Chapter 5 – Shanhai Village

Translator: TeamTWO

Editor: Levs

With a hum and a white flash, Ouyang Shuo finally appeared back on the main map, somewhere in the wilderness. Before he could look around, his ears were deluged with system announcements.

“System Notification: Congratulations to Di Chen for the successful establishment of the first village in China – Handan Village; special reward of 1100 Merit Points!”

“System Notification: Congratulations to Zhan Lang the successful establishment of the second village in China – Blood Red Village; special reward of 1000 Merit Points!”

“System Notification: Congratulations to Feng Qingyang for the successful establishment of the third village in China – Swordsman Village; special reward of 900 Merit Points!”

“System Notification: Congratulations to Feng Qiuhuang for the successful establishment of the fourth village in China – Fallen Phoenix Village; special reward of 800 Merit Points!”

“System Notification: Congratulations to Chun Shenjun for the successful establishment of the fifth village in China – Pill Sun Village; special reward of 700 Merit Points!”

“System Notification: Congratulations to Sha Pojun for the successful establishment of the sixth village in China – Asura Village; special reward of 600 Merit Points!”

Unsurprisingly, even as Ouyang Shuo completed the quest quickly to order up a village, China already had six lords who had established a village.

In his past life, these six players were massive beings and China’s six most powerful lords, called the Six Tyrants of Handan. They were representatives of major forces in real China, and using the federal version of the game cabin. With that version of the cabin, they did not have to do the quest, but instead instantly started with a silver village.

The series of announcements going off naturally caused an uproar among the player base. If one or two people got lucky in opening their village, that was understandable. However, six people, bam, just like that, opening up their village? It was obviously anything but normal.

But it didn’t matter if the players protested. The official response was complete silence, and no explanation was given.

Since Ouyang Shuo knew the truth of the situation, he ignored the announcements and resumed looking at his surroundings.

Looking ahead, he could only see tall grass and weeds without end. The grasses were yellow, it was the dry season. The skies were gloomy and cloud low, kind of cool and clammy. The frontier region was never a paradise, death was the eternal theme here.

In the distance, mountains rose up, rolling into the distance like a great sleeping dragon. The base of the mountains was girt in a cloak of trees, but the tops were naturally cold and lifeless.

“System Notification: Congratulation to player Qiyue Wuyi for discovering the new map zone – Lianzhou Basin, exploration experience +100.”

The main features of a basin were being surrounded by high ground, and low in the middle, as the name basin implied. It was one of the five basic terrain zones, extremely common in reality.

After the game map expanded the area of the planet tenfold, the hills were ten times higher and rivers widened by ten as well. Small basins in the real countryside, in the game, would become a basin territory as large as Sichuan Basin was in reality.

These kind of basin terrains were a favorite of the Lord class players because it was easy to defend and the edges were rich in mineral resources. The biggest forces in the game were basically built in this kind of terrain.

The Lianzhou Basin in-game covered an area of 240,000 square kilometers, as large as the entire province of Guangxi in China (or, slightly larger than Romania). The west side of the Basin was the China/Vietnam border and was modified into a rolling, stony mountain range that was impassable.

To the north was a gateway city, called Zhennan Pass. It was now occupied by a group of powerful thieves. Passing through, you entered the hinterlands of Guangxi.

To the east was the dividing line between Guangxi and Lingnan, with mountains and misty jungles. North and south of there was also a pass and then going further south one can reach the North Bay of the South China Sea. The monsoon blew in from the sea through this canyon, bringing rain and new life into the Lianzhou Basin.

In the past, the entire Lianzhou Basin was cut up piecemeal into territory for nearly a hundred players. After the later merger and reorganizations, it birthed three large territories. The three lords fought one another, but they could not completely destroy one another, and so ended up as the three pillars of the Basin area.

In his previous life, even until the fifth year of the game, there was no dominating force in the Lianzhou Basin.

This time around, Ouyang Shuo’s medium-range plan was to utterly dominate the Lianzhou Basin as its overlord.

When Ouyang Shuo chose his place of birth, he deliberately chose the side of the basin close to the sea. As long as you were at the south side of the Basin, you could find the opening to the south of the Lianzhou Basin.

Before starting anything, he checked his inventory. Each newly born player was automatically given a set of course clothing and a pair of cloth shoes.

He also had an area at his waist that accessed his storage bag, initial capacity at a cubic meter. It could be upgraded later, and things carried within it were basically weightless.

Although he had the Resource Bag awards, Village Creation Token, Summoning Token, and 100 gold coins, he didn’t even have a weapon. The Resource Bag was separate, and could not be put in the storage bag, so he left that on his waist as well.

