Chapter 142: Natural Wonder

Official Title Template: Huaihua Halberd-Bearer. Strength +1, Constitution +3.
Skill: Parry – When wielding a polearm, 100% blocks a single physical attack from an opponent. Cooldown: 30 seconds.

This was merely a Rank-Nine-Lower template. Judging from the attribute bonuses it provided, Yan Luo inferred that NPCs with higher official ranks probably possessed formidable combat capabilities.

It was much like Romance of the Three Kingdoms, where military generals possessed martial might, and civil officials possessed skills.

Just imagine what kind of attribute bonuses and skills high-ranking positions like Grand Chancellor or Prime Minister could grant.

Unfortunately, an official title was not an honorific; the truly precious commodity was free attribute points! Gaining a single attribute point was still a decent harvest.

He allocated it to his weakest area.
Intelligence: 8 → Intelligence: 9

Yan Luo discovered that the length of his spiritual energy mana bar had increased by half a row! This meant he could fire 5 more Word Bullets, and when releasing the Olympic Holy Fire, its duration would be longer!

Equipping the official title template added an official title prefix right before "Forest Elf" above his head.

Huaihua Halberd-Bearer:
Forest Elf.

"Congratulations." Pure Little Brother's tone carried a hint of sourness. As fellow Supreme Diamond VIPs, why was there such a huge gap between them?

As for the others, they were filled with envy and boundless drive. Careerism was one of those ideologies deeply engraved in the bones of many people.

Public sentiment was running high, which brought considerable benefits to Yan Luo. With so many people around, the intense emotions they radiated continuously accumulated within the Heartless Doll. Upon reaching 100 points, it would fuse, fail, and turn into fragments... fuse, fail, and turn into fragments...

When the one-hour time limit was reached, the total number of players tallied by the tyrannical officials was 23,300. By this time, Yan Luo had accumulated a staggering 82% of the mask fragments! He was only 18% short of assembling the Heroic Soul Mask.

The tribe was ready to move.

They were searching for a suitable location to build a city on the Chaos Continent 1.0 map.

Yan Luo received a mandatory quest and rode out ahead on his horse.

The "Wu Zetian Tribe" was marked on the map, so there was no need to fear getting lost. No matter where Yan Luo galloped, he could track the moving Wu Zetian Tribe. With this piece of black technology, he didn't have to worry about losing his way.

It was worth mentioning that the name on the map here was the "Hulunbuir Grassland."

Chaos Continent 1.0 was extremely rich in resources, much like a primordial world where treasures were everywhere at the creation of heaven and earth—the Hulunbuir Grassland also possessed numerous resources. Its greatest specialty was the herds of cattle, horses, and sheep found everywhere, though these were wild and required domestication.

Yan Luo rode his horse, feeling the gentle breeze beneath the azure sky, galloping across the endless grassland. After a while, it suddenly started to rain, the raindrops pattering against the verdant grass, forming small puddles in some places.

Building a city on the Hulunbuir Grassland was actually a pretty good idea. After all, this wasn't Earth's geographical location; the climate was suitable, clearing the grassland was low in difficulty, and there were large numbers of cattle, horses, and sheep. Sheep could provide meat and dairy products, cattle could be used for farming, and horses were a strategic resource for developing cavalry.

Water was also not lacking here.

However, the most fatal flaw of the grassland was defense. Building the first city on a grassland meant there were no natural barriers to rely on. Let alone waging wars against other civilizations, even encountering barbarians would spell disaster.

In the Stone Age, wild barbarians were by no means rare.

Yan Luo encountered them twice. Fortunately, it was currently the Stone Age, and Tencent wouldn't dare spawn barbarian cavalry. Riding his horse, he quickly shook off the barbarians who were shouting "Ula, Ula."

"Ruins?"

A prompt suddenly appeared on the map, indicating that ruins existed nearby. Yan Luo rode over to check. The types of ruins varied, and this was a patch of broken walls, belonging to the least valuable kind of ruins, but something should still be discoverable here.

He had his horse use its hooves to dig away some of the collapsed walls and piled-up stones. Among them, he discovered a piece of parchment.

"This is... a blueprint?"

