Territory Upgrade Plan

"But what should I trade for? Hmm, right, I should probably upgrade this house of mine too. A Level 1 Territory is just too cramped and narrow; it can't even hold my loot."

Colin pulled up the information for his dilapidated Wooden Cabin.

[Level 1 Territory: Can block the Gray Fog, allows for simple crafting, but cannot be moved or stored in the backpack.]

After clicking on the upgrade option at the bottom, four upgrade branches appeared.

[Underground Fortress][Floating City][War Chariot][Level 2 Territory].

They only displayed their functional descriptions, without stating the required materials. If the materials were insufficient, the upgrade would simply return a message saying it could not be upgraded.

However, thanks to the prompt, Colin could see the corresponding material requirements directly without needing blueprints.

"A Level 1 Underground Fortress requires 3,000 units of basic iron blocks, 2,000 units of clay, 1,000 units of gravel, 2,000 units of stone, 1,000 units of wood, 200 Thorns of Suffering, and 100 Mist Points, hmm."

Colin looked at the material requirements and silently clicked the top-right corner to close it.

The requirements for this thing were too high; all the materials he had on him combined wouldn't even cover a fraction of it.

Next, he clicked on the [Floating City] option, which looked much friendlier than the Underground Fortress.

[Prompt: Level 1 Floating City: Floating Stone 0/200, Thorns of Suffering 4/10, Wood 54/300, Mist Points 20/200.]

Colin hadn't even seen a Floating Stone before, so he could only shake his head and abandon this choice.

Then he looked at the third option: [War Chariot].

The moment he opened it and saw the functions, Colin's eyes lit up.

[Level 1 War Chariot: Can block the Gray Fog, resist mental-type attacks below Lord-tier, can be driven to move, and can be equipped with cannons.]

[Note: Driving the War Chariot consumes fuel.]

"Wouldn't it be great to have a nation of chariots, a million-strong steel torrent, plowing the earth with cannons and sweeping through the Gray Fog? What would these Aberrations be then?"

Colin thought excitedly.

Then he saw the materials it required and silently clicked the top-right corner.

Never mind.

However, the practicality of the War Chariot made Colin take note of the materials it needed so he could collect them quietly.

Now, only the last option remained: Level 2 Territory.

[Level 2 Territory Information: The survivor's territory range will expand from 4x4 to 10x10, with an additional 5x5 small courtyard.]

[Prompt: Required materials: Stone 49/2000, Thorns of Suffering 4/30, Wood 54/1000, Clay 0/500, Mist Points 20/50.]

Compared to the other upgrade plans, the Level 2 Territory looked much more reasonable.

Some materials looked like a lot, but since they were basic materials, they weren't actually that much. After all, these things were common outside the Gray Fog; one just needed to spend some time gathering them to put into the backpack.

The Gray Fog World was currently mainly lacking two things: food and water.

Of course, Colin didn't plan to waste time on that.

After all, until people found a stable water source, water was a monopolized resource in Colin's hands.

Colin silently calculated the materials he was missing, then separated a few portions of water from his backpack, listing each 200ml portion on the trading market.

[Level 3 Water]

[Item Description: A water source with a slight odor, but it should be safe to drink.]

[Type: Consumable.]

[Quantity: 200ml.]

[Price: 200 units of stone.]

[Merchant Note: Private message me if you have other unique items.]

"Two hundred milliliters of water for two hundred units of stone—one milliliter for one unit of stone. This exchange rate isn't excessive, right? After all, this water was boiled using precious wood from the foot of Crow Mountain."

Colin muttered to himself.

At the same time, people in the chat channel saw this and immediately started cursing.

"Two hundred units of stone for just two hundred milliliters of water? Why don't you just go rob someone?"

"How can there be such a shameless guy?"

"Too heartless."

"Everyone, don't buy water from these guys. Let's unite; we can't tolerate these black-market merchants!"

Colin, who had been keeping the chat channel open, naturally saw these messages.

However, Colin didn't care about them at all.

He sat on the chair he had scavenged, leaning back leisurely, and let out a "Heh" of laughter.

If it weren't for the fact that I've already received two thousand units of stone in almost a second, I would have really thought you all had wills of steel, forming an unbreakable alliance to boycott me. Well, this also shows that these things are indeed plentiful, almost everywhere. I was just too busy doing tasks yesterday and only focused on high-value items, so I didn't notice them.

Shaking his head with a smile, Colin had his two servants, who had already woken up, throw the 49 units of stone piled in the corner of the bed out the door.

Next, following the same method, the requirement for one thousand units of wood and five hundred units of clay was quickly met.

During this process, the survivors who had been clamoring to boycott him began to fracture from within.

"You bunch of liars, shouting for us to boycott the profiteer and force him to lower prices, while secretly snatching them up behind our backs!"

"No way, no way? It's just trash you can collect hundreds of units of by wandering around for an hour, don't tell me someone actually treats it like treasure?"

"To be fair, if someone is trading water for common materials, you'd have to be brain-dead not to take the deal."

"Haha, I got it, I got it! This water tastes so good~"

"Wait for me, big boss! There's a mine near my place, I'm going to dig right now, save some for me!"

"With this much water, you must have found a water source and aren't lacking at all. Yet you don't know how to contribute selflessly? How were you raised? Doesn't your conscience hurt?"

Watching these people go from "united" to fractured, Colin found it amusing and made sure to release a batch every ten seconds, letting everyone join in on this monkey show.

In order to snatch the water, those who had objections to him no longer had time to speak.

Especially those with poor judgment who had specifically spent money to buy loudspeakers for this matter.

Soon, all the basic materials Colin needed were collected, and all of this cost less than three liters of water.

"So this is what a monopoly business is like."

Colin sighed inwardly. If he had to dig for all these things himself, he estimated he would be at it until tomorrow, but through equivalent exchange with other survivors, it only took less than ten minutes.

Monopoly is truly too evil!

"What remains are the more troublesome Thorns of Suffering and Mist Points."

The difficulty of collecting these two items was several levels higher; clearly, they couldn't be traded at a rate of one milliliter per unit.

However, just as Colin was thinking about how to trade for them, some replies suddenly appeared in his private messages.

"Um, friend, I have some things called Thorns of Suffering here. They are good items dropped from monsters. Can I trade them with you for some water to drink? As long as you're willing to trade, I'll tell you what they're used for."

Some? This guy seems to have good luck. Colin rubbed his chin. He ignored the latter part of the person's message because he knew much more about what the thorns were used for than this guy did.

In his view, the other party had probably only figured out that they could be synthesized with clay or axes.

However, at least one thing the other party said was correct: the thorns were indeed a good thing.