Why is my territory in a 2D anime art style?

After watching the mischievous fox, Sui An returned to the watchtower. Before he could even stand up straight, the elemental statues on both sides suddenly activated simultaneously.

"Sizzle~ Sizzle~"

The lightning ball struck northward. Sui An squinted and looked north. Under the blood-red moonlight, several dark shadows were visible on the ground, giving him an ominous premonition.

"Could it be another Shadow Lizard?"

"Didn't I manage to wipe them all out last time...?"

Sure enough, as more and more shadows appeared over there, Sui An confirmed that they really were shadow lizards.

However, this time the number seemed to be much smaller. After the elemental statues on both sides fired a dozen or so lightning bolts at each other, they stopped firing.

"Phew~"

Sui An let out a breath, looking as if he had breathed a sigh of relief, but his expression seemed to hold a hint of regret.

"Is that all? Why didn't you bring more for my two stone statues this time...?"

After all, the Shadow Lizards are quite friendly to the Elemental Statues, making them excellent resources. If there are hundreds of them this time, like last time, I'll be overjoyed.

But after waiting for a while, no new shadow appeared; instead, the elemental statues lit up again.

The two stone statues fired their lightning bolts simultaneously, but instead of heading towards the ground, they flew into the sky.

Sui An quickly peeked out and looked up at the sky. A large red-feathered bird, somewhat like a falcon, was falling towards the ground and was about to crash into the barrier.

Sui Angang wanted to partially activate the shield to make it fall into the territory, but he suddenly gave up because a group of red figures had appeared in the distant sky again.

"What kind of source beast is this?"

Sui An had seen flying source beasts before, but very few. This was the first time he had ever seen such a large red bird.

The flock of birds in the distance gradually approached, appearing exceptionally red under the reflection of the blood moon.

"1, 2, 3... Seven in total, thank goodness, not many."

Flying beasts were not easy for him to deal with. The crossbows on the watchtowers could not fire arrows into the air above his territory; he could only intercept them before they flew over him.

But if they fly very high, it will be difficult for your crossbow bolts to reach them.

Suddenly, a fiery red light flashed across the night sky. Sui An quickly looked up and saw several fireballs hurtling down on his territory from the distant sky. It was the attack launched by the flock of red birds.

"Dry!"

Sui An's expression changed. He didn't know how powerful these fireballs were, but if he were hit by them, his protective shield would inevitably be at risk.

With a determined look, Sui An cleared most of the protective barrier above his territory before the fireball hit, since most of his territory was empty anyway.

Seven fireballs burning with primal energy crashed down like meteors. Fortunately, the fireballs were not large, and Sui An's territory was exceptionally open. Only one of them hit his wooden house, while the rest of the fireballs struck the ground.

Boom~ Boom~

The fireball exploded upon landing.

A faint white light shone continuously on the side wall of the wooden house. The wooden wall was blasted open by the fireball, and flames kept leaping up, but they were not completely ignited by the fireball and slowly went out.

The fireballs that landed on the ground blasted several shallow, scorched craters, each about two feet wide and a dozen centimeters deep, into the yellow earth.

"Um?"

"this one?"

Sui An felt much more at ease. He had once experimented with the elemental stone statue, and when he smashed it on the ground, the crater it created was much larger and deeper than this.

It seems they are just a few source birds of level 2 or lower, not worth mentioning.

Such small, low-level source beasts seem to have a pure elemental energy attack that is basically incomparable to that of elemental statues.

The firebird that fired a few shots made a strange, piercing cry in the sky, its tone unclear as to whether it was happy or angry.

They circled high in the distance for a while, then suddenly folded their wings and flew towards their territory like arrows.

Seeing this, Sui An quickly restored the energy shield above, and the elemental statues on both sides lit up at the same time. Two lightning balls flashed by and arrived in front of the flock of birds.

The charging red birds collided with the two lightning balls, and after two violent explosions, they began to fall to the ground one by one, like dumplings being dropped into a pot.

