137: Chapter 136 Noa Town 137: Chapter 136 Noa Town “Boom!

Noa Village is the first to upgrade to a town!

What changes in a town-level territory?”

That morning, Mu Ying sat at the dining table with a plate of steaming hot fried dumplings in front of her, and a cup of soy milk beside her.

As usual, she summoned the Player Manual, turned to the forum page ready for reading while eating, and saw this hottest post ranked first.

Noa is a player territory in Northern Europe, and it’s been upgraded to a town?

Mu Ying clicked on it while picking up a dumpling, dipped it into the sauce dish, and fed it into her mouth.

“Southern Australia, impressive!”

“Heh, what’s there to brag about?

If I remember correctly, Southern Australia only has that one player territory, right?”

“Northern Europe might have a bunch of territory, with five player territories, but the per capita sub-camp standard, still fighting each other, ended up directly ruining two of them, impressive much?”

“The Neon Islands, without a single player territory, quietly logged off, haha!”

The posts above were all regional trash-talk, which Mu Ying quickly scrolled past.

The forum’s chat area is accessible worldwide, and language barriers no longer exist, making flame wars a daily event.

The previous power and order system got completely reset by the apocalypse, and national and regional borders became less distinct.

Many former border areas are inhabited by people from various countries, like Feihong Village in the south of Xia Country.

But rankings have intensified everyone’s sense of regional identity, roughly divided into five zones, aligning with the major pre-apocalypse countries.

It’s quite relieving to watch people squabble and rant when one is bored.

Right now, Mu Ying just wants to find some valid information on town-level territories, as a reference for her own territory, so she quickly scrolls past these.

“Is it fun to keep comparing like this?

Anyone from Noa, what exactly is different about town-level territories?”

“There’s no difference, just a new sub-camp opened, probably means the territory is out of money.”

“Definitely, the entrance fee increased by ten percent, it would’ve been better not to upgrade!

Originally, people came here because it was cheap, but look at it now, prices went up.”

It seems quite possible that the territory is short on money to build new functional facilities.

Mu Ying remembered that Noa’s previous entrance fee was three copper coins a day.

Although it’s not as free as Lingtian Village, which is to the point of extreme poverty, its income and territory facilities should be just average.

Moreover, to facilitate player settlement, Noa used sub-camps as teleportation points, building quite a few at the edge of the largest range it could cover with its territory.

This resolved the hesitations of those who wanted to relocate their camps but were deterred by the dangers of the wilderness and the uncertainty of a long journey.

So, Noa’s low entrance fee and accessibility were key to its rapid growth.

Now that the entrance fee has increased, although it is still lower than that of public camps, it has actually eroded a part of its reputation.

The Lord of Noa must have done this because of a lack of funds, and the reason for the shortage must be an urgent need to build something, probably something new that came with the territory upgrade.

By the time she finished her meal, Mu Ying hadn’t found any concrete information, but it wasn’t without gains.

The change in Noa before the upgrade was the construction of a new sub-camp, followed by an influx of residents.

Then the key conditions for upgrading a territory must involve population and sub-camps.

Mu Ying felt that the number of sub-camps was an unlikely factor, as Noa had ten sub-camps, and even slowed down the development of the Main Territory for the sake of the sub-camps.

Previously, although it was at the same level as Qingshan Village, the Main Territory was half the size of Qingshan.

Perhaps a Sub-camp is also one of the requirements for a territory to upgrade to Town Level, but it surely isn’t as exaggerated as with Noa.

Just by looking at the name “Sub-camp”, one knows that it is ultimately a subsidiary; even if upgraded, the situation in Noa, where the Main Territory and the Sub-camp are nearly equal, would leave the Main Territory looking nothing like a town but more like a bunch of interconnected small villages.

Mu Ying felt that the way she was utilizing the Sub-camp was good and had no plan to imitate Noa; building a Sub-camp just for teleportation was less practical than constructing additional roads.

It was more cost-effective to use public camps for transfer.

But it required time, whether for accumulating building materials for the roads or for players to arrive; everything needed time.

And just with such a road, not everyone dared to casually venture out, at least a certain ability to protect oneself was necessary, which would screen out some people.

So it was a lot slower compared to the teleportation model used by Noa.

However, instead of begging for help and slowing down the development of her territory, Mu Ying chose to develop the territory, increase its core competitiveness, and thus attract people.

She had been doing this all along, whether it was creating job opportunities or various facilities and benefits for the people within her territory.

After finishing her last dumpling, she stopped looking for news about Noa in the forum and opened the territory interface.

It was fine to learn from others, but it was important to have one’s own thinking and steadily develop one’s own features.

[Materials: stone×112w, lumber×420]

The lumber accumulated over time was enough to build two more stone paths to Spirit Dragon Gorge, which was equally far.

The reason for saving up for so long was to wait until after learning combat-related Tier 3 Spells before setting out; her identity had been revealed, and she could legitimately recruit people, even personally guide a wave of players over.

She had already learned Summoning Animals, and in another week, after having learned Natural Shield, she would be able to get started on this matter.

But there was another thing that needed to be done right now.

“Do you want to spend 3w stone to construct a 1.5-kilometer-long stone slab road?”

Mu Ying selected confirm and obtained a miniature stone slab road model.

Over this period, players from Spirit Dragon Gorge had been coming over in trickles; whenever they reached the edge of Qingshan Forest and found the stone path ending, they often didn’t know which way to go.

If lucky, they might get directions from other players; those less fortunate might accidentally veer off the path and end up in Magic Beast territories.

Now that there was a slight surplus of stone, it was feasible to build a road leading to the territory.

Stone slabs were more suitable than gravel for mountain roads.

Even if the territory expands later and the stone slab road is within the territory boundary, it would still match the style of the territory quite well.

Mu Ying disassembled the stone slab road model and took it outside the Main Territory gate.

This time, she didn’t need to hide as before, waiting until night to stealthily build the road.

This moment was the peak of everyone’s “working” hours, hunters and those going to the planting camps were heading out; people greeted her from time to time.

“Lord, what are you digging for?” someone asked, seeing her carrying a small hoe, squatting every few steps to dig a bit, bewildered.

“We’ve got stone now.

I’m laying a layer of stone slabs from the territory to the edge of the forest; it makes it easier to walk and prevents outsiders from not finding where the territory is,” Mu Ying placed a section of the stone slab road model into the small hole.

“Eh?

Is this how roads are built?” Now even more people grew curious; even those headed out to earn money slowed down, wanting to spectate.

However, the stone slab road model was only visible to the Lord; in the eyes of others, she was simply digging a small hole and then covering it up again.