Chapter 1863 – Expansion Plan

After Shi Feng was done speaking, the originally lively meeting room promptly fell silent.

Everyone inside gaped in shock as they took in Shi Feng’s calm expression. It was as if he considered what he had just mentioned something trifling, something that could be accomplished easily.

The Ore Empire was an extremely large map. Although it might not be comparable to an actual empire, it was at least ten times larger than an ordinary neutral map. Even now, the territory they occupied in the Ore Empire covered only the vicinity of the Primordial Divine Ruin in the outer area of the Ore Empire’s eastern region. On the other hand, the empire’s entire southeastern region was more than ten times larger than their current territory.

Executing such a large-scale territorial expansion might be possible if their Guild did not have any enemies in the Ore Empire, but they were currently at war with Blackwater. This meant that there would be territorial disputes over the scarce high-resource areas. In order to ensure that Guild members would be able to develop themselves normally in these areas, they would have to increase the manpower allocation to these areas in order to ensure their advantage.

However, their forces were already stretched thin, just defending their current territory. Spreading their forces further would allow Blackwater and Beast Emperor to deal them a severe blow.

Nowadays, not only did Blackwater’s members in the Ore Empire greatly outnumbered Zero Wing’s, but due to Blackwater’s bounty system, there were also a large number of experts hunting Zero Wing’s members. Now, the only reason why they could afford an expansion was the solution of the Dark Player problem. Doing so guaranteed that Guild members could grind efficiently and acquire all sorts of resources.

However, attempting to expand their territory in the Ore Empire to more than ten times its current size would simply be counterproductive. After all, Zero Wing did not have the strength or manpower to defend such a large area.

Without sufficient manpower for surveillance and patrol squads, the Guild’s teams would very easily be surrounded and annihilated by Blackwater’s and Beast Emperor’s armies.

In God’s Domain, Guild teams caused quite a commotion when grinding or conducting large-scale quests, especially when operating in high-resource areas. Their movements were easily detectable. Hence, whenever Guild teams were conducting an operation, they needed people constantly patrolling and monitoring the surroundings to prevent getting ambushed and surrounded by enemies.

Moreover, even if they dealt with the manpower problem by moving more members from Star-Moon Kingdom to the Ore Empire, the players tasked with surveillance and patrols needed to have sufficient strength. Otherwise, they would end up getting killed by some random party from the enemy. It might be fine if these players were killed once or twice, but if the frequency grew too high, these players would end up crippled.

Not to mention, the players tasked with surveillance and patrol had to be capable of executing proper defenses and buying time. After all, compared to a large team of players, a small group of players would have an easier time escaping. Hence, players tasked with surveillance and patrol needed to be able to buy time for the larger team to retreat. Without sufficient strength, players simply wouldn’t be up to such a task.

“Guild Leader, although we can acquire more high-resource areas by expanding our territory and increase the Guild’s development speed, with our current strength, we simply can’t afford to defend such a large area. This expansion will just end up backfiring on us and give Blackwater the opportunity to weaken our expert and elite players.” Aqua Rose then added, “My suggestion is to occupy two or three high-resource areas first. If it’s just that much, we’ll have enough manpower and strength to defend these areas. Once we stabilize our strength, we can then proceed with occupying more high-resource areas.”

The crowd inside the room expressed their agreement after hearing Aqua Rose’s suggestion.

While expanding Zero Wing’s territory by more than ten times would indeed increase the Guild members’ leveling speed significantly and rake in a lot of wealth, that was dependent on them being able to defend their territory. If their members were to get killed repeatedly by Blackwater’s and Beast Emperor’s forces, then the expansion would just do more harm than good to their Guild.

“While it is indeed good to take things step by step, we simply do not have the time for that right now,” Shi Feng said, shaking his head. “If we go by the current number of members we have in Silverwing Town, your suggestion is indeed excellent. However, I plan to transfer at least 150,000 members from Star-Moon Kingdom once we’re done with the expansion. If we occupy just three high-resource areas, there simply wouldn’t be enough resources to go around.”

“One hundred and fifty thousand?” Aqua Rose could not help but be shocked by Shi Feng’s words. “Why are we suddenly transferring so many people over?”

Thus far, Zero Wing had only 120,000 members operating in Silverwing Town. Moreover, this number was a result of Silverwing Town recently becoming an Intermediate Town.

If the number of Guild members operating in Silverwing Town more than doubled, the current leveling resources available around Silverwing Town wouldn’t be enough to allow them all to develop rapidly. Moreover, due to the appearance of the airport, the leveling resources available within the vicinity of Silverwing Town would soon face further pressure from the influx of independent players.

Everyone else in the meeting room also gasped at Shi Feng’s statement.

They simply could not understand what was going through Shi Feng’s mind. Their Guild Leader’s plan was ludicrous.

While increasing the number of Guild members operating in the Ore Empire would bolster Silverwing Town’s strength, at the end of the day, God’s Domain was still a virtual reality game. In every virtual reality game, leveling resources were finite; each leveling area had only so much resources available. Too many players sharing them would impact the leveling speed of these players.

Although transferring so many Guild members over would increase Zero Wing’s momentum in the Ore Empire within a short period, as more time passed, Zero Wing’s members would fall behind Blackwater’s members in terms of both levels and equipment. This was also the reason why the various superpowers did not concentrate all their members in a single location, despite having a huge advantage in strength and numbers.

Even if a superpower were trying to target a power in a particular area, it would only dispatch a small number of expert and elite members. This way, not only would it increase the Guild’s overall strength in the area, but it also wouldn’t affect the other Guild members operating in the affected area.

In the case of Blackwater, the reason why it could dispatch so many players into the Ore Empire without affecting its Guild members’ development was the Crimson Flame Fortress and the Guild’s cooperation with Beast Emperor. With these two factors, Blackwater was free to monopolize all kinds of resources in the Ore Empire. The current Super Guilds and super- first-rate Guilds definitely wouldn’t be able to match Blackwater’s feat.

“I believe you all know about the Secret Stone Fortress that recently appeared in the Ore Empire,” Shi Feng said.

“Mhm. It’s the only NPC fortress in the Ore Empire operated by the human race. The fortress comes equipped with all kinds of facilities. At the same time, it is extremely close to the Ore Empire’s inner area. One could say that it is a rest stop for players trying to move from the Ore Empire’s outer area to the inner area. Moreover, it is also close to the inner area’s Copper Mountain Fortress, which is extremely rich in resources. If we utilize the Secret Stone Fortress’s teleportation ability, we could teleport to the vicinity of the Copper Mountain Fortress.

“Due to this reason, many Guilds have set their sights on the Secret Stone Fortress already. They are thinking of ways to raise their status in the fortress so that they can garrison it and use it as a foundation to capture the Copper Mountain Fortress.”

After hearing Shi Feng’s sudden non sequitur, Aqua Rose gave a detailed introduction of the Secret Stone Fortress.

At this point in time, the Secret Stone Fortress was already a competition ground for the various large Guilds. Particularly, after witnessing the Crimson Flame Fortress’s daily income, the various superpowers were extremely eager to control a fortress of their own.

“That’s right. Originally, I wanted to keep this matter a secret. However, there is no longer a need to do so,” Shi Feng said, nodding. He then swept a glance at everyone present and added, “Through completing a quest, I have already acquired the rights to garrison the Secret Stone Fortress. I believe you all should understand what this entails.”