Baishi Wushuang never expected Shui Se Qiangwei to show absolutely no intention of persuading him to stay. Left with no choice, he signed the contract.
Now, over a hundred guilds had arrived in Stone Forest Town. Among them were more than a dozen second-rate guilds alone. Who knew which guilds had signed the contract and which hadn't?
If none of them had signed, that would be one thing. But if even a single second-rate guild signed the contract, all the other second-rate guilds would fall behind in developing the Stone Claw Mountains.
After all, resting and resupplying in Stone Forest Town offered enormous advantages for exploring the Stone Claw Mountains.
One journey took only an hour, while the other required over ten hours. The time difference of more than ten hours was a massive advantage, whether it came to resurrection after death or equipment repairs.
Over time, how could guilds that hadn't signed the contract possibly compete?
Magic Crystals were now the most important resource after gold coins.
Even guilds that signed the contract had to hand over fifteen percent of their Magic Crystals, they still earned far more than they would by venturing into the Stone Claw Mountains on their own.
The choice was obvious to anyone.
"It seems like from now on, no one will be able to stop Zero Wing's expansion in the Star Moon Kingdom," Baishi Wushuang said to himself as he left the conference room, glancing back at the assembled guild representatives with a sigh.
In truth, they were already considered lucky.
The dozen or more guilds that had secretly assisted the Star River Alliance wouldn't even be given the chance to sign a contract. Zero Wing had kicked them all out of Stone Forest Town that very day.
Those guilds would find it impossible to develop the Stone Claw Mountains in the future.
And Zero Wing's income would skyrocket as a result. Their Magic Crystal reserves would increase by at least two to three times compared to before.
Zero Wing's daily Magic Crystal income had already been staggering, more than enough to supply all of their core members every single day. Other guilds could only dream of such abundance.
With their Magic Crystal count increasing by another two to three times, Zero Wing wouldn't just be supporting their core members. They could also train a large number of elite members, and those elites would advance much faster.
……
Inside the Torch Commerce Guild's supreme-grade forging room, Shi Feng had spent two hours to finally synthesize one hundred Magic Crystal Stones. The amount of Magic Crystals he'd used was also less than expected — only a little over eight thousand.
The Magic Crystal Stones arranged on the stone table gleamed brilliantly. Even just sitting there, they significantly increased the ambient magic density of the entire room. Despite being only about half the size of a fist, each Magic Crystal Stone contained an astonishing amount of magic power. If unleashed, that power would be enough to reduce all of Stone Forest Town to ashes in an instant.
"All done. Now it's time to repair Thousand Transformations," Shi Feng said as he carefully stored the hundred Magic Crystal Stones. He turned to Huo Wu. "Let's go. We're heading to the blacksmith's forge."
Though Huo Wu had no idea what they needed the forge for, she immediately followed behind Shi Feng and left the quiet, elegant supreme-grade forging room.
Shi Feng returned the Philosopher's Stone to storage and then took Huo Wu with him on a high-grade carriage to Seluola's blacksmith forge.
For ordinary players, encountering a Master Blacksmith was already incredibly rare. A Grandmaster Blacksmith was the stuff of dreams.
And to repair a weapon like Thousand Transformations, you absolutely needed Grandmaster-level skill. There was no point even thinking about it otherwise.
In the entire Star Moon Kingdom, Shi Feng had never heard of a Grandmaster Blacksmith existing anywhere.
If he hadn't gotten lucky and helped Seluola advance to Grandmaster Blacksmith, he would have had a serious headache figuring out how to repair the Mythril weapon Thousand Transformations.
What Shi Feng didn't know was that after Xinghe Wangxi had obtained Thousand Transformations, he had been overjoyed. He'd mobilized the entire guild to search everywhere for a Grandmaster Blacksmith, but despite scouring the Star Moon Kingdom, he couldn't find a single one. In the end, he'd had no choice but to give up. If Xinghe Wangxi ever found out that Shi Feng could summon a Grandmaster Blacksmith at will, he'd cough up blood from sheer rage.