Chapter 148: The Long Table Conference

Enhanced individuals wearing armor possess significantly higher defensive capabilities compared to those without it.

Sometimes, dodging one or two fatal attacks can save a life. And occasionally, the slightest difference in damage becomes the final straw that breaks the camel's back, costing someone their precious life!

Most people only have one life.

Consequently, armor crafting has become one of the most popular sub-categories among various artisan disciplines.

The birth of every armorer implies the consumption of a vast amount of spiritual materials suitable for crafting spirit armor.

Merely piling up a massive quantity of spiritual materials is not enough; the armorer must also possess a certain innate talent for armor crafting. Otherwise, even if one were to waste a thousand or ten thousand pieces of crafting materials, it would likely fail to produce even a grade-unranked armor artisan.

According to Yu Yan's knowledge from her past life, each of the top ten most famous bases had their own exclusive armorers.

Their ranks ranged from unranked all the way up to tier six.

Yet, even the one acknowledged as having the strongest talent consumed nearly a hundred complete sets of spiritual materials just to craft their very first unranked piece of spirit armor.

Her mother had only consumed slightly over fifty unranked spirit beast hides to successfully craft her first piece of spirit armor.

Her talent could certainly be described as formidable!

With such powerful talent coupled with a sufficient supply of materials,

rapidly cultivating a tier-three or even profound-tier armorist in a short period was an absolute certainty.

Setting aside personal emotional factors and viewing the matter from a team perspective, this was a cause for celebration. Having a profound-tier armorist at the Fenghe Village Base meant that the villagers' survival capabilities would increase exponentially.

The thirty-six hunting squads might even be able to enter D-grade or perhaps C-grade dungeon trials ahead of schedule.

A head start in the beginning leads to a head start at every step.

Continuing to develop along this trajectory, Yu Yan could foresee that in the near future, their Fenghe Village Base would undoubtedly become the most powerful base in City Y!

With this thought, Yu Yan's gloomy mood was completely swept away.

She organized the mountain of unranked to tier-three spirit beast hides piled up within her floral spiritual micro-world, alongside various feathers, scales, and similar remnants. These were all the "leftovers" remaining after the spiritual micro-world absorbed the corpses of dungeon monsters.

Organizing them by rank, Yu Yan piled them into numerous small mounds, each numbering in the thousands.

Once Chen Biqin exhausted those few hundred spirit beast hides, she would provide her with more step-by-step.

Presumably, by the time Chen Biqin finished using these materials, she should advance to a tier-three armorist, right?

By then, the profound-tier and higher materials within her lotus space would be ready to supply her in a seamless transition. If Chen Biqin were to someday advance to an earth-tier armorist or higher... Yu Yan wiped away a trace of drool inadvertently leaking from the corner of her mouth. Dragon-scale precious armor and the like—just thinking about it made her heart race wildly, didn't it?

And she possessed tens of thousands of mirage dragon scales; how many pieces of precious armor could be made from those?

Even if every member of the Fenghe Village hunting squads couldn't get one, allocating one to each small team would certainly be unproblematic.

No, how could treasures like dragon-scale armor be wasted in such a manner?

She would specially establish a dragon-armored strike force to hunt down earth-tier monsters within A-grade and higher dungeons.

Once their strength was sufficient, hunting true heaven-tier monsters in half-step heaven-tier or even double-S dungeons would not be entirely out of the question.

Yu Yan's eyes burned with fervor as she imagined leading the dragon-armored strike force sweeping through dungeon after dungeon. Slaughtering gods if gods blocked their path, slaying buddhas if buddhas stood in their way. If that day ever arrived, where in the world would there be a place she could not go?

As long as Lin Zhe was still alive, she would eventually find him.

As for the possibility of his death, Yu Yan subconsciously shared the same thought as Lin Zhe.

As long as she hadn't seen Lin Zhe's corpse for a single day, he was definitely still alive!

In life, she must see the person; in death, she must see the corpse.

And how could someone who died inside a dungeon world possibly have the opportunity to leave behind a corpse? This was merely the result of love pushed to its absolute limit; neither Yu Yan nor Lin Zhe could completely accept the possibility of a world where the other no longer existed.

