“Arw, arw, arw…”
Outside a wooden cabin, two snowy white foxes with fiery red eyes were casually leaning against each other and licking from a stone bowl with their pink tongues. In it was some milk made from Jade Bee Honey mixed with Stone Milk.
Crunch, crunch…
A few meters away from the two foxes, a stalwart panda sat on the ground, munching on a mushroom coated with honey.
“So, you entered the Battlefield of Providence on the 13th, Earth time?
“That means that the time here at the Battlefield of Providence flows at about five times the speed of that on Earth…”
Several players sat inside the cabin, and Ji Ye spoke to Miss Panda who was sitting opposite him.
“I thought our settlement was the first, but you guys were even quicker.”
The round-faced Miss Panda replied while holding a hand warmer made of green bamboo and giving Wu Qiao a meaningful look.
“And you've already collected the projections of heroes at the level of the Five Greats, such as Yang Guo, Zhou Botong, Reverend Yideng, and Qiu Qianren!”
She then looked out of the window.
Right now, in another cabin about 50 m away from theirs, Yang Guo and Little Dragon Maiden sat there hand in hand while catching up with Reverend Yideng, Old Kid, and Aunt Ying.
A black porous stone was set next to the window.
[Sound Stone]
[Level: Extraordinary Rank-5]
[Rarity: Excellent (Rare)]
[Description: It could absorb sound and the energy in it, as well as releasing the saved sound and energy after activating them.]
Miss Panda took it out from a bundle held by a panda standing on its hind legs.
It was obviously the Extraordinary resource from her own settlement.
That was a wonderful thing. After all, many of their conversations needed to be kept secret, but in the Land of Inheritance, there were ways to hear voices a long way off.
When players were discussing among themselves, there were things that hero projections of this world shouldn't know.
“In fact, Little Dragon Maiden is also a target of my settlement. If you guys hadn't budged in, the condor couple should have reunited a long time ago.”
Guo Wei spoke to Miss Panda while looking at her from behind his monocle.
As Elder Jiao's first research a.s.sistant, because of his contribution in the Silver Liquid and power generation, he was qualified to enter the City of Humans.
“This is a Battlefield of Providence that could be entered by many settlements. A single settlement can't take control of it.”
Miss Panda said meaningfully.
“According to the information we've collected, it's very likely that all settlements of the southwest province that have completed the Ten-Species Compet.i.tion task will take part in the War of Xiangyang!
“I think our settlements can work together.”
The information provided by Miss Panda attracted the Twin Dragon Mount's attention.
“The entire southwest province?”
Ji Ye's eyes lit up.
He didn't ask Miss Panda how she came by that piece of information.
As the top settlement of Guan City, they would certainly have their own channel of communication and obtaining information.
Nevertheless, it was definitely a useful piece of information.
Elder Meng had gathered information on compet.i.tive settlements of the southwest province when he went offline. That way, the Twin Dragon Mount could have more targeted plans in Xiangyang City.
“Work together? Can you call the shots?”
Ji Ye looked at Miss Panda.
“Of course!”
Miss Panda nodded; her eyes seemed smaller in comparison to her big, round face.
She had been in the live broadcast during the initial trial because she had obtained a Perfect talent. Although she received a Superior evaluation in the settlement task, she didn't become the leader of the settlement.
However, just like the overseas Chinese beta tester in Ninth Uncle's original settlement, in a sense, Miss Panda was a standby settlement leader, and in the setting of some of the novels, she was equivalent to the “Virtuous Lady” of a sect.
Moreover, because she had the full support of the Guan City Confederation Office, who had been given her advice and suggestions, her words would have much more weight than those of Fatty Zhu.
“What can you offer?”
Ji Ye looked at her again.
“First of all, I can set up a formation in the Hundred Flowers Valley, making it even more concealed so that no outsiders can break in.
“Secondly, since other players are bound to come, I can have Bao scare them off!” said Miss Panda.
“Bao?”
