Chapter 368- A Quiet 3rd Month
Translator: TeamTWO
Editor: Nora
Gaia 2nd year 3rd month 1st day, Yashan City.
War-Snow Rose Mercenary Group, Qingfeng Pavillion, and Tingyu Floor, the three elite forces from these three guilds, a total of 1500 players, arrived in Yashan City.
After the three of them had formed a guild alliance, they formed a great understanding among one another. Lin Jing led the elite force of the War-Snow Rose Mercenary Group, while the captains of the respective guilds led the other two groups.
Such an arrangement was pretty much admitting that War-Snow Rose Mercenary Group would act as the leader.
Sun Xiaoyue went out to welcome the three.
They would rent a living area to act as their base and supply site.
For the elite forces, there were two places they wanted to explore.
Firstly, the South Mountain mysterious region—their main goal.
Although the South Mountain Cave could be explored numerous times, the first time would grant one extra rewards. The system would also report it. Hence, it was a great advertisement opportunity.
As there was only one cave and three guilds, they needed to take turns.
Lin Jing came out and gathered the two captains for a discussion. The result was that the three guilds would explore in the order of War-Snow Rose Mercenary Group, Qingfeng Pavillion, and Tingyu Floor.
Whoever ended up taking down the reward would be based on their skill and luck.
Although the War-Snow Rose Mercenary Group was first to explore, they did not gain any advantages.
Based on what the Blood Evil Mercenary Group revealed, if players died inside, they could revive without any penalties. However, there was one restriction. After they revived, they could not re-enter right away; they needed to wait for the next chance.
Gaia also made the rule that one player could only revive three times without penalties in the same mysterious region. After these three chances, the player would really face penalties, and their level would drop back to zero.
Gaia’s arrangements were not a result of mercy. Instead, it because the mysterious region was really too difficult.
To explore and pass through the first time was pretty much impossible.
When the Blood Evil Mercenary Group explored the region, they had spent one and a half months and changed five waves of people. Over two thousand people had died before they successfully passed.
The bigger the reward, the greater the risk.
Reality proved that the rewards that they earned were enough to cover for the losses they incurred.
Different mysterious regions would also have different upper limits set.
The upper limit of the South Mountain Cave was a hundred players.
Hence, an elite group could be split into five and take turns to explore.
Based on the type of mysterious region, they also had different settings on how many times it could be opened.
Adventure mysterious regions could only be explored once. Regardless of the result, they would disappear.
Scroll mysterious regions could be explored once a day until it is passed.
Public mysterious regions would be opened twice a day and would never disappear.
The South Mountain mysterious region was a public mysterious region. As such, it would open twice a day.
Three elite forces, fifteen teams. It would pretty much take them a week for all of them to go once.
Even so, there would be a team that would not have a chance to enter.
Hence, while they were not exploring the mysterious region, they would explore the Five Finger Mountains.
Their goal was not the normal beasts but instead the desolate beasts.
With that, not only could they level up, they could also acquire high grade resources. If they were lucky, maybe they would obtain an inner pellet too.
Apart from that, players could use contract scrolls to form contracts with the desolate beasts and make them pets or mounts.
Hence, Yazhou was pretty much a heaven to all of them.
After the elite force finished their preparations, they were ready to start their first exploration of the South Mountain Cave.
A day before the elite forces arrived, the third batch of migrants had set off from Beihai Harbor.
The main force of migrants were the ten thousand farmers taken from around Lianzhou Prefecture.
Their mission was to go and reclaim land. Yashan City needed to rush to complete the reclamation job before the Qingming Festival.
Following them was The Tiger Legion.
Apart from that, there were a hundred merchant ships.
The building of Yashan City was undoubtedly a huge chance for all the Chamber of Commerces. Especially when they heard that Lianzhou Lord wanted to send two elite divisions over, the Chamber of Commerces were more at ease.
The natural resources of Yazhou triggered their sensitive senses and made all of them eager to join in.
Various Chamber of Commerces bought huge quantities of land in Yashan City to build shops and workshops. At the same time, they also rented large amounts of land to reclaim and form farms.
Hence, the fleet of merchants, apart from carrying resources, also brought along a large amount of workers they hired from the imperial cities.
Of course, based on Ouyang Shuo's requirements, these workers would become members of Yashan City.
