The special profession “Soldier and Commander” activated by Joy Stick wasn’t a combat profession. If one had to be specific, this thing was actually more similar to a special “life profession.”

This commander sequence formed a perfect “civil and military pairing” contrast with administrative players, which was Murphy’s greatest respect for the freedom of his little players.

Just as the declaration of his “development team” stated: no matter what plans and designs you have for your life, no matter what reasons prevent you from achieving your life plans in reality, you have the chance to start over in Transia!

Of course, when Murphy designed this profession system, he considered quite realistic factors.

That is, even if ordinary people have talent, without professional training it’s very difficult to form a complete tactical and strategic thinking system. Therefore, players who transition to the “soldier” profession wanting to fulfill their general dreams might mostly end up as just a decurion leading 10 NPC foot soldiers to charge into battle.

In fact, most players’ terrible intuition about war and untrained command abilities wouldn’t even qualify them to be a decurion. But even so, this is enough to satisfy many people’s war fantasies.

Moreover, Murphy’s career planning wasn’t just randomly designed on a whim.

The complete commander profession sequence of “Soldier – Commanding Officer – General – Supreme Commander” was prepared in advance for the Paradox war criminals who would definitely enter the game on a large scale later.

Those folks who keep shouting “Level Gao Ping, Military Tribunal. Neutron Annihilation, Earth Split Sky Collapse” will definitely love this profession system. Once they enter in large numbers, they’ll definitely use their genius ideas about war to show Murphy what it means to get surrounded by causing trouble and then perform the feat of tearing through the encirclement.

Of course, that would be at least more than 2 months away.

In Murphy’s planning schedule, by that time it would be enough to ensure Transia’s military organization reaches a somewhat accomplished level, and when the Black Plague approaches, it would also be the perfect moment to introduce large-scale unorthodox military talents.

At this stage, Murphy’s planning focus for Transia remains on the construction level.

As for how Joy Stick could build that “Maginot Line” in the south, that wasn’t within Murphy’s consideration.

Speaking of which, with all the strategic defense line blueprints from medieval to modern times available on their internet, if Joy Stick still messed this up, Murphy would definitely send him to military court for “dereliction of duty”!

Perhaps at that time, the triumphant Brother Stick could light up another incredible achievement as “Server’s First! Military Court Gallows Experience Master”.

Just thinking about it felt entertaining.

Though thinking this way in his heart, Murphy didn’t interrupt what he was currently doing. Ever since he stopped being human and became a “dog planner”, his skill of “multitasking” had become increasingly proficient.

“Our intelligence agent ‘Pangolin’ working on the secret front has brought us the latest news.”

At this moment in the conference room, Murphy, whose thoughts had wandered who knows where, was pointing at a simple map of the Foul Swamp, reading from a script to Maxim, Kudel, Adele and the invited Count of White Mountain Andrei before him:

“After the pressure from the skeleton army faced by the Blood Claw Clan’s gnolls was weakened by our diligent and fearless warriors, they sent out clan scouts into the swamp. The gnolls’ physique and physiological characteristics make them naturally suited for advancing in swamp terrain.

So far, Blood Claw Clan has explored several safe routes deep into the swamp.

But this isn’t the point!

The point is that Pangolin’s side has already confirmed that a special force composed of gnoll plague sorcerers under the Gnawbone Clan is conducting large-scale operations in the Foul Swamp.

They are searching for the legendary ‘Lost Treasure of King Gnawbone’.

We still don’t know why the gnolls are doing this, but from a strategic perspective, disrupting the enemy’s plans is the way to victory.

Therefore, while building the southern defense line, I decided to send the Shadow Intelligence Bureau to the swamp to work with the Blood Claw gnolls to explore more information. We must know more inside story before the gnolls begin their next move.”

“I will immediately dispatch personnel.”

The head of the Shadow Intelligence Bureau, Lady Adele, immediately responded:

“The Baroness of Shadow territory is my domain, I should contribute to that land, so I will personally take charge and supervise this operation to ensure it achieves the results you hope to see.”

Murphy nodded.

He knew Adele’s initiative wasn’t just out of duty and bloodline dedication, but partly because of the corpse mage Bella currently hidden in a secret chamber in the Blood Vulture Halls.

