Chapter 136 Wearing Many Hats (Bonus Chapter) The City God Temple is officially launched, and the ghosts...
Zhou Fangdong opened the City God's page.
The City God Temple page is also pixelated, but unlike the real-world City God Temple, this pixelated temple only has one main hall, and it is located inside an office building.
Except for the rooftop, which remains closed off, the five floors in the middle of this office building are connected from top to bottom, creating a square, high-ceilinged area. The City God Temple is located in this square space, turning the originally ordinary office building into a '回'-shaped structure.
Although the floor slab on the top floor was not broken through, a skylight was installed.
The skylight is located at the very top of the City God Temple, and moonlight shines through it, outlining a hazy halo around the temple. Combined with the large incense burner with its wisps of smoke at the temple entrance, even the pixelated style has a sacred feel, making it look like a fairyland phantom that doesn't exist in reality.
Many pixelated figures ran out of the office, leaned on the railing, and stared in disbelief at the temple in the center of the building. Exclamation marks kept popping up above their pixelated heads, like fireworks.
Zhou Fangdong was also somewhat surprised.
Is this really how you change the appearance of a building?
He originally thought that the system's talk of modifying the building's exterior meant repainting the supervisory bureau's office building, or at most adding some ancient-style decorations on the outside. He never expected that it would directly change the building's internal structure, creating a City God Temple out of thin air.
The system is really generous; it seems to have plenty of energy lately.
Zhou Fangdong clicked on the vermilion gate, and with a creaking sound, the page immediately switched to the interior of the City God Temple.
Before he could even see the internal structure clearly, a system pop-up appeared:
[Upon first unlocking of the City God Temple, the system will give you a free statue of the City God.]
After the pop-up disappeared, a statue of a deity wearing a red official robe and a black gauze hat appeared on the altar in the main hall.
Perhaps because it is not yet officially open for business, the interior of the City God Temple is a bit simple, with only an offering table, incense burner, and a donation box.
Zhou Fangdong checked the City God Temple's operating instructions at the top of the page.
[Currently, the City God Temple is at the lowest level and needs to have its statues restored before it can begin operating...]
Zhou Fangdong clicked on the statue that the system had given him.
The City God Temple lacks sufficient offerings to revive the City God Temple in Linjiang City.
Zhou Fangdong: ? ? ?
"System, how do I obtain incense points?"
Incense points are earned by managing the City God Temple.
Running a City God Temple requires first restoring the statues of the gods, restoring the statues of the gods requires incense points, and incense points are obtained through running the City God Temple... It's such a familiar vicious cycle.
Zhou Fangdong said helplessly, "System, if the Nightmare Clone can activate the Realm Temple in place of the Realm Lord God, can it also activate the City God Temple in place of the City God?"
【Can】
Zhou Fangdong breathed a sigh of relief.
Luckily, I acquired the [Nightmare Clone] skill, otherwise I would have been stuck again.
After creating a nightmare clone, Zhou Fangdong suddenly realized something.
How can he put his clone into the statue of the City God?
Does this mean I have to make a trip to the Supervision Bureau? Speaking of which, the Supervision Bureau isn't currently considered part of the apartment complex's surrounding facilities, so can he just teleport there directly?
Just as I thought of this, the system's electronic voice sounded:
[The system will help deploy the Nightmare Clone—Host, are you sure you want to deploy the Nightmare Clone into the City God statue?]
"Sure."
[Okay, the clones have been deployed.]
The City God statue has been restored, and the City God Temple has officially reopened. Currently, the protected area includes: Jinxi District and Zhongcheng District.
[Business Model: Collect incense points to upgrade the City God Temple and expand the area protected by the City God]
[Pilgrimages to the City God Temple to offer incense and pray for blessings, use talismans to help pilgrims solve problems, and the City God's officers to slay troublesome ghosts all drop incense points.]
Incense points can be exchanged for apartment reputation, which can unlock City God Temple facilities and more job opportunities.
Upon seeing the area of protection, Zhou Fangdong unconsciously frowned.
Can it only protect the two districts in the city center? It seems the level is too low, the range is a bit small. No wonder it requires activating the Temple to assist in protecting the community.
However, having something is better than having nothing. It does relieve some of the pressure on the Bureau of Supervision, allowing them to allocate manpower from these two districts to other places.
