3

Cheng Yang pushed those thoughts out of his mind. What didn't happen doesn't matter. He was the Lord of Phoenix Village now, and he would be able to view the Territory Altar system panel.

He went to the altar and was able to open the system panel as expected.

Phoenix Village

Level: Low-Grade Village

Experience Fragments: 0

Owned Buildings

Warrior Statue (Low-Grade): Produces Warriors (0/20)

Mage Statue (Low-Grade): Produces Mages (1/20)

Ranger Statue (Low-Grade): Produces Rangers (0/20)

Summoner Statue (Low-Grade): Produces Summoners (0/20)

Available Buildings

Ringed Wall (Low-Grade): Build a circular wall with a radius of 650 meters around the Territory Altar | Durability: 1300 per meter | Damage Reduction: 6.5 | Cost: 100 units of wood

Meditation Hall (Low-Grade): When inside, it improves the efficiency of the meditation skill by 13% | Occupancy: 6 | Durability: 650 | Damage Reduction: 3.9 | Cost: 10 units of wood

Attributes

Lord's Innate Ability: All building attributes increased by 30%

Fast Soldiers: Grants 100% increase in movement speed as an Innate Ability

Upgrade Conditions

100 soldiers

Raise the level of all four class change statues to Standard Grade

1000 Experience Fragments

The village system panel was pretty basic since there were very few buildings you could construct in the beginning.

The class change statues came with the village, which only left the walls and meditation halls to build. The importance of each building was obvious, so they needed to be constructed as soon as possible!

The Territory's Experience Fragments were even more important since they were used to upgrade the class change statues and village level. In fact, you needed to use Experience Fragments just to perform the class change ceremony! Luckily, these Experience Fragments didn't need to come from the territory but could be taken from the person performing the ceremony.

This rule was the same in the safe zones. Only Lords could become a Professional without spending Experience Fragments. Everyone else could only borrow Experience Fragments from a Lord or god. The class change ceremony cost 10 Experience Fragments, which would automatically be deducted after the ceremony starts. If you borrowed Experience Fragments to pay for the ceremony, the total cost could easily exceed twice the initial cost if you took too long to pay it back.

Lords had a lot of autonomy in this regard. They could lend out the Experience Fragments they wanted to, set the rates of interest, and if the loan needed to be paid back at all.

There were two ways for the Territory Altar to gain Experience Fragments. The first way was to ask for donations from the citizens, but this option wasn't available until the village was upgraded to Standard Grade. The other way is that when citizens killed monsters within one kilometer of the village walls, the Territory Altar would gain several experience Fragments equal to the amount gained by the citizen.

The Innate Ability of Phoenix Village seemed fairly simple, but Cheng Yang knew that this wasn't the case. Phoenix Village was only at the Low-Grade right now but if he continued to upgrade it the Innate Ability it granted would grow as well!

Aside from the properties panel, there were two other system panels for the Territory Altar. One was the citizen panel which tracked those who had done their class change ceremony in the village. Right now there was only his name on the panel followed by the title Lord. On this page, you could assign citizens to be managers and grant privileges.

The final panel contained the exclusive ability of Lords, Divine Grace.

The ability sounded very imposing, but its effects unmistakably lived up to the name. It allowed the Lord of a village to directly level up each time the village leveled up. Since the village had just been constructed, Cheng Yang could only use Divine Grace once.

There was a restriction on the usage of Divine Grace, however. The usage of Divine Grace granted by a Low-Grade village would only be effective when the Lord's strength was below Pinnacle-Grade Apprentice.

Without any hesitation, Cheng Yang immediately activated Divine Grace choosing immediate benefits in preparation for the apocalypse.

At that moment, mysterious energy escaped from the Territory Altar and burst into his body.

After multiple messages flashed in front of his eyes, Cheng Yang felt filled with power.

Cheng Yang

Phoenix Village Lord

Class: Mage

Level: Standard Grade Apprentice (0%)

Age

19

Life Span

150

Health

40

Mana

60

Physical Attack

2

Magic Attack

13

Physical Defense

2

Magic Defense

2

Attack Speed

2

Movement Speed

4

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 (Standard 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: 13 | Cost: 5 MP | Cast Time: 2.9 sec | Proficiency: 0%

Equipment

Wooden Stave: Status symbol of the mage | No bonuses

Cheng Yang's attributes had doubled, showing definite growth. In his previous life, it had taken him two months to reach this point after becoming a Professional.

