Chapter 16
At the same time, two beams of golden light shot out from the Tree of Creation, instantly landing on the two villagers who had exhausted the most stamina. The two felt a surge of energy, their stamina values increasing by 23 points in an instant.
This was one of the basic abilities of the Tree of Creation, allowing the lord to transfer stamina points to any villager within the territory.
The initial level 0 territory had a radius of six hundred meters. Within this range, villagers could receive the lord's commands without face-to-face interaction, their actions could be observed by the lord, and they could utilize the ability called **Jingli Bihud** (精力庇护, "Energy Shelter"). As the level increased, this territorial range would continue to expand.
Meanwhile, Ye Bai, who remained in place, was watching her stamina drop and decided to use the experience she had been saving—
Level up!
A flash of light enveloped her, and Ye Bai felt revitalized, her stamina fully restored, and her personal level rose to 9.
After defeating the Nightmare-level Ragehorn Beast, Ye Bai had enough experience in her pool to level up to 16 in one go, but she had been saving it to maximize the use of **Jingli Bihud** during the village construction.
This effect was somewhat similar to the **Construction Acceleration** feature in some building simulation games, which was originally a preparatory pay-to-win project. However, the current interstellar players had no place to spend money.
Not to mention that other players had nowhere to spend, it was hard to find players like Ye Bai who could save experience to maximize the recovery effect.
First, the entire universe regarded **Wanjie** (万界, "The Myriad Realms") as a great place to enhance mental strength, where players generally leveled up as long as they had enough experience. Secondly, not every player could earn as much experience as Ye Bai did from a Nightmare dungeon.
Gaining experience in **Wanjie** was not easy. The first batch of interstellar players had spent three years exploring the game, with the highest level reaching only 20. This was partly due to the use of guest accounts, but more so because the difficulty of leveling up in **Wanjie** was inherently high.
Ye Bai soloed a Nightmare dungeon at level 0, fighting against level 20 monsters, which was only enough to reach level 16. In other games, finishing a normal dungeon could easily get you to level 20.
With her stamina fully restored, Ye Bai checked the temporary resource pile of stones and wood... it was sufficient.
Twenty units of stone and ten units of wood could be used to build a **Well**, providing a stable water source.
Eight units of wood could be used to create a **Campfire**, for cooking simple food.
As the thought of planning the buildings crossed her mind, the world in Ye Bai's vision suddenly filled with neatly divided standard grids. These grids remained unchanged as her gaze moved, giving her a distinctly sci-fi feel.
"How convenient..."
Ye Bai marveled. In the PC version of **Wanjie**, the environment and buildings were essentially composed of grid modules. In this holographic version, it felt more like a 'grid vision' that added a ruler to her sight.
After a moment of 'aiming', Ye Bai planned a blueprint for a **Well** at a central position about ten meters from the Tree of Creation.
Then, she assigned the two villagers who were chopping wood nearby to construct the well.
Ye Bai observed closely, and sure enough, the two villagers, without needing much description, began digging exactly where she had planned in the blueprint.
The Tree of Creation acted like a central control brain, capable of precisely conveying commands to villagers within the territory.
Her obsessive-compulsive disorder was thrilled!
Ye Bai felt completely at ease. If a building like the well, which was hard to relocate, had been built crookedly, she would have been reluctant to dismantle it due to the precious early materials, and it would have truly bothered her.
The well was expected to take twelve hours to construct. In the meantime, the villagers' water bags could hold them over. As they dug until evening, Ye Bai calculated the time and paused construction, allowing the two villagers to spend half an hour building the **Campfire**.
The exhausted villagers received Ye Bai's command and returned from the energy crystal mine five hundred meters away. By this time, their stamina had dropped to around 45, and they were carrying the 'Fatigued' debuff.
"You’re back! Let’s eat!"
Ye Bai greeted the returning villagers by the campfire.
**Would you like to cook 'Shredded Meat'?**
**Yes.**
At the same time, like a standard attack motion, Ye Bai skillfully turned the skewered meat over the campfire, each time pulling her hand back to reveal another portion of food: **Grilled Skewers**.
