of The World Online was produced by historical deductions. If you werent familiar with history, then there was no way to cleanly fit into the game. Ouyang Shuo took this topic as his main homework of the day, and planned to adhere to it long-term.

At 4:30 PM, Bing'er came home from school. At 6 PM, Xiaoyue came back from school. Ouyang Shuo made dinner again.

At the dinner table, Bing'er told her brother all about the interesting things that had happened in school that day. Xiao Ming had overslept, had come to school late and had been punished by the teacher. Xiao Li had worn a new dress today, but it had been dirtied by Xiao Hua; the teacher had made her apologize in front of the class to Xiao Li. Xiao Yi's braids today had been very beautiful, so the girls had gotten together and had been taught how to braid hair by her. Ouyang Shuo smiled as he listened. There was a tacit understanding between them.

Only he knew how hard the death of their parents had hit Bing'er. For a long time, she had been quiet and withdrawn into her own shell. Every day, Ouyang Shuo accompanied her, comforted her, made her happy, and let her slowly recover over time.

For Bing'er, Ouyang Shuo was both a brother and a father. Outsiders couldn't understand the depth of the feelings between them. That blow had turned Bing'er from a lively little monkey into a quiet little girl. In her class, she only had a couple of friends. Only in front of Ouyang Shuo would she once again become happy and carefree.

Being able to look at Bing'er's healthy growth was Ouyang Shuo's greatest happiness in life. Unfortunately, for the next year, Ouyang Shuo would be heading early to bed every night to enter the game. He had no way to accompany her to paint, to do her homework, to coax her to sleep, or to tell her stories.

Thinking of his sister spending every night alone writing homework and going to bed by herself, Ouyang Shuo's heart twitched. This was absolutely unacceptable, even if he had to log in later to the game.

Looking up at Xiaoyue sitting across from him, Ouyang Shuo had an idea. After dinner, with Xiaoyue rushing to wash the dishes, he knew that her family education was good.

Waiting for her to finish cleaning up, Ouyang Shuo took Bing'er back to her room to get started on her homework, and also stopped to say something to Xiaoyue. "Wait up a moment. I have something to talk to you about."

Thinking of the embarrassing events of the morning and that Ouyang Shuo was going to bring them up, Xioayue's face quickly turned red, and she started to stutter. "Wh-what do you want to talk to me about?"

Seeing her with that expression, Ouyang Shuo scratched his head, and continued on. "Important things. It won't take very long!"

Important things? I don't know what he is thinking about, what is he going to say? Will he say I am responsible for everything? Xiaoyue thought crankily, sitting down on the edge of the sofa.

Seeing that Xiaoyue was acting weird, Ouyang Shuo cut the long story short, "You know that yesterday I started playing a new game called Earth Online. This game is very important to me and every night at 8 PM, I have to go online."

"Ah? Ah?" she replied blankly. Wait, this guy is not going to talk about this morning. Well, he must have forgotten! Pervert! Rogue! The woman's mind was so unpredictable

Seeing Ouyang Shuo looking so surprised, Xiaoyue wanted to slap Ouyang Shuo with her shoes. At this time, she could only try and cover up the embarrassing mood, trying to squeeze out a smile. "Ah, ha, yes. Please, continue."

No matter how slow he was, Ouyang Shuo could see that she had a problem. But, all he could do was soldier on and pretend he saw nothing. He continued, "In fact, what I want to say is very simple. That is, can you replace me at night? She gets a fairy tale before bedtime! As long as you can help me, please name your conditions!"

"Oh this, no problem! I also like Bing'er, I see her as a little sister. No need to mention any conditions. As long as you cook dinner every night for us, I will do it!" Sun Xiaoyue said readily.

"Thank you, you are helping me a great deal," Ouyang Shuo said, and did not say more. They were thinking alike, and there was no need to say more.

The embarrassed mood passed, but they had nothing else to talk about. Ouyang Shuo went back to Bing'er's room, and saw the little girl quietly working on her homework at her desk, cute enough to kill.

Assured that Bing'er would get her story read to her by Xiaoyue, this set his mind at ease. Ouyang Shuo went back to his room after giving Bing'er a kiss. Although Bing'er might not have been happy with everything, she knew better than to bother her brother needlessly!

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Chapter 9 - Cui Yingyu

Translator: TeamTWO

Editor: Levs

When Ouyang Shuo had arrived online, the game time was just after 8 AM. From outside the door came a whirring sound, mixed with waves of cheers.

Opening the door, Ouyang Shuo saw that General Shi was displaying his spearmanship while Zhao Dexian and the others were watching from the sides, fascinated by his skill, and from time to time applauding.

Seeing that Ouyang Shuo had come out, Zuo Yi exclaimed, "Lord sire!"

Ouyang Shuo quickly replied, "No need to stand on ceremony. As the saying goes, the day is in the morning! Today we have a lot of things to do. As for specific circumstances, I am going into the village after the new settlers are ushered in. If you are free, you can go with me."

"Please ask the prince, workers!"

Everyone came to the village again. Sure enough, another group of people had gathered there. They were the same, thin and dressed in poor rags. The difference was that this was a group of fifteen people, and had a mix of men and women, old and young. They were also carrying more belongings, some with a backpack, more like a family migration than the first batch.

They were led by a man in his fifties named Lao Zheng, he was very sturdily built and tough-looking. Everyone briefly introduced themselves after realizing who Ouyang Shuo was, and did not stay out in the village for too long. Ouyang Shuo personally took the luggage of the old man, and took the lead in bringing the group back.

Zhao Dexian, alarmed to see Ouyang Shuo carrying the luggage, quickly intervened to help with the luggage of the others, and followed the group back. Respect for the elderly was one of the traditional virtues of China, so Ouyang Shuo hoped that through a hands-on example it would pass to all of the others.

Back at the Lord's Manor, a cookfire was set quickly. This time, among the fifteen, there was a pair of middle-aged couples. In one, the husband was a junior blacksmith, while the wife was a cook!

After breakfast, Ouyang Shuo started getting a detailed understanding of everyone's situation. Fifteen people, five special talents, the other ten were ordinary farmers.

The older man in his fifties, surnamed Song, was a senior doctor, and was the first high-level talent in the village. Young child Er Wazi was a shepherd, only eleven years old, very skinny and underfed, and also an orphan.

Li Tiezhu was a blacksmith, burly, with bright and piercing eyes, looking a bit like a simpleton. His wife was named Lee, a junior chef, and a young mother.

The most special was another woman. This woman was 28, and quite beautiful. She was called Cui Yingyu. Originally a businesswoman, she had been trained to grow up and help her father in the family business.

Half a month ago, the family's caravan encountered robbers. Under the protection of their escort, she was able to escape. She had found herself lost in the wilderness, and after many hardships, had almost starved to death. Doctor Song had saved her, and finally after following their current group of wanderers, they had come to Shanhai Village.

After gaining a general understanding of the situation of the these immigrants, Ouyang Shuo gathered everyone into the courtyard. Nearly thirty people gathered, a decent-sized crowd.

Seeing the growing numbers, Ouyang Shuo said proudly, "Today there are fifteen new brothers and sisters who have joined the big family of Shanhai Village. The village is still being built up from scratch, and it is hard to say that we are doing well...but we are here and trying!

"We have three things to accomplish today. First of all, we have to complete the repairs of the fences. Secondly, we have to build a small residential courtyard to provide shelter for everyone. Finally, I hope that everyone will work hard together and obey their leaders, so that we accomplish all this and get your homes built before night falls!"

The excited crowd answered together, "I will follow the lord's commands!"

"Here, I declare the specific personnel arrangements."

Zhao Dexian immediately bowed as he answered, "Sir."

"I formally appoint you as construction team captain, coordinate all the building projects in the village."

"Thank you, sire, for the promotion." Finished, Zhao Dexian returned to his original postion.

"System Tip: Zhao Dexian has been promoted by his lord, his loyalty has increased 5 points!"

"Zhao Youfang!"

"Sir." Zhao Youfang quickly stepped out.

"You are appointed as the acting chief of the basic logging site and are responsible for the securing of timber for our territory."

"Thank you, sire, for the promotion." Also finished, he returned to his original place.

"System Tip: Zhao Youfang has been promoted by his lord, his loyalty has increased 5 points!"

In addition to the two men, Ouyang Shuo appointed Song Dafu as the one responsible for collecting herbs, Miss Choi for logistics, Miss Lee was responsible for the food, and Er Wazi was to attend to himself. These four people are not in the distribution of labor, the rest were temporarily included with the construction team.

Song Dafu came forward. "Thank you, sire," he said.

Ouyang Shuo waved his hand to accept the words, then said, "We are starting work! Doctor, Miss Cui, and Er Wazi, with me."

Finished, Ouyang Shuo stopped Zhao Dexian and gave him the drawings for the residential courtyards and dining hall, with clear directions on where he wanted these buildings constructed. The residential halls would be in the west area, along the north/south line. The dining hall would be built in the southwest, close to the Lord's Manor.

After his instructions were done, the rest of the people under Zhao Dexian set out to work. Zhao Youfang and his team waited a minute to speak with him. "Sire, I'm afraid the work that can be done by my team might be limited, we have older folk in my team!"

Ouyang Shuo smiled and patted his shoulder, saying, "Yes, I have already purchased 500 units of wood to help cover the needs for the moment. What you have to do is explore the forest and see what is available for us to use, calculate the total amount of wood that can be harvested. In addition, you need to pay attention and see if there are any precious trees, and mark them for attention. Youfang, your job is important!"

Zhao Youfang suddenly realized what he had to do, and respectfully said, "Thank you for your instruction, sire! We will do this quickly!"

"Well, get to work!" Sending Zhao Youfang and his people away, Ouyang Shuo turned to address the Song trio. "Doctor Song, the village has no way at the moment for you to set up a hospital. For the time being, you will stay in the Lord's Manor. When our territory upgrades to a level two village, we will be able to build you a clinic." The doctor was considered a gentleman by Shuo, hence his treatment.

Dr. Song's expression was light-skinned, with delicate bones, and an indifferent expression. "As sire has arranged, I have nothing to ask except for one thing. Miss Cui is a gentlewoman, and I hope the lord might be able to take care of her."

Ouyang Shuo quickly replied, "This is only natural."

"So, I think Miss Cui might act as housekeeper, as I hope the Lord intends?" They turned to look at Miss Cui.

Seeing Miss Cui being agreeable, Dr. Song spoke quickly, "This is excellent. With this kind of treatment, if there are no objections, nobody will complain." He turned to Miss Cui, "Miss Cui, before any others rush to claim the job, do you have any objections?"

Miss Cui was a businessman's daughter, but also ladylike. Her appearance was naturally elegant, with a gentle temperament, and somehow managed to be stylish even with her travel-worn appearance. Her sufferings and hardships had not soured her beauty, but in the gentleness was more than a trace of new strength.

She slowly went opposite of Dr. Song, bowing to him and saying affectionately, "I thank senior for caring for this little miss." He had been caring for her all this time, and naturally she was grateful for him looking out for her.

Dr. Song quickly lifted her back up, saying, "Very good! Since you have said this, come and meet your brother!"

Cui Yingyu rose and turned to Shuo, bowing again. "Little sister Yingyu greets big brother. Thank you, big brother, for taking care of little sister!"

Ouyang Shuo quickly answered, "It is truly nothing. It is my fortune to greet Miss Yingyu. My surname is Ouyang, you may call me that if you like."

"Big brother Ouyang may call me Yingyu, as this family also called me, hee hee." After they set the proper brother and sister relationship, Cui Yingyu was no longer very cautious, recovering some of her natural demeanor.

"System Tip: Congratulations to player Qiyue Wiyu and NPC Cui Yingyu for setting a brother and sister relationship, unlocking the God-Sibling System, reward is 200 reputation points!"

Ouyang Shuo glanced at the stats of Cui Yingyu.

Name: Cui Yingyu (Silver)

Identity: Shanhai village, lady of the house

Occupation: Businesswoman

Loyalty: 85 points

Features: Careful planning (Enhances trade profits in the area by 1%)

Evaluation: From the Cui commercial family, family of women, gentle temperament, proper businesswoman.

She was actually a silver talent, a pleasant surprise. She was indeed a valuable retainer, with a loyalty of 85 he was immediately able to trust this rare new talent.

Without hesitation, Ouyang Shuo took the resource bag from his waist and pressed it into her hands, solemnly saying, "Yingyu, we are a family now, and your brother entrusts this material to your custody. I will have to trouble you with our material management."

Yinyu solemnly took the resource bag, asking how it was used. She then said, "Thank you, brother Ouyang, Yingyu will live up to big brother's trust!"

After arranging for Dr. Song's and Yingyu's affairs, Ouyang Shuo turned to the little boy hiding off to the side. He was playing with the black wolf cub like a little herdsman as Ouyang Shuo loudly said, "Er Wazi, come!"

Yesterday, Ouyang Shuo had let Youfang make a wooden cage. The bottom of it was covered with hay, a den for the cub. Er Wazi was still a child, of course, and upon seeing the cute little cub, he immediately wanted to play with it, sneaking past to tease the cub.

Hearing Ouyang Shuo's call, Er Wazi stiffened reflexively. Goofing off before the Lord and being negligent, he naturally was afraid of being punished.

"Sir!" he called out, quickly trotting back to Shuo.

Ouyang Shuo brought him to his side, patting his head. He said, "Do not be afraid. Tell me, what did you use to do?"

Er Wazi, with his head down, meekly replied, "I used to help with the cattle."

"That was then, this is now. For now, you will just follow me as a temporary servant. When there is time, Sister Cui will teach you how to read. Do you understand me? I do not have any cattle to give you now to manage."

Hearing that not only he was not going to be punished, but instead had the opportunity to learn how to read, Er Wazi nodded excitedly, saying loudly, "I understand!" He was thinking inside that his former landlord and this new lord were definitely not the same.

Ouyang Shuo said, "Well, study hard, in the future you will be a useful talent for the territory. In addition, I have an important job for you." With just his fingers, he stuck them through the cage of the pup to tease it. "Watching you tease it, I have given it a name. It will be called Blackfang. You need to take care of him and feed him well, can you do it?"

Hearing that he was going to get to take care of Blackfang, Wazi got even happier, and nodded so hard that his head might fall off. "I can do it!"

Ouyang Shuo patted his head, saying, "Well, go play with him! If something comes up I will call you!"

With the arrangements for his people completed, Ouyang Shuo went to find General Shi and ask more about the situation with the wild goats. He made up his mind to see if those goats could be brought back to captivity.

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Chapter 10 - Free Mode

Translator: TeamTWO

Editor: Jun

Ouyang Shuo walked to the east wing of the Lord's Manor, and found General Shi reading a book on military history. He did not bother him, but the General quickly felt him watching.

He turned and saw Ouyang Shuo standing at the door. Quickly, he rose and bowed in salute, calling out, "Lord!" Then, puzzled, he asked, "Since the lord already came, why did you not enter? There's nothing to fear"

Ouyang Shuo laughed. "Seeing you concentrating so hard, I could not bear to disturb you."

General Shi smiled and scratched his head. "My lord laughs. I just like to read the books on war in my leisure time. I do not know what else to say to the lord. Have you come to tell me something?"

"Yes, there is something I need to ask you. Yesterday, you returned and said you had encountered a group of wild goats. I do not know their location. Can you find them again?"

General Shi frowned, thinking for a moment, and slowly said, "I remember that the group of goats numbered fifty or so. Some were killed by the wild dogs; the rest scattered and fled."

"It is so. At the moment, there is no livestock in the territory, and meat is very scarce. Yesterday you mentioned the goats in passing. I was wondering, could we not capture them and bring them back to be domesticated?"

General Shi was surprised for a moment. "The lord is really farsighted, I admire you. With the lord's permission, I will go and see if find where I met them, and follow their tracks."

"That sounds hard, I will wait for you to bring any good news."

After sending General Shi away, Ouyang Shuo began to wander in the village to assess the progress of the construction everywhere. At rest time, he sat down and chatted with everyone, listening to them and giving them attention.

In this way, the villagers would gradually recognize the work of a meticulous, intelligent, yet approachable lord. On seeing him, they would take the initiative to salute greetings. Ouyang Shuo was not haughty, and gave each of them a smile in response.

Before lunch, the fence was finished. At the entrance gate to the village, they put up a simple wooden gatehouse. Above the gate, they engraved 'Shanghai Village', three simple characters that declared that the mountain village was officially rooted in the wilderness.

At 3 PM, General Shi came back, bearing both good news and bad news. The good news was that on his patrol he met a bandit riding a horse, and after killing him, gained both a horse and an iron sword. The bad news was that the wild goats had left no trail, and effectively vanished into thin air, so Ouyang Shuo could only pine over their loss.

Ouyang Shuo took the horse and iron sword from the General, and looked at their stats.

Name: Poor horse (bronze)

Weight: 30 kg

Speed: 20 km / day

Consumption: 3 units of forage / day

Evaluation: This can barely be ridden. Absolutely not a warhorse.

Name: Poor iron sword (bronze grade)

Hardness: 5

Toughness: 3

Evaluation: Iron sword is a defective product, please use with caution.

