Chapter 238: Cave Expansion, Active Preparation for War
It took a few days for Gu Ke to come up with a bunch of similar yet different skin care products.
Among them, the taste of the mint lotion left a deep impression on Xiaoman. After trying it once, she threw away Saranzhu.
Saranzhu liked the mint lotion very much. She applied it on her body and went to the lake to bask in the sun. The wind blew over her body and she felt cool all over. She immediately took it as her "designated product".
Xiaoman picked and chose, and finally preferred the lotion with citrus and honey floral scents.
The citrus scent represents sourness, and the honey floral scent represents sweetness, which is very consistent with Xiaoman's personality as a foodie - sour and sweet are the best.
Xiaoping'er has no preference, but she can use anything.
So in the summer of Dawu's 520th year, Gu Ke spent his time surrounded by the scent of various lotions. .
Only the monsters of the Eternal Ice Peak were a little disappointing. They kept shrinking, as if they were hibernating.
Only the frequency of monsters that appeared randomly in various places in Dawu increased, proving that everything was just the beginning, far from the end.
In contrast, the monsters in the southeast are much more "open".
There are no cases where they set up a stall and get thousands of people, but there are many times when they get hundreds of people.
They are so active that Gu Ke has an 80% chance of randomly setting up a stall in the southeast.
He has lamented more than once that Li Chengfeng and Bai Wanchun are no longer good.
It's not that being attacked by monsters is a problem, but many times the situation is very critical. If the roadside stall is not open, I'm afraid that several prefectures will be destroyed again.
Although they are all relatively weak prefectures, it also means that the defense force of the southeast city is too weak.
First, Su Yulou absorbed a large number of low- and middle-level warriors, and second, they did not shrink their defense like Beimo.
But this is not a reason for failure.
After the civilian warriors were absorbed, they trained more troops.
The warriors of most forces have a certain degree of autonomy. If they want to be transferred to the dangerous Beimo, no one will stop them.
Only the warriors trained by the Yiting Four Kingdoms Army will not be accepted by the other officials and will be wanted.
Unofficial local forces may accept them, but they can only be black households with no bright future.
Unless they are promoted to Wuzong, they can regain their official status and get out of trouble.
But forget about official resources, they can only rely on themselves.
This is the tacit understanding and bottom line formed by the ruling class of Dawu for hundreds of years.
No one wants the army they have worked hard to cultivate to defect collectively, and the strength of the four countries in the court does not want to be wasted in such internal friction.
Perhaps they noticed the "discrimination" of the fairy mountain, or perhaps they felt that it was dangerous to continue like this, and the two countries in the southeast finally couldn't sit still.
Throughout the summer, they made another transaction with Bihai City.
They mainly exchanged for exotic ingredients, and a small part for war weapons and precious medicines.
With such a ratio, it is natural to train the armies of the two countries.
Now with the influx of a large number of alien soul sources, the difficulty of practicing martial arts has been reduced.
The two countries specially selected strong men with good physical conditions, regularly and quantitatively ate exotic ingredients, and diligently practiced the five martial arts of the black evil palm, and they could get started within a year.
Moreover, the talent requirements for entry are extremely low, and the probability of failure is less than one in ten.
Training 10,000 people will at least yield more than 9,000 entry-level warriors.
Entry-level warriors may not be strong enough to kill evil spirits, but they have enough training in the army and are bound by military regulations. They are much more useful than spontaneous civilian warriors when defending the city.
Moreover, this is just the beginning.
People with talent and willingness to work hard will perform better under the same conditions.
If these people are selected for intensive training, it is not surprising to see hundreds of second-round masters among 10,000 people - the initial selection of strong and healthy people is to improve the overall quality, which is naturally better than randomly selecting 10,000 people for training.
By the same token, if there is enough time and resources, it is normal for the best of these hundreds of people to eventually become one or two, or even three or five martial masters.
Of course, training martial masters takes too long and is not easy to control, so the number of successful people will inevitably be less.
However, there are 9,000 entry-level warriors and hundreds of second-round masters among 10,000 people. This strength is enough to guard one or two large prefectures, or three or five small and medium-sized prefectures.
The cost of training these people is not worth mentioning compared to the past, anyway, they are exchanged with the stock of ghost crystals and blood cores.
For example, the second batch of Southeast Wild Country traded 200,000 ghost crystals and blood cores, most of which were of the lowest level, and a small amount came from white ghosts and demon soldiers. The exotic ingredients exchanged were enough to train 200,000 people.
Exchanged for precious medicines, at most more than a thousand second-round masters and dozens of martial masters can be trained.
As long as you calculate, you will understand that they are now buying precious medicines at a super high premium, which is far less cost-effective than buying exotic ingredients at a fair price.
