Shi Feng hesitated over the Star-Moon Kingdom’s three Royal Heirlooms.
All three treasures could help a kingdom rise to prominence and a Guild to reach the apex of God’s Domain instantly. Moreover, each had its advantages.
“I can exchange for only one?” Shi Feng couldn’t help asking. “Only one,” the old man replied with a smile. “However, if you manage to help elevate Star-Moon Kingdom into an empire, you are free to exchange for all three.”
“Promotion to an empire?” Shi Feng shook his head and smiled bitterly.
While he knew of a few ways to get a kingdom promoted into an empire, none of these methods was easy to realize. They all needed a long time to accomplish. After thinking up to this point, Shi Feng suddenly had an idea. He then asked the old man, “What if I offer to swap Heirlooms?”
Heirlooms could be categorized into Royal Heirlooms, Imperial Heirlooms, Continental Heirlooms, and World Heirlooms.
In the past, the players that had the fortune to come across an unidentified Royal or Imperial Heirloom would do everything they could to find the fallen country the Heirloom used to belong to. Since these Heirlooms were treasures left behind by fallen kingdoms and empires, so long as one successfully identified the Heirloom, one could use it to reestablish that kingdom or even empire.
However, locating kingdoms and empires that had long since disappeared from God’s Domain wasn’t easy. The endeavor rivaled a Legendary Quest in difficulty.
Take Shi Feng for example. Although he had found an Imperial Heirloom very early into the game, he still hadn’t managed to find any clues to the empire the Heirloom belonged to. However, this didn’t particularly surprise him. After all, at this stage of the game, players had explored less than 20% of God’s Domain’s maps.
Indeed. Even now, the players of God’s Domain had explored barely 15% of the world’s maps.
In God’s Domain, human kingdoms and empires occupied only a small portion of the world’s territories. Most of the two main continents consisted of Level 150-plus neutral maps, and only after 40% of the game’s player base reached Level 180, Tier 3 or above could players adequately explore these maps.
Not to mention, this was only the two main continents. There was still the vast ocean in God’s Domain, which held innumerable islands, some as large as kingdoms and empires. Hence, finding a fallen empire in God’s Domain was unbelievably difficult.
This was why one of the Top Ten Rookie Guilds in the past, which had acquired an unidentified Imperial Heirloom through an auction, had used this Imperial Heirloom to exchange for an identified Royal Heirloom from a kingdom. Afterward, the Guild saw explosive growth and quickly became one of the reserve Guilds of God’s Domain’s Twelve Great Guilds at the time.
Although Shi Feng wasn’t sure how that Guild had conducted the exchange, it would be a huge waste if he didn’t ask if he could conduct a similar exchange.
“Swap Heirlooms?” The old man was a little stunned by Shi Feng’s question. After pondering for some time, he said, “That’s possible, but are you willing to pay such a huge price?” “What is the price?” Shi Feng asked.
“Firstly, you’d need to find an unidentified Imperial Heirloom. Secondly, you’d need to pay double the price for a Royal Heirloom,” the old man answered.
“Double?” Shi Feng was flabbergasted.
A Royal Heirloom was by no means cheap, and all three of the Royal Heirlooms before him cost upwards of one million Gold Coins and one million Magic Crystals. If this price were doubled, even superpowers couldn’t afford them.
“That’s right. However, the most important part is still the Imperial Heirloom. Without it, it won’t matter how many resources you offer,” the old man said, nodding. “Deal! I’ll trade an unidentified Imperial Heirloom for the Mysterious-Iron Flying Ship! I’ll also use my exchange opportunity for the Secret-Silver Combat Puppet!” Shi Feng said, gritting his teeth as he took out the Imperial Heirloom sitting inside his bag.
Before visiting the royal treasury, he had already taken all the funds Zero Wing could spare; however, he only had a total of 5.5 million Gold Coins and 5.3 million Magic Crystals on him. After all, the recruitment of NPC soldiers and the construction of defensive structures in Ancient Rock City cost a lot of money and resources. Although Zero Wing City and Ancient Rock City were raking in a significant income now, it still wasn’t enough to cover Ancient Rock City’s development costs.
“You actually have one!” The old man was surprised to see the Imperial Heirloom in Shi Feng’s hands.
“Yes, so hurry up with the exchange!” Shi Feng nodded with an aching heart.
“Alright. That will be five million Gold Coins and three million Magic Crystals in total,” the old man said as he extended his hand to Shi Feng.
“Verify the amount,” Shi Feng said as he transferred the necessary amount of Coins and Magic Crystals to the old man’s spatial bag.
After verifying that the amount was correct, the old man waved his hand, and two ancient designs flew to Shi Feng.
When Shi Feng saw these two designs, his heart pounded with excitement. Although purchasing these two designs had nearly bankrupted him, their value was immeasurable.
Now, all he needed to do was gather the necessary materials and begin mass production.
The materials needed are certainly extraordinary. Even the most common of these materials is incredibly rare in the current God’s Domain. Producing both of these items will also require a ton of Titan Gold and Magic Elven Stones.
Veins of Titan Gold Ore were considered Grade 2 veins in God’s Domain and incredibly rare, but they were the only way players could acquire Titan Gold Ore in large quantities; other types of Grade 2 veins produced Titan Gold Ore only occasionally. Overall, Titan Gold was super rare, and just one ingot could sell for over a dozen Gold Coins.