At this stage, even bronze-level equipment was rare. Suddenly he had two without even using his own hands. If he were to let other players know, they'd be half-dead with envy.

This was part of the advantage of lord-class players, the higher the risk, the higher the chance of better drops. These kind of high level monsters were nothing in the eyes of General Shi. With the horse and iron sword, Ouyang Shuo could now go out and inspect his own territory, he didn't need to stay in the village all day. Before learning the basics of riding and spearmanship, he was nearly useless.

In the evening, the small residential courtyard and dining hall had both been built. During the feast in the new dining hall, Ouyang Shuo began to shift everyone's accommodations.

The main hall of the Lord's Manor was the living room, which was being used for hospitality and any proceedings. There were rooms to the right and left of the living room. To the east was his office; on the west was his bedroom.

There were courtyards on both sides of the room, with another two rooms off of them. The east room was General Shi's, while the west currently held the ten people from Zhao village.

Last night ten people slept there, but they'd barely had enough room.

After the completion of the small residential courtyard, he had room for twenty people to live. Tonight, most of the Zhao people would move away, leaving only Zhao Dexian and Zhao Youfang in their new home. The previously empty west wing would now accommodate Cui Yingyu on one side, and Dr. Song and Er Wazi in the other.

Over the next three days, the territory began to build up rapidly. The public bathrooms, blacksmith shop, quarry, and grocery store had all been built, and they'd added four more residential courtyards.

The logging and quarry areas had also begun operating, with ten farmers arranged each day to produce 100 units of wood and 50 units of stone.

He didn't know why, but he must have consumed too much good luck for the first couple of days, because he only received three special talents out of the 45 new immigrants over these three days.

The junior mason Zheng Shangun was a middle-aged man, whom Ouyang Shuo appointed as the quarry manager. Merchant Li Fugui, a fat old man, was put in charge of the grocery store.

The biggest surprise was a senior shipbuilder, who was also the second highly-skilled person in the territory. He was called Zheng Dahai, a thirty year old with a dark complexion, short and pithy.

It was early morning in the game as Ouyang Shuo came on at his usual time. Opening the door to the courtyard was always fun. General Shi was practicing his spearmanship like normal. Like his officers, martial arts was practiced until it was an instinct, not practicing made his whole body itchy.

Dr. Song was in the courtyard on the other side, doing kung fu. In the corner of the courtyard,Er Wazi was playing with Blackfang while feeding him.

Since receiving the iron sword three days ago, he had also joined the ranks of early morning martial arts. General Shi was happy to provide him guidance, or the road to mastery would've taken many detours.

The sword was the most profound military weapon, and the most difficult to learn. Practice started with the broadsword. It was a one-handed flat sword, straight and pointed, practiced for 3-5 hours a day, until you could accurately tell the difference in weight from an insect landing on the blade.

Ouyang Shuo understood the reason for this practice: it was part of how the game handled skills.

In Earth Online, the skills of the players were divided into system boot mode and free mode. Boot mode meant the skills of a book. After reading them you didn't control them. When improving mediation skills, for example, the game would automatically display any improvements.

Free mode was something original to Earth Online, where the player learned skills, and the contents of a book were imprinted in the mind. Then, the players had to act in accordance with the moves and practice tips in their mind, actually putting in practice time like martial arts in general.

So players in the game practiced, and through the system's spiritual connection, the memory of this exercise was passed to the reality of their body. Through repeated training, this exercise was strengthened into instinct. In this case, the player could in reality, with a little practice, wake up his body's memory, and in the real world display the game's martial arts.

Of course, the choice of free mode had a prerequisite in that it applied only to specific skill books open to free mode. Through the special skills books, Gaia had, through refining real martial arts, deduced the perfect reality-defying power law.

In reality, the ancient Wu family, by contributing martial arts texts, had access to the closed beta qualifications and custom game cabins. More importantly, with Gaia's incredible computing ability applied to existing martial arts powers, combined with modern human medical research, they had formed a new and more complete science of martial arts abilities.

These abilities were infuriatingly hard to practice because of the extremely rare internal energy requirements. Things like spearmanship were, in the end, only a kind of physical memory. To really master the sword, you needed to repeatedly practice it in reality.

Practicing internal force was completely different. You had to stir the spirit and body to produce internal force, and then control your qi while running it through your meridians.

Therefore, the players in the game practiced internal strength. In reality, the game cabin had an intelligent system that stimulated the same thing, so that your body also produced internal forces, and the nutrient delivery system accurately transported the energy required for cultivation. It was not just more practical than real practice, but was also more efficient and a perfect combination of ancient kung fu and modern technology.

In fact, this was also part of the interplanetary plan codenamed 'Hope'. After all, right now nobody was aware of the condition of planet Hope. Was it a primitive planet, had it evolved to a high level, or was there another civilization there? Everything was unknown. In this case, being able to enhance the physical abilities of the people was a good choice.

These scientific martial art powers were put in every corner of the game for players to explore. Beta players were unable to distinguish between the true and false powers.

A year after release, after every human alive had logged in, Gaia had announced the way to differentiate between true and false. The method was simple, any power ending with 'by' or 'Code' were true, and anything ending with 'surgery' or 'law' was false. There was only one exception, and that was that all the basic skills were true, such as the basic riding and spearmanship skills, which Ouyang Shuo was currently learning.

In his past life, one of the Six Tyrants of Handan, Feng Qingyang, had been the representative of the ancient Wu family, and relying on his own judgement of martial arts, discovered Gaia's method, and how to judge which methods were true and false.

Within a year, the Wu family secretly hoarded a massive number of real powers, and so when Gaia announced the truth, it left them crying into their cups. In this world, Ouyang Shuo would naturally take advantage of his knowledge.

Back in the courtyard, Ouyang Shuo began in accordance with the basic spearmanship tips, practicing large swings. He was ready to continue with the practice, as he hadn't found any martial arts powers to work with yet.

Due to his rebirth, he naturally wanted to spend the most time practicing the best skills. Because of this arrogance, he didn't want to spend a lot of time practicing basic skills. In China, there was a set of the highest level of classic internal strength manuals, broken into three sets of powers. In the past five years, nobody had gotten more than two of them.

In this world, Ouyang Shuo's goal was to cobble together these three sets of skills, combined with the strongest internal strength books, and make their fusion his strongest trump card.

After practicing with a large spear for a whole hour, Ouyang Shuo ended his morning exercises. Carrying the spear, he walked towards the living room. Every morning at 9 AM, the managers of the territory gathered there, a rule he had set the day before.

At this stage, only five people were participating in the proceedings there. General Shi, Trade Manager Cui Yingyu, Construction Manager Elder Dexian, Logging Manager Zhao Youfang, and Quarry Manager Zheng Shanpao.

In addition, if there were additional issues, relevant personnel could be invited to attend. For example, today's issues were related to the construction of the dockyard, so Ouyang Shuo had informed senior shipbuilder Zheng Dahai to attend today.

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Chapter 11 - Proceedings

Translator: TeamTWO

Editor: Levs

By the time Ouyang Shuo came into the central chamber, everyone had arrived.

On the front wall of the chamber was a water painting whose painter was unknown, with a few rough lines and pens under it. In the middle of the hall was a red sandalwood chair, with three normal chairs on both sides of it.

To his left, the first seat was held by General Shi, followed by Zhao Dexian and Zheng Shanpao. To his right was Cui Yingyu, followed by Zhao Youfang and Zheng Dahai.

He greeted everyone one by one as he sat down on the chair, saying simply, "Let's begin. Yingyu, first report on the territories resources to summarize the situation."

"Yes," Cui Yingyu stated crisply, standing up. "Our stock of resources is currently as follows: 4750 units of forage and grain, 220 units of wood, 390 units of stone, 450 units of iron. Our resources output is currently: Logging, 100 units of wood per day; quarry, 50 units of stone per day. According to the current progress of our territory, construction is expected to encounter a shortage of wood, and it has been recommended to increase logging operations."

Hearing her report, Ouyang Shuo did not immediately respond. He had taken the opportunity to look at the few construction blueprints that he had bought from the Basic Market again, and took a look at their construction conditions.

Ferry: Provides transport services on both sides of the river. Construction conditions: Public docks, ferry construction drawings, ferryman, timber 40 units, stone 20 units. Build time: One day.

Basic Terminal: Provides cargo distribution for docked civilian vessels. Construction conditions: terminal construction drawings, timber 400 units, stone 200 units. Construction time: three days.

Basic Shipyard: Constructs ordinary civilian vessels, including ordinary fishing boats and passenger ships. Construction conditions: basic shipbuilder, timber 100 units, stone 50 units. Construction time: two days.

Village Temple: the villagers believe in the land, raises morale of residents. Construction conditions: village temple construction drawings, timber 400 units, stone 350 units. Construction time: two days.

He calculated in his heart. Together with the basic barracks and the 5 civilian squares which had not been calculated, he was very sure about the resources needed for a grade 1 village.

After his calculations were complete, Ouyang Shuo started with this, "I just figured out some statistics a bit. To complete all of the construction projects, the total need for wood is 1240 units, for stone, 760 units. Very good report, very detailed. This does not include the subsequent construction materials of fishing vessels that we will be needing."

"Our current timber production speed has been unable to keep up with our construction speed, adding to it is imperative. There are a total of 87 people in the territory. In addition to our special talents, 70 of them are farmers. The labor force is still adequate, so I have decided to increase the lumber field to 20 farmers." Saying that, Ouyang Shuo turned to Zhao Youfang. "Manager Zhao, you have to do a good job of coordinating the workers, work hard to protect our timber supply."

Zhao Youfang quickly rose and said loudly, "Yes! I will ensure the task is completed!"

Ouyang Shuo smiled, "In addition, your mission from a few days ago, how did it go?"

Zhao Youfang frowned and said, "These days I traveled the territory and found that within our territory there is only the single forest to the west. These woods are only expected to produce 8000 units of wood. Outside our territory, I have not probed because of fear of an accident."

Ouyang Shuo pondered a moment, looking around the crowd, and said seriously, "Manager Zhao just raised a sharp problem. We are logging and quarrying outside the village, and are vulnerable to beasts and bandits out there. The terminal will be focused on construction of the ferry, but the shipyard and ferry will be outside our current security, and are vulnerable. These will be core industries of the territory, and we must ensure their safe operation.

"I am afraid it is difficult to take care of it all. For now, the top priority is to build the basic military camp, train up some militia, and improve the military strength of the territory."

Seeing General Shi getting excited, Ouyang Shuo smiled and said to him, "General Shi, the task of forming the militia team, I give to you. Recruitment is set to ten men. From now on, I can promise you that as long as you qualify the men to be soldiers, the work teams of all the departments will release them to you."

General Shi laughed, and said loudly, "I will no longer be an officer with no men! Please rest assured, Lord, that the final results will be a blood-thirsty and powerful militia, and will not disappoint the trust of the Lord!"

Ouyang Shuo nodded, and turned to Zhao Dexian. He took the building plans for the barracks, ferry, dock, shipyards and village temple out of his resource bag. "Elder Dexian, take the remaining five building plans. Arrange their overall construction order. For the next four days, all of the extra workers that come in, in addition to special talents, will join your construction team."

Zhao Dexian quickly rose to take the drawings, saying loudly, "As long as the material is supplied in a timely manner, I guarantee that within five days all the buildings will be completed."

As the Elder took his seat again, Ouyang Shuo continued, "With short-term plans addressed, I would like to take this opportunity to talk to you about long term plans, so that everyone has a good idea where we are going. The ocean will be the core of the future development of the territory. Controlling the ocean, we will be able to strangle the trade throat of the world, and occupy the strategic center of the transitional wars in the future."

"To achieve this strategic goal, we must build a strong sea fleet. Therefore, shipbuilding will become the core industry in the future. We are fortunate that our territory now has a senior shipbuilder." Ouyang Shuo turned to Zheng Dahai, and said to him, "Master Zheng, I hope that you will be able to quickly find yourself apprentices, and cultivate a number of basic, intermediate, and even advanced shipbuilders."

Zheng Dahai got up calmly, and said evenly, "I accept the task from sire!"

Ouyang Shuo nodded, looking around. "These proceedings are done for today. The arrangements for the tasks assigned by this meeting will be implemented one by one!"

Everyone else had risen, and said together, "We will live up to the trust sire has given us!"

It was the first year of Gaia, and the first ten days. After four days of construction, the construction projects of the territories were nearing completion.

The ferry, junior barracks, and the remaining five residences had been completed. The basic shipyard, basic docks, and village temple had also entered the finishing stage, and would be completed today.

The ferry had been built on the northern shore of the Friendship River, at the landing location of Ouyang Shuo and General Shi's raft from the very first day, a very memorable location. With the ferry, they could cross the Friendship River, and explore the hinterlands of the Lianzhou Basin. Shipyards and docks were being built on the eastern side of his territory, near the canyon's edge.

Over the past four days, sixty more immigrants had arrived, mostly lumberjacks, fishermen, and farmers, along with five special talents. An older man, nearly fifty but hale and hearty, and also easy going, everyone called him Old Man Zhang. Ouyang Shuo put him on the dock for the ferry, where he had once hidden his simple raft.

The biggest harvest was a twenty year old man of clear and beautiful appearance, almost childlike, named Gu Xiuwen. Although he wasn't a scholar, he had passed the county tests and government assessments, coupled with his grade meant he was already a decently learned man.

What's more special was that Gu Xiuwen, although he was only a black iron level talent, had a specialty. This showed that he had great potential. With a little training, he could be promoted to silver level at any time.

Name: Gu Xiuwen (Black Iron Level)

Identity: Shanhai Village Clerk

Occupation: Civil Service (Child Born)

Loyalty: 75 Points

Commander: 25 [Force: 15 [Intelligence: 35 [Political: 40

Expertise: Strong knowledge of government (enhances the territory's administrative efficiency 5%)

Evaluation: A penniless scholar from a poor family, literate and familiar with poetry and literature, and a modest gentleman.

Ouyang Shuo immediately appointed him as the clerk for the territory, responsible for paperwork, population registration and other work, and the first thing he arranged to give him was the task to prepare the population roster of the territory.

Gu Xiuwen could already win an evaluation of a modest gentleman, enough to explain his character. Ouyang Shuo was ready to train him as a future important internal affairs manager, and so he appointed him as a clerk with appropriate duties.

Thinking of the development of the past few days, Ouyang Shuo paced towards the northwest corner of the barracks. Er Wazi was leading two horses behind him, keeping them ready for him.

At the barracks door, General Shi was standing with his ten carefully selected recruits, eagerly waiting for this moment. Seeing Ouyang Shuo, he laughed and said excitedly, "Lord, come, come!"

Looking at the blunt and straightforward expression, Ouyang Shuo felt helpless, he could only smile and say, "Okay, I know you are impatient. I approve their class change, send them in!"

The area of the barracks was not large. The main entrance was a solitary wooden gatehouse, barely enough to deal with arrows. Through the door was a small exercise field.

On the west side of the exercise field, two targets were placed on the south side for practicing archery. On the west of the field were placed half a dozen scarecrows, intended for practicing fighting skills.

There were three rooms in the barracks: The Class Change Chamber, the Meeting Chamber, and the Officer's Lounge. The east wing of the barracks was the dormitory for the soldiers, basically a large room with beds. The west wing held two rooms, namely a dining hall and armory.

The men came to the Class Change Chamber, and General Shi put his hand on the door, sounding a system prompt.

"System Tip: Congratulations to Player Qiyue Wuyi for opening the Class Change Chamber of the military camp! Commoners can be converted into militia, the cost is ten silver coins! Please select the number to be converted!"

"Ten people!"

"System Tip: The number of people is confirmed, deducting 1 gold coin from player Qiyue Wuyi."

Ouyang Shuo saw the door slowly open to the Class Change Chamber, it was a dark room, and he could not see within. He arranged the ten farmers in a column, and one by one sent them into the room.

When the first militiaman came out, he already had a new look. His rags had disappeared, replaced by a new linen dress, with a simple leather breastplate. He was holding a simple spear, and his demeanor had become more determined and aggressive.

Ouyang Shuo took the opportunity to check the new soldier's stats.

Name: Zhang Daniu

Identity: Shanhai Village Militia Team Member

Occupation: Militia

Level: Level 1

Combat Power: 2 points (attack/defense comprehensive index, the standard civilian combat power value is 1)

Consumption: 2 Units Forage / Day

Equipment: Linen Dress, Simple Leather Armor, Simple Spear

Evaluation: Just a peasant, in order to become a qualified soldier, needs long-term rigorous training.

Militia basically gained 1 combat power for every level they had. After it had risen to 10 points, they could make the transfer to a formal soldier, as they could not advance higher otherwise. Turning them into soldiers required an intermediate barracks.

In less than half an hour, all 10 farmers had been turned into militia. Compared to real professional soldiers, they were nothing. But for civilians, militia were dangerous enemies. Ouyang Shuo quickly gathered them into a squad, led by General Shi.

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Chapter 12: Training

Translator:ryangohsff

Editor:ryangohsff

With the militia class change completed, Ouyang Shuo was ready to take them out leveling for the first time.

