"This quarry is a bit useless to me right now!"
After returning to the quarry, Zhang Yang found himself in a bind. It was too far from his village, roughly eight kilometers away. If he really wanted to mine it regularly, he would have to dispatch at least forty captains here; otherwise, there would be no guarantee of safety.
"Wu Yuan, have your people each carry a block of stone and head back first. We'll deal with this place later."
In the end, Zhang Yang made his decision.
There were several matters in his village that had to be resolved immediately. The quarry could wait.
Nothing happened on the way back to the village. After all, being the regional little tyrant was no joke.
After returning, Zhang Yang went straight to inspect the construction of the new Residential House. He was afraid that the instructor Qin Ge was a big fraud. If this fellow really dared to swindle him out of his energy... it seemed there was no other option besides killing him. After all, Qin Ge came as part of the building itself, unlike the soldiers directly recruited from the Village Building Order. Those soldiers were one hundred percent loyal and would not hesitate in the slightest even if ordered to die.
Moreover, if he really killed this instructor, Qin Ge, Zhang Yang suspected that his Training Ground would be completely ruined.
"Hm? Not bad!"
When he arrived at the construction site of the new Residential House, Zhang Yang was stunned. Everything was in perfect order. Whether they were craftsmen or soldiers doing the hard labor, they were all working with a steady rhythm. As for the instructor Qin Ge, he was leading Zhao Tiezhu and eight other craftsmen in cutting various kinds of wood, and he looked quite capable.
So Zhang Yang turned around and went to the nearby Level 5 Residential House, where he recruited ten more craftsmen from among the third-generation residents and sent them straight over. If they don't learn some skills with an opportunity like this, can they still call themselves craftsmen?
Next, Zhang Yang hesitated for a long time before recruiting another ten farmers from among the third-generation residents. They were all men. In fact, as long as they remained unmarried, they could also be recruited as new soldiers without losing loyalty.
But once they became new soldiers, they could no longer marry—at least for now.
Therefore, for the sake of future population numbers and individual quality, he had to resolutely and firmly reject the Rush Strategy. Rush soldiers? Rush a giant ghost!
He had to follow the path of elite, powerful troops. Every soldier had to be worth ten men and able to hold off a hundred!
"The construction of the new Residential House will take at most five days. After that, we can start building the Ancestral Temple. Once we have the Ancestral Temple, we can purchase Level 3 Invisibility Talismans, Level 3 Protection Talismans, and Level 3 Vision Talismans. We'll equip the patrol teams with them. Combined with the two Ghost Eyes generated by the Ghost Priest every day, the village's outer warning and patrol network will begin to take shape. At the very least, we won't end up being completely unaware when some other family's little ghost sneaks up to spy on us."
"Next is reclaiming farmland. Who can ten mu of wheat fields possibly feed? We have to continue reclaiming farmland. The scale should be at least two hundred mu. The soldiers will have to work a little harder. A farmer can probably tend about five mu of land, so two hundred mu will require forty farmers. Looks like I'll have to recruit every last third-generation resident."
"Lastly, there's the expansion of the soldiers' combat power. Other than the Archer Captain, all the remaining spearmen and shieldmen must master the Wood Spear Throwing skill. I can craft Imprisonment Spears for them. From now on, every infantry captain must be equipped with three—no, at least five Imprisonment Spears."
"Although this is somewhat wasteful, even a complete squandering of treasures, I'm not afraid of wasting them! Take Wu Yuan, for example. He used only five Imprisonment Spears to forcefully kill a hero. The cost-effectiveness is more than sufficient."
"It can be predicted that if all forty-plus infantry captains under me are equipped with five Imprisonment Spears, and each of their throwing skills reaches Wu Yuan's level, then their combat power will allow them to wipe out more than three times their number of enemies of the same rank—in other words, at least 150 Captain-Level Soldiers. Magic truly changes the future!"
"The only problem is that I might be worked to death. Forty-two captains, five Imprisonment Spears each, and I still have to find time to study the Iron Wall Battle Rune. Good grief! This simply isn't a life fit for humans."
After organizing the tasks he had to complete over the coming period by importance, Zhang Yang issued his orders. Wu Yuan, a quasi-hero, was very capable, so there was no problem entrusting these matters to him.
After that, Zhang Yang began his utterly miserable, round-the-clock work of crafting wooden spears.
First, he had to nurture the selected trees into ironwood. Then Wu Yuan would carve them, after which Zhang Yang would enchant them one by one. He was busy until the sky spun and the earth turned every day, yet could only produce ten spears. He was still far too distant from his target.
