Published: February 8, 2025
Ye Zhongming had seen a lot of materials before, whether it was high-quality materials brought back from the secret realms, or those obtained from the trading market in Puxing Town, or the sea beast materials gathered during the Inner City defense battle. The quantities were considerable, especially in the last two instances, where the materials piled up could easily be described as small hills.
However, this time, Ye Zhongming saw... multiple small hills.
The Cloud Summit warriors had already categorized the materials and arranged them neatly in front of Ye Zhongming, sorted by grade from low to high, with the hill sizes also varying from large to small.
"Half of these were collected by our own people. Because we don't have many members and we need to cut and clean the materials from the sea beasts, progress has been slow. However, the people from Ying City didn’t come to help," Mo Ye said as she stood beside Ye Zhongming, looking at the materials. Even though she had witnessed the formation of these 'material hills' over the past few days, seeing them now still filled her with excitement.
Women naturally possess a greater aptitude in this area than men, and Mo Ye was no exception. She understood the value of these materials and knew what they meant in the context of having Ye Zhongming around.
It wasn't hard to imagine that after some time, once Ye Zhongming and Cloud Summit Villa consumed these materials, the entire strength of Cloud Summit would advance significantly.
Ye Zhongming nodded, understanding the implication of Mo Ye's words. The various factions in Ying City did not want to come help, not because they didn’t want to, but because they were trying to avoid suspicion, fearing that the people from Cloud Summit might mistakenly think they were coveting the materials.
"The other half was sent over by the people from Ying City," Mo Ye said with a hint of helplessness in her smile.
After cleaning the battlefield, the factions from Ying City had all coincidentally come to deliver some materials to Cloud Summit Villa, citing the unusually unified reason of thanking Cloud Summit for their care during this period.
While the reason sounded grand, there was indeed some truth to it. However, everyone understood the real purpose behind it. It was simply to win Cloud Summit's favor and to trade a favor in return.
They had also received a substantial amount of materials this time, perhaps due to Ye Zhongming's 'disruption' in Ying City. Aside from Hai Dong from the now-vanished East Mountain Mouth Village, there were no other craftsmen or practitioners around. To utilize the value of these materials for weapons and equipment, they could only turn to Ye Zhongming.
Delivering some materials might seem like a loss, but these things were originally allocated to them by Cloud Summit; the only difference was in the quantity—more or less.
Receiving a bit less could win favor with Boss Ye, who might then prioritize providing better equipment for their faction, leading to closer ties with Cloud Summit Villa in the future. This could be seen as a win-win situation, a deal that was undoubtedly worthwhile.
There were no fools among those who had survived to this point. Even if someone was foolish, after following Cloud Summit Villa for a while, they would know how to interact with Boss Ye.
Thus, the already significant spoils suddenly doubled.
Mo Ye tilted her head, observing the factions from Ying City huddled together in groups, occasionally glancing this way. After a moment, she remarked, "Of course, these people are quite cunning. The materials they sent over are mostly mediocre, concentrated around levels three and four, with only a few major factions sending over some level five materials. Their intentions aren’t very ambitious."
Ye Zhongming cast a surprised glance at the female armed police officer, who was expressing her dissatisfaction with a barely audible hum. It seemed that no matter how aloof or grand the woman, in some aspects, she was just as petty as an ordinary woman.