Giantree City has already stabilized, so Zhang Nu immediately returned to Darkness Valley.
Right now, he currently has 1.1 million gold on hand and he plans on spending it on structures and summonings.
The first thing that he wants is obviously to upgrade his base.
[Do you want to level up the Demon King Castle? Every level up costs "Castle Leveling Scroll" x1, darkness gems x50, steel x2000, stone x5000, wood x5000, gold x80,000!]
So much materials required?
That's not cheap at all.
That said, given that it's the core of his territory, the castle still needs to be leveled up!
The other materials are mostly easy, but darkness gems are one of the more rare types of gems, so 50 of them is not a small number.
Thus, Zhang Nu contacted the Demon King Wang Shi.
Currently, that guy is a famed gem supplier.
Bloody Giant Wang Shi greeted him right away: "Bro, buying gems again eh? How much this time? Worry not, I'll definitely give you the best market price!"
Zhang Nu replied, "50 darkness gems!"
Bloody Giant Wang Shi: "What? 50? That much!"
Zhang Nu: "Can you do it? If not, I'll have to look elsewhere for them."
Bloody Giant Wang Shi: "Who says I can't? I'm a top tier individual too, you know. Although darkness gems are a bit harder to get, given my current ability, it's still very much possible."
Zhang Nu did not waste any more words: "Name a price then!"
Bloody Giant Wang Shi, "We're old acquaintances, so it'll be 2000 gold per gem. This is the best price already. Given the current market, there's no way you can get this price from anyone else."
2000 gold per gem.
So 50 gems makes it 100k gold.
Zhang Nu replied with a single word: "Deal!"
Bloody Giant Wang Shi: "Give me two days!"
The problem of materials has thus been resolved.
That said, it will still take time until the gems can be delivered.
Therefore, Zhang Nu first used the other blueprint.
[Do you want to use "Blueprint: Lifespring" x1, gold 30,000, and water gems x50 to summon Lifespring?]
This level 32 structure is relatively simple in terms of materials.
Zhang Nu chose to accept without hesitation and placed the Lifespring right in front of the Demon King Castle. This will be the location of the central plaza for the future Darkness City.
[Lifespring construction successful!]
[Lifespring]. Level 2 special structure. Within a radius of 5000 meters, all targets recovery speed +100%. Produces 10 cubic meters of lifespring water every day.
Nice.
The moment the Lifespring was summoned, the builders who were busy building Darkness City all felt refreshed and energized. Their stamina was being rapidly restored.
This spring has an enormous area of effect. Zhang Nu is still under the effect of the spring even when he's sitting inside the Castle.
The Demon King Castle itself has a very strong strengthening effect on the Demon King, and now, with the additional effect of the Spring's buff, it's going to be near impossible for any Hero to defeat him here.
Beyond that, this Spring also produces 10 cubic meters of Lifespring water.
If it's used to water plants, then not only can it boost the quality of the produce, it can also increase the production rate by 30 times!
Zhang Nu's level 2 farms already had a 15 times growth rate increase, so if the springwater is added in, then it can reach 45 times. That's utterly broken!
Of course, the springwater is limited in quantity.
It's not really worth it to use for normal crops.
The main use is going to be for growing valuable resources.
The springwater can also be directly drunk or used to brew potions.
Zhang Nu considered the fact that he had recruited so many elves. Among elves, there are many individuals with the ability to make potions. Thus, in the future, they can be made into a potion making group. Not only can they supply him, but the potions can also be sold beyond the Forest or to other Demon Kings.
Potions are quite a profitable business!
This is especially true given that he now has the Lifespring, Tree of Life, and Spirit Field Farms. With them, Zhang Nu will never need to worry about materials for them.
Next, Zhang Nu expanded the population.
He spent 500k gold to summon up 5000 soldiers in one go.
His racial population thus broke through the 5 digit mark to reach 11163 in total.
Of them, there's 2500 draconian laborers, 1200 high laborers, 100 draconian craftsmen, 6550 normal soldiers, 165 high soldiers, 15 super soldiers, 25 draconian battlemages, 5 mystic draconian battlemages, 2 draconian generals, and 1 draconian priest.
The battle of Giantree City made Zhang Nu aware of certain issues.
For example, the draconian priest's ability to teleport soldiers isn't strong enough.
A single draconian priest's teleportation field can only teleport a few hundred units at once, and the teleportation field, when set up, will only be in effect for an hour.
In order to make up for the lack in duration and effectiveness, the best way is to summon up a few more draconian priests.
If he had two draconian priests, then that tactic would be much more flexible.
For example, if he were to place a draconian priest each in both Giantree City and Darkness Valley and have them both maintain a teleportation field, then there won't be any more one hour time limit. Teleportations can be done at any moment, for as long as he wants.
Or if he were to place two priests in Giantree City at the same time and have them take turns recovering MP and activating teleportations, then he'd be able to double his army teleportation speed...
As Zhang Nu thought of that, he summoned up 8 draconian generals and 2 draconian priests!
Each draconian general costs 15k gold and each draconian priest costs 30k gold. He spent 180k gold with that purchase, but it's not all that expensive for him.
This way, he now has 10 draconian generals and 3 draconian priests!
It's not that Zhang Nu didn't want to summon more draconian priests though. It's just that a condition for summoning Draconian priests is that 3000 additional population is required for each new summoning.
With the current state of his territory, it could at most support 3 draconian priests.
As for draconian generals, their requirements are far lower. They only require 500 normal soldiers or 50 high soldiers to generate an additional spot.
This is pretty good though!
After this new, huge round of summonings, the draconian army had explosively expanded.
With the army made from those 10 draconian generals, 3 draconian priests, and nearly 7000 draconian combat units, it's more than enough to take over a good section anywhere in the Chaos Forest, as well as being enough to intimidate any current faction within the Forest.
Yet, this still isn't Zhang Nu's full force.
Even without counting the miscellaneous combat units he has like skeleton soldiers or minotaurs, Zhang Nu currently has a summoned elven army of around 2500 in Giantree City. Add in Giantree City's native elven army of around 7000 or so, this is another elite army of nearly 10,000.
In summary, Zhang Nu's current military might is already quite powerful.
Although it's still nowhere near enough to truly fight against actual countries, it's at least capable of directly threatening any Forest City within the Chaos Forest. At worst, it's still enough to easily take over a good section of the Forest.
...
While Zhang Nu was being ambitious and wildly expanding his military, at the same time, constant sounds of joy and laughter were coming out from inside the city lord's main office for Giantree City.
Three natural slackers who ended up fast friends at first sight were currently gathered there with a newly created deck of poker cards and were currently having a fun time playing.
"Pair of eights!"
"Pair of tens!"
"Pair of kings!"
"Hehe, that's that!"
Zhang Nu would certainly have been shocked if he was here.
It's because the three girls here are: Flower Demon King Chen Guoguo, city lord of Giantree City Nancilia, and the Hero player Su Yan.
A Demon King, a Hero, and a native city lord.
The three of them were actually having fun together.
And they looked like they were quite friendly at that.
That's a seriously strange scene there!