As for the Magic Elven Stone, acquiring it had given Shi Feng a headache when he was planning to construct the Crimson Dragon Flying Ship.
However, the Crimson Dragon Flying Ship’s construction cost was nothing compared to the Mysterious-Iron ranked Blue Thunder Flying Ship. Even if he excluded the other materials required, just the 5,000 ingots of Titan Gold and 600 Magic Elven Stones required would already cost a fortune.
As for the Secret-Silver ranked Flame Beast Puppet, its construction required 1,000 ingots of Titan Gold and 200 Magic Elven Stones.
Both items required Magic Elven Stones in significant quantities to produce!
Fortunately, when Yan Ya and Cleansing Whistle returned from the ancient era, they had brought back plenty of Magic Elven Stones. Currently, Zero Wing had a stockpile of over 4,000 Magic Elven Stones, just barely enough to construct an adequate number of Blue Thunder Flying Ships and Flame Beast Puppets.
The only problem now was the Titan Gold; Zero Wing only had around 30,000 ingots.
While Shi Feng was studying the two designs, Fang Shihan suddenly called him.
“Guild Leader, the Guild Leaders and representatives of the Twin Towers Kingdom and Star-Moon Kingdom’s various player forces have arrived. However, hardly any Guilds from the neighboring kingdoms showed up,” Fang Shihan said in frustration. “None of the two superpowers came, and only three of the eight first-rate Guilds showed up. As for second-rate Guilds, they number less than 20.”
This attendance rate was abysmally low. The Guilds that came to help from the several neighboring kingdoms were fewer than the Guilds in Star-Moon Kingdom. Not to mention, neither of the two superpowers decided to show up. “Are they all waiting to jack up the price?” Shi Feng chuckled.
He could understand the two superpowers’ refusal. After all, the various superpowers had a lot of territories to cover, and they focused mainly on defending empires. However, there was no excuse for first- and second-rate Guilds that weren’t involved in the war to withhold their help. The only reason they decided not to show up at Zero Wing’s war meeting had to be that they considered this a good opportunity to make a profit.
If Zero Wing wished to get their help, then it would have to pay a price.
Revealing a bitter smile, Fang Shihan said, “The first-rate Guilds that aren’t attending indeed have such an intention. In return for their full support, they are demanding the rights to purchase private houses and Guild Residences in Zero Wing City or Ancient Rock City. They say that the other superpowers have already promised them such conditions. However, if we agree to their demands, then they will choose to help our side instead.”
Shi Feng’s act of devastating the Outerworld’s player army with a single attack had indeed caused a huge sensation in God’s Domain. It had also prompted most of the superpowers targeting Zero Wing to abandon their ambitions. Many of the Twin Towers Kingdom’s and Star-Moon Kingdom’s independent experts had even returned to help in the two kingdoms’ defense. Most importantly, the number of players seeking to join Zero Wing had also skyrocketed.
Unfortunately, all these changes still weren’t enough to persuade the unengaged player forces to help Zero Wing. This was because the Outerworld’s NPC army was more formidable than the Outerworld’s player army. There were multiple Tier 5 NPCs in the NPC army, and the upcoming battlefield would span a significant portion of the Twin Towers Kingdom’s border. All sorts of siege battles and guerilla warfare would take place, and there was no way Shi Feng could be present for every one of these fights.
Moreover, the NPC army on the Twin Towers Kingdom and Star-Moon Kingdom’s side was significantly weaker than the Outerworld’s NPC army. Because of Mythology and Solar Temple’s interference, the neighboring kingdoms uninvolved in the war didn’t send their armies to reinforce the Twin Towers Kingdom and Star-Moon Kingdom but to other kingdoms and empires. Hence, the NPC army defending the Twin Towers Kingdom consisted of the NPCs of only the two kingdoms.
Although the Outerworld’s NPC army had split up into several dozen smaller groups and the detachment marching toward the Twin Towers Kingdom didn’t have player support, this detachment could still put the two kingdoms’ joint army through hell.
Hence, a large number of players was needed to fight the Outerworld’s NPCs. And realizing this fact, the neighboring kingdoms’ first-rate Guilds naturally wouldn’t miss the opportunity to get a cut of Zero Wing’s resources.
“Good! Very good!” Shi Feng smiled when he heard Fang Shihan’s words. “Tell those first-rate Guilds that they can come if they want. But if they don’t, then they can forget about coming to us in the future!”
“This…” Shi Feng’s reply rendered Fang Shihan momentarily speechless.
If she relayed Shi Feng’s words to those five first-rate Guilds, it would be no different from severing all ties between Zero Wing and these first-rate Guilds. Meanwhile, the War of Worlds wouldn’t end in just one day. As both sides continuously grew stronger and more numerous, it would end up a war of attrition between God’s Domain and the Outerworld.
If Zero Wing rejected the help of these Guilds now, it would have much more difficulty finding helpers in the future. After all, battles were taking place all over the eastern continent, and everywhere was lacking in manpower.
It was also why the superpowers tolerated the various first- and second-rate Guilds’ absurd demands. Otherwise, the superpowers would’ve long since dealt with these large Guilds.
Shi Feng naturally understood what Fang Shihan was trying to say. He waved the two designs in his hand and smiled, saying, “Look what I have here.”