After quickly glancing through the pop-ups, Zhou Fangdong continued to review the business instructions he hadn't finished reading earlier.
[...Choose a human as the City God Temple Keeper to activate the automatic management mode]
Zhou Fangdong relaxed.
He had limited energy, and his main task was to rent out all the apartments, so he really couldn't spare much energy for the City God Temple.
It's good that there's an automatic management mode. It seems that the City God Temple, like the paper craft shop and Liwan Hospital, can be left to its own devices. He just needs to wait for it to operate automatically for a while, then come over to collect the rent... and the incense offerings.
[...The temple keeper's duties include guiding worshippers to pray and offer incense, selling incense and candles, writing petitions for worshippers, and exchanging incense points for talismans to ward off evil and disaster.]
Currently available talismans for exchange: [Home Protection Talisman], [City God's Edict Seal]. More talismans can be unlocked as the City God Temple level increases.
[The temple keeper needs to be stationed at the City God Temple for a long time, and the work is very busy. Please choose a suitable human from the candidate list next to the donation box to take on the role.]
Zhou Fangdong opened the list of candidates.
The first one was surprisingly the director of the supervisory bureau.
He decisively skipped it.
Next up is the head of the Operations Department… Although he's the head, he still needs to go on missions. The investigators in the Paranormal Investigations Division are out on missions throughout the city every day, dealing with all sorts of paranormal events, and they're completely tied up.
The research department is also very busy, and the anomaly monitoring department is even busier. These departments are basically working two shifts around the clock, day and night, and one person is practically doing the work of three.
This list of candidates basically includes all the elites of the Oversight Bureau.
After quickly reviewing the information, Zhou Fangdong was somewhat impressed with the Supervision Bureau. It was amazing that such a small number of people could protect the safety of an entire city... It was also possible that too many people had been sacrificed, leaving only these people.
Although the supervisory bureau may overlook some minor details, it is quite remarkable that the city has been maintained to this state in such a short time, given how sudden the paranormal event occurred.
After reviewing the list again, Zhou Fangdong noticed that the head of the logistics department seemed to have a lot of free time; his main job appeared to be looking after the warehouse.
Now that his system is helping to watch over the sealed items in the Bureau of Supervision's warehouse, there's no need for the Minister of Logistics to guard them anymore. Let's just bring that minister over and make him our temple keeper.
Zhou Fangdong found the head of the logistics department, picked up the pixelated figure, and placed it in the City God Temple.
Human positions have been filled, but there are still positions for ghost employees.
Within the protected area of the City God Temple, ghost employees are required to slay ghosts and monsters causing trouble in the city. Slaying ghosts and monsters will also drop incense points, which is one of the sources of income for the City God Temple.
Because the City God Temple is of a low level, it currently only needs eight ghost employees: six ghost soldiers, one night patrol god, and one day patrol god.
Before Zhou Fangdong could even ask, the system thoughtfully offered its own advice:
[Ghost soldiers can be recruited from the ghosts of sacrificed investigators in the hospital morgue; day-roaming and night-roaming gods require their hosts to appoint ghost tenants.]
"Could we reassign the ghost nurses, and transfer six of them to the City God Temple to serve as ghost soldiers? Ninety ghost nurses in the hospital seem like too many."
[The Ghost Soldier and Ghost Nurse require the same salary and can switch roles.]
[Note: The incense needed to pay the hospital's ghost nurses and ghost doctors has not yet been made. Please store the incense in the system within one week.]
"Okay, I understand. We'll talk about offering incense later."
"System, do the positions of Day Wanderer and Night Wanderer require ghost tenants? Can I place Nightmare clones?"
[The losses will be significant, host. The Day Wanderer and Night Wanderer need to patrol the city day and night; they are not static statues. Placing a Nightmare clone in this position will cause a continuous drop in sanity.]
Zhou Fangdong sighed, "Let's use the clone for a while for now. I have plenty of Ghost Coins right now. I can just keep an eye on the Spirit Bar and replenish it with Ghost Coins as needed."
There was no other way; he was desperately short of ghost tenants. Most of the ghost tenants in the apartment were currently occupied with work. The only two who were idle were the somewhat dim-witted Ying Mei and the short-tempered Mu Yuechan.
