It's just a matter of a few more useless orcs dying. Although we don't have much energy right now, as long as we play it safe, we'll definitely be able to wait for Shen Yi...
[Once activated, the program will possess energy several times greater than its own, capable of destroying the core chip.]
Your value is higher than all the orcs combined, you're not worth it...
[Destruction mode has been activated. Command execution will begin in 30 seconds.]
Shen Er activated the destruction mode. He felt the immense energy within his body, which would destroy and burn him from the inside out in thirty seconds.
But before that, he could manipulate this powerful force at will.
Shen Er quickly locked onto the attacking orc, and several beams of light shot out from his body like shooting stars, followed by screams of agony.
Lion Thunder reacted quickly, transforming into human form and shrinking his size to dodge wave after wave of attacks. However, no matter how fast he was, he couldn't outrun light.
He dodged again, but was a step too slow, and his leg was pierced by the beam of light. Lion Thunder roared, fell to the ground, and howled in pain, clutching his leg.
Thirty seconds passed quickly.
Just when Shi Lei thought he was going to die, he saw the strange beastman from the Wood Tribe fall straight down.
Shen Er felt the scorching flames burning inside his body, and he left his final words on the message platform.
[Priest, today we have performed a good deed, protecting the survival of our people.]
[Good Deeds Mission terminated.]
With a "boom," a ball of flame erupted around Shen Er, and the orcs, who were still reeling from the shock, shouted, "Captain!"
The little orc who had been holding Shen Er's hand rushed forward, throwing himself into the fire, trying to extinguish the flames on Shen Er's body with his own. Many other orcs followed suit without hesitation, spending more time fetching water.
Shen Er felt the weight of several people pressing down on his body. He used his last bit of energy to condense it into a voice, "Live well."
The beastmen felt a pang of sadness upon hearing this, knowing that the fire was caused by saving them. Through their time together, they understood that their captain was an exceptionally good person.
The little orc was the first to break down, crying out, "Captain, you have to live too!"
"Yes! The captain must live too!"
Shen Er curled his lips into a smile, but no one could see it in the firelight.
The beastmen quickly realized that the fire was very strange; they couldn't feel any heat, and it wouldn't burn them. But Shen Er's body slowly dissipated in the fire, eventually turning into ashes and scattering among the sand.
"team leader!!"
Because of Shen Er's desperate final attack, the orcs of Beast City were either killed or wounded. The orcs from the Sea Tribe, due to their insufficient level, were slow to escape and all of them died.
Taking advantage of the fact that the beastmen of the Wood Tribe were temporarily distracted, Lion Thunder dragged his injured leg and fled.
The other orcs in Beast City who weren't dead were too badly injured to move. Lion Thunder no longer wanted to attack the Wood Tribe; all he could think about was getting back to Beast City as quickly as possible and telling the High Priest everything that had happened.
Snake Forest, who had been hiding since the start of the battle, quickly followed Lion Thunder after seeing Beast City's defeat, preparing to return to Beast City.
Now the Wood Tribe and Beast City are completely sworn enemies, and he wants to use Beast City to avenge the annihilation of the Wood Tribe.
——
When Shen Nong arrived at the seaside tribe, the enraged beastmen had already annihilated it. Their relentless attack overwhelmed the remaining beastmen of the sea tribe.
The remaining two large tribes watched as the Sea Tribe was attacked, but instead of helping, they took the opportunity to replace all the streams controlled by the Sea Tribe with their own orcs.
From then on, the Hai tribe completely lost control of its water resources.
Shen Yi handed Shen Er's "ashes" to Shen Nong. Shen Nong stared at the pottery jar containing the "ashes." He never expected that Shen Er, who was frighteningly rational, would choose to exchange his own life for the survival of more orcs.
He couldn't say whether this choice was good or bad. After storing Shen Er's "ashes" in the system's warehouse, Shen Nong asked the system if Shen Er could be recreated.
The system sighed, "No, Shen Er activated the destruction mode to obtain enough energy. The core chip has been destroyed and cannot be rebuilt."
Since transmigrating, this is the first time Shen Nong has experienced the taste of life and death. He has always tried his best to avoid death, wanting everyone around him to live well.
But death can still come unexpectedly.
Beast City...
Shen Nong looked in the direction of Beast City. He knew that the Wood Tribe, which had been forced into the limelight, could no longer hide. Beast City would not give it the opportunity to grow stronger.
Since that's the case, he has nothing left to worry about.
However, before confronting the Beast City, he needs to resolve the issue of the coastal tribes first.
