Category: Doomsday Lord

Cheng Yang and Liu Wei stayed out hunting monsters until ten that night. Once he returned, Cheng Yang had permanently transferred a hundred thousand Experience Fragments to Liu Wei for her training. It was a lot, but Cheng Yang couldn’t help but care about her. At the very least, he could justify it since she was the first member of his special guard squadron. Then, he bought the remaining Stones of Return from the Grocery and listed them on the Auction House.

A few hours, people purchased all of the stones, and Cheng Yang’s total number of Experience Fragments had reached 1.22 million. Cheng Yang’s assets had grown eleven fold. It was so amazing that Cheng Yang felt like shouting to the world: “Let the profits keep rolling in!”

Unfortunately, Cheng Yang knew that high-profit margins would become a distant memory tomorrow. Once people realized the supply was so high, very few people would pay more than the base auction price.

Ever since he listed the other Stones of Return, Cheng Yang had been focused on brewing potions. Not only would it be a decent source of income, but he was also close to becoming a High-Grade Alchemist. Once he did, he would be able to make High-Grade potions that blew anything else available out of the water.

Once he used up his Energy for the day, Cheng Yang went to find Old Lee. He’d seen him return to the village a while ago and needed to talk to him.

“Old Lee, how are you? Is everything going well?” Cheng Yang asked.

“It’s not bad. There aren’t any dangerous hordes nearby anymore, so the last few days have been slow. If we didn’t have to watch over the Bone-Eating Ant Nest, I’m afraid my soldiers would be bored to death.” Old Lee replied with a chuckle.

“That’s good to hear.” Cheng Yang paused for a moment. “Anyways, I’m going to give your battalion a hundred thousand Experience Fragments. You can’t use them to buy things or consume them during training. I’m giving them to you so that you can accelerate the training speed of your soldiers. You can decide whether to use it all yourself or distribute it to your subordinates.”

Old Lee frowned. He was currently using sixteen times training speed and was barely keeping up with the consumption costs.

“My Lord, they won-“

“Don’t worry about that.” Cheng Yang interrupted him. “Even if they can’t support that level of training speed yet they will someday. I just need you to decide how to allocate those Experience Fragments quickly. I have a hunch that people won’t be able to transfer Experience Fragments to each other for much longer.”

“Why do you say that?” Old Lee asked. “Isn’t it allowed under the gods’ rules?”

“Its exactly because its the gods’ rules that I’m worried. If they can allow it, they can ban it too.” Cheng Yang said with a wry smile. “They changed a bunch of the rules regarding safe zones earlier, and the people who relied on them are probably crying tears of blood now. Since the gods will try and patch any loopholes they left open, I’m worried they’ll see what we’re doing and move to restrict it.”

Old Lee didn’t know where Cheng Yang’s confidence came from, but since it wouldn’t hurt to be prepared, he stopped arguing.

Cheng Yang transferred the funds to Old Lee and then sold half of his potions to the Alchemy Tower manager.

Finally, cheng Yang visited the Nirvana Feather Meditation Hall to train for the night. Since he still had over a million Experience Fragments, Cheng Yang was able to utilize sixty-four-times training speed. It was really gratifying since his experience bar would noticeably fill while training.

If he were able to maintain this pace, it would take less time for him to reach the second stage of evolution than it would for someone to enter the Standard-Grade. Of course, that was only if they didn’t boost their training speed at all.

The next day, Cheng Yang cleared the Nightmare Difficulty Blood-Soaked Church and, after so many days of bad luck, finally had another piece of Red-Gold equipment drop.

It was a ring that increased his Magical Attack by six, and his Mana regen by ten percent. At this point, his damage was so high that this hardly mattered. Most monsters could only survive two strikes from him, and the only ones they couldn’t, Bosses, wouldn’t be affected by a small increase.

The Purple-Silver protective gear he found was even more inconsequential. His Physical Defense was more than enough to stall any monster that wasn’t a Bone-Eating Ant.

Once he was out, Cheng Yang visited the class change statues. Three days ago, he started the research to increase damage. Now that it was finished, he could pick another. Three of the five research options were complete now, so soon, the statutes would level up again.

Once the statues leveled up, Cheng Yang was willing to let the people who performed class change ceremonies be Adventurers. After all, the village wouldn’t be able to support a bigger military.

After selecting the Physical Defense research option, Cheng Yang summoned Lau Hui and Liu Wei.

While he was waiting, Cheng Yang bought the day’s Stone of Return supply and listed them on the Auction House. However, this time he kept three stones in his ring.

Shortly after, the people he summoned arrived at his Meditation Hall.

“Hey, Ox. I need you to arrange something for me. Have your second-in-command lead your battalion for today. I need you to come with me to do something.”

“Of course, my Lord.” Lau Hui replied happily. “Let me go settle that.”

With a salute, Lau Hui turned and walked away.

“We are we going today Cheng Yang?” Liu Wei couldn’t help but ask. Usually, it was just the two of them, so it must be a special location if he was bringing someone else.

“You’ll find out soon enough.” Cheng Yang said with a sly smile.

Liu Wei understood that Cheng Yang wanted to be a surprise, so she stopped asking.

After a while, Lau Hui returned with a grin. “It’s done, my Lord.”

“Alright, let’s go then.” Cheng Yang said before leading them to the Southern gate.

After they walked more than ten kilometers away from the village without any signs of stopping, Lau Hui couldn’t help but as: “Yoko, are we just exploring the wilderness today? If you wanted to do that, I could have brought the rest of my battalion.”

Cheng Yang smiled. “If we wanted to clear the wilderness, they would be useful, but we’re doing something an army can’t help with.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Do you know what’s over there?” Cheng Yang asked while pointing in the direction they were traveling.

“Well, we’re going south, but I don’t know what we’ll find. After the earthquake, it could be anything.”

“If we keep walking that way, we’re going to find Yicheng. No one from Yicheng has posted anything on the forums yet, which means there’s not a safe zone there. My visions say the same thing. Anyways, it must be tough for anyone still living out there.”

“Yoko, you’re not planning on saving the people of Yicheng, are you? With just the three of us?”

“Yep, we three are going to save them.”

At this point, despite her trust in Cheng Yang, Liu Wei had to say something.

“Cheng Yang, how do you plan to save them with just us? You’re powerful, but if we have to escort those people several kilometers through the wilderness, even you won’t be able to protect them.”

“We’re not going to bring them back. My visions also showed me that there’s a Territory Altar near Yicheng. We’ll clear out any big hordes near the city then allow them to perform class change ceremonies in a village.”

Liu Wei and Lau Hui looked at each other, no longer able to refute Cheng Yang’s claim. As long as they provided a way for the citizens of Yicheng to become Professionals, the three of them could help the citizens help themselves.

Cheng Yang wasn’t initially going to visit Yicheng even though there were two Territory Altar there. However, after what happened yesterday, he realized it would be foolish not to expand his strength as quickly as possible.

Although the Bone-Eating Ant Nest might have appeared in his last life too, after hearing that the gods were watching him, Cheng Yang grew paranoid. Most of his geographical knowledge was probably still accurate, but everything else was starting to change. He could no longer expect the little details from his previous life to carry over.

He now, more than ever, needed to solidify his position of power, and expanding the number of territories under his control was the best way to do so.

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Almost every safe zone leader around the world had recognized the importance of stationing an intelligence officer inside the Tavern. Shortly after Cheng Yang listed his Stones of Return, every leader knew about it.

Since the end of the world, people couldn’t help but notice the similarities between the gods’ rules and modern video games. As such, many leaders had religiously studied video games from the past and knew that some form of return function must exist. The only problem was, they didn’t know how to unlock it. So, as soon as they saw the Stone of Return, they realized they’d found what they were looking for.

Without a doubt, anyone with the Stone of Return in their hands would be completely safe. All they needed was for their subordinates to buy enough time for them to escape!

When someone bought the first Stone of Return, countless people cursed themselves for being so stingy. If they had just raised the price a little faster, they would have an indisposable tool. Even if it was a consumable, it was a life-saving object.

This disappointment didn’t last long since a new Stone of Return was listed a few minutes later. One safe zone leader, in particular, saw that and instantly bought it. She was a cowardly and vicious person, so the ability to escape death was a very precious thing to her.

Just when people thought their chances were gone, another Stone of Return was listed!

By now, it was clear that someone had obtained several Stones of Return and was selling most of them. Some of the more observant individuals were even able to associate the appearance of these items with the disappearance of a God Quest. However, for both groups of people, there was only one question in their mind: how many stones did this person still have?

