Chapter 152 : Formation of the Five Great Corps (RAW)
Chapter 152: Formation of the Five Great Corps! The New Map Officially Unlocked!
“This is a refining formula for special medicinal herb seeds!”
The twin Flower Sprite sisters looked astonished. Even though it was only Tier 1, it was of blue quality. A formula of this quality— even in a large Starsea City-State like Sacred Cang City— would typically be valued at three to five thousand magic crystals per copy.
The Chief Alchemy Specialist Bai Mu had already mastered the refining of two attribute medicines: Dragon-Patterned Bone-Forging Pill and Dragon-Patterned Essence Pill.
If the materials could be mass-produced, the significance would be enormous. It could easily become the flagship product of the Luoshui City Alchemy Workshop!
It would boost the entire workshop’s performance, greatly benefiting both Uncle Bai Mu and the two sisters. Even more, it would deepen the foundation of the territory and enhance its competitiveness!
Hang Yu said, “I found these two formulas during my recent trip back to Sacred Cang City. Their market price is 6,000 magic crystals, but I can license them to you sisters for 3,000.”
The most important principle in managing a team was clear rewards and punishments.
Though the Flower Sprite sisters were territory employees, since they hadn’t made any particularly outstanding contributions, Hang Yu couldn’t just give the formulas to them for free. That would be unfair to the rest of the staff.
Take Bai Mu for example.
The alchemy formulas he’d mastered had been learned at his own expense.
If the sisters were given a high-value formula for free, it wouldn’t sit well with Bai Mu.
Of course, Hang Yu wouldn’t sell to his employees at full price either, nor would he try to profit off of them. After all, the employees were creating value for him, and they had signed long-term contracts with the territory. As their boss, he ought to shoulder part of the training costs as a benefit to win loyalty.
When Hang Yu had purchased the two formulas from a Lich Lord, the market price was indeed 6,000 magic crystals. He managed to bargain it down to 5,000. Now offering it to the sisters for 3,000, there was no way they’d be on the losing end.
The fee could be credited and repaid over time, or offset with Contribution Points.
“Thank you, Lord, for nurturing us!” The sisters were extremely excited. Even though the formula wasn’t free, only a fool wouldn’t realize this was a guaranteed win!
Besides—
This ability came with no time limit and wouldn’t disappear.
Even if something happened to the territory in the future and they couldn’t continue working here, the ability wouldn’t be lost. They could list it on their resume and gain a huge advantage in future job searches— better offers, better positions.
Once the two successfully cultivated seeds in bulk, the workshop’s output could very well double. The learning cost would be easily recouped!
What’s 3,000 magic crystals anyway?
The sisters, Huayue and Huaxing, hailed from the largest Flower Sprite family in Sacred Cang City.
That amount of magic crystals meant nothing to them. They didn’t even need credit—they could pay in full right away.
As for using Contribution Points instead of magic crystals?
Absolutely not! Only an idiot would do that!
Although the territory occasionally allowed magic crystals to be exchanged for Contribution Points, that perk was rare and limited. Contribution Points could be exchanged for Abyssal Essence, which was on a whole different level of value compared to magic crystals.
Hang Yu asked, “How many seeds can you cultivate per day at most?”
Huayue answered, “If we have enough raw materials, with our current cultivation and working at full effort, we can refine around 500 seeds per day.”
Five hundred per person—one thousand between them. In ten days, that’d be ten thousand!
This was already an impressive rate!
Of course, this was just theoretical.
Whether the actual output could hit those numbers was uncertain.
First of all, the herbal seeds couldn’t just appear out of nowhere. They required a base batch of modifiable seeds and dragon-type beast blood and bones as refining ingredients.
Base seeds weren’t hard to buy.
Several common herb seeds could be used.
The key issue was that dragon beast blood and bones were relatively rare.
The materials obtained when the Scourge Army previously slew the Earth Dragon mount of the Lizardman Lord Chilin had already been refined into pills. If those had been used to cultivate seeds instead and then refined into pills again, output could’ve increased dozens of times. It was truly a shame.
For now, there was no better solution.
They could only purchase from the trading market.
There were ten thousand human Lords in this market, representing ten thousand territories across different planes. Some territories would inevitably have dragons and could supply materials.
Besides the materials—
They also had to solve the issue of Spirit Fields.
Luoshui Main City had two Spirit Fields.
The Lizardman Lord Chilin had left behind three more Spirit Fields in the White Tiger City Region.
