Not long after Shi Feng made his announcement, the official forums of the Star Moon Kingdom erupted into chaos.
"No way — is Zero Wing really selling private residences in Stone Forest Town again?"
"People were willing to pay a thousand gold before and couldn't get anyone to sell. Now Zero Wing is finally putting private residences back on the market. This time I'm not letting the chance slip by. I'm definitely going to fight for one."
"Stone Forest Town is going to blow up even more now. I heard that the adventurer teams who bought private residences before have all gotten noticeably stronger in the period since. Especially some of the rare items sold in Stone Forest Town — those teams snatched up a ton of them."
"Finally! Last time I didn't even get a chance to visit the Auction House. This time my team is absolutely buying a place!"
"Houses in Stone Forest Town are going to sell like crazy now. I can't believe Zero Wing is this insane — they were able to unlock the private residence upgrade system this quickly. How did they even pull that off?"
"I just checked, too. Right now the private residences in Stone Forest Town are only at one star. Once they upgrade by one more star, they can bind ten more players, letting those ten players teleport directly to the private residence. The cooldown is long, though — only once a day — unlike the owner of the house, who can teleport freely. It's still ridiculous, though."
"So buying a residence in Stone Forest Town would mean an entire player squad could freely travel back and forth to Stone Forest Town?"
"No good — I need to borrow money right now. I have to get a place this time!"
At first, everyone was simply thrilled by the news that Zero Wing was selling residences in Stone Forest Town. But as more and more people learned about the private residence upgrade system, members of various adventurer teams found their eyes turning green whenever they looked at the properties.
With the upgrade system unlocked, these residences might as well have been tailor-made for major adventurer teams. They could let a team venture deep into the wilds for exploration while still allowing the entire squad to return to Stone Forest Town in an instant and enjoy all of the town's benefits.
This made them no less appealing than the Red Iron Town that the Heavenly Burial Guild had been pouring its resources into developing.
Ever since the Heavenly Burial Guild had established a foothold in the Eternal Dark City, they had set up the city's teleportation magic array in Red Iron Town, located not far from high-level, high-resource maps. On top of that, with a proper guild now holding territory in the Eternal Dark City, it had become far easier for other players to enter the city — they just needed to complete a few related quests to gain passage, allowing them to travel freely between Red Iron Town and the Eternal Dark City.
Players could reach high-level, high-resource maps without spending excessive amounts of time running, which made the convenience absolutely undeniable.
The only downside was that players who weren't members of the Heavenly Burial Guild, and who didn't own a residence in a guild town that had a teleportation magic array set up, could only teleport from the Eternal Dark City to the town — not back again…
Even so, Red Iron Town's development had been going from strength to strength. Wandering merchants had already begun frequenting the town, and the Heavenly Burial Guild had started selling private residences as well, at prices considerably lower than those in Stone Forest Town. That had tempted quite a few independent experts and adventurer teams.
As long as they bought a residence in Red Iron Town, the future would only get better as the Heavenly Burial Guild continued to grow.
The teleportation magic arrays the Heavenly Burial Guild set up in other towns would only multiply, and with the Eternal Dark City as a hub, players could teleport freely to any of the guild's towns.
It was incredibly convenient.
Plenty of players were already thinking about buying in.
But now that Stone Forest Town had pulled a move like this, the major adventurer teams within the Star Moon Kingdom would obviously choose Stone Forest Town without a second thought — after all, Stone Forest Town was leagues ahead of Red Iron Town.
Before long, it wasn't just the major adventurer teams within the Star Moon Kingdom that were getting ideas. Adventurer teams from neighboring kingdoms and empires were starting to stir as well.
One after another, they quietly began raising funds.