"Then why did you specifically choose the lord of Region 7, Ethan?"
Although Luna knew there were huge differences between lords, compared to Shakun who brought a private army and Orin who brought an entire sect, Ethan, a lord with nothing at all, didn't seem like a top choice no matter how you looked at it.
She just couldn't understand why Selena would pick the lord of Region 7, Ethan.
"The reason is simple."
Selena said calmly, "It's precisely because he's a solo player, and one who looks like he has almost no backing and nothing special."
"Huh?", Luna became even more confused.
"Let me put it this way, a normal person becoming a lord is already not easy, right?", Selena looked at Luna and said, "Take you for example. Although you became a lord thanks to your previous profession, you can take care of yourself, but you might not necessarily be able to take care of your people, right?"
"I get it!", Luna's pupils shrank as she said, "You mean Ethan, just an ordinary player, not only managed himself well, but can even take care of his people. So you think he must have some special ability and is worth forming an alliance with, right?"
"You're overthinking it," Selena smiled, "I just think that as a solo player, he won't be like those other two powerful lords, acting all high and mighty and looking down on others."
"Uh…"
Luna was speechless.
But after thinking about it for a moment, she still nodded and said, "Alright! I'll try contacting him and see if we can form an alliance!"
———
[Inside Region 7's Manor]
At this moment, Ethan was soaking in a hot spring pool. When he saw the new lord mission, he suddenly felt a chill run through his whole body.
'This system is way too ruthless. Is it trying to wipe out all players except the lords?'
Three days without going outside, and the next few days would all be extreme cold weather.
'How are ordinary people without cheats supposed to survive this?'
'If they just hunker down for three days...'
Ethan glanced at his warehouse.
He still had 6033 wood, 2090 dry branches, 984 bamboo, 197 charcoal, and 9986 high-grade charcoal. With this much burnable material, he had no worries about survival.
Besides, the residential area for his people already had heating, so there was no need to worry about the cold at all.
'As for the players in this region, with this amount of burnable material, it would probably be enough for everyone in the entire A-zone to survive, right?'
'Phew!'
Looking at his fully stocked warehouse, Ethan finally let out a sigh of relief.
At worst, they would just waste three days. Let all the people and players hunker down for three days. After all, they had just harvested so many ice cores; no one would starve in three days.
It's just that the players in his district would probably end up owing even more debt.
'Heh…'
[Private Chat +1]
[Private Chat +2]
[Private Chat…]
"Hm?"
Ethan had just been about to close the magic book and continue enjoying his soak in the hot spring.
But suddenly, he saw a flood of private messages coming in. It wasn't like no one had messaged him before, but he had already skimmed through them. If they were useful, he replied casually; if not… he just deleted them.
Moreover, this magic book even had the ability to automatically filter out nonsense and insulting messages.
So after filtering, there usually weren't that many private messages left.
But right after the lord mission was announced, so many messages came in at once, no matter how you looked at it, it wasn't simple.
Ethan opened the private chat page and took a look.
[Region 2 Lord David: "Lord Ethan, I plan to form an alliance with you. I won't waste words, I've already transferred you 100,000 as an entry fee. Hope we can cooperate happily."]
[Trade Reminder: 100,000 Dragon Coins exchanged for 1 wood]
"Uh…"
Looking at this wealthy and generous lord of Region 2, Ethan silently complained, 'What kind of weird name is that?'
But after thinking about it, he still quietly clicked to confirm the trade.
After all, if someone's giving you money, why refuse?
Besides… Forming an alliance with other lords to get through the polar night didn't seem like a bad idea either.
It's just that he didn't know whether this Region 2 lord had any good ideas to help everyone get through the polar night.
["Happy cooperation."]
Ethan sent a handshake emoji.
But before he could slowly chat with this Region 2 lord and ask why David chose him, Ethan saw that two more lords had contacted him. What surprised him was... these lords were also here to talk about forming alliances.
'Since when…'
'Did I become such a hot commodity?'
He casually opened one of the messages, it was from Region 5 lord Masachika.
["Lord Ethan, I believe you've already seen the news about the extreme cold night released in the magic book, right?"] Masachika paused, then continued, ["If I'm not mistaken, since Lord Ethan was able to upgrade his manor, you should still have quite a lot of materials or other supplies. I think perhaps you could form an alliance with me. On my side, I can trade some other things with you, such as Dragon Coins."]
["Dragon Coins? How many do you have?"], When Ethan heard that this Region 5 lord also had Dragon Coins, he immediately became interested.
["A little over a thousand,"] Masachika sent three confident emojis, then continued, ["Let me tell you, I got these treasures called Dragon Coins from treasure chests by accident. And these Dragon Coins can even be used in this world to buy a lot of good stuff! So, Lord Ethan, are you interested?"]
["How do you know Dragon Coins can be used to buy things?"]
Ethan didn't say whether he wanted them or not, just asked back.
Masachika sent a grim smile emoji, ["Before I got these Dragon Coins, my territory had the fortune of hosting a merchant caravan. Unfortunately, I didn't have any Dragon Coins back then, otherwise I could've traded for quite a lot of good stuff."]
["So that's what Dragon Coins are for, buying things from merchant caravans,"] Ethan glanced at Mr. White, then continued, ["But what can your thousand Dragon Coins actually buy?"]
["That's a lot!"], Masachika continued to hype it up, ["Let me tell you, these Dragon Coins are all made of gold. I've verified it, they're real gold!"]
["Lord Ethan should also know how strong real gold's purchasing power is back on Earth, right?"]
["A gold coin the size of a palm can naturally buy quite a lot of good stuff in this world too, you get it."]
["Got it. Thanks for your alliance proposal,"] Ethan let out a cold laugh, "Alright, next!"
Ethan didn't even have the heart to tell this Region 5 lord.
A thousand Dragon Coins were actually only worth the price of one ice core at your doorstep. Of course, that's assuming you could deliver it fresh and intact to the main city.
But that wasn't the main reason Ethan didn't want to ally with this woman.
The main point was that this woman was trying to fool him. Since she had already seen the merchant caravan, she should know very well the prices of their goods, none of them were below a thousand Dragon Coins.
Well, not exactly.
Air bread was below a thousand Dragon Coins, but what was the point of that?
Use it to deceive yourself into feeling full?
After directly closing Masachika's chat window, Ethan opened the remaining private message from the last person.
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