In other words, Hang Yu currently owned five Spirit Fields. However, they were all Tier 1 small-sized Spirit Fields. Each field could grow either 1,500 Red Moon Grass or Blue Moon Grass, or 100 Dragon-Patterned Spirit Ginseng at a time.
As for Dragonblood Grass and Dragonbone Grass—
Their material quality and spiritual energy requirements were similar to Dragon-Patterned Spirit Ginseng, but their growth cycles were a bit shorter.
This meant that even if all five Spirit Fields were fully planted with Dragonblood and Dragonbone Grass, only 500–700 herbs could be planted at once, taking four days under normal conditions to reach maturity and be suitable for alchemy.
This yield—
Was far from sufficient.
Not to mention, the territory couldn’t be planting only those two herbs.
Hang Yu realized that building a territorial industry wasn’t easy. From collecting formulas, to cultivating materials, to refining and production—each stage had to be unlocked.
His territory simply didn’t have enough Spirit Fields, and those it had were too small!
Hang Yu decided that from now on, he would build more Spirit Fields within the territory.
If the territory had fifty fields instead of five, then half could be used to grow attribute-medicine ingredients, and the rest for basic medicinal herbs.
Although Spirit Field blueprints were relatively common, because they could generate continuous value, buying large quantities wasn’t easy.
Haste makes waste.
Building up a territorial industry was never a one-day affair.
Hang Yu opened the Trade Hall and began posting trade info.
Currently, the territory’s food reserves exceeded 80,000 units, and the net daily growth was far greater than what the 2,000-strong Subordinate Troop needed.
Hang Yu decided to reserve 30,000 units of food for internal use, and put 50,000 units on the market in batches. While food prices remained high, he would liquidate for magic crystals.
At the same time—
He posted large-scale buy orders.
Hang Yu’s territory would purchase Spirit Field blueprints and dragon beast materials on a long-term basis. In addition to direct trade with magic crystals, he would also accept food, materials, equipment, and other resources as payment.
In the blink of an eye—
Two days passed.
Bai Mu, Huayue, Huaxing, and Yanling all performed admirably. With the temporary exchange event allowing magic crystals for essence, they pooled a large amount of capital and indirectly bought essence.
Even though only two days had passed, a total of 1.5 million units of essence had been distributed, over one million of which was obtained through magic crystal exchanges. The twin Flower Sprite sisters even paid off the formula licensing fee in full.
In just two days—
Just from the employees—
Hang Yu had raked in 15,000 magic crystals.
This not only alleviated the financial strain, but also leveled up the employees' personal cultivation and professional ranks. It was truly a win-win—both sides got what they needed!
Progress in the trading market was going well too.
Of the 50,000 units of food Hang Yu had listed, over half had sold, netting about 20,000 magic crystals in return.
Procurement of dragon blood and dragon bone materials had also gone fairly smoothly.
At an average of 20 magic crystals per unit, Hang Yu had acquired 325 units of Tier 1 green-quality dragon bone, and 216 units of Tier 1 green-quality dragon blood.
Due to the market’s already limited supply of dragon materials, this round of buying had caused prices to spike, prompting Hang Yu to pause further acquisitions.
This batch cost 11,000 magic crystals.
Each unit of material could cultivate 20–30 seeds.
With over 11,000 magic crystals invested, at minimum he could produce more than 10,000 seeds—enough for short-term needs, so there was no need to keep buying pricier materials.
Hang Yu did some quick calculations.
The seed cost of each Dragonblood Grass or Dragonbone Grass was under 1 magic crystal. For Dragon-Patterned Spirit Ginseng, it was 2–3. Since the ginseng was a highly versatile material, its trading volume was high, with steady supply and prices. There was no need to cultivate it personally.
Even adding labor costs, the raw production cost of a Dragon-Patterned Essence Pill or Bone-Forging Pill could be compressed below 5 magic crystals.
Hang Yu had seen in the market—
This grade of attribute medicine had never been sold for less than 50 magic crystals. Prices of 60–70 were quite common.
If the territory could stably produce these two attribute pills, then theoretically, it could maintain a profit margin of around 10x. Selling 100 pills would yield 5,000 crystals; 1,000 pills would yield 50,000.
Having finished his math—
Hang Yu felt fired up.
The alchemy business was indeed a money tree.
However, the biggest bottleneck remained production capacity.
He couldn’t sell all of the attribute pills produced; some had to be reserved for the territory’s citizens, especially the Scourge Army’s supply—non-negotiable.
With only five small Spirit Fields, even with enough seeds and refining capacity, short-term supply would be difficult to maintain.
