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When Cheng Yang suddenly appeared behind him, Liu Hau was filled with curiosity. That curiosity quickly turned into brattiness after Cheng Yang told Liu Hau about the instance dungeon near Joyous River Village.
"My Lord, how can you play favorites like that? You should have told me there was a treasure trove like that near me! Just think of the advantage of being able to enter an instance dungeon one day earlier grants! Now Yu Kai's going to be ahead of me despite me getting a village first!"
Cheng Yang rolled his eyes. "Even if I told you, are you capable of clearing it? Then again, since no one's run the copy before, do you think I'd let you take the first clear from me?"
Liu Hau smiled. "That's fair. So, shall we clear it today?"
"We'll need to find it first." Cheng Yang sighed, "We'll split up and notify the other person if we find it."
Cheng Yang left Liu Hau to finish the battle he was in and returned to Joyous River Village.
Once he arrived, he picked up Liu Wei, and they left the village in the opposite direction of Liu Hau's hunting party.
Cheng Yang didn't know if Liu Hau was just unlucky, or if the feng shui of Joyous River Village was off, but even after searching everywhere within six kilometers of the village, no one had found the instance dungeon.
This situation was similar to when Cheng Yang was searching for the village's Territory Altar. The difference was that there was an undeniable sign indicating the location of the Territory Altar but none for the instance dungeon.
When it got dark, Cheng Yang returned to Joyous River Village. The day was wasted.
When Cheng Yang returned to Phoenix Village, he found 1,300 cubic meters of wood waiting for him. It seems that the Loggers had worked hard today.
Lau Hui also had the chance to officially enlist all of the current Phoenix Village officers into the army. Now, all of them had the Army Rank of private first class.
Now that the Quest Hall was built, it would start to generate Territory Quests automatically, but there weren't many quests a private could accept.
There were several types of quests one could receive from the Quest Hall, but the two most common were Territory Quests and Private Requests.
Territory Quests were generated based on the current needs of a territory or safe zone. Lords also had the privilege of submitting Territory Quests if they wanted to.
Private Requests were a bit different since the Quest Hall wouldn't generate any. They were all submitted by individuals.
Since Phoenix Village was desperately in need of more raw materials, most of the current quests were fetch quests. In return for completing one of these quests, soldiers could earn credit towards promotion in addition to a few Experience Fragments. Since the territory was generating these quests, the rewards came from its supply of Experience Fragments.
Although these quests paid a little less than the standard price for the resources, soldiers would prefer them since it was the easiest way to get promoted. This was especially desirable to them since their rank indicated their salary as well as the quests they were allowed to accept.
The reason why there was a surplus of wood today was those quests. As soon as the Quest Hall was built, it started to issue fetch quests which the newly enlisted soldiers worked hard to complete.
Now, only the Tavern and Adventurer's Guild were left unbuilt. Since there were enough resources, Cheng Yang chose to consume half of the wood and stone in Phoenix Village to build them.
Then, Cheng Yang used everything else to build Meditation Halls.
After using up all of the material resources, Cheng Yang checked the territory's Experience Fragment balance. The last couple of days had been an economic boom. Thanks to the Imperial Guard, there were more than 12,000 Experience Fragments even after all of the class change ceremonies and aptitude checks performed.
Unfortunately, it wasn't quite enough for Cheng Yang to justify building a Bank.
Ah! I forgot about Zhou Jie!
When Cheng Yang started to think about the bank, he finally remembered the third person he brought back from Cloud City.
Scolding himself for forgetting someone so talented, Cheng Yang opened the territory's System Pane and searched for Zhou Jie's name. As expected, Zhou Jie had been among the people that performed class change ceremonies over the last few days.
Cheng Yang immediately checked Zhou Jie's System Pane.
Zhou Jie
Phoenix Village Private First Class
Class: Ranger
Level: Low Grade Apprentice (21%)
Age
19
Life Span
110
HP
51.84
MP
34.38
Physical Attack
8.64
Magic Attack
13
Physical Defense
1.73
Magic Defense
1.73
Attack Speed
1
Movement Speed
3
Innate Abilities
Increase attack range by 20% per level
Sky God's Blessing (Special Ability): Favorable winds increase the attack range of you and your allies by 30% per level
Movement speed is increased by 200%
Skills
Meditation (Low Grade): Meditate to absorb experience fragments and level up
Reinforced Arrow (Low Grade): Imbue your arrow with magic power increasing damage | Damage: 7.5 | Cost: 4 MP | Cast Time: 3 sec | Proficiency: 7%
Equipment
Birch-wood Bow (Green Bronze): A well crafted bow made by an accomplished woodworker in the village of Raol | Increases Physical Attack by 1 | Durability: 50/50
Quiver: A magic bag that can hold 60 arrows | Spawns one arrow every minute
It was there! Zhou Jie's Innate Abilities were just as good as Cheng Yang remembered!
Unlike Liu Wei, both of Zhou Jie's Innate Abilities were quite good on their own. When they were combined, they created the best sniper build Cheng Yang had ever seen.
Combine that with an elite squadron of other Rangers and the Movement Speed bonus Phoenix Village granted, and you create the perfect shock troopers.
They'd be able to attack from farther away and retreat before the enemy's attacks could hit them.
Once they got to a certain level, they might be able to shoot a target from far enough away that the enemy wouldn't even be able to see them. Cheng Yang looked forward to that day.
Special Abilities like Zhou Jie's were called strategic abilities in Cheng Yang's past life. Right now, the only other person in Phoenix Village was Zhao Chuan. They were very rare, and every Lord coveted the people that had them.
As far as Cheng Yang knew, Zhou Jie wasn't in any battalion at the moment, even though he already appeared to have unlocked four times training speed.
Cheng Yang guessed that Old Lee was taking care of Zhou Jie for the moment after realizing just how valuable his Innate Abilities were.
Returning to his previous train of thought, Cheng Yang visited the various new buildings. Now that everything was built, the only thing left to do was upgrade the old buildings.
The first place Cheng Yang visited was the Quest Hall. It was a simple building with the main room at the front covering two hundred square feet in addition to a few small places at the back for the NPC managers to work.
Dozens of individual terminals that looked like blackboards covered the walls of the main room with a couple more intermittently spaced between the walls.
When you approached a terminal, they allowed you to scroll through the various Territory Quests and Private Requests.
At the moment, there were only a few quests available.
Gather Wood
Donate ten cubic meters of wood to the Phoenix Village .
Time Limit: None
Reward: 30 Experience Fragments and 1 Advancement Token
Conditions: Private First Class or F-Rank Adventurer
Cheng Yang wasn't an adventurer yet, so he couldn't accept any quests. As such, he wandered around for a few minutes before leaving.
Then, Cheng Yang visited the Trial Hall. The building was arranged identically to the Quest Hall except that the terminals would teleport you into an instance dungeon. Or at least it should have been.
When Cheng Yang arrived, there was a large portal on the back wall.
Even though the Trial Hall was an area that allowed you to enter an instance dungeon, there shouldn't actually be any entrances to an instance dungeon inside.