No matter how strong the martial master is, he needs enough first- and second-round warriors to help defend the city.
Once the foundation of the city defense is poor, the protective formation will be easily broken.
At that time, the martial master has no place to hide and restore blood. Either stay and be beaten to death, or run away.
Moreover, thousands of people can be allocated and mobilized at any time to strengthen multiple cities, but the martial master cannot split into two places.
What the two Southeast countries lack most now is the garrison troops that can be freely mobilized.
Two hundred thousand entry-level warriors and two to three thousand second-round masters are nothing compared to a dozen martial masters.
However, the difficulty of training one or two rounds is not at the same level as that of training martial masters.
The former will definitely succeed in a short period of time and can be used at will.
The latter may take several years or even more than ten years, and will be more independent after success.
The two rulers of the southeast are not really stupid, and they decisively chose the former, which is more effective and has greater potential.
In addition, they have only used up the lowest-level stock, and the black and white strange crystals and the blood cores of the demon soldiers and generals have hardly been touched.
Once all are invested, they can train more than one million entry-level warriors and tens of thousands of second-round masters in a few years.
However, it costs a lot to support warriors for a long time, and it takes a lot of resources to maintain a large army composed of all warriors.
So they plan to divide it into several steps. It is best to train an army that can harvest enough strange crystals and blood cores, and then exchange them for enough supplies from the fairy mountain.
In this way, fighting to support fighting can support an army composed of millions of warriors.
Gu Ke also knew their plan and was happy to see it happen.
Anyway, the exotic ingredients will not give birth in the warehouse, and trading them to the four countries in the court can make a fortune.
The second transaction with the two countries in the southeast alone brought him an income of 3.48 million soul sources. Only a fool would not be happy.
If it were not for the limited output of ordinary fields in the cave mansion, which could not ensure the long-term and stable support of the needs of millions of warriors, he would have found a way to lure the two countries in the southeast to crazy military expansion.
Because he knew better than the two countries that the threat of the monsters was far beyond their imagination.
After making two fortunes from them, the soul source was invested in the system building upgrade, and more than five million points were almost all used on the Wuxiang Zhenjing.
Now the level of Wuxiang Zhenjing is rapidly approaching level 4000.
The distance of fuzzy perception has skyrocketed, and the "map" of Dawu, which was only partially detected in the past, has been "fully illuminated".
It is bounded by the Eternal Ice Peak and presents a roughly circular shape.
The Yulong Cave Mansion is relatively west, so the western boundary was explored first, and the eastern half is almost the vast sea.
And more than 100,000 miles away, in the deep sea in the southeast, there is also a huge gap in the Eternal Ice Peak.
Relying on regular scanning, it can be found that small groups of monsters are heading southeast of Dawu from time to time.
But the gap is hidden in the ice peak under the sea surface, and the fuzzy perception cannot penetrate hundreds of feet of sea water to spy on the truth.
Gu Ke still judged from the outflowing alien soul source and the strong smell of monsters that there were more monsters hidden in it, perhaps no worse than the monsters in the black fog passage in the north.
Once the monsters in the north and south attacked at the same time, Da Wu would not have much time to react.
The existence of the fairy mountain curbed a large part of the threats, at least it was unrealistic for them to "kill all in one battle".
If Da Wu is compared to a chessboard, the monsters did not want to play chess at the beginning, and wanted to rely on their strength to directly overturn the chessboard.
As a result, Gu Ke pressed the chessboard down, forcing them to sit in the player seat.
Now both sides have only reached the layout stage and are about to enter the middle game of entanglement and fighting.
However, Da Wu is already in a weak position. Once a mistake is made, the chess game is likely to collapse in the middle game and lose directly.
As an unexpected troublemaker, Gu Ke is trying to drag this game into the later stage and enter the closing stage.
At that time, relying on the system to open the cheat, Da Wu will have a chance to turn defeat into victory.
Therefore, before the second transaction with the two countries in the southeast, Gu Ke chose to expand the area of Yulong Cave Mansion.
He had thought about this expansion option a long time ago, but its only disadvantage was that it was too expensive - it required one million soul sources, and it could not be discounted.
The Yulong Cave Mansion was originally about fifty miles long from east to west and about thirty miles wide from north to south, forming an irregular long strip.
When expanding, Gu Ke directly increased the north-south width, turning it into a cube-like shape with a length and width of more than fifty miles, which was also convenient for production and management.
Looking at the suddenly widened cave, he didn't feel so bad about the million soul sources he spent, because the wool came from the sheep anyway.
The soul source was taken from the southeast, and the large number of ordinary fields reclaimed after the expansion of the cave would continuously produce exotic food materials and then sell them to the two countries.
This also echoed the idea of the two countries to support war with war.