To profit off this industry—
He needed more land!
Hang Yu had made some progress in acquiring more Spirit Fields over the last two days. He got one blueprint by trading 4,000 magic crystals and 50 Forging Essence Stones, and another by offering 80 pieces of green equipment and 20 Tier 2 gem materials to a fellow Lord.
The number of Spirit Fields increased from five to seven.
Though he’d expanded his fields, it was still far from enough.
This gave Hang Yu a headache. Although Spirit Field blueprints were Tier 1 white-grade and had a decent chance of dropping even from the lowest-grade Fortune Chests—
In theory, their output should’ve been high, but because of their money-making nature, no Lord would complain about owning too many.
Even if they couldn’t create high-value products, just planting imported seeds and selling matured herbs could earn them some sweat money.
Because of that—
Spirit Field blueprints had never been cheap.
They were often sold at outrageous prices.
Most of the time, you couldn’t even buy them, no matter how much money you had.
That Hang Yu had acquired two Spirit Field blueprints in just two days was already considered lucky. He would continue posting buy orders in the trading market, hoping that, bit by bit, he could collect more.
“小八，汇报当前领地资源储备情况！”
"Xiao Ba, report the current territory resource reserves!"
"Yes, Master!"
Xiao Ba reported, “Current available territory resources: Abyssal Magic Crystals – 21,000 units, Tier-One Food – 37,000 units, Tier-Two Food – 3,544 units, Tier-One Materials – 82,000 units, Tier-One Material Essence – 116,000 units, Tier-Two Material Essence – 91,000 units, Grey-Quality Equipment – 6,901 pieces, White-Quality Equipment – 5,267 pieces, Green-Quality Equipment – 98 pieces... Abyssal Essence Points – approximately 2.019 million!”
These were the currently available inventory resources.
Available resources referred to those not including pre-allocated amounts.
For example, Hang Yu had taken out 50,000 units of food to be sold at the trading market. Over 20,000 units still remained unsold, and this portion of pre-allocated resources to be converted into currency was not included in Xiao Ba’s report.
Similarly, Hang Yu planned to allocate 3 million Essence Points to cultivate territory employees, allowing them to enjoy the benefit of exchanging Abyssal Magic Crystals for Essence. Of this budget, more than a million had yet to be used and was also not included in the statistics.
“Not bad!”
During this period, Tier-One Material Essence had been consumed heavily—on one hand due to large-scale territory upgrades and renovations which prioritized Tier-One Materials, and on the other, the rapid growth in the number of Players meant daily strengthening, repair, and forging of equipment became an increasingly significant expenditure.
Territory management was a complex discipline.
One of the most crucial tasks was resource coordination.
Hang Yu had to constantly adjust territory development based on resource reserves. For example, as Player levels increased, the effective duration of buffs provided by ordinary Tier-One Food would shorten.
If a Player reached Tier-Three,
Tier-One Food would almost provide no buff at all.
At such times, demand for Tier-Two or even Tier-Three Food would rise, and currently the inventory of Tier-Two Food was under 5,000 units.
To avoid future shortages of high-grade food, Hang Yu had to plan ahead and issue more resource collection quests for Tier-Two Food, encouraging Players to hunt Tier-Two monsters that could drop ingredients to increase the inventory.
“What’s the current Player level distribution?”
“Reporting to Master: The current total number of the Calamity Army is 1,930 members, among them: Level 14 – 10 Players, Level 13 – 21 Players, Level 12 – 39 Players, Level 11 – 95 Players, Level 8–10 – 382 Players, Level 5–7 – 621 Players, Level 3–5 – 724 Players, Level 1–2 – 38 Players!”
There were already 165 Tier-Two Players.
There were still three days until the map of Wan City would open.
It was estimated that by then, the number of Tier-Two Players would reach around 200.
Given the lack of large-scale events or quests recently, the fact that Players had been able to level up this quickly was quite remarkable.
As Player levels steadily rose,
The amount of Essence Points harvested each day also surged.
Of course, from the level distribution, it wasn’t hard to see that there were still underperformers among the nearly two thousand members of the Calamity Army.
It had been nearly four days since the last batch of Phase 2 Testers arrived, yet there were still 38 Players stuck at Level 1–2.
These were either pure lifestyle-oriented Players who had no interest in monster grinding, instead enjoying the in-game life of bricklaying and farming—or just utterly unskilled and reckless ones who kept dying over and over, preventing any level gains.
On this matter, Hang Yu had no intention to intervene.