Without any deceleration measures, they seemed to have been stunned by the explosive impact of the thunderbolts, and they were thrown straight down into the wasteland from a height of more than ten meters, their fate unknown.

The elemental statues did not launch any new attacks; it seems that the seven birds had already crashed to their deaths.

"Phew~ I hope no flying source beasts come, those things are troublesome..."

After turning his gaze away from the spot where the flock of birds had crashed, Sui An continued to stand guard on the watchtower, constantly looking around.

Fortunately, no new source beasts appeared, and the territory became quiet for a while.

"Fortunately, they were just scattered source beasts."

Sui An leaned against the railing of the watchtower, idly gazing towards the river.

Last time, a large group of shadow lizards came from over there. If it weren't for my cheat-like abilities, I would have suffered a great loss and might have had to fight to the death.

"It seems that the group of Shadow Lizards last time was really an accident, a source beast left over from before my territory was opened."

"I knew it! I chose a place surrounded by territory, how come there are so many source beasts here?"

He glanced at the alarm clock beside him; it was already eight o'clock. The blood moon had been out for an hour. If there were still any source beasts remaining near his territory, they should have climbed onto the walls of his territory by now, no matter how slow they were.

Feeling a bit more at ease, Sui An straightened up, stretched, picked up a novel he had bought, and began reading it by the light of the energy lamp on the watchtower.

Having taken a nap in the afternoon, I'm not feeling tired, so even if I wanted to doze off, I couldn't fall asleep.

Time passed slowly, and more than a dozen pages of the book in his hand were turned. Suddenly, a special fluctuation came from afar. The fluctuation was so peculiar that even Sui An, who was engrossed in reading the novel, was instantly startled.

"This fluctuation is..."

"Has a rift to the source realm opened nearby?"

"Oh no!"

He tossed aside what he was holding and quickly stood up, looking around: "This fluctuation is very slight. Either the Origin Realm Rift is too small, or it's too far away..."

As Sui Anzai carefully examined the area, he suddenly narrowed his eyes slightly. The direction he was looking towards was on the opposite side of the river to the west.

"I remember there was a level 2 territory there, and the lord was He Chong, who was also from Jiangcheng and came out to develop it."

Before coming here, Sui An naturally inquired about the owners of the three level 2 territories around him. Fortunately, these were not special secrets in Jiangcheng.

He Chong wasn't very old, only two years older than himself. His parents were both intermediate-level professionals, though their specific levels weren't mentioned. Generally, people would refer to levels 4-6 as intermediate.

Of course, even if it's just two ordinary intermediate professionals, they might not be able to quickly develop a territory to the level of level 2 or close to level 3.

For example, Wang Zhen is a level 4 professional, but if you ask him to spend money to build a blue building, he would have to empty his savings and still not be able to do it.

However, He Chong's mother is an intermediate alchemist, which makes a difference. As long as a support profession has a good recipe or blueprint, it can definitely be a golden goose that lays golden eggs.

From this perspective, we can also see the value of Sui An's cheat code: a low-cost, extremely stable channel for high-quality blueprints is no less helpful to a lord than those of first-generation parents.

As the fluctuations grew stronger, Sui An finally saw the special light shining in the distance. Even though it was nearly ten kilometers away and the size and shape of the crack were completely indistinguishable, the light that shone when it was activated was still exceptionally bright and different from its surroundings.

"The Source Realm Rift has opened..."

"Why would a level 2 territory attract the opening of a rift in the Source Realm?"

Sui An was somewhat puzzled. Although the Origin Realm often acted abnormally, people had managed to figure out some of its patterns over the years.

While rifts can open in completely uninhabited areas, they mostly occur near sufficiently large territories.

It is rare for a rift to open in a low-level territory unless there are too many people gathered in that territory, especially professionals.

Thinking of this, a thought flashed through Sui An's mind, and he suddenly remembered something very important.

"Could it be that He Chong is preparing to advance to a level three territory?!"