Chapter 323- Five Finger Mountain
Translator: TeamTWO
Editor: Jun
As the 1st Sun slowly rose, the bright glow signified the start of a new day.
During the night, there were constantly sounds of desolate beasts roaring in the island, making one’s hair stand. Ouyang Shuo had barely had any rest in last night and woke up really early.
He walked out of the cabin and went up onto the 1st layer of the boat, looking towards the distance.
Using the morning glow, the beauty and brilliance of Yazhou was exemplified.
The coast of Yazhou was the famous golden coast; what covered the entire beach area was a natural salt pan. Undeniably, sea salt would become the main economic avenues of Yazhou Territory in the future.
Northern Salt Fields couldn’t even be compared to the Yazhou Shore.
Across the golden coast was the endless plains, wild grass proliferated. The Ningyuan river was like a huge dragon as it swerved left and right on the plains.
The fertile soil of the Yazhou Plains and the presence of saltwater made this a good place for agriculture.
Qiongzhou Island, which was located on the tropical region, had enough water and sunlight and was the most suitable to grow rice. Other plants like sugarcane, potatoes and corn were also very suited for this climate.
Apart from that, rubber and coconut which were common in tropical regions also had a bright future. Especially rubber, which was a highly important aspect in Ouyang Shuo’s strategic plans.
Looking across the plains, there was the Five Finger Mountain.
The Five Finger Mountain was the tallest mountain range in Qiongzhou Island. It was located in the middle of the island and got its name due to there being 5 peaks which made it look like five fingers. The area was covered by tropical rainforests and there were layers upon layers of them.
The Five Finger Mountain wasn’t the mountain range that Sun Wukong was crushed by in the Journey to the West, but there were other legends in which players had triggered special quests in the last life.
Ouyang Shuo remembered that player was called Wu Mingzhi whose occupation was a chivalrous expert, and he was also a solo player who liked to explore.
One time, he suddenly had an idea to rent a big boat in Quanzhou and float out in the ocean towards Qiongzhou. After thousands of near-death situations, he finally reached the Five Finger Mountain.
The tragedy was that Wu Mingzhi got lost.
Luckily for him, he probably sowed good karma. Just as he had lost his way, he had unintentionally walked into the house of one of the indigenous people.
Coincidentally at this moment, a bunch of pirates raided.
Wu Mingzhi didn’t hesitate and used his strong martial arts to chase them away. After they left, to thank Wu Mingzhi for saving their life, the family gave him a sword.
Originally, Wu Mingzhi didn’t care much about the reward. After all, they were just a normal family in the mountains, what treasure could they have? He didn’t expect for that sword to actually be a god weapon.
Wu Mingzhi then realized that he had stumbled across an adventure quest.
The adventure quests that Gaia set didn’t have any system notifications when the player triggered it. The choice was totally up to the player. If Wu Mingzhi had chosen to leave, he would have no affinity with the quest.
After he left, he shared his experience on the forums. However to protect that family from being hounded by other players, he didn’t reveal their exact location.
Who knows, maybe Wu Mingzhi who was lost didn’t even know where he was at.
After leaving the Five Finger Mountain, Wu Mingzhi relied on that god weapon and became one of the experts amongst adventure gamemode players. He made a name for himself in the underworld and was envied by many.
In this life, who knew who would become that lucky person?
As Wu Mingzhi didn’t reveal the exact mission location, for Ouyang Shuo to find that family in the vast mountains was like finding a needle in a haystack. Needless to say, he had to conveniently face a water bandit’s attack. If not, he wouldn’t be able to trigger the adventure quest.
Everything coming together was actually what the luck stat was for.
With Ouyang Shuo’s luck, he pretty much didn’t have any hope of that happening. However, Ouyang Shuo could send Song Jia in and try, although her luck wasn’t as high as Bing’er’s, she was at 18 points.
Apart from the legend, the Five Finger Mountain was a treasure vault with many natural resources.
In the Five Finger Mountain, there were 1400 plant types, 150 types of high class wood, over 1000 medicinal herbs and 100 odd famous Five Finger Mountain flowers.
The mountains were a good place for spirits, and they nurtured many rare spirit beasts and desolate beasts. Amongst which was a spirit butterfly known as the golden spotted butterfly. It was very famous in the last life and highly adored by female players.
The golden spotted butterfly was not only beautiful, but it was also good at medicinal arts and illusions, making it the ideal pet for adventure mode players.
Conquering the Five Finger Mountain was one of Ouyang Shuo’s goals for this trip.