He led the group of people out of the barracks. He rode the poor horse and was in front of the new squad. General Shi rode his yellow horse and followed behind. Farther behind were the ten militiamen in leather, holding long spears in their hands.

Along the way, the villagers paused and stopped working, judging the militia who had undergone a big change.

"Hey, Niu Wazi, I have to enter the army! I did not know sire was recruiting people!"

"Don't they look good! I have seen few armies so domineering. That armor is sparkling! Without acting, they could blind the enemy!" This was said in a jealous voice.

"Wow, we finally have an army. We won't have to worry about wolves when cutting down wood. One thrust of a spear, the beasts will definitely die!" This was said in a happy voice.

"Wow, the general is handsome!" Auntie, please do not join in the fun...

"You have no taste. I feel our lord sire is more handsome. That marvelous stubble, the dirty linen clothes, that skinny horse, ah, ah, people cannot stand it, so handsome." Auntie, are you boasting about me, or damaging me, ah? The great lord sire had an injured expression.

The recruits looked straight ahead with wide eyes, eyes not deviating. Their ears were opened wide, quietly taking in the words of praise and remembering them in their hearts. They followed Ouyang Shuo's black face on his skinny horse, who led them quickly away.

For this time, Ouyang Shuo elected the leveling site to be the west side of the woods. This would not only give the team exercise, but also remove hidden dangers for the lumber teams, serving two purposes. While riding, he looked at his own stats.

Name: Qiyue Wuyi

Title: None

Territory: Shanhai Village

Merit: 500/800 Title: 1st Class Baron

Occupation: Officer (Sub-occupation)

Level: 6 (10000/15900) Reputation: Locally Popular (700/1000)

Body Structure: 18 Comprehension: 20 Luck: 5 Charm: 8

Commander: 12 Force: 6 Intelligence: 6 Political: 12

Talent: Not open

Cultivation Method: None

Skills: Basic Collection, Basic Shipbuilding, Basic Diplomacy, Basic Assessment, Basic Weapons Proficiency, Basic Riding, Basic Spearmanship, Basic Archery

Mount: Poor Horse (bronze)

Equipment: Poor Iron Spear (bronze)

His time had been spent busily building his territory up. As such he had not taken a step out of the village, and was still at the beginner level of 6. Personal adventure mode players were already breaking level 15.

Teams of high-end players had finally been able to slowly kill enemies, getting the money and equipment needed to promote their strength and growth. From now on, the strength of high-end players was going to enter a relatively rapid growth period.

However, he wasn't anxious at all. Lords had never relied on grinding to advance, but military action. Lords whose soldiers fought the enemy got 5% of the experience. In one battle it was easy to gain 3 or 4 levels quickly.

The group marched for half an hour and came to the primary logging field. They got off their horses and left them at the logging field and headed into the woods.

Their first encounter was with a pack of wild dogs. Ouyang Shuo looked at their stats with his basic assessment skill.

Name: Ordinary Wild Dogs

Level: 3

Skills: Bite, Pack

Evaluation: The dogs use teamwork to capture prey, their individual combat effectiveness is limited.

The level of wild dogs was only 3, just useful to train up low levels.

In front of this group of eight wild dogs, Ouyang Shuo told General Shi to select two men, each to take out a dog alone. The rest of the militia would split off to deal with the remaining five.

Seeing a wild dog charge his way, Ouyang Shuo did not retreat. Settling into his stance, hands on his spear, he followed the incoming dog's path. As the dog leapt at him, his iron spear stabbed, straight into its neck.

Unfortunately, the spear barely went into the dog. The weight of the animal plus the force of its leap passed a huge amount of force into the spear, and he almost lost his grip.

Luckily, the dog was injured. Ouyang Shuo quickly pulled the tip out as he deflected it to his right side. As it landed, he thrust again, and pierced it dead.

"System Notification: Congratulations to player Qiyue Wuyi for killing an ordinary wild dog, your reward is 300 experience points.

To get to level 7, he needed 5900 xp, so he needed to kill 20 dogs. Using the basic collection technique, he harvested the dog's body, and got a piece of wild dog skin.

[Broken Wild Dog Skin: Quality 1, can barely be used to make clothing.

On the other side, General Shi was directing the two solo soldiers, and their two dogs were stabbed to death. To the side, the rest of the militia were fighting.

As it was their first time fighting, their performances were naturally miserable, and he was scolding them scathingly.

"Stupid, hold the spear stably! If you cannot even hold your own weapon, go home and be a farmer!"

"And you, aiming at empty air, are you a spearman or a fart?"

"You! Don't stand motionless! Your feet move with your hands!"

Ouyang Shuo observed from the side that most of them were confused about what to do. There were only two of them who seemed to know what they were doing, jumping in and out while fighting.

One of them was the one who had been the first to change his class, Zhang Daniu, twenty-three years old. He was a horse-faced, tall man,who was very simple looking. He had said that his father was a hunter, and he used to follow his father into the mountains to hunt hunt often.

The other was called San Gouzi, twenty-seven years old, also very tall, but thin as bamboo. In the village, he was a character everyone called Dog Lord.

It took a full ten minutes for the fight with the wild dogs to finish. After a round of fighting, each militia member earned 150 xp, enough to hit level 2.

Two of them were bitten by the dogs, and had to apply Dr. Song's golden cream to their wounds, then bandage them up. Taking advantage of this time, Ouyang Shuo harvested the other seven wild dogs, getting two good skins and three broken skins. Two of the dogs died so miserably that they didn't even leave a broken or tattered skin.

[Good Wild Dog Skin: Quality 4 points, suitable for making clothing.

After dressing the wounded, they continued forwards. Along the way, they encountered more wild dogs, sometimes in small groups, sometimes in bigger ones. With General Shi's training, they didn't panic, and started to show some basic discipline and teamwork.

The morning soon passed, the militia had risen to the 4th level, and Ouyang Shuo had 2000 experience left until the 7th level. At noon, everyone returned to the logging field to rest and get lunch.

In the afternoon it was back into the woods, directly into the depths of it. There , they no longer encountered wild dogs there, but level 4 wolves and level 5 wild boars instead.

Name: Ordinary Wolf

Level: 4

Skills: Bite, Pack

Evaluation: A group of cunning and patient hunters, always a headache.

Name: Ordinary Wild Boar

Level: Level 5

Skills: Charge

Evaluation: Looks stupid, but will attack until it dies.

The wolves were always in groups of less than ten. The boars were used to living alone, but sometimes a piglet and its mother would appear at the same time.

By 5 PM, Ouyang Shuo had reached level 7, and his collection skill had risen to the intermediate level, gaining a lot of wolf and wild boar hide. The militia had reached level 5, their combat power was now 6 points, and upgrading was becoming more difficult.

Unknowingly, they had come to the edge of his territory. A stone stood on the border line, engraved with the three characters of Shanhai Village. Next to the line was a line of small print, 'Gaia, January 1, Year 1', representing the date the monument had been set.

Because he couldn't leave his territory, as he was the lord, everyone had to return with him, following the same route from which they had come from. Just as they were heading back, they heard a squealing roar nearby. Accompanied by the sound of breaking branches and thrashing leaves, the ground began to tremble.

Rushing out to take a look, it was a good target, which turned out to be a giant wild boar. It was twice the size of a normal boar, with big tusks curving up out of its muzzle. The hair on its back was white and bristling stiffly. With those two massive tusks, it looked like something dangerous to mess with.

Ouyang Shuo assessed it quickly, and was promptly terrified.

Level: 10

Skills: Brutal Charge, Earth Tremor

Evaluation: You would rather meet the god of the underworld than the wild boar king.

This was an unexpected surprise. In the game, monsters didn't drop things often, with the exception of Boss creatures. The drops from Bosses were not money or equipment, but special items. Special items were very rare, and generally far more valuable than equipment.

To deal with this wild boar king, they needed General Shi to personally act. Whether it was Ouyang Shuo or the militia, sending either of them up would only be giving it free food. He couldn't let the militia take the risk. Unlike players, NPC's were dead once they died; you couldn't resurrect them.

General Shi had spent the entire day playing coach and nanny, and his heart had long been tired of just watching. Seeing the wild boar king, he immediately grew excited. He first took out his white bow, aimed it at the boar, and with one arrow, hit and blinded it in its right eye.

Squealing in pain, the boar king immediately charged at him. By this time, Ouyang Shuo and the militia had discreetly retreated to the bushes and had hidden away. General Shi was worthy of his fierce name, choosing to neither stand nor flee, he threw himself directly at the angry pig.

Seeing that the man was charging towards it, the boar suddenly stopped and stomped on the ground with its front hooves. The ground under General Shi collapsed and he immediately fell to the ground. Seeing this opportunity, the wild boar king ran up, head lowered, its tusks glinting in the sunset.

In the nick of time, General Shi's left hand slapped down and lifted him off the ground like a spring, escaping the pig's charge. In midair, General Shi turned his body, feet together, his spear turning upon the big boar and holding firm. The pig barely reacted as the great iron spear punched into its neck.

At that moment, General Shi, seeing that the pig was going to hit him, leapt into the air. His feet came down on the pig's back, driving his spear in with his full weight. He heaved the spear out in a spray of blood, and the pig's inertia took it forward a few more steps before it bled out and crashed to the ground.

Because the boar was basically soloed by General Shi, nobody else had received any xp.

"Good! General Shi is really powerful!" Ouyang Shuo applauded from the side, a little stunned. This was the power of imperial officers? A powerful body, superb skills, precise combat awareness, it was all amazing.

General Shi stood to one side, breathing a little quickly, and laughed at that. "Hahahaha! For the first time in a long time, I finally got a workout!"

Scaring the piss out of us just so you could warm up? Ouyang Shuo could only remain silent. Then his greed arose, and he went to the side of the pig, looking to see what had fallen...and saw nothing. He circled around it, and located a booklet. Picking it up... Score! Such a generous pig; it was really a treasure.

It was a Wild boar Domestication technology manual. After using it, the user automatically learns the ability to tame wild boars.

Lose in the east, gain in the west. Before, he'd gone out to get wild goats in the east, and to the Market to get the plans to domesticate wild goats. He hadn't expected to get no goats. But now, in the west, he'd gotten this wild boar manual instead!

Putting the book into his storage bag, Ouyang Shuo began to collect the body of the wild boar, getting 4 wild boar skins and a pair of wild boar fangs.

[Perfect Wild Boar Skin] Quality 8, high-level leather collected from the wild boar king, can be used to make leather armor.

[Rare Wild Boar Fangs] Quality 7, advanced material from the wild boar king, can be used to make jewelry.

After arranging all the bounty, the group began their walk back to the logging field.

[advantage: by having their erection in contact with her

[ cent bills: China has cents in bills called jiao

[Guoshu: Guo here means country and shu means technique

[ 190 centimeters: Over 6ft tall

[Lake Cui: Cui Hu, also means Green Lake

[hundred dyuan bills: 100yuan is their biggest bill

[Daoist Fierce Tiger: The author of this novel

[Noodles: made of wheat

[Rice Noodles: made of rice

[Zhang Tian Tian: Tian means sweet

[Bajiquan: Also known as Eight Extremities Fist, but Bajiquan sounds nicer to me

[Long Taos: side characters in Chinese operas who perform acrobatics and fight scenes

[12.47 to 13.07: don't ask me about the tree sap

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Chapter 13 - Institutional Adjustment

Translator: TeamTWO

Editor: Levs

It was evening when the militia team that was out leveling finally returned. Dinner had already started cooking in the dining hall, a smoke plume rising from its chimney. The villagers were gathered in twos and threes after a busy day, talking excitedly about what their lord had done.

Running out to Ouyang Shuo, Er Wazi took his horse and weapons from his hand. Greeting everyone politely, Ouyang Shuo quickly headed to his room, his work for the day completed, and logged off.

The morning sunshine was warm as he ran the district's park trail. Breathing in the fresh air, the night's fatigue was soon cut in half. Today was the weekend, and yesterday he had promised to take Bing'er to a picnic. Being on her own every night for the last ten days, as Ouyang Shuo was busy playing the game, his little princess had been getting vexed at him.

In the city suburbs, the cold wind blew. Luckily the winter in Ling Nan wasn't too bad and could be compared to autumn in other places. The grass in the park was just starting to yellow out. He watched Bing'er pretending to be a bird as she zoomed around, making the zoom-zoom sound of an airplane as she pretended to fly. Ouyang Shuo sat down on the picnic blanket, most of the blanket was occupied by potato chips, small cakes, fruit juice, and other snacks.

"Bing'er, come eat something!" He shouted out.

She promptly headed towards him, sweeping her arms back into a diving posture, and 'roared' her way in a dive into his arms. Sitting on his legs, her hands around his neck, looking sweet and tired, Bing'er said, "Brother, the suburbs are really fun! Sister Xiaoyue did not come, it is her big loss."

"Xiaoyue wanted to sleep late this weekend. Bing'er has been well behaved, have you been listening to your big sister?"

The little girl nodded vigorously, innocently saying, "Bing'er has been good, big sister tells me a story every day, and is also helping me with my homework. She treats me so well!"

Ouyang Shuo smiled. "Since Xiaoyue has been so good to you, since you've come out to play, wouldn't it be nice to bring your big sister back a little gift?"

Bing'er nodded cutely, and then frowned, her little brow furrowing as she scratched her little head. She asked charmingly, "Ah, what you have said is right, but what gift should Bing'er bring big sister?"

Ouyang Shuo pinched her little face, coaxing her, saying, "Today, your brother will teach you how to make a garland. When you personally hand a wreath to her, Xiaoyue will love it."

Bing'er's small hand quickly grabbed his hand, smiled, and said, "Well, okay, teach me quickly, brother! Also, Bing'er should also wear one!"

So, the brother and sister got up and gathered a big pile of green grass stems. Ouyang Shuo showed her step by step how to use the grass stalks to make a ring the size of a person's head. Then they added on some green leaves and wildflowers, dotting them in the grass ring until it looked good. He put his wreath on Bing'er's head, at which point she quickly stood up, turned in place a few times, and asked him if she looked pretty.

When they arrived at home in the afternoon, Bing'er went to Xiaoyue's door and offered the garland she had woven up like a treasure. She placed it on Xiaoyue's head, saying, "Big sister, this is the garland I have personally woven for you!"

Sun Xiaoyue was touched by the gesture, and gave Bing'er a big hug, saying "Bing'er is really good, remembering to bring me a gift when she went out." She lifted her up and gave her a big squeeze of affection.

Ouyang Shuo stood aside and watched, the big and little sister made a very pretty and happy picture.

Once again coming online, it was another new day in the game. He played with the little Black Fang puppy, which had already become grown half a circle in these last ten days, as it ran around quickly.

As usual, in the morning, he did an hour of spearmanship practice before going to the Chamber for morning proceedings. When the village infrastructure was complete, he had to arrange the next step of the village. In his head, he already had a plan for what he wanted.

There were a full eight people summoned today. In addition to the normal five, the newly appointed clerk Gu Xiuwen, the soon to be appointed shipyard director Zheng Dahai, and the original mason from Zhao village, Zhao Dewang, were all also in attendance. Previously, Dewang was Zhao Dexian's deputy on the construction team, but Shuo had a new appointment for him today.

Ouyang Shuo sat down and directly said, "Gentlemen, Shanhai Village, after ten days of joint efforts, other than reclaiming farmland, the other infrastructure has been completed, and even exceeded with the completion of four additional buildings. For the next step of development, I am sure you all have some of your own ideas. That will be today's main topic of specific planning. I would like to ask Secretary Gu Xiuwen to report the territory demographics so that everyone is aware of them."

Xiuwen stood and bowed in salute to everyone before speaking. "In accordance with sire's instruction, I have these been preparing the population roster for these last two days. Today, the total population of the village is 162 people. In four days, we are expected to exceed 200 people. In addition to the staff here, there are 10 people in the territory; 13 skilled people, including 4 shipbuilder apprentices. For lumber workers, we have 30 people, quarry workers 10 people, construction workers 90, most of all them farmers by trade."

Ouyang Shuo nodded and praised him for his efficient work, then said, "From the population distribution of the territory, there are two major problems. One, the population management is too extensive, not conducive to fine management. So, we will divide the farmers into agriculture and industry, largely fishermen. There will be five categories: farmers, quarrying, and miners into workers, fishermen, herdsmen and breeders into herdsmen, and all the masons, carpenters, etc into the craftsmen."

"After this division is complete, there should be a corresponding proof of household registration. After getting registered, there should be no need to change the permit or registration without my authorization, and household location should be adjusted accordingly, with the same groups of people living closer together. To this end, I have decided a new body will be established to be responsible for this matter, to be called the Household Registration Office." Pausing here, Ouyang Shuo looked at Gu Xiuwen, smiled, and continued, "Xiuwen, since you have done this task so well, the responsibility of this agency shall fall unto you."

Gu Xiuwen quickly rose and said gratefully, "Xiuwen thanks sire for his trust, I will be worthy of it!"

"System Tip: Gu Xiuwen receives a promotion from his lord, his Loyalty is enhanced 5 points!"

