Chapter Twenty-Four: The Territory Upgrade Plan

“But what should I exchange for…? Oh, right, it’s about time I upgraded this house of mine. A level one territory is just too cramped and narrow—it can’t possibly hold all my spoils.”

Colin called up the information on his dilapidated wooden hut.

[Level 1 Territory: Blocks gray mist, allows simple synthesis, but cannot be moved or stored in inventory.]

When he tapped the upgrade option below, four upgrade branches appeared.

[Underground Fortress] [Sky City] [War Chariot] [Level 2 Territory].

There was only a description of their functions, with no indication of the material requirements. If materials were insufficient, the upgrade would simply respond with “Cannot upgrade.”

However, thanks to the system prompt, Colin could directly obtain the relevant material details without needing blueprints.

“Level one Underground Fortress requires: three thousand units of iron, two thousand units of clay, one thousand units of gravel, two thousand units of stone, one thousand units of wood, two hundred units of Thorn of Suffering, and one hundred Mist Points… hmm…”

Colin glanced at the material list, then silently closed the window with the button in the upper right corner.

The requirements were simply too high; the total of all his materials was barely a fraction of what was needed.

He then clicked on [Sky City], which seemed much friendlier than the underground fortress.

[Prompt: Level 1 Sky City—Floating Stone 0/200, Thorn of Suffering 4/10, Wood 54/300, Mist Points 20/200.]

Colin had never even seen Floating Stone, so he could only shake his head and give up on this option.

Next, he looked at the third: [War Chariot].

As soon as he opened it and saw its functions, Colin couldn’t help but brighten.

[Level 1 War Chariot: Blocks gray mist, resists mental attacks below lord level, can be driven to move, can mount cannons…]

[Note: Driving the war chariot requires fuel consumption.]

“Why not make it a nation of war chariots, a million-strong steel torrent, cannons plowing the land, sweeping away the gray mist—what are these abominations to that?” Colin thought excitedly.

Then, seeing the material requirements, he silently clicked the upper right corner again.

Never mind.

Still, the practicality of the war chariot made Colin take note of its materials so he could collect them bit by bit.

Now, only one option remained: Level 2 Territory.

[Level 2 Territory Info: The survivor’s territory expands from 4x4 to 10x10, with an additional 5x5 courtyard.]

[Prompt: Required materials—Stone 49/2000, Thorn of Suffering 4/30, Wood 54/1000, Clay 0/500, Mist Points 20/50.]

Compared to the other upgrade routes, Level 2 Territory seemed much more reasonable.

Although the quantities looked large, they were all basic materials and not actually that hard to come by—outside the gray mist, these things were everywhere. It just took a bit of time to gather them and store them in the inventory.

What the gray mist world truly lacked right now were only two things: food and water.

Of course, Colin had no intention of wasting his own time on gathering.

After all, until people found a stable water source, water was Colin’s monopoly resource.

Colin quietly calculated the materials he still needed, then set aside several portions of water from his inventory, each containing two hundred milliliters, and put them up for trade in the market.

[Grade 3 Water]

[Description: Slightly strange taste, but should be safe to drink.]

[Type: Consumable.]

[Quantity: 200ml.]

[Price: 200 units of stone.]

[Seller’s Note: If you have other unusual items, feel free to message me.]

“Two hundred milliliters of water for two hundred units of stone—one milliliter for one unit. That’s not an unreasonable exchange, is it? After all, this water was boiled with precious timber from the foot of Raven Mountain…” Colin muttered inwardly.

Meanwhile, as soon as this appeared in the chat channel, people began to curse.

“Two hundred units of stone for just two hundred milliliters of water? Why don’t you just rob us?”

“How shameless can you get?”

“Such a black-hearted profiteer.”

“Everyone, don’t buy water from these guys! Let’s unite and boycott these black marketeers!”

Colin, who always kept the chat channel open, saw all of this.

But he didn’t care in the slightest.

Sitting in that scavenged chair, he leaned back comfortably and let out a chuckle.

“If it weren’t for the fact that I just received about two thousand units of stone in almost a second, I might really believe you all have iron wills, united in an unbreakable alliance to boycott me. Well, this just proves these things are everywhere, I simply overlooked them yesterday while chasing higher-value items…”

Shaking his head with a smile, Colin instructed the two servants who were already up to toss the forty-nine units of stone piled by the bed outside the door.

Then, following the same method, he quickly fulfilled the requirements for one thousand units of wood and five hundred of clay.

During this process, the survivors who had been shouting to boycott him began to splinter among themselves.

“You bunch of liars! You talk about boycotting the profiteer together, but secretly snatch up the deals yourselves…”

“Come on, really? You can pick up hundreds of these junk materials just by walking around for an hour, who would actually treat them as treasures?”

“To be fair, anyone who doesn’t trade ordinary materials for water must have something wrong with their head.”

“Ha! I got it! I got it! This water tastes great~”

“Hey, wait for me! There’s a mine near my place, I’ll go dig right now—save some for me…”

“So much water—he must’ve found a water source and has more than enough. And yet you won’t share selflessly? Haven’t your family taught you any better? Doesn’t your conscience hurt?”

Watching these people go from “united” to divided was quite entertaining for Colin, who deliberately released a batch every ten seconds, drawing even more into this farcical scrambling.

In their rush to buy water, even the most vocal dissenters had no time to speak out.

Especially those not too bright, who spent money on megaphones just for this.

Very soon, Colin had collected all the basic materials he needed—using less than three liters of water in total.

“So this is what a monopoly business feels like…” Colin marveled. If he’d had to mine all these himself, he’d have been digging until tomorrow, but by trading fairly with other survivors, it took less than ten minutes.

Monopoly… it really is too wicked!

“Now the only trouble is the ‘Thorn of Suffering’ and the ‘Mist Points’…”

These two were on a whole other level of difficulty—clearly, they couldn’t be traded at a rate of one milliliter per unit.

But just as Colin was pondering how to trade for them, he suddenly received a few private messages.

“Hey, friend, I’ve got some of these things called ‘Thorn of Suffering’—good stuff that dropped from monsters. Can I trade them for some water? If you’re willing, I’ll even tell you what they’re for…”

“Some?” This guy must have been pretty lucky, Colin mused, stroking his chin. He ignored the offer to share the item’s uses—he knew far better than the sender what Thorn of Suffering was good for.

In his view, the other party had probably only figured out how to combine it with clay or an axe.

Still, there was one thing the sender was right about: Thorn of Suffering was indeed a valuable item.