Chapter 92

In the new group of 120 people who had just changed their professions in Xianghe Village, there wasn't a single person with S-class talent, let alone someone with special talent.

From this perspective, it was incredibly fortunate for Cheng Yang to have found Liu Xiyue and brought her back. Although Liu Xiyue's talents were all special and couldn't be classified into ranks, just the one unique talent alone was enough to outshine all S-class talents.

After these people completed their profession changes, Xianghe Village had met the conditions for upgrading, and Liu Hao immediately chose to upgrade the territory.

The upgraded Xianghe Village also gained a few new buildings that could be constructed, but it was clear that Xianghe Village currently lacked the necessary wood to build them. Fortunately, Xianghe Village was not far from Luofeng Village, so if they wanted to take on secondary professions or purchase items, they could easily walk down the main road to Luofeng Village.

...

When Cheng Yang walked out of his room, Liu Xiyue had also completed her first night of cultivation.

Compared to others, Liu Xiyue was undoubtedly fortunate, as she had already activated a sixfold cultivation speed from the first day. With the addition of the Level 3 civilian housing and Cheng Yang's talent bonus, this was equivalent to a sevenfold cultivation speed. In just one night, her cultivation progress had increased by more than 14%.

In other words, Liu Xiyue only needed eight days to advance to the intermediate level of a cleric apprentice.

"Liu Xiyue, you look good. How was it? Was the cultivation process smooth? Many people can't even stand on their legs after their first cultivation session," Cheng Yang asked with a smile.

After yesterday's interaction, Cheng Yang noticed that Liu Xiyue was still somewhat restrained around him. This was not the result he hoped for. While he didn't expect Liu Xiyue to be intimately close to him, as his first close guard, their relationship shouldn't be too distant, right?

Liu Xiyue wasn't sure about her current state. Perhaps it was because she had experienced too much in these short ten days, which made her more cautious towards others.

However, in response to Cheng Yang's greeting, she said, "Thank you, Lord. I think the cultivation process is quite good. I believe there are countless people in the world who want to cultivate but can't find a way in. In this sense, Xiyue is also fortunate."

Cheng Yang smiled and said, "You have a very optimistic attitude, which is a good thing. Today we will go to Xiangcheng City again. Go wash up and have something to eat. We'll leave in a bit."

"Yes, Lord," Liu Xiyue responded and left the courtyard.

When she said "wash up," it actually meant going to the small stream that flowed through the territory to wash her face and rinse her mouth. To be honest, after the gods transformed the world, the water quality had improved significantly. Even the previously dirty stream was now clear to the bottom. The only downside was that there were no fish in the stream, making it less lively.

Cheng Yang came to the altar and found that all four of the profession statues in the territory had completed their final attribute upgrades, reaching Level 4.

**Building Name:** Mage Statue

**Level:** 4

**Profession Research:**

- **Life Enhancement (Level 4, Unresearched):** Increases the life strength of all mages under this statue by 14%. Upgrade Condition: 2000 Spirit Points

- **Mana Enhancement (Level 4, Unresearched):** Increases the mana of all mages under this statue by 14%. Upgrade Condition: 2000 Spirit Points

- **Magic Attack (Level 4, Unresearched):** Increases the attack power of all mages under this statue by 14%. Upgrade Condition: 2000 Spirit Points

- **Physical Defense (Level 4, Unresearched):** Increases the physical defense of all mages under this statue by 14%. Upgrade Condition: 2000 Spirit Points

- **Magic Defense (Level 4, Unresearched):** Increases the magic defense of all mages under this statue by 14%. Upgrade Condition: 2000 Spirit Points

**Learnable Skills:**

- **Wind Bind:** Traps opponents with lower attack power, lasting 2 seconds. Skill cooldown: 1 minute. Higher skill levels increase the binding time and reduce the cooldown. Learning Condition: Advanced Mage Apprentice, 200 Spirit Points

- **Magic Shield:** Casts a magic shield on oneself, reducing magic damage by 4% for 1 minute. Skill cooldown: 1 minute. Higher skill levels increase the damage reduction. Learning Condition: Peak Mage Apprentice, 600 Spirit Points

**Number of Transfers:** 206/530 Ice Mages (1/1)

This wasn't the first time Cheng Yang had seen the attributes of a Level 4 statue, but the requirement of 2000 Spirit Points for each upgrade still gave him a significant shock. This was four times the original requirement, and the demand was so high that not all territories could afford it.

Of course, now that upgrading a skill took longer, it would take 3 days to complete one attribute upgrade. This meant that even with sufficient Spirit Points, it would take 15 days to complete all attribute upgrades for one statue.