Some people weren’t able to ease their anxiety and decided to buy a stone right away just in case there were only a few. However, once those wealthy individuals were out of the way, the price fell, but not once did an auction finish without the stone selling.

Watching stone after stone sell for astronomical prices, many people grew uneasy. If this was one person like they thought, they had just become the wealthiest person on the planet. Since this morning, very few leaders dared to plunder the resources of their populace, so the number of Experience Fragments they watched flow through the Auction House to that person was enough to make them green with envy. Almost every leader had concluded that a single strong individual couldn’t defeat an organized military force. However, someone with that many Experience Fragments for training would still become a monster they couldn’t provoke.

At the same time, Yuan Jianzhe was contemplating in the silence of his condo’s attic. A few moments later, he broke that silence when his subordinate Lao Wu entered.

“How many stones were you able to buy?” Yuan Jianzhe asked in a grave voice.

“Only one.” Lao Wu said apologetically. “Since we aren’t willing to pay more than six thousand for a stone, it took a while for the price to fall.”

Yuan Jianzhe naturally understood that the limitation he placed on Lao Wu made it too difficult to obtain that many so he wasn’t upset.

“They’re disposable items, so don’t invest too much into them since we still need more funds for Project Uplift. Still, try and buy a few more even if it means throwing money towards that bastard.” Yuan Jianzhe said. “Someone else would do it if we didn’t, so it doesn’t matter in the end.”

Yuan Jianzhe wasn’t a foolish man. He had already connected the dots between the God Quest that disappeared and the Stones of Return. Considering the nature of the quest, in Yuan Jianzhe’s mind, only that monster who cut down humans like wheat could have completed it so quickly.

“Is there any news on the forums?” Yuan Jianzhe asked. “Did Cheng Yang post anything?”

“There’s too much to sort through. Dozens of people are claiming to be the ones selling the stones, but none of them have any proof.” Lao Wu replied.

“That’s to be expected. There are scammers anywhere you go and plenty of fools around.” Yuan Jianzhe snorted. “Those fools on the forums are likely to end up dead.”

“You’re right, commander.” Lao Wu replied. “By my estimates, Cheng Yang’s earned more than six hundred thousand Experience Fragments by now. Anyone claiming to have that much is going to find themselves in a lot of trouble.”

“Since that rat Cheng Yang is progressing so quickly, please tell me the investigation had good results.” Yuan Jianzhe asked with a bitter sigh.

After losing to Cheng Yang that day, Yuan Jianzhe came to an important conclusion: there was a place outside the safe zones that allowed people to perform class change ceremonies. Since that day, evidence continued to point to that being true. So much that even ordinary safe zone leaders believed it was a possibility.

That evidence was, of course, the various items listed in the Auction House. Architecture drawing, statue lifting stones, and even different class change statues were listed, but none of them could be used in the safe zones. The only logical conclusion was the existence of something else.

Although the existence of safe zones outside Cloud City wouldn’t explain Cheng Yang’s overpowered abilities, it would allow Yuan Jianzhe to find the source of Cheng Yang’s army.

Thus, Yuan Jianzhe violated the contract he made with Cheng Yang the same day he signed it. Spies and scouts were sent to observe Cheng Yang’s subordinates, and a check the status bridges Cheng Yang wanted to control.

Sure enough, although the Western Bridge under Yuan Jianzhe’s control was teeming with monsters, the other three were completely cleared. As such, Yuan Jianzhe ordered a long term investigation mission to explore the other side of the bridges. Today was the day that mission was supposed to end.

“Commander, the investigation was a complete success. All of our scouts returned alive and without being detected. It seems Cheng Yang believes the contract was enough to stop us from investigating him.”

Hearing this, Yuan Jianzhe sneered. “What a fool. He may be powerful, but he’s just one man. I’d like to see him stop us once our preparations are finished. What were the results of the investigation?”

“People are passing through the Northern and Southern bridges every day to hunt monsters and obtain refugee laborers. Our scouts followed those teams and found two outposts in the wilderness. We also checked the Eastern bridge but couldn’t find anything, but there’s strong evidence a third outpost exists to the East.”

“So, there was something out there. Is there another one to the West, or did Cheng Yang let us keep that bridge because he couldn’t find one?” Yuan Jianzhe’s eyes lit up. “We’ll need to explore that possibility later, but for now, were we able to determine the size of Cheng Yang’s army?”

“We were able to make some inferences. We weren’t able to observe the outposts for long, but Cheng Yang should only control around fifteen hundred soldiers but as many as twenty-two hundred if a third outpost exists.”

“Just fifteen hundred?” Yuan Jianzhe frowned. “Are you sure? That’s far too few. Are they all as strong as Liu Wei?”

“No. Their average soldier is stronger than ours, but only so much that a single monster wouldn’t trouble them. They probably have more Standard-Grade soldiers proportionally but less overall.” Lao Wu replied. “Other than that, they are better equipped than us, meaning they control more instance dungeons that just the one in the city.”

“Good, that means Project Uplift was the right choice.” Yuan Jianzhe said once Lao Wu said that Liu Wei was an exception. Although Cheng Yang was a monster, Liu Wei was a more shocking existence in Yuan Jianzhe’s mind. In less than a week, she had developed from an ordinary civilian to a person capable of slaughtering dozens of soldiers.

Yuan Jianzhe wracked his brains on how that was possible and eventually concluded that her Innate Abilities must be unique. He’d read on the forum that several Unique Innate Abilities had been discovered, and quite a few were absurd. Whenever he thought about how he personally handed a treasure like Liu Wei to Cheng Yang, he gnashed his teeth, but at least now he had a way forwards.

Since there were powerful individuals hidden among the city’s populace, Yuan Jianzhe started project uplift to find every last one of them. His previously passive attitude towards civilians becoming Professionals morphed into an aggressive push to pay for every single person within the safe zone performs a class change ceremony and forcing them to reveal their system panes. In addition, he ordered his soldiers to focus as much labor as possible towards rescuing civilians from the ruins since any one of them could turn into a hidden ace as useful as Liu Wei would have been.

Although allowing so many people access to power would destabilize the safe zone and possibly even fragment his authority, it was the only choice Yuan Jianzhe could make. If he didn’t act decisively, Cheng Yang would come back and devour the safe zone eventually.

“Have we found anyone useful yet?” Yuan Jianzhe asked.

“Several dozen candidates have Unique Innate Abilities, but none of them seem as powerful as Liu Wei.” Lao Wu replied. “They will raise the combat prowess of our armies, but they won’t help us in a battle against Cheng Yang.”

“Keep looking. Less than a quarter of the population have performed class change ceremonies. There’s bound to be someone useful out there.” Yuan Jianzhe said, unaffected by the lack of progress. “And if there isn’t, we still have the artillery project.”

“About that commander.” Lao Wu said with an awkward face. “We’ve run into an issue with the artillery. Most of our weapons specialists are dead, so progress has been slow. We’ve tried to contact specialists using the forums, but if we don’t receive help, it will take a few weeks.”

After the earthquake at the start of the apocalypse, electrical equipment stopped working, which fried the firing mechanisms on most of the advanced weaponry Yuan Jianzhe had in his arsenal. However, the actual explosives were still active, so if the ignition method was switched to manual or mechanical they could still be used.

Doing so was only a matter of time. The real question was, how much damage would the advanced weaponry deal? A handgun only dealt three or four, while a rifle could deal up to seven. The most potent weapons the military possessed right now were the USES armor-piercing sniper rifles, which dealt between ten and twelve damage. Regardless of the number, Yuan Jianzhe was satisfied that the artillery would deal damage to multiple enemies.

“Do whatever you need to to make the artillery usable by next week.” Yuan Jianzhe said. “We’ve already lost prestige among the militias, and without the ability to control the civilians that became Professionals, the safe zone will be splintered.”

“Commander, I also have something to report regarding the monsters outside the safe zone.” Lao Wu said, “The number of Standard-Grade monsters has increased greatly. If we don’t do something, casualties will skyrocket.”

“What do you suggest.”

“Right now, we’ve spread our elite soldiers among the ordinary ones, but that strategy will grant diminishing returns in the future.” Lao Wu explained. “I suggest we gather all of our elites into a single unit. It will act as our sword and neuter hordes so that our ordinary soldiers can clean up the rest.”

“Do it. Even if lives are cheap now that we’ve planned to have everyone perform class change ceremonies, we can’t afford the loss of respect heavy casualties will cause.”

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Ten minutes later, someone finally made the minimum bid of three thousand Experience Fragments.