Although Mu Yuechan's favorability rating is now at 100 and she will obey Zhou Fangdong's orders, this ghost tenant's temper is too arrogant. As a popular actress, she has been pampered for a long time and is used to being self-centered. Zhou Fangdong dares not let her out at all.
The day and night patrol gods of the City God Temple are responsible for patrolling the city, leading ghost soldiers to slay demons and protect the safety of the citizens. However, Mu Yuechan still hasn't memorized "Legal Common Sense" and "Moral Education," and Zhou Fangdong is genuinely afraid that if he gets impatient, he might end up ensuring the citizens' safety forever.
...After all, once you're dead, you'll never have to worry about being bothered by ghosts again.
Zhou Fangdong hadn't met the newly selected ghost tenant, the gardener, yet, and didn't know her abilities or temperament, so he couldn't directly appoint her to a position at the City God Temple.
So for now, we can only use Nightmare clones to hold out for a while.
I'll contact that ghost tenant/gardener tomorrow, and then go to the back building to run another dungeon during the day, trying to recruit a few more ghost tenants to replace the Nightmare clone and work at the City God Temple.
Zhou Fangdong created two Nightmare clones and had the system place them in the City God Temple as the daytime and nighttime parade gods, and also transferred six ghost nurses to serve as ghost soldiers.
After doing all this, in order to prevent running out of spirit points, Zhou Fangdong decided to add some attribute points to his spirit bar.
...Oh right, I still need to make offerings and pay wages to the ghost nurse and ghost doctor later, and maybe add some health points too.
He still has 15 attribute points left unused. He'll keep 3 for emergencies and allocate the rest in half to his spirit and health bars.
"System, please add 6 attribute points to the spirit bar and 6 attribute points to the health bar."
[Host, are you sure you want to allocate 6 attribute points to Spirit and 6 attribute points to Health?]
"Sure."
[Okay, stat allocation complete. Spirit and health have increased.]
"System, can you make the attribute bars float in my field of vision? I want to be able to observe my mental state at any time."
Yes, the mini attribute panel is enabled and can be disabled at any time.
As soon as the system finished speaking, a small attribute panel appeared on the left side of Zhou Fangdong's field of vision.
At the top is his chibi pixel avatar, and below the avatar are small bars in blue, yellow, and red, representing his spirit, stamina, and health.
His mental value was constantly dropping at a visible rate, but because his mental bar was very long, it could be maintained for a long time.
The City God Temple is ready; the next step is to activate the community temple.
Zhou Fangdong exited the main hall and switched to a subpage of the City God interface.
Currently, only two temples can be activated.
It's probably because the patients in the hospital haven't been discharged yet, so their reputation hasn't been settled.
Zhou Fangdong first activated the Jingmiao Temple near the nursing home by the river in the south. The Jingmiao Temple’s main deity could not be revived for the time being. “Whether you’re herding one sheep or two, it’s all the same. Let’s just throw another Nightmare clone into this Jingmiao Temple.”
There are no statues of gods given by the system in this temple, and maintaining the Nightmare clone will also cause a continuous drop in mental value.
I need to ask Li Ou to help me make a statue tomorrow.
Once activated, the temple's protective area will cover the southern part of Linjiang District, which is equivalent to half of the district.
We still need to activate one more temple for the entire Linjiang District to be safe... Let's not rush to use the remaining temple slot and wait until tomorrow.
His apartment is located far from the city, and even if it is upgraded to a temple, it will not be able to protect the citizens. I will ask Grandpa Chen tomorrow to see if there are any temples in Linjiang District that have not been demolished.
Zhou Fangdong's main problem right now is the lack of ghost tenants, the lack of ghost tenants who can be upgraded to local gods, and the lack of ghost tenants who can work at the City God Temple.
Sigh, resources are scarce everywhere. We finally stopped worrying about ghost coins, and now we're starting to lack ghost tenants... I'll have to start grinding the back building's dungeons tomorrow.
Zhou Fangdong closed the City God page and prepared to teleport to the second floor to collect the key ghost floor clues given by the renovation purification device.
By the way, I was just thinking of testing the [Shadow Soul Contract] function to create ghost tenants. When I go to the upper floors to find the key ghosts later, I can try to catch two and see if I can make them into ghost tenants.
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