Fallen Demon Camp
"Master, this is it." The black tiger demon gestured, and Lin Xu looked in that direction. The end of the cave was just a dozen meters ahead, with pitted marks still remaining on the reddish-brown stone walls.
The dozen or so crudely made iron chisels, iron hammers and other tools, with wear marks on their surfaces, indicate the difficulty of excavating the mine shaft.
"Master, I had the boys mine the veins before, but the black iron is too hard. They could only mine about a hundred catties of ore a day..." The black tiger demon scratched its head. "The tools broke too quickly. I couldn't bear to waste my demon power on blacksmithing every day, so I had the boys stop."
Lin Xu frowned as he looked at the end of the cave, where scattered fragments of slag looked like pieces of hard metal, reflecting a faint, cold light under the illumination of the Glazed Lamp.
"What about the black iron ore we mined before? Is there any left?" He glanced at the black iron tools scattered all over the ground.
"It's in the warehouse, weighing about a thousand catties." The Black Tiger Demon scratched his head.
"Move all the iron ore in the warehouse, along with these weapons forged from black iron, to the quiet room," Lin Xu said after a moment's thought. "I need three thousand catties of black iron. If that's not enough, you chisel it out yourself, and be quick."
"Yes, Master." The Black Tiger Demon immediately agreed.
As Lin Xu emerged from the passage, the sound of loud mining echoed behind him.
The Black Tiger Demon was a somewhat clever demon, and he could distinguish between good and evil.
After the Dharma Seed transformed into demonic power, it effectively fell under Lin Xu's control.
The miraculous effects of the "Lamp Kindling God-Descending Chapter" won over the Black Tiger Demon, who revered power above all else. This was evident from the "Faith: 7" that quietly appeared on its attribute panel—the Faith tab would only be unlocked when loyalty reached 100.
"According to the territorial rules, the entire Azure Cloud Mountain, including its foot and extending outwards for three miles, is considered part of the territory."
Azure Cloud Mountain alone covers an area of about 5 square kilometers, and when you include the area extending from the foot of the mountain, it is much larger than the area of Peach Tree Village.
He examined the map of the territory, pondering his next move.
He has no intention of developing Azure Cloud Mountain on a large scale, at least until the crisis in the underground city is resolved.
So the next step was simple: to build up the military and prepare for war.
With the direction clear, the next step was simple: build outposts and fortresses in the mountains, establish defensive zones, and turn the entire low mountain into a fortress.
Having learned from the experience of Peach Tree Village, Lin Xu chose to build outposts primarily using trees this time.
The trees on Azure Cloud Mountain are nourished by Spiritual Qi, and their wood is far superior to ordinary wood. While wooden watchtowers and fortified villages are fragile to mid-level professionals, they are sufficient to defend against roaming monster groups.
With the Dharma Protector Evil Eye present, a large horde of monsters truly appeared deep within the mist, easily detectable from afar.
"But all of this requires manpower." He frowned as he scanned the vast Azure Cloud Mountain with the help of his Evil Eye.
Azure Cloud Mountain is only three or four hundred meters high, which sounds like a small hill, but it covers an area of nearly 5 square kilometers. With the addition of the mountainous terrain, its actual area is quite large.
Even a hundred people would be too few to occupy such a small mountain. In fact, the Black Tiger Demon Stronghold, which had hundreds of demon soldiers patrolling, still had many defensive loopholes, which is why Lin Xu's command of the Red-Robed Ghosts easily swept away the outer perimeter of the stronghold.
"We can only focus on defense now..." Lin Xu pondered, watching the evil creatures gathering at the foot of the mountain and beginning to approach the depths of the hill.
Currently, there are only two known sources of Source Fire.
Having returned to reality and considering future development, Lin Xu did not directly join the Night Watchers organization, so the most stable Source Fire is temporarily unavailable.
However, considering the importance of the Source Fire, no matter how much of this crucial resource there is, it will never be enough. Aren't these monsters and strange creatures that have invaded Azure Cloud Mountain the best source of Source Fire?
"Furthermore, any suitable monsters should be transformed into guardian deities."
After reviewing some information about the Night Watchers and learning about the effects of the Source Fire, Lin Xu realized the incredible power of the Lamp Kindling God-Descending Chapter he had created through fusion.
Under normal circumstances, human heroes and lords can only recruit human NPCs; they cannot even recruit humanoid NPCs such as elves or dwarves.
However, his "Lamp Kindling God-Descending Chapter" can plant the Dharma Seed in the sea of consciousness, transforming and converting the enlightened guardian deity from the level of consciousness, which gives him much more options.
In addition, the ability to directly enlighten a guardian deity without needing territory or recruitment buildings is a capability that is difficult for Rogue Person adventurers and even ordinary heroes to achieve.
Upon realizing this, Lin Xu's mind immediately clicked. "That's right, the number of Daoist disciples recruited at Azure Cloud Mountain is limited, but there are countless evil creatures down the mountain, aren't there?"
Thinking of this, he immediately contacted the four Dharma Protector Evil Eye and began scanning the area around Azure Cloud Mountain.
"The demonic corpse is too ugly, no thanks; the rotting corpses are too smelly; huh? Is this a ghost grave? Not bad, I'll have Hu Da' recruit' these ghosts later..."
Lin Xu began to purposefully select the type of guardian spirit, first eliminating the eerie creatures. These eerie creatures, composed of negative emotions such as fear from intelligent life, had long been proven to have chaotic and uncontrollable consciousness, and could never be subdued.
Then there were some hideous monsters. Even considering his own feelings, he didn't want to recruit a large group of demons and monsters into his territory and create chaos.
"Ideally, they should be monsters with a positive connotation, like flower fairies or fox spirits..."
However, these positive-leaning monsters are quite few in number in the Spirit Realm. Some curious adventurers have collected a lot of data and finally concluded that the spawn rate of positive-leaning monsters in the Spirit Realm is less than one percent of that of negative-leaning monsters.
A moment later, Lin Xu's gaze fell on a monster camp that had recently spawned at the foot of the mountain.
"A monster camp?!" Lin Xu's eyes lit up.
Occasionally, monster camps with attribute panels will spawn within the Spirit Realm Mist.
Unlike typical camps that serve only as dwelling places for the Spirit Realm monsters, these camps become abandoned once the monsters leave or are killed.
The monster camp is like a respawn point; as time goes by, NPC monsters will continuously spawn in the camp.
Some camps, over time, will continuously upgrade and accommodate massive numbers of monsters.
In the legendary monster camp that existed a hundred years ago, a city-sized settlement has emerged.
Even in the Spirit Realm territories that have already been occupied, if control and prosperity are insufficient, NPC monsters will randomly spawn...
Lin Xu looked at the camp, a remnant from the demon stronghold era. The patrolling demons didn't have much initiative like humans; as long as they didn't encounter anything unusual on their patrol route, they wouldn't give it a second glance.
More than thirty Fallen Demon had already gathered in the camp; a group of small red creatures clustered together, they still looked quite intimidating.