It was stingy but to be expected. As long as no one else noticed the auction, the bidder would walk away with minimized expenses. Cheng Yang chuckled at that mindset, and the next ten minutes bashed the first bidder’s hope.

3,500…

4,000…

5,000…

7,500…

9,000…
When the auction finished, the final price was nine thousand seventy-seven Experience Fragments.

Stones of Return were consumables in the first place, so Cheng Yang was more than pleased to get eight times returns. Since it was still useful as a life-saving trump card, several cowardly leaders around the world wanted it.

Of course, if they knew the price Cheng Yang bought it at, the Stone of Return would be treated like the other overpriced items in the Auction House.

A moment later, the boy from earlier brought Cheng Yang a card that increased his Experience Fragment balance by eight thousand points.

After buying a bag of stones, Cheng Yang had less than twenty thousand Experience Fragments. Even if he sold each one for half the value of the first, he’d have nearly half a million Experience Fragments. Then, he could buy the other hundred from the Grocery and do it all again.

Cheng Yang listed a second stone of return on the forum. This time, however, he added a “buy it now” price of ten thousand Experience Fragments. He wanted to see if there were any rich bastards in this new world.

Unlike the first listing, this one got bids as soon as it was posted. Its relatively low price for the auction house and usefulness had attracted a lot of attention from leaders around the world.

Five minutes in, the stone was bought. Someone must have been infuriated by losing the first stone and paid the high price to guarantee it fell into their hands.

Satisfied with the efficiency of earning money using the Stones of Return, Cheng Yang prepared to leave the Tavern. He had never planned to sit here and sell each one individually since it would be too time-consuming. Luckily, there was a way to sell items in bulk.

The first was to list them as a whole. The other was to set up each item to list after someone bought the current one.

The boy from before retrieved the whole bag of stones from Cheng Yang before he left the Tavern. Once he did, Cheng Yang visited the Grocery. He wanted to reserve all of the Stones of Return for himself and asked the manager not to sell them to the public.

Since Cheng Yang was the Lord, and it didn’t matter as long as someone bought the items, the manager agreed. He could only keep two hundred in the store at a time, so the more he sold each day, the better.

It was now four in the afternoon, so Cheng Yang decided to go hunt monsters.

Although it was no longer profitable in terms of Experience Fragments, Cheng Yang knew the importance of honing his skills. Every battle, big or small, would allow him to take another step forwards.

Cheng Yang hadn’t planned to finish his God Quest until tomorrow morning, so he had arranged for Liu Wei to train under the supervision of Xue Yu. The members of the Imperial Guard were absolutely loyal to Cheng Yang, so they were the only people he trusted not to leak Liu Wei’s skills and importance.

Now that Cheng Yang planned to hunt monsters at a leisurely pace, he wanted to bring Liu Wei to accompany him. Xue Yu couldn’t leave the territory’s boundaries, so any battle were low intensity and one-on-two. As such, Cheng Yang wanted to bring her deeper into the forest for stricter training.

Cheng Yang found the duo while they were looking for monsters.

After over a week of constant fighting and hiking, Liu Wei’s previous fragile appearance was disappearing. Although it wouldn’t affect your stats, the exercise would still improve your physique. Her legs were filling out with muscle, and she had visibly more energy than before. In addition, her previously long hair had been cut short with a sword, leaving it choppy and asymmetrical. She now looked more similar to the seasoned warrior Xue Yu than the idols of the old world.

Liu Wei had long since learned that beauty without strength was a sin in this world. She had learned that lesson the hard way, and now that Cheng Yang gave her a chance to change her fate, she would do everything in her power to do so.

Seeing this, Cheng Yang couldn’t help but smile. Even with a bare face and hairy legs, this Liu Wei was infinitely more beautiful to him than the old one since her skills were enough even to make him envious.

“Hey.” Cheng Yang called out to Liu Wei with a smile. “I finished my work early today and thought we could go hunting together.”

“I’d love to.” Liu Wei visibly lit up when she saw Cheng Yang. “Tell me how your quest went.”

Cheng Yang dismissed Xue Yu and spent the next half hour chatting with Liu Wei on their way to better hunting grounds. Along the way, Cheng Yang shared his plan for the Stones of Return with Liu Wei and showed her how his Experience Fragments total would skyrocket every few minutes.

Unfortunately, the good times didn’t last forever. After over a dozen Stones of Return were bought for the price of ten thousand Experience Stones, people caught on to the high supply. As such, the price stabilized around six thousand Experience Fragments. For Cheng Yang, even that was good since it was five times returns.

“You seem to be in a good mood.” Liu Wei said with a light laugh. “Those auctions you set up must be doing well.”

“How could I not be happy when a cash cow like that falls into my lap? With these funds, I’ll have enough money to do anything I want.” Cheng Yang boasted. “In fact, I’ll even start paying for your training costs, so Old Lee doesn’t have to.”

Liu Wei’s eyes flashed with surprise. Then she furiously shook her head. “There’s no need to do that, Cheng Yang. I kill plenty of monsters when we travel together, and I’ve been paying for it myself these last few days. I’m confident that I could pay to train at the next level of training speed if you wanted me to.”

Cheng Yang rolled his eyes. “Do you think it would be so cheap? Do you know how many Experience Fragments it would even take to unlock the next stage?”

“Well, if the pattern doesn’t change, I think its a million?”

“Yep, a million. So the training costs will be nearing the ten thousand mark.”

“Well, once you unlock the next level of training speed for me, I’ll need to work hard.” Liu Wei said with a charming lilt as she stuck out her tongue.

Cheng Yang groaned at that cheeky response. Even if she could make enough to pay the nightly costs, it would be a long time before Cheng Yang accumulated the Experience Fragments needed to unlock 64-times training speed. To do so would require the equivalent of killing a million Low-Grade monsters. It was a daunting feat.

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While Cheng Yang was fretting over how to spend his influx of Experience Fragments, leaders around the world were wracked with anxiety.

Ever since that earthquake signaled the end of the world, the global political power balance had been in the process of reshuffling. Prominent political organizations of the past were pushed aside in favor of more militant ones.

In Cheng Yang’s previous life, a full three-fifths of the safe zones on the world were controlled by former military commanders. Even in safe zones where that wasn’t the case, military personnel were able to influence the direction of that safe zone’s leadership.

In addition to military forces, there were safe zones controlled by militarized police forces, corporate entities, and criminal syndicates.

Many of these new leaders fancied themselves the rulers of modern empires and desired a return to the imperial age. Today, however, that had changed. At the end of the week, no less than a sixth of the world’s leaders would be permanently banished from their safe zones and left to die.

As for the rest, most of them only stayed in power because their subordinates were worse than they were and acted as a shield.

After this incident, the leaders and public officials of safe zones would begin to restrain themselves. Some even stooped to distributing Experience Fragments in massive public campaigns in the hopes that the populace would spare them.

Thus, although the safe zones weren’t peaceful, a tenuous order was created since there were no longer despotic leaders in charge.

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After sending off Old Lee, Cheng Yang visited the Mission Hall to turn in his God Quest.

Once he did, a strange light twirled down from the screen and enveloped Cheng Yang.

“Congratulations, mortal Lord. Your bravery has astounded the gods, and they’ve seen fit to reward you most generously. For their enjoyment, continue to struggle and suffer. It pleases them greatly.”

As the light swirled around Cheng Yang, the messenger of the gods whispered in his ear. It was an odd sensation since the voice was usually booming, but it wasn’t an unpleasant one. However, Cheng Yang couldn’t help but feel spooked by the messenger’s words. Nothing good could come from the gods’ attention.

A moment later, the light condensed into a circular token which landed in Cheng Yang’s hand.

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Stone of Return Business License
This license, granted by the gods, allows the sale of the specialty item “Stone of Return” by the Phoenix Village Grocery at a sales tax rate of twenty percent.

Stone of Return: Teleports you to a previously visited territory or safe zone

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When Cheng Yang read the item’s system pane, his heart fell into his stomach. The Stone of Return was far too practical. It was a must-have for anyone, even if it was less useful than it appeared to be from the description. Not to mention, since there was no way the Stone of Return would be cheap, the territory would benefit immensely from the taxes on the item.

Although the gods gave this to him for now, Cheng Yang was confident it would eventually spread to other territories since other specialty products earned in his previous life did. However, if he handled this properly, he could become a very wealthy man before it did.

Cheng Yang immediately sprinted towards the Grocery. Once he arrived, he handed the license to the manager without a word.

“My Lord, you… How did you get this?” The manager asked with an excited and reverent voice. To be able to sell a specialty item was the dream of any merchant, so how could he not be excited.