Adele didn’t want to see her Uncle Bella and Aunt Bernice, whom she regarded as elders, continue to be controlled by the gnoll sorcerers. Moreover, Murphy estimated that Adele might want to take this opportunity to learn something about her “hometown”.

Since she told Murphy about the existence of that “Half-elf Valley”, she had been thinking about letting that valley come under Murphy’s rule.

Adele wasn’t a foolish hothead.

She had witnessed firsthand how the Crimson Citadel flourished under Murphy’s rule.

She knew that against the backdrop of the approaching Black Plague, entrusting the future of her “kinsmen”, who weren’t actually close to her, to her master was the best path she could find for her people.

Half-elves sound mysterious but this kind of mixed blood represents a destiny of suffering on this continent.

The elves won’t accept them, humans view them as foreign races, and gnolls won’t care about their distinction from other races.

In the Dark Mountains where the strong prey on the weak, her kinsmen are seen as fat and juicy prey in the eyes of all forces.

They must find support! Must cling to someone powerful, otherwise this time when the Black Plague comes- no, even before the Black Plague arrives, her poor kinsmen will face eternal extinction.

After Murphy finished giving the task to the Shadow Intelligence Bureau, the invited Count of White Mountain understood.

Oh, I was wondering why you Murphy suddenly invited an outsider like me to attend this high-level military meeting, so it turns out you were waiting for me here?

Andrei shook his head. He actually hoped to take on more responsibilities in Transia, so he took the initiative to stand up and say:

“Since it’s a covert operation, how could we do without the Thorn Clan’s nightwalkers? Lord Murphy, my followers and I voluntarily apply to join this operation.

In the name of the Sacred Blood Alliance!”

“This is exactly what I hoped to see.”

Murphy nodded.

Having a group of intelligence and assassin masters skilled in mobile stealth operations in his own territory, it would be a waste not to make good use of them after Lady Shani sent these people over as good support.

But the vampire lord still seriously cautioned:

“When you two coordinate operations with the Blood Claw Clan, you must pay attention to methods and approaches. Those gnoll sorcerers hiding in the swamp didn’t come alone.

Although Tris still can’t determine where the gnolls learned death spirit energy from, it can be certain that there is a huge and dangerous undead army protecting them.

The skeleton plague that occurred in Smuggler’s Woods was just the active erosion of death aura caused when this army gathered on a large scale, and might not even represent their tactical purpose.

Therefore, don’t engage in direct conflict with them before my warriors gather in large numbers, and don’t startle the snake in the grass.

Currently Transia’s construction situation is stable and improving, we can’t suddenly interrupt the construction process at this time.”

“Hmm, I understand.”

The Count of White Mountain nodded.

But in his heart he was somewhat dismissive of Murphy’s concerns.

This wasn’t arrogance.

It was just confidence based on the Thorn Clan’s racial characteristics, these super assassins of midnight aren’t second-rate professions like other clans’ nightwalkers.

For the Thorn Clan, who possess racial talents of “permanent night concealment” and “silent movement”, as long as they don’t want to be found, no one can find them.

From this perspective, the midnight blessing received by the Thorn Clan is no less than that of the Blood Vulture Clan, perhaps even a bit more.

————————

“Eh, Little Ashina, what’s that in your hand?”

In the camp outside the city, in Silver Moon Pride’s area, MoeHaha who had just joined the team had completed her transition to Spirit Apprentice, and was currently repeatedly reading that manual introducing dark spirit impact techniques, when she was disturbed by the noisy flapping of wings as Little Ashina flew happily into the camp.

MoeHaha turned around and saw Little Ashina continuously pouring out all sorts of strange things from a small bag.

She curiously went over to look, and found that Little Ashina had taken out one of the “paper slips” poured onto the table and was waving it in her hand. The little shorty said in a relaxed tone:

“Scratch cards! Haven’t you seen these things before? No, that’s not right. You’re not stuck at home all the time, you can freely go out to play so you must have seen and played with these things?”

“Of course I know these are scratch cards!”

MoeHaha frowned.

