The next morning.
A group of people began entering the limited-time dungeon event early.
They first sent people to scout ahead. Only after confirming that no crows were guarding the area outside the waterways did they open the suppressive copper stone and begin filing out one by one.
Since the tunnels were easy to hit, the blacksmiths had already become quite adept at taking out the scattered crows inside with a single coordinated volley.
They soon reclaimed the tunnel network and returned to their respective Defense Towers.
Outside, the sun shone brightly.
Beyond the firing slits, the crows were already perched sparsely across the ground and rooftops.
It seemed most of them had gone out foraging and were no longer here.
The Crow King was absent as well. At present, it could be treated as a powerful, mindless elite monster, without any ability to rule or manage.
"Time to get to work."
The Defense Towers began operating again, one after another.
Nothing unexpected happened afterward. The crows were struck by arrows and fell to the ground in droves.
Half an hour later, even the boss with reduced intelligence had been lured back into one of the Defense Towers.
The weapons had been upgraded and replaced—bird guns had become cannons. The formally crafted Copper Bow, which had received a major enhancement, took it down with a dozen swift volleys.
Ning Zheng had stayed up late the previous night cultivating new spells. He had originally planned to get up early and lend a hand, killing the Crow King to obtain the Meat Field. Who could have imagined that the blacksmiths would manage it themselves again?
"They looked so unreliable, yet they're unexpectedly capable? I'll just ask them for the Crow King's corpse later."
He felt somewhat dazed, as if he were dreaming.
Happiness had come too quickly.
The enemy had clearly been a major threat, yet he had somehow won without lifting a finger?
These people clearly had no intention of making a Meat Field, yet they had developed a strange obsession with the Crow King.
It was as though they had to defeat it for their victory to be complete.
Half past eleven in the morning.
With the blazing sun high overhead, the crows finally fled in terror after the Crow King was subdued. They flew away in unison and vanished into the cloud-shrouded mountains.
"Is it over?"
At the little iron-mesh firing window of the arrow tower, Su Yu Niang wiped the muddy sweat from her forehead.
Jiu Cai Rong shook his head and looked toward the sky. "It isn't over. War can only be suspended, never ended. Once a second leader appears among the crows, they'll return in force."
In truth, they somewhat regretted killing the Crow King so quickly. They had frightened all the crows away at once.
Otherwise, they probably could have taken down several hundred more that afternoon and stocked up on supplies.
These crows were unbelievably cowardly!
Having missed this opportunity, they probably would have no further source of materials.
After all, they couldn't leave the place. Apart from the flying creatures that came from the sky to deliver themselves as takeout, they had nowhere to hunt monsters.
There were pitifully few neighbors, so they couldn't even get coins to drop.
"Everyone, the first Mountain Villa defensive battle has ended in complete success!"
Jiu Cai Rong climbed up high and shouted, "Everyone, start sorting the spoils! Keep whatever was killed inside your own Defense Tower! Don't take anything outside the area you marked off!"
After confirming that the crows would not return to attack, they began cleaning the battlefield, clearing away the corpses and bloodstains.
They worked from noon until the afternoon before they had more or less finished sorting the corpses.
The bloodstains on the ground were easier to deal with. They only needed to turn over the soil and flatten it again.
This prompted some of the blacksmiths to lament that their Mountain Villa needed to start laying paving bricks.
Build a civilized society, starting with you and me.
Quite a few people began discussing having Jiu Cai Rong post a paving-brick firing quest. The huge furnace in the Blacksmith Shop could finally be put to appropriate use.
Some even said they planned to open up a plot of farmland and grow vegetables.
After all, Money Boy ate vegetables and dirt, and vegetables were one of its foods.
Now that they had finished grinding monsters and had the materials, shouldn't they happily begin farming and working on infrastructure? A beautiful, blissful life in the Mountain Villa was about to begin!
Elsewhere, on this joyous day of celebrating their great victory.
Inside the Blacksmith Shop, Dao Jiujiu stared at Eye Flower in bewilderment. "You made all these weapons?"
"I made them," Eye Flower said.
"You mean you exploited a bug, didn't log off to sleep, and spent the whole night forging here?" Dao Jiujiu hurriedly asked. "You didn't steal anything, did you?"
After all, you were the only one there in the middle of the night.
During the daytime, the blacksmiths had almost no chance to steal anything.
Because now there was not only a fair scale, weighing things when they entered and left, but even anything swallowed into their stomachs would be discovered.