...

Days passed one by one.

In the blink of an eye, over half a month had gone by.

Every single one of the thirty-six hunting squads in Fenghe Village had entered no fewer than ten dungeons.

Although most were F-grade and a small portion were E-grade,

the members of the hunting squads, who entered a dungeon almost daily, had grown accustomed to the tense and thrilling life inside. Their overall mental state had undergone a dramatic transformation, no longer appearing as scattered and absent-minded as they once did.

During the most recent gathering at the basketball court, the thirty-six hunting squads stood tall and full of vigor, already possessing the embryonic form of a disciplined legion.

Corresponding to this was the price everyone had paid!

Despite Yu Wei and the others trying their absolute best to watch over them, rookie newcomers still encountered endless issues inside the dungeons.

Yu Wei and the others each had to lead six squads, amounting to a full sixty people.

Spread too thin, it was naturally impossible for them to attend to everything at once, making injuries and even casualties within the teams inevitable. Fortunately, casualties were extremely rare isolated incidents, and those who were injured would receive proper care upon their return.

Yu Yan screened out six individuals from among the best-performing villagers, "rewarding" them with tier-four water-light butterfly blood crystals.

Every major legion now possessed its own dedicated light-attribute "healer."

Everything remained within a controllable range.

On this day, Chen Biqin finished using yet another batch of one thousand unranked spirit beast hides.

With over three hundred unranked spirit beast hide armors piled up at home, it was time to re-equip all the hunting squads. Yu Yan handed Chen Biqin a brand-new batch of spirit beast hides, this time mixed with a considerable number of tier-one and even tier-two spirit beast hides.

It wasn't that Yu Yan was wasting spiritual materials, but rather that Chen Biqin had surprised her once again.

She had actually used unranked spirit beast hides to craft three pieces of tier-one spirit armor!

Though this was undoubtedly related to the fact that those specific spirit beast hides possessed even richer and more concentrated energy than the rest,

it was enough to prove that Chen Biqin's prowess as an armorist had surpassed the unranked level.

For this feat, Yu Yan rewarded her with a spatial fantasy lotus.

Chen Biqin muttered grumblingly, "One piece is hardly enough; your younger brother and sister don't have one yet!"

Yu Yan simply treated it as wind passing her ears.

In truth, she had long since taken the opportunity when the twins led their respective hunting squads and performed exceptionally well to secretly gift each of them a spatial fantasy lotus as a reward. It made no sense for Lou Yuhui to have a portable personal space while her own biological younger siblings lacked one.

Yu Yan carried out this form of favoritism with a completely clear conscience.

Externally, however, neither the twins nor Lou Yuhui leaked the existence of their portable spaces.

They honestly followed the rest to hunt spirit beasts, carrying or hauling their spoils back to the village.

Yu Yan had even specifically instructed the three of them never to mention the portable space to Chen Biqin.

Her mother was fine in every other aspect, but she loved to show off when excited.

If any of her girlfriends happened to visit, she might get carried away and start bragging, spilling everything that should and should not be said.

Having experienced the emotional meltdown last time—which Lou Yuhui had accidentally stumbled upon—

Yu Yan's heart had completely cooled toward Chen Biqin, and she no longer held any illusions about receiving fairness and maternal love from her. Treating her merely as a talented armorist made her nagging and chattering roll over Yu Yan like a gentle breeze over a mountain peak, leaving no ripples behind.

As long as it did not affect the bigger picture, she could nag all she wanted while the breeze blew past the hilltop!

As the enterprise under her command grew larger and larger, Yu Yan gradually developed the mindset of a leader.

She no longer paid excessive attention to every minor detail and petty affair happening around her; she had far too many important matters to worry about!

Just the current tasks of distributing the spirit armor and arranging for everyone to enter the D-grade dungeons next were enough to keep her busy for a couple of days.

"...What do you all think of doing it this way?"

During the meeting of the group of nine, following her detailed presentation, Yu Yan looked toward the other eight individuals seated in a circle around the long ancestral hall table. Those eight were naturally Yun Duo'er, Lou Yuhui, the twins, Yu Wei, Yu Rui, and the brother-and-sister pair Yu Wenjing...