Chapter 424 - 177: The Wealth-Scattering Boy Appears, and the Whole Country Rejoices

Thanks to Shen Fei’s unrestrained actions, the entire atmosphere across Great Xia had been stirred up. The people of Great Xia traditionally followed the doctrine of the mean; they disliked standing out, fearing the proverb, "the nail that sticks out gets hammered down." But with a supreme expert like Shen Fei leading the charge, no one worried about that anymore.

As a result, all sorts of factions began to emerge. In fact, among the six cities with established Teleportation Arrays, [Wandering Merchants] with special "permits" had even appeared. These individuals persuaded the administrators of the six cities to grant them limited Teleportation access. Then, using their backpacks, they carried large quantities of goods from other cities to engage in long-distance trade.

Shen Fei wasn’t too concerned about these Wandering Merchants essentially poaching business from his [Ninth World]. Using the Teleportation Arrays was not a trivial matter; each activation consumed a city’s energy. Previously, he had been defending the nation single-handedly and could use the arrays freely, consuming city energy without regard for the cost. But now that the great monster tide was over, activating an energy-consuming Teleportation Array was no longer so simple.

Shen Fei still didn’t know how Zhang Qiqiang, whom he had granted administrative access to Qing City’s Teleportation Array, had been persuaded to approve a Wandering Merchant’s request. However, he understood that while these merchants could seemingly travel everywhere to sell goods, the cost was immense. Besides, with the costly Wandering Merchants serving as a comparison, my [Ninth World] will seem all the more valuable...

"Interesting..." Shen Fei muttered as he quickly browsed the posts. He soon saw that there were only six [Wandering Merchants] in total across all of Great Xia. Seeing this number, he immediately guessed the situation. Obviously, six Wandering Merchants means the six cities with Teleportation Arrays each have one slot... Since Zhang Qiqiang agreed to open Qing City’s Teleportation Array, it seems one of the six must be a [Wandering Merchant] from Qing City...

Shen Fei paid the so-called Wandering Merchants no mind. Once his [Ninth World] developed further, he could open more trading nodes. With the convenience of the Ninth World, the [Wandering Merchants] would quickly be replaced. Unless they find a new service experience and value that differs from the [Ninth World]...

SWOOSH. SWOOSH. SWOOSH.

Scrolling through the hottest posts on the Forum, Shen Fei saw that three main topics were being heatedly discussed.

The first topic, of course, was the strongest player, Shen Fei himself, whose popularity hadn’t faded in the slightest. Some theorycrafters had even spent three days compiling a statistical breakdown of his Defense Towers, Attack Power, attack range, and more. Many people were using this data as a benchmark, gauging their own strength against Shen Fei’s Combat Power level. Even though three days had passed, the buzz he had generated showed no signs of waning.

Looking at the threads discussing his statistically analyzed Combat Power, Shen Fei thought to himself, You’re all in for a disappointment. My Combat Power has increased by another ten thousandfold... My Attack Power has already reached the Capital Level...

Three days ago, when he could only deploy 100 Defense Towers, his maximum Attack Power was in the tens of billions, or at most, the hundreds of billions. But after his three-day trip into the Game World, the damage he could now unleash had broken past the hundred-million and even trillion marks, reaching the Capital Level. And yet, the discussions on the Forum were still based on his Combat Power from three days ago.

SWOOSH.

Aside from the unabated discussion about himself, Shen Fei saw that the second most popular topic was the Secret Realms. Three days ago, with the full update of the preceding game version, Version 4.4—the Secret Realm patch—had also been fully rolled out. Before Shen Fei entered the Game World, numerous Secret Realms had randomly spawned across the entire planet. Along with them came a mandatory quest introduced in Version 4.5: "Delve into a Secret Realm."

The time limit for this quest was seven days. In other words, before the next inheritance of game abilities, every player with a personal interface had to complete this activity once. This made delving into a Secret Realm—essentially a dungeon run—a mandatory task for everyone.

The quest had been active for three days now, and many impatient people had already completed it. As a result, all kinds of related posts flooded the Forum: people sharing their experiences, looking for teams, posting statistical data, or just joining in on the fun. In short, the topic of delving into Secret Realms was generating a massive amount of buzz.

SWOOSH.

Flipping through the posts, Shen Fei discovered that the various Tourism Management Offices had already scouted most of the Secret Realms within their respective city limits. Although the specific details of most realms remained unknown since no one had entered them yet, the locations and basic parameters of at least 90% had been compiled.

As he reviewed the Secret Realm information, Shen Fei made a decision. The data for the Secret Realms around Qing City should be mostly compiled by now! I’ll go find Zhang Qiqiang later and take a look. He wanted to see what other Secret Realms, besides the Heaven-Reaching Tower, had appeared near Qing City. He remembered that the number of Secret Realms would slowly increase over time, with more and more appearing in the real world after each inheritance of game abilities.