This also revealed some patterns in the gods' settings for territories. The later the stage, the more difficult the upgrades. This was just for profession statues; upgrading the territory itself would be even more challenging.

In the previous life, someone had speculated that in the later stages, the upgrade conditions for profession statues would not only require Spirit Points but also other prerequisites. After all, if profession statues could be upgraded indefinitely with just Spirit Points, then the statue levels in almost every territory would reach an extremely high level.

The reason was simple: once a territory reached Level 3, it could accept donations. For example, in Luofeng Village, with nearly a thousand combatants, if each donated 100 Spirit Points, that would be nearly 100,000 points. Moreover, the higher the statue level, the more combatants it could accommodate. Imagine when the number of combatants in a territory reached tens of thousands, and each donated 100 Spirit Points; that would be an enormous number.

However, this was just speculation. After a year of the apocalypse, no territory had a deeper understanding of statue upgrades.

After reviewing the attributes of the four statues, Cheng Yang found that all of them now had 530 transfer slots, totaling 2120 slots.

Undoubtedly, in the coming days, the number of combatants in Luofeng Village would see a significant increase.

For this batch of combatants, Cheng Yang planned to incorporate them into the military. His goal was simple: to gain control over the entire territory.

Mercenaries might sound good, but they were too independent, making it difficult to control the entire territory. While the prosperity of the territory in the future would depend on mercenaries, that was a matter for later. At least for now, Cheng Yang didn't need many mercenaries.

Next, Cheng Yang opened the Ice Mage profession panel, which also had a new learnable skill.

**Ice Shield:** Casts a magic shield on oneself, reducing magic damage by 5% for 1 minute. Skill cooldown: 1 minute. Higher skill levels increase the damage reduction. Learning Condition: Peak Mage Apprentice, 1000 Spirit Points.

Indeed, it was stronger than the ordinary Magic Shield, but the learning condition was also higher, requiring 1000 Spirit Points. However, for Cheng Yang, 1000 Spirit Points wasn't much; he consumed twice that amount in Spirit Points each day during cultivation.

Cheng Yang immediately learned this magic. With this, he had learned all the magic skills at the apprentice level.

Actually, the three skills of a Mage Apprentice were quite simple: one attack skill, one control skill, and one defense skill. Of course, Cheng Yang was an exception because he had a special profession and learned an additional area-of-effect skill.

For Cheng Yang, the Ice Shield was a very powerful skill because his current attack power was 74 points. The Ice Shield effectively increased his defense by 3 points. This defense was different from the defense provided by equipment; it increased his overall defense.

Although the statues had been upgraded, the path to upgrading the territory was still long, as the conditions were extremely strict, requiring初级士级战职者 (初级士级 combatants).

In the entire Luofeng Village territory, the most likely person to break through to the士级 (士级) level was Cheng Yang, but even he would need at least 40 days to do so.

Next, Cheng Yang began to upgrade the attributes of the profession statues. This time, he didn't prioritize mana but chose to upgrade the attack attributes. Upgrading one attribute for each of the four main profession statues cost 8000 Spirit Points.

Fortunately, due to the recent upgrade of the Blood Church dungeon, the territory's Spirit Point income had increased significantly, accumulating over 15,000 points. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to afford such a large upgrade.

After handling the statue upgrades, Cheng Yang asked a territory guard to find Niu Bing and see if he had returned.

The territory guard returned shortly, and Niu Bing ran over.

"Lord, you called for me?" Niu Bing asked with a grin as soon as he arrived.

Cheng Yang glared at him and asked, "Where were you yesterday? You didn't come back from the afternoon until the evening."

Niu Bing's eyes darted around as he said, "Well... I didn't go anywhere. I was just killing mutated beasts and lost track of direction, so I went a bit further."

Cheng Yang couldn't help but laugh and cry, "Can you stop looking around when you lie? Everyone can tell you're lying. Come on, tell me what you were really doing."

Niu Bing's face fell, and he said, "I don't dare to say! The last time I told you something, I was severely criticized by Haozi and the others. If I tell you something this time, they'll probably beat me to death."

Cheng Yang's heart stirred. He remembered the last time. If it weren't for Niu Bing's reminder, he might have missed the random teleportation portal and would still be struggling with the Spirit Points needed to upgrade to Level 3.

Did this guy have another discovery this time? It couldn't be another random event, could it? While random events weren't particularly rare, it was unusual for so many to happen, and all to Niu Bing.

"The last time is already in the past, and it was a significant contribution to our territory. If you don't tell me this time and we miss something good, your sin will be great," Cheng Yang began to use both threats and persuasion.

PS: Please recommend and follow...