Heizi could only give up on checking out the monster town upon hearing what Shi Feng said.

After all, the Zero Wing Guild was truly busy right now. Since the guild’s expansion, it even felt like there weren’t enough people.

Not to mention the all-out war with the Blackwater and Underworld guilds, Stone Forest Town itself needed a large number of people to manage it.

He hadn’t thought it would be difficult to manage a small town before, but recently Shi Feng had delegated some of the town’s management work to him, and he realized what a headache it was.

When the town was still in its protection period, all the town's security work could be handed over to the NPC guards. Once the protection period ended, one thing after another came.

First was the issue of town patrols. This could be considered a daily quest for player towns. Some players had to be assigned to patrol, thereby maintaining the town’s security. This security wasn't against players, but against NPCs.

Since the town's protection period ended, NPCs from other towns had continuously come to Stone Forest Town, including merchants, adventurer teams, and so on, allowing the town's economy to begin its true development.

Why say "true development"?

Because if a town wanted to be promoted, it mainly depended on the town’s economic prosperity. Economic prosperity depended on the number of players on one hand and the number of NPCs on the other. Stone Forest Town far exceeded the standard in terms of players, and already had the capital to be promoted to a medium-sized town. However, it truly lacked in NPCs, and one of the conditions was that the town’s NPC population had to reach 10,000. This 10,000 did not include the NPC guards brought by the guild and the hired NPC soldiers.

And how could these NPCs be willing to come to a small town?

Security was extremely important.

So, guild players had to send people every day to maintain the town’s security, screening NPCs to prevent spies from dark forces from causing trouble in the town.

In addition, the guild also had to send many guild members to maintain the security of trade routes between the towns, and there were two types of threats in this regard, one was players, and the other was NPCs and beasts.

If the security on the trade route couldn’t be maintained, those traveling merchant NPCs simply wouldn’t come to the town to develop.

So, management wasn’t as easy as imagined. Fortunately, these were all guild quests, and the rewards weren’t bad. There were quite a few guild members who snatched up the quests every day, it’s just that the quests cost quite a bit. The quest experience was given by the system, but the money was paid by the guild...

Moreover, the longer the guarded trade route, the more players had to be sent out, and the cost naturally increased.

The daily maintenance fee alone already cost the guild 300 gold, and because the protection period had just ended not long ago, there was only one road for trade right now. If there were more trade routes, the cost would also increase significantly.

"Guild Leader, do you really think that after this Magic Tower is built, we won’t have to patrol the trade routes near the town?" Heizi asked curiously as he watched Shi Feng constantly fiddling with the magic runes.

"Of course, otherwise, why do you think I would spend a huge sum to build this Magic Tower?" Shi Feng rolled his eyes at Heizi.

The Magic Tower was a mainstream defense building in God’s Domain in the later stages. The construction cost alone was more than 7,000 gold. If too many materials were wasted in the middle, it could cost tens of thousands of gold. This was why master-level players were brought in to build it.

It required blueprints and cost so much money. If it only had powerful destructive power, it wouldn’t have become the mainstream defense building in God’s Domain. The key reason was the town’s defense range, which could easily detect the surrounding 10,000 yards.

So, after building a Magic Tower in the town, there was no need to worry about NPCs disturbing the trade route within a 10,000-yard radius around the town, because these NPCs understood that they would be discovered soon. If two were built, the defense range could reach 15,000 yards. The maximum defense range was 30,000 yards, which was five Magic Towers.

However, Stone Forest Town wasn’t a commercial hub, and there weren’t many trade routes to guard, so building one Magic Tower was enough. Building more would be a complete waste. After all, blueprints weren’t something that fell from the sky. If there weren’t a shortage of blueprints, Shi Feng wouldn’t mind building a few more to turn Stone Forest Town into an iron bucket.

The current Stone Forest Town wasn’t what it used to be. There were guild players everywhere, but instead there were many free players on the streets. This was because the major guilds had gradually put their energy into the Death Canyon, where the map was larger and there were more monsters. Whether they wanted to grind and level up or farm magic crystals, it was a good choice. The most important thing was that it was close, and they wouldn’t be exploited too much by the Zero Wing Guild.

If they farmed magic crystals in Stoneclaw Mountains, many of them had to contribute to the repair and accommodation fees of Stone Forest Town, but it was different to go to Death Canyon. Although it took more time to go to Death Canyon, with the popularization of mounts, it only took two hours to ride a mount from the nearest teleportation town, so the major guilds put their minds on Death Canyon.

However, it was different for free players. First of all, their level wasn’t as good as the elites of those guilds, and secondly, if they went to Death Canyon, they definitely wouldn’t get any benefits from those guilds, so Stoneclaw Mountains became the best choice.

At a glance on the streets of Stone Forest Town, almost 70% of the players were free players, and the prosperity was even greater than before.

During this time when Shi Feng was constantly improving the magic patterns of the Magic Tower, news of the Star-Moon Kingdom’s major guilds’ crusade against the monster town was also flying all over the official website forum.

Uling Town was shocked to find a Level 60 Mythic monster, all crusade guilds were completely defeated!

"No way, isn't a Mythic monster a Tier 4 monster?"

"You didn't see how powerful that monster was. With just one move, tens of thousands of players who went to crusade died instantly. No player could withstand a single blow from that monster, and even the magic barrier couldn't suppress it."

"That's nothing. I heard that the monsters in that town have become refined. Their combat level is very high. At the same level, ordinary players may not be opponents in a one-on-one fight. And the most terrible thing is that after being killed by those monsters, it is said that players cannot log into God's Domain in a short period of time, and these monsters are constantly becoming stronger when they kill players."

"How can we crusade against that town? The more people who go, the stronger those monsters will be, and there is also a Tier 4 Boss guarding it. The NPCs guarding the big NPC cities are only Tier 4. How can anyone do anything to those monsters?"

"I heard that the monsters in the town have begun to move around, not just staying in Uling Town. I heard that many players who grind monsters on that map have been attacked, and now players dare not go there."

"No wonder the system will give generous rewards. This task is really difficult. Fortunately, I didn't go."

"Do you think these monsters will continue to annex the surrounding towns?"

"Maybe that's really possible."

"Of the towns closest to that map, there seems to be Stone Forest Town. If those monsters go to Stone Forest Town, then there will be fun to watch."

...

Players on the forum were talking a lot, but the players' jokes made the major guilds suddenly realize something they liked to see, if those monsters really continued to develop around, Stone Forest Town's troubles would be great.

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