Once the number of Players grew large enough, there would naturally be a variety of reasons for some to become slacker types or total noobs. There was no need to revoke someone’s gaming qualifications just because they were “too salty” or “too weak.” As long as such Players remained a minority, it was all within normal expectations.
Non-combat Players
Were not without value either.
Take the Great Wall of China, for example.
He had barely fought any monsters since entering the game, but by completing all sorts of infrastructure quests, hadn’t he still reached Level 8 or 9? Hang Yu believed the world of the Abyss Three Kingdoms was vast enough to accommodate all kinds of Players and lifestyles!
“The new map is about to launch.”
“I should warm things up a bit.”
Considering that the Wan City map would open in three days, and in order to further encourage Players to level up faster, Hang Yu made a post on the official website.
The title of this announcement was:
《Wan City Expansion & Legion System Launch Announcement!》
In this announcement, Hang Yu, in his capacity as both official and planner, addressed several hot topics that had recently attracted the most attention from Players.
First, the content of the new expansion: the new map “Wan City” was officially released!
However, no specific details were revealed, because even he didn’t know them.
Next came the highly anticipated Legion System, which had sparked nonstop discussions among Players since it was teased during Phase 3 Testing. Everyone was curious and excited about it.
So Hang Yu simply made the rules public.
He first defined what a Legion was and laid out the basic privileges:
The Calamity Legion was a part of the Calamity Army. Every Legion must safeguard the interests of the Calamity Army and the territory as a whole. The Lord, as the supreme commander of the Calamity Army, had the authority to disband any unqualified Legion or replace its Commander at any time.
So, what were the benefits of establishing a Legion?
The basic privileges currently offered were as follows:
Each Calamity Legion could have its own base and sphere of influence. It could even possess exclusive Legion Barracks or even camps and villages, mainly obtained through competition or merit.
A Legion could build its own Essence Pool. When members hunted and acquired Essence Points, 0–5% could be deposited into the Territory Core for internal distribution by the Legion Commander or upper ranks.
Legions could unlock Legion-exclusive items, such as special Essence Contracts, and take on Legion-level group quests.
The Calamity Army would publish Legion Contribution Rankings, which would be reset periodically. The higher a Legion’s contribution to the territory, the greater the privileges and rewards it could receive—including special rewards from the Lord.
Legions would have rank tiers; the higher the rank, the more privileges unlocked.
…
…
The remaining rules and details were to be determined.
As for how to establish a Legion? Hang Yu provided detailed instructions in the post: only those who successfully applied to become a Legion Commander would be eligible to form their own Legion. And the application requirements were simple—just two conditions:
The Commander’s personal Contribution Points must be in the top 1% of the entire Calamity Army!
The Commander must pay 200,000 Contribution Points at once to officially establish a Level 1 Legion. Recruiting each full member would cost an additional 1,000 Contribution Points.
That was the basic structure of the territory’s Legion system.
Hang Yu’s main goal in implementing Legions was to build a self-governing, competitive player structure. It would both encourage greater cooperation among Players and make territory management significantly more efficient.
Without the Legion system,
As Player numbers increased,
Managing a few thousand people was still barely manageable.
But once numbers reached ten thousand—or even tens or hundreds of thousands—overall team management would become vastly more difficult. After all, each Player was an independent individual with their own unpredictable thoughts and behaviors.
In such a scenario,
The best solution was to organize the chaos.
Select a group of Players to serve as Legion Commanders.
Most of these would be top-tier Players—people with prestige, and even companies or teams behind them. Only such individuals could effectively develop each Player’s potential.
Hang Yu didn’t need to micromanage every Player. He just had to manage the Legion Commanders. With them aligned under his overarching direction, he could ensure the Calamity Army’s efficiency and execution.
Additionally, once Legions were formed,
Competition between them was inevitable.
This could lead to some conflicts.
There was always the chance of hostility or rivalry arising between Legions.
But as the supreme ruler of the Calamity Army, Hang Yu had the authority to disband any Legion or replace any Commander. So he had full capability to keep internal conflicts within a healthy, competitive range.
Appropriate competition among Players
Was beneficial for overall growth.
And could even greatly increase Hang Yu’s profits.
The ideal scenario was fighting without breaking, competing without hating—allowing Players to PK and battle for Legion honor, but should the territory or Calamity Army face external threats, even rival Legions would immediately stand united to fight side by side.
This required Hang Yu to continue refining the Legion system.
And to maintain a balancing influence in his role as Lord.
As expected—
The announcement immediately triggered heated discussions among the Players.
"Official announcement!"
"Everyone go check it out!"
