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

Early in the morning.

As dawn broke, Sui An got up to check his surroundings. Just as he reached the center of the courtyard, he saw five corpses of varying sizes lying around the ghost fox corpse outside the wall.

"Oh wow~ These source beasts are such gluttons~"

"These guys are clearly willing to risk their lives for a piece of barbecue!"

Sui An laughed heartily. Having prey meant having income, and income was necessary to expand his territory and survive the Blood Moon.

"You can't eat barbecue at night, it's hard to digest."

After scanning the surroundings of the courtyard and finding no danger, Sui An opened the protective shield and walked over.

This is why Sui An chose the wasteland area. The grass was very shallow, and the ground was covered with sand and gravel, making it almost like half of the Gobi Desert.

The ground was flat, and there were almost no visual obstacles within a hundred meters, so there was no possibility of someone hiding nearby and lying in ambush.

I didn't see any danger, but the bodies of those three people from yesterday had disappeared overnight. I deliberately threw them quite far away, and it seems they were all dragged away by the source beasts.

One by one, the corpses of the source beasts were dragged back to the courtyard: two ghost foxes, two rotten claw rats, one wind wolf, and one stone skin beetle.

Of the four types of source beasts here, the one with the strongest defense is this Stone-skinned Worm, which is generally a level one source beast.

It is one meter long, and its entire body is covered with hard gray scales that look like stones. Its body is covered with claws, and it has four relatively hard and thick claws that are like sickles.

This thing is very easy for newly awakened combat professionals to lose when fighting it, and it is widely known among low-level professionals.

However, the stone beetle was still blasted black, its scales were somewhat damaged but still intact. It was unclear whether it was electrocuted first or its internal organs were shattered by the lightning explosion.

Sui An looked the body over and then took out a dagger to begin searching it.

In Jiangcheng, if you want to develop into a professional, dissecting corpses to find Originium is a required course.

Sui An was lucky; his six source beasts obtained five level-1 source stones, but the one inside the Rotten Claw Rat did not take shape.

Adding the 16 left over from yesterday, we now have 21 Originium.

I washed my face in the river not far away, then took a small bucket, filled it with water, and brought it back to boil.

There are currently no buildings in the territory that provide water, so if you want to drink water, you have to fetch it from a river in the wild.

Functional blueprints are extremely rare among architects. When they do appear, they are usually green-based blueprints, which Sui An cannot afford right now.

The weather was nice today; most of the clouds from yesterday had cleared up, and Sui An spent some time basking in the sun in the yard.

A moment later, a sound came from the main line of Line 7, and Sui An quickly stood up and looked over.

Looking at the pattern on the flags of the caravan, which resembled a peace knot, it was indeed a peace caravan from Jiangcheng.

The Ping An Merchant Caravan is a trade association established by the city lord of Jiangcheng. It occupies more than 70% of the energy resource market transactions in the entire Jiangcheng and has a very good reputation.

In this world, even the most prominent lord professions need a diverse range of professionals to help them consolidate their territory.

Other professionals also need strong territories to protect themselves, so the larger and more prosperous the territory, the more it needs a certain degree of order.

Sui An stood by the courtyard wall and looked over. This time there were only ten transport vehicles. Presumably, it was because there was no blood moon last night, so most of the territory probably didn't have much of a harvest. Therefore, the size of the convoy would be smaller on such ordinary days.

These transport vehicles were modified by blacksmiths and are somewhat similar to tractors from my previous life, consisting of an open-top cab with a four-wheeled cargo bed.

The speed wasn't too fast, at most it could travel about 40 or 50 kilometers per hour. Of course, this also depended on the smoothness of the road. In fact, there were no real roads in the wilderness; they were all made by these vehicles.

However, this type of transport vehicle has a lot of horsepower and a large carrying capacity. The body of the ordinary model is eight meters long, and the truck bed alone is nearly six meters long. It can pull more than ten tons of goods and is now the most mainstream transport vehicle.

Yesterday, Sui An arrived here in this very car.

"Brother Zhen!"

Sui An squinted and immediately spotted the young man sitting in one of the cars, and quickly shouted.

Upon hearing the shouts, the figure in the car stood up and glanced in that direction. Then, the car broke away from the main group and drove towards this direction ahead of time, arriving at Sui An's courtyard in no time.

Wang Zhen was Sui An's friend in Jiangcheng, and they were neighbors living together in Building 78 in the western part of Jiangcheng.

However, Wang Zhen was four years older than Sui An, making him the oldest peer in his circle. After awakening his combat profession, he joined the Ping An Merchant Guild as a merchant caravan operator.

