Kill The Old Ones!

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The first formation Ren installed on the rock, with Diana’s help, was the Energy Gathering Array.

With the ancient altar serving as a natural formation node, laying these enchantments down became easier. Instead of planting them all over the rock, they just installed it on the altar itself, and the altar propagated the effect into the whole rock.

The Energy Gathering Array basically increases the density and quality of energies within this rock. This makes everybody’s practice speed twice as fast with half the effort.

The next enchantment they laid down on the rock was for its defenses: the aura isolation array and the protection dome.

These make the rock look more inauspicious to the eyes of strangers and monsters. And if this effect doesn’t work, then the protection dome creates a barrier to protect the rock’s inhabitants.

Of course, this protection isn’t absolute. But it’s better than nothing.

They also added a surveillance formation as well, one that will allow them to see what’s on the rock. They’d be able to see if there’s a threat or other people sneaking into the camp should it come down to that.

And finally, Ren included a constant temperature formation in there as well. He did this in preparation for the upcoming calamities.

Ren wanted to add more formations, but unfortunately the others he wanted installed were tricky. He had to do some things first before they could work, and some of them couldn’t be installed here on the altar.

All in all, Ren spent at least 100,000 merit points to have all these formations installed in this rock. This will serve as their permanent base from now on, after all. And if it doesn’t, well, he could always retrieve them and transfer them to a new location if needed.

After cleaning up the ruins and arranging how the interior must be used, Diana had people working already. She did it while helping Ren install the formations earlier.

As a result of that, the new base was already functional, and people already prefer this more than the previous one.

Being inside a solid rock like this made them feel like they were ants hiding in their anthill, but it’s definitely more secure than being out in the open.

As for the operations to increase their lead in the ranking, that would be taken care of once Ren draws the map of their new location. But he did tell them not to worry since this place wasn’t lacking in things to hunt.

If anything, the variety here is even richer than the previous location.

**

”There’s a hot spring in here? Holy crap!”

Yes, there is, in fact, a natural hot spring inside this rock, and they discovered it when cleaning up the interior.

It has been preserved, covered, and sealed with wood to protect it from decay and contamination. The old circulation function still works well; it just needs a few tweaks and updates because it’s been left on its own for a long time. But after a few minor repairs, it’s usable again.

This room was the public bath because it could only be that. They don’t need to change anything about it since the previous group that used this rock as a base had already made the partitions.

Aside from the natural hot spring, there is huge space in the rock that shows a lot of wear and tear. Ren declared that these rooms were used as training rooms by the previous team. Marks and scars are still visible on the walls even after so long.

Then, there’s also the ’main hall,’ the largest room on the ground level of the rock.

This is the main hub where they could all gather and discuss matters about their activities. From here, the rest of the areas in the rock were accessible.

Interestingly enough, the individual ’rooms’ were designed uniquely. They appear as holes on the side of a wall. Each room is spacious enough for more than three people to fit in, and there are plenty of holes for them to choose from. There are strange runes in each room that allow them to hear noise from the outside while also preventing the noise in each room from escaping.

There are plenty of other rooms and areas in the rock that are yet to be assigned to a new purpose.

Overall, this new base was truly great, and they couldn’t have found anything better.

**

Ren didn’t mind splurging a huge portion of his own merit points to reinforce this new base.

He’s got too much anyway, and this was a worthwhile investment to him.

Additionally, it’s not like he completely did this for free or out of the good of his own heart.

Because the moment they occupied this base, everybody received a system notice:

[Congratulations to the Heavenly Bronze Empire team for occupying the ’Rock Base’.]

[The ’Rock Base’ will bestow merit points on each individual of the Heavenly Bronze Empire team on a daily settlement basis.]

[The amount varies depending on ’safe,’ ’secure,’ and ’stable’ the Rock Base is.]

[Current daily points income: 250 merit points per individual.]

Yes, this was yet another hidden mechanism of this game. One that’s meant to be discovered eventually as time goes on.

Each team in this war will inevitably get into contact with each other. This was a ranking war, after all. At some point, the system will force them to meet on the battlefield.

Having a base was, of course, crucial for a war. Participants will inherently think of searching for a location or building one themselves eventually since they’re bound to be here for a while.

What most people don’t know is that the Rock Base was one of the most stable and secure bases to use.

The river surrounding it acts as a natural barrier against threats, and despite its ugly exterior, it was one of the strongest bases in this whole realm.

Ren himself only had a vague idea of this base since it’s only mentioned in passing in the story. The Rock Base was only mentioned once the ranking war was over. He only knew that it was surrounded by a river and was one of the best locations to serve as a base.

He wasn’t actually expecting to find it. Which is why when he did, he didn’t hesitate and immediately proposed for the team to occupy it.

Ren knew about the hidden mechanics of the game and knew that there would be a daily settlement of points, but still, he acted just as surprised as others when the system announcement was made.

250 merit points per day just by occupying this base doing nothing? That sounds like an incredible deal!

The better news is that if the Rock Base’s rating increases, the daily point settlement also increases. This was one of the main reasons why Ren didn’t hesitate to invest his own points into this rock.

It is very unlikely that other teams had a base as good as the ones they have. Hell, they may not even have a decent camp.

The Heavenly Bronze Empire team had an incredible lead in this ranking war, and it seems that since they’re ahead, they will always be ahead.

’Once we eliminate the sleeping giants in the river, I’m sure the base’s rating will increase,’ Ren inwardly thought. ’There are some real troublesome things down there, but that’s okay. We can fish them out one by one.’

’The likelihood of the same crisis happening twice in a row is very little. Meaning that since we had a monster horde crisis last week, it’s unlikely that we’ll have it again, unless our luck is really terrible.’

’Can’t rely on canon events too much, so I really don’t know if Crisis Order will be the same as I know.’

’What’s important is that we eliminate the troublesome monsters as soon as possible.’

’We can’t have them swimming out of the river and attacking this rock in another monster horde; they’re too close and too powerful.’

Anybody who knew what he was thinking about would most likely agree with him.

The goal isn’t to completely wipe out the monster population on the river surrounding the rock. That would be difficult in the first place. What’s important is to eliminate the big and strong ones down there to increase the safety of everybody in this rock.

This is not an immediate crisis. More like an urgent task, instead.

Those monsters were hiding in peace down there and probably haven’t even sensed that they have new neighbors.

Ren knew where each of the troublesome monsters were. His sensory network already covered this area, and he already recognized most of them. They won’t get away. Eventually, they would clean up the rivers, and the base would be more secured.

He could do it alone, but that’s not necessary. He’s not this team’s babysitter. Let others participate and develop belonging to the team. That way, it’ll be easier to get them to do what was needed to be done.

Better teamwork and synergy wouldn’t be bad. Especially since they’re not too far from another empire team.