Hundreds of dark figures appeared before them. Logically, the scouts, the dark elf raiders, should have already cleared out the dangers in the surrounding area. So what exactly was going on ahead?

"Don't push, don't push! Let me through, great Lord Su Yue, let me surrender, I want to join your territory!"

Zhou Zhuo quickly stepped forward; the dark elf was blind.

He could only sense whether there was danger ahead; his eyes, covered by a black cloth, were essentially useless. They were, in fact, cave creatures. Because elves occupied the surface, these dark elves could only survive in the underground world, which, as everyone knows, had no sun or light source. Therefore, they generally did not use their eyes to perceive things.

The Dark Elf raiders are even more extreme; it is said that many of them were blinded by their mothers at birth.

Dark elves are extremely evil and cruel creatures.

An entity skilled in intrigue and scheming.

It is a miracle that Zhou Zhuo, who led a group of subordinates whose personalities were completely opposite to his own, did not rebel.

"What's going on?"

Zhou Zhuo stared in shock into the distance... He would have been fine if he hadn't gotten closer, but once he did, his face turned bright red...

"So many damn refugees?!"

"They're all refugees!!"

"Holy crap, what level of attractiveness does Boss Su Yue's territory have? I can get money and resources whenever I want, and I can't even add fifty people to my family after a day of looting and fighting outside, but hundreds of refugees are lining up outside his territory?"

Zhou Zhuo stared in utter shock at the scene in the dense forest before him: hundreds of dark-skinned refugees, each carrying large and small bags, dressed in tattered burlap clothes, including men, women, children, and young adults. Regardless of their age, it was a sight to behold: such a large number of refugees queuing outside the territory, waiting to be recruited by the lord.

Zhou Zhuo had never seen it before...

"This is a nightmare for ghosts! Even if you gave it to me, I couldn't afford to recruit it!!"

"There must be at least 600 or 700 people, right? So many people, each with their own mouth to feed, drink, and relieve themselves, there aren't enough toilets to build!! They're all pooping on the ground, and they're getting sick... and they need to sleep, you can't just not provide them with beds, can you? Food is one thing, the problem is they're really sick..."

Sometimes Zhou Zhuo really envied the undead players. Their skeletons might be trash, but they didn't have as many troublesome things as the human lords.

"I doubt we can recruit them, right?"

"..."

He was quickly proven wrong again!

Outside the Canaan Territory, an NPC named Eric, dressed in a black robe with a red lining, said, "I am Eric, the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Canaan Territory! Everyone, line up and register in an orderly manner. There will be food and drink in the Canaan Territory. As long as you work hard and don't slack off... cough cough, slacking off is fine too. The Canaan Territory welcomes any ambitious and talented individuals to join our territory. Hurry up and register!"

"..."

Zhou Zhuo was blocked at the door by the crowd, but he also joined the queue.

At this moment, a knight commander wearing a raven helmet and full Imperial knight's armor, with even his toes covered by iron plates, stood not far away and said, "You must be Lord Zhou Zhuo?"

"Who are you?"

"I am Walter Lawrence, and I have been ordered by the Councilor and the Lord to invite you to meet with us. Your troops will be temporarily placed under our care, including food and lodging."

"Okay, okay."

It would be great if food and drink were provided, but I don't know if military expenses and salaries would be reimbursed...

Zhou Zhuo was having a terrible headache. The salaries for these troops were too expensive. His force of less than 70 men cost him over 5,000 gold coins a week... Especially since he had to fight at night, which meant he was out of sync with the daytime development of his territory. Fortunately, the Dark Elf lords had their own building system. The Dark Elf farmers were also quite efficient, otherwise he would have really exploded.

Unlike ordinary human lord players, Zhou Zhuo's dark elf territory follows an elite path.

"Holy crap!!"

Holy crap!! That's incredible!

After he entered the territory, the ochre-brown warhorse was led away, and he felt like a country bumpkin visiting a grand mansion, completely dumbfounded... "Isn't this a town?!"

"This is player territory?!"

"You're telling me this is player territory?"

His face turned green. He had been to Canaan two days ago; if he hadn't, he wouldn't be so shocked and surprised. It felt like not having been home for over a decade and finding your old house replaced by skyscrapers. Had he been imprisoned for seven or eight years, or had time skipped in the Su Yue territory? Wasn't this supposed to be a small town?