Shen Nong planned to take the priests of the Sea Tribe and the remaining orcs back to the Wood Tribe; leaving them here would only cause trouble.
Shen Nong didn't intend to let the other two tribes stay here either.
He used his wood-based powers to block the stream with branches and vines. Whenever an orc approached, the vines would automatically attack, completely cutting off the water supply to both tribes.
The two tribes couldn't take it for more than a few days, and the priest brought the crystal down the mountain to find Shen Nong.
Shen Nong needed to have enough manpower to confront Beast City. He did not refuse the surrender of the two priests, "You two hurry back to pack your things, move away from where you are now, and come back to the Wood Tribe with me."
The two tribal priests exchanged a glance, both somewhat reluctant. After all, they had always lived here.
Shen Nong didn't bother to say more and said directly, "The attackers are orcs from Beast City. You are alone here and will definitely become targets again. If you are not afraid of death, then stay."
With their lives at stake, the two priests didn't hesitate any longer and quickly ran back to the tribe to inform the relocated tribe.
Shen Nong also took the other beastmen from the coastal tribes with her, and the glass factory was shut down and rebuilt in the Wood Tribe. Only the Feather Tribe beastmen and some Wood Tribe beastmen remained on the coast to transport seafood and quartz sand.
To ensure the safety of the remaining orcs, Shen Nong sold a large portion of the gold from the mine. Theoretically, the system only accepts mined gold. However, since the main system didn't explicitly prohibit accepting unmined gold, Shen Nong exploited a loophole. Under the system's control, a significant portion of the gold in the unmined gold-producing areas disappeared.
Shen Nong used the 30 million yuan in infrastructure funds to buy three nano-cameras.
This camera provides 360-degree coverage without blind spots, and Shen Nong can remotely control its flight. It is completely invisible to the naked eye, covering an area of hundreds of miles.
The system connects to the camera and will sound an alarm if a stranger approaches within its monitoring range. Unless Shen Nong manipulates the system to add the stranger to the access list, the camera will sound an alarm every time it sees them.
Shen Nong left one at the beach. After the camera recorded the appearances of Shen Nong and the orcs from the beach tribe into the database, the work began.
This distance provides enough time for the Feather Tribe orcs remaining at the seaside tribe to take the Wood Tribe orcs and fly away after a danger is detected.
There are two more cameras. Shen Nong placed one in the Wood Tribe and wanted to place the other in the Beast City.
Chapter 116
Several systems
Yu Ji had long been thinking about relocating the tribe, and had previously taken some time to return to the tribe to discuss it with Ying Xi, who fully agreed without any objection.
Just as Yu Ji was about to find an opportunity to talk to Shen Nong about it, he heard that the coastal tribes were going to relocate to the vicinity of the Wood tribe. So Yu Ji quickly brought up the matter of the Yu tribe's relocation with Shen Nong.
Shen Nong said there was no problem. After allocating land to the various tribes of beastmen on the beach of the Feather Tribe, she busied herself with building a glass factory.
The glass factory had been built before, so they had experience and Shen Nong didn't need to keep a close eye on it all the time. He spent most of his time each day watching over Beast City.
The nano-cameras are already in use, and it has to be said that everything produced by the system is flawless. The video is high-definition and smooth, the sound quality is clear and without any leakage, and it can even zoom in and out. No wonder it costs ten million infrastructure points to build one.
"Hurry up!" A whip splattered with brine lashed across the back of a thin orc, instantly adding another red welt to his already battered back. The orc groaned, too weak to even scream.
The orc guarding the salt field, whip in hand, looked around and shouted sternly, "Hurry up, all of you! If you delay the High Priest's business, none of you will live!"
The vast salt fields stretched out in a blinding white expanse, appearing like a snowfield through the screen.
Shen Nong scrolled through the monitor screen, switching the view to the streets of Beast City. When she first saw the entire city, especially the salt fields, Shen Nong kept wondering if the high priest of Beast City had also transmigrated. Because the level of development of Beast City, compared to the entire Beast World, was practically epoch-making.
The perspective shifts quickly. The streets of the Beast City are paved with bluestone slabs, and there are stone houses on both sides of the streets. Some houses have wooden sheds in front of them, and all the houses with wooden sheds are places where people sell goods.
There were countless pottery vendors on the streets, but the pottery shapes were not very good and the workmanship was rough. Shen Nong also discovered that Beast City had begun to implement a currency, but their currency was not gold, silver, or copper, but something resembling crystals. To say it was resembling crystals was an understatement; these things were so small that they looked like a whole crystal had been broken into pieces.
