Chapter 334 - 164: How long will it take... to dig... dig... dig... dig

Chapter 334: Chapter 164: How long will it take... to dig... dig... dig... dig

It was now the rainy season.

Business at the Jiangnan West Lake Tower had temporarily ceased.

The West Lake Tower Master looked down at the members of his faction, his expression serious. "Everyone, for us, the rainy season is not a time for rest. It is a time to build our strength, to prepare for even greater glory after it ends!"

Business had been very good this year.

Leveraging his old connections with the factions of the Guanxi Plain, he had quickly spread the word about his braised food.

But it was precisely because business was so good...

...that many details had not been perfected.

The rainy season was the perfect opportunity to conduct some serious training.

"What is the ’Mortal Realm’?"

"It is the greatest faction in the Four Areas Jiangbei! It is the faction that has created countless miracles! It is the faction that will one day march south into the Guanxi Plain!"

"We are not just selling delicious braised food."

"We are selling braised food that embodies the spirit of the Mortal Realm."

"Next..."

The West Lake Tower Master no longer wore the look of despair he had when he first learned about the Mortal Realm’s Skeleton Horse. Instead, he was now full of vigor, his face flushed with excitement.

The Guanxi Master of Braised Food’s dishes had always been delicious, but why were they so unpopular on the Guanxi Plain?

First, it was a matter of reputation.

The Divine Artifact Pavilion, the faction the Guanxi Master of Braised Food belonged to, looked down on their own Artifact Refiner. They considered the whole affair a disgrace whenever it was mentioned to outsiders.

Second, the price.

The Guanxi Master of Braised Food set his prices far too low.

These factors led to eating his braised food being seen as an undignified affair.

An undignified affair.

No matter how good the substance, people would keep quiet about it simply because it was undignified.

So, what he had to do was make it dignified.

Step one: reduce the portion size.

A single portion of braised food procured from the Mortal Realm contained many pieces, but they had specially commissioned a large quantity of silver saucers, silver plates, and silver forks to shrink the serving size to a bare minimum.

A huge plate holding just a single kelp knot.

Buying the braised food came with the silver tableware.

The tableware cost more than the food itself.

He sold it at a price hundreds of times that of the Mortal Realm’s braised food, not to the common people, but exclusively to the rich and powerful.

Under this kind of packaging, no one would feel that eating braised food was an undignified affair.

Or rather, eating ordinary braised food was indeed undignified, but eating the Jiangbei Mortal Realm braised food sold by their West Lake Tower—that was a dignified affair.

During the transition, he had actually considered whether to market it as "Jiangbei Mortal Realm Braised Food" or "Jiangnan West Lake Tower Braised Food." In the end, he chose the former.

He was paving the way.

He was paving the way for the Jiangbei Mortal Realm to march south into the Guanxi Plain.

It didn’t matter that many people had never heard of the Jiangbei Mortal Realm now. He believed that the moment they marched south, given Domain Lord Chen’s way of doing things, it wouldn’t be long before the Jiangbei Mortal Realm’s name thundered across the Guanxi Plain.

And at that time, his Jiangbei Mortal Realm braised food would ride the momentum and soar!

Soon, after finishing the training, the West Lake Tower Master walked over to the nearby Level 3 City Wall. He gazed out at the eternal night beyond the Ghost Fire, lost in a wistful trance for a long while before suddenly breaking into laughter.

This past year, he had experienced many setbacks.

The moment the Mortal Realm’s Skeleton Horse appeared, he had been on the verge of complete collapse.

It had forced him to transform his business.

In the end—

He had found a path to survival.

He felt he was quite brilliant. With such a large enterprise where all his resources were tied to the Skeleton Horse business, he had still managed to find a path to survival from within a Death Realm.

As the head of the house, he needed to maintain a calm and steady demeanor. Even if he was happy, he couldn’t show too much of a smile, or his subordinates might think him frivolous.

But in truth, at this very moment, he really wished he had a sycophant among his men.

That way, he could maintain a completely neutral expression on the outside while secretly reveling in every detail of the sycophant’s praise.

After a long while,

he turned from his position on the City Wall to look back inside.

The Vehicle Workshop had been Desolate for a long time. Next to it, an old man was frantically swinging a hammer, forging silver plates and saucers one after another.

Not with a Building Blueprint.

Just pure hammering.

This old man was West Lake Tower’s former Level 7 Architect. When West Lake Tower transformed its business, he no longer had to build Skeleton Horses.

He started swinging a hammer to pound out silver saucers.

He was getting more and more Skilled.

Moreover...

With the arrangements he had made, he wasn’t worried about anyone competing with him for business.

The West Lake Tower Master smiled and turned back to gaze at the eternal night.

For some reason, he felt the eternal night of this rainy season wasn’t particularly dark. After months of sinking into despair, he had finally seen a glimmer of dawn for his Jiangnan West Lake Tower.

The Mortal Realm had destroyed his old business.

Yet it had also forced him to transform, giving him the even more profitable braised food business.

He knew that neither destroying him nor bestowing this opportunity upon him was the Mortal Realm’s intention.

The Mortal Realm was simply minding its own business, developing on its own.

And in the process of its development, it was like a Nine-Five Dragon Carriage speeding across a plain. Factions like his were merely blades of grass. Some would be crushed to death. Others would die only to be reborn, clinging to the wheels like dried blades, carried forward at an even greater speed toward an unknown future.

...

「The New Continent」

With the rainy season’s approach, it had been a long time since Chen Fan had visited the New Continent. Stepping onto it again, he found it had changed dramatically since his last visit.

As far as the eye could see, bustling Mortal Realm Members were everywhere.

The Mortal Realm had recruited 50,000 new external members. He was the one who had given the order, but he had never seen these 50,000 Mortal Realm Members with his own eyes and didn’t have much of a concept of the number.

Seeing them today, he was left somewhat speechless.

’So many people...’

’To think the Mortal Realm can actually support this many mouths to feed. Compared to the last rainy season, this is more than just a little progress. There are just so many people.’