32. The western sector

The only problem was that ever since the first day, his income inside the eastern sector had reduced considerably.

The eastern sector wasn't particularly known for its spirit gold reserves so spirit gold had always been hard to find and the gold eating rats that Fang Yang thought he could rely on for spirit stones had actually started avoiding him making it harder for him to earn anything.

There were some days where Fang Yang struggled to even earn 5 spirit stones.

If it wasn't for robbing the occasional unlucky guy that came from the western sector to the eastern sector trying to rob him.

Then Fang Yang probably wouldn't have reached the barely over 100 spirit stones that he had accomplished today.

But what made Fang Yang more disheartened was that the robbers coming from the western sector to the eastern sector would basically disappear.

As he was wandering around to collect information like he usually did, Fang Yang heard the story that there is a sick bastard that wears a mask in the eastern sector that lured people in by hiding his cultivation only to turn around and rob them in return.

Who else could they be talking about if it wasn't for Fang Yang?

Now that a warning was out for him, the people that still came to rob the eastern sector would naturally be cautious and try to avoid him at all costs.

This would mean the one thing that allowed him to stay in the eastern sector would disappear and, along with that, a major chunk of his daily income.

Due to this fact, Fang Yang was seriously considering changing his hunting grounds to the western sector.

Although it may be more dangerous, the amount he could earn would be much higher.

Ignoring the fact that mid stage gold-eating rats worth 1 spirit stone a piece would be much more common, Spirit gold will also be much easier to find in the western sector.

He could even find pieces of mid-quality spirit gold worth 3 spirit stones and if lady luck was truly on his side, he may even find a piece of high quality spirit gold worth 15 spirit stones a piece.

Although Fang Yang's experience in the eastern sector over the past week hadn't netted him a lot of spirit stones, it wasn't all useless.

The best thing he had gained over his stay in the eastern sector was the knowledge of how to use his squad of skeleton soldiers to fight more effectively.

On the first day, other than maintaining a defensive posture and general encirclement tactics, Fang Yang didn't know how to fight properly with a large number of skeletons under his control.

When facing the mid stage gold-eating rats, his skeletons practically threw themselves at the rats, causing them to get destroyed within just a few moments.

Through countless instances of trial and error, he finally knew how to approach the problem of facing gold eating rats much more tactically.

First he would divide his squad of skeletons into groups of 3, allowing them to be much more flexible and move around more freely in the tunnels of the mine.

The remaining leftover skeleton would be placed by his side as a personal guard.

The key to defeating the mid-stage gold-eating rat was to approach the gold eating rat with an almost inverted triangle formation.

Two skeletons would quickly flank from the side and slowly surround it in a triangle when all the 3 skeletons joined together.

Once surrounded, his skeletons could contain the gold-eating rat, trapping it and preventing it from fully utilising its agility.

With this, the threat of the mid stage gold-eating rat would be greatly reduced and could be contained with the three skeletons working together.

This only worked because the gold-eating rats weren't particularly strong, demonic beasts.

Their agility may be high amongst the same rank and their bite can also be quite deadly, but other than that, their strength and defence were comparable to a weaker 4th level Qi refinement cultivator.

Even a strong 3rd level Qi refinement cultivator would be able to compete with the mid stage gold-eating rat in this regard and that's why his three skeleton soldiers were able to contain them.

As long as they protected vital areas like their neck and work together properly, there wouldn't be much of an issue.

He had 10 skeletons so he should be able to contend with 3 mid-stage gold eating rats.

In addition to this, he had the Battle Saint Corpse puppet which could contend with 3 mid stage gold-eating rats at the same time.

The best battle plan he had come up with was to use the skeleton soldiers to contain the gold eating rats for some time, whilst the much stronger corpse puppet would quickly finish its battle and come and help the skeletons out.

The plan wasn't perfect, but it was the best Fang Yang could come up with.

And with his experiments with the skeleton soldiers, Fang Yang had also noticed something interesting.

Although he could only summon 10 skeletons at a time, there was actually a way to work around it.

You see, as long as he had mana, Fang Yang could instantly summon a new skeleton to replace a destroyed one.

This meant that as long as he fought on full mana, it would be equivalent to fighting with 20 skeletons!

This discovery, along with the increasingly more difficult situation of the eastern sector, allowed Fang Yang to finally make the decision to enter the western sector.

So when the new day came around, Fang Yang got himself ready and took stock of a few items.

His stock of pills and other lifesaving treasures hadn't changed much over the last week, as he hadn't really run into any danger after the first day, so Fang Yang didn't have to worry about buying anything.

After Leaving his residence, he walked towards the mine entrance, but just as he was about to enter, Fang Yang felt someone approach him.