2
Phoenix Slope was relatively flat. The road went right down the hill parallel to a small river.
Cheng Yang remembered very clearly that almost two kilometers downstream there was a town of 10,000 called Huimin.
When the driver left, Cheng Yang tried to guess where the altar would be, then climbed down Phoenix Slope.
No one lived on Phoenix Slope, and aside from a trail leading to the top, there were no other paths.
Relying on the memories from his past life, Cheng Yang went to the summit and found a clearing with a radius of one or two hundred meters. Cheng Yang began to search the clearing inch by inch. He estimated that the Territory Altar must be at the top of this hill.
Ten minutes later, Cheng Yang's eyes flashed with excitement. He had found a regular looking rock the same color as Territory Altars. The exposed part stuck out of the ground by about a quarter meter and was shaped like an arc.
Cheng Yang jogged over to the rock. The familiar feeling he got when he ran his hand over the rough surface assured him he had found it.
The Territory Altar!
The excitement Cheng Yang felt couldn't be described with words. If he could successfully claim this Territory Altar, he would be able to change his fate.
After a long time, Cheng Yang was able to calm down. He quickly went over the procedure to claim a Territory Altar in his head and gently placed his right hand on the rock.
"In the name of Cheng Yang, I claim this Territory Altar!" He declared.
A weak white light came out of the stone and went into Cheng Yang's body. At that instant, he felt a deep connection made between him and the Territory Altar.
There was also a considerable change in the area. Faint curtains of lights could be seen on the ground about thirty meters away from the four cardinal directions around the Territory Altar.
Each curtain of light solidified into a set of statues surrounding Cheng Yang.
However, just like the Territory Altar, the statues were buried in the ground, and only their heads could be seen.
Just based on the size of the parts that were above ground, the statues were easily three meters tall.
"Success!" Cheng Yang murmured.
Looking at the familiar statues, Cheng Yang was filled with euphoria.
He knew that when the world ended, there would be four statues just like these but even taller in the city center of Cloud City.
Each statue represented a different class that you could change to.
According to his memories, they looked like this: a bulky man staring at the ground covered in heavy armor while holding a sword and shield, a robed woman in a pointed hat that was holding a wooden stave topped with a glowing gem, a lithe sharp-eyed man holding a bow, and an ordinary-looking woman with a tiger next to her that gave off a sense of ferocious power.
Cheng Yang quickly collected himself and grabbed the hat of the mage statue that was poking out of the ground with his right hand.
"Okay." Cheng Yang did not hesitate to start the class change ceremony.
For a second, a multi-color curtain of light appeared around Cheng Yang and wrapped him up.
After several messages scrolled through Cheng Yang's mind, the curtain of light dissipated. When it did, he found himself holding a wooden stave in his right hand.
With a thought, a transparent panel appeared in front of Cheng Yang. He had gone through the class change ceremony once before, knew that this was his system pane, something only he could see.
Cheng Yang
Phoenix Village Owner (Will become the Lord in one hour)
Class: Mage
Level: Low-Grade Apprentice (0%)
Age
19
Life Span
110
Health
20
Mana
30
Physical Attack
1
Magic Attack
6.5
Physical Defense
1
Magic Defense
1
Attack Speed
1
Movement Speed
2
Innate Abilities
Receive 30% more stats in the Magic Attack attribute when you level up
When Lord of a territory all building effects are increased by 30%
Movement Speed is increased by 100%
Skills
Meditation (Low-Grade): Meditate to absorb experience fragments and level up
Magic Missile (Low-Grade): Attack targets within thirty meters with a ball of condensed magic power | Damage: 6.5 | Cost: 5 Mana | Delay: 3 sec | Proficiency: 0%
Equipment
Wooden Stave: Status symbol of the mage | No bonuses
Aside from his innate abilities, the rest of his system window was identical for all Low-Grade Apprentice Mages. No one was special, and if you wanted more power, you could only rely on hard work.
The only thing that surprised Cheng Yang about his system pane was his Innate Ability. It had changed!