In the last life, Ouyang Shuo remembered that Feng Qiuhuang had spent 100 thousand gold to buy one golden spotted butterfly, which became one of her representative icons, leading the craze for female players and pets.
Because of the presence of the golden spotted butterfly, the Five Finger Mountain became one of the training hot spots for adventure gamemode players in the last life. Large numbers of adventure gamemode players teleported to Qiongzhou Island and ventured deep into the mountains.
They hoped to be able to catch on golden spotted butterfly and become rich overnight.
Even if they didn’t manage to, the Five Finger Mountain was also an ideal leveling spot. There were many high level desolate beasts, even some bosses which made it suitable for leveling up.
Of course, those weak players wouldn’t think about it as they were too noob to gain anything.
Ouyang Shuo remembered that in the last life there was a player territory near to the Five Finger Mountain which earned tens of thousands of gold solely on teleportation costs.
Needless to say, the huge numbers of adventure gamemode players spending in the territory also helped its economy to develop.
Such a huge treasure trove, Ouyang Shuo naturally wouldn’t give it up. At most he could build a subsidiary territory at the outskirts of the mountain to be used to welcome the adventure gamemode players.
As for how to promote it, Ouyang Shuo already had an idea.
The northern and eastern sides of the Yazhou Plains were basically circled by the Five Finger Mountain range. To the west was a vast grassland which one couldn’t see the end of, so it would also be the main development direction of the territory.
Such a vast and fertile soil, wasn’t it the best place to develop agriculture?
The south of the plains was the end of the Five Finger Mountain range and was another famous mountain on the island, the South Mountain.
It was the mountain located in the southmost portion of the China region, and was termed as the land of prosperity. There was a phrase in China: prosperity like the East Sea and longevity like the South Mountain. The mountain referred to this mountain.
The South Mountain was also the place where Buddhist Dharma was spread out from. Legends had it that Guanyin Pusa and Tang Sen had all stepped foot on the South Mountain and spread around Buddhism.
In the last life, as the Tang Dynasty joined into the game progression, the South Mountain temple appeared on the mountain. The god that the temple worshipped was Guanyin Pusa,
Ouyang Shuo couldn’t predict how the future South Mountain Temple would affect the Mazu Temple as after all based on legends, Mazu was inspired by Guanyin Pusa.
Apart from that, South Mountain also had a small paradise. It was one of the few in the China region which was one of the mysterious regions that players could repeatedly explore.
In the last life, the South Mountain paradise was unintentionally found by an adventure gamemode player in the 4th year of gaia. Now that Ouyang Shuo had arrived on Yazhou, naturally he wouldn’t miss out the chance to explore it.
The future South Mountain Paradise, apart from the Five Finger Mountain, would be another hotspot for adventure gamemode players.
All in all, Yazhou was a treasure island.
The prerequisite would be that Ouyang Shuo needed to have a firm footing on the island.
The engagement last night had displayed the dangers and cruelty of Yazhou. To be able to be stable in Yazhou, even though Ouyang Shuo had made a lot of preparations, it still wasn’t easy.
What was in front of him were two choices. One was to enter the plains to find a suitable village building spot. The other was to temporarily stay by the ocean and build a port.
Both had its pros and cons.
If it was to build the village, they could immediately set up the teleportation formation to obtain reinforcements; there would also be new refugees, which meant their army would only get stronger.
The weakness would be that they currently had nothing. If they went too deep, they might be attacked by beasts and indigenous people.
With the strength of the Guards regiment and the Beihai Naval fleet, if there were too many enemies, not only would there be heavy casualties, they might even be overwhelmed.
The current situation in the Lianzhou Basin didn’t allow Ouyang Shuo to move large amounts of troops. After all, Lianzhou Prefecture was the root of the territory, and they couldn’t lose it.
As for building the port, the strengths and weaknesses were very apparent.
The strength would be that they would be safe. From the observation yesterday, Ouyang Shuo found that be it desolate beasts or indigenous people, they basically wouldn’t come out from the bushes. So the chances of them being attacked would be very small.
The weakness would be the low efficiency. Building a port wasn’t done in a day. Before it was finished, a large portion of the people would be useless and have nothing to do.
Apart from that, grain was a huge problem. They only brought limited grain, and without using the super trading platform or getting any supplies from Shanhai City, they could only last for half a month.
Half a month wasn’t enough to complete a large port.
Firstly, they had limited workers, and secondly, the wood and stone resources were limited. Ouyang Shuo predicted that with their current circumstances, they needed at least 2 months before barely completing it.
Ouyang Shuo was in a terrible situation.
