Darkness City.
In the Demon King's castle.
"My Master."
Li Si approached to report, "The tribes controlled by the eleven Demon Kings and the Divine Sword Heroes have been wiped out."
"Not bad!"
"Impressive efficiency!"
"What is the deployment situation of the Bloody Fortress?"
Li Si immediately responded, "The five thousand soldiers and five thousand laborers that you recruited have been transferred."
"As for Berserk Beast City and Giantree City, they will each select five thousand elite troops, which will arrive soon and form the fortress defense army within these few days."
After capturing the Bloody Fortress.
They spent several days doing the aftermath work.
Zhang Nu had constructed a Level 3 offensive building, Thunderfall Tower and a Level 2 scouting building, Farsight Tower for the fortress. Now, a strong fortress regiment was also soon to be established.
He had planned to assign two draconian priests, eight generals and three thousand beholders to the Bloody Fortress later on.
This would greatly enhance the fortress strength.
It would be more than ten times stronger than when the Divine Sword commandeered it.
The several thousands of beholders alone.
They would be enough to hold the pass and prevent an army of multiple times their number from breaking through.
This fortress should become a bridgehead stronghold to resist the empire's advancement.
Of course.
With such deployment.
Bloody Fortress would already be quite formidable.
But if the fortress was needed to completely defend against an empire.
Then it would be required to be further strengthened and reinforced with more defensive facilities and more powerful combat units.
However, this was no easy task.
Maintaining a large army for a long period of time.
The expenditures could be very exorbitant and terrifying.
Despite Zhang Nu's strong financial foundation, if the military expenditures exceeded a certain threshold, it could even impede the development speed of the territory itself.
Therefore.
On one hand, it was necessary to exploit war to support war, and let the army itself create value that could cover the military cost.
On the other hand, Zhang Nu needed to increase territory construction, constantly increasing its financial and resource production capabilities.
Currently, the areas under the control of the Demon King included: Darkness City, Giantree City, Berserk Beast City, and Bloody Fortress.
Plus, there were several dozen tribes and villages of various kinds, which, if viewed as a whole, were also of considerable size with a population of tens of thousands of natives.
Among them.
Darkness City was the main base camp.
And it would be developed into the capital city in the future.
Giantree City and Berserk Beast City were the two closest cities, with the greatest potential for development.
In terms of income, the Darkness City earned the most but also spent the most.
In addition to maintaining the various facilities and buildings, and the recent addition of over 10,000 draconian, the financial income had decreased slightly, but the daily net income could still be maintained at around 150,000 gold.
The daily contribution of the Giantree City had reached around 130,000 to 140,000 gold, which was comparable to that of the Darkness City. If the current trend persevered, it would soon surpass the Darkness City.
Berserk Beast City had not been developed long.
Its income was naturally the lowest.
Nevertheless, the profit realization of the gold mines was quick.
Hence, it could contribute around 30 to 40 thousand gold per day.
As for the affiliated tribes? The average daily output of these places could basically be ignored.
But of course.
The income mentioned above was purely from production.
The real total income was much more than that.
Because for a Demon King, income did not only source from production.
The draconians, elves, orcs, and especially the major affiliated tribes, either for food or security reasons, dispatch people to hunt nearby every day.
The process of killing monsters also generated gold for Zhang Nu.
Adding it all up, it would be at least 20,000 to 30,000 gold per day.
Zhang Nu's total income was easy to calculate, as he made over 300,000 gold every day.
This was a substantial income, more than enough to maintain his current development and dominate the entire Chaos Forest. However, it was still far from sufficient to resist the Empire, and there was still a lot of room for improvement.
With this in mind.
Zhang Nu opened the Demon King chat channel.
He posted an acquisition message: "Purchasing Spirit Field blueprints and building upgrade scrolls with high prices. Those who have it can directly trade with me"
After posting, he put out a purchase order in the trading area.
[Blueprint: Spirit Field], purchase price of 180,000 gold per copy!
[Level 1 Normal Building Upgrade Scroll], limited to 10 copies, with a purchase price of 20,000 gold each!
[Level 2 Normal Building Upgrade Scroll], limited to 10 copies, with a purchase price of 80,000 gold each!
[Level 3 Normal Building Upgrade Scroll], purchase price of 300,000 gold per copy!
The Spirit Field was only a Level 1 blueprint, and if one was lucky enough, it could be obtained by conquering goblin tribes. However, it was now being sold on the market for exorbitant prices.
