The Lord is Empire

When Wu Qingniang saw Zhao Fu leave, she smiled and said, “Lil Xi, there’s no way for you to control Zhao Fu.”

“Hm?” Ying Xi was quite surprised and asked, “Why’s that?”

Wu Qingniang looked into Ying Xi’s eyes and a trace of a domineering smile appeared on her face as she said, “Because he’s the man I’ve set my eyes on!”

“Did something happen between you two before?” Ying Xi asked.

“Mm! It was something small, but I was able to see his potential. He’s too big for this small pond, and he has the potential to become a dragon. I have a feeling the whole world will know his name in the future,” Wu Qingniang replied as she calmly smiled.

“Really? Why don’t I feel that sort of feeling from him?” Ying Xi asked with a curious expression on her face.

Wu Qingniang replied, “It’s because you haven’t been able to completely see through him. My instincts have always been correct, so let’s wait for that day!”

Ying Xi lightly nodded.

…………………………………

Zhao Fu had no idea that those two women were still talking about him. Right now, he just wanted to be an unnoticed minor figure so that he could properly develop the Great Qin Village.

After returning to his room, Zhao Fu took out the Heaven Awaken Stone and entered the Heaven Awaken World.

By now, the four exploration teams had returned and brought with them large amounts of money and equipment, and they also brought two S grade corpses and 100 or so A grade corpses. There were also 900 or so villagers, two Normal grade City Creation Stones, and 1 Silver grade City Creation Stone. All of this caused Zhao Fu to feel incredibly happy.

The 10 King’s Undead Cavalry had gained 1,000 or so Skeleton soldiers. Of course, they were not as powerful as the Skeleton soldiers within the passage, but they were definitely stronger than normal Skeletons. The weapons they used were those that they wielded while they were still alive.

Now, Zhao Fu controlled 30 villages, and the total population was more than 18,000 villagers. Despite having so many villagers, he did not have to worry about food because the crops only took around one month or so to grow with the Great Qin Village’s bonus stats, and the output was much greater than normal.

The Great Qin Village’s territory was 300 square kilometers, and everything within that area benefited from the Great Qin Village’s bonus stats. As such, to most major factions, food was the resource that they lacked the least.

Zhao Fu did not continue to expand his army because 5,000 soldiers were already enough. Adding on the King’s Undead Cavalry and the army of 3,000 Undead that they would have, his military would definitely be sufficient.

Because Zhao Fu had only just obtained the King’s Ring, the Great Qin Village only had a little more than 20,000 EXP and Zhao Fu only had 400 or so Achievement Points towards the next rank up, Second-Ranked Baron. However, leveling up would be much faster this time with 4x EXP and 2x Achievement Points.

Finally, regarding the God-Refining Plan, because Zhao Fu was continuously using the energy from the energy stones to refine corpses and he needed to prepare some other things, it kept being pushed back.

At this moment, Bai Shan came to report that they had successfully researched the language skill, and Zhao Fu went over to take a look with great interest.

[Language Stone Stele]: Can learn: Chinese, Elvish, Orcish, Dwarvish, Kobold language, Goblin language, and Gnome language.

Zhao Fu nodded with satisfaction when he saw the stone stele. Now that he had this stone stele, he could directly learn the languages recorded on there and wouldn’t need interpreters anymore. Anyone who used this stone stele would be able to learn those languages.

Zhao Fu learned all of the languages on there apart from Chinese and then ordered Bai Shan to start researching Intermediate teleportation channels because he wanted to leave the Forest of Horrors. One could only rely on one’s own strength to break through from one region to another.

Basic teleportation channels could only transport one to a main city, one’s own teleportation channels, or a random place up to 500 kilometers away. Without Intermediate or Advanced teleportation channels, it would be impossible for one to leave the region one was spawned in.

After taking care of matters in the Great Qin Village, Zhao Fu went to Holy Light City and was surprised to see that all of Holy Light City seemed to be in a festive mood. There were many flowery banners in the streets, and all of the residents were in public places with big smiles on their faces.

“ _What’s going on? Is Holy Light City having some sort of festival?_ ” Zhao Fu went to the Westfall Restaurant and asked his employees what was going on.

It turned out that today was a festival of the Heaven Awaken World called the Ten Thousand Flower Festival. The festival went on for 7 days, and during those 7 days, all of the flowers bloomed together in the Heaven Awaken World and released something called a Flower Tear. By collecting Flower Tears, one would be able to exchange them for countless things at the special stone steles in main cities.

The residents said that this was a blessing from the heavens, but Zhao Fu felt like it was like an event in a game. He went to Holy Light City’s Central Plaza and saw that there was indeed a new stone stele. It was completely crowded with people, and after taking a look, Zhao Fu was incredibly shocked.

There was almost every type of reward possible: Legendary grade equipment, S grade skills, Gold grade City Creation Stones, extremely high-grade medicinal pills, special items…

Zhao Fu became incredibly excited when he saw those things. However, this event was one that the whole world would participate in, so indigenous residents of the Heaven Awaken World would also participate. The competition would be quite intense, and although the rewards were amazing, whether or not he could obtain them was another matter.

The Ten Thousand Flower Festival would officially begin at 12 AM the next morning, so Zhao Fu returned to the Great Qin Village and started to make preparations. The other factions all did the same thing and started to wait for the festival to begin.

12 AM the next morning, a large, round moon hung high in the sky. The pure moonlight made it so that it was not dark at all despite it being midnight. Under the beautiful moonlight, flowers started to slowly bloom – there were truly ten thousand flowers blooming together, giving off a dream-like feeling.

Only a small percentage of flowers had a bean-sized, transparent orb at the center. Under the moonlight, they looked quite beautiful – these were most likely the Flower Tears.

Zhao Fu had already ordered all of his subordinates to collect these Flower Tears, including the four exploration teams.

Because the Great Qin Village brewed Hundred Flower Wine, the villagers knew where the large patches of flowers were. Moreover, because the surrounding 200-kilometer radius area was under Zhao Fu’s control, there was very little competition, and barely anyone dared to fight over the Flower Tears with Zhao Fu. This gave Zhao Fu an incredibly big advantage, and it also gave him the confidence that no one in the Forest of Horrors would be able to obtain more Flower Tears than him.

However, this was not necessarily the case for the system’s factions. There were roughly 300,000 residents and 100,000 soldiers in each of the main cities, adding up to 400,000 people per city. As for players, there were around 1 million per main city.

The next day, when Zhao Fu went to Holy Light City, there were not only player factions buying Flower Tears for incredibly high prices, but the system’s factions were also desperately buying Flower Tears. In fact, even the system’s main cities started to send large numbers of soldiers and guards into the Forest of Horrors to collect Flower Tears.

All of this made Zhao Fu’s forces seem extremely weak. Zhao Fu knew that he would not be able to compete against the system’s factions if he didn’t think of anything.