"Free blueprints for the Divine Hall of the God of the Lush Forest and Deep Marsh! Includes the gold-tier unit, the Deep Swamp Water Demon! PM if interested!!"
"Free blueprints for the Divine Hall of the Netherworld Arbitration God! Includes the gold-tier unit, the Void Walker! PM if interested!!"
...
The regional chat channel for lords was flooded with a chaotic mess of messages.
Just like a new game launch, the chat channel was filled with people posting ads.
What was annoying was that in this Lord Tournament, there was no GM intervention. If you didn't want to see these messages, your only option was to block the advertisers' IDs one by one.
Lin Yu sat atop a giant tree, opened the chat channel, and was instantly drowned in a torrential flood of messages.
"System, collapse duplicate messages."
Having already anticipated this situation, Lin Yu naturally knew how to deal with it. It had been mentioned in both the "Lord Tournament—Points to Note" and "Lord Tournament—Beginner's Tips" sections that the tournament's chat channel would be filled with a massive number of ads.
'Just… what exactly are these Divine Hall blueprints?'
'Why haven't I collected any information on them? How strange!'
'Forget it. There's no such thing as a free lunch in this world. The notices also warned against being greedy for small gains. I'll just block them.'
After collapsing the duplicate messages and blocking the advertisers, the regional channel finally began to display normal conversations.
[Regional Chat Channel (4567)]
Zhang Lv: "Ding the Ninth, you there? If you are, answer me!"
Ding Dong: "Zhang the Second, if you don't know how to talk, then shut up. Call me Lord Nine!"
Zhang Lv: "Pah! You're one to talk. Wanna come hang out at my territory? I've got an Angel! (♡ര‿ര)"
Ding Dong: "Hmph! Not impressed. I have beast-eared girls!"
Zhang Lv: "Take a look at mine! Angel.jpg"
Ding Dong: "Holy crap! That's a Birdman at best. How is that an Angel?"
Zhang Lv: "Just tell me—does it have Angel's Wings or not?"
...
Right, even the "normal" chats were just rich kids bragging and shooting the breeze.
Someone like Lin Yu, who came from an ordinary family, could only look at the pictures in the chat channel and get a vicarious thrill.
At that thought, Lin Yu patted his chest, a shudder running through him.
'Thank goodness! Thank goodness! I'm not an ordinary person anymore. I have a divine-level talent and a Divine-level Territory Heart. In the future, those high-and-mighty young masters will only be able to watch me pull away.'
After composing himself, Lin Yu closed the chat window and stood up.
He was standing on the treetop of a massive tree. The branches were so thick that walking on them was like strolling down a broad avenue. This great tree was his Territory Core, the World Tree.
Upon entering the tournament, Lin Yu had immediately planted the World Tree Seed at the spot where he had been teleported.
After an hour of growth, it grew from a seed into a World Tree Seedling, becoming a Level 1 Territory Heart.
While the World Tree was growing from a seed into a seedling, its skills were unusable and the territory could not be controlled. With nothing to do, Lin Yu could only check the regional chat channel to gather some information.
Even as a seedling, this World Tree was enormous. It stood over 90 meters tall with an extremely thick trunk. The main trunk had a radius of 6 meters, while its other branches had a radius of 3 meters. The canopy alone covered an area of over 7,000 square meters.
With a single thought, Lin Yu vanished in an instant.
He then reappeared inside the trunk, in a space within the World Tree itself that was over a thousand square meters in area.
This room was the Lord's Mansion, the location of the Territory Core. As long as the World Tree did not fall, this place was absolutely safe.
But would the World Tree fall so easily?
With its immense size, felling it would be no easy feat, even if one were allowed to chop away freely. Moreover, now that the World Tree Seed had become a World Tree Seedling, it had undergone new changes.
[Name]: Lord Core — World Tree Seedling
[Quality]: Chromatic Mythical
[Description]: A World Tree Seedling grown from chaos.
[Territory Traits — Nature's Dominator, Lush Foliage, Rapid Growth, Space-Time Ripple]...
[Territory Trait — Vigorous Growth]: The World Tree is in a phase of rapid growth. The territory's range is no longer restricted by the Territory Heart's level, and it expands daily as the World Tree grows.
