40

Although it was only a Low-Grade potion, it was far stronger than the one he had found earlier. It was a potion that anyone would envy due to its doubled effectiveness.

The most amazing part of the potion wasn't the actual effect, but that Cheng Yang's name was in the item description! It was the unique privilege of people who received a Profession Talent. As long as you could create a product that was better than a standard one, your name would be added to the title.

If Cheng Yang were to use the potions he had just made, the effects would be doubled once more which would put their effectiveness leagues ahead of those from the store. With this, a large gap could be created between him and everyone else.

His success rate was higher than average today since he was able to make 13 potions, something that made him feel highly satisfied. The key was that only successfully using a skill provided experience towards leveling up a Profession. Since he had made 13 potions, his experience bar had reached 13%.

Even though only successes mattered, Energy was consumed regardless of whether the skill succeeded.

Cheng Yang placed the Alchemy Pot and the potions he had made into his backpack and continued to search the forest.

After using all of his potions, Cheng Yang returned to Phoenix Village. His harvest this time was much bigger than earlier, he had gained 2200 Experience Fragments! Although it was impressive, it wasn't something he could replicate. After this night of slaughter, all of the large monsters hordes in the area had been completely eradicated. If he wanted to gain large amounts of Experience Fragments, he could only journey further from the village.

However, the further you had to travel the longer it would take to get there which would reduce your overall efficiency.

Immediately upon his return to Phoenix Village, Cheng Yang began his daily training. He now had a room to himself on the second floor where he could be alone.

Cheng Yang's experience bar had reached 7.8% once he had finished training. Most of the soldiers in Phoenix Village had similar percentages but those that had unlocked four times training speed were closer to twenty percent.

When he left his room he saw Old Lee still meditating across the hall. With a smile, he went outside to check the class change statues and found, to his delight, that the Priest statue had leveled up up to Standard-Grade. Now Phoenix Village would be able to have 12 Priests.

Now each team could have two Priests or they could double the number of teams they had. After all, the Priests of Phoenix Village were far from normal, as they had the top level skill Angelic Inspiration!

Cheng Yang gathered the civilians in the village and tested them until he found seven people with the potential to be a Priest. The process took Cheng Yang more than half an hour and a lot of Experience Fragments, but it was more than worth it to have the best Priests Phoenix Village could.

After that, Cheng Yang started a new research for all five statues. He estimated that tomorrow, the four primary statues would level up late in the afternoon. Right now, they only had a two research options left: the two Defense attribute upgrades.

When they did level up, the only thing stopping the whole village from leveling up would be a twenty thousand Experience Fragment deficit. After all, most of Phoenix Village's Experience Fragments were used the same day and all of the hordes within its collection radius had been destroyed. Now, they could only rely on the slow respawn rate near the periphery and the small hordes teams managed to lure inside the collection radius.

Although Cheng Yang didn't know exactly how many Experience Fragments could be gained that way, he knew that earning a thousand would be a very good day.

If it weren't for the instance dungeon providing 1000 Experience Fragments a day, they wouldn't be able to gather that many Experience Fragments for months. They could rely on individual donations but that would just mean neglecting the growth of Phoenix Village's soldiers.

Take yesterday for instance, dozens of people took Alchemist or Logger as a Profession but not one of them could buy knowledge for their Profession. Most of them couldn't even buy the tools they needed. These people could barely afford their own training, they were in no position to donate to the village.

As for potions, their need for them wasn't as great as Cheng Yang's. Even if it sped up their attack efficiency, everyone else hunted in fairly large groups so they didn't need to be able to use more attacks than the Mana capacity supported.

Aside from a couple Health Recovery Potions meant for emergencies, most people simply didn't buy potions.

After Cheng Yang performed the class change ceremonies for the new Priests, he ran the Hard Difficulty Blood-Soaked Cathedral. A half-hour later, Cheng Yang appeared outside the instance dungeon.

Now that Cheng Yang had access to potions, he was able to clear the instance dungeon more efficiently. He even received two pieces of Black Iron equipment, a lucky occurrence.

The wristband and pair of shoes he received didn't increase his Magic Attack or Mana so Cheng Yang didn't want them. If a piece of equipment didn't increase his combat potential as a Mage, it was more efficient to give it to someone else.

