A gloomy sky, a dilapidated great hall.
Chen Sheng sat on a stone throne piled with several skeletons, and a cluster of unfamiliar memories exploded in his mind.
He learned that he had transmigrated to a high-martial world.
Unlike traditional high-martial worlds, this world, after being eroded by external forces, saw all technology stagnate and was simultaneously plagued by invasions from external demonic beasts.
Fortunately, another external force, like a sweet dew of hope, descended upon Blue Star, giving birth to independent spaces known as "Underground Cities."
All resources, power, and knowledge, etc., could be obtained from the Underground City to strengthen oneself and resist external demonic beasts.
This led to the emergence of the Adventurer profession, specifically dedicated to conquering Underground Cities.
However...
Chen Sheng's identity was not that of an Adventurer, but a "Lord" responsible for building the Underground City.
Lords were chosen by the Tian Yue Clan, the external force that helped Blue Star, to become Underground City Lords. They would then mobilize the power granted by the Tian Yue Clan to build the Underground City and help humanity grow stronger.
Simply put, the Underground City was a training camp.
The Underground City Lord was the training camp's officer.
It's just that...
The selection of Underground City Lords was conducted by the Tian Yue Clan through round after round of rituals, but Chen Sheng had not experienced any of those tedious rituals. After collapsing on Earth from eating a cold dish of wild mushrooms, he was directly pulled into the position of an Underground City Lord by a mysterious force.
Having skipped the Tian Yue Clan's selection, although he was not bound by the Tian Yue Clan, he still had to abide by the rules of the Underground City's will.
"Phew..."
Chen Sheng exhaled a turbid breath after absorbing the unfamiliar memories. Before he could sort out his current situation, a large amount of text suddenly appeared on his retina.
"Welcome to become the 3000th Underground City Lord. Please review the rules below to ensure you can operate the Underground City normally in the future."
"1. Rewards cannot be given away for free to adventurers; violators will be struck by lightning.
2. Do not design inescapable death traps; violators will rot.
3. Rewards must be reasonable; the difficulty must match the reward level. If you give out rewards indiscriminately, your Lord status will be immediately revoked!"
Chen Sheng's strong psychological fortitude quickly allowed him to accept his current status as an Underground City Lord.
He immediately pulled up the Underground City's information and glanced at it.
"Fallen Royal Capital has 340 soul embers remaining, with a daily maintenance cost of 20 soul embers."
"Currently available scenes: Wind Rise Cliff, Remnant Soul Village, Royal Capital Sewers, Fallen Royal Capital."
"Currently available monster materials: Corrosive Slime, Headless Skeleton, Corrupted Hound, Human-Headed Maggot, Snail-man."
"Are these all low-level monsters?" Chen Sheng's mouth twitched slightly.
Although the Fallen Royal Capital's current level was the lowest, "Crescent Moon" tier, the monster materials displayed on the information panel could be easily defeated by any novice Adventurer with a few attacks.
There was no challenge whatsoever.
This way, Chen Sheng wouldn't be able to harvest soul embers from Adventurers. Once the soul embers ran out, the Underground City would collapse, and he would lose his Lord status.
He would become a common Adventurer.
Having just transmigrated, he didn't want this outcome to happen, so he immediately decided to take a risk and dismiss all the existing monsters!
Suddenly, he gained a decent amount of soul embers.
"Currently 2500 soul embers, Underground City daily maintenance cost: 5 soul embers."
Maintenance fees were nothing more than feeding monsters and repairing the environment. Now that there were no monsters, only the cost of repairing buildings remained.
"The earning of soul embers is tied to the Adventurers' emotions, which means... as long as I design a difficult challenge that makes Adventurers repeatedly teeter on the brink of collapse, I can farm a large amount of soul embers," Chen Sheng muttered, stroking his chin.
Having played tens of thousands of games in his previous life, he already had a general idea in his mind.
Then, with a thought, he left the Fallen Royal Capital and appeared on Wind Rise Cliff, the starting area.
