Chapter 9 of 10

Chapter 9

16 min read3,914 words

Once the villagers become 1st Rank Militia, they can no longer engage in production labor, and their daily food consumption increases to 2 units. Most importantly, the 50 copper per person conversion fee is truly a cause for concern!

Therefore, Yang Rui currently has no plans to train a large number of soldiers to avoid hindering the development of basic infrastructure. The elite soldier route is his preferred choice in the short term.

After converting to 1st Rank Militia, the 13 people who originally gained experience under Yang Rui saw a substantial increase in combat power, even surpassing Yang Rui's level 11 attack. Their roles have now switched, with Yang Rui now following them to gain experience!

Although the 1st Rank Militia have a low rank, the rank bonus is quite noticeable, making it normal for their attack power to be higher than Yang Rui's before conversion. Of course, players can also choose to convert to 1st Rank Militia, which does not affect future upgrades to higher ranks or conversion to a general identity!

The only somewhat troublesome point is that after players convert to soldiers, they can no longer lead other soldiers! The village chief identity itself has a hidden初级commander bonus, allowing them to lead 500 people in battle or labor!

Therefore, Yang Rui will definitely not choose to convert to a soldier! However, to convert to a general, one must wait until their strength value reaches 60 or more! Even with continuous strength increases, it would take nearly level 30! And a strength value of 60 is just one of several essential conditions for converting to a general, and it is the easiest one!

Yang Rui, leading 13 1st Rank "powerful fighters," began clearing monsters within the 20 square kilometer territory of Dasha Village. Once the wild NPC monsters in the new territory are eliminated, they will no longer respawn, ensuring that the villagers' normal work is not affected.

This characteristic is entirely different from the NPC monster groups and bandit camps that accompany the establishment of a village! Each time these groups and camps are destroyed, they automatically upgrade to a higher rank, and they only disappear after being destroyed three times, serving as long-term leveling points.

During the construction of the lumberyard a few days ago, the villagers discovered a significant number of level 15 high mountain wolves in the selected small forest. They encountered one at the edge of the forest, and if it weren't for the presence of level 10 Chen Li, who protected the villagers, the level 0 villagers would have certainly been injured!

Later, Yang Rui, along with brothers Chen Ping and Chen Li, worked hard to clear a small safe area in the forest, allowing the lumberyard to be built smoothly. The remaining level 15 high mountain wolves posed a significant threat to the lumberyard's normal operations, so Yang Rui chose to clear them out first!

The level 15 high mountain wolves have a sharp attack, comparable to the 1st Rank Militia, but their defense is quite ordinary. Under the encirclement of the militia, the high mountain wolves fell one by one, and the entire forest was quickly cleared.

In the final moments, Yang Rui and his 13 militia members encountered a tough opponent, an 18-level high mountain wolf boss, accompanied by 8 minions! Although not part of a monster group, such scaled-up wild monsters often have one or two elite-level bosses.

Yang Rui was not alarmed but rather delighted. Elite-level bosses often drop some good items, even though they are not humanoid NPCs and do not drop money or equipment, they will drop some high-quality materials! Since Yang Rui had been busy leveling up for so long, he had not yet fought a boss! Thus, he excitedly arranged his troops.

An 18-level elite monster plus 8 level 15 minions is already quite strong at this stage, and even a level 20 unconverted player might not be a match! However, this was not a problem for Yang Rui, who had a group of minions. They lined up and started with the minions, engaging in combat!

The 18-level elite boss did not have any fatal skills, only a couple of area-of-effect attacks. Under the close combat of Yang Rui and a few minions, the boss's attacks caused considerable damage, but it was not severe when distributed! On the other side, Yang Rui's 10 militia members quickly dealt with the 8 minions, and then they slowly wore down the boss, inevitably taking some damage.

The elite template boss, the high mountain wolf king, was successfully defeated, dropping two good materials: an 8th-grade wolf skin for making armor and a 9th-grade pile of wolf fangs for making weapons. These materials will be used to improve the skills of the blacksmith and tailor shops in the future.

Clearing the high mountain wolves in the small forest was just the beginning. There were several such-scale wild monsters within the Dasha Village territory, and Yang Rui led the militia to clear them systematically. Of course, fighting small bosses and dropping some useful materials was a refreshing part of the monster-clearing process.

In less than three days, Yang Rui led 13 militia members to eliminate all the wild monsters within the 20 square kilometer territory of Dasha Village, allowing the villagers to work freely without encountering wild monsters in the next production phase.

The 13 militia members all leveled up to 16 in three days, and Yang Rui, including himself, remained at level 16! It is very clear that the experience required to level up after level 10 has increased significantly! Besides leveling up, they also harvested some materials, but there was no income of money or equipment!

During this period, Dasha Village gathered 35 new villagers. After the two "explosive" appearances of refugees, the number of refugees refreshed daily in Dasha Village stabilized, with about 11 to 12 people refreshed each day for three consecutive days.

The newly added villagers were all assigned to develop wasteland and plant sweet potatoes, with a total of 65 people engaged in food production, and the sweet potato planting area exceeded 150 acres. After harvesting two batches of sweet potatoes, the food reserve had already exceeded 300 units!

The lowest point of food shortage has passed, and with the expansion of sweet potato planting, the food reserve will inevitably increase rapidly. Yang Rui was very satisfied and couldn't help but marvel again at how correct it was to choose sweet potatoes as a reward. Sweet potatoes are truly a treasure!

However, the production and storage of other resources in Dasha Village still troubled Yang Rui. Wood was fine, as a key focus, there were already over 200 units in reserve and would continue to grow steadily; the collection of stone materials had not yet begun! But this was not difficult, as the surrounding mountains of Dasha Village were rich in stone resources, and increasing the number of people to collect them would solve the problem!

The most difficult issue was money! After converting 13 1st Rank Militia, Dasha Village had only 350 copper! If not accumulated quickly, it might delay the village's upgrade time in the future!

Currently, Dasha Village's resource situation is as follows: 309 units of food, 100 units of stone, 211 units of wood, and 358 copper coins! The upgrade standards are: 2000 units of food, 1000 units of stone, 1000 units of wood, and 20,000 copper!

One word: poor!

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