Ouyang Shuo readied the Summoning Token for use, intending to get a helper. Otherwise, if he met something on the road and died, he would lose everything…

Tearing the Talisman, a white light flashed, and a middle-aged rider came towards him, riding a proud yellow military stallion.

“System Notification: Congratulations to the player Qiyue Wuyi for successfully summoning Shi Wanshui, Special reward of 100 reputation points!”

The middle-aged officer, upon seeing Ouyang Shuo, immediately dismounted and fell to one knee, solemnly declaring, “It is my honor to serve my lord!”

Ouyang Shuo hurriedly went forwards and pulled the man to his feet, patting his shoulder and smiled. “General, it is good to get your help. With your aid, it’s like gifting a tiger with wings”

“System Notification: Congratulations to player Qiyue Wuyi! Because of your courtesy, historical figure Shi Wanshui’s loyalty has risen by +5!”

Taking advantage of his greeting, Ouyang Shuo took a look at his general’s stats.

Name: Shi Wanshui (Emperor level)

Title: Top ten fierce officers in history

Dynasty: Sui Dynasty

Identity: None

Occupation: Special officer

Loyalty: 85 points

Command: 80

Force: 95

Intelligence: 60

Politics: 30

Speciality:

Take the Lead: Morale of troops enhanced by 40%;

Conquer to the South, Fight to the North: Speed and mobility of troops enhanced by 30%;

Insightful: Attack power of troops enhanced by 20%.

Cultivation Method: Shining Sun Spearmanship (24 styles)

Equipment: Proud yellow horse, Tiger Fish Scale Armor, Black Iron Spear, Refined Steel Sword, White Birch Bow

Evaluation: A famous hero of Sui, heroic and brave, excellent at riding and shooting. Temperament upright, poor at politics. A good soldier, poor management skills.

Ouyang Shuo was very happy to get such a fierce guard. With such a defender, he had no worries about being bullied on his way. Side by side, the two of them set off towards the south.

In less than half an hour, they had made it to the southern tip of the basin. The mountains were a few thousand kilometers long and between them, there was only a 50-meter wide canyon running straight into the distance.

In the center of the canyon was naturally a river of the same width, forking five hundred meters in front of the canyon into two tributaries. It was more accurate to say that two rivers came together to form one river here.

The west river was called the Friendship River, and the east was called the Swimming River. The Friendship River was slightly wider at thirty-five meters, while the Swimming River narrowed to about thirty meters. The source of the lakes should naturally be runoff from the east and west mountains, collecting the rainwater and sending it down to them.

Carefully considering his options, Ouyang Shuo picked the west side of the valley, at the foot of the mountain. The village will be surrounded by natural boundaries. To the west was a forest, to the north the Friendship River, and to the east the canyon. The location considered both defense and available resources, while also guarding the only pathway into the sea. Overall, a very strategic location.

Now the only question was how to cross the 35-meter Friendship River, so he could build the village. Oh, and take the horse along, too.

Time for some ingenuity and a little work. From out of his Resource Bag, Ouyang Shuo pulled 10 units of wood, and with the help of Shi Wanshui, used some rattan strips to tie the wood together into a simple raft.

“System Notification: Congratulations to player Qiyue Wuyi for making a successful raft, you have gained Basic Shipbuilding Proficiency.”

Raft: Simple water transport

Evaluation: This is much too crudely built and can easily be overturned by waves, please be careful using it.

Earth Online had a considerable degree of freedom of choice within it. Ouyang Shuo could, even without the basic skill, make a raft. It only required the appropriate materials, tools, and knowing the method to do so. The same principle could be applied to gunpowder, glassmaking, winemaking, and other kinds of technology, all could be achieved in the game.

The two of them rode the raft over Friendship River, drawing the raft up onto the shore and covering it with weeds. After that, they headed south, to the foot of the mountain.

The choice of where to build the village was very critical because after one ordered their village built, they could not move it. Thus, you had to plan out your future development space in advance.

The area of an ancient city design was limited, bigger was not better in this case. In general, the maximum size was 100 square kilometers or so. After that point, urban management at the ancient level of technology would get increasingly difficult. Managing population, traffic, drainage, and health would all face huge challenges.

One hundred square kilometers was ten kilometers per side of the city if it was a square city. The Lord’s Manor would usually be along the central axis, towards the back.

In accordance with this plan, Ouyang Shuo would build the Manor at the golden point of 3.82 km from the southern mountain’s base. It would be 10 km from the east side of the canyon, leaving a 5 km strategic buffer for defense.

