Hearing this, Cao Xing immediately understood something.
The tree spirits have been protecting the pale tree since birth.
That forest is their territory and their home.
Ever since my home was destroyed, I have accepted in my heart that I am a homeless person.
Now that I have come to someone else's territory, subconsciously, I feel like an outsider.
This is their deep-rooted thinking.
Cao Xing shook his head. "In my territory, there are not so many rules. Since you have become my subjects, I will naturally treat you equally."
"Now, in the name of the lord, I invite you to enter the cafeteria."
There was no room for rejection in Cao Xing's words.
The tree spirits looked at each other again, and the female tree spirit said, "Thank you, Lord, for your kindness."
Then, they went into the cafeteria together.
When these tree spirits saw the various delicious dishes already placed on the table, they couldn't help but drool like crazy.
The Dryads may appear to be creatures carved out of ice, but in reality, they have flesh and blood and need to eat on a daily basis.
The food in front of them directly aroused their deepest desires.
Cao Xing said, "Then, let's start enjoying it."
After getting Cao Xing's permission, this group of tree spirits could no longer be controlled.
They came to the table, took out the roasted bear meat, wolf meat, and dry cheese, and feasted on them.
While eating, he made sounds of praise.
"Oh my god! Such delicious bear meat, such delicious wolf meat, it's melting on my tongue!"
"Wow, it's so delicious. I've never had such a sumptuous meal since I was a child."
"Praise this kind lord, he gave us abundant food!"
The other tree spirits also said, "Praise the great lord."
A lot of system prompts appeared in front of Cao Xing.
[Your territory member: Arni has enjoyed delicious food, and his loyalty has increased. The current loyalty is 74]
[Your territory member: Kalla has enjoyed delicious food, and her loyalty has increased. The current loyalty is 72]
[Your territory member: Niv has enjoyed delicious food, and her loyalty has increased. The current loyalty is 71]
【your……】
Favorability increased for all members.
The living environment of the tree spirits is also very harsh, because the pale tree is sacred and inviolable.
Therefore, there are not many abundant supplies within their scope of activities.
At this time, the petite Neve was wolfing down the food on the table while looking at Cao Xing, as if she had something to say.
But in the end, she still didn't muster up the courage.
While the group of tree spirits were eating, Cao Xing turned around and went outside.
Because he couldn't wait to see the properties of the things he traded from Hilton.
Especially, that golden shield!
[Shield of the Holy Knight (Gold) lv10]
【Quality: rare】
[Armor: 123~129]
[Attached special effect ①: Constitution +20, Spirit +20]
[Attached special effect ②: Intermediate force reduction (when receiving physical attacks, reduce the opponent's strength damage by 20 points)]
[Attached special effect ③: Intermediate magic resistance (when attacked by magic, reduce the opponent's mental damage by 25 points)]
[Additional effect ④: Knight's Blessing (Adds a layer of protective shield to all allies, with a durability of 20% of the current allies' health, a duration of 120 seconds, and a cooldown of 20 minutes)]
…
"Oh my god... what a strong attribute!"
More than one hundred armors, plus several special effects, all increase the survivability of the shield user.
One can imagine how amazing Liu Muxue's defense will be when she holds the Paladin's Shield!
Moreover, the most powerful one is naturally the last special effect of [Knight's Blessing].
Combined with your own talents, it is equivalent to permanently increasing the maximum health of all friendly units by 20%!
This is a huge improvement. If given to a mammoth, it can directly increase its health by 3,000 points!
Unfortunately, this equipment has wearing requirements.
Need to be upgraded to level 10 before it can be equipped.
However, for Cao Xing, reaching level 10 is not too difficult.
Cao Xing, with a delighted look on his face, began to check the second item, which was a bottle of secret medicine.
[Secret of Vitality (Blue): After taking it, you can increase your physical fitness by 10 points within 180 minutes. 】
(Want to know the secret of the Earl's nightly revelry? That's it!)
…
"It really is the secret to increasing physical strength!"
Although Cao Xing didn't see the attributes, he used his previous experience playing on a tablet to judge the effect of this secret medicine.
