The Fourth Calamity: Starting with Dungeon Slimes

Chapter 171 Preparing for Evolution

"Look, look! What are you looking at? Are you going to take responsibility if you break it?"

It was obvious that Salty Fish didn't intend to show this to Lilith.

This move infuriated Lilith. It was clearly her own property, yet she couldn't even take a look at it—that was just too much.

Of course, what Lilith didn't know was that it wasn't that Salty Fish didn't want to show her; it was mainly because Salty Fish noticed that there was something slightly off about the guy's eyes.

What if the NPC sees this and gets emotional, then doesn't want to return it? Wouldn't that ruin my quest?

So after much thought, the salted fish made a decision.

Let's finish the quest first. As for whether our relationship with this NPC is important? Anyway, this NPC is just a background character, so whether our relationship is high or low doesn't really matter.

And so, Lilith watched with resentment as Salty Fish and his companions swaggered away.

Now that the salted fish has left, the crowd has become even noisier.

"This doesn't make sense. According to the information we have, that thing should be heavily guarded, and it would be very difficult to sneak in. I even asked the NPCs, and they actually managed to retrieve it. This is just absurd."

"They actually did what we thought was impossible, and that's what's most difficult to bear."

"7

The players were immediately abuzz with discussion. They had naturally looked into the quest beforehand, so that if Salty Fish failed, they could take over.

The more they learn about them, the happier they become, because based on the information they have, this task is extremely difficult; simply put, the probability of failure for Salty Fish and his team is very high.

For the vast majority of players, this is naturally good news.

After all, seeing Salty Fish and his friends make money is more painful than losing money themselves, and why can't they be the ones making money? So they were hoping that Salty Fish and his friends would fail, but the result was very disappointing.

The most outrageous thing is that Salty Fish and his friends actually succeeded. If you had failed, we could have just laughed it off, but now that you've succeeded, how can we still laugh?

Although the final result made them very sad, the matter was now settled and could not be changed.

Rather than discussing how much money the salted fish makers are making, other people prefer to discuss other, more important things.

"Brothers, barring any unforeseen circumstances, the NPCs will be entering their next upgrade phase, and we're in the same situation."

"We should move directly to the next stage, which is the current stage for NPCs, and the level cap will continue to increase. Each increase will increase the number of players entering the game."

"Moreover, this increase is growing exponentially. For example, we have more than 500 people now, but next time it may be more than 1000."

"The number of new players will continue to grow, and their resources and purchasing power will also increase. But that's not the main point. The main point is what I heard from the NPCs. The reason we're currently holed up here is mainly due to a shortage of manpower. However, judging from the current situation, the manpower issue should be resolved soon, because the entry of new players will largely solve this tricky problem."

"Once we have enough manpower, what will likely follow is war and continuous expansion of territory, eventually leading to our departure from this place."

Hearing what this player said, everyone present nodded in agreement. They completely agreed with the player's guess. To be precise, they had experienced something like this several times before, so it wasn't really a guess.

Basically, after each evolution, the number of players will surge, and after each evolution, the NPCs' arrangements for the entire tribe will also change: when the number of people is small, the focus is on how to develop city defense, agriculture, industry, etc., to improve production efficiency; but now that the number of people is large enough, the next thing to consider is war, because all the pre-war preparations have been almost completed.

These players have a certain understanding of war games, and the development path of the NPCs clearly illustrates the situation. Simply put, it's about preparing for war, whether it's setting up factories, manufacturing medicine, etc., all of which are war preparation materials.

"It seems the next version will be about war. Actually, it's pretty much true, because when the next version starts, firstly, our level cap will have been reached, which is quite high. At least we won't be like before, where we had a hard time dealing with even a high-level monster and had to risk our lives. Now, our own strength is not bad."

"With the various new weapons introduced abroad, plus the war resources we currently possess, the start of war is practically a done deal. And most importantly, the intelligence brought back by Salty Fish and his team didn't mention the outside world at all, which is pretty much what we expected—the outside world is already ready. Moreover, Salty Fish and his team, in a way, acted as an experiment on the outside world in the past, to see if there were any problems in various aspects. Now it seems there shouldn't be any problems."

"Since there's nothing wrong with the map of the outside world, the official team couldn't have gone through all that trouble just to make it look nice."

"In short, barring any unforeseen circumstances, once the update is complete, it will be time for us to move on to the next stage of evolution."

And so, the players started discussing it amongst themselves, while many others began secretly acquiring various war-related resources.

Meanwhile, on Jiang Chen's side...

In fact, apart from the most important upgrade material brought back by the salted fish, all the other upgrade materials had already been collected. Although most of the upgrade materials were difficult to collect, it wasn't a big problem because the boss they found earlier had already collected some other precious materials.

Jiang Chen originally thought they would have to fight their way from floor 60 to 70, and then defeat the boss on floor 70 to obtain the materials, which would take a very long time. However, sometimes luck is also a part of skill. The players were lucky enough to encounter high-level bosses and obtain the elite boss materials that could only be obtained by defeating floor 70.

Of course, this is a good thing for Jiang Chen.