Ouyang Shuo waved his hand, saying, "Another problem is more serious. That is, the proportion of skilled workers is too small. We need those who are skilled with technology, and we cannot just wait. We want to cultivate and encourage those skills by recruiting apprentices and improving the way we treat them. In this respect, Zheng Dahai has done well, recruiting four apprentices and making a good example. To this end, I have decided to appoint Zheng Dahai as Director of the basic shipyard."

Zheng Dahai also rose and bowed to thank him. "Zheng Dahai thanks sire for his trust, I will be worthy of it!"

"System Tip: Zheng Dahai has received a promotion from his lord, his Loyalty is enhanced 5 points!"

Ouyang Shuo continued on. "I will take this opportunity to announce a few personnel changes. The logistics office head will be upgraded to the Secretary for Logistics, and former Ministry of Material Reserves secretary Cui Yingyu will take this position. Zhao Youfang will become director of the basic logging plant, and Zhang Shen will take over as deputy director of the stone mining factory."

"The Land Reclamation Division, responsible for farmland, orchards, vegetable farms, and other land reclamation work, will be overseen by former Construction Team Captain and newly appointed Director Zhao Dexian. The Construction Team will be upgraded into Construction Division and will be in charge of all building jobs. Zhao Dewang will be in charge of this. Setting up the Salt Pan Division and working on the salt extraction project, for the time being, I will be personally responsible."

This series of appointments would help the village-level administrative structure become more efficient, standardized, and orderly. His appointments placed a huge emphasis on three of the original Zhao villagers, occupying half the seats. This was both because they were competent in their abilities, but also because he wanted to treat his veterans with care.

With Zhao Dexian in charge of the Department of Reclamation, he was going back to his roots in agriculture, and could only be taken as the best move. Zhao Youfang, although not a carpenter born, had a flexible mind and was very respectful of his lord. Ouyang Shuo prepared to focus on his training, and as soon as he establishes a private school, he would send Youfang there to study. Zhao Dewang did not have great ability, but it wasn't enough to really affect the construction work. With his pool of talent limited, Ouyang Shuo could only take the bad with the good.

Waiting for the crowd to accept their appointments, Ouyang Shuo continued to preside over the meeting.

"With the personnel adjustment completed, the next step is the upgrade to a grade 2 village. There are two major things that need to be done. The first is to reclaim farmland, for which I give the Land Reclamation Division full responsibility, we must till at least 500 mu of farmland. The second is the construction of the salt pan on the seashore. The Salt Pan Division is solely responsible for its construction and transport of men and materials via the shipyard, the militia team is responsible for security and security work."

"According to the development plan of the territory, the Household Registration Office should be in charge of 3 divisions, and the proportion of the distribution of the five categories of farmers and workers, as well as follow-up staff distribution. In principle, act according to a 3:3:2:1:1 distribution."

Finished with things to complete, Ouyang Shuo looked around and said, "If anyone has any questions or thoughts about what was proposed, you can now step forwards."

Gu Xiuwen stood up first and asked, "Sire, I have a question. In the territory, except for Er Wazi, there are no herdsmen. At the same time, we have no livestock. How do we determine the number of herdsmen?"

Ouyang Shuo laughed and replied, "Er Wazi's registration is to be included in the lord's household, and not included in those numbers. Second, although we have no livestock now, yesterday we gained a 'Wild Boar Domestication technical manual'. Boar domestication will be the beginning of the animal husbandry industry for us. Then, the militia team is responsible for acquiring more wild boars, the Construction Division will set up a pigsty, while training personnel to run and manage it is the responsibility of the Material Reserves Division."

Giu Xiuwen sat down, clear now on what Ouyang Shuo had planned.

Cui Yingyu stood up and asked, "Sire, I have a question. In our territory, the only input we have is wood and stone, with no grain nor iron ore. I do not know what sire is planning?"

She indeed had a business background, Yingyu had zeroed in on material management with a strategic vision, and was not limited just by what was already done. Ouyang Shuo was pleased, he nodded and replied, "Yingyu, this is a very good question. I will first answer about the food problem. For the moment, we will be going into the market to buy extra food. This will need extra money to support us. The other is the development of animal husbandry and the fisheries. I have already explained what is going to happen with the husbandry, you have to give priority to the development of the offshore fishing. Give priority to the construction of fishing boats, lease them to the fishermen to encourage them to go fishing, and manage them well. This will temporarily be included in the Material Reserves Division."

"To answer the issue of iron ore. Currently, the demand in the territory for iron ore is not large, it is mainly being used to build farm tools and other implements. Once we advance to a second village, we will start construction on iron mines. If the Secretary is now ready to do the preparatory work, arrange for personnel to find the right iron ore field to begin work on."

Ouyang Shuo had largely finished, so it was General Shi's turn to speak. "According to my lord's arrangements, the militia team now has two tasks, namely the protection of the upcoming salt pan, and looking for small piglets. With the militia team only at 10 people, but also responsible for the safety of the territory, I do not know what my lord desires specifically?"

"This is indeed a problem, so I will appoint you as a supervisor of the salt pan, and is responsible for the training of the salt panning technical staff and the construction of the salt pan. For now, you will be stationed at the salt panning construction site. The militia team will be divided into two squads. Zhang Daniu will be the first squad leader, responsible for the task of looking for piglets. San Gouzi will be the second squad leader, responsible for territorial patrols."

After answering General Shi's question, no one had any more questions, and Ouyang Shuo ended the meeting.

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Chapter 14 - Mazu Temple

Translator: TeamTWO

Editor: Jun

After arranging work for the territory, Ouyang Shuo suddenly had nothing to do. Thinking of the Mazu statue he had gotten in the market, he suddenly had an idea.

The village temple was built at the southeast corner of the village. As a required building for a grade 3 village, it covered a very wide area, comparable to the Lord's Manor. As a grade 1 village temple, it currently only had a main hall.

The front of the main hall was a square, surrounded by stone walls, with a very good atmosphere. Beyond the square was the main hall. The main hall held the altar, dedicated to the Sea Goddess Mazu and two other gods. With the carvings before the altar and incense sticks burning there, it looked very solemn.

When the players built a temple, they could choose which god or gods to offer worship to. Ouyang Shuo naturally chose Mazu and her subordinate gods, thousand mile eyes and ten thousand mile ear.

Ouyang Shuo came out of the main hall and to the middle of the square, taking out the Mazu idol (damaged).

"System Notification: Detecting player Qiyue Wuyi with a special item: Mazu Idol (damaged). The item and current village temple are a good fit, do you wish to use?"

"Use!"

There was a flash of white light, and the idol flew from his hands, hovering in the air. The statue gradually became larger and larger, nearly ten meters tall and displaying nearly a full figure of Mazu in white marble before dropping to the very center of the square once more. Mazu was holding her hands, her feet amidst the rocks and waves, lending a graceful atmosphere to the place.

"System Notification: Shanhai Village Temple is now blessed by its Mazu Idol, automatically renamed to the Mazu Temple! Its properties have increased substantially, player please view!"

"System Notification: Congratulations to player Qiyue Wuyi in the frontierlands for the establishment of Mazu Temple. For spreading the faith of Mazu, you receive a special reward for merit of 200 points, and reputation of 400 points!"

"System Notification: Congratulations to player Qiyue Wuyi for reputation exceeding 1000 points, your fame is enhanced. You earn the silver title Celebrity (enhancing historical values by 10%).

Ouyang Shuo quickly opened the bar of the Mazu Temple to explore its properties, to see what surprises it had for him.

Name: Mazu Temple (sealed)

Type: Hidden Class Building

Function: Spread Mazu's faith, enhance the residents satisfaction 20%, enhances the territory's reputation by 5%.

Features: Sea God's blessing (Ability of your fleet to withstand storms at sea 40%)

Evaluation: There is a seal in the Mazu Temple, with a trace of weak Mazu gods. Dedicated incense and prayers will help break the seal.

Wow, a hidden class building. This was really a grand prize, as hidden class was a rare degree of architecture, like finding an artifact. In the past five years, he had heard of no more than five hidden class buildings. If you included lords who concealed such things in their territories, he estimated there were not more than ten of them in the game.

Belief in Mazu was one of the most widespread folk religions in China. Mazu was also one of the gods in the state memorial, the other two being the Yellow Emperor and Confucius. So her status was one of the respected gods, naturally being defined as a hidden building class.

The change to the temple attracted the attention of the villagers. With the near ten-meter statue of Mazu there, it definitely stood out. The villagers immediately dropped what they were doing to flock to the temple. Seeing the statue of white marble standing there in the square of her temple, they all devoutly bowed down in worship of such a miracle.

At this point, the Mazu faith would slowly take root in Shanhai Village, and would slowly spread to the entire Lianzhou Basin, and eventually the entire southern coast. Shuo was looking forwards to the day when the offerings and prayers lifted the seal on the Temple, and restored the glory of Mazu.

From the Mazu Temple, Ouyang Shuo went straight to the barracks. In the camp, the militia team was under the auspices of General Shi, and had divided into two squads under Zhang Daniu and San Gouzi.

The two new group leaders looked very excited, faintly glowing of pride. Even the gloomy San Gouzi had a smiling face today.

Shuo was not here to stand around and do nothing, directly handing the to General Shi.

After a brief accounting, he took the first squad out into the west woods to once again look for wild boars.

The logging team was as usual out in their fields. Leading his horse, Ouyang Shuo called over two lumberjacks. Onto a wooden plate they nailed a large cage, which they padded with hay. He had two militiamen carry the empty cage, and went straight to the wild boar area.

The way there was uneventful: any encounters with wild dogs or wolves were rapidly resolved. After all, everyone was at least level 5 now, and they were not a challenge.

However, either they were unlucky, or beast cubs were really scarce. During the morning, they met several wild boars, but none with piglets. Cursing his luck, Ouyang Shuo's team started getting impatient. They didn't fall back to the logging camp to rest, simply eating rations in the field, ordering everyone to rest in the woods on the spot. An hour later, they were ready to fight again.

Taking advantage of the time, he thought carefully, seeing if he had overlooked something, some detail he had missed. Suddenly, the technical manual from the boar king falling down on the other side flashed through his mind.

Yes, the manual fell from the boar king, did that not also imply there were other boars in the vicinity? In any case, Ouyang Shuo decided to turn them around and find a better area than this, where they were coming up empty.

An hour later, they were not far from where the boar king died. "Da Niu, come here."

Zhang Daniu hurried over. "Sire, you need me?"

"Ah, we are changing the strategy for the afternoon. I decided that we are going to where the wild boar king died to search the area. Make sure your men are alert. Do not drop the ball, understand?"

"I understand!"

"Go, call everyone up and we'll start!"

The place where the fight had been yesterday between the boar king and General Shi was still messy. With Ouyang Shuo leading, Daniu behind him, and with the six militiamen following, they slowly followed the tracks of the wild boar.

After walking for half an hour, just as Ouyang Shuo wondered if his speculation was wrong, a squeal came from the distance, and his spirits rose. The call was too familiar, very similar to that of the wild boar king. Was there another one?

Carefully moving forward, they found a clearing about ten meters across, and a cave on the other side of it. Through the hole, he could vaguely see a wild boar laying there.

The wild boar was much bigger than an ordinary pig, but not as big as the boar king. Even more gratifying was that at the side of the pig were a dozen small piglets all lying in a row. Ouyang Shuo used his Basic Assessment to look at the properties of the wild boar.

Name: Variation of Wild Boar (Elite)

Level: 8

Skills: Brutal Charge

Evaluation: This is a variation of a wild boar sow, with offspring from the wild boar king.

It was the wild boar king's mate and children. A level 8 elite, stronger then Ouyang Shuo's own strength. To face it head on would be pushing it a little.

The easiest way to kill it would be to surround it with the militia, using their spears to keep it in the cave. The problem was, they'd probably kill more than a few piglets doing this, and the piglets were what they were here for. It would do more harm then good.

The other method was to send someone fast into the cave, then ambush it from either side when it came out. Once it burst out into the ambush, attacking together would rapidly kill it with teamwork. There'd be a little risk, because if anyone was careless, they could get hit by the sow's struggles.

At this critical moment, Ouyang Shuo was resolute and decided to take the second method. The first method risked the piglets too much, and he didn't trust the militia's spear skills that much. For recovering the piglets, the risk was worth it, wealth and danger came hand in hand! Besides, as long as no one was seriously injured or died on the spot, Dr. Song's golden medicine would be able to treat them.

The plan was arranged for a militiaman to attract the sow. The rest of the team was in the grass to the sides of the cave, ready to ambush her. The man picked up a stone from the ground, ran into the hole and threw the rock at the sow. The pig was startled to be attacked in its home. It struggled up, ready to rush out of the hole and turn the intruder into kibbles. When the militiaman saw her get up, he hightailed it out of the cave.

The sow ran right out into the ambush. Five people sprang out of the grass and mercilessly plunged their spears into her. Not being greedy for the credit, they pulled their spears out after inflicting fatal injury and quickly jumped back.

At the crucial moment, an accident still happened. One of the spears was stuck in the sow's ribs, and could not be pulled out. The sow whirled on him as he tugged on it, forgetting to retreat. Angry and wounded, the pig started to launch a brutal charge at him.

This time, Ouyang Shuo reacted from the other side of the pig. He plunged his spear into her again, breaking her attempt to charge from behind as she whirled around to face him.

Seeing Ouyang Shuo over there facing the pig alone, Zhang Daniu rushed back along with the rest of the militia, and they also stabbed with their spears. With one last stab, the sow was finally unable to stand, and fell seriously injured to the ground.

Ouyang Shuo ordered the militia to not act rashly, and everyone stepped back, waiting for the sow to die of blood loss. He knew that a seriously wounded beast was very dangerous, and dying from a final lunge was not a joke. Good hunters had patience: impulsive fools had long since fed themselves to the beasts.

"System Notification: Congratulations to player Qiyue Wuyi for killing a mutant wild boar (Elite), reward 1000 xp."

"System Notification: Player Qiyue Wuyi is now level 8!"

A white light flashed, and Ouyang Shuo smoothly rose to level 8, and the militia rose to level 7 at the same time. He stepped forward to harvest the sow's body, and received two wild boar skins.

Perfect wild boar skin: Quality 6, can be used to make high-level leather and leather armor.

After killing the sow, everyone felt safe to get the rewards. They entered the hole, where the dozen piglets were gathered in a ball. Ouyang Shuo was momentarily at a loss; a dozen piglets was a big harvest. The six of them surrounded the piglets, who offered little resistance as they were dumped into the cage.

About to leave the cave, Ouyang Shuo saw a flash of light from the corner of it. Searching carefully, he discovered a black ring.

Name: Ring of Courage (black iron level)

Properties: Enhances the morale of troops by 5%

Evaluation: The ring has only one power: with a rousing speech, you can have a greater effect on your soldiers.

For black iron equipment, the effect was pretty good, and jewelry was more rare than most other types. Shuo directly put it on his right ring finger.

There was a burst of system announcements; Shuo paused to read them all.

"System Notice: Congratulations to player Di Chen for becoming China's first Lord to upgrade to the second grade village, special reward of 1100 merit points!"

"System Notice: Congratulations to player Di Chen for becoming China's first Lord to upgrade to the second grade village, special reward of 1100 merit points!"

"System Notice: Congratulations to player Di Chen for becoming China's first Lord to upgrade to the second grade village, special reward of 1100 merit points!"

Ah, the leader of the Six Tyrants of Handan, Di Chen. It was the reality of having a strong political group among the new players. They had built China's first villages, and now one of them had the first upgrade.

At this stage of the game, the only real restriction on the big forces was their lack of architectural blueprints. Ouyang Shuo's constraints on population did not affect them: they could appeal directly to adventurers to pad their numbers.

The inertia of history was still strong; Ouyang Shuo was still a butterfly. To flap his wings and start a hurricane was still a ways away. Over the next few days, the other five Tyrants of Handan should also upgrade to level two villages.

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Chapter 15 - Apprenticeship

Translator: TeamTWO

Editor: Levs

As Ouyang Shuo led the line of militiamen through the village, the villagers looked curiously at the cage of small piglets.

The piglets were only half a month old, brown-haired, black stripes on their backs, truly very cute. On the road, he had looked at their stats.

Mutated Small Wild Boar Piglets: Produced by the wild boar king and mutated elite wild boar sow, these wild boar piglets are very adaptable, their meat are delicious, and they have a growth cycle of three months.

Before they returned, Zhao Dewang had already arranged for people to build a pigsty. It was built behind the dining hall, so it would be convenient to feed them.

The pigsty was a small room with an inner and outer area. The inner area was 3.5 meters long, and 2.5 meters wide, for sleeping and eating. The outer area was 50% bigger than the inner area, with a drinking trough, and was open to the sun. Hay was scattered inside and outside the pen, making it easy to keep the pens dry and clean.

When Ouyang Shuo's militia carried the pig cage to the pigsty, Cui Yingyu and Zhao Dewang were waiting for them. Behind them was a third man, some 30 year old man with an honest but cautious face. Yingyu introduced him as Zhu Baocai, in his original village he was a famous pig master. He had been selected by Yingyu as their pig keeper and domesticator.

