Translator: ryangohsff Editor: Nora
Chapter 822 – Upgrading to Capital City
The notification from the Four Seas Bank instantly placed Tingyu Floor and the other betraying guilds into an awkward situation.
Apart from the players watching the bustle, the members of their guilds raised doubts about their guild leaders and sought a logical explanation.
Due to the past wrongdoings of Huitong Bank, there were many players who doubted this change of investment, as they questioned whether this move was done for personal interests.
All of a sudden, the members inside Tingyu Floor and the other guilds were unsettled, dampening the joyous atmosphere of taking down the Satellite City. Once the guild had confirmed their position as the overlord, the members started to feel more concern about their personal interests.
Some things done in the dark were unable to be shown in the light.
Priest Qingniu and the other two were furious; they were already raging about the compensation fee and did not expect that this extra trouble to happen.
They had no choice but to accept the consequence due to the white and black words on the agreement.
They were already annoyed enough. Internally, they were shaken and had no choice but to try and calm their members; this made them even busier, which spoiled their happy mood.
Jianqi Leiyin already started to feel some faint regret in her heart.
The fact that Snow-War Rose protected the Satellite City showed that Silver Hand was not that scary. Maybe if they did it well, Tingyu Floor would have managed to use their own strength to seize the Satellite City.
If that was the case, she would not have been threatened by Silver Hand.
At this very moment, Blood Romance suddenly ran out to add to the fun. Ouyang Shuo and Blood Romance announced that Shanhai City and Blood Evil Mercenary Guild had become iron allies and would back off and advance together in the wilderness.
Before this, the two of them simply had a normal cooperation relationship, but now they were totally working hand in hand. With the support of Blood Evil Mercenary Group, Shanhai Alliance’s guild advantage in the west did not completely collapse.
One must not forget that Blood Romance had a map of the underground world. Blood Evil Mercenary Guild that sat in Xianyang Satellite City was destined to be a step quicker than the others in exploring the underground world.
Blood Evil Mercenary Group’s position as the number one guild in the China region was still unshakeable.
Apart from Ouyang Shuo, no one else knew the reason behind Blood Romance’s sudden change in attitude. In the afternoon, he suddenly visited Shanhai City. The two of them talked for less than an hour before making the alliance announcement.
From his mouth, Ouyang Shuo understood more mysteries about Silver Hand. Ouyang Shuo grew more and more serious about this mysterious organization.
…
On this day, the show that was played dazzled everyone.
Shanhai City’s counterattack stopped here. Ouyang Shuo had considered whether or not to let the Black Snake Guards reveal information about Silver Hand to rile up the grassroots players’ indignation.
Thinking about it, he decided against such action as the time was not right.
If he revealed Silver Hand to the world, players might not be angry but instead worship them and not want to be enemies with them. This would instead put Shanhai City in an extremely awkward situation.
The game interests were connected to real life interests, so there definitely were not so many hot-blooded people who took revenge without thinking.
In the future, the ones that were trustable would be those who moved to stay in Shanhai City as they would both earn glory together and fall together.
That was why Ouyang Shuo said that the time was not right.
It was only the 4th year of Gaia. Ouyang Shuo had the patience to have a long and drawn out battle against Silver Hand. To let Shanhai City upgrade to Capital City was the main focus now.
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Gaia 4th year, 3rd month, 1st day, Shanhai City.
In five months, Shanhai City would reach the two million population upper limit. This was also under the premise that the Civil Affairs Department had strictly chosen migrants.
If not, they would have been able to gather one million within four months.
Within the main hall of the Nanjiang Governor-General Manor, Ouyang Shuo opened the interface and selected territory upgrade. A System Notification sounded out in his ear, and a series of basic requirement checking followed.
“System Notification: Checking if Shanhai City meets upgrade requirements…”
“Requirement 1: Population reached the two million upper limit. Requirement met!”
“Requirement 2: All basic buildings have been constructed. Requirements met!”
Speaking of basic buildings, one had to mention the Grade 3 Prefecture observatory. Due to the Ying and Yang school of thought not appearing, this condition was extremely annoying for Ouyang Shuo to fulfill.
The construction of the observatory only happened a few days ago.
