Cooperation and New Blueprints

Each city was traded using Copper Coin, and seizing any one of them would ultimately be very beneficial to one's side.

After receiving the quest from Amia, Cherry immediately tried to leave her current location and head to the territory of another lord on the east side.

Although both are forces that border the forest, there are still significant differences between the two lords.

Disguised as ordinary people along the way, they questioned passersby and also had the disguised Black Shield infantrymen investigate. Unexpectedly, the information they obtained revealed that the lords of the two places were indeed not doing well.

"The different nobles under the kingdom are more like feudal lords, and the relationship between them is not as close as it seems on the surface."

Ye Qian did the math. She had told the city lord that she would bring the medicine back in a month, but the time hadn't come yet.

"Let Chen Ning go there. Anyway, we haven't used the teleportation talisman we used last time."

Hearing this, Chen Ning felt helpless, but he nodded and said, "Alright, let's give it a try, there's no harm in it. How about I become another representative of the same chamber of commerce and provide the employment of regular soldiers?"

"Yes, the goal is to make money anyway, and every little bit we can raise the hiring rate is a good thing. I think it's worth it for that city lord to spend money to invite soldiers who are willing to fight with their lives. Of course... that is, if he needs these soldiers."

Ye Qian now knows that the two lords don't get along, but how bad is it? Is it just a verbal disagreement, or has it reached the point where they don't mind fighting a few times?

Even within the system of enfeoffment, the relationships among the kings and nobles varied across different periods. If the central government maintained strong control, the smaller lords were unlikely to wage war against each other; instead, they would often unite against past grievances when faced with a major enemy.

Ye Qian's decision only cost 10 points, yet it got Chen Ning to act according to the order.

Fortunately, the territory was much richer than before, and the new carriages were quickly prepared. After taking some soldiers with them, the convoy began to head south.

The following morning, Ye Qian, who was sitting in the cabin, suddenly saw a message flash in front of her.

[Event: Employment deal reached.]

Lord Eli is willing to pay 500 gold coins to hire 500 Black Shield Heavy Infantry for one month. Eli will also provide 3 gold coins as compensation for each fallen soldier.

[Supplementary Agreement: 1. If Elite Black Shield Heavy Infantry is killed in battle, Eli must return the corresponding equipment. If this is not possible, he must pay a 5-silver-coin equipment loss fee. 2. During the employment period, Eli must provide the soldiers with rations.]

Chapter 116 Cooperation and New Blueprints

"Um?"

Ye Qian stopped moving abruptly.

After mentally estimating and confirming the various values, she couldn't help but reveal a strange smile.

"When you think about it this way, it seems like it's quite worth it."

If a soldier dies in battle, it's equivalent to exchanging one soldier for 40 silver coins. If the soldier survives, it's even better; you can give your soldier to someone else to use for a month for 10 silver coins.

The cost of recruiting a warrior, including equipment and other miscellaneous items, was only 15 silver coins, making this deal extremely advantageous for him.

Of course, Ye Qian also noticed that the agreement did not have any explicit provisions regarding injuries.

Just as they were wondering if Chen Ning had missed something, a new notification popped up from the system.

[Event: Supplemental Employment Agreement]

[Ye Qian (Lord) dispatched Chen Ning (representative) to supplement the employment details with City Lord Eli. It was agreed that any warrior seriously wounded should receive 50% of the death benefit as compensation. For minor injuries, compensation of 1-5 silver coins should still be provided.]

This contract is now in effect.

"Hmm, it seems the result is satisfactory."

For Ye Qian, this meant using lower-cost soldiers to earn more money.

For the city lord, however, it meant he had bought a group of soldiers willing to fight to the death with his money.

Actually, it's all worth it.

The actual cost of training a warrior is far beyond what a few gold and silver coins can measure. Ye Qian Chen Ning had to admire the lord's financial resources, considering that he had previously spent 750 gold coins to buy so much Water of Purification. He could still find so much money to reach such a contract with Chen Ning.

"Looks like I need to get the soldiers ready to assemble."

After waiting for more than ten minutes, Chen Ning's private chat also reminded Ye Qian to prepare the army.

500 men is no small number; it's equivalent to half of the current Elite Black Shield Heavy Infantry.

However, considering that Chen Ning will return with 500 gold coins, it's not a loss to send the troops over directly.

Moreover, due to Ye Qian's own affability, these soldiers are extremely loyal and will not drop their loyalty just because they are hired by someone else.

