Chapter 617

Chapter 617 : Preparing for a Rainy Day

“Your Majesty, the autumn crop yield reports from all cities have been compiled.”

It was another new day.

Luo Ji continued working diligently as usual.

However, as he flipped through the harvest reports, his mood grew slightly heavy.

It was clearly affected by the summer drought and the locust plague.

The autumn harvest could not be called bad, but it could not be called good either.

Describing it as “average” would be the most accurate.

By comparison, the crops experimentally planted in the glass greenhouses grew extremely well.

Still, compared to last year, the total grain output had declined.

That was an undeniable fact.

Luo Ji felt that he needed to plan ahead.

Last winter, when food ran out, he could still go out and raid.

But this year, he could not do that.

Because his rank points had reached a rather delicate number.

Without realizing it, his ranking had squeezed into the top 100.

He was currently ranked 93rd on the Bronze Tier leaderboard.

If he accidentally filled up his points and was forcibly dragged into the preparation phase by the system, then kicked straight into the Black Iron Tier.

Then Luo Ji really would not be able to laugh.

So reserving some points as a buffer was absolutely necessary.

After all, who knew whether some blind idiot might invade again?

The one from some time ago was the perfect example.

Winning a defensive siege battle also earned points.

As for deliberately holding back and losing, that would cost 50% of his civilization points.

At the same time, such behavior would damage the morale of the defending troops and could even cause military instability.

It was a method where the drawbacks far outweighed the benefits.

On this point, the system was indeed extremely devious.

Those loopholes that looked exploitable actually reeked of traps.

They even carried a faint sense of malice.

If this system had been designed by a person, then that designer was definitely black-hearted.

Anyone stupid enough to fall into it while thinking themselves clever would be the biggest fool under the sun.

They would definitely be screwed badly in the end.

With that in mind, it was no longer suitable for him to go out recklessly.

He needed to bury his head in development and accumulate strength.

Preparing for advancement to the Black Iron Tier.

Those were the things he should be focusing on now.

He quickly sent a message to Ye Qingxuan.

Since he could not go out and raid, it was time to purchase grain in advance.

Of course, with dozens of cities large and small across the Myriad World Civilization, filling all the granaries before winter was undoubtedly a daunting task.

Ye Qingxuan, backed by the Seven-Colored Terraces, was a major grain producer.

But at the moment, she still had trade contracts with several other civilizations and needed to regularly supply them with a considerable amount of grain.

Under such circumstances, taking out a massive amount of grain all at once to support Luo Ji would inevitably affect her own development to some extent.

After some discussion, the two of them divided the grain purchases into four batches.

One batch per month.

That way, she could handle it with ease.

Even so, Luo Ji could not help but feel astonished at the grain output of Ye Qingxuan’s commercial civilization.

At the same time, he felt a bit envious.

Having a natural wonder with agricultural bonuses was really nice.

Under normal cultivation, there was almost no need to worry about food shortages.

After resolving the grain issue.

Luo Ji also asked Ye Qingxuan about some of the problems she had recently encountered in commercial development.

In return, Ye Qingxuan had quite a few questions for Luo Ji regarding tactical formations and combat approaches.

As a newcomer who had only been promoted to the Bronze Tier a few months ago.

She was undoubtedly in an extremely busy phase.

The frequency of player invasions each month showed no sign of decreasing.

However, judging by Ye Qingxuan’s current strength.

Handling probing attacks from Bronze Tier players was probably not very taxing.

During their casual conversation, the phrase “with ease” came up directly.

Time continued to pass.

The temperature across the Myriad World Civilization was clearly dropping day by day.

The Meteorological Bureau had just sent over its regular report.

Informing Luo Ji that the temperature would continue to decline gradually until winter fully arrived.

At this time, many households across the civilization had already begun drying cured meat on their railings.

Without a doubt, the temperature clearly told them that winter was approaching.

The blizzard from last winter was still vivid in everyone’s memory, even having caused snow disasters multiple times.

It made the people deeply aware that they had to prepare more thoroughly in advance.

Stockpiling grain for winter was naturally one of the most important tasks.

On Luo Ji’s side, he immediately dispatched personnel from the Architectural Department to inspect and reinforce the granaries in every city.

For several grassland cities, Luo Ji directly expanded their granaries.

So that more grain could be stored on the grasslands.

Last winter’s sudden grain shortage was largely due to the collapse of many storage granaries.

A massive amount of grain was lost for no reason at all.

The same mistake.

Luo Ji would absolutely not make it a second time.

At the same time, news that Azure Water Lake City had reached preliminary completion greatly relieved Luo Ji.

After all, during this period, he had transferred another batch of manpower to construct granaries and glass greenhouses.

Delays were unavoidable.

The fact that Azure Water Lake City could still keep up with progress was undoubtedly excellent news for him.

Of course, for now, it was only preliminarily complete.

There was still a long way to go in terms of internal development.

However, key facilities such as granaries, hospitals, and care centers had already been established.

As for the rest of the construction, that could wait until next spring.

According to the reports submitted by He Shu and the others, for Azure Water Lake City’s internal development to reach the level of cities like West Plains City, White River City, and Iron Wall City, it would likely take another 2–3 years.

However, it should be noted that this estimate assumed those other cities did not continue to develop further.

In other words, if those cities became even better and more advanced during those 2–3 years.

Then the time Azure Water Lake City needed to catch up would have to be extended further.

That was something that could not be helped.

After all, while building Azure Water Lake City, it was impossible to make the entire Myriad World Civilization stop and wait, right?

After thinking it over.

Luo Ji transferred another unit and a capable general over.

To serve as Azure Water Lake City’s garrison force.

At the same time, Shi Yaoshan, the village chief of Azure Water Lake Fishing Village.

With outstanding achievements and proven ability.

Was officially appointed as the City Lord of Azure Water Lake City.

He had finally made it through.

That said, judging by Azure Water Lake City’s current development pace, Shi Yaoshan still had a lot of work ahead of him.