"Answer a few of my questions, or that big dumbass will end up just like this."
Yi Tian pointed at the decapitated native chief, threatening the Prince of the Three-Eyed One-Horned Tribe.
The prince glanced at the head with its eyes wide open in death and nearly pissed himself, looking at Yi Tian in fear.
"What's the power level of the strongest member of your tribe?"
Yi Tian asked the first question.
"Our tribe has powerful Golden Warriors. And the Messenger of God, the High Priest!"
The prince finally regained a bit of his composure.
Yi Tian frowned. Golden Warriors!
From Yi Tian's understanding, three-dimensional attributes over 50 means E-level strength (Black Iron Warrior), over 100 is D-level (Bronze Warrior), over 200 is C-level (Silver Warrior), over 500 is B-level (Gold Warrior).
"Then why didn't your tribe send Silver Warriors, or even Golden Warriors here?" Yi Tian asked again.
"The High Priest said your territory walls would stop any Warrior above Silver from entering. You Lords... your territories can't be entered just because we want to. Yesterday, God guided us to retrieve the Divine Stone. As for tonight's attack, the High Priest had to expend their own power."
The prince looked fanatical when he spoke of God.
"What do you want the Celestial Dao Stone for?"
Yi Tian was puzzled. After a Trial Taker dies, the Celestial Dao Stone is sealed. What do these people want it for?
"The Divine Stone can give our tribe supreme power, thus creating even stronger Warriors, longer life. It will let our tribe become a higher-level tribe. Once the King becomes a true King, we can found a nation—a nation recognized by God." The prince showed no fear mentioning God.
Yi Tian fell silent. He knew the prince was probably telling the truth. Seizing a Celestial Dao Stone increases power. These native tribal people in the Celestial Dao World really go crazy for these stones.
"Where is your tribe located?"
Yi Tian asked the final question.
The prince clammed up, holding his ground for once.
Yi Tian was just asking casually. Since he refused to answer, forget it. Yi Tian wasn't actually going to kill him—get some work out of him first and then sell him off.
"Lord, let's make a deal. Release me, and I'll make it worth your while."
Yi Tian was preparing to order the native prisoner back to camp when the prince suddenly spoke up.
"Oh? And what can you offer?"
Yi Tian was intrigued. Auctioning him might fetch tens of thousands of Celestial Dao Coins at most—which was nothing to Yi Tian's net worth.
"My mother has two Divine Stones. I'll bring them here, just let me go. The Divine Stones are important to you Lords: devouring another stone lets you expand your territory."
The prince laid out his terms.
Yi Tian was shocked to hear you could devour Celestial Dao Stones with others of their kind.
If the Trial Takers heard this, they'd definitely stop at nothing to attack other territories. Yi Tian reckoned that the [Ordinary Fog Scroll]'s one function was to attack other Lords' territories in the same district.
Especially for those monster Races—who wouldn't want a bigger territory size?
"Fine! But don't tell me you'll just go see your mom and then honestly bring the stones back here?" Yi Tian brushed his blade, its cold glint chilling, his words filled with killing intent.
"No, I can contact my mother right now."
The prince, scared out of his wits, hurriedly pulled out a Crystal Ball from his chest.
He activated the Crystal Ball and, after a moment, Yi Tian could vaguely see a figure inside.
A three-eyed unicorn, but not as fearsome as the males—Yi Tian found her rather easy on the eyes.
"Mother, the attack failed. I didn't bring back any honors, and I was captured by the evil Lord."
The prince burst into tears the moment he saw the Queen.
"Lord! Release Anunu now, or our tribe will launch the most furious retaliation against you!"
Seeing Yi Tian next to Anunu, the Queen immediately threatened him.
"You want to see if my blade is sharp or not?"
Yi Tian pressed his Purple Steel Mountain-Cracking Blade to Anunu's neck, sneering.
From Anunu's conversation, Yi Tian could tell that the Three-Eyed One-Horned Tribe wouldn't be able to mobilize strength to attack him in the short term.
"Stop! Name your terms. I want to ransom Anunu."
The Queen was so startled she leapt to her feet. Clearly, she doted on her child.
"Give me two Celestial Dao Stones and you can have your son back! Otherwise, get ready to pick up his corpse!"
Yi Tian put on a ruthless act.
"Deal! Tell me your Divine Stone info so we can trade."
The Queen didn't hesitate. With Lords everywhere, and God guiding them, it wasn't hard for their tribe to get Divine Stones. Two stones were nothing compared to her son's life.
Yi Tian gave out his district ID, and the Queen really started a private chat on his channel—really made Yi Tian realize how unusual these tribes were.
"[Sealed Celestial Dao Stone*2] trading for [Three-Eyed One-Horned Tribe Prince Anunu]."
Such a transaction, Yi Tian couldn't cheat even if he wanted to. Besides, what kind of man would he be if he did?
"[Three-Eyed One-Horned Tribe Prince Anunu][Three-Eyed One-Horned Tribe Chief Da'E'E's corpse] trading for [Sealed Celestial Dao Stone*2]"
"Respect your Warriors, so they may return to their homeland!"
It was too late to deal with the corpse anyway.
The Queen didn't say anything else. Da'E'E's corpse served as something to show her people.
