"No wonder the guild was able to develop so quickly — it turns out these items had such an effect."
Shi Feng stared at the advanced restaurant blueprint and the City Recruitment Decree in his inventory, clicking his tongue in silent amazement.
The city reputation granted by the system was certainly helpful for city development — it could attract more NPCs — but compared to these two items, it was hardly worth mentioning.
Advanced restaurants, much like advanced auction houses, were exceedingly rare buildings that very few guilds could ever obtain. Once, at a dark auction, a top-tier adventurer team had acquired one and put it up for exchange. The final price had been so staggering that even first-rate guilds felt powerless.
Two fragments of Legendary items — these were things you could only hope to encounter by chance, never something you could actively seek out. For most first-rate guilds of that era, their combined total of Legendary item fragments might number only two or three at most, and they would never dream of parting with a single one. After all, everyone understood just how precious Legendary item fragments were.
Yet in the end, it was still bought away by a superpower.
Many people thought it wasn't worth it. After all, a restaurant's only function was to attract players, and what those players could bring in was merely gold coins or magic crystals — things that were far less valuable to wealthy superpowers than Legendary item fragments. And yet, the superpowers fought over it with great enthusiasm.
Now it seemed the superpowers' enthusiasm was entirely justified.
Advanced restaurants were not only more spectacular and ornate than ordinary restaurants, with a wider variety of transaction models, but they could also hire Culinary Grandmasters and Culinary Masters.
In the Divine Realm, becoming a Master in any secondary profession was exceedingly difficult, let alone reaching Grandmaster. Anyone who became a Master or Grandmaster, regardless of what their secondary profession was, could bring unimaginable benefits — especially becoming a Life Grandmaster, which was enough to earn the attention of any superpower and could significantly influence a guild's overall strength.
A Culinary Grandmaster, for instance, could create unimaginably delicious food. Beyond that, certain special dishes could permanently enhance a player's stats or even their physique — though the number of times this could be done was limited. Even so, this was an incredible feat. In the Divine Realm, aside from weapons and equipment, there were virtually no other means to significantly boost a player's stats and physique.
Yet a Culinary Grandmaster could do exactly that — continuously strengthening players through various special dishes. Though there was a limit, the degree of enhancement was enormous. Rumor had it that reaching the absolute limit was comparable to possessing a Legendary item fragment.
Reaching the absolute limit was, no doubt, an extraordinarily difficult task, requiring staggering amounts of gold and resources. But for superpowers flush with wealth, money and resources were never the issue — what they wanted were overwhelmingly powerful experts. Trading two Legendary item fragments for the chance to grant far more players Legendary item fragment-level strength was an extremely profitable deal. Ordinary factions could never shoulder such a cost.
Of course, constructing an advanced restaurant came with stringent requirements. The most basic prerequisite was reaching the level of a basic city. Beyond that, the builders' construction skill level mattered, since various mystic runes needed to be applied. Finally, rare materials were required, including a thousand units of magic ore — the construction cost alone came to around ten thousand gold coins.
As for the other item — the City Recruitment Decree — it was also an incredibly valuable asset. Once a city was completed, the decree could be issued, making it easy to recruit NPC guards with strong potential and ability, eliminating the need to wait extended periods for individual NPCs to come forward. However, the city itself still needed to be of sufficient quality; the better the city's development, the more effective the decree.
In his previous life, a guild had used a City Recruitment Decree and actually managed to recruit a Fourth-tier Archmage in one go, driving all the other guilds wild with envy. Normally, recruiting an NPC who had reached the Second-tier was already extremely difficult; Third-tier was practically a dream. Only the Chapter of Heroes could summon NPCs above the Third-tier, let alone an actual Archmage — for city defense, one far outstripped other Fourth-tier classes.
"Once Zero Wing City's construction is complete and the player population stabilizes above one and a half million, it should be about the right time to use it." Shi Feng looked at the City Recruitment Decree with some excitement. If he could truly get a Fourth-tier NPC to defend the city, that would be absolutely perfect.
Meanwhile, over in Stone Forest Town, Shui Se Qiang Wei was rapidly mobilizing guild elites and a large number of architects. Simply because she had mentioned that some people would be needed to garrison the new city, the entire guild had erupted into excitement.
"Vice Leader, sign me up!"
"Holy crap, it's actually true! Our guild really has a city!"
"Good thing I joined Zero Wing early. If I'd waited until the city developed, the recruitment requirements would've been even stricter."
"Tell me about it. My friend was debating whether to join Zero Wing or Return of Kings, and he ultimately chose Return of Kings. If he found out that our Zero Wing has a guild city that even the super guild Return of Kings doesn't have, he'd be absolutely livid."
Hearing Shui Se Qiang Wei's confirmation, everyone rushed to sign up for the new city's daily garrison duty. In truth, most of them simply wanted to see the new city for themselves and were curious about where it was located.
In less than ten minutes, Shui Se Qiang Wei had assembled three thousand elite members and two hundred architects.
"After this, I'll grant you teleportation access to the new city. Once you arrive, begin your daily maintenance work and manage the NPCs that will be flooding in. If you can't handle it, notify the nearest NPC guards for assistance. If there are no further questions, start teleporting now." Shui Se Qiang Wei laid out their assignments.
For any newly established town or city, the first challenge was the influx of NPCs. Whether it was a guild town or a guild city, none could prevent NPCs from entering or leaving the settlement — they could only be expelled if caught red-handed. Among the NPCs flooding into the city, besides ordinary ones, quite a few operatives from dark factions would slip in among them.
If a guild handled the city's security well, the city's reputation would grow faster. Handle it poorly, and reputation would decline. Therefore, in the initial stages, a considerable number of players needed to be deployed to maintain security. Only after things stabilized would the city truly be opened to the general player base. Otherwise, having everyone flood in at once would only produce the opposite effect — especially for a basic city of this scale.
After Shui Se Qiang Wei finished speaking, everyone purchased teleportation scrolls for Zero Wing City's guild base from the guild hall, disappearing one by one from the lobby. Other players watched with envy. Though it was technically a city maintenance job, it was still a quest — catching even one dark NPC would reward a considerable amount of experience points and guild contributions, far better than grinding monsters in the wild.
Meanwhile, the major factions of the Star Moon Kingdom received this news, and their expressions grew unspeakably dark.
"Investigate! Send people immediately! We have to find out where Zero Wing's new city is!"
For the major factions of the Star Moon Kingdom, the location of the new city was critically important. If it was situated close to them, they would have to adjust their development priorities. And as for some guilds, they had already begun scheming about Zero Wing's new city.
Almost immediately, every major faction dispatched large numbers of personnel to investigate Zero Wing's new city.
Back in the guild base hall of Zero Wing City, flashes of light flickered one after another as a massive group of players materialized.
"Zero Wing City?"
"Is this our guild's city?"
Everyone walked out of the guild hall and was immediately stunned by the sight of Zero Wing City. They had expected the new city to be much better than Stone Forest Town, but they never anticipated it would be this magnificent and awe-inspiring. Compared to Zero Wing City, Stone Forest Town was practically heaven and earth.