Chapter 11 - Frontier Settlement, Ovina

Lin Feng

Lin Feng is applying medicine to his injuries after a hunt. It would appear that he will have to take it slow for the rest of the day until his injuries are all healed. After playing for more than two and a half months, he is at the peak stage of the first cultivation realm. Not dying now ranks at the top of his priority list as he has grossly misjudged the penalty of dying. If it is just as simple as being denied access to the game for three days, that would have been a minor inconvenience at best. Losing all his weapons and gears on the other hand will be costly. Off course, the risk of losing everything you have on hand dying out in the wild can be mitigated by forming a team but this is contingent to the fact that your team doesn't gets wipe out. The above is still secondary to the penalty of being revived. Unlike dying in other games, a player doesn't get to maintain their level or just losing a single level or two upon revival. Their cultivation will revert to a blank state. This means months of grinding just to get back to the player's level before dying. The time cost itself is now the harshest penalty he is unwilling to pay. Death in the first cultivation realm alone means a few months of wasted effort. As his cultivation realm grows, the wasted effort will be measured in years or even decades.

In the world of cultivation, lifesaving apparatuses are not exactly rare. The prohibitive cost is the only reason stopping mass adoption. As an example, the sect actually has the option allowing their disciples to be revived without losing their cultivation progress. With Lin Feng's cultivation at the peak stage of the first cultivation realm as an example, he will have to grind for sect merits forsaking everything else for three months just to accumulate enough sect merits to pay for the revival service rendered. From an economic perspective, it's a losing deal. It would have been more cost effective for Lin Feng to restart from zero. The only possibility of him taking up the offer is if he suddenly struck it rich stumbling upon a rare herb or treasure in the wild. Instead of betting on getting rich out of the blue, it will be more practical for Lin Feng to develop a habit of not taking unnecessary risk.

Though Lin Feng can't continue hunting for the day, there is still plenty to be done at the frontier settlement. When he first arrive at Ovina, it will be generous for the site to be even called a settlement. Compared to his first login into , though Oryn was also quite underdeveloped, the settlement at least comes with a few blocks of dormitories for the players to call it a day, a mess hall to provide a decently cooked meal, the awakening building for revival, a cultivation hall to aid cultivation and a townhall. In comparison, Oryn only has an awakening building. If not for the fact that the first batch of pioneers are given a lucrative compensation and perks for building up the settlements, Lin Feng would have turn around and board the airship back to Oryn. The first batch of players had to camp out in the wild and eat simple meals cooked over a campfire until the supporting buildings have been built. Even after more than a week, the players have only managed to build sufficient dormitories for everyone to call it a day and a simple kitchen to cook up a decent meal. Up next on the construction list is the town hall and cultivation hall. The priority now is completing the cultivation hall. All players have realised a noticeable slowdown in their cultivation progress without the support of a cultivation hall.

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Taking a sip of the seafood soup, Lin Feng is reminiscing the progress of building up the settlement to date. Dinner has been getting more satisfying by the days as the range of ingredients accessible continue to grow. Take seafood as an example, the settlement has been getting a fresh daily supply ever since a team of players completed their very first fishing vessel two days back. Measuring slightly longer than fifteen feet, the vessel has a basic setup and can't travel too far from the shore. The team behind the fishing vessel is one with big ambition as they have already begun laying the keel for a second vessel. The new vessel will be a proper fishing trawler capable of harvesting seafood out in the vast ocean.

Now that Ovina have access to seafood, Lin Feng speculate that the settlement will rank high among all other settlements when it comes to food security and diversity. It is important for Lin Feng to forecast the rate of arrival of other pioneers as it has a high correlation with the benefits given out by the sect. What he values above all other benefits is the land reward. As a future regional capital, one can easily imagine how valuable those lands with be worth. This is especially true for lands nearest to the town center as those lands will form the future downtown of Ovina. Although, earlier pioneers are given priority in land selection, the amount of prime land up for grab is ultimately limited.

On the topic of land reward, a pioneer is given an acre of land upon arrival as a sweetener and additional lands will be rewarded depending on the contribution made towards the settlement expansion every nine earth days or three months game time when the resupply airship arrived. Although the second batch of pioneers only consist of seventeen players, Lin Feng knew that the numbers will only continue to grow and most likely experience exponential growth when the cultivation hall is completed.

How should Lin Feng weight the importance of food security and diversity? Except for those who enjoys a good meal, spiritual root cultivators aren't that particular about what they eat. In contrast, immortal bone cultivators rely heavily on eating highly nutritious meals to nourish their physique allowing for improved muscle mass and bone density. To any immortal bone cultivator, Untara, Tislo and Tolana should be the least appealing. Settlements that will also have easy access to seafood are Axxxi, Osir and Odesso. Off course, there are other variables at play that will also influence the arrival of players.

To grab as much land as possible, Lin Feng is already considering summoning his two cousins and Yang Wenming to Ovina before the other pioneers gobbled up all the prime lands. After making some estimate, Lin Feng concludes that the cultivation hall will only be half completed when the third batch of pioneers arrive at Ovina. Should he sacrifice his cousins' cultivation progress in favour of grabbing more lands? Those lands will definitely bring the family great benefits in the long term.

When it comes to Yang Wenming, Lin Feng can't help feeling frustrated with this best friend of his. Since Yang Wenming began playing , Lin Feng no longer has to face a sleep deprived friend. However, this workaholic friend of his has been treating as his new restroom and will leave the moment he slept of his fatigue to continue working. Lin Feng can't be sure that Yang Wenming will even make a difference if he arrives at Ovina. If he ended up being just extra baggage, it would be for the best for him to remain at Oryn.

In the end, Lin Feng has made the decision to summon both his cousins and Yang Wenming to Ovina. Cultivation is not a race. It might not be a bad idea for his two cousins to slow down their cultivation speed in favour of laying a more solid foundation, especially when it comes to combat experience. As for Yang Wenming, given his inactivity, it doesn't really matter where he is base.