Exploring ruins actually paid off with good loot! Developing on the Chaos Continent required following the fundamental rules; even if you could fashion an atomic bomb with your bare hands, the corresponding nation had to unlock the prerequisite technology and possess sufficient scientific development points before you could start manufacturing.

The parchment Yan Luo found recorded:
The Ballista!

This was the torsion-spring ballista designed and manufactured by artisans in 399 BC when Dionysius of the Sicilian city-state of Syracuse faced the military threat of the Carthaginians. The spears fired by the ballista had once penetrated Alexander the Great's bronze shield and could hurl a 50-pound stone over 300 meters away.

A war machine!

Battering rams + ballistae were the classic tactics of the Greeks and Macedonians, the ultimate weapons for destroying city walls!

Such weaponry was so famous that even in the Heroes of Might and Magic game, the armies of various heroes would carry a ballista.

"Requires entering the Bronze Age? And one must originally possess the technology to manufacture ordinary crossbows to meet the requirements?"

The Wu Zetian faction probably didn't have crossbowmen, but Yan Luo thought of Qin Shi Huang. Terracotta Warriors + Qin Crossbows, plus ballistae, would be enough to dominate both the Stone and Bronze Ages.

He sent a message to Chu Qingfeng.

"I have the blueprint for a Greek ballista here. Go ask if Qin Shi Huang has any interest in it."

"What, a Greek ballista?" Chu Qingfeng was startled.

"Found it randomly while exploring ruins—it can only be produced in the Bronze Age. However, I feel like the Stone Age will pass very quickly; this version 1.0 can't possibly last long."

"Alright."

After a short while, Chu Qingfeng's message came back: "I couldn't meet Qin Shi Huang directly, but I spoke to General Bai Qi. He knows about the Greek ballista and is very interested. He wants to trade with you. What do you want?"

"Terracotta warriors, I want terracotta warriors!"

What Yan Luo wanted wasn't technology; other civilizations and factions had no way of producing Qin terracotta warriors anyway—unless they wiped out Qin Shi Huang's tribe and plundered them. What he wanted were soldiers! They were equivalent to summoned entities, fearless of pain, unafraid of death, obedient to orders, and loyal pottery soldier puppets.

"Deal. General Bai Qi said he is willing to trade 18 warrior figures and 2 cavalry figures for your ballista blueprint."

"Too few, double it." Yan Luo wasn't trying to rip them off; a ballista was a weapon of war! It could even change the course of a battle. Exchanging it for 40 terracotta figures meant the Qin State was actually getting a bargain.

"Bai Qi went to consult Qin Shi Huang, and Ying Zheng agreed. Right now, we can't determine each other's locations. We'll make the exchange once scouts dispatched after the nation is established locate each other." Chu Qingfeng's message finalized the deal.

Yan Luo put away the Greek ballista blueprint and continued riding forward. Before long, he galloped out of the Hulunbuir Grassland.

The terrain here was naturally much smaller than the real Earth, otherwise so many civilizations wouldn't have been able to clash with one another—bordering the grassland was a mountain range, marked on the map as the Pyrenees. These were the border mountains between Spain and France, yet now they appeared right next to the Hulunbuir Grassland.

The real Pyrenees had a length of about 435 kilometers, but here, it was probably less than one-tenth of that. After undergoing biochemical modifications, the horse ran very steadily even on mountain paths, and in just over two hours, they crossed the mountain. Afterward, Yan Luo caught sight of a beautiful, azure sea:
The Aegean Sea.

On the beach, Yan Luo discovered a second ruin and found a parchment map marking the surrounding terrain. To his astonishment, he discovered that the Aegean Sea contained the Great Barrier Reef! This was a natural wonder! Additionally, scattered across this sea were clusters of islands: the Hawaiian Islands.

On one of the large islands, there was actually a symbol of Japan: Mount Fuji!

This was also a natural wonder.

A European sea, an Australian reef, American archipelagos, and a Japanese mountain had actually all gathered together!

Standing at a high vantage point to survey the distance, Yan Luo, whose vision was wide while mounted on his horse, spotted carriages in the distance moving toward this location.

System prompt:
"You have encountered the leader of the Spanish civilization: the tribe of Queen Isabella I of Castile."