Lords Trying to Survive: Strategizing from a Rundown Yard

Zong Shen didn't explain much to Lys Kazan.

But the old boy will soon understand that the life he once lived is destined to be irreversible.

Compared to those territorial citizens who package up and "sell themselves" to the territory.

Count Lys was very lucky to have kept one million dinars.

As for the remaining wealth, all of it was naturally confiscated!

This money will eventually be spent on the construction of the territory.

Zong Shen already has higher pursuits and is not yet very interested in living the hedonistic life of a rich man.

If you want to become the strongest lord, you still have to put in a lot of hard work.

Now that we are already on this path, there is absolutely no reason to give up halfway.

Moreover, troubled times are coming, and even if you become a free citizen, you may not be able to live a peaceful life for a few days.

Shaking his head, he put away all the storage jewelry on the table.

Lais Kazan himself still keeps a storage ring, which was also specially allowed by Zong Shen.

Obviously today is another happy day.

Zong Shen gained a large amount of wealth, and Count Lais also saved his life.

Earl Lais is not at a loss, but Mr. Zong is even more profitable.

Sitting at the desk, Zong Shen looked thoughtfully at the map of the jurisdiction of the giant city of Lentax on the table.

All the state cities, commercial roads and straight roads within the jurisdiction of the giant city are marked on it.

The drawing is relatively detailed, but there is no content about village-level units.

Compared with state cities and giant cities, villages are too easily destroyed.

Sometimes it's a natural disaster, sometimes it's a large-scale banditry.

There are also various flashy heretical churches that often plunder village populations and use them as ritual sacrifices.

It is not easy for a village to naturally evolve and develop into a state city.

The development of hundreds or thousands of villages may not result in the emergence of a new state city in the end.

Unless important resources appear near the village and receive the attention and development of the giant city forces.

Otherwise, this development process often takes hundreds of years.

And during this period, the village cannot be destroyed by various disasters.

Villages were destroyed almost every day, and then new settlements appeared and gradually became new villages.

Then the process repeats endlessly.

Therefore, the official Jucheng jurisdiction map basically does not record the location of villages.

On the contrary, the completed map in the hands of traveling merchants will include major trade routes and large villages with special products.

This resulted in a phenomenon.

That is, villages with hundreds or thousands of people are popping up one after another.

There are also many large village settlements with tens of thousands or even tens of thousands of people.

All of them "become better with age".

Many villages with decades of history have accumulated populations in the tens of thousands.

The scale is also much larger than the average village.

Many large villages like this are experiencing urbanization trends and are equivalent to small cities.

This is the charm of the Endless Continent. The vast land and magical productivity have given birth to countless possibilities.

The above situations would be difficult to understand if we use Earth's understanding and standards.

Shaking his head, he looked away from the map on the table.

He had already sent Little Heizi to the second circle to pick up the two Karan sisters, Kitty Girl, Tasia, and England.

He also had a thorough understanding of Lys Kazan's network.

This guy has an invitation to the banquet and can bring no more than two accompanying envoys or companions to the banquet.

Even if Zong Shen doesn't participate in the competition, he can easily sneak in with Count Lais.

However, considering comprehensive factors, he decided to participate in the competitive meeting.

Because that is the best opportunity to control Prince Carter besides the dinner party.

Even the forces of the Calamity Raven Church and the Three Princesses may take action at that time.

Under such circumstances, Zong must not be absent.

He must carefully adjust his strength in the competitive competition. He must neither be too strong nor too weak. It is best to be a more eye-catching seed player and get the attention of Marquis Henry.

Zong Shen estimated that suppressing his own strength to a level between legend and epic should be enough.

He has already thought about his next plan.

Zong Shen's biggest advantage is not his powerful single-target combat power, but that his existence is not known to others.

Neither Marquis Henry, Prince Carter, nor the Calamity Raven Church, nor the Third Princess Anna knew that there was a figure like Zong Shen dormant in this giant city struggle.

Under such a premise, combined with his strong strength, Zong Shen becomes an invisible ace in the field.

Not only can he act freely, but he can also choose whether to take action based on the actual situation, without any baggage or burden.

This is Zong Shen's real advantage in participating in the dispute over the giant city of Lentax.