“It’s just a new product.” Cheng Yang smugly. “With me here, you’ll be seeing tokens like this a lot.”

“I will? If it’s you, then maybe. Together we can turn this into the best Grocery on this planet!” The manager said with confidence.

“Now hurry up and get permission to start selling.”

The manager swiftly ducked into a back room and returned a few minutes later.

“My Lord, I’ve received the first shipment of goods along with some fantastic news!” The manager said with a smile bursting at the seams. “Since we’re the first territory to start selling a specialty product, they increased my sales authority to tier two! Now I can sell two hundred Stones of Return instead of a hundred. Normally I’d need to sell them for a few weeks to get my sales authority increased!”

“Good. Give me all of them.” Cheng Yang said with the air of a wealthy man.

The manager’s mood fell instantly, and an awkward expression bloomed on his face. “My Lord, this product is a little expensive, so I’m not sure-“

“How much are they? Are you worried I can’t pay?” Cheng Yang asked, annoyed by the manager’s shift in attitude.

“My Lord, I highly value your patronage and dedication to my store, but each Stone of Return cost a thousand Experience Fragments, so you lack the financial capability to purchase two hundred.” The manager explained carefully. “I want to let you use credit, but until your citizens spend more at my store, I’m afraid I can’t.”

“Fine. Give me a hundred stones for now.” Cheng Yang said with a sigh.

This time, the manager didn’t hesitate. He immediately pulled a box down from a shelf behind the counter and started to move quail egg sized stones into a bag. They were covered entirely in mysterious engravings that pulsated with light blue energy.

“That will be a hundred thousand Experience Fragments, my Lord.” The manager said with dollar signs in his eyes.

As much as it hurt Cheng Yang to do, he transferred his life savings over to the manager. Then, he took the bag and left the Grocery.

When he checked the system pane for a Stone of Return, he was pleased to see it was worth the price.

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Stone of Return
These stones were crafted by Dwarven smiths then perfected by the ancient Orcish mages before they lost access to magic. Now they are used by those who struggle in the countless planes for a second chance at life.

Effect: Teleports the user to a previously visited territory or safe zone
Restriction: Unusable if a skill was used in the past three minutes
Cast Time: Three seconds
Cooldown: 24 hours
Uses Remaining: Three

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Cheng Yang didn’t go far after leaving. He walked over to the Tavern and ordered an expensive meal with a drink.

There were only a few other non-NPCs in the building. Since the army had strict administration, there was almost no one who spent time here.

Cheng Yang found a place to sit down and then opened the Auction House. To his surprise, there were already several hundred items listed. Each and every one of them was something weird and powerful. It appeared as if people listed anything they didn’t understand how to use.

What kinds of items were people unaware of at this point? Anything related to Lordship and territories. They couldn’t be used in the safe zones, so even if someone found one, there wasn’t anything they could do with it.

Of course, even if they were confused, they could still read the items system pane. As such, most of the items were listed at very high prices. Not one of them cost less than fifty-thousand Experience Fragments, and some were in the millions.

Some of the items must have been found in the ruins of a city like the Imperial Guard Pavilion blueprints while the rest were rewards from getting the first clear of an instance dungeon. As long as you entered with fifty Standard-Grade Apprentices, it was possible to clear the Easy Difficulty of a Team-Size instance dungeon. By now, a large number of elites have entered the Standard-Grade, and several safe zones had dozens. As long as the population was high enough and the leaders ambitious enough, it was an easily achievable feat.

While the percentage of safe zones capable of forming a force that can clear in instance dungeon was in the single digits, there were thousands of safe zones globally.

Cheng Yang was curious, so he scrolled through the Auction House and found a few items of interest.

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Divine Phoenix Garden Blueprints
These blueprints allow the construction of several Divine Phoenix Gardens.

This walled garden increases the efficiency of the meditation skill by 120% for up to five people.

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The Divine Phoenix Garden was the same type of building as the Meditation Hall, but it was far better. It was even better than the expensive villas in the safe zone, which only doubled meditation efficiency. However, the owner had listed it at five million Experience Fragments. It was unfortunate, but there was no way for Cheng Yang to purchase it.

As disappointed as he was, Cheng Yang had to admit it was a fair price. The monthly rent for the best villa in the safe zones was a hundred thousand Experience Fragments, so, for a replicable, permanent structure, five million was the absolute minimum.

Even if he had the money, however, Cheng Yang wouldn’t waste it on those blueprints. For that amount, hundreds of soldiers could unlock eight-times training speed, so it wasn’t worth it unless he had so much money he didn’t know what to do with it.

There was also a statuette that unlocked a new secondary class listed for two million Experience Fragments. Naturally, Cheng Yang wouldn’t buy it.

Cheng Yang could only sigh. Did these fools think anyone would buy those? They had to understand the value Experience Fragments held, right? Couldn’t they make it a bit cheaper so he could snatch all the good things up?

Dispirited by the high prices, stopped browsing the Auction House.

Cheng Yang opened up a new listing and had the terminal scan one of his Stones of Return. Its description was copied into the listing, and then Cheng Yang set a base bidding price of three thousand Experience Fragments. Finally, he set a time limit of thirty minutes.

Cheng Yang’s idea was simple, list all of the Stones of Return he bought on the Auction House and reap massive profits. Since everyone else was being greedy, Cheng Yang figured he should milk as much out of his specialty product as he can. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be worth it.

As soon as the listing was posted, a waiter visited the table and retrieved the Stone of Return.

After the waiter took the stone into the back of the Tavern, Cheng Yang ate his meal while staring at the auction listing.

Ten minutes later, there were no changes.

Cheng Yang wasn’t in a hurry. People wouldn’t want to buy something as soon as they saw it, and the listing time was reasonably short, so he wasn’t expecting much. Once the timer was close to finished, people would start bidding.

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Cheng Yang was curious why that one Bone-Eating Ant was so concerned with getting away. As soon as the Freeze debuff wore off, it tried to run again. As far as Cheng Yang knew, the only creatures capable of resisting the urge to kill humans were those like the Orcs: monsters that were more like humans.

However, Bone-Eating Ants were far from reaching the point of resisting that urge. Perhaps this one was special? It would explain why they were able to trap Cheng Yang so easily.

Cheng Yang followed the ant, and seeing it glance behind itself in fear was a thoroughly creepy experience. After chasing it a few steps, Cheng Yang reached down and grabbed the ant.

As soon as he did, the ant bit him. It only dealt four damage, but that meant it was already a Pinnacle-Grade monster. Still, that shouldn’t be enough to grant it intelligence.

“Odd.” Cheng Yang remarked as the ant tried to gnaw through his gloves. Although it was painful, Cheng Yang had gone through worse in the last hour alone. The ability to fight through pain and injury was an essential quality in this world, and Cheng Yang had honed it to the max.

The ant desperately struggled to break Cheng Yang’s grip, but there was no way it could. Seeing this, a smile appeared on Cheng Yang’s face for the first time since he discovered the Bone-Eating Ant Nest.

He had initially planned to destroy the Nest entirely. However, he hadn’t expected to capture the leader alive. Since he did, there would be a change of plans.

What use was the leader alive? Since they were the core of a Nest, as long as they were alive, the Nest couldn’t be destroyed. Conversely, as soon as the leader was killed, the Nest would collapse, and any remaining monsters would disperse.

Cheng Yang could only assume the ant wanted to escape so that the Nest would survive, and it could rebuild its army. Little did it know, Cheng Yang planned to let it do just that.

Since its army was dead and its foundation destroyed. If Cheng Yang let the leader live, it would make the Nest into a key farming location for Phoenix Village. As long as they were diligent in killing the ant and were wary about the leader’s scheming, there wouldn’t be any danger.

It might seem like a rash decision, but in around two months, the spawn rate for wild monsters would become nearly zero. As more monsters established Nests, the monster density would become too high to support monsters spawning in the wild until a Nest was destroyed.

As such, keeping the leader alive killed two birds with one stone. It provided a consistent stream of monsters from the Nest, and it guaranteed the monster density would be low enough that wild monsters could spawn.

In the future, this area would become a vital source of income for the territory and its soldiers since the only other option would be to either attack a Nest or wait for a Nest to attack you. The former was a horrible idea since the monsters had a home-field advantage, and while the other was slightly better, the cost of defeat was annihilation. Thus, while he was worried about how smart the leader was, to Cheng Yang, a known threat was better than a hidden one.

