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

The fifth blood moon has arrived, just one day after the fourth.

It seems that because Wang Zhen and the other two went to the secret realm, they attracted many shadow lizards, and the number of shadow lizards has increased again tonight.

However, in the face of the newly built city wall, the destructive power of the Shadow Lizard, a source beast, was greatly reduced.

Sui An added a crossbow watchtower and asked Wang Hu to help with the defense.

Although killing source beasts in this way cannot provide Wang Hu with soul source matter, after clearing out a large number of source beasts, the small groups of shadow lizards that are still digging in the corners and dead ends can be cleared out by Wang Hu with his crossbow and spear.

Sui An looked down to the north from the watchtower, still feeling somewhat unsatisfied.

"It's a pity that no big ones came tonight... otherwise I would have slaughtered another one. The value of ordinary source beasts is still too low."

"Is this big guy valuable?" Wang Hu looked over and asked loudly.

"Of course!" Sui An gestured with his hand: "Normal level 3 source beasts aren't that big, but that one weighed 2000 jin. If you sell level 3 source beast meat, 100 jin is worth three or four source stones. Do you think it's valuable or not?"

"And it's also easy to get loot; as long as it's not white, you can easily get dozens of Originium."

Wang Hu clicked his tongue, feeling like he'd missed something: "My mom always told me not to come. If only I'd come sooner, I could have seen it for myself."

"You'll see me sooner or later if you stay here!"

Sui An waved at him: "How do you want your salary calculated? Is it a fixed daily wage, or is it based on the kills you get?"

Generally, territories recruit people in these two ways. The first is stable, since territory income itself is unstable. If it weren't for the existence of this dimensional gate, Sui An's income would have already plummeted.

The second type is unstable, but instability naturally has its advantages, namely, the possibility of becoming extremely wealthy.

However, this kind of kill refers to fighting on your own, rather than killing using the crossbow watchtowers in your territory as is the case now, since that costs extra.

If Sui An hadn't built such a large wall, combat professionals would be killing source beasts on the wall to reduce the pressure on defenses, instead of the current situation.

Of course, with the existence of this magical one-way defense shield, even a head-on fight is faster and more stable than a real close-quarters battle in the wilderness.

"I'll listen to you, anything is fine~" Wang Hu seemed to have already thought it through, so he blurted it out.

Sui An shrugged, knowing this was the situation: "Then I'll give you a fixed salary. Based on your current level, you'll get a minimum of 1 source stone per day, plus 3 during Blood Moon, and 10 for participating in direct combat when the energy shield breaks."

This salary, with a minimum guarantee of fifty or sixty Originium per month, is really high for a Level 1 professional.

Are there any higher-level positions? Of course there are, but they require constant risking of one's life, which is much more dangerous than Sui An's.

"I'll listen to you!" Wang Hu remained unconcerned, engrossed in his frenzied archery practice.

"Okay, I knew the reason you wanted to stay wasn't for me, but just to have some fun~"

Sui An shook his head helplessly. This kid does have some violent tendencies, but he is also somewhat restrained and wouldn't intentionally hit someone.

But when fighting the Source Beasts, he felt no pressure.

The number of shadow lizards in the north is still large, and the firepower of the three stone statues is easy to break through. At this moment, the corner of the wall is crowded with shadow lizards, and some have even begun to climb up the slope of the wall.

Sui An had anticipated this situation: "Tiger, go and use my spear to poke those holes down there."

"Alright~" Wang Hu slid down from the watchtower, carrying Sui An's secondhand spear, and began looking for a hole to poke inside.

The gun barrel was over 2 meters long, so piercing a 1-meter-deep hole was no problem for it. Wang Hu was very strong, and every time he pierced the hole, it brought out a thick amount of source beast blood, which flowed down the gun barrel.

On the north wall alone, there were more than a dozen such holes, which Wang Hu was poking with great enthusiasm, as if it were a way to vent his energy.

As fewer and fewer shadow lizards emerged from behind, the three elemental statues began to echo less frequently, and the gray fog outside had long since dissipated.