As for Earl Lais's original connections, they were not of much help to Zong Shen.

This guy is a hedonistic, non-powerful aristocrat with no territory.

Lais Kazan himself paid little attention to the changes in the situation in the city.

He didn't even care about the dispute brewing within the Kingdom of Avalon for the king.

There are many hedonistic nobles like him in the entire Kingdom of Avalon.

Their sense of existence is very low and they basically do not participate in local governance activities. They just run their own small businesses.

Living a ridiculous and wealthy life.

The major human kingdoms in the Endless Continent have accumulated for five to six thousand years.

The upper class possesses a huge amount of wealth, not only dinars, but also rich reserves of various materials.

The forces that can participate in the dispute for the king of Avalon and support the princess and the prince also look down upon the dinars in the hands of those hedonistic nobles.

What they value more is how to win over those powerful nobles.

And they are mainly the powerful nobles who control huge cities. For example, Marquis Henry is a typical target of wooing.

Each giant city can be seen as a chess piece in different areas of the kingdom.

Whoever can win over the most powerful nobles will gain more advantages.

As long as these powerful nobles take sides, it is equivalent to boarding a pirate ship and completely joining the corresponding interest groups.

This is a deep binding, and the final result is that the several interest groups that seize the king will have more and more powerful nobles, and the scale of their power will become larger and larger.

Similar to a snowball effect.

Therefore, the situations and pressures faced by the powerful aristocrats and the hedonistic aristocrats in the brewing storm in the kingdom are completely different.

Therefore, Count Lais is just a cash machine to Zong, and does not have much strategic significance.

Even his title is as rootless as duckweed, because he has no territory for future generations to inherit. Only the wealth and land deeds in his hands can be passed down.

This is also the reason why Count Lais is so drunk every day.

Because of the solidification of the class system, apart from risking his life to achieve military exploits, he could hardly reverse his embarrassing identity.

Under such circumstances, being a rich man who is content to enjoy his life has become his best choice.

Looking at Lais Kazan standing next to him with a smile on his face, Zong Shen couldn't help but sigh softly in his heart.

Then he waved his hand.

"Let the servants tidy up some clean bedrooms."

"Also tomorrow morning I will see detailed information about the five slave-catching teams."

"From now on, all prisoners of war are prohibited from being resold and brought back."

"You can ask me for the corresponding slave-catching expenses first. I will send someone to hand over to you in the future."

Zong Shen said with a smile, Lais Kazan quickly bowed and saluted, and then left the study that originally belonged to him.

When the rune-reinforced door was closed, Zong Shen felt calm.

Taking advantage of this moment, he was going to check out the "antiques" he had previously found in the underground vault.

He took out a dagger no longer than thirty centimeters from the storage compartment with his backhand.

The shape of this dagger is very exquisite, with a jewel embedded in the upper and lower ends of the handle.

The upper orb shines with an orange halo, while the lower one is azure.

The shape of the gauntlet is two lightning bolts that curve upward, and the blade of the dagger is like more arc-shaped flames.

There are also simple and thick forging patterns on the surface.

It is precisely because of this that it was collected by Count Leith.

Zong Shen held it in his hand, and the next moment, a layer of orange-red flames appeared on the surface of the dagger.

It was also accompanied by streaks of rapidly flashing arcs.

This is the combination of the power of thunder and fire.

When Zong Shen swings lightly, lightning arcs and flames will splash several meters in front of him, causing additional splash damage to enemies in front.

After playing with it for a while, Zong Shen placed it flat on the table and stared at it for a while, and soon detailed attribute information emerged.