Cheng Yang quickly brought the Bone-Eating Ant leader to its Nest and threw it onto the anthill. It was a massive structure covering around forty-square meters and two meters tall at its peak.

From what he knew, this was a Low-Grade Nest, which would produce around a thousand Bone-Eating Ants each day. The most massive Nest recorded for Bone-Eating Ants was a Standard-Grade one, which created an army with an estimated size of ten million.

This army then destroyed every village surrounding Kabul and was only defeated after fifty-thousand soldiers sacrificed their lives.

When Cheng Yang saw the leader hurriedly burrow into the anthill, he breathed out a sigh of relief. A calamity had been avoided, and a juicy piece of meat had been placed onto his doorstep.

Cheng Yang lingered for a moment longer, calculating the labor needed to create a clearing around the Nest. The Bone-Eating Ants were nothing but cattle now, but they still deserved a wide berth.

As he surveyed the area, Cheng Yang noticed a fluctuation of magical energy.

“Of course, how could these monsters be this powerful and not have a reward.” Cheng Yang chuckled as he dusted off a chest half-buried in the anthill. He then opened it and pulled out the item within.

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Bone-Gnawing Bead (Low-Grade)
Bone-Eating Ants aren’t natural creatures. They are the descendants of a powerful bio-weapon developed by a deranged alchemist. Although they escaped into the wild and devolved after the great war ended, several of the original summoning beads still exists.

Effect: Summon 100 Low-Grade Bone-Gnawing Ants
Duration: 10 seconds
Cooldown: 24 hours
Upgrade Condition: 10,000 Experience Fragments

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It was a very powerful item, and once Cheng Yang checked the stats of the Bone-Gnawing Ant, he was even more shocked. They were twice as powerful as Bone-Eating Ants!

With this bead, he would be able to deal two hundred damage per second to any enemy he encountered. Since it ignored armor, it was a guaranteed two thousand damage so long as the enemy didn’t have an AOE attack. Now, even if he fought a Mature monster, he wouldn’t be afraid.

If the Low-Grade bead was this useful, Cheng Yang was eager to see what the upgraded version would be like. However, the upgrade condition was terrifying. Although ten thousand Experience Fragments wasn’t a lot, it wasn’t a small amount either. Moreover, that was just to upgrade it once. How much would it cost to upgrade the item fully?

Despite those problems, Cheng Yang smiled. It was always comforting to have an additional hidden ace. He slipped the bead into his ring and left. Since he had completed the God Quest, there wasn’t any point in running around like a headless chicken.

He also needed to assign a team to patrol the Bone-Eating Ant Nest quickly. If their numbers were allowed to grow, it would become a problem ordinary soldiers wouldn’t be able to solve.

Although he had a lot on his mind, Cheng Yang made sure not to show it on his face after returning to Phoenix Village. As the Lord, he had a responsibility to inspire confidence in his citizens.

As soon as he got back, Cheng Yang summoned Old Lee to his Meditation Hall. Luckily, Old Lee was still in the village, so he arrived promptly.

“My Lord, this is amazing! We only need to post four guards, but we’ll be able to harvest over a thousand Experience Fragments a day just from that! The efficiency is outstanding.” Old Lee praised Cheng Yang after hearing about the Nest. “I’m worried about what may happen in the future, but I’ll trust that you’ve considered those problems, my Lord.”

“I have.” Cheng Yang replied, “We also should station more than just a handful of guards since its possible a horde may wander into the area.”

“I will do what you believe is best, my Lord.” Old Lee said, content to follow Cheng Yang’s orders.

“Set up a guard rotation for me, but before that, I need you to clear the area around the Nest.” Cheng Yang said, “Clear out any vegetation and make sure there isn’t anywhere an ant could hide. By the way, feel free to assign members of Zhao Chuan and Lau Hui’s battalions to guard duty as well.”

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Cheng Yang’s heart was racing. How far ahead had the ants planned? Should he break through the high-level ants and return to the clearing? Or should he escape down the path and try to outrun them? Either way, if he kept running at full speed, he’d run out of stamina soon, and the gods’ rules would force the Fatigued effect onto him, quartering his Movement Speed. If that happened, he was dead.

At the same time, hundreds of ants started to pour out of the trees and sprout from the ground. Some of them joined the ants blocking the path to the clearing, but most of them created a massive swarm blocking Cheng Yang’s other escape route.

Cheng Yang anxiously batted away the ants near him away as his heart pounded in his chest. Was he going to die here?

No! He’d come too far to die like this! They’re just a bunch of ants!

Cheng Yang tried to boost his morale, but even if he was optimistic, these Bone-Eating Ants weren’t an easy opponent.

Cheng Yang couldn’t tell but, he was able to estimate that there were at least five thousand ants in his immediate vicinity. This meant that if he ran, at the very least, he’d avoid the majority of the hoard.

Cheng Yang grit his teeth, then dug his heels into the ground. As long as he had two working legs, he wouldn’t give up, and he wouldn’t stop running. As long as there was a chance he would survive, Cheng Yang would take hold of it!

With a superhuman leap, Cheng Yang broke through the swarm blocking his trail. Although he used Petal Blizzard to help clear a path, Cheng Yang couldn’t avoid having nearly two dozen ants attach themselves to his clothing.

Cheng Yang grimaced in pain as several painful bites assaulted his senses. In response, Cheng Yang could only grimace. He couldn’t counter-attack, and if he ripped them off one at a time, he would die. The only thing he could do was to drink a Health Recovery potion carefully.

Although Cheng Yang hadn’t taken much damage, he needed to be mindful of the potions cooldown. If he waited to maximize his benefits, it might end up being too late once he was low-health again.

Cheng Yang rushed forwards, but he couldn’t escape the trap he had landed in. Although most of the ants were in a swarm behind him, they didn’t need more than a handful to kill him. Worse still was that the ants in the trees were using bent branches to launch themselves at him. They might be slow on their own, but with the help of physics, they were almost faster than Cheng Yang.

As he ran, ants endlessly rushed towards Cheng Yang, and any that reached him immediately tore a chunk of flesh off his body.

As soon as the cooldown was finished, Cheng Yang drank another potion. He couldn’t help it, with so many Bone-Eating Ants covering his body, it was a miracle he hadn’t died already.

Cheng Yang felt like he was drowning in a sea of ants. If he stopped for even a moment, the sea would envelop him, and his bones would be ground to dust by its waves. He could feel tiny legs scampering across his body and an ant biting through his cheek.

Their thin bodies were flexible, and their feet clung to his clothes like velcro. In the blink of an eye, they would rush up his legs and into his robes. By then, Cheng Yang couldn’t remove them by hand.

Right as Cheng Yang felt like the sea was about to swallow him whole, Petal Blizzard finished casting and depleted his Mana. In an instant, every ant around him died. They were torn to shreds by the deceptively beautiful petals that skillfully danced around their master.

Once he was able to take a breath, Cheng Yang noticed that he only had twenty-two Health left. That is to say, if only another twenty-two ants reached him, he would die.

Cheng Yang felt like puking. He had experienced several dangerous situations, but none of them had the phycological stress this one did. It felt like he was carefully balancing on a razor-sharp thread; one wrong step, and he’d fall into the abyss.

Pushing back bile, Cheng Yang forcibly chugged another Health Recovery Potion.

There were still countless ants around him, but Cheng Yang could feel his stamina bottoming out. If he could make it another fifty meters, he might have a chance to live.

The ants never gave him a chance. With every step he took, dozens crawled up his legs. His calves were nearly torn to the bone, and his feet would be utterly skeletal if not for his sturdy boots.

Cheng Yang was traveling at inhuman speeds, but the seven or eight steps he would need to break out of the encirclement were too much for him. Every step he took only increased the amount of damage he took, and now, he didn’t have any skills to save him.

After three steps, Cheng Yang was down to ninety Health. At this rate, he would die. Even if he jumped and avoided touching the ground as much as possible, there wasn’t a way he could survive.

As Cheng Yang took his fourth step, thousands of thoughts rushed through his mind. He was out of Mana, so none of his spells were useful now. He couldn’t drink a potion since they were on cooldown. Was there nothing he could do using the gods’ rules?

Wait! The rules! Why did he have to rely on them!

Cheng Yang had an epiphany as he remembered the actions the ants took earlier. They didn’t have a skill to catch him, so they used the environment around them!

Right before Cheng Yang’s next step hit the ground, his Alchemy furnace appeared on the ground. Softly landing on it, Cheng Yang used it as a springboard and leaped into the air.

As he began to fall once more, an epee appeared beneath his right foot. With a kick, Cheng Yang drove the sword into the ground and launched himself forwards.

