Published: February 13, 2025
After Aslan, who had made Ye Zhongming extremely passive with her tactics of making decisions after the fact, left with Xia Bai, Ye Zhongming focused more of his energy on the construction of Dark Strip City.
Since this city had completely aligned with him, it was time to fortify it.
With ties to the Su Clan, and Moon Age Gold temporarily not in short supply, everything went smoothly.
During this period, something unexpected happened. When he proposed to rearrange the defenses of Dark Strip City, not a single race within the city opposed it; instead, they all supported it wholeheartedly.
This was easy to understand—Dark Strip City was their home, their foundation. After following Ye Zhongming to rampage through the novice battlefield and the planet hunting grounds, they had already formed a deep bond with Cloud Summit. Thus, Ye Zhongming's enemies became theirs, and their hatred for Ye Zhongming was naturally their own as well.
And how many people looked down on Ye Zhongming? Who were they? Just thinking about these small races made them feel extremely insecure.
Now that there was an opportunity to make their stronghold more secure, who wouldn't be happy?
Thus, these races not only supported him in actions but also contributed financially. The total amount they pooled together was enough to cover all the material costs required for Su Clan's design, and there was even a slight surplus. Ye Zhongming added a bit more himself and handed it all over to the Su Clan, treating the surplus as a way to invite the formation masters to dinner and tea.
If it weren’t for the friendships involved, this amount of money would have been insufficient.
According to the Su Clan's proposals, there were two approaches. The first was a one-time construction to completely overhaul the city and establish a systematic defensive formation.
The advantage of this method was a short construction period, but the disadvantage was that it required a lot of manpower and funds in a short time and made a lot of noise.
The second approach was similar to Cloud Summit Manor, divided into three phases. The first step was to improve the core area of the city, the second step was to transform the other urban areas, and the final step was to reconstruct the city walls.
The first method could be completed in about six months, which seemed lengthy, but this was about transforming a city, even a small one.
The latter would take more than a year, but the first phase only required three months.
After weighing the options, Ye Zhongming chose the second method.
Now, what he and the Alliance of Small Races needed to do was to keep a low profile, even lower, and try to divert the attention of the super clans towards the Su Clan and the Musk Ke people, providing enough time for development for both Cloud Summit and Dark Strip City.
………
With Ye Zhongming's return, many matters concerning the Star-Eye Clan returned to normal. Whether Ye Zhongming was willing or not, Aslan had already thrown down her position and left; contacting her would not bring her back. They couldn't just kick her out of the Library Palace, could they?
It was said that a few bookkeepers were quite optimistic about Aslan, feeling she had training value.
Ye Zhongming once thought that the bookkeepers in the Library Palace seemed to find potential in everyone…… of course, this was a continuation of his resentment towards Aslan, a malicious association…… In fact, before he arrived at the Star-Eye Clan, Aslan was already a key training target placed right after Pao Bai, with considerable talent.
In a bid to 'retaliate' against the Library Palace, Ye Zhongming sent over a hundred Star-Eye Clan members for training, and a team of red dress guards from his side went as well.
They didn’t have to pay any tuition fees.
These arrangements had been agreed upon, and the Library Palace welcomed these newcomers, as it gave them a sense of hope.
In fact, they were indeed filled with hope because they had only one material left for solving that cursed poison, and they had a clear target for it. However, at the moment, Ye Zhongming still didn't know how to go about it.