The only thing worth comforting himself with was that Zhang Yang's village truly seemed to have become the regional little tyrant. Within a five-kilometer radius, not a single demon could be seen. Occasionally, a few Red Eagle Demons would fly overhead, but they did not dare linger. They fled with a whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
There was even one day when a gigantic flying demon he had never seen before appeared. It looked extremely fierce, and Zhang Yang estimated that it was at least Level 25, with strength comparable to a hero.
Yet after circling in the sky several times, even such a demon ultimately did not dare descend. It fled in panic.
That was because, at the time, twenty-four captain-level archers on the ground were either drawing their bows and nocking arrows, while forty-two infantry captains each held an Imprisonment Spear. All of them were eyeing the creature like tigers waiting for prey to descend.
This sudden incident certainly made Zhang Yang realize that the outside world was dangerous, but it also confirmed even more deeply that his strategy was correct.
Five days later, the new Residential House was completed. Although it was only a Level 3 Residential House, to Zhang Yang, its significance was no less than a milestone.
Therefore, he deliberately stopped crafting wooden spears and went there personally to offer his congratulations.
Compared with the Level 5 Residential House, this Level 3 Residential House was much simpler. It could accommodate ten households and contributed five points to Village Prosperity.
But its greater invisible contribution was that the nineteen junior craftsmen had each gained varying amounts of proficiency during these five days of construction.
Yes, that was right. People differed from one another, and so did their comprehension and potential. Among these craftsmen, only three had distinguished themselves. Their secondary skill, Construction and Repair, had risen from the ten proficiency points they started with upon recruitment to sixty-five, sixty, and fifty-five points respectively.
That was viciously impressive. With that level of proficiency, the three of them could independently build another Level 3 Residential House.
As for the other craftsmen, most had only increased their proficiency by ten to fifteen points.
After discovering this, Zhang Yang waved his hand decisively and appointed the three craftsmen as leaders, having them supervise the construction of another Level 3 Residential House. Talents had to be cultivated this way.
As for the other sixteen craftsmen, Zhang Yang decided to have them continue making feathered arrows and longbows for another five days. By then, he would see who showed the greatest potential in this area and retain them for further cultivation. Those without the potential would all be sent to quarry stone. After all, craftsmen had many secondary skills. There was always one suited to them.
Zhang Yang did not expect a universal genius like Lu Miazi to appear among them.
A person had to know when to be content.
After handling the craftsmen's affairs, Zhang Yang personally presided over the household-separation ceremony and distributed this Level 3 Residential House to ten promising young men—in other words, third-generation residents—including the three young craftsmen.
That was right. The three outstanding craftsmen were all third-generation residents. They were very young, so this was probably not a coincidence. The second-generation residents were somewhat older, and their ability to absorb knowledge was much slower.
This was a lesson, and also something Zhang Yang had failed to consider properly. He should have recruited all the craftsmen from among the third-generation residents from the beginning, assigning the second-generation residents to other professions. As a result, the eight second-generation craftsmen would most likely become rotten eggs.
Unfortunately, things had already reached this point, and there was nothing he could change. The Village Building Order did not have a job-transfer option either.
From this matter, Zhang Yang saw the difference between initial recruitment and normal recruitment.
The five hundred people he had initially recruited would do whatever he told them to do. For example, Wu Yuan, Song Dachui, and the others would fight, chop wood, carry stones, plow the fields, or cut grass. He could give them whatever orders he wanted, and they would never say a word in protest.
But those recruited normally could not be treated that way. If he told a craftsman to farm, their loyalty would immediately drop for him to see. Even bribing them with energy would not work.
The instructor Qin Ge was an exception. At least he could be bribed.
So whenever Zhang Yang thought of the soldiers who had died before, his heart ached so badly that he could barely breathe.
He also became even more aware of how difficult the next three hundred years would be!
Yes, the soldiers he recruited from Residential Houses in the future would not be so obedient either. They might not even compare to the fifty new soldiers that came with the Barracks. They would have all sorts of little tempers. They would slack off, become afraid, and desert.
"I suddenly understand what faith organizations are actually useful for. They aren't merely for exchanging for and purchasing Invisibility Talismans, Protection Talismans, and Vision Talismans. Besides, twenty years from now, my abilities will have to be passed down as well."
Zhang Yang decided that he had to think carefully about what kind of faith organization he should establish.
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