[Draconian marshal: Zhang San]. Level 3 Lord unit. 800 HP, 450 MP, 90 Strength, 100 Constitution, 70 Agility, 55 Will. Loyalty 100% (Locked). Tiredness 10%. Hunger 10%.
Skills: Golden Earth Drake Form (Talent Skill), Rampaging Dragon Qi (B rank), Rampaging Dragon Charge (B rank). Battle Dragon's Aura (B rank), Qi Aura (B rank), Golden Dragon Scales (C rank), Damage Absorption (C rank), Earthquake (C rank).
When he saw the draconian marshal Zhang San's stats, Zhang Nu couldn't help but remark, "So strong!"
After Zhang San was promoted to draconian marshal, his outer appearance didn't change all that much. The only thing is that his scales went from black to an eye-catching gold in color.
This is because the draconian general has the bloodline of an iron earth drake, while the draconian marshal has the bloodline of a golden earth drake.
Although they're both earth drakes, the golden earth drake is far above the iron earth drake. Thus, when they're in dragon form, they are far stronger be it in terms of attack, defense, or recovery ability.
Even so, Zhang San still hasn't reached the Overlord level yet.
However, if he were to encounter an Overlord unit like the fallen chief, then he would still have the ability to fight against one for a long time. Plus, the draconian marshal isn't a single combat type unit in the first place. His myriad leadership skills can strengthen the power of an entire army.
Therefore, even a real Overlord level unit may not be worth as much as a draconian marshal to Zhang Nu.
For the sake of strengthening the draconian army, and especially in order to adjust the unit type ratios, Zhang Nu then summoned 1000 normal soldiers, promoted 170 high soldiers from them, using around 270k gold. Then he summoned 25 draconian battlemages and promoted 15 mystic draconian battlemages, using 170k gold.
Finally, he summoned up 5 more draconian generals and 1 draconian priest using 105k gold.
The racial unit population has risen again, and now it has reached 12,000.
The current makeup of the draconian army is as follows: 7289 normal soldiers, 200 high soldiers, 50 super soldiers, 35 draconian battlemages, 20 mystic draconian battlemages, 14 draconian generals, 4 draconian priests, and 1 draconian marshal.
Zhang Nu turned melancholic.
After another round of mass summoning, he doesn't have much gold left anymore.
The spendings went way faster than his earnings.
Since his territory's population and army has expanded, the daily upkeep for maintenance has also continuously risen.
Thankfully, he has the goblin farms.
Right now, the farms are now running at full efficiency.
With Chen Guoguo providing enough of a supply of seeds, not only can it feed the entire territory, it's still also the greatest source of income for the territory.
Now that the Demon King Castle has leveled up, the production quality and efficiency has improved again.
Zhang Nu did a quick calculation. Even subtracting the various daily costs, just from the Darkness Valley area, the daily income is approaching an enormous 100k.
This number is not to be underestimated.
After all, this is the pure profit after all the upkeep costs have already been subtracted.
100k every day!
10 days makes 1 million!
Although he did go on a spending spree these past few days, it's not like he'd run out of chances for earning huge amounts of money.
A territory like Giantree City isn't something that he can conquer every day, and a wild field zone like Giantree Forest isn't something that can be found everywhere either.
It's basically all a matter of luck, and those chances are basically unstable.
Thus, stable income is the real path to pursue here.
Right now, Zhang Nu is greatly looking forward to the future development of Giantree Forest.
As a forest city, Giantree City has economic development value in and of itself. Plus, Giantree City has a great deal of elven citizens, most of whom have production skills, so they're basically a treasure just waiting to be developed.
Next is the land near the Tree of Life. Due to the Tree's existence, all that land is now basically spirit fields. Those can be remade into large scale farms, and the income from the future production is not something that can be overlooked.
If all those resources and population can be properly developed and utilized, then the production income from Giantree City would definitely be by no means inferior to that of Darkness Valley.
Zhang Nu decided to speed up the incorporation of nearby tribal villages. This way, not only can it improve his control over the area, it also increases his territory's population.
More population means more labor force.
Zhang Nu had taken a look. There's a lot of nearby mountains with ore worth developing mines on. This includes gold and other rare ores.
Rather than letting the various forest tribes fight and kill each other, it's better to have them all work for the Demon King instead.
Zhang Nu had nothing to do, so he opened up the chat menu and gave it a look. He wanted to see how the other Demon Kings have been doing.
