Chapter 1966 – Overnight Fortune

“Compensation?” Shi Feng chuckled at Gentle Snow’s report. “These Guilds sure reacted quickly.”

Now that Zero Wing’s strength had been recognized, it was the perfect time to develop its influence in the Black Dragon Empire. However, since Zero Wing’s development was currently limited by its resources, it had to claim other Guild’s resources.

Fortunately, quite a few of the empire’s Guilds had openly provoked Zero Wing, so it was well within its rights to eliminate these Guilds and take over their resources. No one would reprimand Zero Wing for doing so.

Naturally, these offending Guilds had considered the possibility of such an outcome. Although Zero Wing could only take on a few Guilds at a time, on the off chance that they were one of the unlucky few, they’d be doomed. Hence, the various Guilds that had provoked Zero Wing tried desperately to repair their relationships with Zero Wing.

“Should I call in their representatives, then?” Gentle Snow understood the meaning behind Shi Feng’s comment. While Zero Wing’s reputation had improved, it would take some time to develop the Guild’s strength. Moreover, doing so would require a lot of funds. Rather than waste resources on annihilating one or two large Guilds, they needed to use this opportunity to claim compensation from the dozen or so Guilds, making a fortune. This way, Zero Wing would gain both the money and the resources it needed for its development without lifting a finger.

“There’s no need. Just tell them this; second-rate Guilds will compensate Zero Wing with 30,000 Magic Crystals and 50,000 Gold in rare materials or Lands in major NPC cities. Zero Wing requires 15,000 Magic Crystals and 30,000 Gold in rare materials or Lands from third-rate Guilds!” Shi Feng said. “If they don’t pay up, they’ll have to bear the consequences!”

While it seemed as though Zero Wing had easily defeated Miracle, Shi Feng knew how close his Guild had been to defeat.

In God’s Domain, a war between Guilds was a competition of capital and expert players. When a Guild went to war, it had to spend money like there was no tomorrow. Meanwhile, Zero Wing’s victory had been achieved through spending a massive number of Magic Crystals and resources.

The Magicbreaking Crossbows were worth the price since they could be reused; they would only disappear after their uses had been depleted. However, the Basic Combat Devices were different. Once they had been activated, they’d vanish after 12 hours; they could not be deactivated to save their remaining duration. Meanwhile, Shi Feng had invested more than 80,000 Magic Crystals into crafting the two tools. The rest of the materials had also cost a ton of money. In addition, the Guild had to compensate its members that had died in the fights.

After fighting Miracle for just a few short days, Zero Wing’s pockets were almost empty...

Fortunately, Zero Wing had secured a Manatite vein. Otherwise, the Black Dragon Empire’s Branch Guild would’ve been finished. He was also fortunate that Miracle didn’t know the tools’ production costs. Had Miracle known about the expenditures, it would have continued this war.

“This...” Hearing Shi Feng’s demands, Gentle Snow asked worriedly, “Aren’t these prices a little too high?”

Currently, the average second-rate Guild only occupied a few NPC cities, while the more powerful second-rate Guilds occupied a dozen or so. These Guilds’ range of influence wasn’t particularly vast. While 50,000 Gold in resources or Land was bearable for a second-rate Guild, 30,000 Magic Crystals definitely weren’t. At this stage of the game, 30,000 Magic Crystals were roughly half of a second-rate Guild’s stockpile.

Although it had become much easier to acquire Magic Crystals, players also needed to consume more of them, especially after the ‘Return of the Survivors’ expansion pack had been implemented.

“It’s fine. Just inform them,” Shi Feng said, chuckling.

While losing half of the Guild’s Magic Crystal stockpile was a significant cost, it would not impede the Guild’s normal operations. It would simply force the Guild into stagnation for a short time.

Moreover, he urgently needed Magic Crystals right now. He couldn’t afford to be courteous with these Guilds.

Following which, Gentle Snow conveyed Shi Feng’s price to the various large Guilds.

