Chapter 142: 20%, The Training Ground Brings a Frenzy |
[Camp: Great Xia (Tier 0)]
[Lord: Xia Hong]
[Cultivation: Digging Realm Complete (skin membrane remodeling progress 5%)]
[Population of the territory: 1096]
[Resources: Wood 0 Coal 0 Iron 0 Silver 0 Gold 0]
Great Xia Year One, February 3rd. Two days later, when Xia Hong woke up, he first clenched his fist to feel the large increase in his base strength, his face full of joy.
But when he looked at the skin membrane progress in his system and saw it only rose by three points, the joy vanished and was replaced by frustration.
"Over thirty-five thousand. Using up that 130 jin only increased my base strength by about three thousand jin, a bit higher than last time. But the base progress only increased by 3%. That means I really need fifty jin of Frost Beast blood to raise one percent. If I want to finish remodeling the whole skin membrane, I still need at least four thousand seven hundred jin more, which means at minimum I have to hunt... eighty mid-tier Frost Beasts!"
When Xia Hong got to that number—eighty—he was stunned.
The first time he woke, his resources were already gone, so he dared not use so much again and only used forty jin, which caused him to faint from the pain afterward.
The second time he woke, forty jin made him hesitate, so he only used thirty-five jin, and again he predictably passed out in pain.
As he had estimated, only when his nerves reached the pain tolerance limit would the system deduct resources to help him through that period; at other times, unless the pain caused catastrophic bodily damage, no matter how agonizing, the system would not intervene.
The third time he woke, he used the last of the beast blood and then fell asleep on the bed.
"Fainted three times and only gained three points. The beast blood is gone. Eighty mid-tier Frost Beasts—how long will that take? Why is remodeling a skin membrane so difficult? Reaching the Warmth Realm is insanely hard..."
Xia Hong frowned. Though the base strength gain was tempting, the difficulty genuinely seemed absurd.
"One percent progress roughly increases base strength by 1,200 to 1,300 jin. If I complete the whole skin membrane remodel, my base strength will be at least 150,000 jin—I'd be a humanoid tyrannosaur..."
One hundred fifty thousand jin, and that was just base strength.
A rampaging mid-tier Snow Mane’s maximum impact force only reached about 100,000 jin.
That meant any Warmth Realm expert, even unarmed, could trample a mid-tier Snow Mane using sheer physical strength.
"Eighty beasts or bust. I must speed up the process!"
Although Xia Hong hadn’t personally verified Warmth Realm strength, he could roughly estimate it from his current progress.
Mirror Immortal Camp had two of such experts.
"First, pause a bit. Save resources and upgrade the Wooden Dummy to see if it brings any surprises!"
Warmth Realm strength was likely far beyond imagination.
Realizing he couldn’t break through in the short term, Xia Hong decided to prioritize upgrading the Wooden Dummy.
From the two times absorbing Frost Beast blood, he learned the resource’s role was to test his willpower limit or help train his tolerance. Right now the proven tolerance was forty-two jin; so he decided to use forty jin as a steady measurement. That rate wasn’t slow.
He had used up the 130 jin in two days, meaning at his current tolerance one beast’s blood per day was sufficient.
"I set hunts for once every three days. At that rate, each field trip must kill at least three mid-tier Frost Beasts to keep up with my consumption..."
Xia Hong frowned. Based on the last outing, killing three mid-tier Snow Manes in one night was extreme but doable—just make more animal traps. The issue was whether their current hunting range had that many Snow Manes.
"Thinking won't help. If there are that many Snow Manes, great. If they're extinct here, we'll go deeper. If necessary, we'll hunt other Frost Beasts."
Decision made, he stopped agonizing. Only two days had passed since the last hunt; the next outing was tomorrow, so he couldn’t waste the day.
He took the Gnawing Tooth Chisel and went to the mine to gather iron.
Of course, he wasn't the only one; Xia Chuan, Luo Yuan, and the others had already been digging.
When Xia Hong entered, everyone knew he had used up the 130 jin of beast blood, and their faces showed curiosity.
Curiosity, of course, centered on how much his strength had increased.
Xia Hong gave no explanation; he merely raised the chisel and began mining.
Their curiosity was satisfied by his extremely high mining efficiency.
Base strength increases brought improvement to bodily attributes, and mining values endurance and carrying capacity.