They vary in size, color, and value. Green is the most valuable, followed by blue, and red is the least valuable.
Shen Nong couldn't help but feel a chill when she thought about how Mu Qi obtained the crystals back in Wushan. If the crystals used by the beastmen of Beast City for trading were all extracted from living people's heads, their energy depleted, and then torn into pieces for trade, Shen Nong found it hard to imagine how many people had died in such large quantities.
"Stop! How dare you, a mere beast slave, walk on the stone path! Are you looking for death?!" The tall orc kicked the thin, withered beast slave aside. The slave fell to the ground, coughed twice while clutching his chest, and immediately knelt down, his head banging loudly. "I didn't mean to! My master wanted to eat live fish, and he said walking on the stone path would be faster... Ah!"
The beast slave's shoulder was kicked again, and he fell backward, revealing the two black characters "Supreme Slave" tattooed on his forehead.
"I don't care whether you want to eat live fish or dead fish. Beast slaves can only walk the slave path. Those who disobey will have their feet cut off. This is what the high priest said himself!" The tall beastman waved his hand, and two beastmen sprang out and dragged away the beast slave who was already terrified on the ground. "Send him to the torture chamber."
The so-called torture chamber was nothing more than a wooden shed, but it was surrounded by dried blood. The splattered blood had soaked through the wooden stakes, and with dull thuds, the screams seemed capable of shattering the screen.
Over the past few days, he has gained a fairly good understanding of the situation in Beast City. Similar incidents happen at least once or twice a day. The initial shock he felt upon seeing it has lessened considerably now that he has seen it many times.
The entire Beast City revered the High Priest, who was more like a monarch. Moreover, this High Priest ruled the city under a system recorded in ancient texts—slave society.
This surprised Shen Nong. It wasn't that the Beast World wouldn't develop like this, but the special system of the Beast City was vastly different from the "martial arts are supreme" rule of other tribes in the Beast World, where whoever was stronger would be obeyed.
Shen Nong manipulated the camera to observe the situation of the tribes surrounding the Beast City.
Just as Shen Nong locked onto the tribe closest to the Beast City, she heard something very strange.
The tall, long-legged orc sat on a rock outside the cave and asked with some worry, "Priest, is it still true that the Beast City says there's no salt available for trade?"
The young priest, sitting in the shadows, shook his head and said weakly, "The high priest said no."
The brief exchange left Shen Nong with some doubts.
With such a large salt-producing area in Beast City, and the orcs working day and night to produce a huge quantity of salt, how could there be no salt for exchange?
On second thought, perhaps the Beast City wanted to strictly control the amount of salt traded with each tribe in order to gain control over them.
Over the next few days, Shen Nong observed the tribes surrounding Beast City and discovered that they were extremely short of salt. Meanwhile, the Beast City salt fields produced large quantities of salt daily, which was transported to a cave for storage.
From the outside, the cave entrance didn't look very big. Shen Nong used the camera to probe inside, and it was pitch black. Only after he activated the night vision function did he realize that the cave was empty; there was no salt at all.
Shen Nong was stunned. How could the salt have vanished into thin air after entering the cave? Why did this happen so familiarly?
He quickly typed into the system, "Can there be two systems in the same dimension?"
The system replied decisively, "Of course not, that would throw the mission into chaos. It would also disrupt the energy that supports the world's plane, and in severe cases, the world could collapse."
Shen Nong didn't disbelieve the system's words, but the system itself had a lot of bugs. What if it was some undiscovered bug that allowed two systems to exist in the same dimension without being detected?
"Beast City transported a large amount of salt into a cave. When I used a camera to investigate, I found nothing inside, only a few seconds later." Shen Nong told the system what he had seen. He then asked, "You don't think there are some invisible salt-eating ghosts in the Beast World, do you? Or is that cave actually a black hole?"
"This..." The system suddenly froze. Clearly, neither of the two reasons Shen Nong gave later was as reliable as the fact that the Beast World had two systems.
I'll copy the video clip and send it to the main system.
When it comes to major events affecting different world planes, the main system responds quickly. However, based on this single fragment, it's not enough to determine whether the Beast World has another system or a similar highly intelligent AI.
After all, there were no abnormalities in the data monitoring, and the main system finally gave the message "Questionable, pending investigation."
Based on her observations over the past few days, Shen Nong knew that a direct confrontation with Beast City was definitely not the way to go. Even though oppression was rampant within Beast City, the beastmen who were oppressed and enslaved had no will to resist. In fact, it could be said that they had never even considered resisting.