This was a novice village surrounded by cliffs on all sides. The original design was for Adventurers to kill Corrosive Slimes to collect slime, create a river of slime, and slide down it to enter the next map.
Chen Sheng felt it was too troublesome and completely unchallenging!
He simply transformed it so that after coming out of the novice cabin, one could kill a "small monster" for practice and then be directly teleported to the next map.
After Chen Sheng designed the main story in the novice cabin, he came to the highest cliff.
"It's quite spacious here. I'll put a practice monster here."
He locked his gaze on a small oak-like tree and immediately selected it as the material for shaping the monster.
"Oak sapling has been selected as the creation material. Extracting inspiration crystal..."
As the clear synthesis sound rang out, Chen Sheng uploaded the creative inspiration for the small monster.
"Extraction complete. To generate this creature, it requires: 1800 soul embers.
Daily maintenance cost: 45 soul embers.
Do you wish to create this creature?"
Chen Sheng chose "Yes" without hesitation.
The next second, a bright light appeared at the location he had chosen beforehand.
After the light dissipated, what came into view was an inconspicuous oak sapling. On the surface, it looked completely unchanged from before the transformation; it was impossible to tell that this was a wild monster.
And this was exactly what Chen Sheng wanted.
The greater the emotional fluctuation, the more soul embers were generated. If the monster was directly displayed, it would bring very little emotional fluctuation. However, a monster like this, which only appears when approached and touched, often brings about significant emotional fluctuations.
"Those Adventurers should be stuck here for a day or two. There's no need to set up the next map so quickly."
"Since that's the case, let's open for business!"
......
Tianhai City, one of the smaller Base Cities in southern Dragon Country.
Compared to other Base Cities, Tianhai City was surrounded on all sides by Large Base Cities, which resisted the invasion of demonic beasts.
Therefore, Tianhai City had developed peacefully and calmly over the years, without the daily fear of demonic beast attacks. This condition led to the establishment of many low-level Adventurers and low-level Underground Cities here.
At this moment, on Ping An Street, which had relatively less foot traffic in Tianhai City.
The Fengqing Tavern, which had been sealed for three years, suddenly lit up with dim lights. The tightly closed door slowly opened, and a somewhat handsome young man stepped out.
"The sun is nice, it's a good omen," Chen Sheng placed a wooden sign on the ground and returned inside the tavern.
No sooner had he left than a passing girl looked towards the Fengqing Tavern.
"New shop opening, the first Adventurer to clear it gets 10,000 gold coins?!" The girl's eyes widened in shock as she read the text on the wooden sign.
Gold coins were a common currency among adventurers; 10,000 was not a small sum. If converted to Huaxia currency, it would be one hundred million.
Su Baizhi was a new student at Tianhai First Academy. With the end-of-semester assessment approaching, she was just thinking about which Underground City to go to to hone her combat skills or farm some better equipment and skills.
She hadn't expected to step out and immediately see such a big fish no one else had caught.
Ten thousand gold coins at an auction would be enough to get herself a set of divine equipment.
"If I remember correctly, this Fallen Royal Capital seems to be the top-ranked among the 'Ten Great Wheelchair Dungeons', right? After three years, it's reopening and actually dares to offer a huge sum of 10,000 gold coins as a first-clear reward?!"
The so-called Ten Great Wheelchair Dungeons referred to Underground Cities that you could easily clear even if you were in a wheelchair, as long as one of your limbs could move.
This type of Underground City was simply an insult to Adventurers!
Not only could you not get good items, but you also couldn't gain combat experience. Going to clear a Wheelchair Dungeon was purely a waste of time.
"Anyway, it's a Wheelchair Dungeon. No matter how much it's changed, it won't be much harder. It looks like these 10,000 gold coins are first come, first served for me, hehehe~"
Su Baizhi rubbed her small hands like a fly, giggling as she stepped into the Fengqing Tavern.