Recently, several Spirit Field blueprints were sold at a price of around 150,000 gold each, which was more expensive than most Level 3 blueprints.
Zhang Nu was wealthy and generous.
Hence, the purchase was made at a price of 180,000 gold per copy.
This was enough to make all the Demon Kings who held Spirit Field blueprints for sale to be tempted!
After all, not all Demon Kings were able to farm. This was related to their environment and the production units they could have.
If Zhang Nu only had draconian units.
It would be arduous and difficult for him to take the farming and crop production route.
This was due to the draconians not having any planting skills, and without the guidance of planting skills enhancement, the Spirit Field plants were very likely to wilt, and the harvest would be much lower than expected.
In addition to the Spirit Field blueprints, he also acquired a large number of structure upgrade scrolls.
The purchase prices were 10 to 20 percent higher than market prices.
This bold behavior of his caused a stir among the Demon King community.
"Here comes the Potato Demon King again!"
"He's actually buying new Spirit Fields!"
"Hot damn! This big shot's potato output is already crazy! Is it not enough?"
"If he obtains a few more Spirit Fields, how much food and herbs will be produced? He must be planning to do the farming business until the end of time!"
"Damn it! Objection! Having money doesn't mean you can raise prices like this!"
"Exactly, by suddenly inflating the prices like this, how are others supposed to develop? If anyone has Spirit Fields, they should sell them to me!"
"Those guys up there are both idiots!"
"Don't bother with them, Potato Boss!"
"..."
Despite the fact that the blueprint for the Spirit Field could be obtained in low-level areas, the overall drop rate was not high, making it in short supply for the Demon Kings.
If Zhang Nu did not put out a tempting offer, how could he acquire them?
Zhang Nu did not care about spending a few extra thousand gold coins and offered slightly higher prices than others. This was a market behavior and could not be considered as artificially inflating prices.
[Trade successful, gold -20,000, you gained "Level 1 Normal Building Upgrade Scroll" x1!]
[Trade successful, gold -20,000, you gained "Level 1 Normal Building Upgrade Scroll" x1!]
[Trade successful, gold -20,000, you gained "Level 1 Normal Building Upgrade Scroll" x1!]
[......]
[Trade successful, gold -80,000, you gained "Level 2 Normal Building Upgrade Scroll" x1!]
Even though no one was trading Zhang Nu Spirit Field blueprints at the time being.
There were plenty of normal building upgrade scrolls.
He had received a total of eight Level 1 upgrade scrolls and two Level 2 upgrade scrolls, which cost him 320,000 gold.
A Level 1 upgrade scroll could upgrade a Level 1 building into a Level 2.
There were still many Level 1 structures within Darkness City, for instance, the five Tower of Grudges in the Darkness Valley, Tower of Fog, Tower of Barrier, Detection Tower, Dark Prison, and Minotaur Camp.
Zhang Nu upgraded all five of the Tower of Grudges with the scrolls.
The comprehensive strength of the territory was bound to increase significantly.
The power of the Level 2 Tower of Grudges was several times greater than that of the Level 1 ones.
With the five Level 2 Tower of Grudges and defending undeads in the canyon, even if the valley was sieged by the large tribes or even armies from other forest cities, they could easily stop the enemies outside the gates of the Darkness City.
Next.
Zhang Nu continued to upgrade the Dark Prison, Tower of Fog, and Minotaur Camp one by one.
After these places were upgraded, their functions remained the same, but undoubtedly became more powerful. For example, the Dark Prison could now imprison Level 4 units, and the dungeon space was twice as large as before.
Immediately after using a Level 2 upgrade scroll, the Tower of Fog was upgraded again.
When the Tower of Fog was upgraded to Level 3, the coverage range of the mist barrier became larger, not only affecting the invader's vision, but also creating mirage-like illusions.
Even if a B rank dispelling magic was casted on it, tThe range that could be dispelled became very limited.
The Level 3 Tower of Fog was enough to greatly increase the security of the territory.
As for the remaining Level 2 upgrade scroll, Zhang Nu used it on the Spirit Field without hesitation, upgrading the Level 2 Spirit Field of the territory to a Level 3.
[Upgrade the Level 2 Spirit Field?]
[The upgrade costs: "Level 2 Upgrade Scroll" x1, "Gold" x200,000, "Life Gem" x300, "Earth Gem" x200, "Water Gem" x100!]
