"The number of Contracted Undead has finally increased by one."
Seeing the situation before him, Gu Xi's mind started to stir.
Luna's presence brought him a Yalidu City, but her lack of combat power was also evident.
Why not take this opportunity to visit the graveyard in Victoria City and see if there's a suitable undead to contract?
As Gu Xi was pondering this, the battle at the end of the sewer had just concluded.
As with the previous situation, when the last rat was killed, the black mist at the sewer's end turned into a white, transparent light curtain.
When both ends of the sewer were cleared, Gu Xi noticed that the pipes on both sides started pouring water into the sewer, indicating that the activation task at the well was completed.
Gu Xi had no immediate plans to proceed.
He called out to Luna.
"Luna, let's go, activate the candle factory."
Luna quickly came to Gu Xi's side, followed by the skeleton combat squad.
When Gu Xi and his team climbed up from the well, they saw that the sewer below already had knee-deep water.
After coming out of the well, Gu Xi handed the linen cloth package to Luna.
"Luna, take a look at this."
Luna took a look at the contents of the linen cloth package, and her eyes lit up instantly. She immediately picked up the furnace stone, something most familiar to her as a former elf.
"Master, this is good news. Aren't we planning to establish an anchor point in Victoria City?
This is a great opportunity. If we can have a residential building in Victoria City, I can use this furnace stone to set up a fireplace. Then we can travel back and forth between the assembly hall and the residential building through the fireplace."
"Alright, let's act quickly. I'll go activate the candle factory first, and you go build the city gate. We'll split up to speed things up."
Luna had no objections. Without hesitation, she flew towards the assembly hall upon receiving Gu Xi's order.
Gu Xi, meanwhile, led the skeleton soldiers towards the candle factory.
The candle factory was still as it was before, without any changes. Upon arriving, Gu Xi decisively dumped the mysterious rat meat into the cauldron that was boiling something.
As the mysterious rat meat was tossed in, Gu Xi noticed changes occurring in the candle factory.
The factory's color scheme shifted to white, with animal skins at the door turning into rat skins, and the boiling contents in the cauldron also turning white.
Most importantly, Gu Xi noticed a wooden box in the corner of the candle factory.
Gu Xi stepped forward and opened the wooden box to find 30 finger-thick white candles inside.
[White Candle (White): Special Undead Item, capable of generating a certain amount of negative energy to replenish life force for the undead (particularly effective on ghosts and ghost souls)]
As an Undead Mage, as soon as Gu Xi held the white candle, he sensed the intense negative energy within.
Once this candle is lit, it can quickly form a negative energy domain, providing support for all undead illuminated by the candlelight.
To the undead, this object is equivalent to proper food, used to replenish physical strength and life force.
It seems that there's no purposeless choice in a city's buildings.
Just then, Gu Xi heard a ding sound in his ear.
[City gate construction has started, with a total investment of 300 Negative Energy Points, 3 units of wood, and 3 units of stone. Completion in 4 hours.]
Upon hearing this, Gu Xi felt relieved. Now three buildings were activated, and the city gate was under construction, putting Gu Xi's mind at ease by half.
There was still some time left, so Gu Xi thought he might as well take his men around the city to see what's inside the rooms.
After all, entering rooms without opening boxes would truly betray Gu Xi's identity as a player.
So Gu Xi promptly led the skeleton soldiers to search the nearby rooms.
Gu Xi discovered that James I was genuinely wealthy back in the day.
To deceive people, everything was done to perfection.
Everything in the rooms was arranged according to the original room setup.
Except for the absence of people and corpses, everything else was arranged.
In the buildings of Gu Xi's area, every piece of furniture was available.
In houses closer to the street, furniture and other items were dragged out by Gu Xi's combat squad as makeshift barricades.
However, items that couldn't be used as barricades remained inside the houses.
In this area, Gu Xi saw many ancient-style clothes and wooden horses made for small children.
In the houses farther from the street, there were even more items. Gu Xi even found bows and arrows, swords, and long spears there. Outside, there were things like chicken coops and dog kennels.
After making a few rounds with his subordinates, Gu Xi didn't transport everything out; instead, he just took stock of the current housing situation.
At this moment, setting aside the issue of small, medium, and large buildings, there were a total of 362 buildings serving as the background.
More than half of these were two-story buildings, and there were also 32 three-story buildings and three four-story apartment buildings.
Apart from these 300-plus buildings, there were some collapsed old structures that provided land for the construction of other buildings.
Among the more than 300 buildings, the single-story buildings were built near the well.
From the housing layout, Gu Xi could tell that the area he occupied was on the outskirts of Yalidu.
Thus, his district had five passages to the outside, with three leading to different districts of Yalidu.
All three passages had corresponding checkpoints.
Gu Xi patrolled them one by one with the skeleton soldiers.
One passage required crossing a bridge over a river to reach Yalidu's Upper City District.
Another passage had a city gate blocking the middle.
Without having taken down the bridge and the city gate, Gu Xi couldn't even think about reaching these two areas.
The only relatively simple checkpoint was on the southwest corner of the city.
This passage led to a block in the same Lower City District, which also had a river port and freight dock, belonging to the industrial zone of Yalidu City.
The only checkpoint on this route was a six-story tower with a small footprint, looking like a barracks from a distance, and it shouldn't be too difficult to take down.
Gu Xi planned that once he had enough troops, he would take this area first to expand his territory a bit before making further plans.