"Sub-Legendary tier?"
Shi Feng stared at the system notification, momentarily stunned.
In his memory, Auction Houses connected to guild cities were generally near Epic-tier quests at most. Connecting to towns was harder, reaching the level of Epic team quests. Sub-Legendary? He had never even heard of such a thing.
Sub-Legendary might seem like just one tier above Epic, but the gap between them was enormous—like the difference between a top-tier expert and a peak expert. And even a peak expert would find it incredibly difficult to complete a sub-Legendary quest, with enormous risk. That was only with a superpower backing them.
Without a superpower's support, attempting it solo would require literally heaven-defying luck.
While Shi Feng stood dazing, the system notification chimed once more in his ears.
System: Congratulations on becoming the first player in the Divine Realm to unlock the Road of Prosperity. Quest failure carries no penalty. Quest success awards an additional Top-Tier Architectural Blueprint or a Gold-Tier Town Advancement Token.
"Top-tier Architectural Blueprint or a Gold-Tier Town Advancement Token?" Even Shi Feng couldn't help but feel a surge of excitement reading this.
Whether it was a top-tier architectural blueprint or a Gold-Tier Town Advancement Token, both were extraordinarily rare items in the Divine Realm. The value of either one was comparable to a fragment of a Legendary item.
A single top-tier architectural blueprint could effortlessly draw a massive influx of players and popularity to a city. It was also the foundation for any high-tier city's advancement to a capital city—without one, advancement was simply impossible.
Only when a guild town advanced to capital status did it truly become a proper stronghold. Even a Tier 5 class would find it extremely difficult to deal with a capital-tier guild city. Destroying one would require at least a group of Tier 5 players or a squad of Tier 6 God-tier players.
This was precisely why it had always been recognized that only guilds owning a capital city counted as genuine first-rate powers. On top of that, first-rate powers typically garrisoned Tier 5 classes. With home-ground advantage, a Tier 5 class's combat power would be significantly amplified. So even for the various superpowers, breaching one required considerable effort and cost.
Some superpowers had even spent two or three months just to bring down a single capital city.
The Gold-Tier Town Advancement Token went without saying—it could directly and unconditionally upgrade a high-tier town into a primary city.
A primary city was something every superpower currently dreamed of obtaining. With a primary city came a stable source of income, territorial control, and—critically—a foothold for surviving in the level-100 neutral maps.
The Divine Realm had an enormous number of neutral level-100 maps, each with its own unique features and resources. Being able to develop in one more location would provide a tremendous boost to a guild's players.
In short, both items were things every major power desperately needed at this stage. Even though players were still a considerable distance from reaching level 100, the preparation required to explore level-100 maps was immense. In his previous life, major powers hadn't started preparing until players reached level 90—which was already too late.
As a general rule, exploration of level-100 maps should begin with preparations around level 80—procuring potions and items to cope with the various harsh conditions of neutral maps, and to craft those potions and items, one needed to level up life-skilling players while simultaneously farming recipes and blueprints.
If one truly waited until level 90 to act, even superpowers would be overwhelmed, spending far too long on the level-100 neutral maps. This was especially true for advancing to Tier 3.
Zero Wing's foundation was still far too thin, so he needed to prepare as early as possible. After all, once players reached Tier 2, the time required for each level up to level 100 was roughly similar. Compared to the journey from level 1 to 50, the time spent going from 50 to 100 after reaching Tier 2 wasn't much longer. The reason leveling felt slower was largely because player-versus-player combat increased, leading to far more deaths. Additionally, acquiring top-tier weapons and equipment became harder, demanding more time.
With these thoughts in mind, Shi Feng opened the parchment Whitman had given him.