Plan to Expand Territory

Zhu Zhengwei's little life was still fairly leisurely.

He ambled downstairs to the sports field for a few laps, then played a few ranked matches back in the dorm, and just like that it was noon.

As for the development of civilization?

Let the bullet fly for a while.

The great explosion of the "steam" Blessing Shaman civilization in this four-dimensional world had only just begun. There was no rush.

By noon, Zhu Zhengwei still ignored the two Roll Kings busy at their computers in the dorm, too lazy to even look at the free publicity stunts the two of them were pulling, and went straight out for lunch.

When he came back for his midday nap, he finally began to ponder the road ahead.

Zhujing Village.

Zhu Zhengwei had returned once more to the place where the dream began.

The old house on this mountain remained as it had been, utterly deserted, green trees lush and verdant, without the slightest trace of human presence.

This was only natural.

The population had not been thriving to begin with; most of the land was wilderness. On top of that, not much time had passed since the Wall of Ten Thousand Stones had been built to resist the Sea Clan, and too many slave laborers had died, causing a massive decrease in population.

"And this place seems to have become some sort of forbidden ground, too. They say some wealthy merchant contracted it and protected it." Zhu Zhengwei pushed open the dust-covered front door.

"As for which wealthy merchant, I don't even need to think to know who it was."

It was a five-hundred-year-old building now.

The elder brother and parents he had in this world were all already dead, but he still vaguely remembered some scenes inside the house.

Zhu Zhengwei revealed a trace of emotion. After curiously looking around, his thought stirred.

Whoosh!

All the dust in the house was blown outside.

"He came back again. Did he leave behind the Longevity Diary?"

Zhu Zhengwei sensed something in a hidden compartment beneath a certain floorboard, but he was in no hurry to look.

Zhu Zhengwei sat on the chair by the windowsill, before the solid-wood table, facing the broken, bright sunlight. As he had back then, he first began to rethink what he should do next.

"The enlightenment era of the first civilization's world has passed. It has officially set sail and erupted. I should continue busying myself with my own affairs, too."

Very soon, he wrote down two new goals for perfecting the world's framework on a sheet of hide paper:

First, expand the number of servers.

Second, improve the quality of the servers.

Quantity was easy to understand.

After all, the world map currently being provided and excavated by one thousand servers was already not quite enough.

With the current degree of explosive development in this world, he still had to add more servers.

"And as my cultivation progresses and my Spiritual Power strengthens, my upper limit is rising as well. I feel like adding another two thousand servers in one go and expanding the map threefold shouldn't be any big problem." Zhu Zhengwei was extremely bold.

Lie low and develop?

That was only natural.

But limiting his own development speed would be stupid!

He wished he could take off in a single day, directly add servers in one breath until reaching the current operational limit, and get the snowball rolling first.

"It would be best if those two guys fail to promote it. If they actually succeed, I'll be the one with the headache. In any case, no matter how niche this game of mine is, I can casually scrape together a few thousand wallpaper-sleeping players right now."

"As for the candidates, that does need to be handled carefully."

He pressed his temples, his expression calm.

"What kind of person they are isn't important. Where they live is what matters."

"The locations of these two thousand new servers should ideally be at the boundaries of my dream network, among the residential population in the outer ring of Shancheng City, forming evenly distributed 'nodes' one after another, like stars scattered across a chessboard, expanding the territory of the Mobile Dream Network as much as possible!"

If the servers were concentrated, problems would easily arise.

Spreading them out and expanding the radiation range of each server was the kingly path.

It was just like 5G signals. The more base stations there were in one place, and the wider they were distributed, the stronger the signal.

"Mm, here, and here too." Sitting in the house, Zhu Zhengwei quickly circled out the new server range, then thought about the next issue:

Server quality.

"The quality of these servers is too weak. The qi they provide is too low in quality."

Although he still could not sense it now, it might become a major problem in the future.

Thinking ahead meant being prepared against trouble before it happened.

In Zhu Zhengwei's view, if the Spiritual Qi of heaven and earth in a world was too faint and its purity too low, it would definitely affect future development.

