Chapter 116 Parade Ground

Attracted by the generous wage announcements, some idle wandering players brought along their villagers—who had no real skill development—to join the crowd and watch the commotion. Seeing that the person in charge of recruitment was merely an NPC named Wang Hui, the players quickly abandoned their original intention of just being spectators. Instead, they had their subordinate villagers go up and try their luck; if they managed to muddle through, that would be ideal, and if they were eliminated, there was nothing to lose. Backed by their players, these villagers became quite daring. Clumsily swinging hammers and hand axes, the trial wooden products they hammered together were bizarre in shape, driving the responsible reviewer Wang Hui to distraction and leaving him overwhelmed.

Seeing Li Zhan arrive, the guilty players hurriedly poked their thoroughly engrossed subordinates—who were still vigorously swinging hammers and hand axes. With an awkward laugh, each master-and-servant pair gave Li Zhan a sheepish smile before slipping away like smoke out of the joint workshop. Moments later, the entire joint workshop became much quieter.

Li Zhan smiled wryly and shook his head, looking at the remaining villagers. There were still over forty of them, which already met his preliminary expectations.

Although he knew that most of these villagers likely had skill development potential, Li Zhan still had them undergo a preliminary test, making simple wooden items such as wooden wedges and standard square timber. This was to eliminate any possibility of fraud and ensure that the quality of the manufactured improved looms would be completely up to standard.

Led by Wang Hui, the forty-plus villagers walked into the joint workshop and made wooden products on the workbenches according to the requirements. Ten minutes later, after Wang Hui inspected them, they were found to be completely qualified and everyone passed. Li Zhan then put Wang Hui in charge of the subsequent production of the improved looms, dividing the villagers into two major groups: one for making parts and the other for assembling the looms, thereby improving production efficiency.

Under Wang Hui's deployment, the villagers each performed their duties, and work proceeded in an orderly manner. Li Zhan watched from the side for a while; judging by the current work progress, five improved looms could be produced before dinner, filling the vacancy in the village and town.

Thinking of dinner, Li Zhan simultaneously remembered the issue of work meals for these villagers. The forty-plus villagers, plus the temporarily hired villagers from other posts, caused the number of villagers eating work meals at the tavern tonight to surge to around one hundred. The tavern's dining hall could not possibly accommodate so many people all at once and would have to be divided into two or even three shifts.

However, this was only a temporary emergency measure; a long-term strategy should be devised to solve the problem of feeding the steadily increasing number of hired villagers. Could it be that he really had to build an employee cafeteria? Pondering this in his heart, Li Zhan unconsciously arrived at the tavern.

Seeing the town mayor walk into the tavern, the female villager in charge of accounts behind the counter hurriedly hurried out to greet him. Another female villager was cooking in the back kitchen, and right now she was the only one in the first-floor dining hall. Li Zhan asked her to go to the joint workshop to tally the number of villagers and increase the portions for tonight's work meal, while also temporarily summoning two female villagers to help with the cooking on her way back.

The female villager acknowledged the order and left. Li Zhan sat down at the table in front of the counter, keeping watch over the shop for the female villager. At that moment, Prefect Cheng Yuan, Cheng Ling, and an attendant walked in from outside, followed by six domestic guards. Li Zhan quickly stood up and exchanged courtesy greetings with Cheng Yuan. Ever since Cheng Yuan moved into the village, Li Zhan had been busy with village affairs and simply had no time to visit this open-minded and sensible NPC elder, which made him feel quite apologetic. Cheng Yuan, however, did not feel neglected; every day, he took Cheng Ling and his subordinates to tour around the village and town, conveniently observing the villagers' work and the village's construction. He was very satisfied with the overall development of Yanhuang Village and appreciated Mayor Li Zhan even more.

The two of them sat on opposite sides of the table, chatting casually. When the conversation turned to the newly built schoolhouse in the village, Cheng Yuan praised Li Zhan for this initiative, saying it had placed him ahead of almost all villages and towns across the entire China region. Although Yanhuang Village's comprehensive strength was not the strongest in the China region, its technology, economy, and society had consistently remained in a leading position, serving as a well-deserved role model among the nearly seventy villages and towns under the jurisdiction of Moling City.

During his chat with Cheng Yuan, Li Zhan discovered that this NPC elder seemed to have quite a background—he was followed by a steward skilled in military analysis and a scholar proficient in chaotic spear techniques. Moreover, his words were grand and ambitious, with a very far-reaching vision; he either looked at the entire China region or focused on the three counties under Moling City's governance. For the first time, Li Zhan began to doubt Cheng Yuan's true identity—was he really just as simple as a wealthy retired gentleman?

However, this thought of Li Zhan's was fleeting, because Cheng Yuan's next proposal completely captured his attention. He heard Cheng Yuan say:

"Now that Mayor Li has built the schoolhouse to educate the villagers, shouldn't the next step be to build a military drill ground? If Mayor Li has this intention, this old man is willing to lend Mayor Li a helping hand to express my gratitude for your hospitality."