When 500 black-armored warriors stood in perfect unison before her, Ye Qian nodded in satisfaction and began to explain the precautions to them.

With everything settled, the main force set off immediately.

Chen Ning also returned by carriage, and the two sides will make handover at the border of the wasteland.

The following morning, 500 Elite Black Shield Heavy Infantry arrived 20 kilometers to the south and made an exchange with the city lord.

Seeing the elite troops with his own eyes, all his doubts vanished, leaving only deep shock.

"Such a powerful military force, I never expected you could actually provide so much."

Training 500 people is not an easy task, even for a lord like him.

At this point, he couldn't help but become even more suspicious of the origins of this strange caravan.

"Coming from the forest, they can suddenly provide so many professional soldiers. Could it be that there's some human force in the forest, or... they actually crossed the sea, landed in the north, and then circled around to this place?"

Eli had many thoughts in his mind, but he had no way to verify them. His current situation was very inconvenient, and it would be very uneconomical to send manpower to the north to investigate.

Now that he'd paid to hire this group of people, he decided to give them basic trust. Mercenaries were indeed very common in this era; while you couldn't expect them to fight tooth and nail for him, they were quite dedicated when facing ordinary enemies or participating in battles that weren't entirely safe.

Moreover, Chen Ning repeatedly stated that this legion was extremely elite and fought with reckless abandon, so the city lord decided to give it a try.

Who is the commander of this army?

After inspecting the troops, the city lord suddenly remembered something and couldn't help but ask a question.

A strong soldier who had been appointed long ago immediately stepped forward. "Next is the battalion commander, the commander of this army."

Eli's eyes lit up, and he chuckled, "Next, I want your troops to strike at my enemies in the east. I wonder if you're willing to do it for me, and if you're captured, don't reveal my name."

Although he made this request, his tone suggested that he didn't expect the Black Shield Heavy Infantry to be able to fulfill it.

There's no way around it; they're mercenaries, caravan mercenaries, and even if they're a professionally trained legion, their loyalty is definitely not to themselves.

"Absolutely no problem. Since we've accepted your employment, as long as we don't let our soldiers willingly go to their deaths, we won't mind risking our lives for you," the battalion commander assured decisively.

"Okay." Eli was pleasantly surprised and patted the captain on the shoulder.

"Then, Lord City Lord, I shall take my leave." Chen Ning bowed slightly to the City Lord and prepared to depart.

"Mr. Chen, I wonder if I will have another chance to see Miss Qian next month. I bought her rare potion last time and was very satisfied. I hope to have more."

"Your Majesty can rest assured that she will definitely return to your city by the scheduled deadline."

"That's good."

The two sides parted ways completely.

Whether the city lord was satisfied with the deal is unknown, but after bringing the 500 people back, he immediately ordered the troops to attack the enemy lord to the east, and demanded that they conceal their identities.

However...

How could Ye Qian let these guys really hide? Anyway, if anyone gets caught, they'll definitely implicate Eli.

He wished for a more intense conflict to break out between the two human lords.

To be honest, if a full-scale war were to break out with the lord, 500 men wouldn't be of much use. In fact, Lord Eli only sent this portion of his army to attack some villages and a relatively weakly defended port city on the other side.

After the team set off, Ye Qian's side also benefited. Relying on the shared map vision, she unknowingly opened up a large area of enemy territory.

"If only I could obtain a legitimate lordship in this country, I could openly expand my territory without all this trouble."

Ye Qian couldn't help but sigh inwardly and began to consider the possibility of such a thing.

But after careful consideration, she realized it was almost impossible.

Even setting aside the fact that he, as a foreigner, lacked legal status, he had absolutely no right to legitimize his position. Attempting to recruit mercenaries to cooperate with the lord was already the limit of his capabilities.

"Then let's make some money off Elido and try to increase the army size as quickly as possible during this time."

She could only sigh, pick up a large pile of the remaining bones, and prepare to revive the undead army by consuming Life Energy.

That's right, if you want to quickly accumulate enough strength to fight the Bearman, you still need to rely on the Skeleton army.

Although their average strength is low, with a large number of soldiers and a sufficient proportion of elite heavy armored black shield infantry, they can still hold their own against the enemy.

"It would be great if I could get closer to the Treant, so that I could get their help when fighting the Gnoll in the future."

Ye Qian had observed that the Treant race was clearly facing a severe population shortage, so it would be difficult to recruit them into her forces. The only thing she could do for now was to avoid becoming enemies and try to cultivate some goodwill towards them.

