Chapter 356: Building the City Walls

Besides, its fur would grow back in a few days! Could Joo Joowon please stop talking as though it would have to live like this for the rest of its life?!

Wasn’t this going a little too far?!

"Meowww!"

Even if you go bald, I won’t go bald!

Just because Joo Joowon was so concerned about this issue himself, did he really have to assume that cats felt the same way?!

Joo Joowon didn’t doubt Byeol’s words, though. After all, the cat itself would certainly understand its own physical condition better than anyone else. But why did it have to turn the conversation around and take a shot at him?!

Joo Joowon touched his hair and felt that he would never have to worry about this problem again. Transcendents could control the rate at which their body hair grew.

Of course, if someone had already gone bald before becoming a Transcendent, there was nothing they could do about it. After all, the hair follicles would already be useless.

However, if this wasn’t caused by its species, then how had Byeol ended up looking like this?

Under Joo Joowon’s puzzled gaze, Byeol fell silent.

"..."

This was so annoying. Asking any more questions would just be rude.

The cat immediately jumped down from Joo Joowon’s body. With a few nimble leaps, it made its way from the floor to the cat tree. It tucked its paws beneath its body and refused to look at him.

What could it possibly say? Should it admit that it had been trying so hard to leave its scent around the surrounding area that it had rubbed its own fur off in the process?

If the human who cleaned its litter box hadn’t disliked it using the toilet anywhere other than the litter box, would Byeol ever have ended up in this situation?

It wasn’t doing this for the sake of its human servant. It simply liked being clean! It just didn’t want to say so because it didn’t want its human servant to get too pleased with himself.

And then there was Hwi! If Hwi hadn’t dared to fight back when Byeol hit it, causing the already dangerously thin layer of fur on its body to fall off completely, Byeol definitely wouldn’t have ended up like this!

Byeol lowered its head and licked its fur. It decided that once Hwi came out, it would definitely give that cat several more hard punches.

It was so angry!

Seeing that Byeol seemed to be getting angry out of embarrassment, Joo Joowon couldn’t help scratching his head. Why wouldn’t the cat answer him? How exactly had it ended up like this?

Thinking back to the time when he had taken Hwi to the energy pool and seen cat fur scattered all over the ground, Joo Joowon fell into thought.

Could it have been caused by a fight? And judging by the way things looked, had Byeol actually lost?

Considering Hwi’s size, it would have been strange if Byeol had managed to win.

Only when the difference in size between two opponents was relatively small would technique become particularly important. In most situations, overwhelming strength could make up for a lack of skill.

This was especially true among animals. The larger animal generally had the advantage, and exceptions were rare.

After all, they couldn’t rely on tools to help them fight.

Seeing that Byeol didn’t want to pay attention to him for the time being, Joo Joowon didn’t mind. He had already explained everything he needed to explain to the cat, so there was nothing wrong with letting it stay by itself for a while.

Besides, if he forcibly tried to pet it now, the cat might respond by giving him a few hard punches!

After putting some canned food into the cat’s bowl, Joo Joowon opened the in-game shop and took a look around.

Farmland was the cheapest type of blueprint available. Perhaps this was because it didn’t require many construction materials, so it cost only one silver coin. The remaining buildings, even those of white quality, weren’t particularly cheap.

As for entertainment buildings, Joo Joowon had purchased the blueprint through the trading house. Even a common-quality building cost one hundred silver coins, and it also required someone with the basic construction skill and the Artisan secondary profession to build it.

As for the military buildings, Joo Joowon had already made up his mind.

He planned to build the city walls first.

The apocalypse game didn’t impose any strict rules requiring players to reach a certain level before they could construct the corresponding buildings. As long as they had enough money and resources, they could build anything from the very beginning. It wasn’t just city walls. They could even build a floating city!

Therefore, if a player prepared all the necessary resources from the start, then once they passed the lord assessment and received official certification, they could do far more than simply jump from being a beginner to becoming an experienced player. They could go straight from a Level One territory to a fully upgraded territory!

However, this was the sort of money-spending and cheating strategy used by second-generation heirs, third-generation heirs, and those who came after them. It was similar to how royal families in ancient times granted fiefdoms to princes who weren’t going to inherit the throne, or how foreign nobles carved out territories for their children before sending them off to govern.

It wasn’t a path available to ordinary players.

A lord who started with nothing and had no money or resources could only take things slowly and build everything up step by step.

The reason Joo Joowon had chosen to give up on building a military barracks and construct city walls instead was that he had considered the size of his territory and the matter of gaining experience points.

When a lord passed the assessment quest, the game would automatically convert all the buildings within the territory into data. City walls were the best tool for defining the boundaries of that area, and at that point, they would be far more useful than other buildings.