System: Congratulations, Player. You have obtained the Ancient Rock City Lord's Seal. Would you like to bind this City Lord's Seal? Once bound, you will become the controller of Ancient Rock City and gain full authority over it.
Without a moment's hesitation, Shi Feng chose to bind it.
System: Binding successful. You will receive full authority over Ancient Rock City in four hours. Within these four hours, you must not leave a radius of one thousand yards from Ancient Rock City. If you leave or are killed, the binding will be automatically canceled, and you will be unable to attempt binding again for one natural day.
"Four hours?" Shi Feng glanced at the notification and was mildly surprised. "That's the same as a guild's main city?"
Normally, after obtaining a City Lord's Seal for a guild city, the binding time varied depending on the city's tier. Four hours was essentially identical to the binding period of a guild main city.
After all, even a main-city-tier settlement only required four to six hours of binding time.
"Guild Leader, is something wrong?" Huo Wu noticed Shi Feng's unusual expression and couldn't help asking curiously.
"Nothing serious. I just didn't expect Ancient Rock City to be so special." Shi Feng glanced at the furiously seething Beast Emperor and smiled faintly. "Since we have to wait here for four hours anyway, let's go take a look at that Demon God's Secret Realm."
"You won't be smug for long, Black Flame! Even if you get Ancient Rock City, it's useless! That Demon God's Secret Realm is not something you can lay a finger on! Without my methods, getting inside would be harder than ascending to the heavens, let alone claiming anything within! Every last treasure in there—forget about it!" The Beast Emperor stared at Shi Feng, his eyes full of cold mockery. "On the contrary, I'll hand over the method for entering the Demon God's Secret Realm to all of your enemies—even the forces from the outside world! Just watch as they take every treasure from the Demon God's Secret Realm right out from under your nose!"
Obtaining Ancient Rock City would indeed allow Shi Feng to fend off quite a few factions. But the Beast Emperor knew one thing all too well: the outside-world powers had already marked Zero Wing as a thorn in their side.
Once the outside world's armies arrived, not only the Star Moon Kingdom but even the Beastman Empire would not be spared. At that point, the outside-world forces would certainly seize the Demon God's Secret Realm from Shi Feng's hands, and there would be absolutely nothing he could do about it.
As for the Beast Emperor's words, Shi Feng ignored them entirely. He led the Zero Wing members toward the Holy Heart's Hand headquarters.
Although the entirety of Ancient Rock City had been reduced to rubble and the Holy Heart's Hand's base had been flattened into a field of debris, the guild warehouses were located on the first and second underground levels. As a result, the Holy Heart's Hand's guild warehouses were completely intact.
Shi Feng and the others made quick work of the Tier 3 NPCs and a single Tier 4 NPC guarding the warehouse, then opened the Holy Heart's Hand's guild warehouse.
Once the doors swung open, the Zero Wing members' jaws practically hit the floor.
The guild warehouse—large enough to rival two stadiums—was packed to the brim with all manner of items. Gold coins carpeted the floor, and Magic Crystals were piled up like small mountains, stacked in heap after heap. A rough tally revealed over three million gold coins and more than four million Magic Crystals. The sheer depth of this hoard was not much less than Zero Wing's own reserves.
"We've struck it rich! Guild Leader, we've struck it rich!" Huo Wu gazed around the entire warehouse, unable to contain her excitement. "I was originally worried that with the guild's sudden expansion, all the buildings across our various guild cities would need upgrades and renovations, and that we'd be tight on gold coins and Magic Crystals. Now, with all of this, we don't have to worry at all!"
The opening of Zero Wing City had indeed brought in a great deal of revenue. But compared to Zero Wing's expenditures, it still wasn't quite enough—and that had been a persistent headache for Huo Wu in managing the guild.
Because Zero Wing City had opened to the public, the guild had been forced to recruit a massive number of NPC guards just to maintain order, aiming to fill the thirty-thousand-strong quota.
Zero Wing City was a main city, so the pay rates for NPCs could be kept relatively modest, but recruiting a Tier 3 NPC at level 150 or above was by no means cheap. For daily upkeep alone, a single Tier 3 NPC cost roughly five gold coins per day.
A full complement of thirty thousand Tier 3 NPCs came to one hundred and fifty thousand gold coins.