Cheng Yang now had one thousand one hundred Experience Fragments. He had considered making a thousand of them into a training bundle, but decided that it was more important to get the Loggers who gained their Profession yesterday working. After buying 20 sets of logging tools, Cheng Yang was left with a hundred Experience Fragments in spare change.

Then Cheng Yang gathered twenty people who had become Loggers and distributed the tools he had bought.

Of course, Cheng Yang didn't give these tools away for free. Each Logger had to agree to give the first fifty cubic meters of wood they harvested to the village free of charge.

Originally, god's rules dictated that all wood was the exclusive property of the one who harvested it. Even if a territory took the wood by force, they wouldn't be able to use it until they paid. They wouldn't even be able to extort the wood from the Loggers since the price wasn't decided by them but the rules of god.

In general, the price of wood fluctuated between two and five Experience Fragments per cubic meter. Cheng Yang's quota of fifty cubic meter's wasn't arbitrarily decided but was so that even if the price was at its lowest, he would make up the money he was owed. After he bought the wood from the Loggers, they would just donate the Experience Fragments they had earned back to the territory.

Seeing that Cheng Yang had finished training, Old Lee waved at Cheng Yang and walked over. "My Lord, will we be able to fight our way into Cloud City today?"

Cheng Yang looked over at the anxious man with sympathy. "Today, after you clear the instance dungeon use all of the Experience Fragments to buy potions. After that we will make some plans."

Old Lee opened his mouth to respond but stayed silent for a long time. "The blockade in from of the city only has seven hundred monsters my Lord. We've already killed hordes with three hundred or more, even with potions are we still not strong enough?"

"That was only their numbers yesterday, right now there should be more than a thousand waiting for us there. With that many monsters, there is definitely a High-Grade monster and possibly even a Pinnacle-Grade monsters if we're unlucky. If we are unprepared, we will suffer greatly."

Old Lee understood that even if he didn't want to accept it. Even if every magician in the village fired on one at once, it would still survive and if it ever reached them, it would insta-kill the weaker Professionals.

Cheng Yang saw Old Lee's crestfallen expression and knew he was just worried about his family. "Don't worry, I didn't say we couldn't today, just that we need to do some preparation to keep us safe. Your family would be sad if you died during the assault."

"I will obey your orders my Lord." Old Lee said sobering up.

Afterwards, Old Lee gathered the members of his team and entered the Blood Soaked Cathedral.

At this time, Cheng Yang didn't leave to hunt, instead he supervised the Loggers as they harvested wood in the lush forest a kilometer from the village walls. After a few days of accelerated growth, several trees had reached a diameter of six hundred centimeters and were the perfect candidates for obtaining wood.

The twenty Loggers didn't start immediately since Cheng Yang needed to prepare a security force for them. The forty people selected served the dual purpose of killing the monsters that spawned nearby and carrying wood back to the village. Without these guards, the Loggers wouldn't be able to focus on felling the trees.

Cheng Yang completely passed off the responsibility of guarding the Loggers off to Lau Hui. Although this would decrease the amount of Experience Fragments they would gain today, someone had to do it. The downsides to harvesting professions only existed for territories below the High-Grade. Once Phoenix Village leveled up again, every citizen would receive a Loyalty stat, representing their contributions to the territory. Many of the privileges and benefits the territory had to offer could only be accessed by people with a high Loyalty stat.

Lau Hui had cleared the instance dungeon earlier so his team immediately went out to support the newly equipped Loggers.

Half an hour later, Yu Kai exited the instance dungeon. In general, every team would try and clear the instance dungeon within an hour or two of finishing their training. After all, they would be able to obtain equipment for themselves in addition to the large number of Experience Fragments.

After exiting the instance dungeon, Yu Kai walked over his an accusatory expression. "Yoko, why didn't you warn me that the bows in the Lumber Mill needed actual arrows? I went into the shop before entering the instance dungeon and saw a beautiful bow that increased damage for only forty Experience Fragments. I thought it was a great bargain but after buying it, that damned manager told me it needed arrows and each bundle of five cost a whole Experience Fragment each!"

Cheng Yang didn't even bother trying to stifle his laughter, "That's on you idiot, what kind of bow wouldn't need arrows?"

Yu Kai huffed, "How was I supposed to know? My old bow didn't need arrows." He argued.