She held a paper slip in her palm. Due to physicists’ innate aversion to “uncertainty”, she had always stayed away from such gambling things in real life.

She asked:

“I mean, why are there such things in the game too? Where did you get them from?”

“I just went to the sewers to complete a random quest, and found them in the Blood Rat Gang’s tavern. There was a specific NPC selling these things.

They say it’s a new ‘profit growth point’ that Lady Dorothy found for their gang.”

Little Ashina excitedly said:

“I know these things are scams, but I can’t control my hands. When I see such interesting things I definitely have to buy them back to play with everyone.

As for why these things appear in Transia…

Tch, do I need to say it?

It must be some clever person who passed on their ‘life experience’ to the NPCs. The NPCs here are all extremely crafty, they will actively learn these crooked ways. Maybe there will be groups of ‘lottery buyers’ in Transia later who make a living from this and hope to get rich overnight.

Don’t talk about this anymore, quickly help me open them.

Let’s see if I can win a prize!”

“You already know this is a scam.”

MoeHaha pursed her lips and slowly said to the shorty who was excited about finding a new toy:

“From a probability perspective, I can explain to you in five different theories how this thing empties wallets.

You might make a small profit, but the issuer never loses.”

However, Little Ashina had no intention of listening to these boring theories, so she completely ignored the physics girl and just licked her lips and fangs with an excited face as she opened one scratch card after another.

These things were clearly just printed this morning. The palm-sized cards still gave off the smell of ink. MoeHaha held it in her hand and examined it carefully.

The printing quality was quite poor, even revealing a hint of “cheapness”.

But this kind of mass printing represents that Transia possesses considerable basic industrial capabilities. However, these scratch cards don’t use the plastic sealing technology of the real world.

They adopted a very clever “localization” improvement, a spirit energy formula interpreted as simple 【Hidden】 was printed on the back of the card, covering all the patterns on the card face.

Buyers need to break the formula to see the patterns.

This operation is of course one-time use, thus ensuring the card cannot be reused. Below there is also a line of small text reminding buyers not to throw away the card.

Even if they don’t win a prize, after collecting 100 cards they can take them to the Blood Rat Gang to exchange for a small amount of money for recycling.

As for the production cost of these things, it’s almost negligible, because the materials needed to maintain this formula are all scraps found from Lady Tris’s alchemy cottage, and can even be considered a classic case of waste utilization.

“These otherworldly vampires who issue lottery tickets are quite environmentally friendly.”

MoeHaha made a sarcastic comment.

She habitually pushed her empty nose bridge, then learned from Little Ashina’s example and lightly scratched the formula on the back of the card. The hidden pattern immediately disappeared revealing an 8×8 pattern array.

On it were local wild animal patterns from Transia – wolves, tigers, vultures and wild dogs, rabbits etc. These common animal patterns had no rewards, only those legendary beast patterns had rewards.

MoeHaha carefully read the rules and found that the Blood Rat Gang very cleverly adopted a combination reward mode, which was enough to reduce their risk to a minimum.

“Here, I got a ‘Greenleaf Lion’.”

She handed the card to Little Ashina.

The latter already had a pile of non-winning cards scattered at her feet. Of course for this little rich lady, she didn’t care at all about the pitiful prize money.

She enjoyed the fun of chasing uncertainty.

Commonly known as a “luck tester”.

“Oh, Greenleaf Lion, third prize, 1 silver coin.”

Little Ashina happily took the card and put it in her bag, then took out another bag and threw it to MoeHaha, grinning as she said:

“You’ve got quite good luck.”

“You! How much of this stuff did you buy?”

MoeHaha’s eye twitched as she looked at the two full stacks of scratch cards in the bag in her hand. She exclaimed:

“Wasn’t it said that making money in this game is very difficult? How do you still have spare money to buy these?”

“Tch, if the Blood Rat Gang didn’t limit it to three sets per person, I would definitely buy all fifty sets they had. This is so much fun!

And it’s cheap, a whole set is only 10 silver coins!

Not even enough for a jar of combustion oil.”

Little Ashina couldn’t be bothered to answer this “stupid” question, and continued to immerse herself in the joy of “opening prizes”.

