Xu Sili looked at the panel that suddenly jumped out. He ignored Si Sheng’s strange gaze and quickly browsed it.
[Ding! Imperial City-Mercenary Town has a newly built wooden house +1, experience value +100.]
He glanced at the experience bar again.
[Distance to level up: 167/800]
It was right, he did go up by 100 experience.
Xu Sili was stunned for a while.
This was unscientific. Building a house could actually increase experience points? He had been here for five days. It was impossible that in those five days, only one house had been built in Mercenary Town, right?
He frowned and thought for a moment. Then he moved his mind and opened his territory panel.
[Escher Star]
[Imperial City Lv 2, Lanyue City Lv 1, Star City Lv 1, Glass City Lv 1, Twilight City Lv 1.]
Xu Sili skillfully opened the Imperial City panel. This territory panel was indispensable in him grasping the situation of the Elemental Academy that day so quickly.
There was a bit of a change to this territory panel compared to last time. Originally, there were two columns of town icons, each icon representing a town. He could click on it to see the building details of each town.
For example, in the inner city, there was the palace, the ruling buildings, the Elementalist Academy, etc. If he kept scrolling down, he could see all the buildings in the inner city.
In the outer city, there were more small towns and villages.
Xu Sili hadn’t paid much attention to it before and only took a look. Now at this moment, he found that there was another column on the far right of the panel.
[Under Construction: Mercenary Town Lv 1]
Xu Sili blinked. Xu Sili looked at the new column, suppressed his excitement and entered to view it.
[Mercenary Town Lv 1]
[Status: Under construction and upgrade.
People in charge: Justin, Wen Jishan (100% increase in revenue)
Completed: Wooden house x 1.
Under construction: Wooden house (80%), wooden house (50%), wooden house (20%), brick house (1%).
Financial expenditure: 0
New population: None.
Special status bonus: Residents’ injury rate 2% (construction speed -10%), residents’ hunger and cold rate 30% (construction speed -30%).]
Xu Sili read the data carefully.
He had been a bit curious when he found out there was a special status bonus. Then he saw the content after it and couldn’t help frowning, his expression a bit ugly. It was called a bonus but it turned out to be debuffs?
He pursed his lips. These two debuffs stacked on top of each other and the construction speed was directly slowed down by 40%.
It was nearly half. No wonder why it had been three days and the Elementalist Academy only built one new wooden house, which was much slower than Xu Sili thought.
He thought it over but couldn’t figure out how the city construction system decided which towns were under construction. Still, it didn’t matter to Xu Sili as long as it could help him level up. He would slowly explore this later. In any case, he had plenty of time.
He was now certain—rebuilding the Mercenary Town was the right thing to do! If he knew that construction could increase his experience, he wouldn’t have wasted three days here…
Xu Sili paused. He still liked singing. This was also related to his personal skills so it couldn’t be put down. It was just that the current situation was good. Construction increased experience which meant he could passively level up.
He just had to sit at home and do nothing, apart from brainstorming at most. Let the people under him do it and he would eat the experience points!
He wasn’t short of manpower right now. The Imperial City was the main city and there were 3 million people in the inner city alone, not to mention the more than 30 million people in the outer city.
Think about it. In order for others to level up, they had to exhaust themselves killing monsters and training. Meanwhile, he just needed to command his people to engage in construction.
It was easy, happy and didn’t make him tired at all. He could also make money and buy people’s hearts. This was better than being a player.
He might be in a crisis and needed the protection of the strongest person for the moment but once he became stronger, would he still need to be afraid of the assassinations of traitors and aliens? Once the Roland Empire was strong, so what about those lizardmen? They could counterattack Bewatt.
Xu Sili thought about it and was in a good mood. The depression from making no progress in the past three days was instantly swept away. Even looking at Si Sheng, he thought this guy was too handsome and wanted to kiss him. Of course, Xu Sili wasn’t so unrestrained.
He glanced at Si Sheng happily before continuing to walk in the direction of the palace gate.
Si Sheng was startled at first seeing the little emperor’s smile. Then he watched this person continue moving forward with a smile. The emperor moved a lot lighter and Si Sheng couldn’t help raising his eyebrow.
Just… did something happen? He recalled the strange behavior of the young man but couldn’t reach any conclusions. Si Sheng frowned and noted down these details. Then he continued to follow the young man in a protective posture. No matter who occupied the body, he would protect them. Because… this was his only hope.
Xu Sili walked slowly but wasn’t idle. He sent a message to Li Zhecheng, letting him take the royal water healer to Mercenary Town.
Now that the construction speed of Mercenary Town affected his leveling speed, it couldn’t be dragged down by the debuffs. The injury rate of the residents might only be 2% but the population of Mercenary Town was 50,000 people. 2% of the population was around 1,000 which was much better than the 30% who were hungry and cold.
Moreover, he had seen the ability of the royal water healer, Niya, that day.
