Chapter 579

Chapter 579: Changing Minds

By the time Long Taojia realized what had happened, his first reaction was to give chase through the other city gate.

As it turned out, the mechanism of that gate had been sabotaged until only a pile of debris remained.

This move effectively trapped them inside the city!

With no other choice, they had to turn back and exit through the original gate they entered from before resuming the chase.

However, going back and forth like this forced them in a huge circle, wasting an unknown amount of time.

Luo Ji, leading his beastmen army, had already retreated far away.

There was essentially no possibility of catching up.

As soon as the time was up, Luo Ji decisively withdrew.

The system notifications promptly rang out.

[System Notification: Congratulations to player ‘Luo Ji’ for winning the invasion war!]

[System Notification: Congratulations to player ‘Luo Ji’ for obtaining the item ‘Silver Treasure Chest ×1’]

Hearing that he had earned a Silver Treasure Chest from this fight, Luo Ji’s mood improved significantly.

Opening a Silver-grade item would be quite good.

At the same time, what surprised Luo Ji was that this Long Taojia had quite a lot of savings!

Winning this single battle had earned him over 400,000 Civilization Points.

In other words, excluding items, this guy had nearly 1,000,000 in savings.

He was another one of those guys who developed low-key and played it safe.

But it didn’t matter much; Luo Ji already had a good grasp of the opponent’s strength.

Although the opponent possessed 2 special units—the Camel Cavalry, in particular, had a direct suppression effect against regular cavalry—it was only to that extent.

To put it bluntly, he was no match for Luo Ji.

Meanwhile, the continuous system notifications kept ringing.

[System Notification: It has been detected that player ‘Luo Ji’ is maintaining an ‘Occupied’ status over 2 enemy cities.]

[System Notification: Do you wish to activate the ‘Territory Conquest’ effect?]

He decisively chose to activate it. After all, this was the very purpose of his trip!

[System Notification: Please confirm the target for the ‘Territory Conquest’ effect.]

As another system notification sounded, a virtual interface immediately expanded before Luo Ji’s eyes.

Displayed on this virtual interface were Oasis City and Yellow Sand City, which were currently being occupied by his dispatched troops.

From his initial objective, Oasis City was undoubtedly the best choice.

However, he had changed his mind.

With a tap of his finger, Luo Ji decided to seize both cities!

Having fought to this point, there was no reason to hold back.

If he didn’t snatch 2 cities back, it felt like he wouldn’t be able to recover the losses in his military strength.

[System Notification: Do you wish to consume 13 Conquest Points to conquer 2 enemy cities?]

When this system notification rang out, the data clearly indicated that Oasis City was worth 9 Conquest Points, while Yellow Sand City was worth 4.

Without plundering civilization traits, seizing just city territory was indeed much cheaper in terms of point consumption.

He decisively confirmed again.

Then, Luo Ji consumed another 4 Conquest Points to request a manual setting of the placement for the 2 cities.

While confirming the resource output of the 2 cities, Luo Ji was pleasantly surprised to find that Oasis City, while possessing fresh water, actually produced 2 resources: ‘Elephants’ and ‘Camels!’

In other words, his Civilization of Ten Thousand Worlds would be able to produce War Elephants and Camel Cavalry in the future.

Although it seemed he wouldn’t have much use for these 2 units for the time being, having 2 more resources in hand was always a good thing!

As for the placement of these 2 cities, Luo Ji already knew what he wanted.

Oasis City, with its water source, was placed on the other side of Giant Wood City.

On one hand, this was so the farmers of Giant Wood City could obtain enough fresh water to irrigate their fields in a short time.

On the other hand, it allowed him to set up a “Iron Triangle” layout on his western border!

Of course, Luo Ji’s Iron Triangle was different from that of ordinary players.

If one took a bird’s-eye view of the map, they would see that 2 Iron Triangles had appeared on Luo Ji’s western border!

Oasis City, Giant Wood City, and West Plains City formed the first Iron Triangle.

At the same time, Oasis City, West Plains City, and Hot Sand City formed the second Iron Triangle!

In other words, the placement of Oasis City made it the vital hub supporting both Iron Triangles!

Truly, at this moment, Luo Ji was almost impressed with himself.

After all, Giant Wood City had been randomly placed by the system back when he was unaware.

The location could only be described as mediocre, yet he had managed to arrange it to this extent.

This move was definitely brilliant.

After praising himself internally for a while, Luo Ji calmly selected the puzzle piece representing Yellow Sand City.

Without a doubt, this city would serve as the southern border of Myriad World Civilization for the foreseeable future!

As Long Taojia’s former border city, Yellow Sand City was quite large in scale.

He placed it directly next to the river in the south.

While occupying that freshwater river, it would also provide a water source for the people of Yellow Sand City.

It was killing 2 birds with 1 stone.

The only minor trouble was that the river was a bit far.

Although Luo Ji had tried his best to adjust the territory’s position, it was still a bit short of making the territories of Yellow Sand City and Hot Sand City perfectly adjacent.

But that was fine; at worst, he would just build a post station in the middle to link the territories.

Compared to building a city, building a post station wouldn’t take much time.

However, after Luo Ji finally confirmed the position, the system notified him of another small problem.

[System Notification: Placing the city here will destroy a portion of resource land. Do you wish to confirm the placement?]

“Resource land?”

Luo Ji’s brows twitched slightly.

Scanning the 2 placed cities, everything was normal with Oasis City, but a portion of Yellow Sand City’s territory was glowing red.

He shifted the position of Yellow Sand City slightly.

Then Luo Ji realized that a piece of the border territory was pressing down on a forest area.

Under these circumstances, if he clicked confirm, this small patch of forest would be covered by desert.

The desert area lacked water, and once the yellow sand heavily covered the forest, the trees there would likely have their moisture sucked dry and die soon.

Timber was also a vital construction resource; he couldn’t just let it be destroyed.

After shifting Yellow Sand City again to avoid that resource land, Luo Ji finally clicked confirm.

At the same time, this incident reminded him that he would need to slowly work on the greening around Yellow Sand City.

Although that small patch of desert might annoy other players invading from the south, it wasn’t actually that useful.

If it were a vast desert, it would certainly be effective, but what use was such a small patch?

It would be better to improve the environment and make things more comfortable for himself.