"Celestial Dao Roulette, initiate Two-Star Lottery."
Waking up early, Yi Tian came out to the open area. He hadn't forgotten that today was the twentieth day.
Two lottery points per day, so Yi Tian had a total of ten lottery points now, enough for two Two-Star draws.
With a thought, two lottery wheels appeared in front of him. The One-Star Lottery didn't interest Yi Tian; the difference with the Two-Star Lottery was just too great.
The Two-Star wheel was white, the pointer spun rapidly, forty-eight sectors, packed with dazzling prizes.
"Small Factory Blueprint*1."
Yi Tian checked out this small factory. Raw materials warehouse, workshop, and finished goods warehouse all integrated. Not very big, just covers one mu (about 667㎡).
Thinking about how he didn't have a clothing workshop, he decided to put this up and use it for clothing production for now.
Even if clothes plummet in price in the Cosmic Ten Thousand Races, there'd be no worry about selling them. Worst case, just make a little less profit. Principle of the honest merchant: slow and steady wins the race.
"Draw again!" The first draw was decent but nothing special. Looking forward to the second one.
"Received A-level reward: a pair of Eastsea Falcon eggs."
When Yi Tian saw "A-level reward," he thought it'd be a Divine Weapon or a Pill, maybe a Spirit Fruit, and almost jumped up.
Instead, he got two huge eggs—what, treating him like some old grandpa raising birds now?
The Eastsea Falcon's famous, Yi Tian knew that. In the Compendium of Materia Medica, it says the greatest hawks of Liaodong are called Eastsea Falcon. In Huaxia, the Eastsea Falcon stands for the Divine Eagle.
But what's the use of the eggs?
Can't even feed them Water of Life.
"Sigh! Whatever, I guess I'll have a breakfast bonus!"
The Celestial Dao Roulette vanished, leaving two giant blue eggs at Yi Tian's feet, each bigger than a basketball.
"Crack!"
With a crisp sound, a hole appeared in one eggshell, and a sharp beak poked through from inside and broke open the egg.
Another crack, the other eggshell did exactly the same.
"Dun dun dun..."
Apparently the shells were tough, since the two fledglings had been working at it for ages but still hadn't broken off any more pieces.
So much for my extra breakfast! Yi Tian was about to smash the shell with a hammer and help them out. Then he remembered, back on Earth, that helping raptor chicks hatch can cause congenital problems.
These eggs were dozens of times the size of Earth's Eastsea Falcon eggs, must be super raptors.
Yi Tian moved them under the eaves of the villa to let them hatch at their own pace—he didn't have time to stand around babysitting.
He headed to the Alloy Warehouse, getting the captives to haul wood, stone, iron, and other building materials over to the left side of the warehouse.
"Small Factory. Wood*10,000, Iron*10,000, High-Level Stone*30,000, Copper*5,000, silver*1,000, Glass*100, Beast Core*2."
"Build!"
A small factory, occupying one mu, appeared on the left of the Alloy Warehouse.
Since all the stone was High-Level Stone, the whole small factory added 1,000 Territory Points to Yi Tian.
Yi Tian rolled the semi-automatic sewing machine out from the first floor of the Boutique Warehouse into the new factory's workspace, converting it into a clothing workshop.
In the Auction House, batches of cloth would appear every now and then, only to be instantly snapped up.
At this stage, the Lords' cotton fields were mature, and some who owned looms made a killing from it.
Yi Tian saw Cotton Cloth*100, and reached out to buy it.
Purchase failed: this item no longer exists.
In no time, Yi Tian spotted thousands of listings, none of which he could successfully buy.
After refreshing, new listings kept popping up—still zero luck; all snatched away.
The shortage of cloth was real!
Usually, any given item gets refreshed in the Auction House by the hundreds of millions per hour.
Yi Tian had no choice but to close the Auction House. He wasn't one of those idle Lords who lounge around fighting over scraps of cloth just to make a few rough shirts and live in content mediocrity.
"Damn it! That kobold I caught last time actually slipped away while I was sleeping and even stole the two Beast Cores I hid in my house."
Yi Tian was poking around in the zone chat for Spring Beast updates when he saw this and couldn't help laughing.
"Lucky you—at least the kobold didn't slit your throat while you slept."
"So naïve. Slaves need to be watched and whipped at all times; tie them up before you sleep. Already had several cases of slaves killing their masters in the zone."
"That's why you shouldn't get cocky. A slave's Three-dimensional has to be at least ten points less than the Lord's, or accidents are just waiting to happen."
"Is Yao Wuyu around? Didn't he get a slave? Could you talk about breaking in natives? If someone can't even run their own camp, how will they build an entire territory?" Someone's calling for Yao Wuyu.
Yi Tian had started following the zone chat yesterday. He knew this Yao Wuyu was praised as top dog in Zone 10086, founder of the Demon Alliance, supposedly with ten thousand followers.
Yao Wuyu only says three lines a day, but every word sends ripples through the whole zone.
"Cough cough! I just figured this out myself. We came to this world, no matter how strong, we're still just one person. The territory granted us by the Celestial Dao isn't huge, but it isn't tiny either. There's a little forest, a lake full of fish, the grasslands have blueberries and wild rabbits in the shrubs, and there's a mineral vein on the mountain with tons of stone to dig. Even with a Construction Platform, Tool Platform, and Smelting Platform, it's still tough. Now, about slaves: I've tamed two. One of them, thanks to my mix of carrots and sticks, and my personal charisma, pledged complete loyalty. As a result, Celestial Dao gave me twelve Lord Contracts. Once you use the Lord Contract, the slave won't betray you—they become your right-hand man, Lord..." — Earth Demon Race, Yao Wuyu.