His Innate Ability only gave a 10% bonus to his Magic Attack in his last life, so why did it suddenly triple in this life? Cheng Yang thought about this for a long time but could not find a solution. It must have just been a side effect of his reincarnation.
An S-Rank Innate Ability! This was a huge advantage!
Moreover, Cheng Yang was confused by the title below his name. Phoenix Village Owner? Am I not yet the Lord?
In his previous life, Phoenix Village had been discovered two months after the end of the world. At that time among the monsters surrounding the Territory Altar was an Elite High-Grade Immature monster. Since people didn't know what the Territory Altar was at the time, they avoided it lest they provoke the beast. A month later, when they realized the value of a Territory Altar, the monster had evolved into an Elite Pinnacle-Grade Immature monster.
The military had to sacrifice dozens of soldiers during the twenty-day battle to claim the Territory Altar.
Cheng Yang had learned about the events after the fact since Phoenix Village was already under the control of humanity when he arrived. Thus he didn't know about the one hour waiting period before becoming a Lord.
There were several Territory Altars around the city of Cloud City, believe it or not. There were two reasons why Cheng Yang chose Phoenix Village.
1) It was the only Territory Altar he knew would be above ground before the apocalypse.
2) There was a precious item nearby that was important for his future plans.
In his past life, Cheng Yang conducted his class change ceremony in the Cloud City safe zone. The four class change statues there were even taller than the ones found in villages. Unlike Phoenix Village, however, Cloud City wasn't considered a territory. A human couldn't become the Lord of a safe zone as they belonged to the gods.
Some people might think there were more residents in the safe zones than the villages, but this was not the case.
Under the rules of god, safe zones only provided the most essential things for human survival. The difference between performing a class change ceremony in one of the safe zones and a village was that some villages granted a unique, Innate Ability. Thus people from territories were stronger than those from the safe zones.
In addition to granting an Innate Ability, several attributes could be buffed by completing research for the class change statues. This would directly increase the power of those that had performed class change ceremonies there.
These were advantages that the safe zones just didn't have. That's why in his first life, Cheng Yang had traveled to Phoenix Village to do his class change ceremony.
Of course, there were additional advantages to being the Lord of a village. Every time the village level increased, the Lord was able to level up, ignoring the experience requirements directly. Although the advantage was small at lower levels, the gap it created at higher levels was insurmountable.
Safe zones weren't useless. The main benefit was a safe zone that monsters couldn't enter and that the class change statues didn't have a limit to the number of Professionals they could create.
Thus if you wanted to build a village, you needed sufficient personal strength to fight off monsters continuously.
Although Cheng Yang wasn't powerful now, he believed that by relying on the memories of his past life, he could gain a foothold in Phoenix Village and gradually upgrade it to a town.
The Innate Ability that Phoenix Village granted was, of course, the 100% increase in Movement Speed.
If Liu Hau performed his class change ceremony at Phoenix village instead of Cloud City, his power would be incomparable to what he had in Cheng Yang's past life. When he gained both buffs to his Movement Speed, those that could catch up to him in this world would be far and few between.
As for the other three Territory Altars around Cloud City, Cheng Yang didn't bother with them. He had chosen to become a mage after much deliberation. As for the other classes, although they each had their advantages, none of them suited a Lord the way the Mage class did.
After becoming a Professional, Cheng Yang tried to open the system pane of the Phoenix Village Territory Altar, but it didn't work. It seemed that he could only access the system pane after becoming the Lord.
Why did he need to wait an hour, though? Was there a test?
Suddenly Cheng Yang remembered a rumor he had heard. When the army had first captured Phoenix village, there had been a large-scale siege of monsters. Luckily at that time, humanity had become quite powerful and was able to fend off the waves of monsters.
Was there going to be a siege this time too? Cheng Yang instantly felt some fear.
While Cheng Yang waited, there was no sign of monsters appearing. An hour later he became the Lord of Phoenix village.
Now that he thought about it, how could there be a siege of monsters if monsters didn't exist yet?
It seemed that Cheng Yang had dodged a bullet. If he had waited until after the apocalypse to claim the Territory Altar, there's no telling whether he would have been able to fend off a horde of monsters.