With that, the development of Yashan City would start to progress on the fast track.
Due to the restriction of Bing'er's rank, the strategy Ouyang Shuo employed was to attract more migrants. However, taking them from Lianzhou Prefecture was like taking a piece of a wall to fix another part of the wall.
The third batch of migrants would be the last batch of support from Lianzhou Prefecture to Yashan City.
The future population would come from other methods, such as attracting the Chamber of Commerces to move in and bring along workers with them. They could also attract adventure gamemode players, or aim for the natives on Qiongzhou Island.
All in all, Ouyang Shuo would not allow Yashan to develop as its current rate. With the support of Lianzhou Prefecture, Yashan City was destined to progress at a far faster speed.
During the 3rd month, Ouyang Shuo was still touring Lianzhou Prefecture, while Yashan City was slowly developing.
During the 3rd month, all the other lord gamemode players were unusually quiet.
After the Battle of Lianzhou, the Yanhuang Alliance had gone silent to prepare their strength.
After the Shanhai Alliance reached their goals, they sheathed their swords and started to collect the fruits of their labor.
The China region territory war that had started with the Battle of Lianzhou had stopped, and the wilderness had become calm once more.
As for the other lord gamemode players, they were consolidating their alliances.
Hence, the wilderness seemed really quiet.
Of course, the four uprising armies were growing and expanding as usual. They were like a plague, spreading through the wilderness.
Among all the lack of action, the only sky breaking news was the assassination of Chun Shenjun in Pill Sun County.
A lord being killed in his own territory. Undoubtedly, that was some great news.
After this event, many lords started to strengthen their personal guards, and they did not dare to relax even in their own territories.
Being assasinated in front of your subordinates and commoners, it would result in a huge hit to your prestige.
The weirder part was that the assassin did not even try to hide his identity.
Ten minutes after the assassination, Blood Blade announced on the forums that they were the ones who performed the act.
Using this chance, they started to take up missions from players.
The death of Chun Shenjun had totally boosted their reputation.
Compared to lord gamemode players, the adventure gamemode players were the ones currently making the moves.
The friction between guilds continued to rise.
Small-scale guild wars continuously occurred in the wilderness.
As the guilds started to use their powers, it was harder and harder for small groups of players to survive.
Because of the strict death penalty, the moment a solo player died, not only was their level back to zero, they would also lose their earned equipment.
They were not like a group operation like guilds, who could have members help to take their equipment when they died.
As for their levels, the guild would also arrange people to help boost them back up.
For solo players, this was impossible. The moment they died, it was pretty much over.
The direct consequence was that solo players that died would feel depressed. They would just change occupation and become a work occupation player.
Based on Gaia’s settings, when players died, they had a chance to choose their occupation again.
Of course, there was only one chance. The next time they revived, they could not change their occupation.
A large portion of players who died would immediately join guilds after they revived. Hence, guilds could continuously attract fresh blood. As a result, conflicts brewed.
Murder and slaughter started to fill the underworld.
Blood had started to spread amongst the player groups.
As a result of these events, out of the ten biggest guilds, one had started to face problems.
It was Thread.
As a pure work occupation guild, its combat strength was pretty much zero. As the skill levels of the players increased, their need for higher-level resources also increased.
And these resources were held by all the other strong guilds.
The result was that Thread was stuck in a really awkward situation.
Of course, Thread also held a lot of charm and attraction.
Be it lords or guilds, they were all interested in their work occupation players. Some guilds even used high grade resources as a threat. They wanted Thread to merge with them.
Amongst these parties, the one who took up the hardest stance was Jianqi Zongheng, which was also in Jingdu.
Rumors had it that under the forceful actions of Jianqi Zongheng, Thread had started to lose members.
At this very moment, a theatrical change occurred.
Star Alliance, who placed their base in Jingdu, suddenly announced their presence.
Rumors had it that Star Alliance was interested in Thread.
The weird thing was that seeing the Star Alliance make a move, Jianqi Zongheng started to back off.
If one said that there was nothing funny going on, no one would believe it.
Ouyang Shuo knew that this must have resulted from Di Chen’s interference.
All of a sudden, the influence of Star Alliance started to climb.
Star Alliance also started to openly recruit members. Probably, their hidden aristocratic family, after much deliberation and argument, decided that it was time for them to announce themselves to the world.