Chapter 62

Yuan Jianze had a rough estimate of the situation in Xiangcheng City. He believed that at least one-third of the city's population, more than 300,000 people, had survived. The rescued individuals were just a tiny fraction of the survivors. If the rescue efforts relied solely on the military, the rescue operations would be severely delayed.

As time passed, the refugees still trapped in the ruins would find it increasingly difficult to survive. The most important thing now was to race against time.

In his previous life, Yuan Jianze made the same decision, which led to a force occupying another wilderness base and successfully obtaining the blueprints for the Guardian Hall. This allowed them to gain the strength to rival Yuan Jianze's force.

Of course, in this life, due to Cheng Yang's unexpected appearance, the course of history might change, and no one could predict how.

...

Cheng Yang spent most of the night sweeping through the wilderness and returned to Luofeng Village. By then, his account had accumulated over 2,400 spirit points.

Before starting his cultivation, Cheng Yang first chose to upgrade the attributes of the territory statue. This time, he selected all attack enhancements. After making his choices, the territory's spirit points were reduced to 1,500.

The next morning, Cheng Yang's cultivation progress increased by 3.5%. At this rate, it would take him about 20 more days to reach the peak apprentice level. However, it was clear that within 20 days, Luofeng Village's level would definitely reach level 3. Therefore, whether to use the divine favor to boost his level first was a difficult decision.

The level 3 divine favor would be effective for all combatants below the squire level. If he waited until he reached the peak apprentice level to use it, he would instantly become a junior squire mage. This was more advantageous than using the divine favor to reach the peak apprentice level and then cultivating further.

However, if he did not use the divine favor first, his strength would remain at the high apprentice level for the next 20 days. This would affect some of his plans and reduce his efficiency in acquiring spirit points during this period.

After carefully weighing the pros and cons, Cheng Yang made his decision.

After leaving his house, Cheng Yang immediately entered a dungeon. At the same time, Chen Yun and three other combatant guards also entered different dungeons.

After a fierce battle, Cheng Yang emerged from the dungeon. A few minutes later, Chen Yun and the others also came out of their respective dungeons.

After two consecutive dungeon battles, each of them had gathered most of their equipment, and since they had cleared difficult dungeons, all the equipment was of the Black Iron grade.

Cheng Yang entered the Guardian Hall and recruited an SS-grade talent combatant from the list of priest and mage guards. This reduced his spirit points, which had just surged to over 4,000, by half.

Cheng Yang did not use the remaining spirit points but transferred them to Yu Kai's team to continue their quadruple-speed cultivation. By then, the spirit points Cheng Yang had lent out had reached 13,000.

For the entire day, Cheng Yang led his team to search and rescue in Xiangcheng City. They had completed 80% of their search and rescue tasks. Once they finished searching the remaining dozen or so locations, this work would be concluded.

Although some combatants' families were not found in this search, with the strength of Luofeng Village, it was impossible to search the entire city. Whether they could survive would depend on their fate.

In the afternoon, Cheng Yang and his team arrived at the last search location. Although they did not successfully find the combatant's family, they received a piece of information. The people they were trying to save had been rescued by another group the previous evening.

The survivor who provided this information said that the group left very quickly. He was injured and could not move easily, so by the time he reached the group, they had already left.

Based on the survivor's description of the rescue group, Cheng Yang's expression turned serious.

"Lord, do you know that group? Do you know where they are?" the combatant, concerned for his family's safety, asked anxiously.

Cheng Yang thought for a moment and said, "Ma Tao, don't worry. Although I don't know that group, we are not far from Xiangcheng City's main city. In the current situation, the only groups that can still rescue people are the military or other combatants. According to the description, they are not from the military, so they must be combatants from the main city."

Ma Tao's face relaxed, and he said, "Lord, should we go to the main city now?"

"Not yet," Cheng Yang immediately replied. "Let's return to the base first and make plans tomorrow morning. The main city is currently under military control. Although some civilian forces may have emerged, the military still has absolute control. Your family will be safe there for now."

