Chapter 584: Chapter 584: Sea Monster
After sorting out the harbor, Li Yao set about planning the roads with his team.
Although it was called “planning”, Starfire didn’t have the resources to build any real roads at present. They could only ask professionals to plan it out, then buy a pile of solidification scrolls to construct a wide road that only needed weeds and swamps cleared.
They had no other choice. Starfire was severely short of manpower, and to affirm ownership of the harbor, a road connection was necessary.
Starfire’s base was a lot larger than a typical base, forcing Li Yao to trade money for manpower. If he waited for life-professional players to use spells to build the road, that would take an indeterminate amount of time.
The construction of the harbor was urgent as well. Without a corresponding road, material transportation would present a huge problem, considering there weren’t any materials near the harbor and everything had to be gathered from far away locations.
All processes at Starfire were advancing together. Under the Frogman Prince’s lead, they made quite a few measures in the sea as well, allowing the wharf to progress steadily.
Just like that, two days swiftly passed by and the basic infrastructure for the base and the wharf was largely completed.
Spaces for functional buildings were also set aside, but the remaining work was no longer the task of the master city craftsmen. The Starfire members would gradually complete the work on their own.
However, having their rooms and houses was a great motivation.
Li’s sister, to stimulate the members, also prescribed the room allocation order and choice based on guild total contribution rankings.
This further spurred on Starfire’s members, who spent their days doing guild tasks. Completing guild construction received guild points, as well as experience rewards like completing ordinary tasks.
Starfire’s people all rose to level 23, and with the rate of gaining experience not slow, nobody wanted to leave.
Moreover, with the construction of some functional buildings, Starfire’s leisure-class players began to exert their strength. Starfire base had new changes every day.
Starfire’s claim that every member has a house of their own became well-known and attracted lots of idle players determined to join Starfire.
The members of other guilds compared their benefits and immediately turned sour.
Of course, Starfire was criticized by the management of other guilds. They blamed Starfire for setting such high benefits, keeping the new guilds from flourishing. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to improve their benefits.
The problem was the guild’s operation required a lot of gold coins. If a guild operated like Starfire did, it would be insolvent, probably going bankrupt within two days of operation.
Li Yao didn’t care about this. He knew that things were now on track. The ship had reached the dock, and there were temporary sailors he had borrowed. This was a care from a female official.
This was for three months. In other words, if he couldn’t find sailors within three months, his ship would have to stay at the dock.
But it was still early. Li Yao was not in a hurry. He started to busy himself with the Touch of Darkness.
The Dustwallow Marsh was also a vast area, somewhat like a sandbar.
The landscape here was simple, all swamps and miasma. Only the areas near the coast were decent.
Even though there were many large trees in some places, they were occupied by various poisonous species. With a swamp that could engulf one at any moment and the ineffectiveness of antidote potions against the miasma, although the monsters here had rich experience points, there were few players here to gain levels. Additionally, the level spread was large.
Although the experience was plentiful, if one were killed once, all efforts would be wasted.
Li Yao had to take a ship to get there, which was very troublesome. It took him a whole day to get to the only city in Dustwallow Marsh.
This was a neutral city, located on a large peninsula on the edge of the swamp.
Speaking of this city, it had a legendary color. When the undead wreaked havoc, a legendary female mage, who was a princess of the Human Kingdom, led many refugees to take shelter here.
But the undead were rampant, and there were too many people, and the situation in the swamp was also very complex.
You have to know that this swamp was not as peaceful as it looked.
A large part of the southern area of the swamp was occupied by black dragons and draconids. It was said to be the nest of the Black Dragon Princess. The swamp was also the necessary path to the south of the West Continent, resulting in the road being blocked here.
Added to this were factors on land such as devil tyrannosaurs, two-headed chimeras, ogres — groups that rivaled the warcraft in dominion.
At sea, the pirate Blackwater wreaked havoc, leading to isolation between the north and south of the West Continent.
For refugees to survive here, they needed strong defenses, so this city was formed. Settling here and with the passage of time and the birth of the next generation, they lost the desire to go back.
When Li Yao arrived, the entire city was desolate. He hardly saw any players along the way. Moreover, the army had all been mobilized to join the centaur war. Only a small number of soldiers and militia were left to defend the city, hence the present situation.
Li Yao had barely got off the ship and walked out of the harbor when he heard a loud noise, followed by the sound of wood breaking and people’s screams and cries.
Li Yao turned around and saw chaos at the harbor. The large transport ship he had been on had split in half and was slowly sinking. The sailors were in chaos with a lot of blood.
However, they were desperately climbing upwards as if there were terrifying things in the water. They dared not get into the water.
Guessing at the situation, Li Yao did not just turn away but ran back towards the dock.
When Li Yao was running towards the dock, he saw a huge figure suddenly darting out of hibernation. With one leap, another ship was crushed.
The monster then charged out of the water, spouting a pillar of water. With the beam of water spraying out, the soldiers prepared to deal with the monster with cannons and large crossbows were knocked away, then severely injured and fallen to the ground.
Seeing this, the faces of the other soldiers turned extremely ugly.
With the roar of the cannons, the shells that fell on the monster only scorched patches of its scales. Its blood gauge didn’t drop much. The huge steel arrows of the giant crossbow only sparked a few times, basically having no effect.
The alarm sounded throughout the harbor, but there were really not many soldiers.
The militia, seeing such a monster, were mostly terrified. Although they were militia, they were only trained adult laborers who could suppress petty criminals and maintain order, but without real battlefield experience, they couldn’t handle this sort of situation.
The soldiers at the harbor were not enough. With the monster spouting water pillars, although the soldiers were strong and did not die, most were heavily wounded and lost their fighting strength. In a short while, the sound of the cannons had dwindled.
The monster’s crazed rampaging continued unabated. Li Yao, going against the crowd, managed to reach the edge of the dock. He saw the distant huge monster and verified its attributes. His eyes suddenly lit up. It would make an excellent aquatic pet…