10 points of physical fitness is not low, it is comparable to the improvement he gets when he reaches level three or four.
Of course, this is limited to the second level and before.
After the second level, each upgrade will provide more attribute improvements.
Cao Xing drank it without hesitation.
Because he is a fragile mage, he naturally needs to try his best to improve his survivability.
[Successfully taking the [Secret of Vitality], physical fitness has been improved, and the talent [Eternal Power] has taken effect. This state has become permanent.]
"As expected, potions can also be enhanced by talents."
"10 points of physical fitness, and an additional 200 health points for me, not bad."
Cao Xing nodded with satisfaction and threw the [Shield of the Holy Knight] to Liu Muxue.
Liu Muxue looked at the gorgeous golden shield in her hand in surprise.
She had been staying with Cao Xing just now and saw the transaction process between him and Hilton.
Of course, I know how valuable this golden shield is.
Throwing it into the trading market would surely shock the survivors in Area 174.
However, Liu Muxue has secretly made up her mind to develop the territory together with Cao Xing.
There was no need to express any extra gratitude, but he quietly put the shield into his backpack.
Besides, she belongs to Cao Xing, so a piece of golden equipment is nothing to her.
At this moment, Cao Xing and Liu Muxue suddenly felt a violent vibration under their feet.
Boom!
The earthquake came so suddenly that the buildings in the entire territory shook slightly.
Liu Muxue subconsciously grabbed Cao Xing's shoulders.
The people in the area were so frightened that they stopped what they were doing.
The group of polar people were in a panic, shouting and screaming with exaggerated expressions.
"Oh my god, what happened?"
"Is the ground moving?"
"No, it's the Earth Mother who is hungry. She wants to eat the filthy polar people!"
"Woo woo, Mother Goddess, please forgive us!"
These polar people all knelt on the ground, kowtowed continuously, and prayed.
Living underground for many years, earthquakes are the most terrible natural disaster for them, and they always take away many lives of polar people.
Fortunately, the vibration comes quickly and goes away quickly.
However, Cao Xing and Liu Muxue both saw surprise in each other's eyes.
Because the vibration just now was not felt in their area, but in the entire Snowy Plains, and even the entire Western Continent felt this vibration!
[World Channel] has become a mess, with many survivors speaking crazily.
"Is it really an earthquake?"
Cao Xing was very confused.
Before they could react.
A system prompt appears.
[Attention all survivors! Time remaining until the novice protection period: 39 hours and 17 minutes...]
【After the novice protection period ends, the game content will undergo some changes. 】
[New expansion: Dragon's Rise is about to be released. 】
[The sleeping ancient dragon: Zhuoma is gradually awakening, and its overflowing dragon power has transformed into ice nests that appear frequently around the world.
There will be a large number of monsters such as Icebrood Beasts, Icebrood Eyes, and Zhuoma's Minions in the Icebrood.
As time goes by, the dragon's power will continue to recover, and the monsters that emerge from the Ice Nest will become more powerful.
Your goal is to defend your respective territories from the attacks of these ice nest beasts and destroy more ice nests. 】
[Attention! Ice nests appear randomly. In order to allow survivors to adapt as quickly as possible, small-scale ice nests will appear during the novice protection period.]
…
The prompt had just ended, and all the survivors saw that there seemed to be a meteor shower in the sky.
Those meteor showers fell all over the world, creating huge craters.
Boom! Boom!
Violent shaking continued.
The world chat channel was suddenly in chaos.
Li Zheng: "Oh my god! What happened? The system said a dragon is about to wake up?"
Leonardo: "A new expansion is coming, and this is the system's way of letting us adapt in advance."
Kenichi Murata: "A giant dragon? It looks like this hero is finally going to be a dragon slayer!"
Muhammad: "You are wrong, this is heavenly punishment! It is a punishment for us. In fact, we should have died long ago. We came to this world just to pay for our sins. Everyone will die, hahahaha! Everyone will die!"
Wang Zhuang: "The one upstairs, stop going crazy here."
…
Including the chat channel in zone 174, a large number of comments appeared in an instant.