[Thunder Fire Point Dagger (Orange)]

【one-hand】

[Quality: Legendary]

[Piercing damage: 79~83]

[Attack range: 27]

[Attack speed: +20%]

[Durability: 632/680]

[Requires agility: 85]

[Strength required: 30]

[Active skill: Thunder and Fire Rush LV30 (can lock on a target no more than 50 meters away from itself in a straight line and launch Thunder and Fire Rush, causing thunder and fire to interweave and cover the body surface, crossing this distance in a very short time, and causing 200 damage to the target) Lightning elemental magic and 200 points of fire elemental magic damage, plus a 2.0 times piercing damage, skill cooldown time is 2 hours)

Thunder Fire Arrow LV30 (Sends out a thunder fire arrow with a maximum range of 120 meters. It can cause 500 points of thunder element magic and 500 points of fire element magic damage to up to six targets. The cooling time is 2 hours. Ten minutes after activating the skill, Sharp Dagger Will temporarily lose the power of thunder and fire)]

[Passive skill: Thunder Fire Blessing LV30 (when swung, additional (35 points + 35 points) thunder fire magic damage will be added)

Thunder fire absorption LV30 (when holding a sharp dagger, you can absorb thunder and fire magic with a level not exceeding level 4. The amount of absorption depends on the type of magic)]

(A dagger embedded with fourth-order thunder spirit and fourth-order fire spirit elemental orbs, a variety of precious fourth-order materials, and a unique and ancient forging process make it a fifth-order finished weapon)

…

The special feature of this dagger is the blessing of the two elemental powers of thunder and fire!

It's pretty good among fifth-level dagger and short-blade equipment.

But for Zong Shen, it was a bit unsatisfactory, and it was not even qualified to be used as a backup weapon.

Zong’s current main weapon is [Moon Wolf Fang (Legacy II)], and his backup weapons are [Dragon-Slaying Heavy Sword (Gold)] and [Azzinoth Demon-Slaying Glaive (Gold)], which are orange legendary-level weapons. The weapons have been almost eliminated by him a long time ago.

Then the final ownership of this [Thunder Fire Sharp Dagger (orange)] should still be rewarded to his subordinates.

In any case, this is an extra bonus, but there is nothing to be picky about.

After putting away the dagger, Zong Shen immediately took out the next piece of equipment.

To be precise, this is not a complete piece of equipment, because it is just one missing arrow!

The shooter's equipment combat power mainly consists of two parts.

Including a good war bow, war crossbow, and high-end or special arrows with extra attributes!

Zong Shen has a deep understanding of this point.

The most typical example is [Cruel Blood-Burning Arrow Loss (Purple)]. The [Blood-Burning] effect it comes with is a very high-level lethality rule.

This type of lethality rule itself exceeds the level that the equipment should have.

But at the moment, what was before him was also a missing arrow.

And it's an "antique" arrow from an ancient bygone era.

Its arrow shaft is made of a heavy black wood.

The wings at the end are blue and can independently absorb the magic power of the wind spirit element.

The arrow was pale gold in color and had an astonishing sharpness.

Zong Shen picked up the arrow and looked at it in front of his eyes. He could see the sharp reflections on the edges of the arrow.

But the material doesn't seem to be gold. It may be some kind of rarer metal with stronger properties.

The dark arrow shaft is engraved with mysterious runes from top to bottom.

The level of the arrow itself is not directly proportional to the attributes it possesses.

This blind box is still worth opening.

Thinking of this, he concentrated his attention and stared at the missing arrow.

The golden subtitles and attribute list appeared in his mind simultaneously.

[Audax Soul Locking Arrow (Orange)]

[Quality: Legendary]

[Puncture damage: 279~324]

[With the soul-locking war bow, the piercing damage is increased by 100%]

[Attached skill: Soul Lock]

[Durability: 127/150]

[Soul Lock: After hitting the target, lock the target's soul for 15 seconds, during which the target will completely lose control of the soul]

(The soul-locking arrow unique to the soul-chasing clan Audax can lock the soul of a creature and is effective on most creatures with souls)

…

Judging from the rules and levels of attributes and attached skills.

This [Audax Soul-locking Arrow (Orange)] is inferior to the [Cruel Blood-Burning Arrow (Purple)].

It seems that the rules and characteristics of the blood-burning demons are more powerful.

Moreover, the limitations of the soul-locking effect are obvious. If you encounter soulless enemies such as demon puppets, the effect of this skill will be in vain.

However, as a "special arrow loss", it is still worth collecting for future use.

You never know when it will come in handy.

The durability of such ancient objects is not perfect, and it belongs to natural wear and tear over a long period of time.

Zong Shen yawned.

After knowing what he was doing, he put the arrow away.

Save it for dealing with those soul-specialized enemies in the future!

…