When they received Zero Wing’s demands, all of these Guilds went into an uproar. The rare materials weren’t an issue since every Guild had an extraordinary stock of resources by now, but Magic Crystals were crucial to a Guild’s development

“Damn Zero Wing! It might as well rob us at this point!”

“Guild Leader, what should we do?”

“Pay the Guild! We can’t afford to stand out right now. Although Miracle failed to destroy Zero Wing, Blackwater and Beast Emperor have still been eyeing the Guild in the Ore Empire. They won’t let Zero Wing off the hook as easily as Miracle has.”

The various large Guilds were enraged when they received Gentle Snow’s message. They had barely claimed any resources in the high-resource maps Miracle had given them, yet they were now required to pay such expensive compensation. Their partnership with Miracle had been an utter mistake.

However, due to the threat Zero Wing posed, they had no choice but to grit their teeth and swallow the loss.

Within three hours after receiving Gentle Snow’s message, the various large Guilds sent their representatives to deliver the requested resources to Zero Wing’s Residence in Lake Heart City. When Gentle Snow and the Guild’s other upper echelons received the payments, they were ecstatic.

“Snow! We’re rich!” Zhao Yueru exclaimed as she gazed at the Magic Crystals and multiple resources in the Guild Warehouse.

They had received compensation from more than a dozen Guilds!

Among the Guilds that had paid their dues, five were second-rate Guilds, and eight were third-rate Guilds. In total, Zero Wing had received 270,000 Magic Crystals, a considerable amount even to the current superpowers. Furthermore, Zero Wing had gained 490,000 Gold in rare materials and Lands.

Not only had Zero Wing earned back the resources it had spent in the war, but it had also made a huge profit.

With this many resources, Zero Wing could afford to recruit tens of thousands of members in the Black Dragon Empire. It could also strengthen Hidden Fog Town’s defenses and upgrade it to Intermediate rank.

I had expected it to take a few more days to collect 200,000 Magic Crystals, but I guess I don’t have to worry about the deadline anymore. Shi Feng was just as excited to see the miniature mountain of Magic Crystals.

He didn’t dare to take risks with the Inferior Legendary Quest from the Jealous Witch. The penalty for failing the quest was no laughing matter.

Moreover, he absolutely needed to the field magic array, Void Field.

Field magic arrays were extremely rare in God’s Domain, and the only one he knew how to obtain was the one in the Witch’s Hill. He’d just have to get lucky to secure another one.

Field magic arrays were so rare because of how powerful Advanced Field Magic Arrays were in wars and when plundering resources.

Once players reached Level 65 and beyond, resources would become significantly more difficult to acquire due to how dangerous the monsters were in the appropriately leveled maps. Although these monsters had higher Basic Attributes, they also have visibly stronger combat standards once they reached Level 65 and beyond. Moreover, the more resource-rich a map was, the more visible this improvement would be. In comparison, monsters below Level 60 had roughly the same combat standards regardless of what kind of map they occupied. At most, their Basic Attributes would differ slightly.

The weakest monsters in Level 65-plus maps had combat standards on par with the early stage of the Trial Tower’s third floor, while the stronger monsters could reach the fifth floor’s early stage. Most importantly, they would travel in larger numbers.

Against such an abrupt difference, one could imagine how the various large Guilds would fare.

Moreover, Guild experts had obviously lower Basic Attributes than monsters. If these Guild experts lost their combat standard advantage as well, they’d have a difficult time grinding.

Because of this, few large Guilds had taken advantage of Level 65-plus maps in his previous life since they weren’t strong enough to grind the maps’ monsters.

Hence, field magic arrays had become extremely important. A field magic array would provide a significant advantage over other Guilds when Guild members left to level up or grind for resources. And Void Field was an Advanced Field Magic Array.

Now that I’ve settled matters in the Black Dragon Empire, it’s time to revisit the Witch’s Hill. When Shi Feng saw that the Branch Guild’s development was back on track, he took 200,000 Magic Crystals with him and teleported back to Zero Wing City.