Chapter 71: A Heavy Load and a Long Road

“Ding~ Congratulations to player ‘Daydreaming’ for accepting instruction from Li Guang, a general worshipped in the Martial Temple. Your Might stat has increased by 3 points. Further instruction from the same worshipped general will not increase your Might stat.”

After being brutally beaten with a broken branch by Li Guang for a full hour, Mo Xiaobai suddenly heard an Intellect Brain notification.

Might points actually increased?

He had never heard of such a good thing in his past life.

After carefully thinking over the content of the notification, Mo Xiaobai roughly understood.

In his past life, the Martial Temple never appeared. Even if players received instruction from Famous Generals, they lacked the Martial Temple as a communication bridge. As a result, they could only gain invisible combat experience instead of real Attribute Points.

Unlike now, the Martial Temple has appeared. Naturally, generals like Li Guang, who are worshipped by the Martial Temple, have the duty to pass down the Huaxia martial arts inheritance.

Once he figured this out, Mo Xiaobai immediately left the combat circle and rubbed his reddened wrist. “No more fighting. No more. Next time, once I figure out a killing move, I’ll find the Flying General to spar again.”

Since the Intellect Brain said there would be no more Might point rewards, Mo Xiaobai had no interest in continuing to get beaten up. He and Li Guang returned to the makeshift Military Camp, and soon they both fell asleep.

Early the next morning, Mo Xiaobai was woken up by the loud “clunk clunk” knocking sounds from outside. Squinting his eyes, he came out and realized the sun was high in the sky. The villagers had already started their work on their own.

Seeing Mo Xiaobai come out, Li Guang walked over carrying two large pieces of roasted meat. “My Lord, seeing that you had not woken up, I took the liberty to let the villagers eat some roasted meat and start mining.”

“Thank you, Flying General.”

Mo Xiaobai took the roasted meat and knew right away that they were two rabbit legs, likely hunted by the Rattan Armor Soldiers that morning. He tore the meat off and stuffed it into his mouth. In the wild, there were no fancy things to care about.

While Mo Xiaobai ate, Li Guang pointed to a nearby spot. “My Lord, the wooden carts are all loaded with the ore mined yesterday. Shall I arrange someone to send them back?”

“It seems that even when I am not here, the Flying General can manage everything here in an orderly fashion. That is good. We must send a batch of Ridge Stones back first. Since it is the first transport run, the Flying General must go personally.”

“In that case, this subordinate will take only ten Rattan Armor Soldiers as an escort. The other ninety will be split up: forty to guard My Lord, and the remaining fifty will continue patrolling the entire mine to ensure there are no issues nearby.”

Li Guang had not been a Grand Administrator just to draw a salary; he had thought of everything he could possibly consider. This left Mo Xiaobai with nothing to do but stand by the villagers, eating roasted meat, and shouting “666.”

Watching Li Guang lead his soldiers to escort eight villagers pushing carts back to the village, Mo Xiaobai, having nothing to do, began to think about the construction plan for Daming Village.

Now that Daming Village was at Village Level 3, it was far ahead of the other players’ territories. However, to maintain this lead, Mo Xiaobai could not slack off at all.

“In the short term, upgrading to a Small Town is impossible.”

“Even for the weak talent of Daming Village, a Village Level 3 requires a population of five thousand to be full. Relying only on the dozens of Refugees that refresh every day would take several months.”

Reborn, Mo Xiaobai knew there was a quick way to replenish the population, and that was by absorbing Players. He believed that once Daming Village’s reputation was established, many Players in the Great Han Dynasty who had lost their territories would be very interested in his land. Filling it to five thousand people would be a matter of minutes.

However, Mo Xiaobai did not want to do this. The main reason was that Player integrity was basically unreliable, and most of them lacked any sense of confidentiality.

Mo Xiaobai would consider letting one or two Players he trusted enter Daming Village in the future. But to accept a thousand or two Players at once? He believed that as soon as he accepted them, his territory would be exposed on the Forum and the channels.

Doing that would be like raising a large number of spies around him. Not only would he not be able to sleep, even a nap would be dangerous. In his past life, there were too many bloody lessons, leaving Mo Xiaobai with extreme disappointment regarding Player loyalty.

With the population unable to be quickly replenished, this single limitation meant that Daming Village could not be upgraded to a town in the short term.

“If the territory level cannot be raised, the only way to strengthen the territory is to build a more comprehensive structure and more buildings.”

Mo Xiaobai knew a bit about these basic Lord knowledge, otherwise, he would not have left his own Baron’s Manor to run around in the wild, facing wind and sun.

“The Mulberry Garden’s leaves can raise silkworms, and mulberry wood is qualified material for buildings and weapons. However, the territory still lacks a Textile Workshop and a Weapon Workshop. The Textile Workshop can operate once built, thanks to the Luo sisters. As for the Weapon Workshop, we need a specialized weaponsmith. After all, foodie Zheng Lun is just a blacksmith. Even if he can make weapons, they will be simple things like arrowheads and spear tips.”

“The Winery has started brewing wine. To truly make it operational, we still need to find a fine wine recipe. Otherwise, the usual rice wine is only good enough for personal tasting. Over at the Mantou Kiln, we can officially start work once this batch of Ridge Stones is sent back. However, one kiln operator is still too few. It would take several days just to make a full kiln full of pottery molds.”

Sitting on the grass and carefully analyzing the current development of the territory, Mo Xiaobai found that although the Daming Village project was gradually expanding, the only things currently capable of generating profit were the Farmland and the Medicine Field, which were harvested every day.

The other commercial buildings were far from meeting the standards for production profit. At best, they could only meet the self-sufficiency needs of Daming Village.

“As expected, building a territory is a heavy task with a long road ahead.” Shaking his head and sighing, Mo Xiaobai knew these things could not be rushed. He had to calm his heart and manage things slowly to make Daming Village grow stronger day by day.

Patting the grass fragments off his body and standing up, Mo Xiaobai was ready to take a few Rattan Armor Soldiers to check out the nearby hills. But before he could call the soldiers, a noisy sound seemed to come from the north side of the distant hill.

Looking up and standing on his tiptoes, he saw three Rattan Armor Soldiers leading two people toward the Camp.

The two figures in the middle did not look like bandits. They looked more like Players, similar to Mo Xiaobai.

“What is going on?”

“How could there be Players here?”

Mo Xiaobai did not want to interact too much with Players right now. However, the three Rattan Armor Soldiers, who did not quite understand their Lord’s mood, saw Mo Xiaobai and immediately dragged the two Players toward him. It was too late for Mo Xiaobai to try to avoid them.

One Rattan Armor Soldier running at the front quickly ran to Mo Xiaobai’s side and immediately bowed his fist. “My Lord, I was patrolling the mountain just now and caught these two spies.”

“Spit! You are the spy! Your whole family are spies!”

After being dragged by the Rattan Armor Soldiers for over a hundred meters, the two Players looked terrible. One of them was even furious. Forgetting his current captive situation, he immediately snapped back.

“What exactly is going on?” Mo Xiaobai looked up at the male and female Player pair and asked in a deep voice.

“My Lord, I and my brothers were ordered by the General to seal the mountain. These two dared to force their way through right under my nose. I tried to drive them away, but surprisingly, instead of leaving, they hid in the shadows and spied on us.”

The Rattan Armor Soldier dutifully explained the situation, then pushed the two men forward with his right hand. “That is why I captured them and handed them over to My Lord for judgment.”