Chapter 101: Chapter 101

The territory’s shield had already been upgraded to level 5, and its defenses were still sufficient.

Thinking about it, she realized she didn’t even know what to spend all this money on.

The root cause was the limited population holding back the territory’s development. With too few people, the territory couldn’t level up, and many high-level shops were unwilling to move in. There were probably also facility blueprints for sub-camps and teleportation arrays that hadn’t been unlocked yet.

After all, this wasn’t a game. What kind of city-building game makes players worry about population growth?

“People, people, people—where am I supposed to get more people?”

After thinking it over, she saw only two options: poach people from other territories, or find another friendly instance like the myconids to migrate over.

The latter was a rare stroke of luck, so she’d have to focus on the former.

The strict separation between territories was all because the dangers outside were now on a whole different level.

All traces of humanity had long been erased, and with so many monsters falling from the sky, maybe not all were hostile to humans, but most were.

In other words, the Deep Blue Star, which humans had once explored over 95%, had suddenly become virgin land again. No one knew what was out there.

So everyone only dared to start exploring from their own territory, slowly expanding outward, and didn’t even dare to spend the night outside.

Mu Ying opened the blueprint tab in the territory interface. It seemed her territory needed a new type of blueprint.

She entered her requirements.

They were simple—just three points: “Road, built outside the territory, with some protective function.”

[Territory level insufficient. Blueprint cannot be generated.]

As expected, it wasn’t going to be that easy.

Mu Ying removed the third requirement.

[Facility: Road]

[Function: Makes travel easier and faster.]

[Scale: Width 1–5 meters; length unlimited; materials (from high to low): stone slabs (high material requirement, very durable), gravel (average material requirement, average durability), dirt (no material requirement, poor durability).]

[Required materials: corresponding material, energy.]

[Blueprint conversion cost: 500 energy.]

Mu Ying looked it over and was satisfied, so she spent 5 silver to convert it.

Building roads required not just materials but also a fair amount of energy.

She checked: a 2-meter-wide path would need 2 energy per meter.

Dirt roads didn’t need extra materials, which was fine, but gravel roads needed 10 units of stone per meter, and stone slab roads needed 20.

If she didn’t prepare materials and just used energy to make up the difference, each unit of stone would cost 2 energy.

After doing the math, her savings suddenly didn’t seem so abundant anymore."

"The dirt road was out of the question for Mu Ying.

Given the nature of this post-apocalyptic game, hoping that a dirt road would remain usable for long after being built was almost impossible.

Just think about what happens to a little-used dirt road in real life—it could be overrun by weeds in just a few months.

Although she hoped this road would attract a large, permanent population, the reality was that even with a road, few people would dare to venture out and explore in the short term.

This was going to be a slow, gradual process; in the beginning, the road simply wouldn’t see much use.

A stone-paved road would be ideal, but it required a lot more stone and was harder to build. A gravel road was a better option for now, since it used the same materials and could be upgraded to a stone-paved road later by adding more materials.

But even a gravel road would cost 12 energy points per meter if she used energy to substitute for materials. For a kilometer, even a single gold coin wouldn’t be enough.

Although she had over thirty gold coins now and building a gravel road to connect the two territories wouldn’t be a problem, Mu Ying still felt it was a bit wasteful.

All of the territory’s income came from the residents, so their sources of income were crucial.

Currently, most people in the territory made money by hunting monsters or wild animals, which wasn’t stable at all.

As she kept reminding herself, this was reality, not a game. There were only so many monsters and wild animals—they didn’t respawn. If everyone relied on this, people would only get poorer over time, and her territory wouldn’t be able to survive.

Besides, only a few people had good stats, and quite a few, like Liu Luoluo, had already maxed out their class attributes.

Liu Luoluo could still make a living with her healing spells, but what about the combat classes?

Mu Ying felt like she was really worrying herself sick as a lord, racking her brains to find new paths for her residents.

Right now, the territory needed a lot of stone. Rather than doing the quarrying herself, she could outsource the work, saving herself money and giving residents an extra source of income.

But unlike her, others didn’t have storage pouches, so transporting stone would be inefficient and dangerous. Mu Ying couldn’t bear to see her residents die over this—every death meant one less wallet for her.

After going around in circles, Mu Ying’s attention finally returned to the sub-camps.

She suddenly realized the proper way to use them.

Previously, she’d used them to fence off land for farming, which was actually a bit wasteful. If it weren’t for the special location of her territory, surrounded by forests, it would have been better to put farmland inside the main territory.

Wouldn’t it be better to use sub-camps to claim resource points?

Iron mines, coal mines, gold mines, gem mines—Mu Ying swallowed, as if she could already smell the scent of wealth.

Were there any mines near Binhai City before?

Sub-camps could only be built within a certain range of the main territory, but that range was huge. With her current territory level, she could cover the entire former Binhai City area and the Qingshan Forest—there were plenty of options.

But after thinking carefully, she couldn’t recall ever hearing about any mines near Binhai City.

Then again, she’d only been a high school student before, spending most of her time between the forest, school, and her part-time jobs. Her knowledge of the city was limited. She’d have to ask around.

That could wait. For now, she needed to set up a quarry.

That was simple enough—there was a rocky forest to the northwest of Qingshan Town.

When night fell, Mu Ying rode her broom out, flying straight to the largest rocky hill.

After circling the hill, she nodded, feeling it was more than enough.

A sub-camp could only cover one hectare at most, so she couldn’t include the entire hill, but there was no need to.

If she covered the whole thing, she wouldn’t need anyone to dig—everything inside her territory was under her control, and she could just convert the rocks directly into building materials.