When he first broke into Digging Realm, using a normal Goat Horn Chisel, he could mine about 100 jin per day; with a Gnawing Tooth Chisel it quadrupled to 400 jin.
Among the camp's fifteen Digging Realm members, they were no longer newly promoted; their daily yield with the Gnawing Tooth Chisel exceeded 500 jin.
Xia Hong's efficiency was even more terrifying—he had been about double theirs, reaching over 900 jin a day.
This time, after using the second batch of Frost Beast blood, Xia Hong mined over 1,400 jin of iron ore in a single day right before them.
The next morning, when everyone walked out of the mine with Xia Hong, their faces were a bit numb. After Xia Hong finished arranging tonight’s hunt and went upstairs, the rest immediately erupted into heated discussion.
"Triple. The leader’s base strength is almost 40,000 jin, right?"
"Maybe not that high, but close!"
"The three of us can't match his mining output!"
"Even though I'm Digging Realm now, I still feel like I'm at Lumberjack Realm compared to the leader!"
"Same here!"
"If the leader breaks through to Warmth Realm, I bet one punch from him would be unstoppable for us!"
"Can you handle one now?"
...
Luo Yuan’s last question silenced everyone.
They recalled the last hunt where Xia Hong leapt down and cleaved that mid-tier Snow Mane with a single axe stroke; none dared claim they could withstand such force.
"We need to work harder. If we can't catch up to the leader, fine, but at least we must be useful. If the gap widens too much, he may not need any of us soon!"
After Luo Yuan spoke, he went upstairs.
The others pondered briefly, then their expressions hardened; each went up to rest and conserve energy for the night's hunt.
...
February 4th, Xia Hong led the hunting team out again.
To meet the next three days' needs, he spent the whole night and finally, with only an hour before dawn, killed the third Snow Mane.
Killing three mid-tier Snow Manes in one night left both Xia Hong and the other fourteen hunters utterly exhausted.
Still, excitement glinted in everyone’s eyes.
One, the thrill of surpassing limits is intoxicating.
Two, they all knew Xia Hong’s blood deficit was massive; hunting mid-tier Frost Beasts more efficiently meant more blood and faster progress toward Warmth Realm.
Those three beasts yielded over 170 jin of blood.
Xia Hong started the skin membrane remodeling again, but this time, due to limited resources, he didn’t go to an extreme state—he kept it around thirty jin. Even so, he fainted several times from the pain.
For a while after that, Xia Hong led hunts every three days, each time bringing back three mid-tier Snow Manes. They drew blood on the spot and used it; this continued for five cycles. Midway through, Zou Yuankai recovered from his wound and rejoined the hunting team.
...
Great Xia Year One, February 19th.
The hunting team once again brought back three mid-tier Snow Manes.
The camp had long grown accustomed to such enormous prey—nearly twenty similar beasts had been returned over the recent period.
Xia Hong went upstairs as usual; Xia Chuan took the kills to the Camp Supplies Office to drain the blood.
Other hunters tended to their wounds; those uninjured went straight to the mine since it was still early.
[Resources: Wood 48,212 Coal 1,020 Iron 13,210 Silver 0 Gold 0]
Instead of waiting for the beast blood, Xia Hong upstairs first checked the recently stockpiled resources in his system.
From February 4th to now it had only been fifteen days.
To amass that many resources in half a month showed how crazily everyone had been gathering.
Lumberjacks had increased in number and improved tools; with over three hundred people they now gathered around 3,000 wood points a day—over fifteen days that added up to more than 48,000.
But the real story was the Digging Realm members. In the past fifteen days, Xia Hong had led them to hunt five times, and on days they went hunting they couldn’t mine, so strictly speaking they only had ten days available for mining.
Their current extraction efficiency produced about 7,500 jin of iron and over 12,000 jin of coal per day. Converted by the system, that’s 750 points and 600 points respectively.
To upgrade the Wooden Dummy sooner, Xia Hong scheduled only two days of coal collection in those ten days; the other eight days were for iron.
He himself had been training most of that time and aside from the first day when he went mining a bit, he hadn’t gone to the mine much.
Even counting generously, those fifteen people could have mined at most 11,250 points in eight days—fluctuations aside, that wouldn't exceed 12,000.
Yet the system now showed 13,210 iron.