Ouyang Shuo had faith in Yingyu's eye, directly handing over the to Zhu Baocai, saying to him, "Master Zhu, the task of domesticating these pigs, I give to you. It is a lot of trouble for the territory to cultivate a good species of wild boar. Wild boar farming will be a core industry in the territory one day. At the right time, we will expand the scale of the pig farms. I hope that the first true pig farm can be raised by you, Master Zhu."

Seeing the lord as very easy-going, Zhu Baocai was no longer so cautious and talked about his skill at raising pigs. He seemed even more confident, he solemnly said, "Please do not worry about this pig breeding, I already have some experience. Look at these little piglets, all so strong and healthy. They are a fine breed, I have great confidence in raising them."

After finishing with the pig master and saying a cordial farewell, Ouyang Shuo returned back to his office. As he sat down, Gu Xiuwen came in. Ouyang Shuo asked him to be seated and asked him if he had anything for him.

Gu Xiuwen said, "Sire, I discussed with the people in charge of three divisions today, and did the personnel distribution for farmers, builders, fisherman, animal rearers, craftsman, the five industries. Please approve this, sire."

"Oh, your efficiency is very high! Let's talk about how you allocated things."

"In the territory are 130 farmers. 39 households were allocated to the Reclamation Division to cultivate farmland, and the original 40 farmers were maintained and moved under the management of the Material Reserves Division. The fishermen were allocated 25 people until there were more fishing boats. After they start fishing, they will be moved under Material Reserves Division as well. For shepherds, we only have two people, responsible for pig farming. The carpenters were assigned 24 people, their main project at this time is the salt pan field construction under General Shi."

Ouyang Shuo pondered for a moment, then asked, "On the shipyard side, are you clear on the progress of the fishing boat construction?"

"According to my understanding, the construction of an ordinary fishing boat requires 50 units of timber, and each boat can carry two fishermen out to the sea to fish. The shipyard, at its current size, can build one fishing boat a day. The first fishing boat was requisitioned by General Shi, who is using it to transport personnel and materials for construction of the salt pan." Gu Xiuwen was well prepared as a clerk of the territory to understand the latest developments in all walks of life as one of his basic tasks.

"Not bad. Let's stick to the distribution plan. Beginning tomorrow, other than special talents, everyone is to be assigned to the Salt Pan Division. At the same time, in addition to the five fields, set up a separate household. Personnel information is as important as military information and must be kept confidential. As for the Salt Pan Division, you must pay close attention to it. I will clear this up with General Shi."

"In addition, starting from tomorrow, we will be changing the meetings to once per week. Who attends should also be fixed, in principle, only the secretaries of the various divisions need to meet. If there is a need, you can take one or two deputies along to go to the meetings. If you have problems from day to day you can report to me directly."

Gu Xiuwen nodded and seeing his lord had nothing else to say, rose and departed.

The next day, Ouyang Shuo stopped in on General Shi, asking about the construction on the salt pan fields.

Although he was a military man, General Shi was quite familiar with military books and reading. Even in an unfamiliar area, he was still able to think clearly. He stated unambiguously, "The intrinsic principles of the Sun Drying Salt technical manual are solid and backed by experience. You need an average of one salt worker per two mu. The average monthly harvest is 200 units of salt per mu. As our manpower is currently limited, I will recommend the first phase of the construction to be one hundred mu of salt fields. According to final estimates of the whole, the whole beach is expected to open up tens of thousands of mu of salt fields."

Ouyang Shuo made some mental measurements. In the Market, a unit of salt sold for 20 copper. In other words, a mu of land could produce a gold coin in pure profit, which was very impressive. Unfortunately, the sea salt cycle took an entire month. To obtain the first harvest, they could not count on it when they were building the grade 2 village.

Ouyang Shuo knew that the population limit for the second village was 500 people, a gap of 300 people from the first village. According to the average flow of immigrants, it would take 20 days to reach the full population. With that delay, because he'd need some additional funds for work in the secondary village, he'd have to think of another method.

General Shi stood aside, watching him standing there in a daze, amused at Ouyang Shuo's bemused expression as he wrestled with the problem.

Ouyang Shuo blinked as he returned to normal and asked, "When can the first phase of 100 mu be completed? You needn't worry about the labor, I have already discussed it with Xiuwen yesterday."

General Shi relaxed. "According to current progress, we'll be finished tomorrow afternoon."

"Excellent, I'll be waiting for your good news!"

General Shi nodded and walked away, just then, there was a spate of system announcements.

"System Notice: Congratulations to the player Chun Shenjun for becoming the second Lord in China to upgrade to the Grade 2 village, reward 1000 merit points!"

"System Notice: Congratulations to the player Chun Shenjun..."

"System Notice: Congratulations..."

The Tianhe Consortium had really strong financial resources. Chen Shenjun had managed to become the second in China to upgrade to a Grade 2 village.

Unfazed, Ouyang Shuo knew that the most important thing to do now was the things on hand. Today he was ready to do only one thing, and that was to visit the territory of all the skilled talents one by one to encourage them to take on apprentices.

Among those people, Advanced Shipbuilder Zheng Dahai had enrolled four apprentices and did not need to be visited. Basic Carpenter Zhao Youfang and Basic Stonemason Zheng Shangun were designated as part of the civil service and were no longer suitable for training apprentices.

Yingyu had found two young business apprentices, a man, and a woman. The man was called Qian Lifei, originally the owner of a brothel. His village had been looted, and he had come to Shanhai Village. The woman was called Du Xiaolan, also the daughter of a businessman. Yingyu took her in and deliberately kept her around, teaching her carefully. Both were temporarily placed in the Material Reserve Division by Yingyu, acting as her assistants.

Ouyang Shuo's first visit was to the small courtyard of Dr. Song. He was the first high-level talent in Shanhai Village, but he had not yet recruited an apprentice, which made Ouyang Shuo a little dissatisfied. Thinking about this, it was all well and fine for the doctor, because he was living in the house of the lord as a symbol of the lord's power. But the old man, except for going out occasionally to gather herbs and mix up his golden medicine, did not do anything else.

As Ouyang Shuo came in, Dr. Song was in the room reading medical books leisurely. Seeing him come in, Dr. Song said lightly, "I did not know sire was coming. You haven't been caring for me, it is strange to see sire. I don't think you came to see me, what is the matter?"

Seeing Dr. Song with this attitude, Ouyang Shuo's heart was even more irritated. Seeing that he needed help from the person, he patiently said, "The recent affairs of the territory have kept me busy and I have neglected Elder, please don't worry!"

Dr. Song's feelings were stirred up, saying, "Sire's words are heavy. I'm a free man, not doing anything, I'm fine. Sire is the lord of the village. You obviously have many things to do."

Talking with him, Ouyang Shuo rapidly understood the crux of the problem. The old man was not as indifferent to fame and fortune as he thought he was. Ouyang Shuo said some words of courtesy, and in turn, he listened well.

The doctor's meaning was obvious. He lived in a small courtyard, the other people had found official positions, and he was alone. When Ouyang Shuo came, he was the lord who treated him with respect and cares for the future. Now with another helper, he did not put him in mind. So many days, he didn't say even a word of greeting. Even Yingyu, that girl, who was so busy, had no time to see him! He had turned invisible. That Er Wazi did not speak with him, so how could he not vent?

Shou had not expected this. The old man looked so grand and strong, but his desire for fame and fortune were so heavy. Hey, yeah, a desire for recognition was good. He was really afraid he would not accept his request and did not know where to start again.

So, Ouyang Shuo smiled and said, "Soon, I will set up a special medical institution, a hospital, to take over the medical affairs for the whole territory. To get it started, there must naturally be enough people. Elder is a noble person, so I should not disturb you. But there is no one else in the territory who can help me at this time!"

Dr. Song was moved. "Sire, do not worry. These bones may be old, but I can certainly handle teaching three or four younger folk without a problem."

Ouyang Shuo laughed, "Then I shall leave this to the great elder of Shanhai Village without worries!"

After speaking with Dr. Song, the other skilled folk was much easier. For Basic Blacksmith Li Tiezhu and his wife Lee the Basic Chef, Ouyang Shuo promised to arrange for them a separate small courtyard at the right time for them to live in. The couple was happy to promise to recruit two apprentices each.

Merchant Li Fugui had recruited an apprentice yesterday but had not reported it yet. Today, Ouyang Shuo promised to build the first-class carpenter, Lu Guangshi, a Carpenter's Workshop for woodworking, and to look for a for his research. The carpenter immediately agreed to recruit two apprentices.

After a round of all this lobbying, Ouyang Shuo 's voice was hoarse. However, it had all been worth it, for the territory had ten more apprentices. Adding in voluntary enrollment, that brought the total apprentices to seventeen. When they finished their initial training, the village was going to have a small outbreak of talent.

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Chapter 16 - Grade 2 Village

Translator: TeamTWO

Editor: Jun

During the next three days, the system announcement for China rang often. Three more of the Six Tyrants of Handan managed to upgrade their territories to grade 2 villages.

The representative of the military, Zhan Lang, could not unscrupulously use credits to buy the in-game currency like the rest of them and had fallen behind as a result, not managing to upgrade yet.

Ouyang Shuo's territory was very calm. The workshop he had promised his carpenter, Lu Guangzhi, had already been built. Under the leadership of Elder Dexian, five hundred mu of farmland on the north side of the territory, near the Friendship River, had been successfully opened.

Simple Farmland: Remove the weeds and treat the land, and it can grow all kinds of crops.

As for the saltpan fields being built under General Shi's supervision, they were also smoothly completed. 40 salt workers were stationed there to begin spreading salt water across the panning field and dry it out to make salt. The first salt field to open was officially named by Ouyang Shuo as the North Salt Field.

On the pig breeding side, Zhu Baocai did not disappoint. The 12 piglets, after brief discomfort and panic, had now fully adapted to life in the pen. The development of breeding pigs was a new industry that was just around the corner.

On the 14th day of the first year of Gaia, at 8 AM in Shan Hai village, all of the core staff had gathered in the Chamber early, waiting for a historic moment.

Gu Xiuwen was calmly registering the day's newest population of people. Ouyang Shuo did not care about their stats and in his heart all he was thinking about was leveling up the village.

With a hum and flash of white light, in the middle of the Chamber a golden stone that slowly rose from the ground. Ouyang Shuo placed his hand on the front of the stone, and the system notification sounded.

"System Notification: Detecting Shanhai Village's upgrade conditions…"

"Condition 1: Population 200 people. The Village is over the limit and has met the requirements!"

"Condition 2: All required infrastructure has been completed, and met the requirements!"

"Condition 3: The rank of the Lord has made Second grade Baron, and met the requirements!"

"Congratulations to player Qiyue Wuyi and the established Shanhai Village for meeting all required conditions to upgrade. Would you like to upgrade?"

"Upgrade!"

From the stone, once again golden light spilled out to reach up to the sky and formed a golden halo. The halo spread out to encompass the entire village and swept out to the edges of his territory before disappearing.

"System Notification: Congratulations to player Qiyue Wuyi for becoming the sixth Lord in China to upgrade to the Second Grade Village! Reward: 600 merit points!"

"System Notification: Congratulations to player Qiyue Wuyi..."

"System Notification: Congratulations..."

This time, Ouyang Shuo had beaten Zhan Lang of the Six Tyrants of Handan, and history began to shift.

The announcement in the game caused an uproar. Players were speculating on who Qiyue Wuyi was, defying the hegemony of the Six Tyrants of Handan.

Earth Online had so far been open for only half a month. The identities of the Six Tyrants had been subject to endless amounts of gossip by the players, and gradually their real identities had surfaced, no longer as mysterious as they were in the beginning. Unfortunately, the more players knew of the identities of the Tyrants, the more depressed they had become.

China had never had a lack of ambition in its players, especially with Earth Online holding meaning far beyond that of a typical game. Even those with great ambition, in the face of the status of the Six Tyrants, were afraid to move ahead and defy them.

Now, Ouyang Shuo had succeeded in beating a member of the Six Tyrants of Handan. This shook up the status quo, exciting the players, and suddenly the situation in China became blurry and not as set in stone.

In Jianye city near the Blood Red Village, a determined-looking young man rushed and sat in the office of the village chief.

He was Zhan Lang, and his expression was gloomy. Opposite him sat another young man. "Lieutenant, it's time to stop being cautious. Get on the line and start buying the game currency at whatever price point is required."

"Yes sir!"

At the same time, in Quanzhou House near the King Village, a heavily eyebrowed, middle-aged man heard the system announcement and adopted an interested smile. "Oh, there is actually someone beyond the Six Tyrants! So it seems that they are not invincible! Well, it seems that my King Village could become worthy of the name as well! Hahahahahaha..."

For a time, inside and outside the game, the people were surging with new emotions.

At this time, Ouyang Shuo didn't have time to really care what was going on, as he was still going through the operation of upgrading his territory.

"System Notification: Congratulations to Qiyue Wuyi for upgrading to the grade 2 village. The Lord's Manor is automatically upgraded. In addition, the player may choose one of three random village buildings to establish!

"System Notification: Random buildings selected, please choose: Village level Ancestral Hall, Village Private School, or Village Granary! Please choose!"

"Choose the village granary!"

"System Tip: Building automatically generated, player please check it out!"

With a hum and a flash of white light, the golden heartstone once again slowly sank down into the ground.

Telling everyone to wait for a while, Ouyang Shuo took the opportunity to slowly look over the properties of the village.

Territory Name: Shanhai Village (Grade 2 Village)

Lord: Qiyue Wuyi (Third Viscount)

Title: None

People: 80

Law and Order: 75

Territory Population: 200/500

Flow Rate Of Immigrants: 10 * (1 50%) = 15 / day

Territory Area: 50 square kilometers

Territorial Characteristics: 50% increase in attracting immigrants, 20% increase in attracting special talents, 50% increase in crop production, 20% increase in production capacity of residents, 20% increase in military rank

Treasury: 10 gold coins

Territory Resources: 3100 units of grain, 180 units of wood, 800 units of stone, 300 units of iron ore

Territorial Army: Militia team (10)

Territory industry: North Salt Pan (100 mu)

Political index: 25/100 (determines administrative efficiency, relationship with the people)

Economic index: 10/100 (determines the degree of trade prosperity, the ability to pay taxes)

Cultural Index: 10/100 (determines the degree of education developed, the quality of residents)

Military: 20/100 (determines military strength, stable internal relations)

Basic Buildings: Village Level Lord's House, Basic Market, Simple Fence, Village Canteens, Village Latrine, Wooden Residents Small Courtyard (10), Basic Blacksmith, Basic Grocery, Basic Logging, Basic Quarry, Simple Farmland (500 mu), Basic Barracks, Pigsty, Carpentry Workshop

Special buildings: Ferry, wharf, basic shipyard

Hidden Architecture: Mazu Temple (seal)

List of potential capital construction buildings:

Village Ancestral Hall: For worshipping the ancestors. Construction conditions: ancestral building drawings, timber 80 units, stone 40 units. Build time: One day.

Village Level Hospital: For medical treatment of the villagers. Construction conditions: Basic doctor, medical museum building drawings, timber 60 units, stone 20 units. Build time: one day.

Village Private School: A private education facility for the children of the village. Construction conditions: scholar, private school architectural drawings, timber 150 units, 80 units of stone. Construction time: two days.

Basic Martial Arts Dojo: A rural training building for basic martial arts. Construction conditions: Wu Fu, martial arts architectural drawings, 100 pieces of wood, 100 units of stone. Construction time: two days.

Village Granary: A warehouse for storing grain. Construction conditions: granary construction drawings, timber 400 units, stone 200 units. Construction time: three days. (Note: the building has been generated and awarded.)

Basic Tailor Shop: A shop for sewing clothing. Construction conditions: Basic tailor, tailor shop construction drawings, timber 40 units, stone 20 units. Build time: one day.

Basic Mining Field: Speeds up the collection of ore, increasing average production to 2 units of iron ore/person/day. Construction conditions: timber 40 units, stone 20 units. Build time: one day.

Simple Arrow Tower: A basic defensive structure, with a weak defense. Construction conditions: 80 units of wood, stone 10 units. Build time: one day.

Ouyang Shuo analyzed everything for a moment. To rise to the 3rd-grade village, he had to meet 3 conditions once again. The 1st condition was the new population limit, which for now he had no good way to accelerate. Based on his current immigration rate, it would take 20 days to reach the new upper limit of the population.

His low population was his biggest weakness, and that was because of the lack of individual players. The 3rd condition, of meeting the rank requirement, was the easiest and he was not worried about it at all.

The hardest to meet would be the 2nd requirement: Infrastructure Construction. That required 3 conditions on its own. The 1st was building materials, which he didn't need to worry about, as he could easily meet all the storage capacity. He wasn't worried about the 2nd condition, which was the basic needs of talents to staff the buildings, because of his territory's special trait of 20% in attracting special talents. As long as he was patient, the talents would naturally come.

The biggest difficulty was the architectural blueprints. In the Basic Market, every 2 village blueprints were 5 gold coins. But for the new buildings, such as the ancestral hall, hospital, private school, dojo, and tailor shop, he needed a full 25 gold coins in total. Ouyang Shuo and every other Lord had to worry about where they were going to get the gold from.