Daily Territory Range +10%
The territory range increase from leveling up the Territory Heart is unaffected.
[Territory Trait — Spatial Protection]: The World Tree Seedling is afraid of being harmed, so its surface is protected by a spatial barrier.
Immune to all attacks that deal less than 5000 damage.
Immune to detection effects below the Divine level.
"Vigorous Growth" and "Spatial Protection" were new traits generated by the World Tree Seedling (this giant tree) that had grown after Lin Yu used the World Tree Seed.
It was truly worthy of being a Chromatic-quality Territory Heart.
Thanks to the "Spatial Protection" trait, combined with the fact that the monsters in the first phase had limited stats and their attack power wouldn't exceed 5000, he was guaranteed to clear the first phase.
Now, he needed to worry about how to safely get through the second phase.
In the first phase, everyone's territory is isolated; it's basically a single-player game.
Only a very few lords entered the tournament with special treasures that allowed them to travel to other lords' territories, but even then, they still required the other party's consent.
In the second phase, all participants in the region—or rather, all participants on Cuiwei Star—will gather on a massive continent to determine the top 10,000.
Only the top 10,000 will be able to advance to the third phase.
In Lin Yu's view, it was necessary to use the chat channel to gauge his opponents, get a sense of his own strength, and determine where he stood in the overall hierarchy.
For now, all he had gathered was information on the units and followers that the young masters were showing off. It was somewhat useful, but not by much. Still, it was better than nothing.
Of course, at the end of the day, developing his own territory was what mattered most.
"System, open the building list."
[Building List]:
-----------------
[Name]: Level 1 Underground Warehouse
[Description]: A warehouse constructed from the roots of the World Tree combined with the surrounding soil. It can store 100,000 units of any resource.
[Capacity]: 100,000 units
[Prosperity]: 10
[Requirements]: 10 Wood, 10 Stone. (Affected by "Lush Foliage")
-----------------
[Name]: Level 1 Orchard
[Description]: Constructed from the secondary branches of the World Tree. When followers are assigned to work here, they will plant, maintain, and harvest fruit trees within the orchard's area of effect.
The daily fruit harvest varies depending on the number and quality of fruit trees within the orchard's range.
[Effect]: 0-100 units of Food/day
[Prosperity]: 10
[Requirements]: 10 Wood. (Affected by "Lush Foliage")
-----------------
[Name]: Level 1 Wood Element Collection Workshop
[Description]: A unique building constructed from the secondary branches of the World Tree and the surrounding soil. When followers are assigned to work here, they can gather wood elements to generate the wood required for construction.
The amount of wood generated daily varies depending on the abundance of wood elements within the Wood Element Collection Workshop's area of effect.
[Effect]: 0-100 units of Wood/day
[Prosperity]: 10
[Requirements]: 10 Wood, 10 Stone. (Affected by "Lush Foliage")
-----------------
[Name]: Level 1 Earth Element Collection Workshop
[Description]: A unique building constructed from the secondary branches of the World Tree and the surrounding soil. When followers are assigned to work here, they can gather earth elements to generate the stone required for construction.
The amount of stone generated daily varies depending on the abundance of earth elements within the Earth Element Collection Workshop's area of effect.
[Effect]: 0-100 units of Stone/day
[Prosperity]: 10
[Requirements]: 10 Wood, 10 Stone. (Affected by "Lush Foliage")
-----------------
[Name]: Basic Forestry Lodge
[Description]: A unique building constructed from the secondary branches of the World Tree and the surrounding soil. When followers are assigned to work here, they will maintain the plants within the building's area of effect, accelerating their growth and development.
[Effect]: All plant growth speed +50%, maturation time -30%.
[Prosperity]: 10
[Requirements]: 10 Wood, 10 Stone. (Affected by "Lush Foliage")
-----------------
[Name]: Level 1 Tree Hollow
[Description]: The World Tree grows specific, hollowed-out stumps from the ground to serve as residences for followers. Can house 1 follower.
[Effect]: 1 Population
[Prosperity]: 1
[Requirements]: 1 Wood. (Affected by "Lush Foliage")
-----------------
"'Lush Foliage,' you're an absolute godsend!!!"
(PS: Every contestant participating in the Lord Tournament is issued an exclusive system used to manage their territory and record data.)