End of Dungeon, Embers Exposed

The next morning, at dawn.

A group of people started entering the time-limited dungeon activity early.

First, they sent scouts to clear the path. After confirming there were no crows guarding the water route, they suppressed the copper stones and began to exit one by one.

Since the tunnels were easy to hit, the blacksmiths were already quite skilled at taking down scattered crows in the tunnels with a volley of fire.

Soon, they regained control of the tunnel network and returned to their respective defense towers.

Outside, the sun was shining brightly.

Beyond the shooting holes, crows were sparsely perched on the ground and rooftops.

It seemed most had already gone out to forage and weren't here.

And the Crow King was also absent. Currently, it could be considered a powerful, mindless elite monster, lacking any leadership or management skills.

"Let's get to work."

The tower defenses began to operate again, one by one.

Nothing unexpected happened next; the crows fell one after another, hit by arrows.

Even after half an hour, the boss that lowered their intelligence was re-lured into a defense tower.

With their weapons upgraded, going from bird guns to cannons, they were taken down by a volley of over a dozen [Swiftness] shots from the enhanced official magic artifact, the bronze bow.

Ning Zheng, who had stayed up all night practicing new spells, had originally wanted to get up early to help out and take down the Crow King for the meat fields. Who knew the blacksmiths would handle it themselves:

"They look unreliable, but they're surprisingly capable? I'll just ask them for the Crow King's corpse later."

He felt a bit dazed, as if he were dreaming.

Happiness had come too quickly.

It was a major enemy, yet he had won without lifting a finger?

These people clearly had no intention of farming meat fields, yet they had a strange obsession with this Crow King.

It was as if their success wouldn't be complete without defeating it.

At eleven-thirty in the morning.

The sun was high in the sky. After the Crow King was subdued, the remaining crows were finally scared off and flew away together, disappearing into the misty mountains.

"Is it over?"

Su Yu Niang wiped the sweat from her forehead in front of the arrow tower's small iron net shooting window.

Jiu Cai Rong shook his head, looking towards the sky. "It's not over. The war will only pause, not end. If the crow flock gets a second leader, they'll come back."

In fact, they also regretted killing the Crow King so quickly, which had scared them all away.

Otherwise, they could have defeated several hundred more in the afternoon and stockpiled some goods.

These crows were unusually timid!

Now that they had missed this opportunity, there would likely be no source of materials.

After all, they couldn't leave their territory. Unless something actively flew to them from the sky as takeout, there was nowhere to hunt monsters.

They also had very few neighbors, so they couldn't get any gold drops.

"Everyone, the first manor defense battle is a complete success!"

Jiu Cai Rong shouted from a high place. "Let's start cleaning up the spoils. Collect whatever you killed within your own defense tower's area! Don't take anything outside your designated zone."

After confirming the crows wouldn't attack again, they began to clean up the battlefield, clearing away corpses and bloodstains.

They were busy from noon until the afternoon before the corpses were mostly sorted.

The bloodstains on the ground were easier to deal with; they just turned over the soil and flattened it again.

This also led some blacksmiths to lament that their manor should start paving with floor tiles.

Building a civilized society starts with you and me.

Many began discussing having Jiu Cai Rong issue a task to fire floor tiles, suggesting the large furnaces in the blacksmith shop could be put to good use.

Some even said they planned to open up a farm to grow vegetables.

After all, Money Boy was vegetarian and ate soil, and vegetables were one of its recipes.

Now that they had cleared the monsters and obtained the materials, shouldn't they happily start farming and building infrastructure? A beautiful, happy manor life was just around the corner!

Meanwhile, on the other side, amidst the joy of celebrating their great victory.

In the blacksmith shop, Dao Jiujiu looked at Yan Hua, utterly bewildered. "These weapons, did you forge them all?"

"I forged them," Yan Hua replied.

"You mean you exploited a bug, didn't log off to sleep, and stayed up all night forging here?" Dao Jiujiu asked urgently. "You didn't steal anything, did you?"

After all, he was the only one present late at night.

During the daytime, it was almost impossible for the blacksmiths to steal anything.

This was because not only did they have the [Fair Scale] for weighing in and out, but any consumption was also detected.