One after another, items fell out of Cheng Yang’s Spacial Ring as he flew across the ant’s blockade.

Cheng Yang ripped the remaining ants off his body as he ran across his makeshift bridge and one he escaped the ants trap. He drank a Mana potion and finished them off with a Petal Blizzard.

Cheng Yang didn’t want to check his Health. If he knew how close to death he was, he wouldn’t be able to focus on what came next. He continued to run at a leisurely pace, and once he’d had another Health Recovery potion, he turned around to face his enemy.

Since they had failed to kill him, Cheng Yang would bury every last one of these ants! His eyes gleamed with measured madness.

The Bone-Eating Ants were crafty, but a trick like that only worked once. Now that he was aware of their capabilities, Cheng Yang treated every one of their moves like a potential trap. As such, Cheng Yang slowly whittled down their number over the course of half an hour. Cheng Yang was so focused on utterly annihilating his prey, that he completely missed the notification telling him he had completed a God Quest.

Finally, less than a hundred ants remained. It was only then that Cheng Yang could feel himself relax.

However, as Cheng Yang prepared for victory, he noticed one of the ants trying to escape into the foliage.

Did ants fear death? If so, it was the first Cheng Yang had heard of it. Regardless, Cheng Yang wouldn’t let it escape.

“Freeze!” Cheng Yang used Hibernation Chill to stop the ant from escaping while he finished off the others. This spell had leveled up as well, so Cheng Yang quickly killed the other ants during the three-second stun.

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Before he left, Cheng Yang noticed that the ants weren’t attacking him. Since he was safe for now, Cheng Yang decided to hide and watch them.

In the middle of the swarm of ants was a giant anthill taller than a person. When Cheng Yang saw it, he scrunched his eyebrows. Typical hordes needed to rely on natural spawn mechanics to increase their numbers. This would limit the size of a horde since the spawn rate decreased if there were too many monsters in one area. These ants, however, had built a Nest, a structure that allowed a horde to expand endlessly based on a fixed rate for their species. For the Bone-Eating Ant, this rate was horrifyingly high.

This wasn’t the first Nest Cheng Yang had found, after all, the Spined Eagles had also created one. That was why Cheng Yang had been so focused on annihilating them.

Now Cheng Yang wasn’t able to ignore the ants. If he didn’t deal with this problem now, Phoenix Village would be overrun by millions of Bone-Eating Ants one day. At the very least, he needed to cull their current numbers so a regular patrol could come and finish the job.

Cheng Yang didn’t remember there being a Bone-Eating Ant nest this close to Phoenix Village in his past life, but if there was, Yuan Jianzhe wouldn’t have been able to establish the territory at all. Was the future changing from his actions, or was there some hidden story Cheng Yang had discovered a remnant of. If so, what had destroyed this nest in his previous life?

Regardless of what happened before, Cheng Yang could only rely on himself to remove this danger to the village. By his estimate, there should already be several thousand Bone-Eating Ants in the nest and upwards of ten-thousand if he was unlucky.

However, what could Cheng Yang do about it? He may be powerful, but there was no guarantee he could do this on his own. But, if he brought his army to help deal with it, he’d lose dozens if not hundreds of soldiers.

There was no way Cheng Yang could accept that result, so the only way he could approach this problem was using methods similar to the ones he used when he was weaker: kiting and running away. No matter how dangerous these monsters were, the difference between their speed and his was like that of the heavens and earth.

It would take a long time, and if he ever messed up, he would probably die, but there wasn’t a better option.

Cheng Yang wasn’t going to attack without thoroughly preparing. Although he had a supply of potions on him at the moment, they wouldn’t be enough if something were to go wrong. Since the Alchemy Tower was now at the Standard-Grade level, he would be able to buy High-Grade potions.

Although High-Grade potions from the Alchemy tower were only as good as Cheng Yang’s Standard-Grade potions, Cheng Yang didn’t have enough to meet his needs. Nearly all of the potions he made were sold to the Alchemy Tower manager in the Cloud City safe zone, so he only had three on him. Cheng Yang had enough money that it wasn’t a loss, but he resolved to save more of the potions he made in the future.

Having made a decision, Cheng Yang backed away from the Nest and returned to Phoenix Village. Once he was there, he bought a fifty High-Grade Health Recovery potions and fifty High-Grade Mana Recovery potions for a total of two thousand Experience Fragments.

Cheng Yang also paid several soldiers so he could borrow their swords for a while. Although they wouldn’t be useful in a fight, if an accident happened and Cheng Yang died because he couldn’t cut through some bushes, he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself.

Less than half an hour later, Cheng Yang started to clear out the nest of Bone-Eating Ants. Although their other senses weren’t very strong, their ability to detect vibrations was unmatched. When Cheng Yang arrived, all he had to do was stomp to send every ant into a frenzy.

As the black carapaced wave of monsters surged towards Cheng Yang, a beautiful ice flower bloomed. To the ants, it was a meat grinder.

Over a hundred ants died from a single spell regardless of their level. Since their stats were so low, even a Mature Bone-Eating Ant would be instantly killed by Cheng Yang’s Petal Blizzard.

Despite his skill being the natural counter of a small monster like the Bone-Eating Ant, Cheng Yang was already retreating. Against an enemy like this, staying on the move was the only thing that mattered.

Less than two seconds later, Cheng Yang finished casting Petal Blizzard again. He aimed at the densest group of monsters and killed hundreds.

This pattern continued as Cheng Yang retreated at a pace somewhat higher than a High-Grade Bone-Eating Ant. As such, there were now three groups: a decimated group of High-Grade ants in front, a large group of Standard-Grade ants in the middle, and a teeming horde of Low-Grade ants in the back.

Unfortunately, once there were only a few dozen High-Grade ants left, they slowed down and started to move at the pace of the Low-Grade ants, causing them to sink into the background of the forest.

“These guys are pretty smart.” Cheng Yang said with a trace of a smile. “They know to reserve their strength, but what use is that if they can’t catch me?”

Only a minutes had passed since Cheng Yang disturbing the ant nest, during which he ran through a convoluted path he had hacked out of the undergrowth earlier. He did this to avoid returning to regularly patrolled areas since the ants would be a disaster for any soldiers that happened to pass by.

Suddenly, Cheng Yang noticed that the number of ants had decreased a bit too quickly. He hadn’t seen it before since the foliage was too thick, but once they entered a clearing, Cheng Yang realized there were only around two thousand left.

This realization covered Cheng Yang’s back with cold sweat. He didn’t have enough damage to lower their numbers that much in such a short amount of time, so where were the other ants?

With a growing sense of dread, Cheng Yang sprinted fifty meters down the path at full speed. He stopped to watch the ants in the clearing and pulled a potion out of his ring. He was nearly out of mana, so until he figured out the source of his uneasiness, Cheng Yang wanted to stay in peak condition.

However, right as Cheng Yang put the bottle to his lips, a Bone-Eating Ant fell out of the sky and bit his hand causing him to drop the bottle, spilling its contents everywhere.

Cheng Yang quickly grabbed the ant and threw it before looking up into the canopy above his. To his horrified surprise, it was teeming with thousands of ants.

Cheng Yang then felt a pinch near his feet as he lost a Health point. He looked down and saw hundreds of ants crawling out of fresh tunnels in the ground behind him.

Looking back, Cheng Yang saw the ants he left in the clearing charging at him. They were all Standard-Grade ants, so although they weren’t fast, it wasn’t a slow charge either.

Another ant fell on top of Cheng Yang and bit him, but Cheng Yang didn’t even realize. He was in shock, with his mouth gaping open. He’d been fooled. By a group of ants! They’d guessed his every move and played him like a fiddle. Despite every precaution he took, every promise he made to himself, was he about to be turned into bone meal even after coming so far in his new life?

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The reward for being a good person wasn’t astounding, but the punishment for bad people was incredibly severe.

Once people started claiming Territory Altars, exile wouldn’t be horrible, but right now, it was a death sentence. Exiled individuals wouldn’t be able to learn skills or buy supplies. Anyone could kill an exile without real consequences.

The lists were created to prevent a situation that was already happening worldwide where the leader of a city would prevent people from becoming Professionals. The gods’ objective was to help humanity evolve so people that opposed that goal would be thoroughly dealt with.

Although the new rules seemed to be applied fairly, an ordinary person couldn’t reach the top five of either list. To do so required one to affect a large portion of the population of a safe zone, which would only be possible for leaders of the various powers in a city. This added a second constraint to individuals trying to rule a safe zone and made it nearly impossible. Now, if someone wanted to be a ruler, they needed to claim a Territory Altar.