Looks like Yao Wuyu wanted to keep going, but hit the character limit.
Supposedly, this happens every day.
"Is it really always twelve Lord Contracts?" someone asked.
Everyone already knew the formula: bribe with food and drink, threaten or entice. Get Loyalty up to sixty and Celestial Dao considers them tamed. Then just use a Lord Contract to be totally safe.
"Four given at Level 1 Territory, eight at Second-Level, twelve at Third-Level, and so on..." — Earth Demon Race, Yao Wuyu.
Again with the character limit.
Yi Tian thought: Third-Level Territory means 2000 Territory Points. Wonder how close this guy is to the 5000 needed for Level 4. Five thousand points means Level 4 Territory.
From Yi Tian's understanding, the first four levels are just beginner's territories. After Level 4, each upgrade is much harder.
Right now, Yi Tian's at Sixth-Level Territory and it's still called "beginner" by the Celestial Dao Stone, nowhere near the next upgrade.
Even if all the Calabash Sisters land, he's still short a lot.
Soon, the chat and bullet comments are all chanting that Earth Demon Race's Yao Wuyu is #1 in the region.
Yao Wuyu didn't reply, as if tacitly agreeing.
But actually, he knew full well his territory wasn't #1 in the zone—didn't even make top 10 in the rewards.
Even in Subzone 1, Yao Wuyu was only the fourth to hit Third-Level.
Yi Tian scrolled for a long time and finally spotted something useful.
"Spring Beast has reached Zone 57, heads up! Zone 57 is in big trouble now."
Yi Tian started mapping out the positions of each subzone in his head.
Yesterday the Spring Beast looked like it was invading Zone 66, but actually didn't—just skirted the edge, unlucky for a dozen or so people at 66's border. The really unlucky zone's 56, with around two hundred people reportedly chewed up by Spring Beast.
Zone 57 should be just northeast of 66.
Zone 66 is bordered by 65 to the east, 67 to the west, 56 to the north, and 76 to the south.
Yi Tian was frustrated—was the Spring Beast going farther and farther away?!
Big Child had been swinging that huge iron chain all morning.
With three-dimensional above 200, this kind of training is a breeze. By now, Big Child could lasso a target thirty meters in the air.
With Spring Beast confirmed in Zone 57, Yi Tian threw himself completely into work.
As the end of the month approached, panic was spreading across all regions, with tons of people furiously developing their camps. Most Lords started building regular stone walls—not big, but sturdy enough to keep out the enemy. The house could be wooden, but the wall had to be stone.
Some people were also upgrading their Construction Platform to Level 2, building higher and stronger walls.
Zone 10086 probably doesn't know much about slaves, but in most other zones, large-scale slave development had already begun.
The Slave Market was booming—even ordinary natives with no levels were getting snapped up. Any native with a bit of rank would get bought instantly if the price wasn't insane.
The higher slave prices went, the happier Yi Tian felt. He planned to sell all his slaves before the end of the month. Time to cash in.
D-level natives had gone from twenty thousand to forty thousand, nearly catching up to Brass Mechanized Guards.
But now, with Lord Contracts, Guards just couldn't compete with the usefulness of slaves.
For this month's assessment, many Lords held a pessimistic view.
Like in Zone 66, five thousand IDs had already vanished in these twenty days alone.
The natives and beasts attacking Lords are generally weaker than the Lords themselves.
And yet, still one out of every twenty people dies.
With this situation, Yi Tian sensed that the Hundred Power Divine Crossbow was about to sell out.
If your Three-dimensional is under 100, buying a Hundred Power Divine Crossbow was definitely a better deal than adding two attribute points.
The only regret was that even making crossbows twelve hours a day, Yi Tian could only produce six hundred or so, since he still had to sort out materials in between.
"D-level Beast Tendon*1, Copper*10, Iron*10, Wood*2, E-level Beast Core*1, silver*100, Celestial Dao Coin*1000."
This was the recipe for one Hundred Power Divine Crossbow, with a basic cost of 5,000.
Luckily, ever since everyone handled the three pests, D-level Beast Tendons weren't that expensive and there were plenty in the Auction House.
Yi Tian planned to keep making Hundred Power Divine Crossbows until the end of the month.
Once this assessment ended, the crossbows weren't going to sell for even 20,000 Celestial Dao Coins.
Yi Tian had no intention of using his stock of silver, copper, iron, Beast Cores, or wood.
He still had plenty of Celestial Dao Coins, and you have to spend money to make money.
In Yi Tian's mind, whether it's silver, copper, iron, wood, or even stone—everything had room to appreciate in value.
Spending 24 million, Yi Tian bought 6,000 sets of Divine Crossbow materials. Besides material costs, making that many crossbows would need another 6 million Celestial Dao Coins in manufacturing fees.
Celestial Dao Coin balance: 47.7 million (for convenience, crossbow manufacture fees already deducted).
Yi Tian was suffering but also feeling happy, like a machine producing crossbows one by one without pause.
When he got the Mist Scroll, he'd thought of taking a trip outside after the rain, but with Spring Beast on the loose, as long as it wasn't dead, there was no way Yi Tian was heading into the Mist.
Luckily, with the Weapon Platform open, he could still access the zone chat, so he could monitor Spring Beast's movements at any time.
"Congratulations, Lord! Your territory has welcomed two A-level potential recruits, gaining 1,000 Territory Points. Current Territory Points (115,500/200,000)."
This round: small factory +1000, Fire Dragon +100, five Human Race natives +250, two little falcons +1000.
ps: Little stone hut, which will be demolished sooner or later, not counted.