He removed the ‘Village Creation Token’ from his storage bag and inserted it into the soil of the village. Following directions, he bit his finger and a drop of his blood fell on the token.

Instantly, the area was encapsulated in soft golden light.

The golden light rose into the sky, reaching for the heavens. It rapidly spread out in a golden halo that extended out to the limits of his territory, and then disappeared.

At the same time, in front of where Ouyang Shuo was standing, a golden stone slowly rose from the ground. The stone was three meters high and two meters wide. The front of it was blank, the back of it engraved with nine ancient characters, “Receive the mandate of heaven, live and prosper forever.” Ouyang Shuo placed his palm upon the stone, and the system instantly broke in with triumphant music.

“System Notification: Congratulations to player Qiyue Wuyi who has successfully established his village, please name your village!”

Here, with its back against the mountains, along with the sea, that’s how he would name his village!

“Mountain Sea Village.” (Note: This is Shanhai Village in Chinese.)

At his words, on the blank front of the stone appeared three words, ‘Mountain Sea Village’ in ancient script.

“System Notification: Congratulations to the player Qiyue Wuyi for the establishment of China ‘s seventh village – Shanhai Village, Special reward 500 of Merit Points!”

“System Notification: Congratulations to the player Qiyue Wuyi for the establishment of China ‘s seventh village – Shanhai Village, Special reward 500 of Merit Points!”

“System Notification: Congratulations to the player Qiyue Wuyi for the establishment of China ‘s seventh village – Shanhai Village, Special reward 500 of Merit Points!”

This system announcement did not attract too much attention. After all, Ouyang Shuo was just putting up a village, the whole area devoted to China had been ringing six times with similar announcements, and the players had become numb.

Of course, others may not have cared, but the Six Handan Tyrants had noted the name of Qiyue. They were extremely clear that in the entire Chinese region there were only six special spots where you could directly get a silver village in the game.

The seventh person could actually be regarded as the first real village in China to be established by an actual player, so some attention should be expected. However, with the frontier being what it was, for a short period of time, they would be unable to get any information about Mountain Sea Village.

The first to establish a village received 1100 Merit Points, with 100 points being taken off for each successive village. After the tenth village, every village established would merely get 100 Merit Points.

For the Lord class players, merit rank was actually more important than their level and prestige. Saying that this is was their core stat was not an exaggeration. Because their merit value was directly linked to the player’s title, as long as the merit value was reached, the player’s title would be automatically promoted.

Earth Online divided the titles into five orders: Baron, Viscount, Earl, Marquis, and Duke. Each order had three sub-ranks of first, second and third, for a total of fifteen ranks.

The first rank of merit required 100 points, and each rank after that, the requirement doubled. Thus, to reach Marquis required 204,800 points, while reaching the highest title of Duke required a whole million merit points!

Merit points were difficult to obtain, generally gained only by contributing to your country. You could generally only gain them on the frontier, such as by establishing a territory, combating bandits and raiders, increasing the security of the people, participating in battles, great contributions to the city, and several other limited ways.

The most critical point was that title and the territorial level was directly linked. Territories were divided into the same tiers as titles, with three sub-ranks within villages, towns, counties, prefecture, and capitals. If the leader of a territory didn’t meet the required titles, the territory could not be promoted.

“System Notification: Congratulations player Qiyue Wuyi for establishing Shanhai Village. While constructing the village, the Lord’s Manor has automatically been built. In addition to this, the player can also choose one of three random village-level buildings to put in place.

“System Notifications: Three random buildings selected, please choose one of them to be completed! You may select the City Fence, Basic Blacksmith Shop, or Basic Market!”

“I choose the Basic Market!”

“System Notification: The building selection is finished and will start automatically!”

There were a hum and burst of white light. Where Ouyang Shuo was standing, a wooden courtyard arose from the ground, outside of a living room. At the northwest corner of the courtyard rose another wooden building, which should be the Basic Market.

“System Notification: Congratulations to the player Qiyue Wuyi for establishing your village! Your reward is 10 farmers! Please prepare to receive them! All rewards are complete, please view them at your leisure!”

Ouyang Shuo watched the golden stone slowly sink back into the ground. It would only re-emerge if the territory was upgraded or attacked.

“System Notification: Historical figure Shi Wanshui has witnessed the birth of the village, his loyalty is increased by 5!”

“System Notification: Historical figure Shi Wanshui’s loyalty to Qiyue Wuyi is at 90 points, derived feature: Loyalty (enhances military morale 10%).

Ouyang Shuo did not expect to receive such a pleasant surprise. A loyalty upgrade to 90 points made Shi Wanshui increase his respect for Ouyang Shuo!