44 Ice Strengthening

After looking at the Star Slashing Sword’s new stats, Zhao Fu was quite shocked. The Strengthening Stone increased each of the three stats by two points and added bonus Ice damage. What’s more, it brought the Star Slashing Sword back to its original grade.

Strengthening Stones had excellent effects, but they were quite rare. It reminded Zhao Fu of the Soldier Souls, which also strengthened equipment. He did not know what sorts of effects they had, and just thinking about it made Zhao Fu quite excited.

However, after remembering that General Armaments required 100 Soldier Souls, Zhao Fu could only forget about it for now. If Soldier Souls had similar effects to Strengthening Stones, then 100 Soldier Souls combined together would have monstrous effects. Even though it seemed quite far away, Zhao Fu was greatly looking forwards to having a General Armament someday.

Right now, Li Wen was exploring the passages with some other soldiers and had collected 47 Soldier Souls over the past few days, so the day that Zhao Fu would obtain a General Armament was quickly approaching.

After giving the Star Slashing Sword back to Bai Qi, Bai Qi looked at its new stats and felt quite ecstatic.

The Iceborn Tiger’s body had all sorts of valuable materials, so Zhao Fu ordered his soldiers to take care of its corpse. After all, most of these materials could be used to create Silver grade equipment. By looking at the position of the sun, Zhao Fu was able to determine that it was lunch time, so he decided that it would be best to eat the Iceborn Tiger’s meat.

They rested and prepared the Iceborn Tiger’s meat by splitting it into chunks and roasting it. Zhao Fu ate a piece of the meat and felt that it was quite tasty and chewy, and he even obtained a system announcement telling him that he had received +1% Ice Resistance.

Who would have thought that the meat would be so good? It was a pity that there was only enough of it for 100 or so people, so many people couldn’t taste it.

Afterwards, they continued exploring. After eating a few pieces of the Iceborn Tiger’s meat, Little Grey worked harder and led the way as it sniffed around. Little Black liked to eat grass, so it was not given any of the Iceborn Tiger’s meat, making it feel slightly unhappy. However, after being appeased by a Little Spirit Pill, its mood became better and it lightly walked behind Little Grey.

“Awoo…”

Little Grey seemed to smell something and howled before running and stopping near a Gnome Village.

The village was a Primary Village and only had 300 or so Gnomes. There were 2 types of military units: Gnome Crossbowmen and Gnome Warriors, who used scimitars. The Gnome Warriors had fairly weak fighting power, and they were much weaker than the Goblin Warriors.

Zhao Fu didn’t bother with special tactics when facing the 300 Gnomes. He now had 1,400 soldiers, and they could completely suppress the other side. As such, he took his soldiers and tightly surrounded the Gnome Village before telling his Gnomes to ask the Gnome Village to surrender.

What surprised Zhao Fu was that the Gnome Village wasn’t willing to surrender and wanted to fight to the death despite seeing Zhao Fu’s numbers. Zhao Fu was not in a hurry, and he prioritized gaining as many villagers as possible. As such, he ordered his soldiers to cut down trees and to build a simple barrier around the Gnome Village like they were creating a dumpling.

When the Gnomes saw that Zhao Fu was building a barrier outside, they understood what Zhao Fu was doing and started to panic. There seemed to be quite a lot of chaos and dissension as a result.

Zhao Fu observed everything in the village and understood that the Gnome Village had split into factions. One faction wanted to surrender because it understood that it was impossible to fight against Zhao Fu’s forces. Moreover, they saw that there were many Gnomes in Zhao Fu’s army, making it unlikely that they would be killed after surrendering, so they wisely wanted to surrender.

However, the other side was stubborn and refused to surrender because those Gnomes wanted to die with the village.

At this moment, Zhao Fu gave another order. He told the Archers to light up fire arrows. By now, the Gnomes knew that they would be burnt to death if they didn’t make a decision.

A large group of Gnomes walked out from the village and knelt on the ground, indicating their surrender.

Zhao Fu nodded to show that he accepted and looked at the 50 or so Gnomes who were still in the village that refused to surrender. Zhao Fu changed his mind and ordered the Archers to aim for the Gnomes who refused to surrender instead of the buildings.

Of course, Zhao Fu would not kill all of them – he just wanted to send a warning that he would not act softly against their stubbornness. He didn’t believe that those Gnomes truly did not fear death and wanted to die with their village.

“Fire!”

Zhao Fu gave the order and the arrows flew towards the Gnomes. The Gnomes desperately fought back by shooting with their crossbows, but the crossbow bolts were completely blocked by the Shieldbearers. Zhao Fu’s Archers’ arrows contained immense strength, and they instantly pierced 10 or so of the Gnomes.

After seeing those that they had just been speaking to suddenly shot to death, the aura of death quickly spread around the other Gnomes. Facing true death, the remaining Gnomes became terrified, and when Zhao Fu was about to order the second wave of Archers to fire, the remaining Gnomes cried as they ran out of the village and knelt on the ground, choosing to surrender.

Zhao Fu accepted their surrender – this time, he had gained 301 Gnomes. Following this, Zhao Fu went to the Barracks and had a look at the Profession Change Stone Stele for Gnome Warriors.

[Gnome Warrior]: F grade Military. Description: Warriors among Gnomes. Effect: Receives [Scimitar Control].

It was an ordinary trash profession, and Zhao Fu did not take much interest in it. He went to the Village Hall and chose to conquer and [Relocate] the Village, earning him 50 Achievement Points and the Great Qin Village 169 EXP.

After conquering this Village, Zhao Fu wanted to take everyone back to the Great Qin Village. However, they soon found a bandit village

The bandit village had roughly 400 bandits, and after the bandit leader left the village to hunt, Zhao Fu took advantage of the situation by attacking the village. After receiving a notification that the village was under attack, the bandit leader hurried back, but he was ambushed and killed by the soldiers that Zhao Fu had waiting for him.

This time, Zhao Fu obtained 340 bandits, all of whom he placed in the army. However, because of a thread he had read on the forum, he decided to closely monitor them.

Most of the villagers that spawned in bandit villages were men, and all of them had decent fighting strength, as opposed to ordinary villages which also spawned elderly, women, and children.

Someone had wanted to use bandit villages to quickly spawn men for his or her army, so the person took over two bandit villages. He or she did not turn the bandit villages into ordinary villages afterwards, allowing the bandit villages to continue spawning bandits. However, once more than half of the person’s army comprised of bandits, they immediately rebelled.

Even though ordinary villages would spawn all sorts of villagers, they would be absolutely loyal to their Lord. As long as one did not oppress them or force them into dire straits, they would always remain loyal. However, bandits were different. If one did not manage them rigorously and keep their collective Loyalty above 60, it was possible for them to rebel. If someone had more bandits than loyal soldiers, it would be extremely dangerous.