"Since the four-dimensional world is officially operating, then raising the miners' levels, mining efficiency, and mining quality is of vital importance."

Zhu Zhengwei thought for a moment, sat on the chair, and tapped the table. In a steady voice, he said, "Although I can faintly feel that as they keep mining and exercise their brains, after they grow stronger, the effects of their mining rise."

"However, this passive rate of growth and its efficiency are far too low. I need to think of a way to improve it. Ideally, the server miners should take the initiative to raise their mining efficiency themselves."

"Mm. Raising mining efficiency means making the miners cultivate the 'Blessing Shaman Technique' and strengthen their own souls, but they won't bring this powerful cultivation back into reality. When they wake up, it will be sealed deep in their minds."

"But how am I supposed to fool these broiler-chicken servers into cultivating more, providing greater computing power, and then selflessly dedicating their bodies and minds to the natives?"

This was very difficult.

Although the metaphor did not sound pleasant, it was like saying to a broiler chicken: You have to exercise more, so you'll be chewier and have more bite when you're eaten.

The broiler-chicken servers before him followed the same principle.

Although players who would frantically haul bricks, grind hard to level up, and endure any toil or complaint for a bit of virtual sweetness had always been the most qualified chives, going straight in to harvest them would still cause major problems.

"At the same time, there's another problem."

"Even if they do cultivate, what if they really become like the ones in myths, these immortal herbs gaining spirits, sprouting legs, and running off? Wouldn't that be even more ridiculous? I have to cut off their ability to move!"

He kept thinking, but soon calmed down. "That is still a very distant matter. When they really can run, if any problem arises, I'll just choose to fix the malignant game BUG that lets them move and clip through the Wallpaper Game."

Zhu Zhengwei sorted through them one by one, sighing at how busy he truly was!

How lofty and grand were the Creation Gods in other people's stories and legends?

Yet he was always thinking about the firewood, rice, oil, and salt of daily life, thinking about Mining Machine operations, thinking about finding a few more world miners!

It was really hard.

Everything was difficult at the beginning; starting a business was not easy.

"Then, thinking it over carefully, the second closed beta update is settled too: expanding the population to four thousand, along with new game content."

His eyes flicked aside, looking toward the immortal herbs in a certain Immortal Pool. They were still discussing those matters.

"Last night was seriously too cool."

"Wuwuwu, Stone Light Emperor Zhizheng, I love you! I want to have your babies."

"Damn it, we could only quietly watch it all."

"After all, it's just a Wallpaper Game. What's more, it still has that tiny bit of interactivity. Didn't you see the gust of wind formed by our final unified shout? Those people reacted to it too. You could call it an Easter egg the Development Team put real thought into."

They were still chatting, immersed in that emotion.

Zhu Zhengwei thought for a moment, then his mind stirred, and he said, "There still has to be an opportunity—how to teach them to cultivate the Qi Consumption Method."

"I've got it. It's actually very simple. As long as I just happen to place the foundational cultivation volume of the All Living Beings Scripture before their eyes and let them see it, that will be enough."

Zhu Zhengwei thought for a moment, then directly had an immortal herb that had just entered birth "randomly" grow before the windowsill of his thatched hut.

And with a refined expression, he was sitting in the old house, studying a copy of the All Living Beings Scripture.

The instant that immortal herb saw him, it grew excited.

"Isn't this God? This scene is so beautiful!"

It only saw him read for a while. This man with a tear mole sat leisurely on a long bench, and just happened to set down the All Living Beings Scripture in his hand. One page just happened to be laid out on the windowsill and seen by this plant. "Wow, could this be the Qi Consumption Method? What will happen if we cultivate it?"

But Zhu Zhengwei pretended not to know. Suddenly, he reached out through the air, a hidden compartment opened, and an ancient diary flew into his hand.

Letting them peek meant that the matter of preparing their servers was more or less finished for now.

While they were peeking at this book and secretly learning from it, Zhu Zhengwei could not help but grow completely solemn as well. He planned to take a look at the contents of the second Longevity Diary, at Zhang Zhi's experiences over the past several hundred years.