Clearly, some people had gone straight to mining after returning from hunts without much rest.
Xia Hong realized this in a moment and felt a warm glow—everyone was rushing to help him break through.
Although remodeling the skin membrane was agonizing, Xia Hong had gritted his teeth and persisted without slacking off.
First, he relished the improvement after pain; second, his breakthrough to Warmth Realm was no longer solely his matter.
The camp’s lumberjacks, diggers, and even the civilians left behind were all working desperately to gather resources for his breakthrough.
More than a thousand people’s focus had converged on him.
Everyone wanted him to succeed. He had no right to retreat or be lazy.
Of course, the gains from persistence were substantial:
[Cultivation: Digging Realm Complete (skin membrane remodeling progress 20%)]
From the previous four hunts, they’d collected over 730 jin of beast blood. Using all of it increased the progress by fifteen percentage points.
"My base strength is nearly fifty-five thousand jin. Using tonight’s blood will push progress to about 23–24%, and base strength will hit around fifty-eight thousand!"
The recent gains were pleasing, but breaking into Warmth Realm still seemed far off.
Seventy-odd percent remained. At the current pace, they’d need over twenty more hunting trips—meaning at least two more months.
"We haven’t gone to the north in over half a month. No doubt the Mirror Immortal Camp has been hunting there without restraint. We must go check, or over time they’ll treat that area as their own!"
For the previous five hunts, Xia Hong had intentionally avoided Lushang Camp’s territory to avoid an early clash with Mirror Immortal Camp. But continual avoidance wasn’t sustainable.
Left unchecked, Mirror Immortal Camp would further disregard Great Xia and might one day push south and seize more territory.
The best hope was that Mirror Immortal Camp heeded his warning and stayed away from Redwood Ridge—but that seemed unlikely.
After over half a month, Xia Hong could not keep leading the team to dodge them; he had to go north and reassert Great Xia’s sovereignty.
"Of course, we need to be fully prepared before going..."
Xia Hong thought, glancing left in the room.
The Wooden Dummy stood motionless by the wall.
Upgrade requirements: 3,000 Wood 6,000 Iron
With a slight intention, Xia Hong caused part of the system resources to be consumed.
[Resources: Wood 45,212 Coal 1,020 Iron 7,210 Silver 0 Gold 0]
At the same time, the Wooden Dummy before him began to change.
The ground where it stood—about ten meters square—suddenly burst with light, then the glow faded to reveal the ground turned black and covered with arcane cloud patterns.
On that blackened ground, the previously single-legged wooden figure now stood on two legs; its color changed from yellow to black, clearly its material now leaned more toward metal than wood.
It remained two meters tall, hollow at the abdomen, face fully formed; the only change was the smile had gone, replaced by a solemn expression.
After a moment, the Wooden Dummy gently shook and then spawned four identical wooden figures in front, behind, left, and right.
Seeing the black-cloud patterned ground and five wooden figures, Xia Hong was delighted and quickly checked the Wooden Dummy’s upgraded attributes.
Training Ground (Level 2): A 100-square-meter training area that can greatly increase training speed and improve martial comprehension; includes five Wooden Dummies.
Special Function 1: Wooden Dummies can record Frost Beast species through essence blood, transform into any Frost Beast, and manifest the strength of that beast’s adult form.
Special Function 2: When activated within the Smelting Furnace’s radiation range, Wooden Dummies can follow orders and fight autonomously.
Special Function 3: Training within the Training Ground doubles base strength improvement efficiency (only applies to cultivation below Digging Realm Complete).
Special Function 4: Training with Wooden Dummies doubles martial comprehension efficiency (only applies to cultivation at or above Digging Realm Complete).
Training Ground Consumption: Coal 20 per hour
Wooden Dummy Consumption: Coal 5 per hour
Upgrade Requirements: Wood 100,000 Iron 30,000
Reading through the Training Ground attributes, Xia Hong grew excited, especially when he saw Special Function 3—he could barely keep from grinning.
Previously the Wooden Dummy also increased training efficiency and martial comprehension, but it was only one dummy and couldn’t serve everyone. Moreover, one dummy consumed 5 coal per hour—120 coal per day, translating to 2,400 jin of coal stone, which was one-fifth of the camp’s daily output.
