Chapter 132: Food, Clothing, Shelter, and Transportation

If the level 5 backpack is already this impressive, then the level 6 backpack is truly extraordinary.

A level 6 backpack has 200 slots, but more importantly, it comes with a feature that almost every player at the time desperately wanted: any food stored inside the backpack would enter a “preserved” state—it would never spoil or rot as long as it wasn’t taken out.

In fact, it wasn’t just food. With the exception of certain special items, anything prone to rotting or going bad could be kept fresh forever in the backpack.

Although these backpack features sound amazing, according to some in-game statistics Su You once saw, only 2% of all players ever managed to upgrade their backpack to level 4. For level 5, it was just 0.4%, and as for level 6—fewer than ten players ever reached it.

As for level 7? Not a single player had ever achieved it.

Back then, Su You only upgraded her backpack to level 6 before giving up on further upgrades. Even though she had the resources to buy the materials needed for a level 7 upgrade, the cost simply wasn’t worth the benefit. Besides, 200 slots at level 6 were already more than enough for her, so she didn’t bother going any further.

By the mid-to-late stages of the game, most lord players rarely left their territories, so backpacks became less and less important, making further upgrades unnecessary.

Since she never upgraded beyond that, Su You had no idea what special effects a level 7 backpack might have.

And she wasn’t alone—none of the other players she knew had any plans to upgrade their backpacks either. So aside from rumors, there was zero information about level 7 backpacks, and the game company never released any official data on them.

With the backpack upgraded and the copper balanced arrows crafted—fifty-five arrows in total, which was about average—Su You stored the arrows in her backpack, since Duoya wasn’t in the territory at the moment. She’d give them to her when she returned.

Today, Su You had assigned Lake to mine copper ore and marble. She used some of the copper ore for making arrows and upgrading her backpack, and stored the rest in the warehouse for other uses.

As for the marble, she needed it for construction—she wanted to finish all the basic infrastructure in her territory before the first dark creature attack.

The first dark creature attack wasn’t just there to increase the game’s difficulty. Once a territory successfully survived its first attack (whether on day ten or fifteen), it would gain a huge amount of reputation (for fending off the dark creatures and becoming famous), and the player would also have the option to open their territory to outsiders.

This is what Yun Li was referring to earlier when she mentioned that Sunset Territory wasn’t “open to the public.”

The difference between an open and a closed territory is kind of like the difference between a shop that’s “open for business” and one that’s “closed.”

Once a territory is open, the number of visiting travelers and wanderers increases, more merchant caravans and traders will stop by, and population growth speeds up.

Su You needed to finish building all the essential structures in her territory before the dark creature attack. That way, when travelers or merchant caravans arrived, if they enjoyed their stay, her territory’s reputation would increase.

The more satisfied they were when they left, the more reputation she’d gain, and word-of-mouth would spread.

With their recommendations, even more people would come to the territory, creating a positive feedback loop.

The “essential” buildings Su You referred to could be summed up as “food, clothing, shelter, and transportation.”

First up: “clothing.” Su You already had a tailor shop, and Dolly had successfully leveled up her tailoring skill.

Although it was still at the beginner level and she couldn’t make anything too fancy, she could handle everyday items like clothes and bedding.

Next: “food”—places to buy and eat food.

For food, Su You already had a tavern and a diligent, passionate owner-chef, so there wasn’t much to worry about.

The only issue was that the menu was a bit limited, since the only ingredients available were meat and berries. But Su You had already planted wheat, rice, potatoes, and corn. With Eusen around, once these crops were harvested, the menu would expand.

Things like bread, corn pancakes, rice, crispy rice, baked potatoes, potato cakes, roasted corn… it was just a matter of time.

Then came “shelter.”

This mainly referred to residential houses and inns—both places where people could stay.

Shelter was actually even more important than the previous two. After all, you couldn’t expect visitors to just sleep on the ground, could you?

To provide accommodations, Su You used an inn card she’d previously obtained to build an inn in front of Warehouse 1. She also planned to build a row of residential houses alongside the training grounds, bringing the total up to ten.

Since wood was needed for other things, this was just a plan for now—she only used a building card to construct the inn for free.

An inn could house many people, while a residential house could only hold two. With an inn, there’d be enough space for everyone unless a large merchant caravan like Yun Li’s needed to stay over.

Residential houses were generally for permanent residents, while outsiders usually stayed at the inn. Of course, if someone really wanted to stay in a house, they could—as long as they paid extra.

Finally, “transportation” referred to roads and vehicles like carts and wagons.

Su You was already working on building roads, both inside and just outside her territory.

As for carts and wagons, the relevant building was a “mount shop,” but having a shop was useless without anything to sell.

Horses and donkeys had to be purchased from specialized animal-trading caravans. Since only one caravan had visited so far, it was unlikely another would show up anytime soon—and even if one did, it might not be selling animals. So for now, all Su You needed to do was improve the roads.

…

With food, clothing, shelter, and transportation taken care of, Su You looked through the building list for other common shops—

For example, a “tool shop” selling axes, shovels, pickaxes, fishing rods, and other tools; a “weapon shop” for all kinds of weapons; and an “armor shop” for various types of armor, and so on…"