After analyzing the stats of the village and going over everything, he had time to take everyone and go visit the upgraded Lord's Manor. In his home, the courtyards were now larger, and the area occupied by it had nearly doubled.

The courtyards had become much more refined. The original 3 rooms had now expanded to five, the rooms were more spacious than before, and even the grade of furniture had improved by a level. The middle of the hall was still the chamber, but now, instead of a dirt floor, it was covered with slate.

On the eastern side of the room near the chamber was still the head office of the village. The main difference was that now there was a row of bookshelves there, and it was weighed down with new books. On the east side of the new room was the administrative office. Now, Gu Xiuwen and the other officials had their own office space.

On the west side of the building was still Ouyang Shuo's bedroom, with a dining room between it and the Chamber. From now on, from the courtyard he didn't have to go to the dining hall and eat with the commoners: there was a small stove with which to prepare food to eat.

On the east and west sides of the Chamber, the number of rooms expanded from 2 to 4.

Taking advantage of everyone being there, Ouyang Shuo began to rearrange everyone's accommodations. In the east wing, the 1st room was still for General Shi. In turn, Gu Xiuwen, Elder Dexian, and Zhao Dewang were given rooms.

In the west wing, the first room was naturally where Cui Yingyu was living. In turn, Er Wazi and Dr. Song got their own rooms, with the last room temporarily empty. Once the hospital was built, Dr. Song would move in there, much like Zhao Youfang and Zheng Shangun had moved to the logging field and quarry they were respectively overseeing.

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Chapter 17 - Industry

Translator: TeamTWO

Editor: Levs

After the simple tour, everyone returned to the Chamber. As Shanhai Village had just been upgraded to a grade 2 village, it was time to let everyone know what the next steps they were going to take were.

Everyone sat down, and Ouyang Shuo went straight into the main topic. "With everyone's joint efforts, Shanhai Village has successfully upgraded to a grade 2 village, and we're also the sixth in China to achieve this feat! This is the result of the hard work of all the villagers and every one of you gathered here. It is truly worth celebrating! Therefore, I have decided that tonight we will hold a grand bonfire party to celebrate. Tonight's celebration shall be prepared by Cui Yingyu."

Cui Yingyu nodded. "Big brother, you can be rest assured, I will make it as grand as possible. Speaking of which, this is the first time our territory has undertaken such a celebration! You have to personally perform a show to help out with the entertainment!"

As she finished, General Shi took the lead in applauding that idea. Even the normally sedate Zhao Dexian looked excited and cheered at the idea.

Ouyang Shuo gave a wry smile. "Yingyu, you are trying to checkmate me. But your idea is very good, I firmly support it. Hmm, it is more joyful to share the joy than to keep it to oneself. Everyone here will have to prepare at least one performance or play. If you want to cheer, how can you not get dragged into the water? If your sire has to contribute, then you do as well."

Yingyu laughed, as performing a program was, for her, naturally something that took no effort. The other people looked a bit unpleasant and depressed as if they'd lifted a stone, only to drop it on their own foots.

"After the upgrade, there are a lot of things to do. Here, I'm going to make general arrangements. We have much to do, so please hold your advice and opinions until I am done."

"First of all, work arrangements for the Construction Division. The private school, hospital, and other buildings cannot be built at the moment due to the lack of building plan blueprints. However, there are still great responsibilities that lie upon you. We do not need blueprints to construct the basic mining field and the simple arrow tower, so build them as soon as possible. The Material Reserve Division needs to stay in good communication with you to pick the field to be developed. Build two arrow towers, one on each side of the village entrance. In addition, the second phase of the 15 small residential courtyards needs to be done quickly, and you must pay close attention to it. And the very most important of all is to cooperate with the Salt Pan Division to carry out the construction of the second phase of the Northern Saltworks."

"The Northern Saltworks is the only industry in the territory at the moment. It is also an extremely important source of funding for the future of the territory. I have decided that the second phase is to open up another 400 mu, for a total size of 500 mu. This will require a lot of labor. Household Registration Office will have to actively cooperate with the present stage, and make it a priority to channel people to the salt fields. The total number of salt workers will need to reach 250 people in order to maintain full productivity in the salt harvesting operation."

"Material Reserves Division, the numbers involved in quarrying and logging will remain about the same at 20 people after the completion of the primary mining field. The number of fishermen should gradually increase to 30. As for militia, we will directly be expanding them to 50 people. Make formal preparations, 10 people in a squad, led by a Sergeant; five squads as a platoon, led by a Lieutenant. The rest of the labor will be sent to the Reclamation Division to cultivate more farmland, up until a total size of 2000 mu. As the arrangements above, Household Registration Division will allocate manpower as needed, and confirm proof of residence for the new work arrangements. If there are any questions, they can now be raised."

Digesting the orders that Shuo had laid out before them, the directors considered their field of specialties and divisions before they spoke up with comments or suggestions.

General Shi was the first to stand up. "My lord, I have something to say. With the militia expanded to 50 people, it will be necessary to have 5 sergeants to command the teams."

"General, by your recommendation, report to me for approval. As far as possible, please choose from the veterans for your recommendations, but make sure your choices are good ones, do not promote them unconditionally."

"Ability is the only premise. In addition, Zhang Daniu and San Gouzi can be directly promoted to team leader. The squad leader of the militia is naturally you. As the North Salt Fields are on track, it is time for you to move and concentrate on the militia team training. As for the safety of the fields, rotate Zhang Daniu and San Gouzi with a militia team in charge."

General Shi grinned. He would no longer be stationed in the salt field, which obviously made him very happy. However, he was not a fool and had long deduced something was going on from Ouyang Shuo's words. He directly asked, "My lord, what is the main reason behind this expansion of the militia?"

Ouyang Shuo nodded his head approvingly. "The expansion of the militia is to deal with a variety of new security challenges. With the new upgrade, our territory has increased to 250% of the original size! I am expecting that in half a month, a beast riot is going to come out of the wilderness, and we will encounter massive beast attacks. Therefore, General, you must not only see the development of the militia, but you have to establish a detailed defense against the beast attacks and combat program, report to me for review."

General Shi spoke up loudly, "Sire, I will see this done!"

Cu Yingyu rose next. "Big Brother, on the number of fishermen, I have a different view. At this moment, we only have four fishing boats. Each boat can only take two men, while the shipyard is only making a boat a day. To get 30 fishermen to work will take at least another 11 days. As far as I know, a fisherman can harvest 50 units of fish a day on average. With the amount of fish harvested, we simply cannot eat it all. Why do you need so many fishermen?"

Ouyang Shuo understood her point. Fish could not be used as a staple food and was not easy to store for a long period of time, it could not replace the role of harvested food and forage. For this, he had his own plan.

"Yingyu, what you have said is naturally true. But you have not considered, if the fish can be salted, then dried. Dried fish is not a living thing, and can be easily stored. The market price of a unit of dried fish is 15 copper. It takes two units of fish to make one unit of dried fish, and one unit of salt can be used for 50 units of dried fish. Excluding the cost of the salt, a single fisherman's daily harvest can create a profit of 355 copper for the territory. Once the first batch of salt in the salt fields is produced, the construction funds of the territory could be financed entirely by the sea! As for the fishermen who are not yet in boats, arrange for them to work on salting the live fish."

Cu Yingyu could see that Shuo had calculated everything, and said in sincere admiration, "Big Brother has thought this through, I am far from your level!"

Ouyang Shuo waved his hand. "I am no genius. I have been worrying about funds and plans for the territory for some time, and came up with this idea."

This was certainly not Ouyang Shuo just coming up with words to comfort her on the spot. He had been considering all these plans and points as early as when he had selected the Lianzhou Basin to establish his village. As a lord player, if he couldn't make full use of marine resources, then he was really remaining willfully blind to his geographical advantages.

Sea salt and marinated salted fish were the two ways to accumulate early capital that he wanted to get established. To this end, he had not hesitated to spend his early reward money on the and those three special sets of building blueprints.

This was the advantage of rebirth. While the powerful representatives were paying heavy real money to buy the game currency, he was developing a perfect industry so as to provide a steady stream of building funds. This advantage would become more and more apparent later on.

His current industry had just started, resulting in limited profits, but he was just beginning. Once he expanded the scale of development, naturally the profits would increase several times over.

It was the consensus of strong lords in the past that for sustainable development, they had to develop their own industries. After all, they could only use credit points to buy the game's currency for less than a year's time.

Finally, Zhao Dexian stood up, saying, "Sire, I have some questions. As sire has arranged for the Reclamation Division to cultivate 1500 mu of farmland, there is naturally no problems. My question is, for these mu of farmland, I was wondering what crops sire might want us to plant?"

Ouyang Shuo decided to test him, asking, "Secretary Zhao, based on Lianzhou Basin's climate conditions, what do you think are the most appropriate crops to plant?"

Zhao Dexian was a farmer, and had a lifetime of experience dealing with farmland, and was clear on the planting time for all kinds of crops. He answered, "This is the middle of the season. Winter is not over, spring is not here, it is not suitable for planting any crops at this time."

Ouyang Shuo smiled mysteriously, and said, "Good answer. However, the Lianzhou Basin has a special climate, and there is one crop that you can grow in winter here, namely sweet potatoes. Although the best planting season in November was missed with the monsoon, we still have suitable growing conditions. If we plant now, we can harvest them in April and May, and completely solve the problems of crop shortages."

Zhao Dexian was momentarily surprised, and then replied gloomily, "I am ashamed to say that I did not think of such a crop." In fact, this could not really be blamed on him. His previous village of Zhao Jiagou had been in the forest and had very rarely planted sweet potatoes, so he did not think of such a crop on the spur of the moment.

Ouyang Shuo smiled. "So, these mu of farmland should be planted with sweet potatoes as quickly as possible and must be completed before the end of the month. As for the seedlings, I will buy them from the Market."

After answering Zhao Dexian's questions, the doubts of the others had been cleared, and Ouyang Shuo announced the end of the meeting. Waiting until the crowd dispersed, he headed over to the Basic Market to procure some items.

The treasury only had 10 gold coins at the moment. But he had set aside four gold coins to grow the militia, so he really only had six gold to use.

He first spent a gold coin to get enough seedlings to plant 3000 mu of sweet potatoes. Three mu was the maximum amount of areas he wanted to devote to sweet potatoes for now.

Then, he spent another gold coin and bought 500 units of salt. This salt was enough to make the salted fish for now. Later, his salt fields would produce more than enough salt on their own.

As for the remaining four gold coins, he simply purchased 4000 units of grain directly. With the initial remaining 3100 units of food from his previous purchases, as well as the fisherman harvesting fish as a supplement, it would be enough to support the entire village on its way to becoming a grade 2 village.

With his procurements done, Shuo's pockets were now empty. After arranging for people to put the purchased material into the warehouse and granary, he had nothing more to do for the moment.

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Chapter 18: Bonfire Party

Translator:ryangohsff

Editor:ryangohsff

That night, the bonfire party, as promised by Cui Yingyu, was very lively. Everyone gathered in the public square in front of the Lord's Manor, and built large fires with firewood. Groups of people gathered around them, singing and dancing.

Yingyu's Lingbo Dance wowed the whole town. It was a soft dance, with a light step, like clouds floating in the air, and also like sunlight dancing on the wate. It made her look like a fairly in the waves floating along via the dance. It could be described as the shorts steps of lingbo captivated anyone who saw it.

General Shi's sword dance was also wonderful. His sword was like a white snake, hissing in the winds. It moved like a dragon, sometimes heavy, sometimes light, hitting like thunder and moving like lightning. It was a case of a silver light from the square could pierce a chest of someone from miles away.

Not to be outdone, Elder Dexian, together with the original villagers from Zhao village, arranged a pole dance. The percussion instruments had a strong rhythm, with crisp, high-pitched sounds, and were very lively. Bursts of laughter mixing together with the light and sound of bamboo flutes conveyed the mood of the people. The celebratory music showed their happiness, stirring up the whole of Shanhai Village with the joy and happiness of the dance.

At the climax of the evening, Ouyang Shuo sang a modern version of 'Luo Shen Fu1':

Luoshui River in the east, legends spread through ages, a paradise in human world._

In the dreams I see, a woman of heaven, tripping lightly like a startled swan._

Six dragons, carriage of clouds, carried her back to the high heavens, leavings tales behind._

When the tales were told, people would say, it was a dream of Xiang King 2. _

The dream ended, tears soaked towels, flowed down my cheeks._

Her youth untouched by time, yet human and God have different path, only earrings stayed as souvenir._

Wind blew and time flies, historians records and wondered the anonymous._

When they ask today, what is this memorial temple, built in riverside?_

An art of Goddess Luo, to ease and comfort my heart._

The scent she left behind, her image in my mind._

Wind blew and time flies, the universe turned from nothing into everything._

What is love, only to drive human insane, and succumb goddess._

An art of Goddess Luo, who still sings the poetry lines?_

The river flows regardlessly._

The people of Shanhai Village, including Ouyang Shuo and General Shi, were all displaced people and destined to meet together. A simple bonfire party that reduced the pain of everyone's displacement helped pull them together. The celebration helped cement the feeling that Shanhai Village was really their home now.

"System Notification: Congratulations to player Qiyue Wuyi for the success of the bonfire party! The villagers appreciate the hospitality of their Lord! Morale of your people has increased by 5 points!"

Ouyang Shuo really didn't need to see the damn prompt from the system. He was immersed in the lively atmosphere of the party, and now it had reminded him that it was all only a game.

Unfortunately, it was now late into the night, so he returned back to his room, and logged off.

When he came out, it was already 9 AM. This time Bing'er had already gone to school on her own, and Sun Xiaoyue was naturally also long gone for class. He was too lazy to go downstairs to get breakfast, so he fried up two eggs and drank a glass of milk for a simple breakfast.

Opening his handbrain, he found that he had new email. Opening it up, he found that it was an invitation letter from his original junior high school. The letter had been sent by his class president Yuan Ping, who had invited him to a reunion party.

The gist of the letter was that since graduating from junior high, the class had not gotten together for a long time. During the Spring Festival this year, a class party was going to be held in Guifang Park. He was hoping that everyone arranged their own trip ahead of time, we must attend, etc. and so forth.

Thinking about it, it really had been seven or eight years since he had seen the rest of his class from junior high. Ouyang Shuo couldn't even recall the names of many of them, the memories were already fuzzy.

At the time, if there was nothing particularly important going on, Ouyang Shuo decided that he would go and participate. After all, this was probably the only reunion they would have. A year later, they would be boarding a starship, and if they were going to ever meet again, it would be after many, many years.

Anyways, there was still some time until the Spring Festival, so it wasn't worth worrying about. Opening up the game forums, Ouyang Shuo took a look at the trending posts of the other players.

At the top of the discussion posts, 'Shanhai Village has broken the monopoly of the Six Tyrants of Handan, claiming the sixth promotion to Second grade Village in China!'

Ouyang Shuo browsed through the comments, dumbfounded at the mess, not knowing what to say.

1st poster: 'I bet Qiyue Wiuyi is a secretive great family's descendent!'

2nd poster: 'Bet1, bottom floor keep at it!'

3rd poster: 'Invisible ass, the two above have seen too many novels!"

4th poster: 'Top floor, Ithink he's just lucky!'

5th poster: 'Qiyue Wuyi, people want to give birth to a kid for you!'

6th poster: 'Upstairs is a dinosaur, identification finished!'

7th poster: 'Mad Warrior of the World, recruiting members, if interested, please contact Mad Warrior quick quick!'

8th poster: 'Upstairs advertising, pay for advertising, thank you!'

9th poster: 'Mad Warrior of the World is a garbage guild, don't be fooled by his recruitment!'

10th: 'Upstairs, I want to kill you!'

The posts were completely crazy. Ouyang Shuo silently went elsewhere, ready to look at other popular posts. Not surprisingly, after Chun Shenjun, Zhan Lang had sent his trusted subordinate, Blood Wolf into the forum to publicly acquire more of the game currency.

Unfortunately, there was still no fixed market price. Didn't he see Chun Shenjun's financial director setting a purchase price at 2 credits for 1 copper?

Another post drew Ouyang Shuo's attention. Among the Adventurers, someone had finally gotten a mercenary token, and set up the first mercenary group in the game - the Blood Evil mercenary group.

The head of the mercenary group was called Blood Romance, a level 21 chivalrous expert, currently #1 on the player ranks list. They were the first to set up a mercenary group, but still hadn't received a system announcement in the game. This showcased Gaia's preference for the players in the lord game mode.

Browsing a bit more, Ouyang Shuo found no other useful information, and closed the forum. It was time to start learning some history and recharge himself.

In the evening when Bing'er came back from school, she seemed a little resentful that her brother had not woke up in the morning to send her off to school. Ouyang Shuo had to pull out all the stops and make a few of her favorite dishes to alleviate her displeasure.

Sun Xiaoyue, seeing Ouyang Shuo placing such importance on logging into the game every day, was also very curious, and asked him, "Hey, this Earth Online game, is it really so fun? I asked around, and none of the students in my classes played that game!"

Ouyang Shuo smiled mysteriously. "This game's greatest charms are how territory is constructed and its realism, not the kind of no-brainer leveling games that come without effort. Most people are not patient enough to play it. If conditions permit, I suggest you also learn to play it."