Ye Qian recently flipped through many pages in the trading area and looked at a lot of blueprints, but she didn't see anything more satisfactory than the Elite Black Shield Heavy Infantry.

A blue blueprint, supposedly for a Tier 1 unit (greater than LV20), was put up for sale. The price was outrageous, and the race was an absurdly low Mud Beast. Even if she really wanted a high-level unit, she wouldn't consider buying it.

Based on the general market situation, Ye Qian deduced that the best-performing player at present might only reach the point where their main force consists of Tier 1 troops.

Given our current pace of development, surpassing them is essentially just a matter of time.

Throughout the entire day, even when Chen Ning returned to the main base of his home, Ye Qian was still synthesizing Skeleton.

By the end of the day, she had revived all 2,000 skeletons accumulated over this period into Skeleton army. This consumed as much as 20,000 units of Life Energy. Interestingly, even so, each of the three players still had more than 5,000 points of reserve.

Ye Qian naturally possesses even more Life Energy. In addition to the income from killing monsters in the Main World, the combined income from the Dusk members and the clones in other worlds who lead troops to level up is also extremely astonishing.

To date, Ye Qian has accumulated a total of 15,000 points.

In the end, she estimated that if the expansion rate and the intensity of combat in the Main World continued at this rate, the income here would likely be higher in the short term.

Even so, there is still a considerable distance to go before an upgrade is achieved.

Because simply going from LV20 to LV21 requires 1000 points. And going from LV39 to LV40 requires a whopping 5500 points.

Ye Qian checked the values beforehand; in reality, the total Life Energy required for the next 20 levels was 58,500 units.

This is the same for every human being.

With such a high number, one can imagine how long it would take for a person to go from Black Iron Rank to Mithril Rank.

Of course, for many Black Iron Rank powerhouses in reality, acquiring over 50,000 Life Energy is only a slightly slower process. People with this level of strength can obtain extraordinary items much more easily than ordinary Hidden One. In addition, they have a high tolerance for Pollution, so they can naturally choose to absorb multiple extraordinary items at the same time to achieve the goal of rapid leveling up.

In contrast, each breakthrough is actually more difficult than the accumulation of Life Energy.

Ye Qian decided to continue slowly accumulating Life Energy, first raising her two most important clones, namely her main body and Ye Qian No. 2, to LV40.

There is no need for promotion from Black Iron Rank to Mithril Rank, but this does not mean that this level does not require a ritual.

Ye Qian still needs to find a way to get a promotion from someone else.

During the process of obtaining this method, one can selectively break through a portion of one's clones to the Black Iron.

"Phew, what a busy day. 2,000 Skeleton, plus the ones we have in the territory, that's almost 3,000 Skeleton now." Ye Qian stretched and noticed Chen Ning's dumbfounded expression, and couldn't help but laugh.

"I never imagined our home would develop so quickly; it's changing every single day lately."

"Yes, yes, build a second railway line. One way to go, the number of trains can be increased from 10 cars to 40. It's up to you." After giving Chen Ning the order, Ye Qian went back to her room to rest.

Chen Ning shook his head and decided to get to work.

He's preparing to start building Majestic Town Center (green) these next couple of days.

This building requires a lot of materials, so it couldn't be built before, but now that there are so many farmers working, the resources will be gathered soon.

After delivering the 500 gold coins he received from the mercenary operation to Ye Qian, he began his busy work.

After one night, the next day, Ye Qian led her legion out to fight for another day.

In the evening, she unexpectedly encountered a level 22 monster at the foot of a mountain in Northeast China. Without saying a word, she ordered 50 warriors to surround it. After a fierce battle, 12 Elite Black Shield Heavy Infantry were killed.

As for the outcome of the battle, it did not disappoint Ye Qian. She obtained a blueprint for a troop building that she had been eagerly anticipating.

[Building: Elite Magic Archer Camp (Green)]

[Type: Drawings]

[Building Materials: 200 Life Energy, 200 Silver Coins, 1600 Wood Blocks, 1000 Stone Blocks, 200 Iron Blocks, Sufficient Space]

[Note: 12,000 years ago, the destroyed Karl Empire, through cruel research, forcibly implanted Magic Pattern into the bodies of some loyal warriors, thus creating the Magic Warriors. Among them, the Magic-Equipped Archer is an archer with a certain amount of magical power, characterized by longer range, a certain amount of magical damage capability, and stronger armor-piercing power.]

"Great, not bad."