Ma Tao also knew that going to the main city now was not practical, especially since there were still people they needed to rescue and bring back to Luofeng Village.

Under Cheng Yang's lead, the group began to return to Luofeng Village, being cautious to avoid encountering people from the main city.

As usual, when Cheng Yang and his team returned to Luofeng Village, it was already completely dark. Cheng Yang arranged for the rescued people and then used the 500 units of wood collected that day to build the remaining three shops. The rest of the wood was used to construct level 1 houses.

After finishing his tasks, Cheng Yang hurriedly ate dinner and then went into the forest alone.

It wasn't until 2 AM that Cheng Yang returned to Luofeng Village.

At this point, the upgrades to the chosen profession statues from the previous day were all completed. Cheng Yang immediately chose to upgrade the life enhancement and then began his cultivation for the night.

The five territory guards were responsible for clearing the demonized beasts around Luofeng Village. Their specialized skills gave them a significant advantage. As soon as any monsters appeared, they would immediately rush to eliminate them. Because the monsters were killed promptly, their spawn rate was slightly higher. Thus, the spirit points provided by the monsters around the territory for the day reached about 1,600. Adding the taxes and dungeon rewards, the total spirit points gained for the day was around 5,000.

However, the 1,000 spirit points spent on the wood collected by the lumberjacks and the 2,500 spirit points spent on upgrading the statue attributes reduced the total spirit points of Luofeng Village to about 3,000. Still, this was not bad, and in the coming days, the spirit points of Luofeng Village would only increase.

The next morning, after completing his cultivation, Cheng Yang entered a dungeon again, which had become a daily routine for him.

After coming out of the dungeon, Cheng Yang arranged the tasks for Yu Kai and his team for the day.

Currently, within a radius of 5-6 kilometers centered on Luofeng Village, the area was under the control of Luofeng Village's combatants. Almost all the large monster groups within this range had been eliminated. Even if new groups formed, their size would not exceed 30.

In this situation, having each combatant team act together was clearly a waste of manpower. Therefore, Cheng Yang suggested they act in smaller teams to maximize the efficiency of killing demonized beasts.

For now, the nearly 1,000 combatants of Luofeng Village could only ensure the elimination of demonized beasts within this range, which covered hundreds of square kilometers.

Thus, each team was responsible for a direction, and how they divided their tasks was up to each team. Of course, if they were confident in their strength, they could continue to expand outward.

However, in more distant areas, there were already demonized beast groups of nearly 1,000. A single misstep could lead to total annihilation. Cheng Yang also urged everyone to be as cautious as possible.

Regarding the wood, it still needed to be cut down as quickly as possible. According to Cheng Yang's plan, all combatants in Luofeng Village must be able to live in level 2 houses, which required nearly 200 houses. Level 2 houses needed to be upgraded from level 1 houses, so the total amount of wood required would be close to 3,000 cubic meters.

The first batch of lumberjacks' logging skills were about to be upgraded, and they were expected to complete the upgrade today. Once they reached level 2, their logging efficiency would double. Additionally, after five days, they would have fully repaid their loans to Cheng Yang. To encourage their logging efforts, Cheng Yang planned to increase the price of the wood they submitted from 2 to 3 spirit points.

This was necessary, as at the current price, the combatants with level 1 logging skills could only earn 20 spirit points per day, which was much lower than the efficiency of fighting monsters. After the price increase, with level 2 logging skills, they could earn 60 spirit points per day. Although this was still slightly less than what other combatants could earn, logging was safer, and many would be willing to do it.

However, this would mean that Luofeng Village's territory would have to spend nearly 2,000 spirit points per day. Once the next batch of lumberjacks also reached level 2, the expenditure would be even greater.

Fortunately, the Blood Church dungeon in the territory was about to be upgraded. After the upgrade, the territory would gain an additional 1,000 spirit points per day, which was a good thing.

PS: Requesting recommendations and collections! If you have a Three Rivers vote, please cast it. Sigh, the new book list will be over tomorrow, and I really want to stay a bit longer...

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