"Fresh off the press, still hot!"
"Holy crap, the officials spoiled the next map early—it's the legendary Wan City!"
"Wan City, where the Three Worthies were doomed by a single cannon shot? That high-level of a place? Could it mean we’ll encounter Cao Cao this time?"
"No way! The popularity and aura of Emperor Wu of Wei is no less than that of Guan Yu. Since Guan Yu has already become a god in this game, Cao Cao must be at a similar level. Who knows if he’s a Righteous God or an Evil God!"
“Even though the map is Wan City, it might not be during the Battle of Wan City. I feel like Cao Boss might not appear just yet—after all, facing such a character might be too early for us!”
“What’s there to be afraid of? Even if he appears, it’ll probably be just a projection. There’s no way Cao Cao’s real body would show up in Wan City!”
“Honestly, I’m more interested in Jia Xu and Dian Wei—one’s a master schemer, the other an unmatched warrior. Both are top-tier figures of the Three Kingdoms. If they appear, their strength would far exceed the likes of Zhou Cang or Zhang Bao.”
“Not necessarily. A character’s strength isn’t just tied to fate or talent—it depends on their training and years of growth. Their tier level reflects it!”
"Is a Level 30+ Pan Feng definitely weaker than a Level 10 Guan Yu?"
"Exactly! A Zhang Bao who’s trained in the Abyss for forty years might not be any weaker than a mainstream powerhouse who's only grown for five or ten years!"
“That may be true, but based on game logic, each new map tends to have a higher level. Wan City has probably been corrupted by the Abyss longer than Wo Niu Mountain, so its characters and monsters should be even crazier, more twisted—and at higher levels!”
"Can’t wait!"
"I'm so hyped already!"
"......"
“Don’t just talk about the new map!”
“Is no one going to talk about the Legion System going online?!”
“I saw it! The competition between top players is about to officially begin!”
“I’ve already joined Ye Li Meng’s War God Hall. We’ve got numbers, great benefits, and strong organization. No doubt we’ll become the number one faction in the game! Everyone’s welcome to join and cling to our boss’s thigh!”
Although becoming a Legion Commander wasn’t easy,
Many Players met the criteria and had the strength to do so.
Ye Li Meng, Black-Eyed Rui Ge, Toasting the Moon, Little Bell, and Arthur King all announced their plans to form Legions on the forums after seeing the announcement.
Ye Li Meng’s Legion was named War God Hall, said to be the name of the first guild he ever joined in gaming. Now his goal was to make War God Hall the top faction in Twisted Three Kingdoms.
He had been preparing for this for a long time and had the largest team. His core members included: Lone Boat, Mad Blade Old Wang, Niu Shisan, Brother Xiao Ma, Hui Mu, Ning Caichen II, and Glorious Years, among other well-known experts.
Black-Eyed Rui Ge’s Legion was called Wings of Freedom. Although his influence was slightly below Ye Li Meng’s, his team included elite players like Salted Fish Thrust, Street Slayer, Midnight Pig Slayer, and Artist Faction Leader—small in number but extremely sharp.
Little Bell also announced her Legion, named Divine Feather Palace, whose members included: Dawnlight, Chimera Wraith, Green-Eyed Fox, Hua Mulan, Light Dust, and Meowla—a unique group composed entirely of female Players.
“Divine Feather” reversed was “Feather God.”
Clearly, the Legion Commander was a loyal fan of the Lord.
Additionally, Toasting the Moon announced the formation of the Undying Dragon Soul Legion, while foreign Player Arthur King announced his Twilight of the Gods Legion.
However, compared to the aforementioned elites, Toasting the Moon lacked enough fame, and Arthur King had not yet met the qualifications to become a Legion Commander. Naturally, these proto-Legions attracted less attention for now.
In an instant,
These various proto-Legions became the hottest topic.
Three days quickly passed in preparation and excitement.
The vast majority of the Essence Points distributed by Hang Yu to the territory’s employees had been consumed, tens of thousands of food items had sold out, and over 2,000 pieces of White-Quality Equipment had also been sold—successfully recovering a huge amount of funds. Current reserves stood at about 60,000 Abyssal Magic Crystals and over 3 million Essence Points.
Unfortunately, no new Spirit Field Blueprints had been obtained in the past few days.
The number of Tier-Two Players in the Calamity Army was about to hit 200.
Hang Yu felt that preparations were now complete. The Abyssal Nightmare Key was also nearing the end of its use period. It was time to unlock a new map and push both the territory and the Calamity Army into their next phase!