Old Bai

Seeing that everyone had surrendered, Zhao Fu handed the management over to Bai Qi. He then stepped over the corpses littering the ground and entered the Village Chief Hall of the Goblin village. As expected, this was a high-level village, and its quality was blue.

He chose to occupy it, then selected migration, receiving a notification that he had gained 200 war merits and 4,340 experience points.

Gaining so much war merit and experience at once was a benefit of conquering a high-level village. Currently, Great Qin Village was still only an intermediate village, and it required 30,000 experience points to upgrade to high-level. With this influx of experience, Great Qin Village would be upgrading soon.

Because the Elf Village was relatively close, Zhao Fu led his men there first. The elves within the village had also received the notification of their leader's surrender, but seeing so many outsiders walking in—Kobolds, Goblins, Gnomes, and especially the Orcs, whom they feared most—most of the elves dared not approach. They simply stood in the distance, watching with expressions of fear.

Daisy led Zhao Fu into the Elf Village and headed toward the Village Hall. At that moment, an elf girl of about fifteen or sixteen years old ran out from the side, threw her arms around Daisy, buried her head in Daisy's embrace, and asked fearfully, "Mother, what is going on?"

Daisy looked at her daughter with affection, stroked her head, and said softly, "I will explain later!"

After saying this, Daisy turned to introduce her to Zhao Fu, "Your Highness! This is my daughter, Asani."

Zhao Fu glanced at Asani in Daisy's arms. She was also very beautiful, with delicate features. She looked somewhat like her mother, but lacked her mother's maturity, possessing instead a touch of childishness.

He nodded to indicate he understood.

Seeing this, Daisy dared not say more and led Zhao Fu to the Village Chief Hall. Zhao Fu checked the attributes of the Elf Village; it was also a high-level village with blue quality. He was about to occupy and migrate it when he suddenly thought of something and went to check 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: A priest among the elves. Unit effect: Class transfer grants [Power of Life].

Zhao Fu was somewhat surprised to see a priest class that could be obtained through a class transfer stele. He knew that priesthood was a very special profession usually obtained only through faith in a deity, which was why he found it strange.

After asking Daisy, he finally understood. According to her, every elf was a child of the great Goddess of Life, which was why they could transfer into the priest class in this manner.

Zhao Fu recalled the three-way battle, where three professions had stood out. First were the Strong Orcs, who fought with bloodshot eyes and solid muscles; they were fierce and fearless, making everyone fear them. Second, of course, were the Goblin Champions, who brandished their short blades and slaughtered everything in their path.

The third were the elves holding wooden staves. With a wave of their hands, they could release green light to heal the wounded, and they could also cast offensive spells, summoning meter-long wooden spikes to attack enemies.

These must have been the Elf Priests. Like Zhao Fu's Demon Priests, they were D-grade professions, but it was clear that the Elf Priests were superior. For one, Zhao Fu only had 100 Demon Priests in total, while others could transfer into the Elf Priest class via a stele, and there was no telling how many there were.

This wasn't just a matter of quantity; it was the difference between a minor deity and a great deity.

After reading the unit information, Zhao Fu returned to the hall and chose to migrate, gaining another 200 war merits and 3,650 experience points.

Finally, the group arrived at the Orc Tribe. There were fewer than fifty Orc Warriors left in the tribe, with over two hundred others being the elderly and the young.

Zhao Fu led his group into the Orc Tribe, and these orcs also wisely chose to surrender. Zhao Fu went directly to the tribe hall and, upon checking the village attributes, was slightly surprised to find that the Orc village was of silver quality.

He once again chose to occupy and migrate, gaining 200 war merits and over 7,000 experience points. By occupying and migrating these three high-level villages, Zhao Fu's war merits reached eight hundred, and Great Qin Village's experience exceeded twenty-six thousand. It could be said that both Zhao Fu's status and Great Qin Village were about to level up.

The greatest harvest this time was, of course, the population: over 300 Kobolds, over 700 from the Goblin village, and over 400 Orcs. The largest group was the elves; because their strength was low, Zhao Fu had left them for last, preserving their numbers, which reached over 1,400.

With everything handled, this hundred-mile expedition ended perfectly. Not only was the threat of the Orcs eliminated, but he had also gained a total population of over 2,800, along with one silver City Heart and three blue City Hearts.

After a few more days, Zhao Fu returned to Great Qin Village and settled everyone he had brought back. He then took the three somewhat foul-smelling corpses to the altar in the Bone Space. One of these corpses belonged to the Kobold leader, and the other two were the bodies of the two Orc brothers.

He chose to refine them all, obtaining three aptitude orbs. One was SS-grade, which should have belonged to Otis, and the other two were S-grade.

Seeing the SS aptitude orb obtained after refining Otis, Zhao Fu felt a sense of relief. He had previously seen a mission in the Field of Holy Light to kill Otis, which offered significant merit rewards and a piece of silver-quality equipment, but the completion requirement was to turn in Otis's corpse or his head.

An SS aptitude orb was far more valuable than those merits and equipment. Zhao Fu had not been greedy enough to cut off Otis's head to turn in for the mission, fearing that if the corpse were incomplete, he wouldn't be able to refine an aptitude orb, or would only get a defective one—that would have been a loss for him.

As for the three aptitude orbs, Zhao Fu had already considered their recipients. Returning to the surface, he called Bai Shan into the living room. Bai Shan was the first B-aptitude old man to be refreshed in Great Qin Village and the first to transfer into the Scholar class; he was now over sixty years old.

He was also the captain of the research team. Now that Great Qin Village had upgraded to an intermediate village, the limit for scholars was twenty.

When Bai Shan was summoned by Zhao Fu, he thought that because he hadn't been able to research a skill to detect the aptitude of corpses after so long, he was surely going to be reprimanded. His face turned pale, and as soon as he arrived, he knelt on the ground to plead for mercy, "Your Highness! Your subordinate has failed to achieve results after so long; please punish me!"

Zhao Fu was sitting in a chair, just about to pick up a teacup, when he heard Bai Shan's words. He paused, thinking that it had indeed been a while since he had obtained the Heaven and Earth Refining Array, but this matter couldn't be rushed. He wasn't actually blaming him.

"Get up, Old Bai."

Zhao Fu said to Bai Shan after taking a sip of tea.

Hearing this, Bai Shan realized Zhao Fu wasn't angry and quickly stood up. Zhao Fu then handed him a blood-colored orb of light.