About seven or eight magic knights walked down the snowy slope behind us, their boots crunching softly against the snow as they made their way toward us. Eyes narrowed, Red Ovenbird asked me, "Are you sure you have enough bagspace to carry all 1200+ Treasure Boxes of Refined Minerals, friend? We can wait if you need to make multiple trips to transport everything."

I shook my head while replying, "There’s no need. Just trade it all to me in one go!"

Of course I wasn’t going to make the round trip. What would be the point of having the 1000 bag slots from my Nine Heavens Li Fire Bracelet if I was just going to waste them? I accepted the treasure boxes. I wanted to use these resources to create Dragonlight Cavalry and Dragonlight Archers in scale exclusive to Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls only. Red Ovenbird wanted to create an ideal environment to attack the Northern Alliance cities.

Hot and Sour Noodles and I were well aware that the three main cities of China were situated at the center of the continent. Surrounded by enemies from all sides, it was hardly an ideal location to start a war. That was why we needed to avoid fighting on all fronts at all costs. If we do that, we might as well surrender Sky City, Wind City and Vanished God City to our enemies already. That was why we were capitalizing on this opportunity right now, sowing dissension and provoking servers and countries into warring against one another. Every time the Chaotic 27 took military action against the Northern Alliance, the pressure on our shoulders would lessen considerably.

Recently, the cities to the east of the Center—India’s Cyan Earth City and Elephant City, Japan’s Purple Grape City—were showing signs of restlessness. They could breach through White Rose Fortress, march into the heart of our lands and threaten Sky City directly at any moment. In fact, I heard that the two countries had already formed an alliance with each other, and were plotting to divide Sky City among themselves.

The WEL tournament wasn’t over yet, but I dared not let down my guard in the slightest. Dark Moon City, our brothers and sisters, our dreams, and everything we treasured were all in Sky City. I would never allow Sky City to be lost to the wolves.

……

After accepting all 1250 Treasure Boxes of Refined Minerals and agreeing verbally with Red Ovenbird again that we wouldn’t attack them while they warred against Hero City, I returned to Dark Moon City and transferred 400k RMB to Hot and Sour Noodles’ bank account immediately. Owing someone money was never the best kind of practice.

Swhoosh!

I strode straight to the territory hall after returning to Dark Moon City. On the way, I saw countless mounted players and archers wearing expectant looks and waiting for their turn to use Duplicate Mount and Mounted Archery Training.

Chaos Moon was frowning next to the altar when she saw me. She complained, "We have at least 2000 seventh-promotion riders and 1000 seventh-promotion archers ready to go, but we’ve already run out of resources. Worse, it takes an entire hour just to produce 100k of each resource type naturally. What a scam!"

I smiled. "No worries. For tonight at least, we have the resources to train another one hundred seventh-promotion Dragonlight Cavalrymen!"

"Oh?" Chaos Moon tilted her head at me with a smile. "That’s a bold statement. Even Sister Eve has gone away to gather Resource Bags. Did you score something big?"

"Yep!"

I checked the resource screen and noted that all four types of resources were almost empty. So, I dumped 1000 Treasure Boxes of Refined Minerals into the guild warehouse until it was completely full. Chaos Moon’s goggled at me as she muttered, "Fuck! What the hell did you do? How on earth did you obtain so many resources? Did you sell your body or something?"

I simply grinned at her and said, "It’s nothing. Anyway, let’s resume Mounted Archery Training and try to hit its cap first!"

"Right away!"

I checked my level. I was currently Level 187, and I had no plans to grind when the WEL internationals were just a few days away. This also meant that I could devote all my energy to creating our invincible army. Standing inside the territory hall, I called Luo River God of the Capital, Stranger of Three Lifetimes, Wei-Jin North-South Dynasties, Indigo Collar and more and begged them to give us some resources.

It didn’t take long to unload all 1200+ Treasure Boxes of Refined Minerals into the guild warehouse, and by then He Yi, Beiming Xue, Li Chengfeng, Gui Guzi and more had returned from their shopping trip as well. In just one day, we had "plundered" almost every Resource Bag that was available in Sky City. Even Stranger of Three Lifetimes had messaged me a complaint saying, "What the fuck, what do you need all these Resource Bags for, Lu Chen? We were going to buy some Resource Bags ourselves and get our castle to Rank 8, but you’ve taken literally everything! Everything! What the fuck are we going to do now!?"

My only reply was, "Can you stop bothering us, Third Wheel? We’re having a good time here…"

Stranger of Three Lifetimes: "..."

……

We worked like a dog until the hand of the clock passed 11 pm. In the end, we decided to call it a day and let our territory grow its resources naturally. We dispatched over a hundred trustworthy players to the plazas of all three main cities to purchase more Resource Bags at a suitable price. I even added an option to sell Resource Bags in my shop. The entire guild, from top to bottom, was working together toward our goal right now. It had never been this united and full of energy until now.

Sitting at the city lord’s throne and scratching the bottom of my Divine Martial War Boots against the back of a stone-carved dragon, I asked, "How many units do we have now? What is our result of the day?"

Chaos Moon blinked once before answering, "It’s not bad. We created a total of 490 Dragonlight Archers and 1145 Dragonlight Cavalrymen. Our speed is definitely going to fall off in the coming days though. We’ve practically taken every Resource Bag there was in all three cities."

I nodded. "Not bad indeed. It still isn’t enough though. We need at least 10000 Dragonlight Cavalrymen to form a big enough horse charge that can truly strike fear into the hearts of our enemies. We also need 5000 Dragonlight Archers at least to ensure that our Skypiercers can one-shot absolutely anything with concentrated fire."