Soon, other girls from the Silver Moon team were also pulled into this “game”, and it eventually developed into a kind of “strange competition”.

After all, even when a group of pleasing big and small beauties are together they still need to compare with each other, who would admit they have bad luck?

“Oh yeah! Greenleaf Lion + Griffin Lion Eagle! Second prize! Hey! I won!”

Little Ashina’s joyful scream announced the birth of the champion in this “luck competition” among the girls.

She excitedly waved the coarse-textured card in her hand, flipping three or four nimble somersaults in the air to express her joy.

However, Sister Pomegranate looked at the cards scattered all over the ground with a pained expression. She said to Lady Aqua beside her, who had a helpless yet slightly doting look:

“She bought three sets of cards, 600 pieces for a total of 30 silver coins, then second prize is only 10 silver coins. With such a high loss rate, I really don’t understand what she’s happy about?”

“Of course you don’t understand, after all you don’t sit in a wheelchair.”

Lady Aqua said softly:

“Little Ashina’s joy is the purest. It’s a delight we cannot understand. Let her do what she likes.

As long as it’s not something harmful, I can understand and support it with both hands.

You guys continue playing, I need to log off to cook. By the way, my husband has been a bit suspicious lately saying I don’t love him anymore and don’t care about him.

He’s even starting to get emotional.

Sigh… men.”

The gentle and elegant married woman shook her head and sighed, lying down helplessly in a walnut coffin in the tent. Although she wasn’t a vampire and didn’t need this thing.

But when playing games, you have to experience everything.

“Come on, come with me to claim the prizes!”

Little Ashina happily pinched the two winning tickets and called out to others, but everyone had things to do, so in the end only Lumina and MoeHaha accompanied her.

Pomegranate and Orchid stayed in the camp. The former was a decurion of the People’s Army and had automatically transferred to the soldier profession to plan her career path. The latter had gotten contact information for the Explorer’s Association from Dorothy and planned to write an application letter to join this world’s travelers’ group.

However, after others left, Orchid helped cover Lady Aqua’s coffin lid then turned back to Pomegranate and said:

“What if we send an invitation letter to Lady Aqua’s husband too-”

“Are you crazy!”

Sister Pomegranate was startled and said:

“It’s not enough to mess with someone’s wife, now you want to catch their whole family in one net? Wow, Huahua, it turns out you’re the most vicious among us. You travelers should do some good deeds!”

“No no no, you don’t understand to what extent Lady Aqua’s husband cherishes her. The fact that they can have conflicts proves that Lady Aqua has been spending more and more time on the game lately affecting her normal life.”

Orchid shook her head and said:

“Sigh, few of my friends have happy marriages, I don’t want to see Lady Aqua’s life affected by this matter, so the best solution is to let her husband see with his own eyes what she does every day.

This way he won’t be suspicious anymore and can feel at ease.

Um, of course, seeing his gentle and elegant beautiful wife exorcising demons everywhere in another world as a busty nun, for a man raised with traditional thoughts, probably won’t feel too at ease either.

As for the impact of my actions…

You really don’t understand the life of wealthy families. Lady Aqua cooking for her family every day isn’t because she has to, it’s just her personality.

I visited her a few years ago, you haven’t seen the scene of a row of chefs in her villa waiting for you to choose dishes.

Forget it, I’ll handle this.”

“Take it easy.”

Sister Pomegranate said but didn’t stop Orchid’s actions.

On the other side, when Little Ashina went to the sewers to claim her prizes, it was already extremely crowded.

The line of people buying scratch cards stretched from the tavern all the way to the fighting club, reportedly because a lucky person had just opened a grand prize on the street.

The terrifying return rate of exchanging 5 copper coins for 10 gold coins was enough to drive any commoner crazy.

“This must be a plant!”

Little Ashina angrily stomped her foot and viciously complained, seeing she couldn’t squeeze into the crowd.

“Your name is Little Ashina, right?”

A gentle voice suddenly came from the side, making Little Ashina turn her head to see an uncle she didn’t recognize smiling at her.

“I have a few questions I’d like to ask you.”

He said:

“They’re very important questions, and won’t take up much of your time.”