1029 Mythic Monster

Chapter 1029 - Mythic Monster

Upon hearing Shi Feng saying so, Blackie had no choice but to give up on taking a look at the monster town.

After all, Zero Wing was truly very busy right now. The Guild's expansion had driven home to Blackie its dire manpower shortage.

Setting aside the ongoing war with Blackwater and Heaven's Burial, just Stone Forest Town itself required a lot of people to manage it.

In the past, as he had not been responsible for managing Stone Forest Town, he had not thought that the job was particularly difficult. Recently, however, Shi Feng had handed him some of the responsibility for the town, which finally made him realize how wrong he was.

While the town had still been in its protection period, the task of maintaining the town's security could be left fully to the NPC guards to handle. After the protection period was over, however, problems started cropping up one after another.

The first headache was the matter of patrolling the town, a daily task in player towns. Zero Wing needed to arrange for some players to patrol Stone Forest Town and maintain its security. However, this need was not because of players but NPCs.

Ever since Stone Forest Town's protection period ended, a constant flow of NPC visitors from other towns had started trickling in. Among them included merchants, adventurers, and various other kinds of NPCs. This situation triggered the true development of the town's economy, which was the root of the second headache.

A town's promotion relied mainly on its economy and degree of prosperity. Meanwhile, these two factors depended on the number of resident players and NPCs. In terms of players, Stone Forest Town had long since exceeded the target requirement and was already qualified for promotion to a medium-sized town. In terms of NPCs, however, Stone Forest Town was not even close to reaching the required number of 10,000 NPCs. Moreover, this number did not include the NPC guards brought over or hired by the Guild.

Meanwhile, the town's security was critical to attracting more NPCs to a town.

Hence, Guilds needed to dispatch players every day to maintain the security within their town and inspect the NPCs in town to prevent the spies of dark forces from creating local mischief.

In addition, Guilds had to dispatch a lot of members to maintain the security of the trade routes between towns, which faced threats from players, as well as from hostile NPCs and monsters.

If the security of a town's trade routes was not maintained, then merchant NPCs would not dare to visit said town to develop at all.

Hence, managing a town was not as easy as Blackie had imagined it to be. Fortunately, these security tasks were considered Guild Quests, which also provided relatively good rewards, so quite a number of Guild members were fighting over these quests every day. Only, these quests were a little costly to the Guild. While the system supplied the EXP rewards these quests provided, the monetary rewards came from the Guild itself.

Moreover, the longer the trade route that needed coverage, the more players that had to be dispatched, which would, in turn, raise the expenditures.

Just a single day's maintenance fees already cost the Guild 300 Gold. Moreover, this was only the beginning. As the protection period of the town had just recently ended, there was only a single trade route leading to Stone Forest Town right now. Once the number of trade routes increased, the Guild's expenditures would rise significantly.

"Guild Leader, is it true that we really won't have to patrol any trade route near the town after we construct this Magic Tower?" Blackie asked curiously as he looked at Shi Feng, who was continuously manipulating magical runes at the moment.

"Of course. Otherwise, why would I pay such a huge price to build this tower?" Shi Feng rolled his eyes at Blackie.

The Magic Tower was the mainstream defensive building used in the later stages of God's Domain. Just the cost of construction already exceeded 7,000 Gold. If one included the many materials wasted due to production errors, the total cost could exceed 10,000 Gold. Reducing wastage was also the reason why Guilds would usually have Master Lifestyle players construct the Magic Tower.

With the rarity of the design for the Magic Tower and the sheer expense of actually constructing one, if the Magic Tower only had great destructive power, it would never have become the mainstream defensive building of God's Domain. The key point that made the Magic Tower valuable was its defensive range. The tower had a detection range of 10,000 yards.

Hence, after constructing a Magic Tower in the town, there would be no need to worry about hostile NPCs intruding upon the trade routes within 10,000 yards of the tower, as these NPCs would know that they would be discovered very quickly. The construction of a second Magic Tower would extend the defensive range of the towers by an additional 5,000 yards. This range was extendable to a maximum of 30,000 yards. In other words, the Magic Towers would reach maximum efficiency when there were five of them in a town or city.

However, Stone Forest Town was not a commercial town. It would not have many trade routes that needed guarding. Hence, having a single Magic Tower was sufficient. Any more would just be a waste of resources. After all, its construction design was available in limited quantities. If he weren't limited by the designs, though, Shi Feng would not mind building a few more towers and turning Stone Forest Town into an iron fortress.

The current Stone Forest Town was no longer the same as it was in the past when the majority of its residents were Guild players. On the contrary, independent players currently outnumbered the Guild players within the town. This was because the various large Guilds had all shifted their focus to the Undead Gorge, as not only was the map there massive, but the monsters there were available in greater numbers as well. Whether one was trying to grind for levels or Magic Crystals, the Undead Gorge was an excellent choice. Most importantly, Guilds wouldn't have to submit to Zero Wing's exploitation by grinding at the Undead Gorge.

If they grinded at the Stoneclaw Mountains, they would have to contribute a significant share of the Magic Crystals they earned to the repair fees and accommodation fees at Stone Forest Town. However, there would be no need to do so if they grinded at the Undead Gorge. Although it took more time to travel to the Undead Gorge, as Mounts became more commonplace, going from the nearest NPC town to the Undead Gorge would get whittled down to only around two hours. Hence, the various large Guilds had placed all their focus on the Undead Gorge.

However, independent players were different. Firstly, their levels were not comparable to those of elite members of Guilds. Secondly, they would suffer at the hands of the Guilds grinding at the Undead Gorge. Hence, the Stoneclaw Mountains had become the best option for them.

Currently, if one looked at the streets of Stone Forest Town, one would find that nearly 70% of the players there were independent players. The town was even more prosperous than it was in the past.

…

During the time Shi Feng was completing the runes for the Magic Tower, news regarding the various large Guilds' crusade against the monster town had spread all over the official forums.

A Level 60 Mythic monster had actually appeared in Black Ridge Town! All Guilds participating in the crusade were defeated!

"What? Aren't Mythic monsters Tier 4 monsters?"

"If only you had seen how powerful that monster was for yourself! With just a single move, it instantly annihilated over 10,000 of the players that had gone to recapture the town. Nobody could defend against that monster's attack. Even magic barriers were useless against it."

"That's only the tip of the iceberg. I've heard that the monsters in that town all possess extremely high combat standards. Even ordinary players might not be able to defeat the Common monsters there in a one-on-one. Most importantly, I've heard that players killed by those monsters aren't able to log into God's Domain for some time. Moreover, those monsters would also grow in strength after killing players."

"How are we supposed to recapture that town, then? The more people that go there, the stronger those monsters become. Plus, there's even a Tier 4 Boss guarding the town—that's as strong as the strongest NPCs in major NPC cities. Who could possibly do anything about those monsters?"

"I've heard that the monsters inside the town have already begun spreading out into the surroundings. They aren't just staying in Black Ridge Town. They've even ambushed many players grinding in that map. Now, no player dares to approach that map anymore."

"It's no wonder the system is offering such generous rewards. The difficulty of this quest is simply ridiculous. Luckily, I didn't go there."

"Do you think those monsters will continue taking over the nearby towns?"

"That might actually be possible."

"I think Stone Forest Town is in one of the maps closest to Black Ridge Town. If those monsters head over to Stone Forest Town, we'll have an interesting show to watch."

…

Many players were merrily discussing the monster town on the forums. At the same time, the various large Guilds also suddenly realized that something joyous was going to happen. If those monsters really continued extending their reach into the vicinity, it was only a matter of time before Stone Forest Town encountered trouble.