What delighted Lin You immensely was that,
besides the species acquired from upgrading the territory, even the species he had mutated could be researched!
Invisibly, his variety of species was far greater than other lords, an unexpected joy and his advantage.
After calming down a little, Lin You turned his gaze to the other two buildings.
Anyway, he had been having the plants collect stone these days, accumulating to over a thousand units, so he wasn't worried about the cost and chose to construct directly.
In an instant, a rumbling sound was heard.
An exquisite treehouse rose from the ground, built on the trunk of the Tree of Life, even with a spiraling staircase leading directly from the ground to the treehouse.
Then, on the empty ground on the other side.
A simple workshop appeared, billowing with smoke, accompanied by several plant-like little people, resembling Ginseng Spirits, scurrying back and forth inside the workshop.
[Building Name: Lord's Castle]
[Building Level: Tier One]
[Building Introduction: A place for the lord's daily needs, increases the durability limit of the territory, not to exceed the Territory Level.]
[Increase in Durability: 50]
[Upgrade Requirements: 50 Wood, 50 Stone, 100 Magic Energy]
...
[Building Name: Production Workshop]
[Building Level: Tier One]
[Building Introduction: Can produce various attack and defense equipment, walls, weapons and armor, daily necessities, production speed and material consumption depend on the item.]
[Upgrade Requirements: 50 Wood, 50 Stone, 100 Magic Energy]
...
Indeed, these two buildings came at a very opportune moment.
Especially the Production Workshop, Lin You found it could even process beast hides and bones into clothing and weapon armor, very convenient.
He had many Demon corpses right now, and immediately had the plants bring some in for processing, starting with making some weapons and clothing.
As for the beast meat, aside from keeping some as food, the rest were fed to the Cannibal Flower King, or used for devouring by other plants, replenishing their nutrients so they had the energy to work.
After finishing these tasks, Lin You turned his gaze to the Tower of Species, beginning to upgrade it with the remaining materials.
Spending over a thousand Magic Energy and several hundred units of materials, he finally upgraded the Tower of Species to Tier Four, allowing research on Tier Four Species.
The first choice for research was, naturally, the Plant Spirits that could perform long-range magic attacks, so Lin You directly opened the Plant Spirits interface.
[Researching Tier Four Rare Species requires 500 Magic Energy, would you like to continue?]
"Continue!"
Goodness, the magic energy required for species research was twenty times that for recruiting, Lin You almost thought he was seeing things.
But then he figured, it might be due to the Plant Spirits being a Rare Species.
No choice, however expensive it was, he had to accept it.
Seeing the research progress appear, Lin You closed the interface and used the remaining materials to upgrade the other two buildings to Tier Four as well, enhancing the territory's durability and, meanwhile, increasing the range of items the Production Workshop could produce.
All of which were greatly beneficial to him.
Luckily, the construction materials required were less than those for the territory, otherwise it might not have been possible to upgrade them all.
The main issue was that he hadn't acquired the "Territory Essence" required for upgrading to Tier Five, so these resources were temporarily of no use.
Additionally, now with more species, resource collection was significantly faster; he wouldn't need to worry about lacking resources to upgrade the territory once the Territory Essence was acquired.
After all, finding a Tier Four Demon's territory wasn't easy.
Even if it could be found, dealing with it was another matter.
A Tier Four Demon's territory might have a Tier Five leader, and facing Tier Five is no trivial matter.
He only had Lingxi, and if something unexpected happened, it would be a great loss; to upgrade to Tier Five, more strength would be necessary.
Helplessly, he opened the regional channel to see if there was any useful information.
"Haha, I successfully survived the beast tide and even killed two Tier Four Demons!"
"What's with Tier Four Demons? I killed three!"
"You all are incredible, my walls were almost breached, but luckily my Territory Core was saved in the end."
"What do I do? All my species are dead, and those Demons are crashing at my gates, someone please help me; I don't want to die..."
"There are too many Demons, I'm nearly at my limit; can anyone help? I'll generously reward!"
...
The beast tide brought joy to some and despair to others.
After today, who knows how many more will fall prey to the beasts, eternally resting underground.
Although Lin You felt regret, he was powerless to help; others surely felt the same, choosing to protect themselves.
After a sigh, he continued to look further down.
However, he found nothing about upgrading the territory to Tier Five, and information on upgrading to Tier Four was scant.
In the end, he had to close the channel and continue with other matters.
Until evening, the tranquility was interrupted by a notification.
[Congratulations to all lords for surviving the beast tide successfully.]
[The Regional Leaderboard is officially open.]
[The leaderboard will compile the comprehensive strength of each lord and rank them.]
[The higher the rank, the more generous the rewards, calculated every three days. Please refer to the ranking information for details.]
...
The appearance of this voice was quite unexpected.
The lords, who were just talking about the beast tide, were suddenly interrupted, exclaiming in surprise.
"Leaderboard? What's this? A ranking among lords?"
"It seems being listed can even earn rewards!"
"Is this real? I wonder what rank I can achieve."
As these individuals spoke, they opened the new [Regional Leaderboard], filled with curiosity and anticipation.
Soon after, a series of exclamations erupted.
"What the hell! How did I end up ranked over five million?"
"Same here! Over five million nine hundred thousand! This is outrageous!"
"Consider yourselves lucky; I'm a Tier Three territory with all Tier Three species and ranked over eight million!"
"That's just absurd!"
Initially, after the regional barriers shattered, the messages in the channel increased significantly.
Now, even more messages erupted, almost every second, all shocked by their ranking.
Clearly.
This regional leaderboard compiled the rankings of all lords in the region, seemingly using a unit of ten million!
This meant there were a million people in this region?
That's just unbelievable!
But before they could think further, someone spotted a familiar name on the leaderboard.
"I see Murong Tian's name; he ranked over seven thousand!"
"Even he is only ranked over seven thousand!?"
"Are the top ranks all Tier Five?"
"That's insane..."
...
Within a castle on a hillside.
Murong Tian glared at the regional leaderboard in front of him, his face gloomy.
He never expected to be ranked so low.
Over seven thousand, meaning there were over seven thousand stronger than him!
And this was just one region!
If it was a world leaderboard, would he even qualify to be listed?
How could he endure this!