Ye Bai had tasted the finished product before. Although there was no seasoning process, the skewers had a slight salty flavor—neither delicious nor terrible, likely a standardized product from the system.
The villagers, who had been hungry all day, were overjoyed to find food waiting for them upon their return, eagerly grabbing the skewers to enjoy.
This meal consumed 18 units of shredded meat from Ye Bai's stock, leaving her with 60 units, enough to provide food for three days.
If Ye Bai hadn’t provided food, the villagers would have had to rely on their own rations, which typically lasted two days but were not very effective in restoring stamina. If they didn’t obtain food after two days, they would start to go hungry, which would significantly lower their loyalty and satisfaction.
Under the standards of a level 0 territory, the villagers' food requirements were not high. The meat skewers Ye Bai provided were already quite good, restoring all villagers' stamina to around 85 points, and each person's loyalty increased by 2 points.
Before long, the sky darkened, and night enveloped the entire territory. The well-fed villagers thought they would rest until dawn.
Unexpectedly, Ye Bai stood up.
"Is everyone well-rested? Let’s finish building the well so we can all have clean water tomorrow."
The villagers were taken aback, puzzled. "But, my lord, without light, we can’t work."
The campfire provided some light, but it was clearly insufficient to illuminate the well on the other side.
Ye Bai smiled mysteriously and began pulling out pieces of luminous stone from her backpack... Suddenly, the surroundings brightened as if it were daytime.
"Here, everyone can carry this luminous stone for light."
Outside the dungeon, time began to 'flow' again, and the luminous stones had a durability consumption; each could last about six hours. However, Ye Bai had enough luminous stones to last for these few days.
"My lord is amazing! With this, it’s so much easier to work at night!"
Perhaps related to the recent increase in loyalty, the villagers not only voiced no objections but instead enthusiastically began working, showing signs of adopting a 997 work schedule on their very first day in the territory.
Most villagers in this world lived lives without overtime, not out of unwillingness, but because the lack of light at night made it impossible to work... However, if they developed to a town level with widespread lighting, the residents' demands for quality of life and working hours would naturally increase.
As for the current stage, Ye Bai didn’t need to worry about being hanged by dissatisfied villagers on a lamppost—
What a joke! She hadn’t even unlocked the technology to build streetlights yet!
---
**Chapter 12**
On the first night of the game, it took only three hours to dig the well.
The speed of construction was directly related to the manpower invested. That night, Ye Bai assigned all nine villagers in her territory to work on the well, significantly reducing the time required.
Once the villagers gathered beside the Tree of Creation to sleep, Ye Bai temporarily logged off.
In the StarNet space, Ye Bai glanced at her inbox, which had already reached a staggering number in the millions and was still increasing.
Naturally, these messages were from people across the universe wanting to buy strategies from 'Bai Ye'. Ever since Ye Bai made her appearance in the Star Alliance, she had become known throughout the universe, allowing others to send her messages unilaterally.
Due to the unique nature of StarNet, if this were Ye Bai's previous era, opening her inbox would likely have resulted in a flood of messages overwhelming her.
For now, Ye Bai chose to ignore these messages. She had earned star coins but didn’t dare to spend them. It was better to wait until players had developed to a certain level in the game and had resources before considering trading with some major factions, using star coins as a 'sweetener' in the transactions.
From this perspective, the fact that interstellar players could register as formal players brought greater benefits to Ye Bai compared to being limited to a guest account in the game—earning money in reality was secondary; long-term development in **Wanjie** was the key.
What profit could a group of 'vagrants' provide? Clearly, lords and adventurers were the ones who would reap the rewards!
In the PC version of **Wanjie**, players could choose between lord gameplay and adventurer gameplay. If they didn’t want to manage a territory, they could simply treat it as a leisurely 'home'.
Because of the original design intent, players who genuinely wanted to manage a territory would at least pursue a prosperity level greater than 2 for the Tree of Creation. From Ye Bai's starting point, it was evident how much impact an additional policy slot could have.
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