"You want to build a city?"
As soon as Shi Feng spoke, the Divine Intent Tribe's Grand Elder Adolf froze, his gaze involuntarily drifting to Watercolor Rose and the others standing behind Shi Feng.
He felt like Shi Feng was joking.
If Yuan Xiaoqian had been present to hear Shi Feng say that, she would have thought he had gone completely insane—or was dreaming.
While both the Western and Eastern Continents allowed guilds to build their own towns or seize towns from Divine Realm factions, the Western Continent was crawling with monsters, making guild towns far fewer in number than those on the Eastern Continent.
This was because almost all the kingdom and empire towns had been handed over to the Adventurer's Association for management, and the Association then delegated town security to quests assigned to major guilds. This forced every major guild on the Western Continent to commit enormous numbers of personnel just to maintain their guild standing and control over the towns.
As a result, every major faction on the Western Continent was severely short on manpower, and very few could establish their own guild towns.
Beyond the manpower shortage, there was another critical reason why major factions were unwilling to build their own towns.
The monster armies!
Monster armies did not simply attack towns along the border—they periodically launched incursions deep into the interior of kingdoms and empires. So whether a faction built a town within a kingdom or empire or constructed one outside its borders, they would have to face these monster armies from time to time.
These monster armies were nothing like ordinary monster sieges. They operated like NPC armies—only composed entirely of various monsters. Fighting them was no different from repelling an NPC siege. The monster armies would even employ war machines, making them far superior to mindless monster hordes.
And guild towns faced a very different situation compared to NPC towns when it came to these monster armies. NPC towns had large numbers of NPC defenders to assist in battle, making defense far more manageable. Guild towns, however, had to rely solely on hired NPC guards and their own guild forces for defense. The difficulty was exponentially higher, and the manpower required was staggering.
This was precisely why so few factions on the Western Continent had established guild towns. Any faction capable of building one was already an absolutely powerful force—at minimum, first-rate guild caliber. And that was only for a single guild town. Those that managed two were top-tier first-rate guilds that could rightfully be called quasi-superpowers.
Yet Shi Feng casually proposed building a city on the Western Continent. If any other faction's leaders had heard this, they would have thrown him straight out the door.
This wasn't a partnership—it was robbery!
"Guild Leader Black Flame, are you aware of the situation on the Western Continent? Building a single guild town here is far more difficult than you might imagine. Even our Divine Intent Tribe currently only has five guild towns on the Western Continent." Grand Elder Adolf composed himself and explained calmly to Shi Feng.
On the Western Continent, building a guild town was not the hard part—holding one was.
The manpower and resources required were beyond what any ordinary faction could fathom.
Right now, Shi Feng had brought only ten people. Even if his personal strength defied heaven, they would ultimately need to commit massive numbers of people to defend it. The resources that would cost might not be much less than what they would earn from cooperating with Shi Feng. After all, Zero Wing was still only a quasi-superpower on the Eastern Continent, with limited reach and correspondingly limited access to resources.
And the resource expenditure was actually the lesser problem. The real issue was that their people would be tied up, leaving fewer available for everything else. The costs far outweighed the benefits.
"I understand the difficulty of building a guild town on the Western Continent. That's exactly why I need the Divine Intent Tribe's assistance." Shi Feng nodded with a smile. "Once we succeed, I can purchase rare materials worth three million mana crystals at market price!"
He did have some understanding of the Western Continent's situation and knew full well how difficult it was to build a guild town here—let alone for a guild like Zero Wing that had absolutely no foothold on the Western Continent. That would be a pipe dream.
However, it was essential for Zero Wing's future development. Without any base on the Western Continent, Zero Wing would always be at the mercy of others on this side, no matter how freely they could travel between the two continents.
This was exactly why every superpower capable of shuttling between both continents sought to establish a stronghold. The Mana Stone Town that the Azure Commerce Alliance had built outside the Fire Dragon Empire was the perfect example.
With their own economic and trade district, countless factions and players would flock there to do business. Even if certain factions grew envious and wanted to restrain them, they would find it impossible.