Chapter 549: Chapter 549

Du You was delighted to have yet another follower. Though his pact ensured his subordinates wouldn’t betray him, and his territory had its own deterrents, genuine devotion was distinctly different from passive obedience.

A follower with leadership abilities was quite a rare find. With Shaliya and Luo Jia taking charge of development and military affairs respectively, Du You felt confident that his territory could continue to prosper even in his absence.

The war gradually winded down and the soldiers began to clean up the battlefield once the last Sandperson was eliminated.

"The statistics are ready." Luo Jia brought in a report.

Du You had seen his panel earlier. His territory’s forces had decreased from 1,200 to 983, indicating a loss of about 217 troops in this battle, far more than he’d expected.

This loss was especially disheartening, given that he’d already started with a small number of soldiers. To lose so many, as well as valuable assets such as the Arrow Towers and his Beast Clan warriors, was truly heartrending, regardless of the sizeable Sandpeople forces they had been up against.

"Just give me the numbers for the second-tier losses."

Luo Jia paused for a moment then continued, "In terms of the second-tier, we lost 18 Heavy Armored Griffin Knights, 3 Shadow Shooters, 2 high-grade griffins, 5 Snow Wolves, and 33 Heavily Armed Warriors. The rest were all first-tier soldiers."

Hearing these figures was genuinely distressing. The loss of the Heavily Armed Warriors was forgivable but the Griffin Knights were his air force and the Shadow Shooters were the strongest force in his territory.

Having obtained this batch of soldiers with much difficulty and then losing so many of them was indeed a painful reality for Du You.

"Alright, do what needs to be done to console them," he said.

"Lord, would you like to address the new residents who just moved into our land? Doing so may help increase your reputation," suggested Luo Jia.

Du You shrugged off the suggestion, "That’s Shaliya’s job, I’ve given her that power a long time ago."

"But, is that really okay? If it goes on , Shaliya’s reputation..."

Du You interrupted, unconcerned, "That does not matter, let her do it. Our territory is unique." Luo Jia didn’t push further, acknowledging that Du You already understood his concerns.

What Luo Jia meant to remind Du You was that as a Lord, he needed to appear in public too. Otherwise, everyone would only know Shaliya and not their Lord. In such a case, the ownership of the territory might get ambiguous. But their situation, indeed was quite unique.

E ven though the surrounding towns were identical, their own territory was exceptionally distinct and recognized only Du You as their Lord. No matter how much power Shaliya had, Du You could dismiss her with a thought. Also, they had trained soldiers from their own residents. Those recruited residents would never betray him under normal circumstances.

With that knowledge, Du You had no reason to fear a power-shift. Even if there was cause for concern, there was nothing he could do since he could not stay in this world forever and had to return to Earth.

If he couldn’t trust others to handle his territory, he shouldn’t have established it in the first place.

Cleaning up the battlefield proceeded swiftly and Du You finally got a chance to examine the Seal magic ball.

Seal Magic Ball: Consumes energy to seal and weaken magic powers. (Uncertified)

Upon careful analysis, Du You found that the Seal Magic Ball was actually a piece of territory equipment that could be certified to become a permanent part of his land, just like the Quicksand Flag.

The certification cost was high, though, requiring ten thousand Crystal Coins. Although this amount wasn’t a big deal for Du You, he had run out of Crystal Coins at the moment.

Despite the fact he had gained a large number of special Crystal Coins in the wake of the recent battle, it wasn’t enough. Plus, who would use special Crystal Coins for certification? It would be a complete waste of money.

Nevermind, he would store it for now, and certify it next time he visited this world. But he vowed to be better prepared next time and not repeat the current shortage of Crystal Coins.

Next, he opened his panel to find yet another task waiting.

Temporary task: Territory Defense against Sandpeople, completed.

Behind the task, a treasure chest shone brightly. Du You whipped it open to find something related to his territory, although it did leave him somewhat speechless. New ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄhapters are published on 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓵·𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖·𝙣𝙚𝙩

Sandpit Blueprint (Second-tier, Permanent): Can establish sandpit inside territory.

Purpose: Provides Sandpeople residence, allows for recruitment of Sandpeople citizens. Among these citizens, there’s a certain chance to encounter craftspersons and companion creatures.

This blueprint was undoubtedly a powerful structure for his territory. Du You had experienced the effectiveness of residential buildings - they were an invisible but extremely handy tool, particularly in putting his rear-area concerns to rest.

Moreover, this was a second-tier residential building. However, it was for Sandpeople, which left Du You quite exasperated.

Sandpeople citizens, using the special laws of this world, could be trained into various branches of armed forces, even gaining stronger combat abilities. But these were Sandpeople - not regular humans.

In this world, humans and Sandpeople were usually at odds, especially in the south of the Divine Flame Empire.

If Du You allowed a large group of Sandpeople into his territory, he wouldn’t be able to explain himself to any party. Then, both Sandpeople and humans would see him as an enemy. This made the blueprint completely useless.

Du You felt a bit speechless, pondering over what to do. After a while, he decided to store the blueprint anyway.

He then continued to open the other spheres in his personal space.

"Damn it, when I needed World Coordinates before, there were none. Now there are too many."

Du You, holding the World Coordinates in hand, was somewhat speechless. He was already the Lord of this world, which was coordinates enough for him, granting him unrestricted access.

He suspected that he was likely the only one who had discovered this world, so he certainly wouldn’t sell the coordinates to anyone else. They were worthless to him and thus, added to the pile in his territory. He also left the Griffin feathers he had used previously to enter this world behind, deciding not to bring them back with him.

Du You was well aware of the potential desolation professional fighters could bring. Since he had chosen this world as his stronghold, he wouldn’t leave a backdoor for another person to exploit.

There were certainly a lot of valuable things this time, but nothing that he needed himself so he decided to sell them off. Though he had initially thought he couldn’t possibly exhaust his regular Crystal Coins, he now found the supply to be alarmingly insufficient.