"I know, but there’s only so much resources you can get…" Chaos Moon stuck out her tongue playfully before smiling. "Duplicate Mount and Mounted Archery Training are extremely overpowered skills, but the cost to use them is equally ridiculous. Dark Moon City had over 50 million gold in reserve before this, and now we are 27 million gold short! I can’t believe you and Sister Eve aren’t sore about the expenditure at all!"

I smiled. "What do you mean? My heart aches so much that I doubt that I’m going to sleep well tonight. Every single gold we spend will be worth it, however. We need this invincible, indomitable army of cavalry and mounted archers because our war situation is far more perilous than you think. Without this army, I suspect China will suffer major losses in the upcoming wars—we can even lose our three main cities in the worst-case scenario."

Chaos Moon’s eyes widened in shock. "Really? Is that really possible even with our current defenses?"

I nodded gravely. "Nothing is impossible in this world."

Suddenly, an idea entered my mind. "Say, it’s true that we’ve bought out almost every Resource Bag that exists in the three main cities, but… it’s not like we can’t buy them from other countries, right? Gold is the universal currency of Heavenblessed. Surely they’ll trade us their Resource Bags for gold, right?"

Chaos Moon mulled over it for a moment before replying, "I think it can work. Why don’t you discuss this with Eve? I have a high school classmate who’s studying in Russia right now. He’s also the guild leader of a small guild in the Russia server. I can ask him to purchase Resource Bags and trade them to us in secret later!"

I broke into a grin and made the decision there and then. "Eve will agree with me on this, so please contact your friend right away. As usual, Dark Moon City will pay all the expenditures that are incurred during the trade. Also, take down all the usual rewards that can be traded via contribution points temporarily. All gold we have must be spent on resources right now. I’ll even transfer twenty million gold from Air Force One to the guild for this purpose. Let’s try and create as many cavalry as we can. Oh, also, tell our members that they shouldn’t slack off on grinding just because of this. I want to see 10000 Level 180 seventh-promotion players before the WEL internationals begin!"

"I got it!" Chaos Moon giggled. ‘There are still six days before the WEL, and six days are definitely enough for the Level 177+ players to reach Level 180. Just watch, by the time you guys travel to Los Angeles to participate in the WEL internationals, we will have 20000 seventh-promotion riders and 5000 seventh-promotion archers at least. If there’s one thing I’m not worried about in our guild, it’s our grinding speed!"

I spoke to the Dark Knight Hero Udal for a bit before sharing the control over the guild warehouse to Chaos Moon. Then I said, "Feel free to use our gold however you want, but don’t spend it all at once of course. You should be fine since Dark Moon City’s businesses are bustling recently. We get almost ten million gold per day from repair fees and teleportation fees alone…"

"Mn." Chaos Moon nodded strongly before replying, "In that case, I’m going to contact my classmate right now. If everything works out, I won’t be sleeping tonight!"

"Mn, thank you very much for your hard work. I’ll treat you to a good meal some time in the future!"

"Heehee. That’s a promise! I’ll destroy you if you go back on it!"

"Fuck, that’s a bit too harsh. Anyway, I’m going to bed now."

"Yeah. See you!"

……

A wave of exhaustion washed over my body after I bade Chaos Moon goodbye. It was no exaggeration to say that I had squeezed every drop of brain juice to figure out a way to train as many Dragonlight Cavalrymen and Dragonlight Archers as possible. Ideally, I also wanted to replace most of the Cyan Tiger Cavalry with the new Dragonscale Beast Cavalry. Although, of course, my first priority would always be the Dragonlight Archers. They would literally change the face of the Nation War the moment they appeared on the battlefield.

I bade Li Chengfeng, Gui Guzi, Du Thirteen and more goodbye and logged off after that!

……

The night passed quickly. The next morning, the girls and I gobbled our breakfast in a hurry and logged back into the game.

Swhoosh!

I experienced a small shock when I appeared in the territory hall and checked the records. Just yesterday, Dark Moon City had a total gold reserve of 45 million—25 million plus the 20 million gold I had transferred from Air Force One yesterday—but today only 400k gold was left. It was growing slowly though. Every time a player used the teleportation formation, purchased a potion at the potion shop, forged an item at the smithy and so on, the gold count would go up a little.

What on earth did Chaos Moon do yesterday? I checked my friend list and noted that she was offline.

Then I checked Dark Moon City’s skill usage record and got my shock of the day—

Duplicate Mount Usage Count: 5029

Mounted Archery Training Usage Count: 1000

……

Incredible. Impossible! Did Chaos Moon really purchase this many resources in one night? A rough calculation informed me that we now had 990 mounted archers and 4029 new Dragonlight Cavalrymen. Holy fuck, this 45 million gold was definitely worth the price!

I opened the guild chat channel and typed—

"What time did Chaos Moon go to bed last night?"

Li Chengfeng replied, "More like this morning. She burned the midnight oil and logged off at 8 am sharp. After passing through Thunder Mountain Range with over a thousand Dragonlight Cavalrymen and trading with the Russians, she single-handedly increased our Dragonlight Cavalry count to 4000+ , and our Dragonlight Archer count to 1000. Seriously, someone should just marry this diligent woman already…"

Gui Guzi: "Yeah, Chaos Moon is an indispensable talent of our guild…"

Xu Yang: "Who’s going to marry her though?"

High Fighting Spirits: "I think we skipped a step, man. She’s never going to marry someone she doesn’t fancy, so this discussion is pointless..."

Me: "..."