There are 900 more viewers waiting to log in, switching between the perspectives of various blacksmiths to supervise you and watch you play the game.

It's not that I don't want to steal, it's that I can't steal at all!

"I didn't steal. Can you calculate how much the magic artifacts I made are worth?" Yan Hua asked with some anticipation.

Dao Jiujiu looked them over. "Hmm, the quality isn't high, but you have seven of them. Each one is worth three magic coins, so that's 21 magic coins. Are you planning to earn money to revive the other three guys?"

"Yes," Yan Hua nodded.

"You guys are really good brothers."

Dao Jiujiu sighed and said, "Then I can help you. I was going to sort out the crow corpses your defensive towers hunted and then calculate the money for your team, but I can advance you thirty magic coins now to revive those three early."

"Okay." Yan Hua took the money.

Magic coins were a currency that was easy to make; they had made quite a few in the past few days.

This was because the manor had special molds for magic coins. By melting the fingernails of Money Boys and pouring them into the molds to cool, they could obtain magic coins.

According to their guesses, the Money Boys' racial divine abilities were something like:

[Metal Qi Gathering].

Magic artifacts required monster materials.

Magic coins were also a type of magic artifact, so naturally, magic coins also required monster materials.

Others used the Money Boys' innate talents to forge magic coins, allowing the circular magic coins to have ultra-small Qi gathering array inscriptions, making the magic coins rechargeable.

The mold for these magic coins was itself a high-grade magic treasure, one of Sword Forging Manor's most valuable assets.

After all, the ultra-dense spirit gathering array, the size of a fingernail on the magic coins, was not something their crude blacksmithing skills could replicate.

In fact, the coin minting production line was something the demons had bought from the imperial court at a great expense.

Most of their savings had been poured into this, but unfortunately, it now benefited Ning Zheng.

Magic coins had anti-counterfeiting measures.

It was illegal to forge magic coins privately; you had to buy the official exclusive coin minting magic treasure!

And after purchasing their magic treasure, they would also give you a [Coin Minting License]. Your manor would be officially registered, allowing you to forge currency for circulation.

At this moment.

Yan Hua received thirty magic coins.

[Would you like to revive Yan Xia, Eye Bag, and Yan Zhong?]

[Yes!]

Somewhere on the mountainside of Sword Forging Manor.

There were two vats of flesh and blood hidden by Ning Zheng.

One vat contained the flesh and blood of demons, with limbs still twitching. Judging by its vitality, it could probably twitch for many more years.

The other vat also contained flesh and blood, which was the flesh and blood of a Money Boy of extremely high cultivation.

Normally, Money Boys were cultivated and grown from this flesh and blood. Previously, the demons had maintained the number of Money Boys in the manor in this way.

However, this mass of flesh and blood had little vitality left; it was withered and shriveled, and it wouldn't be able to split many more times.

There was no fear of it being stolen.

After all, a circle of spirit manors surrounded the mountain, preventing outsiders from entering.

There was a mist formation on the mountain, so the blacksmiths couldn't leave the manor's boundaries.

At this time, amidst the wriggling flesh, three brand-new Money Boys crawled out of the vats. Like controlled puppets, they walked up the mountain, following the mountain path through the forest, and arrived at the manor's entrance.

Little Ai injected consciousness into them.

Crack!

The three of them suddenly opened their eyes, gasping for air. They scanned their surroundings and found themselves at the manor's entrance.

It was the same place they had logged into the game at the very beginning.

"We've revived? Which kind soul revived us?" The three of them were stunned.

Soon, they saw Yan Hua in front of them, saying, "I revived you."

The three of them: "???"

Why was Yan Hua here? Didn't he die with them?

What was going on with the revival?

Could there be two Yan Huas?

Eye Bag sent Yan Hua a message, but Yan Hua replied that it wasn't him:

"Are you crazy? I haven't even logged in yet. Hurry up and spend money to revive me!"

Suddenly, the three of them stared blankly at the Yan Hua in front of them, a chilling thought flashing through their minds: "The corpse of the ghoul Yan Hua, it dropped a ghost, no, it's embers."

"Embers! When a person dies, their light goes out, but sometimes embers remain! What you see before you is the ember left after Yan Hua died last night!"