"This road...this foundation...this damn tavern!?"

"What's that big one over there?"

"Three books... a council hall... and a blacksmith shop... are dwarves forging iron?"

"Isn't Su Yue a human lord? Won't there be racial conflict if he has so many dwarves in his territory?" Zhou Zhuo felt like he knew nothing anymore, his brain was fogged up, and his head was full of sweat and brain fog.

The glow of the setting sun shone on the face of Zhou Zhuo, the Dark Elf Lord, making his long ears appear a bright red.

"The tower... what's on the tower..."

"Griffin!!!!!!!!!!"

...

Su Yue had always had a misunderstanding about Zhou Zhuo.

He assumed the other person was a human lord.

Looking at his long ears and dark green eyes, she asked in confusion, "You didn't look like this when I first saw you?"

Zhou Zhuo said, "My B-grade Dark Walker talent has a latent factor that allows the character I created to have Dark Elf blood... Now, this bloodline has been activated by a fortuitous encounter, and my appearance has changed."

"I see."

Su Yue sat in the reception room where he had previously hosted Schwartz and said with a smile, "Come and have dinner."

"Boss, your time is precious and you're very busy. Let's talk business. I don't want to stand on ceremony. I feel uncomfortable with all the formalities. Let's just say what we need to say. We're both young, and you don't look that old to me. What did you do for a living before?"

Su Yue laughed. No NPC in the Turin world would talk to him like that, let alone ask him about his previous job.

"A typical office worker who works nine to five."

"...I didn't realize that. I thought you were some kind of top-tier gamer."

"Just lucky."

Zhou Zhuo's expression became slightly more focused as he said, "Currently, our Longqing Guild can mobilize 7 players from the Dragon Kingdom in this area. As far as I know, there are no more than 15 other players we can contact."

"So little?"

“The continent of Fesa is too big. If you spread out a map of the world of Turin, the density of our six billion people could make the Earth's icebergs melt due to global warming... But on the continent of Fesa, it might not be enough.”

"..."

Su Yue was silent for a moment, then picked up a wild blueberry and said, "Are they all normal people?"

“Yes, I know them all, but there’s no guarantee there won’t be a traitor…” Zhou Zhuo said, “What do you need us to help you with?”

Su Yue said, "I am prepared to conquer the dwarven northern fortress."

"!!!!"

"They have a group of dwarf players under their command, which should be able to gather more than 1,000 troops. I don't have any players under my command, so I'm at a strategic disadvantage in terms of troop composition."

"I see."

Zhou Zhuo thought so too.

On the first day, Su Yue fought against a European player named Loire who was a dwarf. They wiped out more than 500 dwarf troops, which reportedly angered the Europeans so much that they almost exploded... However, the total number of European players is also in the hundreds of millions.

No matter how much the world of Turin develops, it's only the evening of the second day after the server opens.

“I understand what you mean, but the human empire’s camp is probably not in line with the interests of the dwarves, our dark elves, elves, orcs, and their dragon brothers.”

Su Yue laughed and said, "Give me the money."

"ah?"

Su Yue laughed and said, "I lack everything right now, except money."

He silently read the lord's logbook sent from Abraham's side:

"Abraham used your 1.3 million gold coins to conduct numerous transactions and shipments. Today, your followers of the Devil Cult have made an offering of 450,000 gold coins..."

Su Yue was stunned into silence.

Previously, he earned 130,000 gold coins a day, with an estimated monthly income of 3.9 million gold coins. Now, Abraham is earning another 450,000 gold coins a day? Did he steal all those gold coins? How could it be so fast?

He was increasingly sensing something was off about Abraham's business; he needed to find out exactly how they were making money… The money was coming too easily, making Su Yue uneasy. 450,000 gold coins, in one day!

If we calculate based on a 30-day month, that's 14 million gold coins!

Abraham's ability to amass wealth is beyond outrageous... He's made Su Yue not even want to browse the players' auction house anymore. The global ranking of gold coins in the Dragon Kingdom hasn't been updated yet today, otherwise, when it is updated tomorrow, players all over the world will think he's cheating again.

Zhou Zhuo said, "Just the gold coins..."

Su Yue said, "Can't we exchange other resources at the auction house?"

Zhou Zhuo said, "That's true, but boss, if you want to unite players from different races like dark elves, goblins, dwarves, elves, and orcs to form a cohesive force, you can't build a large-scale army; Loire of the Northern Fortress, their subordinates are all dwarf lords."