Xiaoyue rolled her eyes. "Please! I'm not like you, able to spend 100,000 credits to buy a game cabin without batting an eye!"

Reluctantly, Ouyang Shuo could only tell her to this extent. If she did not listen, it was passing up her own good fortune. There was no way he could tell her about the truth of the game in his 'past'. He had no proof to show her that there was a problem, even if she would believe him, nor could he explain how he would know such a thing. He certainly couldn't tell her that he was reborn from the future!

To make up for not being there in the morning, Ouyang Shuo didn't get on promptly at night, first helping Bing'er with her homework and reading a fairy tale to her at night. By the time he coaxed his little sister to sleep, it was already 10 PM.

For him, the game was important, but Bing'er was the most important. The game was only a means to success, but it was only meant to help his family. Often enough, people were confused by the appearance of things. Without being clear on means and purpose, people would lose themselves.

Moreover, Shanhai Village had established a complete organizational structure due to his efforts in promoting people. Even if he wasn't there for a short period of time, his territory would still operate smoothly.

Once logged in, it was time to go out and go to work. Shuo went to the edge of the courtyard, teasing Blackfang.

The horses didn't really like dogs, so Ouyang Shuo wasn't assured to let the dog go running around. Usually, it was tied up in the yard. When he was free, he would hold onto it as he walked around the village. With nothing special to do today, Ouyang Shuo's guilty conscience prompted him to take up Blackfang and visit the village.

Walking around the village and looking at houses that sprouted from the ground, Ouyang Shuo felt pleased and proud. This was the village that belonged entirely to him, and he'd led everyone out of the wilderness to establish it. It had started from zero, starting from the first log put down.

The villagers loved him and were grateful to him for providing shelter to them out here in the wilds. His subordinates respected him, admiring his foresight, and were grateful that they could make use of his knowledge to perform on a higher level than their own skills and talents would allow.

Along the way, the villagers seeing him would smile and bow to him. Ouyang Shuo didn't act arrogant, and would stop to chat, asking them if there were any problems he didn't know about. If there were difficulties, they had to be shared, to better help everyone solve them!

Last night's bonfire party was obviously on everyone's mind, especially Yingyu's beautiful Lingbo dance and the momentum of General Shi's sword dance. Of course, there was also their Lord's singing; it wasn't bad, but the tone had been a little strange, as if people were listening to some foreign music.

When he came into the village, he saw that Zhao Dewang was overseeing the building of the first arrow tower with a construction crew. General Shi was standing to the side, studying the work. The General obviously had a great deal more authority in the building of the tower than Secretary Elder Dexian did as he knew more about it. Seeing Ouyang Shuo coming, the two of them quickly came over.

General Shi's voice was, as ever, quite loud. "Lord!" he nearly shouted.

Zhao Dewang followed behind him, greeting promptly, "Sire!"

Shuo waved away formalities, still in a very good mood. With a smile at Dewang he said, "No need to stand on ceremony. Secretary Dewang has been busy, truly worthy of praise!"

Zhao Dewang still held the title of deputy director of construction, and was naturally intent on proving himself through deeds. His fear that he was not doing well and that his lord was about to criticize him was put to rest, soothing his heart. Modestly he said, "I dare not claim the credit. The reason this tower could be built so smoothly is thanks to General Shi's advice. Without his guidance, we would not know where to start!"

General Shi was not one to know modesty. Smiling to the side, he said proudly, "This is not that difficult, this is the simplest of arrow towers. I used to lead men in war; those kinds of siege towers were much more powerful!"

General Shi turned and looked at Ouyang Shuo. "My lord, my last observation of the terrain tells me that we should build a tower at each corner of our fence to enhance the village's defensive power. Unfortunately, there are not enough bows and arrows, nor ways to train the rookie recruits in them."

Ouyang Shuo nodded slightly, and looked back to Zhao Dewang. "According to General Shi's words, have the Construction Division coordinate arrangements."

Zhao Dewang hurriedly said that within two days he could have all of the towers built. Ouyang Shuo nodded his head, and with no more reason to stay, turned to head back to his courtyard, holding onto Blackfang.

1 Luo Shen Fu _洛神赋 : An ancient China poem from the era of the late Three Kingdoms._

2 Dream of Xiang King _ 襄王梦 : An ancient China romance story about a king and goddess._

[Long Taos: side characters in Chinese operas who perform acrobatics and fight scenes

[12.47 to 13.07: don't ask me about the tree sap

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Chapter 19- Beginner

Translator: TeamTWO

Editor: Levs

Ouyang Shuo headed back to the Lord's Manor, tying Blackfang back up before he entered the office. Just as he sat down, Gu Xiuwen, his clerk and household registrar, came in with two tall men.

One of the men was about thirty years old, and unarmed. He had an evenly spaced face, wide and open under his thick eyebrows, with a pair of shrewd, deep eyes flashing as they looked him over. He had an extremely developed physique, particularly in his shoulders and arms.

The other man was in his early twenties, armed with a spear, and with a knife at his waist. His face was exceptionally attractive, with carved facial features looking like a sculptor had carved them, definitely a lady's man.

Giu Xiuwen asked Ouyang Shuo about his well-being, and introduced the two men. "Sire, these two heroes are two special talents that have just arrived in the village. They are a pair of brothers. This good man is Lin Yue, excellent at unarmed combat, an Advanced Martial Arts instructor. His good brother is a Basic Officer called Lin Yi."

The Lins took the opportunity to come forward, theirs hands clasped, bowing slightly. "Lin Yue (Lin Yi) pays respects to the lord!"

An Advanced Martial Guru and a Basic Officer? Ouyang Shuo was definitely interested in this, and was pleased to respond. "Two heroes, welcome, welcome! Today we welcome two very talented men, it is Shanhai Village's fortune!" He gestured for them to sit before proceeding. "Since both of you have such great skill, will you be willing to fight for our army?"

Hearing this, the younger man, Lin Yi, revealed an eager expression, obviously quite willing to do so. But the older brother was quiet, not showing his inner thoughts. Seeing the older brother not displaying anything, Ouyang Shuo suppressed his emotions inside. Obviously this wasn't an easy man to win over, and Ouyang Shuo nodded in approval.

Lin Yue hesitated a moment, then spoke slowly. "Your lordship, I will not lie to you. I have the ability to teach fist fighting and some footwork, but I am not suitable for the military. I suffered a serious injury in the past, and its effects haunt me still, I fear I could not live up to your expectations. My brother, although stubborn, is also skilled in martial arts. If the lord is willing, he can be set up in your army, and some strict discipline will be good for him. He will serve you well for both of us."

Ouyang Shuo nodded slightly. This Lin Yue was an honest man through and through, he's not just a simple instructor. At this moment, Ouyang Shuo wasn't going to delve deeper into his history. "Master Lin has an illness in his body, it would not be good to force you. The village has an advanced doctor, I will ask him to render a diagnosis and treatment for you. In addition, the village is about to establish a martial arts dojo. When you have the time, I will have to ask Master Lin to sit down with the villagers and arrange classes to teach martial arts to them. This will help them get more physically fit and would let everyone learn some self-defense. With the wilderness nearby, a little protection could go a long way! I hope that Master Lin will not refuse my request!"

For such a noble purpose, Lin Yue could naturally not decline. Moreover, the establishment of a dojo was exactly in line with his desires. "I thank the Lord for his consideration, I would not dare to disappoint you!" He replied quickly.

Ouyang Shuo laughed, and then said, "As for Younger brother Lin, I think you will be excellent material for the militia group's leader! I think that with your ability, you will fulfill my trust!"

Master Lin again bowed. "Thank you, lord! We will not disappoint you!"

Ouyang Shuo took the opportunity to check the stats of the two brothers.

Name: Lin Yue (silver)

Identity: Shanhai Villager

Occupation: Advanced Martial Arts Instructor

Loyalty: 75 points

Feature: Proficient in Fist Fighting (Enhances the Fist Martial Arts of the territory by 10%)

Evaluation: Mysterious origin, once a famous fighter. Due to residual injuries, forced to leave.

Name: Lin Yi (black iron)

Identity: Shanhai Village Militia Third Sergeant

Occupation: Basic Officer

Loyalty: 75 points

Command: 30

Force: 40

Intelligence: 20

Political: 15

Internal Power: Lin Family Spearmanship (a total of twelve types)

Equipment: Fine Iron Spear, Belt Knife

Evaluation: Has studied the art of war, practices spearmanship. However, his temperament is unruly and unconventional.

The brothers were definitely a bit different from one another. Master Lin was evaluated by the system as a fist style master, helping to raise the fist fighting ability of the entire territory. Such an ability was simply a great help for the whole village.

Ouyang Shuo guessed that if he could cure Master Lin's injuries, he would become at least a Master Martial Arts Instructor. For this, he could only lay his hopes on Dr. Song and pray, but he didn't have high hopes as he didn't think an advanced doctor would be able to solve the problem.

Lin Yi was definitely not so simple, either. Although only a black iron character, he came with his own technique and equipment. He had great potential and opportunity for growth. Putting him in the army under the command of General Shi and with a little luck in the future, he would become a major asset.

Through these last few days, Ouyang Shuo had slowly noticed that the system seemed to have revised its rules for generating immigrants. First, the closer to the start, such as an upgrade or starting the village, the more likely it was for the system to bring in some special talent. If the village had reached the required special talents to upgrade, the system would basically just send more farmers his way and rarely would there be special talents.

Another thing he'd noticed was that as the characteristics of the village rose it could also attract higher level talents from time to time. One must know that a grade 1 village focused on basic elementary talents and Shanhai Village already had three high class advanced talents.

If the other lords knew this, they'd die from envy. For a lot of lords, an intermediate talent was not something they have yet, advanced talents were just utterly ridiculous luxuries.

Their welcome meeting finished, Ouyang Shuo told Gu Xiuwen to arrange comfortable accommodations for Master Lin. He would take younger Lin to the barracks. As a basic officer, Lin Yi did not need to change his class.

The fundamental difference between a soldier and an officer was the number of troops they could command. According to the military system, a soldier could only be promoted to the rank of Lieutenant, leading a platoon of 50 soldiers.

With 10 platoons, 500 soldiers, an unit is formed, led by a major, which requires at least a basic officer.

Five units formed a regiment, a total of 2500 soldiers, led by a colonel, which requires at least an intermediate officer.

Five regiments formed a division, with another 1000 people under the major general, for a total of 13,500 people, which required a advanced officer.

4 divisions formed a legion, with 10,000 people under the commanding general, a total of 55,000 people. This was a massive army, and only special officers could possibly command them. If you put a number of legion together in an army group, then only a lord or lord-appointed marshal could do the job.

Therefore later on, the demand for officers in any territory would be very high. It was unrealistic to hope that your officers would be of great quality, if you didn't have the forces to attract them to service...unless there was a powerful territorial draw such as Shanhai Village, a gold-level village.

Most officers were being class changed from soldiers. The Intermediate Class Barracks' Class Change Chamber could transform level 10 militia into rank 1 soldiers. The soldiers had 9 ranks to climb. Ranks 1 to 3 were normal soldiers, 4 to 6 were the veterans, and 7 to 9 were elite soldiers.

Ordinary soldiers need to advance all the way to rank 9 elites, before they could go through an Advanced Barracks' Class Change Chamber and change into Basic Officers.

It was because of this that Ouyang Shuo was paying so much attention to Lin Yi. When the two of them came to the barracks, General Shi had just came back. After Lin Yi had reported to his new commander and spoken of his history, Ouyang Shuo was ready to leave.

General Shi stopped him suddenly, saying seriously, "Lord, I have something to report!"

Ouyang Shuo stopped, a little puzzled, and asked, "Oh? What's happened?"

"One of the scouts had just reported back to me. They just came back from patrol, and when they scouted the territory, they accidentally discovered a raider camp!"

Ouyang Shuo was momentarily surprised by this development. Raider and bandit, the two scourges of the wilderness. "Had the patrol alerted them?" He asked urgently.

General Shi shook his head, saying, "They were not alerted. The patrol was led by San Gouzi, and they were quite clever. They saw the camp from afar, and have set down to monitor the larger force from a distance, sending a runner to return here and report!"

"Excellent, they have done well, and we must be careful! With our strength now, without knowing the strength of the enemy, we must maintain calm and restraint. General, find out two things, the size of the enemy and their general strength. If necessary, go there personally. The other thing you need to do is to seize the opportunity to pick troops for the militia as rapidly as possible. The selection of the troops will be our main priority in preparing for this fight. I will communicate with secretaries of the village to make sure this is done," Ouyang Shuo said with great caution.

General Shi was very excited, loudly saying, "Please rest assured that the patrol will return tonight to their camp. I would like to see what ability these raiders have."

Since General Shi was going to personally act, Ouyang Shuo was at ease. The discovery of this temporary camp could actually be a good thing for the territory. He could train up the militia team. Killing the bandits will help them level up faster than killing monsters. After destroying them, there was a high likelihood of getting some much-needed building blueprints!

The next day, Ouyang Shuo came online and hurriedly called General Shi into his office, eager to inquire about the results of the investigation the night before.

General Shi's ability was high, and last night he had snuck directly into the camp of the enemy, carrying out a detailed scouting mission. "My lord, here is the summary report. The whole camp numbers about a hundred people. The fighting population numbers about 60, the rest are some women and children."

"The fighting force is divided into 3 categories. 1st is the ordinary bandits, poorly equipped, and unmounted, their strength is about equal to our militia.

"The 2nd category is the elite bandits, well-equipped, with bows, spears, and horses. From looking at their stables, I estimate there are about twenty of these elites.

"The 3rd category is their leader. There is one commander with a lieutenant, the strength of their leader is about equal to that of Lin Yi from yesterday."

Ouyang Shuo's face turned solemn and said, "The strength of this group of bandits was beyond my expectations. Even the ordinary bandits were as strong as our militia. In a head-on fight, I am afraid we will suffer greatly. The elite bandits with bows and arrows are, for us, a greater threat. It seems that this time we will need to be clever, and not simply storm them."

General Shi said with some disapproval, as if admitting to cowardice, "This is the end of my report, but I do not agree. These bandits are nothing in my eyes. If I drove into their camp, I could likely kill more than half of them…"

Ouyang Shuo smiled wryly back at him. "My brave general, I know this. However, as the saying goes, the ants can also kill the elephant. You going alone is far too risky. If you failed, it would not be worth the loss. Although you have the courage, the militia team, with their simple equipment, cannot help you in such a fight."

General Shi smiled. "Then, by the lord's meaning, how should we do this?"

Ouyang Shuo calmly and confidently said, "At this stage, the most important thing is to accumulate the militia's team training and whip them into shape. We will keep the status quo and quietly accumulate strength, wait until the right time, and strike! Of course, we need to keep up our surveillance, and alert the others. Let us make arrangements for the staff in case the bandits move. In addition, we need to get the defenses of the village working, so as to avoid any accidents!"

"Yes!" Finished with the meeting, General Shi promptly left to arrange the defense of the village.

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Chapter 20 - Breakthrough

Translator: TeamTWO

Editor: Jun

Shortly after General Shi had departed, Cui Yingyu entered Ouyang Shuo's office. Ouyang Shuo smiled and asked her to sit down, laughing and saying, "You seem to have come with a purpose?"

He said that for a reason. It turned out that Yingyu was a workaholic. As this was not a modern society where such things were common, she had to be a very strong woman to take on a role like this.

"Big brother, even you are making fun of me. I am working so hard, all for the sake of big brother's territory." Yingyu's face turned red as she pouted at his teasing.

Ouyang Shuo quickly apologized, and hurriedly said in a coaxing manner to avoid her embarrassment, "Ok,ok. Don't be angry. What's the progress on the basic mining field over there?"

He had to be careful of the atmosphere. Yingyu was effectively his little sister, and trusted him implicitly, the most out of all his staff. Being the target of his teasing was very embarrassing. She had come here to report on her work, and now it had become so awkward that she didn't know where to start. Seeing that Ouyang Shuo started to talk about business, she sighed with relief.

She collected herself, calmly reporting, "3 days ago, I found the blacksmith, Master Lee, and asked him to take people to start looking for mining areas. Yesterday, they finally reported back that in the southwest of the territory, at the foot of the mountain, they found an open iron ore field. It is not only large in area, but it also has rich amounts of ore, and should be very easy to collect. Some of the ore is directly exposed to the air, and can simply be lifted out of the ground to collect it."

Ouyang Shuo nodded happily at this information. "This is good news. Although the demand for iron in the territory is not great as of yet, as soon as we start making weapons, the demand will surge. With a good open field mine, we will not have to worry about iron ore for a long time. Have you managed to find any talents familiar with mining?"

"The main reason I came here today is to tell Big Brother that among the new immigrants there is an experienced intermediate miner called Yuan Shaoping. I suggest that he be put in charge of the operations for the new basic mining field."

Ouyang Shuo replied without the slightest hesitation, "Yes! Bring him along, no problem, then appoint him as the foreman of the field, assigned under your Material Reserve Division."

Touched by his trust, Yingyu smiled, "Thank you for your trust, brother, hee hee!"