After obtaining the materials from these elite bosses, the subsequent operations become much easier. You only need to retrieve the most important items to smoothly level up.

"After this level increase, I should be able to catch up with the top tier."

"Of course, it certainly doesn't reach the level of positions like elders in those high-ranking races, but it's about the same level as most professions."

"That's also my advantage."

"As long as I can improve, all the players can improve as well. After they improve, if their levels increase again, they will basically be on par with some regular elite combat teams. Although there may be a difference of a few levels, the major hurdle will be overcome."

"With the various weapons we've prepared during this period, our combat power will definitely see a qualitative leap."

"It's about time."

Thinking about this, Jiang Chen couldn't help but feel a little emotional.

The reason for such feelings is very simple: since entering this world, I have been holed up in this underground city.

They also have to constantly face threats from other races. The reason they are able to survive in the dungeon is because of its unique characteristics, which prevent large-scale invasions by the enemy.

However, he couldn't stay in this dark and gloomy underground city forever; the outside world was his true stage.

However, due to his race, the number and level of the players, and various other reasons, he had to temporarily abandon the idea. But after this period of development, Jiang Chen felt it was about time to go out.

Jiang Chen felt this way mainly for two reasons.

The first aspect is that the resources needed for subsequent wars are relatively complete. First of all, there are dedicated planting areas where there is a fixed output of resources. Of course, most of the resources here are used to make recovery potions.

The second aspect is their own breeding industry, which is basically well-established. Currently, there are a large number of various magical beasts in the breeding area, as well as potion manufacturers and various meat canneries. These breeding and planting products are quickly processed into canned goods and transported to the front lines as war supplies.

The industrial production lines are also basically complete. Whether it's the most basic units that players need or high-end mech units, they are all prepared here. There are also production lines for shells, turrets, and mechs. These production lines can provide great help for your subsequent battles.

Equipment can be replenished immediately after it is damaged, because the production line has more than enough capacity. So our logistics are almost ready. The only major problem is the source of minerals, because for things like mechs, it is best to use magical items to smelt them.

There are certain ways to obtain this item, such as killing the opponent in battle, taking their items, and throwing them away. However, there is a problem here: the production volume is very low.

Although our alloy technology is not bad, the biggest problem is that alloying is only the beginning; we also need to inscribe various magic circles and other things, which is the most troublesome part.

Because this thing really can't be mass-produced. Although there are studies on how to use an assembly line to produce it, it's much more difficult than directly producing various machines. At least for now, players haven't found a suitable method.

Players have been working on overcoming this challenge. Once they succeed, they will be able to mass-produce various magical alloys, but so far, it's not possible. Currently, this special core can only be crafted manually.

Once anything involves manual labor, all sorts of problems arise: low efficiency, a large number of people required, and certain requirements for manpower.

Currently, the amateur welders there who produce various mecha parts are using this method, so the efficiency is not high. However, the parts for mecha are not as large as the mecha themselves, and they are not particularly complicated, so they can barely keep up with demand for a while. But if it comes to wartime consumption, Jiang Chen estimates that it will be quite risky.

The only reliable method at present is to take back the spoils of war captured after the war, as well as all the damaged items on their side, and remelt and reuse them.

This is currently the only feasible method, but no matter how you recycle this stuff, there will be losses, and the losses will be considerable. After all, if it fails, the other side will also plunder the spoils, which makes this method risky and unstable. Although it can be used, for a complete industrial system, this instability is the biggest problem.

"Ultimately, the biggest problem is that we can't leave the dungeon and can't find other allies. If we can find a suitable material supplier, we won't have to worry about this problem for at least a short period of time. The supply of materials from the supplier will be more than enough for us to improve the system."

"That way we won't have to worry about being held hostage, but it's very simple, that's simply impossible, we can only rely on ourselves."

"The only feasible way now is to drive the Dark Elves and Nightmares out of the dungeon. Anyway, they can't fight freely in the dungeon, and they don't have any advantage in fighting us like this."

"After we take over the entire underground city, we can integrate a lot of resources. In that case, we can use the underground city as our base and then start to expand outwards from the underground city as the center."

The progress of his own war fortress project was far too slow, and it was impossible to complete it in the short term.

Moreover, even if he managed to create it at this point, Jiang Chen wouldn't dare to deploy it. After all, there were too few players, and deploying it would only result in being targeted by a concentrated attack. No matter how strong it was, it wouldn't last long.

Jiang Chen's idea was simple: to create a kingdom of their own, centered around the entrance to the underground city.

As long as you can move around in the outside world at any time, it will be much easier to obtain resources and special rare items, so you can upgrade your rank again as quickly as possible.

Once you advance to the next rank, you'll gain various advantages. At that point, players' levels will generally exceed the average level of most combat squads, and they can then rely entirely on the massive number of monsters at different levels of the dungeon to level up.

It's like having the ability to attack or defend, with nothing to worry about in any aspect. For Jiang Chen, the underground city is indeed a good place.

After some deliberation, Jiang Chen made a decision immediately.

"If that's the case, then let's do it that way."

"Next is leveling up. We need to level up as quickly as possible to avoid any unforeseen problems."

With that in mind, Jiang Chen immediately began making arrangements.