Zhang Nu was a little startled by the price.
This was ten times more expensive than upgrading the Tower of Fog!
Without a second thought, Zhang Nu gathered the materials and promptly upgraded it!
[Upgrade Successful!]
[Spirit Field area +50%, growth rate +30%, Super Spirit Field +1 acre!]
The energy in the soil of the Spirit Field grew further.
The farm size reached 225 acres, and the growth rate was nearly twenty times that of the Level 1 Spirit Field, almost doubling in comparison.
Furthermore in the center of the Level 3 Spirit Field, there was a patch of field that was distinctive than others.
This additional plot of land had a darker color, and each grain of its soil seemed to contain endless life energy.
This was the "Super Spirit Field" that only appeared in the Level 3 Spirit Field. Despite its small size, its energy density was three times higher than that of the surrounding spirit soil.
In an ordinary Spirit Field, crops could grow nearly twenty times faster than usual.
But in a Super Spirit Field, the speed could reach a whopping sixty times as fast.
A single acre of Super Spirit Field could feed an entire army.
This area could be utilized specifically for cultivating rare medicinal herbs, especially those with long growth cycles of ten to eight years or more, or for precious crops with demanding growth environments and energy requirements.
After upgrading the Spirit Fields, the cost of military expansion was greatly reduced.
The income of Darkness City could continue to develop and grow.
Zhang Nu had not received any Spirit Field blueprints or Level 3 upgrade scroll at the moment. It was likely due to the rarity of these two items, and Zhang Nu would require some time and patience for these items to surface on the market.
He himself had a Level 4 upgrade scroll in hand.
It was a reward obtained in the Sealed Land.
It could be used to upgrade the Altar of Inferno or the Tower of Evil Eye, but the cost of upgrading to the Level 5 was too high for him to afford at the moment.
Moreover, the functionality of these two structures were sufficient for now.
Rather than forcibly upgrading them, it was better to leave them be for now.
After a series of upgrades, the Darkness City had become even more profound, but Zhang Nu's gold and resources were running thin.
The Demon King therefore decided to accelerate the pace of annexation.
Chaos Forest had dozens of forest cities within.
There were also over a dozen larger cities, such as the Berserk Beast City and Giantree City.
The conquest of every region by the Demon King brought forth a large yield of gold and rewards, not to mention the resources and population of each conquered region were valuable in themselves.
During this process.
They could harvest souls from killing the Heroes.
Zhang Nu immediately held a meeting, informed his subordinates of his plans and intentions, and ordered everyone to participate and act separately for greater efficiency.
Upon learning his intentions.
Everyone present at the meeting was taken aback by his mad idea.
The city lord of the Berserk Beast City, Gru, could not believe his ear, "Your Majesty, you aim to conquer all the forest cities and dominate the entire Chaos Forest?!"
Throughout history, the Chaos Forest had rarely seen the emergence of a dominant power.
This was mainly due to internal and external factors.
The internal factor was that the Chaos Forest was home to dozens of races, each with vastly different lifestyles, personalities, and cultures. Unless an overwhelmingly dominant force emerged, they would never submit to each other.
The external factor was that the Chaos Forest was surrounded by large empire-level forces for a long time. These powerhouses did not want to see the Chaos Forest unified, as the more disordered and chaotic the forest was, the safer it was for them.
"My will is final!" declared Zhang Nu.
"This forest has been in chaos for over ten thousand years, with endless tribal wars causing severe internal strife. It's time to establish order!"
To everyone's surprise, the peace-loving and non-confrontational elven race was the first to voice their support.
"I fully support His Majesty's decision!" Nancilia exclaimed firmly, "The mayhem in the forest cannot continue like this forever! Someone has to step forth and put an end to this situation! I believe that His Majesty has both the strength and the qualifications to do so!"
The young city lord had long anticipated that the Demon King would take this step.
Although it came a little earlier than expected, she did not find it surprising at all.
From a young age, her people had high expectations of her as a born elf ruler, believing that she would lead the revival of the elves and ultimately dominate the Chaos Forest.
However, Nancilia was acutely aware.
Even if she possessed the strength of a ruler, she did not have the capability to lead this forest.
The elders' excessive expectations of her were suffocating.
Fortunately, the Demon King was here.
He was the true and rightful emperor.
The Chaos Forest had finally found its appropriate master!