In the future, the two countries will continue to make a lot of money, and Gu Ke will not lose money either, which is perfect.
After asking Gu Ke for instructions, Saranzhu made adjustments to the layout of the cave again at Xiaoman's request.
So the ordinary fields and livestock farms were moved to the outside.
The workshops and processing plants originally needed water power to drive the waterwheels, which were placed at the foot of the peak along the canal.
Now they have also been thrown to the westernmost side, close to the cliffs surrounding the valley, and a separate water spirit ball has been set aside to provide power for their canals.
The area around Yulong Peak has become a pure living and entertainment area.
All terrain, buildings, and scenery are based on comfort and fun.
Even from Gu Ke's perspective, it is more livable and much more pleasing to the eye than his previous practical layout that allowed him to work and live at the same time.
This cannot be blamed on him.
When the previous version was laid out, the Yulong Cave Mansion was not big enough.
His Wuxiang Zhenjing was not at level 1000, and the mansion spirit of Saranzhu was still a fool, and the two children were promoted to Wuzong.
The places where farmers work are dozens of miles apart, which is not so convenient after all.
Now, as soon as he thinks about it, he can activate the magical power of thousands of rivers and mountains, and arrive anywhere in an instant.
Xiaoman, the weakest, only needs more than a hundred breaths to fly across the entire cave with normal flying, and a few dozen breaths with a little effort.
This is about the same time as the time it took Gu Ke to go downstairs and buy a bottle of water at the small supermarket on the first floor in his previous life.
With such a short commuting time, only freelancers working at home can win.
After upgrading the roadside stall to level 16, there are still more than two million soul sources left, and there is still a lot to upgrade to level 17, so I will save it for now.
As the summer of the 520th year of Dawu passed, the first batch of rouge rice in the newly added 200,000 acres of ordinary fields in Yulong Cave was ripe.
Before this, this new field had also planted a round of purple wheat, most of which was traded to the two countries in the southeast.
The two Xiaoping spread out their blood and energy lines and flew low over the bright red rice fields. Rice with a width of more than two hundred feet fell behind them.
Gu Ke and Saranzhu stared at one person each, and waited until they had cut a large area before using their divine thoughts to collect the cut rice into the warehouse.
As soon as the two Xiaoping finished cutting, they collected it all.
The rest was that the automatic processing function of the processing workshop was fully operational. Within ten days, all the rice could be threshed and shelled, and a large number of rouge rice would be added to the warehouse.
The automatic storage and outbound delivery of the warehouse was seamlessly connected with the automatic processing of the processing workshop, and undertook most of the transportation and processing relief.
Gu Ke dared to plant 200,000 acres of rice fields with the strength of four people.
This is just an experiment of super-large-scale planting in the cave.
The next planting area will be expanded to 400,000 acres, and black beans, purple potatoes, and white jade peanuts will be planted in turn.
We have to test the staple food and main oil first, so that we can have a clear idea of the future output.
This is given to the two countries in the southeast, and what we get in exchange are all soul sources.
...
The peaceful days passed in a flash, and two years passed in the blink of an eye.
The attack of the demon came later than Gu Ke expected-it has been 522 years, and I haven't made a million-level income in dozens of stalls.
Of course, this is not a bad thing for Dawu.
The benefits of the trade between the two countries in the southeast and Bihai City are visible to the naked eye.
In two years, hundreds of thousands of entry-level warriors formed an army and rushed to various prefectures to assist in defense.
At the same time, the government focused on training the existing talents in the system, and thousands of second-round masters appeared and filled in various places.
The entry-level warriors defended the city to ensure that there was no worry.
The second-round masters took the weapons and went out in groups, running around.
When they found the demons, their eyes glowed green, and they shouted "Don't run away with the precious medicine" and "Don't run away with the weapons" and surrounded them and slashed them crazily.
Afterwards, even the soil stained with the monster's blood was dug up and taken away.
Now, not only can the monster crystal and blood core be exchanged for good things, but even the monster's corpse and flesh can be exchanged for "immortal fertilizer" - in fact, it is Jin Ke La, which is used to grow exotic crops, with a large increase in yield, a shortened maturity period, and excellent results.
The two Southeast countries, whose stocks were almost taken away by Gu Ke, are very interested in any "parts" of monsters.
They have also "kept pace with the times" in the two years of transactions. It is too troublesome to set up a fixed quota reward, so they will do "performance commission".
Thirty percent of the proceeds from hunting monsters will go directly to the individual or team who hunted them, whether it is the army or the civilian warriors.
Don't think this 30% "commission" is too little, it is the "pure profit" of individuals and small teams, and the official exploits and rewards of hunting monsters in the two countries will be calculated.
In fact, this commission is the "bottom line income" for handing in the monster's corpse.
Le Wen