Ouyang Shuo waved his hand, smiled and said, "You are my little sister, I trust your ability and vision implicitly, just do not be too hard on yourself."

Yingyu replied softly, between the two of them, they became a lot closer.

Waiting until Yingyu had left, Ouyang Shuo didn't want to stay in the office. It was time, he thought, to take a look at the carpenter's workshop.

Since the had been given to the carpenter Lu Guangzhi, Ouyang Shuo had no idea if he had studied it, or if there had been progress. The pointer chariot could be very useful in the first war, which was happening soon, so he wanted to get it into production quickly!

The carpenter's workshop was built on the central street of the commercial area, next to the blacksmith shop. Ouyang Shuo walked into the woodshop. Master Lu was working with two apprentices, working around a wooden carriage.

Ouyang Shuo was surprised for a moment. Understanding the manual was not easy and he had actually made the pointer carriage so quickly? This was too much! One must know that this was a difficult technology to get working.

The ancient south-pointing chariots made use of differential gears in comparison to modern day compasses, which made use of geomagnetic forces. The carriage used a gear transmission system according to the rotation of the wheels to indicate the direction of the car. No matter where the car turned, the wooden hand always pointed to the south, so it was easy to use to determine the direction the carriage should go in.

One of the apprentices looked up and saw Ouyang Shuo. He quickly alerted his master who was staring fixedly at the carriage.

Lu Guangzhi recovered, hastily bowed in salute, and fearfully said, "I was too focused and have neglected my lord, and will accept his punishment!"

Ouyang Shuo smiled, and simply said, "Master Lu is fanatic about his work, truly worthy of the admiration of everyone as someone to learn from! What is wrong with that?"

Carpenter Master Lu smiled embarrassingly, and said, "My lord has seen an embarrassing situation!"

Ouyang Shuo did not want to get tangled up with modest manners, and pointed directly to the wooden carriage. "If I am not guessing wrong, this should be the pointer carriage described in the technical manual? I did not expect that in just a few days Master Lu would make such incredible progress!"

Listening to Ouyang Shuo's praise, the man's dark face instantly reddened even further. Sounding quite shameful, he said, "I am ashamed, and not worthy of the Lord's praise. We have worked these last days in accordance with the book records, trying to make the pointer carriage. It is a pity that this carriage does not truly point south like the directions in the book say it should."

Ouyang Shuo abruptly realized that this was just a test product, which made it much more realistic. "It is not necessary for you to be ashamed, Master Lu. As far as I know, this pointer carriage is a very sophisticated instrument, and even with a technical manual to reference, it will not take just a short time to grasp how it is made. Anyway, there is still time, and you do not have to be depressed, ashamed, or anxious at all. Master Lu, study this slowly, and perhaps you can use this opportunity to upgrade your carpenter level."

Master Lu's face was a little pale, and he said gratefully, "I thank the Lord for his trust. I will certainly seize the time to study, and try to make a true pointer carriage as soon as possible and repay lord's kindness!"

"Then I am relieved. You are busy, so I will stop bothering you and take my leave!"

Walking out of the woodshop, Ouyang Shuo simply turned and walked into the blacksmith shop next door. To tell the truth, he hadn't paid much attention to Li Tiezhu, the basic blacksmith. The reason was simple: the blacksmith wasn't able to make weapons or armor. At best he could make arrowheads, and not even the more complex broadheads.

Because military goods were not allowed to be sold in the Market, Lord players could only obtain weapons and equipment in 3 ways. The first kind was the most simple, and that was when the military camp gave out a basic set of weapons and armor. This was done when upgrading soldiers, such as when farmers were upgraded into militia, and given leather armor and a spear.

The system provided the set mostly to avoid the embarrassment of a naked soldier, and could only be regarded as the most basic equipment. Of course, the shortcomings of this 'gift' were very apparent. The 'free' weapons and equipment were of very low quality and broke or were destroyed easily.

The second way to get military goods was to smuggle them in from the big cities, working with the big businessmen. As long as the payment was worth the risk, the deep background of those cartels would take the risk. They would arrange a private shipment overland, escort it all the way, and ship it directly to your territory.

This was certainly not easy to do. First you had to contact the cartels, which required upgrading the Basic Market to the Advanced Market, which would open the 4th platform of the market - the negotiated cooperative trading platform. The smuggling of weapons and equipment was extremely high in pricing, and if you weren't rich, you simply couldn't afford it. Even casually smuggling something in could bring the territory close to bankruptcy.

Those cartels were anything but generous, and were in fact greedy vampires. They risked losing everything, taking the risk of shipping everything to the territory, so if they didn't earn five, seven, or ten times the profit, they wouldn't be satisfied. Even worse, the cartels only sold the products, they were not responsible for maintenance. After-sales service was not something they even talked about.

The last way was to build your own military industry. Once he had his own military industry, naturally he didn't need to be subject to the whims of others. It was all on him how much he wanted to and how much he would be able to produce.

Although this approach looked good, it was the most difficult of the 3 paths. Why? Because weapons and equipment were prohibited items, any type of advanced weapon required the appropriate technical manual to build. For things like the famous Northern and Southern Mingguang armor, you needed the to make it.

In general, technical manuals like that were not available in the Basic Market. There was only only place to buy them. It meant upgrading to the Intermediate Market, and the opening of the third platform - the limited time auction platform. The game would hold time limited auctions at a regular basis on that platform. During those events, there would usually be some rare items.

In the past, most of the technical manuals for weapons and equipment had come out of the auction. Ouyang Shuo clearly remembered when the first auction had been held in his past - at the beginning of the third month. That was also the day of the official opening of the credit points and game currency trading platform.

Back to reality, Ouyang Shuo's plan to start weapon workshops really required an advanced blacksmith to manage them. Therefore, he didn't have any expectations of Basic Master Li. So, he did not expect that with a simple visit to the smithy, Master Li would give him a surprise.

The burly blacksmith, upon seeing Ouyang Shuo, said happily, "Haha, such a coincidence! I was preparing to look for sire, and did not expect sire to come!"

"Oh? I did not know that Master Li needed to find me, what news do you have for me?" Seeing the usually calm and capable blacksmith looking so excited, Ouyang Shuo was a little surprised.

"Yesterday afternoon, when I was building a plow for a farmer, I made a natural breakthrough in my bottleneck, and was officially promoted to Intermediate Blacksmith."

Listening to him say that, Ouyang Shuo immediately thought of the gold level characteristic of his territory, namely the one that increased the proficiency rate of skilled residents by 20%, and increased the chance to break through promotional bottlenecks by 10%. He had not expected it to so quickly play a role in the village, and sure enough it was quite powerful.

"Oh, then I really must congratulate Master Li! I would like to ask, when you broke through, did you have any kind of special feeling?"

"I feel that my smithing skills have improved greatly. Before, a problem that might have confused me now seems as simple as up and down, just as if I had been enlightened by the heavens." About his own breakthrough, Master Li himself seemed to be more than a little surprised.

"Well, no matter what, this is a good thing. Master Li can now try to build some arrowheads and spears, and the territory will make use of them!"

Pleased to be able to build weapons, Master Li was honored to be given this duty. After a brief accounting of his needs, Ouyang Shuo left the blacksmith shop.

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Chapter 21 - To the Raider's Camp

Translator: TeamTWO

Editor: RED

Gaia Year 1,1st month, the 20th day.

At the military camp school, fifty militia had been assembled in their teams. Standing on the temporarily erected platform, Ouyang Shuo began the pre-battle mobilization.

"Soldiers, I, the Lord of Shanhai Village, am addressing you! Five days ago, a raider's camp was found within our territory! Our enemies, they are numerous and well equipped! We have fewer soldiers and our weapons are not as good. If you are afraid, stand up now, and you won't have to go.

"My soldiers, remember this! Since the moment you entered the barracks, you were no longer farmers tied to the earth, you severed your ties to your past! Who are you? You are the specially selected warriors of Shanhai, and the mission of soldiers is to defend their territory! Now, the villagers are looking at you, their children are watching you! Will you be worms or dragons, it all depends on this battle! Are you afraid!?"

"Not afraid!" All of the militia shouted back together, none of them were cowards.

"Do you have the confidence to win?"

"We have!"

"Very good! We shall begin!"

Under the leadership of General Shi, the militia left the barracks in an orderly manner. In four days' time, the militia team had not only been fully recruited, but all of them had also been brought to the max level of 10. Ouyang Shuo had also gone out with them to train, and his level had also reached 14.

Just this morning, the soldiers who were responsible for monitoring the raider's camp had relayed some information. Today, early in the morning, the two leaders of the raiders had taken twelve elite raiders and twenty ordinary raiders and led them out to go plundering. All of a sudden, the forces of the raider's camp were cut in half. Faced with such a good opportunity, Ouyang Shuo naturally wasn't going to let it go. Immediately, he called together the full militia, and went to the raider's camp straightaway.

Of course, even with so many people gone, the raider's camp was still comparable in strength to the militia team. In order to reduce his casualties, Ouyang Shuo knew that he would have to use some tactics. He planned to have San Gouzi lead a militia squad, pretending to be migrants, and lure some of the raiders out of the camp. The rest of the militia would wait in ambush by a small hill three kilometers from the camp.

Half an hour later, the militia reached the ambush site, quickly moving into position. Ouyang Shuo waved San Gouzi forwards, patted his shoulder, and said, "Don't get close enough to be chased down by their cavalry! Remember, don't get too close, they can see everyone who approaches within a thousand meters."

San Gouzi was one of the fastest and most clever of the militia. At this time, not only was he not afraid, but was very excited. "Sire, rest assured. At being a bait, I am great at it, heh heh!"

Ouyang Shuo kicked him, smiled, and said, "Brat, see if you can do it, get out of here!"

San Gouzi gave him a big smile before setting off with the other nine disguised militia. They first had to make a big detour off to the side, and then pretend to be coming from the opposite direction so it looked they were coming out of the wild. Otherwise, it would be too easy to reveal their origins. The bandits could survive in the wilderness, and therefore they would not be suckered out easily. Planning for the attack while thinking the enemy leader was a fool, that would be really stupid.

Twenty minutes later, San Gouzi's squad came within a thousand meters of the raider's camp, and entered the field of vision of the sentry on duty. The sentry looked at the small group of displaced people, and did not think much of it. He quickly went down to report that there was a line of ten small fat sheep that had walked into their hands, not far from the camp.

The camp's great leader was busy enjoying a woman, and hearing that it was only ten people, he impatiently snapped, "Go away. This is not worth my time. Tell Zhao Liu to go deal with them."

That Zhao Liu was an elite raider, and after receiving the order, looked very excited. He led four other raiders on horseback and they rode out of the camp.

San Gouzi was clever, getting just within range of the raider's camp before stopping a thousand meters out. Pretending to recognize what the camp really was, with panicked looks, the whole squad turned and ran.

Zhao Liu, seeing the frightened appearance of the small mob, laughed. Not only did he not race to catch up quickly, but he slowed down, unhurriedly catching up to San Gouzi. He was ready to play a game of cat and mouse, and get his fun out of this group of fragile victims.

Soon enough, the two groups of people became visible to Ouyang Shuo. He could see the joking expression on Zhao Liu's face, and thought to himself, You bastard who thinks he controls life and death, you will pay for your arrogance with your blood.

When the raiders were a hundred meters from the hillside, the militia rushed out of hiding as they sprang their ambush. Everyone was in a unified formation, both hands on their javelins as they rushed together and threw it to the raiders.

General Shi was standing off to the side, bow and arrow in his hand, Shou! General Shi's arrow shot Zhao Liu down off his horse. The raiders had no time to react before they were pierced by the militia's 40 javelins like hedgehogs.

With their first battle victory naturally came a surge of morale. Ouyang Shuo arranged Lin Yi to take some people and clean up the booty, and make sure all of the raiders were dead.

Because everyone used their javelins directly against the raiders, only one of the five horses was wounded. In addition to the horses, the most useful loot were the five bows. Ouyang Shuo took a look at their stats.

Name: Ordinary Horse (black iron level)

Weight: 50 kg

Speed: 30 km / day

Consumption: 3 units of grain / day

Evaluation: This barely qualifies as a warhorse.

Name: Ordinary Wooden Bow (black iron level)

Length: 1.2 meters

Range: 150 meters

Evaluation: A single stave shortbow made of Manchurian Ash Wood, with deer tendons for a bow string. Don't hope for a lot of power out of it.

Ouyang Shuo immediately arranged for the five horses to be brought back to the village by two militiamen. The five bows were quickly passed to the five sergeants. Unfortunately, except for Lin Yi and Zhang Daniu, who both knew basic archery, none of the others had ever touched a bow before.

Quickly cleaning up the battlefield, Shuo's force did not dawdle and immediately went straight to the base camp. Ouyang Shuo took full advantage of the fact that the camp did not have time to react before their attack arrived. With his timing, the balance of strength had been tilted. There had been twenty elite raiders. Twelve had left, five had already died, what were left in the camp had at most 3 elite raiders, they would not cause much concerns anymore.

Before the fight, Ouyang Shuo quietly told General Shi to let Lin Yi deal with the raider camp leader after the fighting started. General's Shi's main duty was to use his bow and kill any surviving elites, then cover the militia during the fight, to cut down on the number of casualties.

Three hundred meters from the camp, General Shi, riding on his horse, took his bow and directly shot down the two sentries. Taking the opportunity, Ouyang Shuo ordered the larger force to move forward quickly, rushing into the raider's camp. Finding outsiders rushing into their camp before they could gather together, the people inside immediately panicked.

General Shi rushed to the front, simply a humanoid killing machine, no one could oppose him. Stimulated by his example, the morale of the militia reached a peak. With General Shi leading them, they had no fear of the ordinary bandits. In contrast, reeling under the sudden attack on their camp and General's Shi's unstoppable aura, the bandits' morale plummeted.

At that point, the bandit lieutenant finally got his armor on, and carrying a big axe, rushed out into the fighting. Lin Yi took one look at him, without further orders from Ouyang Shuo, directly charged up to the raider and engaged him.

The two were fairly evenly matched, but one had an axe, and the other was dancing with a spear. It was the old saying, an inch of reach is an inch closer to death. Seeing the two fighting, it was obvious to see what the ending would be. In less than twenty rounds, Lin Yi seized on a flaw in the other's form, and as fast as lightning pierced the big raider through the center of his chest.

Seeing their leader slain by Lin Yi, the other bandits tried to break off from the fighting, scatter, and flee. Unfortunately, the camp was not large, and there was nowhere to run. The sergeants along with their squads hunted them down one by one and killed them. As for the three elite raiders, they had long been killed by General Shi.

The fighting started quickly and ended quickly. After the battle, the militia team had two seriously injured, and 12 slightly injured. Fortunately, no one had died. The two who were seriously injured, even if healed, could probably never fight on the battlefield again. Ouyang Shuo could only reluctantly arrange for them to retire. The twelve who had minor injuries, after applying some metal-laceration medicine, and a few days of rest, they would be fine.

Through the destruction of the raider's camp, Ouyang Shuo's level rose like a rocket directly to 18. He took the opportunity to look at his own stats.

Name: Qiyue Wuyi

Title: Celebrity (Good impression on historical figures 10%)

Territory: Shanhai Village

Merit: 1300/1600

Title: Third Viscount

Occupation: Officer (part-time)

Level: 18 (652100/723860)

Reputation: Well known (1200/10000)

Body Structure: 18

Comprehension: 20

Luck: 5

Charm: 8

Command: 26

Force: 8

Intelligence: 8

Political: 26

Talent: Locked

Technique: None

Skills: Intermediate Collection, Basic Shipbuilding, Basic Diplomacy, Basic Assessment, Basic Weapons Proficiency, Basic Riding, Basic Marksmanship, Basic Archery

Mount: Poor Horse (bronze)

Equipment: Poor Iron Spear(bronze), Ring of Courage (black iron level)

While Shao was looking at his stats, General Shi directed the clean-up of the battlefield. In the game, NPC's would not resurrect, and their bodies would not stick around very long.

Usually when an NPC died, their body would stay around an hour or so. During this time period, if someone were to take care of the corpse, they could be buried in a cemetery. Otherwise, their fate would be the same as these bodies, eventually turning all white and disappearing. This reflected a user-friendly design in the game. Otherwise, with thousands of the slain after a war in the late game, it would be pretty gory.

With the capture of the raider's camp, the amount of plunder seized was plentiful, but he didn't have the statistics at the moment. The other thing in the camp was the number of women and children, who Ouyang Shuo prepared to bring back to his village. There were 32 women and 3 children, total number of 35.

These women and children were basically kidnapped by the raiders and taken to serve them. These people could not only quickly supplement his territory's population, but also improve the structure of the population to a certain extent.

In the early days of the system, most of the incoming immigrants were men. The system logically ruled that for the migrants, naturally the more powerful adult men would be able to survive more easily. Most of the elderly, weak women, and children could not survive the wilderness.

As for bringing these women back to the village, it wasn't to force them to marry and have children. Ouyang Shuo was not going to intervene in such matters, everything would be determined by the villagers themselves. As a lord, what he could do was ensure that they were not discriminated against in his lands, while also making sure of their personal safety and freedom.

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