Wang Hu then peered down from the top of the wall. Outside the wall, the corpses of shadow lizards were piled up to a height of 2 meters. These were the ones that had climbed up and been killed by the elemental statues.

On top of the pile of corpses, a few shadow lizards were still climbing up the mountain of corpses, trying to attack their territory.

But tonight, no mutants like the ones from before appeared; at most, there were just some ordinary level 2 shadow lizards, slightly larger.

Although both are level 1, the Shadow Lizard's combat power is incredibly weak compared to the terrifying upright Ape King Tiger with a power rating of 190+.

Wang Hu stabbed them down one by one with a single shot!

"This should be the only batch tonight. Tiger, put down the sentry post for me. I'm going down to check on my territory's core; it seemed to react a bit just now."

Sui An's face lit up with joy; this was the first time the territory's core had given him feedback on its own initiative.

Wang Hu jumped down from the wall: "Are you going to upgrade?"

"Probably... could you keep an eye on things for me?"

Sui An ran into the house. After experiencing so many baptisms from the source beasts, his territory should have grown faster than others.

If the presence of the Shadow Lizard is removed each time, even during a regular Blood Moon, there would only be a few dozen wandering Source Beasts per night.

And since my efforts are worth ten times what others have done, and I also have resources inherited from the second generation, my territory should be upgraded.

Back inside, the core of the territory was emitting a dazzling white light, its radiance shimmering like stars.

Summon the Territory Core's interface and open the "Territory Permission Operations" module.

Sure enough, a pop-up window appeared in front of Sui An.

[Soul essence has been detected to meet the requirements; your territory core has been granted advancement privileges.]

Please select the advancement direction for your territory; different directions require different materials.

[Enhancement ①: Increases the final energy recovery speed of your territory core by 10%]

[Enhancement ②: Increases the final defense of your territory's energy shield by 10%]

[Enhancement 3: Reduces the final energy consumption of your territory buildings by 10%]

[Enhancement 4: Reduces the cost of crafting/upgrading buildings in your territory by 10%]

[Enhancement 5: You choose to randomly acquire a trait, which may become stronger or weaker.]

A dense array of information appeared before Sui An; both ① and ③ concerned energy.

Sui An directly ruled out ① because it only provided recovery speed and did not raise the upper limit.

Using the attributes of a level 1 territory as a benchmark, this approach is not cost-effective, as it only adds up to half a level 1 source stone per day, which is not much different from adding one more source stone per day.

I don't lack these resources at the moment.

As for ③, it has no effect under normal circumstances, but it will have an effect on occasions like Blood Moon Day when energy is depleted, directly reducing consumption by 10%.

Sui An felt this effect was much better than ①. Based on the cost of his fourth Blood Moon, he had depleted his core twice. This meant he saved himself 12 Originium.

One option is to earn half a dollar every day, and the other is to save 12 dollars under special circumstances, but the probability of these special circumstances being met is relatively high.

Furthermore, there's another point: daily building consumption will be reduced, which indirectly provides additional energy recovery and boost.

If he had to choose one of the two, Sui An decided to choose ③;

As for the second ability to enhance defense, that's also good, but Sui An didn't want to choose it. He had seen special buildings in Jiangcheng that could generate different energy shields, which could replace this ability to some extent.

Regarding ④, reducing the consumption of production materials, Sui An had some questions. How can the core materials be reduced, and can 10% still be scraped off and left?

Collect 10 and combine them into one?

Between ③ and ④, Sui An hesitated. From the current perspective, the cost of building his structures was greater than the cost of consumption, but from a longer time perspective, the consumption of materials would definitely be greater than the cost of building them.

However, after advancing to level 2, I immediately need to upgrade a large number of level 2 buildings, which will require anywhere from a few hundred to a thousand Origin Stones, and this one can be converted into hundreds of Origin Stones immediately.

As for the fifth one, the random item...

Sui An didn't even think about it; he would never choose something that relied on luck.

Even a dog wouldn't choose that!