It was these new rules that made Cheng Yang confident that Yuan Jianzhe would never be able to crawl up from the pit Cheng Yang dug for him. Aside from that, however, Cheng Yang didn’t care about those new rules since it wouldn’t affect any of his villages. His only goal now was to complete the God Quest he’d accepted.

Unfortunately, another new rule affected that goal. The general spawn rate of monsters had been decreased again. It would be harder to find monsters now, and in the future, Pheonix Village’s revenue would decrease.

This rule ensured that the lead Cheng Yang had would be harder to lose since it would be difficult for any new territories to reach the High-Grade level.

While he was still close to the village, if Cheng Yang ran into a small group of monsters, he ignored them. As long as they spawned within a few kilometers of the village, they would naturally be taken care of by some soldiers. It wouldn’t be until Cheng Yang reached the ten-kilometer mark that larger groups would appear.

Once he did, Cheng Yang ran into some hordes with a hundred or so individuals, which became his appetizers. After a few rounds of casting Petal Blizzard, Cheng Yang continued on his way.

Cheng Yang’s Petal Blizzard skill leveled up a few days ago, increasing its damage by 5% and expanding the area it covered. Casting it once allowed Cheng Yang to kill nearly two dozen monsters, and although it couldn’t kill High-Grade monsters, it shredded anything at a lower level than that. Battles like that very child’s play for Cheng Yang thanks to his high Physical Defense and the support from his Ice Aegis spell.

After three hours of fighting, Cheng Yang finally reached an area that the soldiers of Phoenix Village never visited. If he wanted to complete the God Quest, he needed to clear every monster within a few kilometers.

Cheng Yang could no longer tell what the area he was in used to be. Maybe it had been a town or a factory in the past, but now it was nothing but dense, hostile forest. It was a dangerous area that only he could safely enter since it was common to find Pinnacle-Grade monsters hidden inside massive hordes.

When you were closer to a city, Pinnacle-Grade monsters would only spawn in hordes with at least a thousand monster, but out here, they would need less than three hundred. Although they would be difficult for Cheng Yang to kill, a single one wouldn’t be able to force him into a dangerous position.

Since no one had set foot in this area since the apocalypse, it was covered in dense brambles as thick as arms and covered with dank moist leaves. Walking through it was bad enough to make Cheng Yang swear the entire way. Why were there even leaves on the ground? It wasn’t autumn yet, so the land shouldn’t be covered like this. However, no matter how much Cheng Yang complained, the terrain didn’t change.

Suddenly, Cheng Yang heard a sharp hiss above him. Cheng Yang rolled forwards as a heavy object struck the ground behind him. Then, without looking, Cheng Yang fired an Icicle Blast at the object.

It turned out to be a Void Python. They would lurk inside a dimensional pocket before suddenly charging out if they saw prey. They were incredibly dangerous since, as solitary creatures, they were far stronger than average. This particular Void Python had been a High-Grade monster, but it sill died the instant Cheng Yang hit it.

“Tch, a little fellow like this isn’t even enough to let me relieve my stress.” Cheng Yang spat. He’d been using a low-quality sword to chop through the bushes, but its durability was nearly zero. Although it wasn’t expensive to fix, Cheng Yang hadn’t brought a lot with him.

Suddenly, Cheng Yang heard a rustle to his left. It was a disorganized sound which gave Cheng Yang hope that there were multiple monsters.

“Please be a couple hundred monsters.” Cheng Yang muttered as he crept through the trees. He traveled a few tens of meters, killing the occasional monster as he made his way towards the increasingly loud sound.

After nearly three hundred meters, Cheng Yang burst into a clearing and finally saw the source of the noise. When he did, he immediately turned around and tried to leave. The monsters he found weren’t scary, they were actually kind of cute, but they were ants.

These fist-sized ants were a particularly terrifying monster known as the Bone-Eating Ant. They were individually among the weakest monster in the world. Each one had less than ten health and a single point in the Physical Attack attribute. Even a normal person could kill one. However, their true strength lay in the numbers, small size, and Innate Ability.

Most monsters would only be able to attack in groups of five or six at most, but dozens of Bone Eating Ants could cover a person and all attack at once. Their Innate Ability, Sunder Armor, allowed a Bone-Eating Ant to ignore the usual penalties for attacking someone with a high Physical Defense and forcibly did damage equal to the level of the monster. The combination of the two created a twisted attack pattern where a colony of ants could deal tens of damage a second to even the stronger of foes.

If Cheng Yang wanted to clear a colony of Bone-Eating Ants, he would have to be prepared to take almost a hundred damage a second as a worst-case scenario. If that were to happen, Cheng Yang would be killed in seconds.

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Cheng Yang reached an empty terminal then checked the time.

It was nine-thirty in the morning.

A few days ago, Yu Kai had raided a luxury store while rescuing civilians. Inside were numerous expensive mechanical watched, one of which was given to Cheng Yang. Most watches stopped functioning after the earthquake, but anything without a battery still worked fine. As such, watches slike Cheng Yang’s were the easiest way to keep track of time.

“Just half an hour.” Cheng Yang muttered to himself. Half an hour was valuable to him, but it wasn’t long enough to justify going out to do something. By the time he started, it would already be time for him to return to the Quest Hall.

Ten minutes…

Twenty minutes…

Twenty-five minutes…

Time passed slowly, but eventually, ten o clock arrived, and with it came a familiar booming voice.

“Detestable worms, it would seem you’ve become far too comfortable after receiving the gods’ gift. They righteously allowed you to transcend your limits, but what did you do with it? Fight each other in pitiful mortal power struggles? They have deemed your actions abhorrent and sent me to deliver your punishment! No longer will your growth outpace the monsters surrounding you! However, the gods are also merciful. They have provided a way to quickly grow stronger for any mortals brave enough to grasp it! Do not disappoint them again!”

Everyone in the Quest Hall had a morbid face. Every time that damned voice appeared, something horrible happened. I had announced the apocalypse, then a monster mass evolution occurred, and now it declared that they would level up faster than humans!

Before anyone could react, a bright light blinded them as a new screen appeared at the back of the Quest Hall.

It was big enough that everyone present could easily read it. The title at the top identified it as the God Quest board. Cheng Yang had been waiting here so that he could quickly accept and complete one of the God Quests he knew would appear.

Regular quests were generated based on the rules created by the gods. As such, they were procedurally generated based on the location you received them. Quests in a territory were usually related to kingdom building, whereas those in the safe zones would be related to special events if there were any.

Now, however, safe zones would also get fetch quests. Originally safe zones weren’t upgradable, but the latest system patch by the gods changed that. The only way to do so would be to complete a nearly endless number of fetch quests. The benefits of doing so weren’t great compared to territories, however. It would only increase the space inside the safe zone a little and provide some housing bonuses.

Unlike regular quests that were procedurally generated, these God Quests were handed to humanity directly by the gods. This meant that each God Quest could only be completed once, and everyone in the world had the opportunity to try and complete it.

New God Quests would be posted every month and expire after six. Completing one provided you with an absurd number of Advancement Tokens and a priceless treasure.

Of course, these quests were difficult to the point of absurdity. For example, the first of three God Quests on the board right now was to annihilate an Orc Stronghold completely. It was never completed in Cheng Yang’s past life.

Right now, two of the three God Quests were group activities, but there was one that could be done alone.

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Crazy Counterattack
Prove your bravery,strength, and perseverance by slaughtering one thousand Standard-Grade Immature or higher monsters in a single day.

Reward: 10,000 Advancement Tokens and a special item

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Just the ten thousand Advancement Tokens were enough to make anyone go crazy. It would be enough to raise someone at least three or four ranks in the military.

For adventurers, it would directly turn an F-Rank Adventurer into an E-Rank Adventurer. This would allow them to take harder missions and increase the rewards from easier ones.

Cheng Yang, however, was focused on the special item he could earn. Once the screen had appeared, he rushed over and accepted the Crazy Counterattack quest. Then, he sprinted out of the Quest Hall and into the wilderness.

Cheng Yang didn’t have time to waste. Although it was easy for him to kill a Standard-Grade monster, he wasn’t sure he could kill a thousand in just one day. Not because he wasn’t strong enough but because he might not be able to find a thousand monsters at that level.

At first, Cheng Yang wanted to visit the various instance dungeon’s under his control and farm monsters there. The Forgotten Grave would have been especially suitable for that task since it had several dozen Standard-Grade monsters in the Normal Difficulty alone. Unfortunately, when he accepted the missions, Cheng Yang learned that the monsters had to be naturally born. It was a revelation that filled his heart with resentment for the gods.

