It was precisely what Cheng Yang wanted . He put it into his ring and then left the instance dungeon .
Of course, the instance dungeon provided other benefits as well . Five pieces of purple equipment dropped . Of which, Cheng Yang took a ring and a pair of boots . The other went to Yu Kai for distribution . Until a large number of Blacksmiths were trained, this was the only source of good equipment .
On their way back to Silkworm Mountain, Yu Kai and Cheng Yang engaged in small talk . It quickly devolved into Yu Kai pestering Cheng Yang about his decisions . Although he knew he couldn’t change Cheng Yang’s mind, Yu Kai wanted to make sure his friend knew what he was doing .
“How is your training going, Yu Kai?” Cheng Yang asked once they were back .
“I’m about halfway to leveling up . I’ll probably only need another ten days . ” Yu Kai said, “The Experience Fragments you gifted to me were really helpful . ”
Cheng Yang nodded . It was a satisfactory amount of progress . Yu Kai was among the very peak of humanity . The combination of near-endless funding and the Nirvana Feather granted the Phoenix Empire’s leaders a tremendous advantage .
“Make sure to focus on your training even more than before . We need everyone to take hold of this opportunity . ” Cheng Yang said . “If we can assemble a team of Pinnacle-Grade soldiers, we’ll be able to sweep across the entire Cloud City area . ”
“We could do that now, couldn’t we?” Yu Kai was confused by Cheng Yang’s warning . “The soldiers in the safe zone hardly pose a threat to us . ”
“I’m not talking about just the safe zone but the entire Cloud City Area, including nearby cities, villages, counties, and townships . ”
Yu Kai was stunned . As someone who led soldiers on the front lines every day, he knew all too well the dangers posed by the wilderness . Although Pinnacle-Grade monsters were impossible to find near the villages, once you got ten kilometers away, they were as common as maggots . Not to mention that the Standard-Grade monsters almost outnumbered the Low-Grade ones .
If Cheng Yang wanted to dominate the entire area, it wouldn’t be easy .
“I’ll try to make sure everyone focuses on training . ” Yu Kai said tentatively .
“That’s all you can do . We can give them everything they need, but if some idiot wants to waste their potential, there’s no way to stop them . ” Cheng Yang sighed . “At the very least, once we only need an army of High-Grade soldiers to completely ignore the Cloud City safe zone . It would be for the best if we didn’t need to come into direct conflict with them . ”
Although Cheng Yang was vicious when dealing with his enemies, he saw no reason to exterminate weaker opponents . Although he would be marginally safer, enough people were dead already . There was no reason to increase the body count .
After that, Cheng Yang began his return journey to Phoenix Village . This time, Cheng Yang had Enlai guard him as he collected various alchemical components . Since the Experience Fragments for monsters killed by a pet went to their master, this was killing two birds with one stone .
As soon as Cheng Yang returned to the village, he isolated himself in his Meditation Hall and started brewing potions . Tonight, Cheng Yang would become a High-Grade Alchemist and obtain the qualifications to make Magic Amplification potions .
After the fiasco with the Bone-Eating Ants, Cheng Yang had become less greedy with regards to selling his potions . Now he only sold the twenty percent promised by the contract between him and the Alchemy Tower manager in the Cloud City safe zone . Of course, his latest source of income helped him overcome the temptation to oversell .
It was almost to the point that Cheng Yang considered nullifying the contract since the profits were small . However, he knew better than to antagonize someone related to the gods . It was always better to be on their good side .
Once he had expended all of his Energy, Cheng Yang’s Profession was on the verge of leveling up . Then, after midnight, his Energy was replenished .
Once he used half of that, Cheng Yang became a High-Grade Alchemist .
Once he did, he took the Magic Amplification potion recipe out of his ring and used it . The scroll dissolved into light as a new option appeared under his Alchemy system pane .
The Magic Amplification potion had thirteen ingredients . Twelve were rather common, and Cheng Yang would only need an hour or so to gather a large supply . The last one was somewhat more difficult . It was called the Eight Treasures Flower, and it was considered a High-Grade Ordinary material .
Although it was harder to find that the other ingredients, that didn’t put it on part with once in a century Natural Treasures . It wouldn’t be a problem for someone to find one or two a day if they focused on searching for it .
However, that was unacceptable for Cheng Yang . Thankfully, he wouldn’t need to gather them personally . A person’s Harvesting skill only needed to be at the High-Grade level to harvest the flower perfectly . Even with a Low-Grade skill, a person would succeed fifty percent of the time .
Cheng Yang visited the QuestHall and posted a fetch quest for Eight Treasures Flowers . Each one could be exchanged for ten Experience Fragments and ten territory contribution points . Since he was the Lord of Phoenix Village, rewarding contribution points was a unique privilege he held .
He also had the option of using his Adventurer points from when he completed the God Quest . However, Cheng Yang had no desire to part with them . He wanted to raise his Adventurer Rank, so they were too important to squander .
Once he’d sorted out a supply chain, Cheng Yang began training