"The Heroes nowadays are acting way too arrogant."
"Hahaha. What's there to be afraid of? I just wiped out a hero party. Those n00bs dare to covet my territory!"
"Demon Kings around the Thunderclap Canyon, please sound off. Let's do an offline meeting and form a Demon King alliance. We'll kill the shit out of those Hero Guild bitches!"
"Buying spirit field blueprint at high prices. Anyone with them, please PM me ASAP!"
"Anyone in need of life gems? 2600 in total for 4 gems!"
"Heroes raided my altar when I was out. My territory is already done for, and I'm now unfortunately a homeless Demon King. Begging for someone to take me in, please!"
"..."
After reading through it some, there are a lot of topics regarding Heroes.
The conflict between Demon Kings and Heroes is heating up more and more.
This is only natural. Demon Kings need to kill Heroes to level up, and Heroes need to kill Demon Kings to get Talents and get stronger quickly. The two sides are basically natural enemies.
Due to not having found any useful information, Zhang Nu didn't want to waste anymore time and instead opened up the PM functionality and sent a message to Succubus Queen Han Kexin.
Zhang Nu: "Queen, you there? Got any new blueprints?"
Succubus Queen Han Kexin: "I do, but I'm only taking gold for them. I'm not lacking in food right now, but I am really short on money."
This Succubus Queen is no slouch. Her personal might and her army is definitely one of the top among Demon Kings.
There's no way someone like that would be willing to rely on others to provide her food. She may have already created her own production and supply and is starting to become self-sufficient.
Zhang Nu: "Money is no issue!"
Succubus Queen Han Keqin: "Nice. I'll send you the information first then. Then you can tell me the blueprints you want and what you're offering for them!"
With that, she sent 10 blueprints in a single go.
That girl really is quite rich in blueprints.
Zhang Nu gave it a look. These blueprints are all pretty nice in terms of quality, but most of them aren't all that useful for Zhang Nu. In the end, he only selected 2 of them.
[Blueprint: Barrier Tower]. Level 1 blueprint. Costs 2000 gold, wind gems x5, Stone x500, wood x500. The sser may summon a Barrier Tower within their territory.
[Blueprint: Detection Tower]. Level 1 blueprint. Costs 2500 gold, earth gems x5, stone x500, wood x500. The user may summon a Detection Tower within their territory.
Those two blueprints are both for defensive type structures.
After a Barrier Tower is constructed, it can create a 2000x2000 meter protective barrier.
Zhang Nu thinks that it's very useful.
Although the Demon King Altar has the barrier that comes with the Demon King Castle for protection, the goblin farms are still lacking in terms of protection. If there's a raid from flying units, it would cause quite a bit of damages, and it would also disrupt production.
A barrier protecting it will keep it safe in such cases.
As for the Detection Tower, that's even more useful.
After this structure is activated, it'll act like a radar and scan an area within a 10 kilometer radius. If any suspicious targets appear, then the Detection Tower will give an alert and allow the territory's soldiers to be prepared.
Zhang Nu still remembers his territory being infiltrated by the four Heroes not long ago.
Those four Heroes were able to sneak into the Castle without alerting anyone. It was definitely a lesson for Zhang Nu.
The enemy is in the dark while he's in the light, so they're hard to guard against.
Just increasing the number of soldiers isn't enough to guarantee the territory's safety.
Zhang Nu needs this kind of high quality early warning device.
In the end, after a round of haggling with the Queen he bought the Barrier Tower blueprint for 18,000 gold and the Detection Tower blueprint for 45,000 gold.
Both are very useful structures, so their prices definitely won't be cheap. Even so, that's not all that expensive for Zhang Nu.
Since he also had all the materials, he was able to finish constructing them in minutes. Thus, the Darkness Valley territory is even safer now.
Following that, over two days' time, under the leadership of the young city lord and the Ancient Tree High Priestess, 5000 elven elites swept through the Giantree Forest and did a wholescale purge.
[You've slain an undead elf. Gold +1200!]
[You've slain an undead elf. Gold +1200!]
[You've slain an undead elf. Gold +1200!]
[...]
The young city lord and the elves are all the Demon King's subordinates, and what a Demon King's subordinates kill counts as the Demon King's kills.
The monsters of Giantree Forest were quickly cleared out.
Over this process, Zhang Nu got nearly 600k gold.
At the same time, he also got the message denoting his successful conquest.
[You've conquered the Giantree Forest. You gained a Mithril Treasure Chest!]