Digging Realm members couldn't mine coal daily, and other facilities like the Medicine Pot and Smelting Furnace used a lot of coal too. So earlier, aside from letting the first group of hunters use the Wooden Dummy, Xia Hong seldom used it.
"Now it’s different. This 100 square meters all enhance training speed. It can hold dozens at a time. The only downside is the consumption..."
Twenty coal per hour equals 480 coal a day—converted that's 9,600 jin of coal stone, four-fifths of the entire daily yield.
Though consumption was huge, Xia Hong realized the return far outweighed the cost.
This upgrade’s most valuable point was that explicit doubling metric.
Previously the Wooden Dummy’s description said it greatly increased training speed; Xia Hong experienced large gains for Lumberjack Realm, but for Digging Realm as base strength increased, the marginal improvement diminished.
High consumption; single-user only; diminishing returns.
That’s why Xia Hong had been reluctant to use the Wooden Dummy to raise the camp’s overall cultivation. Now the situation had changed.
"A onefold increase in training speed is now quantified; this means any Great Xia member can break Lumberjack Realm with ease, and Digging Realm breakthroughs will accelerate. Future resource yields will skyrocket—the consumption is trivial!"
Xia Hong excitedly stepped into the Training Ground area, looked around, and smiled.
"It can be freely relocated. One hundred square meters fits perfectly in the main hall of the third floor for day-to-day training by those in Lumberjack and Digging Realm!"
Of course, it wouldn’t be free.
A gleam flashed in Xia Hong’s eyes. The Training Ground could hold around a hundred people, and coal consumption was high; he couldn’t let people use it for nothing.
To use it, they had to pay with Contribution Points!
Specific pricing would be worked out by Xia Chuan and others—Xia Hong wouldn’t micromanage those details. His gaze settled on the five Wooden Dummies and grew fervent.
"Five obedient, pain-immune mid-tier Frost Beasts. Now the garrison should be secure. Even if Mirror Immortal Camp’s two Warmth Realm experts come together, it shouldn’t be a huge problem..."
The garrison’s safety finally had assurance!
Looking at the five Wooden Dummies, Xia Hong breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
Based on his estimated numbers, a Warmth Realm expert’s base strength would be around 150,000 jin at most. One or two mid-tier Frost Beasts couldn’t threaten them. But five? And these five ignored pain, were made of tougher material than real beasts, and most crucially, obeyed his commands—even to die.
"Too bad they can’t go out hunting with us..."
That thought flashed, but Xia Hong chuckled and shook his head.
Dragging the Smelting Furnace and the whole camp around was too risky; he couldn’t afford that.
Better to be prudent.
"Now that the garrison’s safe, we can go north and see whether Mirror Immortal Camp has crossed the border!"
Outside it was daylight. Xia Hong pushed open the window and a gale of frost and snow blew fiercely into the room.
Through the whiteout he glanced north of Redwood Ridge; a cold light flashed in his eyes.
...
Great Xia Year One, February 20th.
Xia Chuan received orders to ascend to the third floor and visit Xia Hong’s room.
After coming down, Xia Chuan immediately summoned everyone in the camp and excitedly announced that the Camp Supplies Office had added a new exchange item.
"One day in the third-floor Training Ground costs 20 Contribution Points. Gather fifty people to exchange and the Training Ground will open for one day."
At first the crowd was confused.
What was the Training Ground? Twenty Contribution Points for a day—what did training there do?
Xia Chuan didn’t explain. He simply took the entire hunting team and selected an additional thirty-five people with the highest base strength, plus himself, to make fifty people and went up to the third floor for a day.
No one knew what had happened up there that day.
All they knew was that when those who came down—Xia Chuan included—left, none of them wore anything other than excitement and exhilaration.
Word got around and the camp instantly erupted...
"The leader set up a new Training Ground on the third floor. Training there doubles the rate you convert Frost Beast meat into strength!"
"Double—it's really double. The hunting team confirmed it: just go up and your rate doubles."
"Cheng Feng, Lin Kai, and Xu Ning—those three broke through to Digging Realm that very day. It's real. I have to go!"
"Twenty Contribution Points for a day? I must go. I’m not far from Digging Realm; a few days there and I’m sure I can break through."
...
Do not underestimate those who have trained—their obsession with strength is fierce.
Even though many goods could be exchanged—wooden products, leather goods, ironware, weapons—the camp’s best-selling commodity remained Frost Beast meat.