There were also nine hundred viewers waiting to log in, switching between the perspectives of the various blacksmiths to supervise you and watch you play the game.
It wasn't that they didn't want to steal. They simply couldn't steal anything!
"I didn't steal anything. Can you help me calculate how much these magic artifacts I made are worth?" Eye Flower asked expectantly.
Dao Jiujiu took a look. "Hmm, the quality isn't high, but there are seven of them. I'll count each as three Magic Coins. That's twenty-one Magic Coins. You're planning to earn enough to revive the other three, right?"
"Right." Eye Flower nodded.
"You really are good brothers."
Dao Jiujiu sighed and said, "Then I can help you out. I was going to sort out the crow corpses hunted by your Defense Tower and calculate the money for your team, but I can advance you thirty Magic Coins now so you can revive the other three ahead of time."
"Okay." Eye Flower took the money.
Magic Coins were easy to make, and they had produced quite a few in recent days.
The Mountain Villa had a special Magic Coin mold. They only needed to melt down Money Boy's fingernails, place the material into the mold, and let it cool to obtain Magic Coins.
Based on their speculation, Money Boy's racial divine ability was something like:
Metal Qi Gathering.
Magic artifacts required monster materials.
Magic Coins were also a type of magic artifact, so they naturally required monster materials as well.
It was only by using Money Boy's innate talent that they could mint Magic Coins and engrave an ultra-small Qi-gathering array onto the round coins, allowing them to take on a rechargeable form.
The Magic Coin mold itself was a high-grade magic treasure and one of Sword Forging Manor's most valuable possessions.
After all, the ultra-dense Spirit-gathering Array the size of a fingernail on a Magic Coin was beyond the crude craftsmanship of these blacksmiths.
In reality, the coin-minting production line had been purchased by the Demon People from the imperial court at great expense.
Most of their savings had been poured into it. Unfortunately, it had now benefited Ning Zheng.
Magic Coins had anti-counterfeiting measures.
Privately minting Magic Coins was illegal. You had to purchase the official Coin-Forging Magic Treasure!
And after buying their magic treasure, they would also give you a Coin Minting License. Only when your Mountain Villa was officially registered would you be qualified to forge currency for circulation.
At this moment.
Eye Flower had received thirty Magic Coins.
Revive Eye Blind, Eye Bag, and Yan Zhong?
Yes!
Somewhere halfway up Sword Forging Manor.
There were two huge vats of flesh that Ning Zheng had hidden there.
One of the vats contained the flesh of the Demon People. Its hands and feet were still kicking and flailing with life. Judging by its vitality, no one knew how many more years it could keep moving.
The other huge vat also contained flesh. It was the flesh of a Money Boy at an extremely high cultivation realm.
The ordinary Money Boys were cultivated by splitting them off from this flesh. Previously, the Demon People had used this method to maintain the number of Money Boys in the Mountain Villa.
However, little vitality remained in this lump of flesh. It was withered and shriveled, and could no longer split many more times.
No one feared it being stolen, either.
After all, Spirit Manors surrounded the foot of the mountain, and outsiders could not enter.
There was a mist formation on the mountain, and the blacksmiths could not leave the Mountain Villa's boundaries either.
At this moment, as the flesh squirmed, three brand-new Money Boys crawled out of the huge vat. Like puppets being manipulated, they walked step by step up the mountain, followed the mountain road through the woods, and arrived at the entrance to the Mountain Villa.
Xiao Ai injected consciousness into them.
Crack!
The three of them suddenly opened their eyes and gasped for breath, sweeping their gazes around to discover that they were standing at the entrance to the Mountain Villa.
It was the same place where they had first logged into the game.
"We've been revived? Which kind soul revived us?" The three of them froze.
Soon, they saw Eye Flower standing before them and saying, "I revived you."
The three of them: "???"
Why was Eye Flower here? Hadn't he died together with them?
How had he revived them?
Could there be two Eye Flowers?
Eye Bag sent Eye Flower a message, only for Eye Flower to say it wasn't him:
"What the hell? I haven't even logged in yet. Hurry up and spend the money to revive me!"
The three of them stared blankly at the Eye Flower before them. A horrifying thought suddenly surfaced in their minds: "A ghost came out of Eye Flower's corpse after it dropped! No, it's an Ember."
"An Ember! When a person dies, their light is extinguished, leaving only the occasional ember! The thing before us is precisely the Ember left behind after Eye Flower died last night!"
Before you continue