Fortunately, the gods’ punishment raised the spawn rate so that 20% of any monster horde would be at the Standard-Grade. As such, Cheng Yang only needed to slaughter five hordes with a thousand monsters.

If this were still the earliest days of the apocalypse, finding monster hordes that big would be easy, but now it would be hard to find even one if you weren’t trying to. That’s why Cheng Yang was frantically rushing into the depths of the wilderness.

---

Cheng Yang might consider running into a horde with a thousand monsters lucky, but anyone else would consider it to be a calamity. For them, the new Standard-Grade monster spawn rate would be an unprecedented disaster.

Even when only five percent of each horde was at the Standard-Grade, any horde with more than a few dozen monsters was horrifying. Anytime a group fought without the advantage of numbers, they would suffer casualties as they gradually whittled away at the monsters’ numbers.

Once they found out about these new changes, they would undoubtedly worry about whether they could still earn a living. The leaders of each safe zone, however, were worried about something else.

There were only two changes, but everyone in the safe zones immediately became aware of them.

The first change was that it was now impossible for one human to kill another in a safe zone. If they tried, the person would be restored to an undamaged state.

The other was the introduction of a poll. Near the class change statues at the center of the safe zone, underneath the God Quest terminal was a pair of lists: the List of Honorable Mortals and the List of Wicked Fiends.

Everyone in the safe zone was on one of the two lists based on the opinions of the other people in the city. Although it was called a poll, there wasn’t a way to vote. Instead, the system would passively monitor the levels of hatred and goodwill in the city then rank each list appropriately.

If someone was in the top five of either list at the end of each week, there were consequences. For those on the List of Honorable Mortals, the top five members would receive five thousand Experience Fragments each. For those on the List of Wicked Fiends, the top five would be expelled from the safe zone and forbidden from ever entering again.

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In Cheng Yang’s past life, there were plenty of people who liked doing math. As such, dozens of obscure statistics had been released over the forums, including how long it would take to reach the second stage of evolution if someone had eight times training speed since the very beginning of the apocalypse. Even though they knew it would only take a year, it was just wishful thinking. By the time Cheng Yang died eight times training speed was only just becoming feasible for the majority of the population.

Although it wasn’t hard to accumulate a thousand Experience Fragments between a group of five, it was nearly impossible for those five to support the consumption that came with the increased training speed. It was better to continue training at four-times speed that to use eight times forcibly. That way, they could reach the Standard-Grade and hopefully be able to support eight times training speed.

Of course, this only applied to ordinary people. For leaders, the five or six days advantage they would lose was tantamount to losing their authority entirely. Those people would, of course, want to accumulate as many Experience Fragments as possible for themselves. However, that was a path to failure.

Maybe it would have been possible in the old world, where guns and the fear of death could keep the masses at bay, but there was no way for a mere safe-zone leader to stop an angry mob.

In Cheng Yang’s previous life, there was a tyrant in Europe who forced an entire safe zone to hand their earnings over to him, allowing him to reach sixty-four times training speed. Before he could level up, a group of just ten disgruntled citizens carried out a suicide assassination. This would happen several more times until eventually, even after receiving the power of a territory, leaders didn’t dare to force their citizens too far.

In comparison to idiots like that, Yuan Jianzhe was a sensible and competent leader. He had seized control of the Cloud City safe zone but didn’t push anyone too far. He built alliances with various influential people and gave them the power they desired in exchange for obedience. He also put created several taxes that provided him with a hundred thousand Experience Fragments a day.

It was precisely those Experience Fragments that Cheng Yang swindled from Yuan Jianzhe for a few days. Although it seemed like a lot, it barely covered the various expenses Yuan Jianzhe had. He needed to pay for his training and housing, those of his officers, any elite soldiers he had, the equipment he needed to buy, and food from the grocer.

The daily income of Phoenix Village was much higher per capita. The presence of Priests in the village alone put them light years ahead of their competition.

Priests allowed soldiers to recover faster. In turn, those soldiers could hunt longer and more efficiently since they didn’t fear instant death. This advantage then compiled on itself as the high income paid for the rapid advancement of the class change statue research options.

The soldiers in Phoenix Village and more health and could fight for longer than only needed a few minutes to heal. In comparison, the soldiers of the safe zone would take nearly half an hour to recover and only be able to fight for half that time. This kind of gap would only increase.

---

It was the second day of May, the twentieth day of the apocalypse. Cheng Yang’s experience bar was thirty-seven point five percent full. He still needed a long time before reaching the second stage of evolution.

That morning, after clearing the Blood-Soaked Cathedral, Cheng Yang summoned his generals for a meeting by request of Old Lee.

“My Lord, there is one thing of vital importance we must pay attention to.” Old Lee declared.

“And that is?” Cheng Yang asked.

“The natural alliance formed by those from the former federal government.” Old Lee said with a hint of anxiety in his voice. “My subordinates have been monitoring the Tavern’s forums for the past few days, and we’ve noticed a startling trend. Several dozen safe zones nearby are in the process of allying with Yuan Jianzhe. We need a more permanent solution to the Cloud City problem.”

“Don’t worry about those alliances. They won’t last very long.” Cheng Yang said. “A safe zone isn’t something so easily controlled, so any attempt to leave and aid other forces would result in a coup. Yuan Jianzhe is one of the most talented leaders in the world, but even he won’t be able to unify his safe zone. His potential is limitless, but unfortunately for him, there is no way for him to surpass us. We’ve occupied every nearby territory and instance dungeon, so there isn’t a way for a powerful army to appear.”

Old Lee understood Cheng Yang’s intention but couldn’t believe a man like Yuan Jianzhe would be suppressed so easily. However, he held his tongue.

“Zhao Chuan, what’s the status of the Professions in Phoenix Village?” Cheng Yang asked.

“Not bad, almost every soldier in the village has the tools they need, and a large number of them are getting close to leveling up or already have. They’ve started harvesting materials in groups on their own after the announcement of the contribution system, so the amount of resources available has skyrocketed.

“That’s a good start.” Cheng Yang said with a nod. “Once every soldier reaches the Standard-Grade, we’ll have a powerful force on our hands. Just remember, this was supposed to be a hellish world for humans. If we slack off and forget our personal growth, the monsters roaming our walls will surpass us and tear through the village.”

What Cheng Yang didn’t tell them was that the current world was a mere taste of the real suffering that was yet to come. That way, if anyone slacked off, there would be a few casualties when the difficulty increased. The shock from that moment would be a more effective lesson that any lecture Cheng Yang could provide.

“My Lord, when are you going to clear the Nightmare Difficulty of me and Yu Kai’s instance dungeons?” Liu Hau asked.

Cheng Yang nearly laughed when his warning was brushed aside so easily. Liu Hau didn’t have anything on his mind other than obtaining a unique subclass.

Cheng Yang shook his head and vowed to turn his friend into a suitable fighter. “Not for a while. Without the help of my Imperial Guard, I don’t have the confidence to survive.

“In that case, why don’t you see if there’s a way to send the Imperial Guard to satellite villages?” Liu Hau said with an unhappy face. “If there’s a way, you’ll be able to clear the instance dungeons, right?”

“For a moment I was worried you were using your brain.” Cheng Yang sighed, “Even if there is a way, the instance dungeon entrances are several kilometers from the village, so it would still be impossible.”

Cheng Yang already knew that it was impossible to send his Imperial Guard to any other village. The only way they could go was if the border of Phoenix Village overlapped with the other territory or both had an Imperial Guard Pavilion.

After a little more discussion, Cheng Yang dismissed the generals. They were busy people and didn’t have time for idle chit chat.

Once they were gone, Cheng Yang visited the Quest Hall. He had become an Adventurer a few days ago but had yet to complete a quest. The only ones published were fetch quests Cheng Yang wouldn’t stoop to doing, but he diligently checked the mission boards every day in case something interesting appeared.

It was even worse in the safe zone. There wasn’t a reason to provide fetch quests, so the mission boards were always empty. Today, however, that would change.

When Cheng Yang entered the Quest Hall, it was a lot busier than before. Several people were either selecting or turning in fetch quests.

Whenever Cheng Yang walked past one of those groups, everyone would respectfully greet him and over a slight bow. Even if they weren’t grateful to be given a place to live, everyone knew that Cheng Yang was a legend that would take them to ever greater heights.

Cheng Yang chuckled when he saw that. In his past life, he would be treated like air, but here he was revered. The difference was too vast!

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