Trade complete! Anunu disappeared on the spot!
"I've got 55 of your Warriors here. Give me two more Divine Stones, and you can have them too. If you're not the boss, get someone who is. They're all Warriors—many of them can be promoted to Bronze Warrior. Here's the deal, you've got three days. If you don't, I'll sell them off as slaves."
Yi Tian spoke to the Queen. He didn't ask for too much—he didn't want to scare the Three-Eyed One-Horned Tribe off. After all, Divine Stones were important to them too.
"I'll tell the King. We can trade tomorrow." The Queen replied, knowing the King would agree. They might be a big tribe, but they only had a few hundred thousand people. Every Warrior was precious and had to be nurtured.
"No, no, three days from now. I still have to treat your Warriors to a feast, do my hostly duty!"
Yi Tian finished speaking and closed the chat straight away.
Back at camp, Yi Tian gathered the prisoners for a quick speech: "Warriors, I've struck a deal with your tribe. In three days you'll go home. But only if you do what I tell you to first. For these three days, work hard and don't do anything you'll regret."
The prisoners all cheered up. Just moments ago, they'd looked defeated, but now, hope filled them again.
"Detected ordinary unowned Celestial Dao Stone. Devouring will increase territory by 1 square kilometer. Please choose area type and location to expand."
Yi Tian was researching devouring the stones—bringing the two Celestial Dao Stones together called up a Light Curtain before his eyes.
He could add a lake, mountains, grassland, plains, desert, saltwater lake...
No forests, which Yi Tian had expected.
Ordinary Celestial Dao Stones, huh! That made sense—the Lord who owned this stone must never have devoured another territory before. If they had, the area gained would be a lot bigger.
This is like raising venomous insects against each other!
Choose plains, and they get added here.
As soon as Yi Tian spoke, his camp expanded outward by one square kilometer—all logical and orderly.
Originally, Yi Tian just planned for a little manor here, but now, he wanted to build an estate covering a full square kilometer.
The estate would need a warehouse, vegetable plots, livestock pens, a tailor's workshop, and all sorts of buildings to come.
Planning for the future!
Yi Tian walked out of camp to the high-level tree grove. Seeing how the high-level saplings weren't selling in the auction, and if he waited any longer they'd die, he decided to help fellow Lords clear some inventory.
After using up the last Celestial Dao Stone, an empty area of 1500 mu appeared at the edge of the high-level tree zone near Stone Hill. Next, Yi Tian planned to plant over 60,000 high-level saplings here.
Tonight, he'd go bargain-hunting in the auction house.
If he planted all the saplings, in the future Yi Tian could harvest over 110,000 high-level trees. In their prime, that was a million-plus units of high-level wood.
It was already midnight before he finally ate—Little Kiddo was starving. Dinner was two roasted crucian carp, a chunk of grilled Barbarian Pig Meat, and rice porridge.
The district channel was past its chat peak for the day.
"Did you guys get attacked by natives tonight?"
While eating, Yi Tian sent a bullet message to ask.
"No way! Yi Tian boss, did natives attack you? I got no system warning at all on my side!"
"Yi Tian boss, what's going on?"
"Natives attacked you? How many?"
"Are you making this up?"
Yi Tian's sentence caused an uproar. An attack like that seemed way too over-the-top.
"Yesterday I caught a few natives, got them doing some trivial work. Who knew, while I was cooking tonight, I spotted a few guys sneaking into my territory. Then my Celestial Dao Stone warned me it was a revenge attack from a native tribe to rescue their captured tribesmen. Luckily, I caught them in time and set up an ambush!"
Yi Tian kept his account vague. He was baffled—other Lords had killed natives too, so why did only he get a revenge attack? Was his territory level too high, or what?
"Wait, boss said, 'a few prisoners,' 'a few people,' and then 'ambushed them.' Only one red-eyed monster attacked me yesterday, but they were clearly intelligent. Boss, what are you actually doing? What level is your territory anyway?" — Black Stone Star Human Race Shan Dashan.
"My territory has a few wild beasts, so maybe that drew more natives."
Since there were no other attack posts in the chat, Yi Tian didn't want to go into detail.
He guessed there were two reasons: one, he'd been too aggressive catching prisoners; two, his territory leveled up.
Yi Tian picked up the Horn Bow by his bedside. The "High Priest Blessing" was gone now—the High Priest must've withdrawn it.
Even so, this Horn Bow was Top Grade. The horn was definitely from a high-level beast, and the sinew at least from a C-level monster.
This Horn Bow had a draw weight of a thousand catties. Even at full draw, it could shoot through a creature with 300 constitution.
Even with strength of ten thousand catties, Yi Tian could barely pull the bow to full draw.
He planned to craft some all-alloy steel arrows to boost both lethality and armor penetration. If he could master archery, it'd really raise his power.
Watching the two Kiddos sleep in a hug, he sighed. The bed's too small—tomorrow's the day to go gather more building materials!
Ninth day.
With more strong reinforcements, after every prisoner got a chunk of roast meat, their energy soared.
In one day, they conquered three mountains. That day, Yi Tian spent a million coins to snatch up 60,000 high-level saplings, pushing the price up by a Celestial Dao Coin per sapling.