Seeing that everyone had surrendered, Zhao Fu handed control over to Bai Qi. Then he stepped over the bodies littering the ground and entered the Goblin village's Village Chief Hall. As expected, it was an Advanced Village, and its quality was blue.
He chose to occupy it and then migrate it, earning 200 Battle Merit and 4,340 experience.
Gaining so much Battle Merit and experience at once was one of the benefits of taking an Advanced Village. Great Qin Village was still only an Intermediate Village, and it needed 30,000 experience to advance to Advanced. With this much experience, it wouldn't be long before Great Qin Village upgraded.
Since the Elf Village was nearby, Zhao Fu led his people there first. The Elves in the village had also received the notification that their chief had surrendered, but when they saw so many outsiders entering—Kobolds, Goblins, and Gnomes among them, as well as the Orcs they feared most—they were alarmed.
Most of the Elves didn't dare approach and only watched from a distance, looking frightened.
Daisy led Zhao Fu into the Elf Village and headed toward the Village Chief Hall. Just then, an Elf girl who looked about fifteen or sixteen ran over, threw her arms around Daisy's, and buried her face against Daisy's chest. She asked fearfully, "Mother, what's going on?"
Daisy looked at her daughter affectionately, rubbed her head, and said softly, "I'll explain in a bit!"
Then Daisy turned to Zhao Fu and introduced her. "Your Highness, this is my daughter, Asani."
Zhao Fu glanced at Asani in Daisy's arms. She was quite beautiful, with delicate features and a slight resemblance to her mother, though she lacked her mother's mature air and still had a hint of childishness.
He nodded to show that he understood.
Daisy didn't dare say anything more. She led Zhao Fu to the Village Chief Hall, where he checked the Elf Village's attributes. It was also an Advanced Village with blue quality. He was about to occupy and migrate it, but then he thought of something and went to inspect the Elf Barracks.
[Elf Archer]: E-Grade unit. Description: Every Elf is proficient in archery and swordsmanship. Unit Effect: Class Transfer grants [Bow and Sword Mastery].
[Elf Priest]: D-Grade unit. Description: Priests among the Elves. Unit Effect: Class Transfer grants [Power of Life].
Zhao Fu was a little surprised to see a Priest class. It could be obtained through the Class Transfer Stele. Priests were a special class, usually gained through faith in a deity, so he found this strange.
After asking Daisy about it, he understood. According to her, every Elf was a child of the great Goddess of Life, so they could become Priests through the stele.
Zhao Fu also remembered how three types of units had stood out during the three-sided battle. First were the Strong Orcs. When they fought, their eyes grew bloodshot, their muscles tightened, and they charged fearlessly. They were terrifying opponents.
Second, of course, were the Goblin Champions, who slaughtered their way through the battlefield with their little daggers.
The third were the Elves carrying wooden staffs. They could raise a hand to release a green light that healed the wounded, and they could also cast attack spells, summoning several wooden spikes a meter long to strike their enemies.
They were probably Elf Priests. Like Zhao Fu's Demon Priest, they were D-Grade, but the Elf Priest seemed clearly better. Zhao Fu's Demon Priest class was limited to a total of 100, while anyone else could Class Transfer through the stele. He didn't know how many there were.
Having fewer of a class wasn't necessarily an advantage. It was the difference between a lesser deity and a great deity.
After checking the unit information, Zhao Fu returned to the hall and chose to migrate the village, earning another 200 Battle Merit and 3,650 experience.
At last, the group arrived at the Orc Tribe. Fewer than fifty Orc Warriors remained, along with just over two hundred elderly people and children.
Zhao Fu led a group of people into the Orc Tribe. The Orcs were sensible and chose to surrender. He went straight to the tribe's hall and checked the village's attributes, finding them a little surprising: the Orc Village was silver-quality.
He once again chose to occupy and migrate it, earning 200 Battle Merit and more than 7,000 experience. After occupying and migrating these three Advanced Villages, Zhao Fu had 800 Battle Merit in total, including what he had earned before. Great Qin Village now had more than 26,000 experience. Both Zhao Fu's status and Great Qin Village were on the verge of an upgrade.
The greatest gain this time was, of course, the population. There were more than 300 Kobolds, just over 700 Goblins, a little over 400 Orcs, and the most numerous were the Elves. Since they were weaker, Zhao Fu had left them until last, so their numbers had been largely preserved. They totaled just over 1,400.
With everything taken care of, the hundred-mile expedition ended perfectly. They had not only eliminated the threat posed by the Orcs, but also gained more than 2,800 people in total, one silver City Heart, and three blue City Hearts.
A few days later, Zhao Fu returned to Great Qin Village and settled all the people he had brought back. Then he took three slightly stinky corpses to the altar in Bone Space. One belonged to the Kobold chief, and the other two were the corpses of the Orc brothers.
He chose to refine them all and obtained three Talent Orbs. One was SS-Grade and should have belonged to Otis; the other two were S-Grade.
Seeing that refining Otis had produced an SS-Grade Talent Orb, Zhao Fu felt fortunate. Back in the Field of Holy Light, he had seen a quest to kill Otis that offered a good amount of merit and a piece of silver-quality equipment. However, the quest required him to turn in either Otis's corpse or his head.
An SS-Grade Talent Orb was worth far more than the merit and equipment. Zhao Fu hadn't been greedy enough to cut off Otis's head and turn it in. He'd worried that the corpse might not be intact, leaving him unable to refine a Talent Orb or producing a damaged one, which would have been a loss.
Zhao Fu had already decided who the three Talent Orbs should go to. After returning above ground, he called Bai Shan into the main hall. Bai Shan was the first old man with B-Grade talent to be generated in Great Qin Village, and also the first person to Class Transfer into a Scholar. He was now probably over sixty.
He was also the head of the Research team. Great Qin Village had now upgraded to an Intermediate Village, which had a Scholar limit of twenty.
When Bai Shan was summoned by Zhao Fu, he thought that since he had researched for so long without developing a skill to investigate the talent of corpses, he was about to be reprimanded. His face turned pale, and he immediately knelt down to apologize. "Your Highness, I've been unable to make a breakthrough despite all this time. Please punish me!"
Zhao Fu sat in his chair and was about to lift a teacup when he heard Bai Shan's words. He paused, thinking that it had indeed been a while since he'd first obtained the Heaven and Earth Refining Array. But there was no need to rush, and Zhao Fu wasn't blaming him.
"Get up, Old Bai."
Zhao Fu took a sip of tea and spoke to Bai Shan.
Hearing that Zhao Fu wasn't angry, Bai Shan quickly stood up. Zhao Fu then handed him a blood-red ball of light.