Chapter 33: New arms!

In the vast center of the Island, there stood a grand yet somewhat dilapidated palace.

No, it shouldn’t be called a palace—calling it a tall house would be more fitting.

These houses, built from wood and stone, were clustered together, surrounded by defensive structures like arrow towers, watchtowers, and catapults, with a tall wall encircling the outermost perimeter.

On the walls, countless goblins patrolled back and forth with spears in hand.

Every so often, there was a corner tower where a goblin holding a staff watched the surroundings warily.

At the very center burned a massive bonfire, marking the stronghold of the goblin tribe.

It seemed the goblins had started learning from humans, developing their own civilization, trying to emerge from underground to live on the surface, or perhaps uniting their tribes to dominate the entire Island.

Of course, things were far more complex than they appeared, as they hadn’t fully evolved yet.

Beneath this Fortress lay a tangled underground world where most goblin commoners gathered.

Surrounding the Fortress were several large tribes acting as guardians, but at this moment, all the goblin Stronghold Lords and tribe chiefs had left their own territories, gathering instead within the Fortress.

This place was also known as the Royal City by the goblins—a testament to their determination to build a nation.

Inside the largest wooden Fortress of the Royal City, all the goblin tribe leaders and their King were assembled.

Naturally, it wasn’t just the Lords who received the news—the ruling species of the Island also sensed something in the depths of their souls.

But they didn’t know the Lords’ mission, only taking it as Divine Guidance.

The instructions were simple: Sacrifice ten thousand Stronghold Lords, and the Island could be unified, and a kingdom established.

Since this was their territory, it was impossible to sacrifice their own kind, so what else could be sacrificed besides goblins?

Naturally, it had to be those Lords—in the eyes of goblins, these beings were the so-called Stronghold Lords.

As the Lords swept through goblin strongholds, the goblins themselves also began carrying out their Divine Guidance.

—

However, within his own territory, Qi Lin paid no attention to any of this, as his avatar leading the Lords was enough to handle it.

At that moment, he held in his hand a seed traded from an elf avatar, marveling at the mysterious powers from other Islands.

This seed functioned much like a blueprint.

[Item Name: Seed of the Concealed Tree]

[Effect: Your territory will perfectly merge with this land.]

[Construction Required: Seed of the Concealed Tree]

“Sounds like a support function?”

Qi Lin was puzzled.

He hated these kinds of vague mechanics the most.

Holding the seed, he walked to the center of his territory and tossed it onto the ground.

The seed sank into the earth like a fish into the sea, vanishing instantly.

Immediately after, a sapling sprouted and grew rapidly, turning into a towering tree within seconds.

Qi Lin looked up, unable to identify the species, but saw a strange energy radiating from the tree, slowly enveloping his entire territory.

He entered the Lord’s Hall and opened the terminal, discovering that a nearly transparent, milky-white circle now covered the land at his feet.

This must be the range of the Concealed Tree’s effect.

But it had no impact on the other two territories.

He had a vague suspicion and walked outside the borders of his territory.

The moment he stepped beyond the edge, everything behind him bizarrely vanished.

Looking back, all he saw was open ground and a few small trees—no sign of anything else.

“So it’s a structure used to hide a territory—or rather, a tree.”

Although the territory was hidden, it was only concealed from outsiders; those within the territory remembered its location and felt its presence.

There was no need to worry about his units getting lost outside the territory and not finding their way back.

With this tree, it would be much easier to conceal himself.

Qi Lin turned and reentered his territory.

The barracks were about to finish upgrading, and he wanted to see what new unit types would be unlocked.

Units of the same race could merge, but only after defeating the enemy’s Lord.

He wondered how many Human Lords were on the Island in total.

At the very least, there were none in his alliance, and he hadn’t received any applications from other Lords.

He opened the barracks, and four new unit types had been unlocked with the level four upgrade.

They were: Mounted Archer, Repeating Crossbowman, Light Armored Cavalry, and Engineer.

“This time, three are military units?”

Qi Lin was a bit surprised, but compared to regular skeletons, the first two didn’t seem all that useful.

Perhaps Light Armored Cavalry could disrupt enemy formations with their charge, making them the only ones who could rival skeletons.

[Unit Name: Engineer]

[Description: They excel at constructing defensive structures and reinforcing territories, turning them into impregnable Fortresses.]

[Summoning Cost: 5 gold coins]

For non-military support units like these, Qi Lin never hesitated to summon them.

He couldn’t rely solely on undead for defense—having his own units was crucial, and most importantly, he wasn’t short on money.

Light Armored Cavalry required 3 gold coins to train; he directly summoned 100, then called up 40 Engineers to stand by—spending 500 gold coins in one go.

Even so, Qi Lin still had 3,000 gold coins in his account.

The equipment of Light Armored Cavalry was nearly identical to Light Armored Infantry—still the same decayed armor, except their weapons changed from sword and shield to spear, and they rode brown warhorses.

With the newly summoned units, Qi Lin’s territory now had over 400 of his own units.

Of course, that number sounded impressive, but most were logistics units with little combat ability.

After all, he also had the duty of supplying other avatars with logistics.

After reviewing the unit information, Qi Lin ordered his troops to search for goblin strongholds.

Nearly a day passed, and his points remained at zero.

Since the task was to destroy goblin strongholds, killing goblins wandering outside the strongholds didn’t earn any points.

He had to admit, this mission was a real headache.

“Let’s hope these goblins capture something valuable.”

Qi Lin looked at the sunset beyond his territory, watching his units gradually march off into the distance, murmuring to himself.