Everyone knew that no matter how good other items were, nothing compared to increasing one’s power.
Power is the foundation. Without strength, even the best treasures are fragile illusions.
Now a Training Ground that doubled training speed sent people into a frenzy.
The next day, February 21st, as soon as night fell a long queue formed in front of the Camp Supplies Office.
Fifty people were easy to assemble—the ones Xia Chuan had taken the previous day had already queued early and taken the front spots; only a few sharp ones grabbed the first fifty slots.
Those who arrived later realized they’d missed their chance and were annoyed, silently resolving to line up earlier next time.
Shi Ping registered the fifty names and they followed Xia Chuan to the third floor.
The moment they stepped onto the black cloud-patterned floor, the people who had come yesterday showed satisfied smiles and began eating the Frost Beast meat they had prepared; the newcomers followed suit and started training. When they felt their base strength increase at an unusually rapid rate, their pupils contracted and joy burst across their faces.
...
"Twenty Contribution Points converts to digging 400 jin of coal. Fifty people together equal 20,000 jin. Isn't that price a little steep?"
Xia Hong, who sat just next to the Training Ground’s wall, watched the fifty people through the main hall window and felt odd.
By the current conversion rules, coal and iron gathering match the system units: 20 jin coal equals 1 point, 10 jin iron equals 1 point. Training Ground consumption per day equals 9,600 jin of coal, converted to 480 points. Spread among fifty people, each person’s cost should be under 10 points.
Yet Xia Chuan set it at 20 points—double.
Even Xia Hong felt it borderline greedy...
Catching the teasing in Xia Hong’s tone, Xia Chuan smiled and then sobered, shaking his head.
"Not greedy. Aside from the hunting team, most people can't mine. They earn Contribution Points by lumbering, so their points are inflated. Doubling training speed is such a rare chance that even 20 points is low. If we raise it, they’ll still scramble for it."
Xia Hong thought for a moment and chuckled.
True—calling it greedy was unfair. Doubling training speed is near-miraculous and unique; people would beg for it. So 20 points wasn’t much.
"Still, we can’t affect the camp’s resource gathering. I plan to open it once every three days. If demand rises, we’ll raise the price or do auctions. We can’t allocate fifty people every day—Great Xia isn’t ready for that yet..."
Xia Chuan’s planning ran deep; he was already ironing out future usage rules.
"Just handle it..."
Seeing Xia Chuan’s careful planning, Xia Hong said no more and instead asked, "Are the two weapon sets finished?"
"That forging crew—Luo Yuan and Yuan Cheng—stayed in the Smelting Furnace today. They should need just one more day to finish."
Xia Hong nodded, slightly excited.
The Training Ground’s first opening yesterday had brought a huge surprise: Cheng Feng, Lin Kai, and Xu Ning all broke through to Digging Realm in one day.
Cheng Feng’s breakthrough did not shock Xia Hong—he was among Rogge Camp’s oldest, with strong baseline strength. Lin Kai and Xu Ning shocked him more.
Xu Ning, especially—losing his right eye didn’t make him give up; instead he worked harder and progressed quickly.
Cheng Feng, as the gathering team captain, had other obligations, so Xia Hong couldn’t easily transfer him to the hunting team. Lin Kai and Xu Ning were straightforward—they needed new weapons.
The hunting team’s current standard issue was a big blade and an iron-backed bow with fifty special seven-jin iron-tipped arrows.
Having more Digging Realm members showed benefits. Now, unless special situations arise, mining, forging, and even hunting low-tier Frost Beasts no longer required Xia Hong’s personal involvement.
"Brother, are we hunting as usual tomorrow?"
Their last hunt was on the 19th and they’d set a three-day cycle—so tomorrow would be the 22nd. After Xia Hong’s question about weapons, Xia Chuan naturally guessed his plan.
But he guessed wrong.
Xia Hong shook his head and said in a low voice, "Maybe not tomorrow. First go check north of Redwood Ridge. If the situation is right, then we'll hunt."
Go check north of Redwood Ridge.
Xia Chuan understood instantly and nodded, a cold light flashing in his eyes.
During recent hunts, Xia Hong had deliberately avoided the northern area—everyone knew why.
"Hopefully Mirror Immortal Camp will behave."
Xia Hong murmured, a hard edge moving through his gaze.