After Jiang Shang agreed to become the Grand Secretary of the cabinet, he personally contacted Zhou Yan. Although Zhou Yan was not willing to move in, he still sent two disciples to give Jiang Shang face.
Hence, the observatory was constructed.
“Requirement 3: Lord is at least a duke. Requirement met!”
Ouyang Shuo had already become a duke back during the voyage long ago. Half a year had passed, and he had earned a lot of merit points since then. However, he was still a long distance away from the next duke rank.
Luckily, the lowest requirement for establishing the country was also duke, so he was not in a rush to reach the next rank.
“Requirement 4: Politics, Economy, Culture, and Military indices are no less than 90, technology index no less than 80. Requirement met!”
Compared to the Grade 3 Prefecture upgrade, the requirements for the five territorial indices had reached another level.
“Requirement 5: At least own three prefectures of land. Requirements met!”
Based on normal development speeds, when one became a Grade 3 Prefecture, they would at least own a prefecture worth of land. Now, the requirement to upgrade to Capital City was three times that, similar to half a province.
Hence, even though the China region was huge, when the Capital City Era arrived, there would only be an extremely limited number of Lords remaining. At that time, it would truly be a battle of the best.
“Requirement 6: Territory fate is at least at the second stage red fate. Requirements met!”
Taking down both Lingnan and Yunnan City-States had caused the fate dragon to sharply rise. Not only that, after they merged with Consonance City, the fate of Consonance City was also swallowed by the fate dragon.
Hence, although the fate dragon was still at the second stage, the purple color was now three-quarters of the dragon.
A red fate was the lowest requirement for a country.
“System Notification: Congratulations player Qiyue Wuyi, territory meets all requirements, will you apply for the upgrade?”
“Yes!”
“System Notification: Congratulations player Qiyue Wuyi, automatically allocating upgrade quests.”
…
“System Notification: Allocation complete!”
“Quest 1 – Imperial Court Examination: Accept the Dali Imperial Court official evaluation of politics, economy, culture, technology, and military; these must all reach good and above standards.”
The first mission already made Ouyang Shuo’s brows furrow.
Dali and Shanhai City were enemies now. Moon Shines over the River being captured showed how Silver Hand was trying to spoil their relationship in the dark.
Who knows what would happen when the Dali officials came to evaluate Shanhai City?
However, the five territory indices were a hard indicator and reflected the development and achievements of a territory. This time, Gaia was unwilling to use a bunch of numbers but instead wanted a real life actual evaluation.
That was great. After all, it was to upgrade to Capital City, so it was better to play it safe. However, Gaia had chosen officials from Dali, which gave Ouyang Shuo a headache.
If it was the Quanzhou Imperial Court, Ouyang Shuo would be extremely confident about passing.
On the other hand, Dali was a whole different story.
Due to Gaia’s focus on fairness, the officials sent out would not dare to show too much bias. However, they could use some underhanded methods within the boundaries.
Maybe in the eyes of Gaia, this was also a sort of training.
“Quest 2 – 36 industries: Within the territory, one must have all 36 industries.”
The 36 industries referred to the main industries during the Tang Dynasty, including the silk industry, pearl industry, paper industry, fresh fish industry, bamboo and wood industry, medicine industry, leather industry, spice industry, and the like.
The 36 industry quest was an overall evaluation of the society of the territory. If one could not even gather up all 36, it was naturally unworthy of being a Capital City.
When Ouyang Shuo saw this quest, he felt uncertain. As a Lord, he was not familiar with all 36 industries, and some of them had weird names, so he was unsure about the detail.
“Quest 3 – new soldier type: On the foundation of the current troops, develop a new soldier type.”
The third quest was extremely difficulty for Shanhai City. Shanhai City had all navy, army, and air force troops, including the Tiger Leopard Cavalry, the Iron Eagle Swordsman, the Iron Armored Beast Cavalry, and other special soldier types.
But the quest requirement was to develop a new soldier type on the base of what they currently had. If he knew that there would be such a quest, Ouyang Shuo would have let Gao Shun develop the Formation Crushing Unit later.
This quest would be left to Du Ruhui to worry about.
“System Notification: The three upgrade quests must all be completed before one can successfully upgrade.”
One did even have a choice.
Compared to the prefecture city upgrade, these upgrade quests were far more difficult.