Wang Zhen is very talented, has strong combat ability, and is daring and willing to fight. He just broke through to level 4 professional last month and has already become a squad leader in the transport team. You could say he's a genius.

He also bought a separate vehicle and followed the convoy, leading a small team on transport missions.

Wang Zhen jumped out of the car, looked around the small territory, and then looked at the peculiar stone statue in the center of the yard with great surprise.

There are at least fifteen or sixteen first-level territories like Sui'an near Line 7, but very few are as initial as Sui'an.

After all, those who dare to leave Jiangcheng and choose to explore the land alone must have some resources and family connections. They will get a few green-quality building blueprints at the start and arm their territory as much as possible.

However, Wang Zhen knew very well about Sui An's family background, as he was a childhood friend.

"Could this be an elemental statue? What a peculiar design! But how could Sui An have an elemental statue? Could it have been left behind by Uncle Sui before his death?"

The elemental statues are at least green buildings, and might even be blue.

For people like us without any connections, having the blueprints is no easy feat, and being able to afford the materials to actually make it is even more difficult.

Wang Zhen had some guesses in his mind, but he didn't care. Who in this world doesn't have some special opportunities? It's just a green or blue attack building, which can't be considered a real big opportunity.

"Xiao An, I never expected you to have such an opportunity!"

He smiled and approached, saying, "No wonder you insisted on coming out to develop your career. I was worried for a long time when I left yesterday."

Sui An felt a little embarrassed. He chose to come out simply because he didn't want his core territory to be subordinate to another territory. Back then, his cheat ability hadn't come along yet.

However, he naturally understood what Wang Zhen was referring to, and since he couldn't explain too much, he could only put on a slightly bitter face and say in accordance with Wang Zhen's meaning, "It's all the inheritance left by my parents."

He walked forward, his right hand lightly stroking the wall, and sighed softly, "Sigh, Zhen-ge, you know, if I could, I wouldn't really want this!"

Wang Zhen was slightly taken aback, then gently comforted her, "Don't overthink it. Since you're alive, live well and don't let your aunt and uncle down."

He glanced at the several corpses of source beasts lying in the courtyard.

"Did you call me here to deal with the source beast's corpse?"

"Yes!" Sui An nodded quickly and replied, "I'll also buy some daily necessities while I'm at it, since I couldn't carry much by myself yesterday."

"Alright, drag the body out!" Wang Zhen waved his hand, and the transport vehicle moved closer to the yard.

Looking at the corpse of the source beast that Sui An had thrown out, Wang Zhen glanced at the extent of its injuries and was somewhat surprised: "It seems that your elemental statue is quite powerful."

"Not bad, not bad~" Sui An chuckled sheepishly.

Wang Zhen didn't pay attention to Sui An's perfunctory attitude. He suddenly frowned and looked around, looking somewhat puzzled.

"However, it wasn't the Blood Moon yesterday, yet so many Origin Beasts still came to your little territory. I wonder if the place you chose is good or bad."

Upon hearing this, Sui An glanced at the corpse and suddenly remembered the three people he had thrown out yesterday. He immediately understood why so many source beasts had been wandering around the courtyard last night; they must have been lured there by those three people.

However, it's best not to easily tell others about someone attacking you and then killing you in return. Those people might have brothers or friends who could come looking for trouble, which would be bad luck.

"I'm not quite sure either. Logically speaking, this area is all wasteland, so there shouldn't be any wild beasts or source beasts here. It's probably an accident."

"It was probably just an accidental occurrence. However, the last blood moon occurred the night before, and it's very likely that another blood moon will begin tonight. Xiao An, you'd better be on your guard."

Wang Zhen gave Sui An a brief reminder but didn't say anything more. Since he had chosen to explore the land alone, he had to walk the path by himself. No matter what others said, it would be useless, and he could only offer so little help.

However, fewer people in a territory also have their advantages, as it is much less attractive to source beasts.

He straightened up, turning his gaze away from the corpse of the source beast:

"These six corpses are all ordinary level 1 source beasts. If I were to buy them, I could only offer 3 source stones. After all, this isn't the city, and we need to cover our travel expenses. Do you want to sell them?"

"Of course I know that. Don't I trust you, Brother Zhen? I've already sold them all."

Sui An nodded, then turned to look at the wagon loaded with goods beside him. "I'll go check out the daily necessities in your wagon. Can I pay with Originium?"

Wang Zhen smiled and nodded: "Of course, you can choose for yourself."