Ji Ye looked at the big panda outside. It had finished the mushroom and had crouched down a few steps from the two foxes, drooling over the milk in their bowl.
The name reminded him of a film he saw once.
“My talent skill is the summoning type, and Bao is the creature I summoned. It has impressive skills!”
She emphasized on the word “impressive”.
“Besides, I'll also bring some of the advanced combative players in my settlement here, and they'll be more than enough to get rid of the players from other settlements.”
She added with flickering eyes.
“I don't think that's fair!
“Proportional wise, we have five hero projections, but you only have one!
“Moreover, you already have two people here.”
Guo Wei immediately saw through Miss Panda's purpose.
Although he was a non-combative player and a postgraduate student of a famous university, he was a big wuxia novel fan as well. He had already reached Extraordinary Rank-4.
In the past few days, he had been learning martial arts from Reverend Yideng, the most mild-tempered hero projection of them all. But the number of heroes was limited, and if Miss Panda brought more players from her settlement here, it would definitely affect the progress of Twin Dragon Mount.
“She's not a player. She won't need to learn from the hero projections.”
Miss Panda shook her head and gestured at Miss Zhou, who was looking at the flowers with Nie Xiaoqian in the valley.
“It's true. She's not a player,” said Ji Ye.
“You know who she is?”
Miss Panda detected something in his tone.
“That's Zhou Zhiruo!”
Ji Ye looked at the two women dressed in traditional outfits outside. One had a white robe, while the other one had a blue one.
Yes, the one dressed in blue and looked almost as impressive as Little Dragon Maiden was none other than Zhou Zhiruo herself.
This hero used to belong to the settlement of Ning Ling, the gum-chewing teenage girl of Yang City, but that settlement had been annihilated.
Apparently, Zhou Zhiruo had been summoned by Miss Panda's settlement now.
After all, she used to be a pupil of the Emei Sect and had even become the sect leader later in her life.
But heroes would be downgraded when they died once. Right now, Zhou Zhiruo had probably become an Excellent hero, and she wouldn't have the memory of trading Nine Yang Arts with Ji Ye in the City of Humans.
Ji Ye didn't recognize her right away because she was in disguise the last time he saw her in the City of Humans.
But because he had learned True Seer, he had a familiar feeling about her. When Yang Guo introduced her as Miss Zhou, Ji Ye guessed her ident.i.ty.
Does he have a detecting talent skill? Han Meimei thought to herself after Ji Ye revealed Zhou Zhiruo's ident.i.ty.
“I can let your people enter the Hundred Flowers Valley, but with each person, you'll have to pay me an Extraordinary Rank-5 object,” said Ji Ye before she could go on.
“No, that's too expensive.
“I mean no disrespect, but I think most of the people here don't have more than two Extraordinary Rank-5 objects on them!”
Han Meimei shook her head with a frown.
Extraordinary Rank-5 objects were doubtlessly very precious.
Because so far, the monsters hadn't exceeded Extraordinary Rank-4 yet, and apart from the special resources created by some settlement, there were only two ways to obtain Extraordinary Rank-5 objects.
The first way was to build the objects on one's own power through the heroes they summoned or by replicating the technology on Earth.
The second way was to depend on rewards from the Ten-Species Compet.i.tion task.
However, as generous as the rewards were, they were given out based on one's overall contribution and performance.
To the already capable heroes, Extraordinary Rank-5 wasn't too difficult to achieve, but it wasn't the case for the players.
As a beta tester, although she had obtained a Perfect Stone of Civilization of Extraordinary Rank-6, only three other people in her settlement had obtained Extraordinary Rank-5 Stones of Civilization.
More importantly, Extraordinary Rank-5 objects that were brought into the Battlefield of Providence could be anything but common, because bringing them here would cost Civilization Coins and providence of the settlement.
Therefore, Ji Ye's request did sound out of the line.
“In that case, I'll give you another choice. If you can withstand three strikes from me, you'll be qualified to enter the Hundred Flowers Valley.”
Ji Ye looked at Han Meimei.