"Is it time?"
Shi Feng looked at the message from the system and immediately set aside his work, contacting Shuang Keke to take over his remaining production tasks.
During the time he'd been manufacturing the Hell Chariot, he hadn't been doing nothing but that. He'd also been using the Hand of the Sage to teach Shuang Keke and Youyu Weixiao how to craft Hell Chariot parts. After all, as a Guild Master, he didn't have the luxury of free time to spend solely on manufacturing Hell Chariots. Besides, both of them had already reached the junior master level, and through the Hand of the Sage, they could be directly elevated to the intermediate master level.
Over this period, he'd had the two of them craft simple parts through the Hand of the Sage to build familiarity. As the volume of their output increased, their skill improved faster and faster, and their success rate climbed higher and higher. Although they still fell significantly short when it came to crafting power sources, it was within an acceptable range.
That way, even without Shi Feng personally manufacturing Hell Chariots, Shuang Keke and Youyu Weixiao could continue producing them without interruption once all the materials were gathered.
After all, chariots were useless on the battlefield unless produced in sufficient numbers — but once they reached critical mass, their destructive power far surpassed anything players could achieve. So production couldn't be allowed to stop.
Moreover, through continued practice and growing familiarity, Youyu Weixiao would later be better able to use the Hand of the Sage to train Candlelight Trading Firm's high-tier professionals. Specifically, she could identify what level of high-tier professional could be quickly elevated to master rank by borrowing the Hand of the Sage's power, thereby bolstering Candlelight Trading Firm's strength.
After that, Shi Feng took out a Guild Teleportation Scroll and teleported directly to Silverwing Town.
Orc Empire, Silverwing Town.
Walking along Silverwing Town's main street, Shi Feng immediately noticed that the player population had thinned considerably. The once-crowded main avenue now had at least half its former traffic.
The entire town had a desolate, run-down feel — nothing like its former bustle and liveliness.
"As expected, Red Flame Fortress is a huge draw for elite and expert players." Shi Feng swept his gaze across the street. The majority of players he saw were at the ordinary level, with far fewer elites and experts than before.
Red Flame Fortress certainly couldn't compare to Silverwing Town in terms of functionality, but it offered teleportation to areas closer to the Orc King's City. These zones weren't under strict orc army surveillance and patrols, allowing elite and expert players to easily infiltrate the Shura-level regional dungeon of the Orc King's City.
It was the opposite of Silverwing Town, which sat extremely close to the Ancient Divine Ruins — but entry was limited to a fixed number of players, virtually all of whom were from the major guilds. Independent players had no shot.
Naturally, these independent players wanted to head to the Orc King's City regional dungeon to level up and farm loot. Everyone aspired to grow stronger in the Divine Realm or strike it rich overnight, and the Orc King's City offered exactly that kind of opportunity — a very real one, at that. Even rare commodities like the major guilds' Magic Crystals were being bought up there in huge quantities.
While the major team dungeons also dropped Magic Crystals, the quantities were minuscule compared to a Shura-level regional dungeon, where slaying level-50-plus leader-level monsters carried a considerably high drop rate. And leader-level monsters were commonplace in the Orc King's City, unlike their rarity in team dungeons.
"That damn Black Water Guild — they're getting more outrageous by the day! We weren't even members of Zero Wing. We were just running transport quests in Silverwing Town, and they wiped out our entire party without a second word!"
"You call that bad? Black Water and those dark players have already put the word out — starting tomorrow, anyone who wants to run Silverwing Town transport quests has to pay them a safety fee. Otherwise, they won't guarantee protection during transport. It's getting harder and harder to make a living in Silverwing Town. I'm seriously thinking about just heading to the Orc King's City."
"This is Zero Wing's territory — won't they do anything about it?"
"Do anything about it? You clearly haven't seen the clashes between Zero Wing's parties and Black Water plus the dark players. In the Silverwing Town area alone, there have been hundreds of skirmishes of varying scale. But Black Water is ruthless — they've lured in a massive number of elite and expert players through their point system, giving them several times Zero Wing's numbers. The area's too vast to police. I heard Zero Wing's death toll in this period already exceeds twenty thousand. Where would they find the time and manpower to deal with Black Water and the dark players robbing people on the roads?"
"I heard that earlier, to hold their activity range in Silverwing Town, Shuise Qiangwei personally led an expert army to block Black Water. That battle was devastating — nearly half of Zero Wing's main party members were killed, over two thousand expert players died, and Black Water lost over two thousand expert players and more than three thousand elite members. But in the end, they couldn't withstand Black Water's superior numbers and the bounty hunters who came flooding in. Now Zero Wing has been forced to shrink their activity range in Silverwing Town."
"Looks like Silverwing Town really isn't viable anymore. Let's just head to the Orc King's City together and take our chances."
...
Listening to the players' chatter on the street, those around them couldn't help but sigh deeply.