My EXP bar filled up dramatically. The experience gained from killing a Level 135 Purple Gold Rank boss by myself was no joke! It was enough to boost my EXP bar to 94%, which also meant that I was within kissing distance of Level 117.

I excitedly scooped up the boss drops before I finished off the remaining Cyan Wolves in the area. After that, I examined the goodies that I had won from the boss.

Two treasure chests. The first was a golden chest and the second was a dark gold chest. Who knew what treasures they would hold!?

I moved to open the gold chest first and it opened with the lightest of clicks. After that, a card floated onto my palm.

Ding!

System Notice: Congratulations, you have obtained a card “Radiant Knight x50”!

……

Radiant Knight? My mind went blank for a moment.

WTF, this was a human castle’s Rank 6 unit! Arghhhhhh, what the fuck is this!? How could the game do this to me? I couldn’t use this card because our Dark Moon City was a territory of the undead. It was unable to house the units of any other race! Ahhhhh, is this card just going to rot in my inventory?

I felt a wave of helplessness wash over me as I opened up the dark gold chest.

Ding~!

System Notice: Congratulations, you have obtained “Umbra Sharpshooter x100”!

A loud buzzing noise filled my head. My mind went completely blank as utter shock coursed through my body. I desperately rubbed my eyes before the elation finally set in. I had really gotten the Umbra Sharpshooters, the Rank 8 units of the Undead Castle!

They were two ranks higher than the Dark Knights, and they were a long-range unit as well, so we could station them in the castle’s watchtowers and use them to ward off the attacks of both players and creatures!

I could even bring these Umbra Sharpshooters out to hunt mobs! Though I couldn’t use them to kill monsters outside of the confines of the territory, I could use them to gather even more resources and that was good enough for me! Every Rank 8 unit had a transport capacity of 1600, so they could harvest and transport even more resources than the Dark Knights!

I didn’t hesitate to use the card and 100 Umbra Sharpshooters immediately appeared behind me. I ordered them to retreat far behind me before giving another order. All 100 of them immediately raised their bows into the air and unleashed a salvo of arrows. The last few Cyan Wolves mewled pathetically as they collapsed to the ground.

Tsk tsk, this isn’t bad at all, I got all of the EXP from that attack! Heh, this is one of the perks of being a city lord!

……

Oh, wait, I seem to have forgotten something.

That’s right! The boss dropped a Resource Bag too!

I opened the bag in a hurry and discovered that it was no ordinary Resource Bag! It was a super-tier one, one that contained 40000 units of each resource!

Tsk tsk, today’s Purple Gold Rank boss was certainly feeling generous. I’d obtained so many things at one go!

Furthermore, the boss and the Cyan Wolves had also dropped quite a few resources when they died. I did a quick estimate as I swept my eyes over my spoils of war.

There were at least 20000 units of each resource lying on the ground, so I quickly got my Dark Knights and Umbra Sharpshooters to start moving them.

I returned to the city ahead of my troops and used the Resource Bag, instantly increasing the city’s stockpile by a huge amount. Alright, we now have enough resources to upgrade the city to a Rank 3 Undead Castle!

After I confirmed my choice, the city started upgrading itself and in two hours’ time, Dark Moon City would reach Rank 3!

It was at this precise moment that I heard a beep.

System Notice: Player “Stranger of Three Lifetimes” wants to add you as a friend. Do you accept?

……

Stranger of Three Lifetimes? Isn’t that Blazing Hot Lips’ guild leader? She also seems to be the lord of Vanished God City’s first territory.

Hmmm, this girl will definitely go on to do great things, so I definitely have to establish a good relationship with her. After all, Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls’ greatest enemy is Candle Dragon and their strength goes without saying. If we want to drag Candle Dragon down from the throne, we need to gather together sufficient strength, and we especially need powerful guilds like Blazing Hot Lips on our side.

After I accepted her friend request, the name “Stranger of Three Lifetimes” immediately appeared in my friend’s list.

She immediately sent me a message: “Hey handsome, you in your territory?”

“Yup. I’m outside the guild hall right now. Can I help you?”

“Yes, you can! I’ll head over immediately!”

“Okay!”

I walked out of my territory and waited right in front of it. A high-level female mage soon appeared and she waved her staff as she walked toward me. It really was Stranger of Three Lifetimes. Her guild emblem and her symbol as a guild master flashed over her shoulder. It was glaringly ostentatious.

I walked forward to welcome her with a smile, “How can I help this pretty stranger?”

“Oh, there’s definitely something you can help me with!”

Stranger of Three Lifetimes fished out a card from her inventory and beamed at me brightly. “I’m here to do a bit of business with you. But let’s see if it’s something Lu Chen wants in the first place! If you do want it, perhaps a trade is in order.”

“Oh, what do you have for me?”

I swiftly scanned the card. The words on the card clearly stated that it was a “Dark Knight x100” card. My eyes grew as wide as saucers as I exclaimed, “A troop card?”

“Yeah!” Stranger of Three Lifetimes nodded her head sharply. “I got ahold of two chests this afternoon and one of them gave me this. Since my territory is a human territory, I can’t use it. That’s why I came to find you! Do you have any human troop cards? If you have, let’s exchange them! I don’t even care what kind of card it is, and if you really don’t have a suitable card in your inventory, I’ll just give this card to you as a token of our newly-established friendship!”

I couldn’t help but chuckle when she said that. “Okay, I’ll be friends with you, pretty stranger.”

I reached out and took the card in her hand. Stranger of Three Lifetimes looked slightly crestfallen when I did that as it looked like I didn’t have any cards that fit her requirement.