Under normal circumstances, it's exceedingly difficult to fight someone of a higher level. To do so at lower levels is even more absurd. When the army took Phoenix Village in Cheng Yang's first life, the reason they paid such a high price was exactly this difference between levels. At the time, most of humanity was still at Low-Grade with a few at Standard Grade while their opponents were a Pinnacle Grade Immature monster which were at the peak of the first stage of evolution.

Cheng Yang, however, had achieved the same rank as those elite fighters after less than a single day. As they say, as long as you keep walking when you are one step ahead, then the gap between you and your opponents will inevitably widen.

It was just about noon when Cheng Yang finished planning his future moves.

He now had two choices: go back to Cloud City to buy wood or wait until after the apocalypse and gather it on his own. The latter would certainly take longer but getting wood wasn't an urgent issue because as long as Cheng Yang was alive, he could always gather more.

The other item on his agenda would be to look around for the precious object in his memory that would be beneficial to his development.

Not to mention the other benefits it offers just by finding it. It would allow Liu Hau and his other two buddies to perform class change ceremonies.

Cheng Yang was able to become a Professional by relying on his position as the Lord, but his buddies could not. He wanted to allow a few people to become Professionals, so it was necessary to gather some Experience Fragments.

Regarding the precious object, Cheng Yang wasn't confident in finding it. He wasn't even sure if it would appear before the apocalypse and even if he found it now, locating it again would be difficult. This was because the earthquake that signaled the apocalypse would make much of the terrain unrecognizable. He was able to find the Territory Altar only because he was able to rely on the rumors from his last life and his luck.

After a long while, Cheng Yang decided to try his luck once more.

After walking in the direction from his memories for two or three kilometers, he still hadn't found anything and had to turn back. It seemed his luck had all been used in finding the Territory Altar.

Cheng Yang decided to return home until he bought wood. He then gathered dead leaves and twigs to cover up the statue heads, made sure the Territory Altar was alright, and then went down the hill.

On his way down, Cheng Yang considered announcing that the world would end. Eventually, he gave up on the idea. Even if he did tell everyone, no one would believe just words, and he might even be charged with inciting lawless action. He considered displaying his powers as a Mage, but that could turn out disastrously for him.

He decided not to release the information and instead work to save those he wished to protect. As for the others? They would have to rely on their luck.

Cheng Yang's parents were already dead, so he didn't need to worry about them. The only other people he cared about were his three friends from university. Although he had only known them for a year before the apocalypse, they were all good and trustworthy friends.

The one thing that didn't change during the apocalypse was that it is impossible to succeed alone. To fulfill his plans, Cheng Yang would need helpers. If possible, he would get tens of thousands of people to work under him. However, Cheng Yang knew his limits, he had no such following right now.

So he decided to save his precious friends and help himself in the process.

Cheng Yang had made this vow to himself after a long period of thought.

When he returned to the dormitory, Cheng Yang happened to run into Liu Hau on his way back from the basketball game. The two talked on the way back to their room.

Cheng Yang's other two friends Lau Hui and Yu Kai were in a different year and were playing computer games when he returned.

"Koko, Ox, Hiroko, how much money do you have?" Cheng Yang walked in and directly asked.

All three of them, including Liu Hau, were stunned. "Yoko, what's wrong?" Liu Hau asked, "You seemed like something was on your mind in the classroom, but I didn't force the issue. Why don't you tell us what's wrong?"

Lau Hui and Yu Kai stopped playing games to look at Cheng Yang with concern.

Cheng Yang said calmly, "I can't tell you what's wrong, but I need money. As much as possible and I was hoping you'd lend it to me."

"Of course you can have the money," Yu Kai said sincerely, "Please tell us what happened though. Your worries are our worries."

Cheng Yang said, "I really can't tell you, but you'll find out what tomorrow afternoon. You can wait that long right?"