10 Free Mode (1/2)

Ouyang Shuo walked to the east wing of the Lord’s Manor, and found General Shi reading a book on military history. He did not interrupt him but the general quickly noticed his presence.

He turned and saw Ouyang Shuo standing at the door. Quickly, he rose and bowed in salute, calling out, “Lord!” Then, puzzled, he asked, “Since the lord already came, why did you not enter? There's nothing to fear”

Ouyang Shuo laughed. “Seeing you concentrating so hard, I could not bear to disturb you.”

General Shi smiled and scratched his head. “My lord jokes. I have nothing else to do and just like to read the books on war in my leisure time. Have you came to tell me something?”

“Yes, there is something I need to ask you. Yesterday, you returned and said you had encountered a group of wild goats. Do you know their location. Can you find them again?”

General Shi frowned, thinking for a moment, and slowly said, “I remember that the group of goats numbered fifty or so. Some were killed by the wild dogs; the rest scattered and fled.”

“At the moment, there is no livestock in the territory, and meat is very scarce. Yesterday you mentioned the goats in passing. I was wondering, could we capture them and bring them back to be domesticated?”

General Shi was surprised for a moment. “The lord is really farsighted, I admire you. With the lord’s permission, I will go back to where I met them, and follow their tracks.”

“That sounds hard, I will wait for you to bring any good news.”

After sending General Shi away, Ouyang Shuo began to wander in the village to assess the progress of the construction everywhere. During their break time, he sat down and chatted with everyone, listening to them and giving them attention.

In this way, the villagers would gradually recognize the work of a meticulous, intelligent, yet approachable lord. On seeing him, they would take the initiative to salute greetings. Ouyang Shuo was not haughty, and gave each of them a smile in response.

Before lunch, the fence was finished. At the entrance gate to the village, they put up a simple wooden gatehouse. Above the gate, they engraved ‘Shanghai Village’, the simple characters that declared that the mountain village was officially rooted in the wilderness.

At 3 PM, General Shi came back, bearing both good news and bad news. The good news was that on his patrol he met a bandit riding a horse, and after killing him, gained both a horse and an iron sword. The bad news was that the wild goats had left no trail, and effectively vanished into thin air, so Ouyang Shuo could only pine over their loss.

Ouyang Shuo took the horse and iron sword from the General, and looked at their stats.

Name: Poor horse (bronze rank)

Weight: 30 kg

Speed: 20 km / day

Consumption: 3 units of grain / day

Evaluation: This can barely be ridden. Absolutely not a warhorse.

Name: Poor iron sword (bronze rank)

Hardness: 5

Toughness: 3

Evaluation: Iron sword is a defective product, please use with caution.

At this stage, even bronze-rank equipment was rare. Suddenly he had two without even using his own hands. If he were to let other players know, they’d be half-dead with envy.

This was part of the advantage of lord-class players, the higher the risk, the higher the chance of better drops. These kind of high level monsters were nothing in the eyes of General Shi. With the horse and iron sword, Ouyang Shuo could now go out and inspect his own territory, he didn’t need to stay in the village all day. Before learning the basics of riding and spearmanship, he was nearly useless.

In the evening, the small residential courtyard and dining hall had both been built. During the feast in the new dining hall, Ouyang Shuo began to shift everyone’s accommodations.

The main hall of the Lord’s Manor was the living room, which was being used for hospitality and any proceedings. There were rooms to the right and left of the living room. To the east was his office; on the west was his bedroom.

There were courtyards on both sides of the room, with another two rooms off of them. The east room was General Shi’s, while the west currently held the ten people from Zhao village.

Last night ten people slept there, but they’d barely had enough room.

After the completion of the small residential courtyard, he had room for twenty people to live. Tonight, most of the Zhao people would move away, leaving only Zhao Dexian and Zhao Youfang in their new home. The previously empty west wing would now accommodate Cui Yingyu on one side, and Dr. Song and Er Wazi in the other.

********************

Over the next three days, the territory began to build up rapidly. The public bathrooms, blacksmith shop, quarry, and grocery store had all been built, and they’d added four more residential courtyards.

The logging and quarry areas had also begun operating, with ten farmers arranged each day to produce 100 units of wood and 50 units of stone.

He didn’t know why, but he must have consumed too much good luck for the first couple of days, because he only received three special talents out of the 45 new immigrants over these three days.

The junior mason Zheng Shangun was a middle-aged man, whom Ouyang Shuo appointed as the quarry manager. Merchant Li Fugui, a fat old man, was put in charge of the grocery store.

The biggest surprise was a senior shipbuilder, who was also the second highly-skilled person in the territory. He was called Zheng Dahai, a thirty year old with a dark complexion, short and pithy.

It was early morning in the game as Ouyang Shuo came on at his usual time. Opening the door to the courtyard was always fun. General Shi was practicing his spearmanship like normal. Like his officers, martial arts was practiced until it was an instinct, not practicing made his whole body itchy.