Chapter 119: Buying Food

Once the materials were finished, it was time to continue developing the territory...

Although the territory had already been renovated once yesterday, just as Yun Li had commented about Sunset Territory, there were still far too many buildings missing.

Su You planned to gradually fill in these gaps, but building up a territory isn’t something that can be accomplished overnight. It’s like creating a work of art—you can only finish a part each day, and only after days and months of steady effort will you finally achieve a perfect result.

Today, in addition to the previous ones, Su You planned to construct three more buildings: the Lord’s Manor, the Training Ground, and a Well.

The Lord’s Manor had been mentioned before. It wasn’t just a residence for the lord; it also had other special functions. For example, she could issue announcements, adjust taxes, and modify territory policies from the manor. Without it, Su You wouldn’t be able to perform any of these administrative actions.

Building the Lord’s Manor required quite a few materials, but after several days of stockpiling, Su You had finally gathered enough.

10 planks, 10 stone slabs, 10 marble bricks, 20 glass panes, and 10 pieces of fabric (or soft cloth)—these were the required materials.

Since soft cloth was more precious, Su You naturally chose to use synthetic fiber fabric for the construction.

As for glass, the synthesis path was: 1 sand = 1 glass shard, 3 glass shards = 1 glass pane, so 20 glass panes actually meant 60 units of sand.

Although the caravan didn’t have much sand, they did have at least 60 units. Su You used this batch to fire the glass shards, then combined them at the workbench into glass panes.

As for the planks, stone slabs, and marble bricks, there wasn’t much to say—these were familiar materials she’d used many times before. She had a good stockpile of each, so she didn’t even need to synthesize them and could just use the finished products directly.

[Consume Plank x10, Stone Slab x10, Marble Brick x10, Glass x20, Fabric x10 to build the Lord’s Manor?]

[Building Lord’s Manor. Estimated time: 12 hours.]

Twelve hours—that meant it would be finished around midnight tonight.

Su You placed the Lord’s Manor at the end of the main road running through the center of the territory—in other words, the territory gate, the central fire, and the Lord’s Manor formed a straight line.

After placing the Lord’s Manor, Su You began preparing materials for the next building.

The next building was the Training Ground, which, as the name suggests, was for training the NPCs’ combat abilities.

The training ground had targets, dummies, and sandbags, allowing combat personnel to practice their skills to their hearts’ content.

While it was possible to train skills without a training ground, practicing inside one provided bonuses: faster speed, higher efficiency, less time required, and it even increased the daily cap on skill proficiency gained from non-combat practice.

The materials for the training ground were similar to other buildings: a certain number of planks, stone bricks, and marble bricks.

[Consume Plank x5, Stone Brick x10, Marble Brick x5 to build the Training Ground?]

[Building Training Ground. Estimated time: 300 minutes.]

Su You placed the training ground behind the tavern, near the city gate.

The previously built empty house was placed behind the tailor shop, close to both the tailor and the warehouse, making it convenient for accessing materials—a pretty suitable location.

...

The third building, and the last one Su You planned to construct for now, was the Well.

The purpose of the well was obvious: to make it easier to fetch water. The key point here was that water from the well was safe to drink directly, even without boiling, and wouldn’t cause any negative status effects.

On top of that, the well’s water was renewable and refreshed quickly.

Wild water sources were different. While they did refresh, the rate was extremely slow and they could be affected by disasters—like drought (drying up) or acid rain (pollution).

Building next to a water source was partly for convenience, but that was only in the early stages when resources for a well weren’t available. Once the conditions were met, it was always best to build a well as soon as possible.

The materials for building a well were a bit unusual. While other buildings mainly required wood and stone, the well needed tools—specifically, two tools: a pickaxe and a shovel.

Moreover, wells could be upgraded. Upgrading increased both the maximum water capacity and the refresh rate. Upgrades also required pickaxes and shovels, plus a few other materials.

The difference was that a level-1 well required stone pickaxes and shovels, while a level-2 well needed copper versions.

Su You happened to have some old stone pickaxes and shovels in her warehouse, so she took them out.

According to her plan, she was going to dig two wells for now: Well 1 would be placed near the farmland for irrigation, and Well 2 would be next to the training ground, behind Residential House 1, for the daily use of the territory’s residents.

[Consume Stone Pickaxe x2, Stone Shovel x1, Stone x10 to build a Well?]

[Building Well. Estimated time: 120 minutes.]

...

...

After a few hours of rest, Yun Li and the rest of the caravan were feeling refreshed.

While their spirits were restored, their bodies were facing a new problem—one related to food.

After such a long rest, everyone was getting hungry, but few people were actually eating.

It wasn’t because they didn’t have any food. On the contrary, they’d stockpiled a fair amount. The problem was, all they had left were dry, tough grain biscuits.

These biscuits were cheap and filling, but they tasted awful, had a bad texture, and if you ate too quickly, they could even get stuck in your throat.

Previously, they had no choice—there hadn’t been any territories or cities along the way where they could resupply. But now that they’d finally arrived at a territory, there was no way they wanted to keep gnawing on those biscuits.

“Captain, did the lord here say if they’re selling any food?” someone asked, rubbing their loudly growling stomach. Looking at the rock-hard biscuit in their hand, their appetite instantly vanished.

Yun Li felt much the same. Looking at the dry rations, she had no appetite either. She wasn’t some pampered young lady, but it had been a long time since she’d had it this “rough.”

(End of chapter)"

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