Su Yue was troubled...

Can't money solve this?

There are only 14 lords in the vicinity of Canaan, and they are all of different races... He had indeed underestimated the situation. The players in Loire Europe are all dwarf lords. Although the Dragon Kingdom has the second largest population in the world, the continent of Faisa is too vast. Due to population dilution, there are practically no Dragon Kingdom lords here.

"Can we recruit them from other regions?"

"It's very difficult. It's like looking at a mountain and running to your death. There are no airplanes here, only goblin speedboats and ships... Because the laws of physics are different from those in reality, we can't build airplanes, rockets, cannons, or even machine guns in reality! It's driving our Chinese scientists crazy... Physics has ceased to exist, and The Three-Body Problem is going to destroy humanity... Of course, I think they are all worrying unnecessarily, but the laws of the Turin world are indeed different from science."

"..."

Su Yue said, "There will definitely be a lot of trouble and difficulties. You should call everyone over first and have them bring their troops to join us."

"Offline?"

Su Yue pondered, "Offline is indeed a bit troublesome..."

"Online meetings?"

Zhou Zhuo laughed and said, "Big brother, you don't really need to be so hung up on forming a player army. If our Dragon Kingdom has too few people, why don't we fight a guerrilla war? What was the essence of what our ancestors taught us again?"

Su Yue's eyes lit up. Damn, that's right!

Why bother forming a Dragon Kingdom faction legion like those European birdmen dwarves? They could just secretly become a unified entity, each developing their own forces, communicating online, and then waging guerrilla warfare.

"What you said makes sense. You've brought everyone into the group chat, and you're holding a meeting for an hour tonight. You have a total of 7 players in your Dragon Azure Guild?"

"Yes, boss. Our guild leader, Long Qing, is the sucker who bought 200 pieces of your armor for 200,000 gold coins."

"Hehe, I didn't expect we had this kind of connection."

Su Yue laughed. Zhou Zhuo seemed very sincere to him; at least Europa and Jin Xiuer didn't react to his lies. Su Yue's Spiral Annihilation Yellow Seal, as the right arm of the Cthulhu god, had a subtle effect: when an enemy was lying or harboring malice, his Spiral Annihilation Yellow Seal would undergo a slight change, making his sixth sense and subconscious instincts sense that the other party was somewhat dangerous.

Schwarz von Richter and that group of Holy See people gave him that feeling. But Zhou Zhuo was completely different. Unless he possessed the ability to counter lie detectors and Cthulhu's evil god at level 9 or higher, it was impossible for him to be ahead of him in social skills. Even level 7 cardinals were made to act timidly by him; no matter how strong Zhou Zhuo was, he hadn't reached that level.

"There's one more thing."

"Please speak, sir."

Su Yue said, "I have two heroes under my command, one named Id Ya and the other Gregory. Starting tomorrow, they will both be going out on their own. Be careful if you encounter them nearby. Don't get wiped out."

"???"

Su Yue said, "If you encounter Id Ya riding a red horse, just surrender. If you encounter Gregory, you can try to negotiate."

"???"

"Surrender immediately, why?"

"Ninth rank..."

"puff!!!!"

The water in Zhou Zhuo's cup sprayed out!

"A ninth-tier hero?!?"

Su Yue covered his forehead, thinking that it would be better if the other party was a ninth-tier hero.

"Anyway, I can't control that person. When you meet her, just say nice things to her. Maybe you'll have a lucky encounter and a reward."

"An unexpected encounter?! A reward?!"

"???"

"Isn't he a hero of your territory? Didn't you, Su Yue, just finish building your tavern and recruit two heroes the very next day? How much is your military budget per month?"

"As for the military units, the current military expenditure is over 80,000, and the military expenditure for the two heroes is 75,000, which is about 155,000 per week. We will continue to expand."

"!!!"

Zhou Zhuo's face turned green... 150,000 gold coins for military expenses?! One week!! Four weeks' worth of military expenses totaling 600,000 gold coins?!

Gregory is a free-to-play hero, a saint-type character. Su Yue also plans to nurture him. The Turin world is only on its second day of operation, and he's already looking forward to the upcoming battle against the dwarves in the North Fortress! Su Yue's strategic vision is far-sighted; the Dragon Kingdom players also need to be guided by him.