One of the survivors, named Jiang Na, exclaimed, "Oh my god, a meteor fell near my territory! It turned into an ice nest, and many monsters with ice spikes all over their bodies emerged from it!"
The other survivors in Area 174 were shocked when they heard this. "Oh my god...it turns out these meteors are the ice nests the system mentioned."
"Sister Jiangna, how strong are those monsters?"
Jiang Na was silent for a moment, then spoke again: "Huh... It seems to be okay, they are just level 4 or 5 monsters, I can still handle them!"
Hearing this, the other survivors also breathed a sigh of relief.
However, the system also reminded that it was the early stage of the dragon's revival and only a slight amount of power was dissipated, so the monsters that appeared in the ice nest were not very strong.
As the dragon gradually awakens, the level of the Icebrood monsters will also gradually increase.
At this moment, Ji Xinyue also shouted in the chat channel: "An ice nest appeared outside my territory. My God, so many monsters came out!"
Le Hangyu: "I saw it too, I did it!"
Qiao Weichao: "Fuck! This ice nest crushed my polar man to death, I'm fucking..."
Zhang Yuzhe: "Brothers, go back to your territory quickly, the ice nest will not hit our territory!"
The survivors heard the warning and returned to their own territories.
The sudden change caught everyone off guard.
…
Cao Xing looked around and closed the chat channel.
"It seems that many of the survivors have found dragon ice nests near their territories."
"But fortunately, this is a system warm-up. The monsters that appear are not of high level. This is also to allow the survivors to adapt to the changes in the game after the novice protection period ends."
Cao Xing breathed a sigh of relief.
The sudden vibration did make him a little flustered.
Liu Muxue blinked her beautiful eyes and said softly, "Ah Xing... the system said that the dragon is about to wake up. Is the dragon very powerful?"
Cao Xing nodded and said, "Of course. Didn't you hear Hilton say that the Northern Continent was nearly destroyed because of the awakening of a giant dragon?"
"The ancient dragon on our continent is probably in a similar situation."
"Huh? That's so scary..."
Liu Muxue was worried.
Cao Xing smiled and said, "Don't worry. According to the system prompt, it will take some time for the dragon to wake up."
"Besides, if the sky falls, there are tall people to hold it up."
"The natives of this world are much stronger than us. If we really encountered a giant dragon awakening, they would be the first to take over."
"If we can't even handle them, then there's nothing we can do."
Hearing this, the worry on Liu Muxue's face dissipated a little.
She looked at the man with infatuation in her eyes.
He always seems to have a way to solve every problem.
At this moment, Cao Xing suddenly felt a gust of wind above his head.
He looked up and clearly saw a meteor passing by.
Then, it fell directly near his territory.
"BOOM!!!"
The shaking was more violent than any before!
The snow on the ground was blown away and the buildings in the territory shook violently.
Cao Xing was stunned. "Oh my god? Did this hit me on the head?"
Before Cao Xing could check, the leader Cao Yi exclaimed outside.
"Lord! Something has fallen near our territory!"
Cao Xing walked over quickly.
Even the tree spirits who were eating in the cafeteria were alarmed and came out one after another.
Then, everyone saw it about 800 meters away from the territory.
A snow-white nest appeared, like an ice sculpture, with powerful power fluctuations constantly emerging from it.
“Roar! Roar!”
There were waves of beast-like roars.
Cao Xing's eyes suddenly showed realization, "So this is the Ice Nest."
At this time, the group of tree spirits were staring at the ice nest.
One of the Dryads exclaimed, "Oh my god! That's the power of an ancient dragon!"
Upon hearing the words "Ancient Dragon", all the tree spirits showed expressions of great fear.
"Why? We have already come to the Western Continent, but the dragon still won't let us go?"
"The dragon has destroyed our homeland, will it destroy our last habitat?"
"Wuwuwu... We are a cursed race. We should sink along with the pale tree..."
The tree spirits were in despair at this time.
Neve even collapsed and sat on the ground.
The other citizens looked at this group of pale-skinned people.
However, they did not think the reaction of the Dryads was exaggerated.
After all, these people had experienced a dragon disaster before, their homes were destroyed, and large numbers of their people died.
This incident left a deep psychological shadow on them...
…