The Lord’s Empire

A few hours later, Zhao Fu arrived at Nankou City in the private jet. There was then a private car to take Zhao Fu and the others to a high-class district.

The high-class district that Zhao Fu was taken to was one of the Ying family’s assets. Not only was the scenery around it quite good, but the security was also quite high as well. There were a couple thousand people living here, and all of them had the Ying family’s bloodline. Of course, these people were not from the main branch of the Ying family – those who were from the main branch lived in an even better place.

Here, Zhao Fu met his maternal grandparents. After they hugged him and cried for a while, they asked him why he hadn’t returned to live with them.

Zhao Fu was grateful that he was able to see his maternal grandparents. As for why he hadn’t returned to live with them, it was because he didn’t want to be a burden to anyone. They were getting to be quite old, and Zhao Fu was unfamiliar with his other relatives on that side of the family. His maternal relatives were quite cold towards him, so he was not very interested in staying in contact with them.

Afterwards, Zhao Fu was given his own house. It was about 100 square meters in area and luxuriously decorated. There were all sorts of electronic appliances, and it was clear just how wealthy the Ying family was.

After turning on his brand-new computer, Zhao Fu went onto the Heaven Awaken World forum out of habit to see if there was any news. Right now, the other powers were developing slowly because creating a massive enterprise was something that took many months and years and could not be done in an instant.

Because the regions were all separated, many of the powerful families were fragmented and separated into different places. As such, they established guilds to recruit normal people. Of course, these normal people could not be disciplined and controlled like in the military because who would want to do such a thing after living in comfort in the real world?

Moreover, after players died, the penalties were incredibly onerous. Players lost all of their levels and equipment upon death, and they would not be able to enter the Heaven Awaken World for 10 days. Those who were not Lords would also randomly spawn in another place. Essentially, the players that guilds recruited were not very reliable and very few became elites that were nurtured by the large families.

Apart from the large and powerful families, there were also ordinary people who were doing quite well. After all, it was not just the large families that had great ambitions – chaotic times often produced heroes, and every person, regardless of birth, could become someone great. Even ordinary people who were not from large families were able to rise above the masses.

“Gu Jun led hundreds of players to take down a mountain stronghold with 1,000 people!”

“Liu Xiuming took hundreds of people to destroy 3 Outlander Villages!”

“Jiang Changshui received the recognition of a village and became the Village Chief of Sanjiang Village, obtaining 600 villagers!”

After looking through these threads, Zhao Fu once again returned to the Heaven Awaken World. Compared to the real world, Zhao Fu felt a greater sense of belonging in the Heaven Awaken World.

After returning to the Heaven Awaken World and thinking about everything he had read on the forum, Zhao Fu felt a sense of pressure. He realized he could not be careless and started to carry out a census.

Right now, the Great Qin Village had 1,340 people, and there were 4 other Human Villages, 3 Goblin Villages, and 1 Gnome Village.

After these few days, those villages had gradually recovered. The 4 other Human Villages collectively had 524 people, the 3 Goblin Villages had 410 Goblins, and the Gnome Village had 189 Gnomes.

Zhao Fu went to the different villages and chose some more people to become Great Qin Soldiers. Now, there were 930 Great Qin soldiers, 150 Goblin soldiers, and 100 Gnome soldiers for a total of 1,180 soldiers.

However, Outlanders could also change their professions into Great Qin Soldier. There was no limit to how many Great Qin Soldiers there could be, nor were there any race requirements. It was just that each village had a military limit, and any additional soldier would not receive that village’s stats.

As such, all 1,180 soldiers were Great Qin Soldiers, and they received the stat bonuses from their professions. 35 of them were responsible for exploring the passages, 245 were responsible for protecting the village, and Zhao Fu led the other 900.

Zhao Fu led these 900 Soldiers and explored the region outside of the surrounding 20-kilometer radius. Things were much more convenient now with horses, but only a minority of them knew how to ride. As such, most of the soldiers still walked – after all, there were only 200 Cavalrymen.

Right now, Zhao Fu was riding Little Black, the Black Forest Horse King, at the front of the army while Little Grey walked beside them and sniffed around.

Suddenly, Little Grey discovered something. It howled before running forwards, and Zhao Fu followed behind it on Little Black.

After a while, they discovered an Intermediate Village on a plain. It was an Outlander Village, and the beings that lived there had the head of a dog and the body of a human, looking quite like Kobolds.

It was a Kobold Village and had roughly 1,000 Kobolds. There were 700 Kobold soldiers and the remaining 300 were all elderly, women, or children.

The Kobold soldiers either held sabers or spears. Zhao Fu did not dare to get too close to observe because it was possible that their noses would be as sensitive as a normal dog’s.

1,000 Kobolds was quite a large force. If there were only 500 or 600 Kobolds, they could wait until night time to ambush the village.

“What should we do?”

Zhao Fu suddenly thought of something and looked over at Little Grey. Little Grey, who had completed its task and was lying down to rest, suddenly felt a chill and turned to see Zhao Fu looking at it with an evil look. Immediately, Little Grey felt like running away.

This time, Zhao Fu didn’t have to do anything. Little Black bit Little Grey’s tail as revenge for the bullying from before. How could it give up a chance to take revenge?

Little Grey turned around and howled to tell Little Black to let go. Little Grey knew from his shameless owner’s look that he was having wicked thoughts.

Little Black also whinnied as it held on and seemed to smile as it revealed its white teeth. It seemed to be saying, “ _Heheh, the one who’s going to suffer is you, not me; I’m just being a good and obedient boy!”_

Little Grey was incredibly furious and turned to bite Little Black, that shameless horse. However, Little Black held on and constantly dodged.

Zhao Fu couldn’t help but lightly laugh and said, “Alright, you can both stop!”

In actuality, Zhao Fu didn’t want to make Little Grey do anything like last time. Rather, it was because he remembered how much of an advantage Little Grey’s sensitive nose was!

However, an advantage could be turned into a disadvantage if abused. The Kobolds most likely had sensitive noses too, so Zhao Fu thought about how to make use of this. Zhao Fu took his soldiers back to the Great Qin Village so that they wouldn’t inadvertently alert the Kobold Village.

After returning to the Great Qin Village, Zhao Fu gave the order for everyone to work on one thing: to collect chilis and then dry them over a stove before crushing them into powder. Zhao Fu and his soldiers prepared a few hundred kilograms of chili powder before confidently going back to the Kobold Village.