Drill Ground:
Functions: Upgrades skills, increases training degree, boosts morale.
Description:
----Skills: Soldiers can train the military skills they have already acquired here. If led by personnel with advanced military skills, the rest of the soldiers will gain insights from them (rapidly increasing skill experience). If a soldier has potential in upgrading a skill, they can break through the upper limit of advanced skills and continue upgrading (generally, soldiers' skills can universally be raised to the advanced level; skill levels above advanced are further divided into: Expert, Master, Legend). There is a very low probability of learning military skills that one has not yet mastered.
----Training: Soldiers training here can rapidly increase their personal training degree (up to a maximum of 100), and it is not easily diminished.
----Morale: Increases morale by 5 points.

Building a drill ground has one very harsh requirement: it must be presided over by someone with an expert-level military skill before construction can take place. Because of this harsh requirement, currently no village or town has built a drill ground. If players want to raise their military skills to the expert level, their own level must reach at least level sixty. The highest-level players in the game right now have not even crossed level thirty, still far away from level sixty. Therefore, wanting to build a drill ground currently, aside from relying on special NPCs whose military skills have already reached the expert level, there is simply no other alternative.

Hearing this proposal from Cheng Yuan, Li Zhan was naturally surprised beyond measure. Thinking of expert-level military skills, Li Zhan immediately shifted his gaze to the stern-looking "jade-faced scholar" standing beside Cheng Yuan. Last time, the reason Li Zhan and the players were able to wipe out the Red-Haired Bandits was largely thanks to this scholar's set of chaotic spear techniques, which struck down the formidable bandit leader on the spot. Otherwise, under those circumstances, it was questionable whether Li Zhan could have retreated safely himself.

Being able to comprehend the ninth form of the chaotic spear techniques (out of a maximum of thirteen forms), this "scholar's" spear technique skill must be at or above the expert level, and with him presiding over it, a drill ground could naturally be built.

Li Zhan stood up once again and cupped his hands to thank Cheng Yuan for this generous gift. At this moment, the female villager returned with two temporarily hired villagers. Li Zhan asked the female villager to quickly brew a pot of good tea to entertain Cheng Yuan and his entourage.

Cheng Yuan and Li Zhan drank a few cups of tea. Seeing that the day was getting late, Cheng Yuan suggested that, taking advantage of the time before the villagers finished work, they should let his "scholar" and the village's construction workers first build the foundations of the drill ground. Once the foundation was laid, the construction workers could independently finish the rest of the work tomorrow.

Cheng Ling had always harbored prejudices against players and was naturally very dissatisfied to see her father treat this lord player with such heavy favor. Hearing her father ask her to preside over the construction of the drill ground, Cheng Ling momentarily forgot her identity as a woman disguised as a man, pouting her small mouth and twisting her body reluctantly. Watching from the side, Li Zhan felt goosebumps break out all over his body, thinking to himself: Why does this scholar act like a little girl, even throwing tantrums? Could this NPC elder have some special hobby... Stop, stop, let's not let our imagination run wild with personal privacy issues.

Although deeply reluctant, since her father had already made the promise to the other party, she could not stubbornly refuse any further. Under Cheng Yuan's insistence, Cheng Ling walked out of the tavern pouting and fuming with anger.

After half a day of busyness, Zheng Jun and five construction workers had already built both the pier and the dock. Now the village and town possessed two civilian docks and one pier, allowing external ships to dock in assigned berths and resolving the previously cramped and chaotic situation.

Notified by a villager, Zheng Jun and the five builders hurried over to the tavern and almost collided with the fuming Cheng Ling as she walked out. Although Cheng Ling held a strong aversion towards players, she had no ill feelings towards NPCs, so she didn't say anything about Zheng Jun and the others' recklessness and simply walked away. Exchanging a knowing glance with Li Zhan, Zheng Jun nodded in understanding and led the five builders closely behind Cheng Ling.

Notes:
Training Degree Recession: Before the drill ground is built, the training degree decreases by 5 points every day and requires at least half a day of training to recover. After the drill ground is built, the training degree decreases by 2 points every day and only requires one hour of training to recover.
Morale: Morale plays a significant role in large-scale warfare and is closely tied to the region where the soldiers are located. When soldiers are within county territory, their offensive or defensive actions generally perform at 100%. When soldiers are outside county territory, their offensive morale is generally 80% and defensive morale is generally 90%.
The above morale values are based on the premise that, without a drill ground built, the training degree is 100. If the training degree falls below 80, morale will drop accordingly.
Comprehension Relationship between Chaotic Skills and Base Skills (Taking Chaotic [Spear Techniques] as an example): Primary Spear Technique - 1st form of Chaotic [Spear Techniques]; Intermediate Spear Technique - 2nd and 3rd forms of Chaotic [Spear Techniques]; Advanced Spear Technique - 4th, 5th, and 6th forms of Chaotic [Spear Techniques]; Expert Spear Technique - 7th, 8th, and 9th forms of Chaotic [Spear Techniques]; Master Spear Technique - 10th, 11th, and 12th forms of Chaotic [Spear Techniques]; Legendary Spear Technique - 13th form of Chaotic [Spear Techniques].