Janice had been injured so badly but she was running around in a full condition the next day. It should be sufficient for the royal water healer to treat the victims.
As for the Elementalist Academy, they also had water healers but they were only one star and their strength was quite poor.
He couldn’t just take advantage. The academy was now doing the construction of Mercenary Town and it was hard to let them do other things in the short term.
Xu Sili gave Li Zhecheng an order before turning his head and asking Janice for Wen Jishan’s communication number. He then issued an order to solve the problem of food and clothing in Mercenary Town.
As for the specific measures that would be taken by the chief administrator, he didn’t care. Let that person have a headache.
A town like Mercenary Town should be considered relatively wealthy yet there were 30% of residents facing the predicament of hunger and cold. Then what about other places?
The Roland Empire had a long way to go before it could be strong.
Xu Sili shook his head and left these thoughts behind. He would give priority to the construction speed of Mercenary Town. For the others, he would wait and think about it later.
Just then, the words ‘Lv 1’ after the town name aroused Xu Sili’s interest again.
Building a house could increase experience. Then what about upgrading an entire town? Thinking about this, Xu Sili opened the town upgrade system again.
Soon, he found it.
On the main page of the Imperial City, each town name had a [+] sign after it. He selected it and the upgrade conditions popped up.
[Mercenary Town Lv 1]
[Conditions required for Lv 2:
- Main City level: Lv 2/Lv 2.
-
Population: 52,540/10,000.
-
Special buildings: Administration Hall (1/1), academy (0/1), guard barracks (1/1), shops (9/5), farmland (5/10), processing factories (3/5)…
-
Residents’ food and clothing rate: 70%/100%.]
Xu Sili glanced at it and knew the direction he should take with Mercenary Town.
The town’s population was definitely enough and was even a bit explosive, but the productivity hadn’t caught up. The economic source mainly still relied on mercenaries going out to work and the beast fighting arena. It was necessary to generate income in other areas and develop in a balanced manner.
For Xu Sili, this system was a tremendous help and saved him a lot of effort.
Xu Sili slowly thought about it when he felt someone approaching from behind him. Then the palm of a hand suddenly appeared in front of his face.
He couldn’t avoid it so his forehead slammed into the man’s palm.
Xu Sili opened his eyes slightly, a bit dazed as he felt the warm and rough touch on his forehead. What was going on?
It was only when he lowered his eyes and saw the structure blocking his way—a statue was placed in the middle of the road—that Xu Sili realized what happened.
He had been so focused just now that he almost ran into it! Ah, this…
It was too embarrassing.
Xu Sili stood stiffly in place.
The tall man stood behind him, arms around him and palm touching his forehead. Just then, the palm gently pushed and Xu Sili was pressed back against a wall—
It was the man’s broad and hard chest.
Thump thump.
A violent thumping sound seemed to be heard in Xu Sili’s ears.
The young man blinked, his long curly eyelashes accidentally sweeping over the man’s big hand in front of his eyes. Xu Sili felt a bit itchy but this awkward situation made him afraid to act rashly.
Fortunately, Si Sheng took the initiative to pull his hand back and he withdrew, opening the distance between the two of them.
The blazing breath moved away at the same time.
Xu Sili instinctively looked back. The blond-haired man stood quietly behind him, gray-blue eyes calm. His casual attitude was as if nothing had happened.
Suddenly, it didn’t seem so embarrassing.
Xu Sili pursed his lips and retracted his gaze. He stared at the statue in front of him and couldn’t help letting out a curse. Then he walked decisively around the statue and continued toward the palace gate.
Si Sheng was still close by his side but at an angle the young man couldn’t see, the corners of his mouth slightly curved up.
The setting sun hung on the horizon. The afterglow of the setting sun poured down on the ground and the two people walking seemed to be immersed in an ocean of orange light.
There were long shadows on the ground. As they walked, the shadows separated and overlapped. Then in the sunset, they slowly moved away…
By the time Xu Sili left the palace, the sun had completely set. Night fell and the entire inner city was lit up and lively. It hadn’t fallen silent as night fell.
The road was full of people coming and going. There were exotic customs and classical architecture. In the details, there was advanced technology that belonged to the future.
Xu Sili was in a trance as he saw the split flow of people riding carriages on the ground and suspension cars in the sky. He also saw flying shuttles and magic blankets passing through the sky from time to time. Backwards and advanced, science fiction and magic, contradictory and harmonious.
Xu Sili felt it was very novel. Sure enough, it wasn’t good to see it from the shuttle. He still had to walk around the city in person to see more.
Currently, he didn’t do too much of a disguise. It was because there was Si Sheng. He had a special stealth skill called ‘Passerby Halo.’
After using this skill, it was easy to ignore their existence unless someone was paying special attention to them. It was an absolutely must-have skill when celebrities traveled!
Bonus ko-fi chapter
Proofreader: Purichan
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