However, her eyes immediately lit up when she saw the Radiant Knight card I took out from my inventory. She let out a loud and unrestrained laugh as she said, “Hoho, I knew it! Given the strength of ‘Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand’, there was no way he wouldn’t have a human race card…”

I laughed as well. “I’m really sorry. This card only has 50 Radiant Knights, but your card has 100 Dark Knights, so I'm letting you eat a loss this time…”

Stranger of Three Lifetimes’ soft laughter tinkled in the air. “No problem, these 50 Radiant Knights were just what we needed right now! I still haven’t managed to raise my castle to Rank 2 and my resource production is simply too low, so I haven’t been able to produce many troops. As a result, I’m not able to transport back the resources that are being dropped from monsters. These Radiant Knights are really going to be my salvation!”

“Hm, that’s good then. When you pick up more undead troop cards in the future, remember to keep them for me!”

“Sure!” Stranger of Three Lifetimes laughed before saying, “But you shouldn’t hold too much hope for that. I heard that boss-tier resource monsters will only spawn along with the first territory spawned by each city and they will only appear during the first three days after these territories have spawned. This means that it’ll be hard to find these cards in the future! So you’d better treasure this chance you got!”

“Okay.”

Stranger of Three Lifetimes skipped away happily. She had teleported all the way from Vanished God City, but this unexpected harvest of 50 Radiant Knights had made it all worth it.

However, Stranger of Three Lifetimes had passed me a very useful piece of information during this brief interaction. New boss-tier resource monsters would only spawn during these three days. That also meant that it would be hard to find Resource Bags and troop cards in the future. If that was the case, all the territories which appeared in the future would have to slowly gather the resources they needed to rank up and the speed at which these castles progressed would drive people insane.

……

After I used the card, 100 Dark Knights instantly appeared in my territory.

My heart leapt with joy once more. Goddammit, even though this territory had only existed for two days, Dark Moon City was already equipped with a powerful army. According to the forums, Candlelight Shadow’s Candle Dragon City had only just reached Rank 2, so its development speed definitely couldn’t hold a candle to Dark Moon City’s.

A thought suddenly flashed through my head, causing me to immediately send a message to Stranger of Three Lifetimes: “Stranger, what’s your relationship with Candlelight Shadow? If you get barbarian race troop cards, will you trade them to him?”

Stranger of Three Lifetimes immediately sent me a smiley-face emoji before saying: “Don’t worry. Candlelight Shadow already swore that he would sweep into Vanished God City with an army, and every one of the Vanished God City’s ten great guilds is feeling immense pressure from him. Why would I rub shoulders with a hungry tiger? Candlelight Shadow is a tyrant, any cooperation with him will only put you at a disadvantage. I won’t ever consider forming an alliance with Candle Dragon.”

“Okay! Then how about you form an alliance with Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls then? Also, you can look for Ling Xueshang, the guild leader of Sky City’s The Monarch Descends. We formed an alliance to repel all other powers. How does that sound?”

Stranger of Three Lifetimes, “Alright! Actually, I already know the pretty Xueshang and Blazing Hot Lips already formed an alliance with them quite a while back. We had originally intended to create an all-girl army, but now that we can form an alliance with a super guild like Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, it’s even better! Lu Chen, now that you’re our ally, you’d better protect all of us weak girls, okay…”

I had to resist the urge to vomit blood when I heard those words. I knew just how strong a mage Stranger of Three Lifetimes was. Even though she was slightly inferior to ridiculous mages like Luo River God of the Capital, she was leagues ahead of mages like Dominating Mage God or Life of Luxury! In fact, she should be about on par with Shadow Chanel!

A woman like that would actually dare to call herself a weak girl. It looks like I could also call myself a weakling when I run around with my Heaven-stealing Sword and shiny armor.

……

Blazing Hot Lips alliance request appeared in our guild management interface. The request was accepted a few seconds later and there were now three guilds in Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls’ ally list. Snowy Cathaya, The Monarch Descends, Blazing Hot Lips. All three of these guilds were very strong and I believed that we would be the ones who would forge a new era in the near future.

I quickly scanned my friends list, only to see that Lin Yixin’s name was still grayed out. She had gone to accompany her mother in the afternoon, so it wasn’t likely that she’d come online before 2 pm. This girl not only had to take care of her mother, she also had to desperately earn money in an online game and be responsible for a guild as massive as Snowy Cathaya. Lin Yixin was definitely enduring a lot of suffering, but every time we saw her face, she was always so bright and bubbly.

A girl like that had to be treasured.

……

I silently walked back to Dark Moon City. I went to find Udal and I used all the resources in Dark Moon City to produce Dark Insects. The Nest of Corruption seemed to be churning out Dark Insects nonstop as I produced another 200 Dark Insects in one go. Dark Moon City now had 314 Dark Insects, so its resource production had also shot through the roof.

Dark Moon City

Level: Rank 2 Undead Castle

Gold Production: 800 per hour

Wood Production: 800 per hour

Stone production: 800 per hour

Crystal Production: 710 per hour

Dark Insects: 314

Buildings: 11

Troops: 321 (31x Skeletal Spearman, 50x Zombie, 140x Dark Knight, 100x Umbra Sharpshooter)

Wall Durability: 200

Teleportation Formations: 1

……

Mn, once the city rose to Rank 3, more land would be added to the territory! I wouldn’t use the excess resources to produce more troops. I’d create even more Dark Insects, so that I could push Dark Moon City’s production of each resource beyond 5000 points. Once we had acquired this robust production capability, I would continue to raise the rank of the castle. Once we got past the early stages of territory management, it would no longer be enough to gather resources by hunting monsters. We would need to rely on our own city’s production output to meet any further needs.

It was at this exact moment that I heard a beep. I had received a message from Li Chengfeng:

“Lu Chen, where are you? Are you in Dark Moon City right now? I have something good to give you!”