The Giant Crab Sand Factory had just been established. There was no production equipment, and the only tools were crude, homemade sand shovels and the carrying baskets Boss Li and the others had brought themselves. Everything relied on manual labor for digging and transport, so the efficiency was predictably low.
Wang Yi didn't have any good solutions at the moment either. He stayed at the sand factory for a little while before driving north.
Today, he planned to explore the map to the north.
The north was heavily wooded, a wilderness of barren mountains. Driving was very inconvenient. Wang Yi wandered around for four or five hours before finally returning empty-handed.
As he neared the territory, Wang Yi saw Zhang Dashan and a group of people gathered together, shouting and making a racket. It seemed like something had happened.
"The Immortal Master is back!"
"My Lord, there's a monster in the woods!"
"Xiu'Er has been hurt! Please, come take a look!"
When the villagers saw Wang Yi, they all rushed forward, shouting over one another. Many of them looked panicked.
Wang Yi frowned slightly. He looked toward the center of the crowd where Yang Qingxiu was slumped on the ground. Her face was deathly pale as if she had just experienced something terrifying. Her chest heaved violently, and she had a look of lingering fear.
"Sis, did that monster hurt you? Don't scare me like this!"
Yang Qinggu was also there, wiping her tears while clutching Yang Qingxiu's hand.
"Don't worry, it's nothing serious. The minor scratches must be from loose stones and branches while she was running. A little herbal medicine will fix her right up!"
Yang Wanli had already finished examining his younger daughter's injuries and appeared quite calm.
When Yang Qingxiu saw Wang Yi, she seemed to snap out of it and tried to stand up to greet him, but her legs wouldn't obey. They were trembling so much she couldn't get to her feet.
"There's no need for formalities!" Wang Yi took a step forward. "What happened to you? What's going on?"
Yang Qingxiu bit her lip and said, "My... my Lord, I... I was just going up the mountain to gather some Hemostatic Grass, to see if it could be planted in the Immortal Field... I-I had just passed through the Oil Pine Forest up ahead, and I hadn't even reached Chaotic Stone Slope yet... when I... I ran into a monster! A huge... a really huge monster..."
"Hemostatic Grass? A monster? What kind of monster?"
Wang Yi raised an eyebrow.
"I don't know... It was as big as an ox cart, and yellowish-brown... I-I didn't get a clear look. I was terrified and just took off running. The monster chased me... it just kept chasing and chasing..."
Yang Qingxiu swallowed, her heart still pounding with fear.
Someone nearby raised their hand and said, "I saw it too! I was gathering firewood in the woods at the time. The monster looked like a giant serpent. When it raised its neck, it must have been ten feet high!"
"What serpent?" another villager argued. "I was farther away, and I saw it crawling on the ground. It had legs!"
"I saw it too! It was a Spider Demon!"
"It was a giant serpent!"
"It was a Spider Demon!"
"All of you, shut up!" Yang Wanli snapped irritably. "Whatever it was, it was a monster! Thankfully, it only chased her to the edge of the woods before turning back. The girl was lucky to escape with her life, thanks to the ancestors' protection!"
His words only made the other villagers more panicked.
"That sounds terrifying! I don't dare go up the mountain anymore!"
"Go up the mountain? I don't even dare to enter the woods now..."
As Wang Yi listened to the villagers around him, a theory began to form in his mind.
'Could it be that Yang Qingxiu ran into a wild monster? With the arrival of the Players, this world has changed. There are resource points and wild Treasure Chests, so it's not surprising for wild monsters to appear... And if there are wild monsters, they need to be farmed!'
After a moment of thought, Wang Yi said, "What's all the panic about? Someone, lead the way. I, your Lord, will go see what kind of monster it is."
"I-I'll lead the way!"
A man stepped forward. It was none other than Pang Damao.
Pang Damao was now a member of the Production Team. Under Zhang Dashan's arrangement, he was responsible for gathering firewood. He had also been in the woods just now, and although he hadn't seen the monster, he had heard Yang Qingxiu's cries and knew where it had happened.
In Pang Damao's mind, leading the Immortal Lord was a great task. It was a chance to get his face known. If the Immortal Lord was pleased, he might even be rewarded with some roast chicken.
'A bunch of idiots. If you don't want this chance to get noticed, I'll take it!'
With this in mind, Pang Damao took another step forward. He pounded his chest, which rang out with a loud THUMP-THUMP. Without wasting any words, he immediately started leading the way for Wang Yi.
Just then, Man Datou arrived with Yang Qingniu and the other four men.
They had heard that Yang Qingxiu had encountered a monster, so they had interrupted their training and run over to see what was happening.
Man Datou was as tall and imposing as ever, but Yang Qingniu and the other four were black and blue. Yang Qingniu was in especially bad shape; his face was a swollen mess of purple and green, beaten to a pulp.
Of course, it was Man Datou who had beaten them!
Joining the Civilian Militia was not so easy. With Man Datou as their Instructor, the slightest thing that displeased him earned them a beating. Yang Qingniu and the other four had learned their lesson. Now, they trembled whenever Man Datou so much as cleared his throat.
"Big Head, good timing. With you by my side, I can rest easy! Pang Damao, lead the way. Civilian Militia, follow me. The rest of you, disperse and get back to work."
Wang Yi gave the order, and no one dared to disobey.
A few moments later, Wang Yi saw the woods the villagers had been talking about.
It was a forest of oil pines. The trees, known as oil pines, had bark that was cracked like scales. The trunks were dotted with numerous thumb-sized holes from which a viscous, dark-yellow liquid seeped, smelling of pine resin. It glistened brightly when the sunlight hit it.
The villagers called this viscous liquid "pine oil." It was highly flammable and used to make torches and oil lamps.
Wang Yi had already considered the pine oil a natural resource and arranged for the Production Team to collect it.
Continuing forward, not far past the forest, Wang Yi could see a somewhat steep slope covered in loose rock.
This rocky slope was Chaotic Stone Slope, the very place where Yang Qingxiu had encountered the monster.
But when Wang Yi glanced over, he could take in the whole of Chaotic Stone Slope at once. There were only jagged rocks and some low-lying shrubs. There was no wild monster to be seen.
'Did the wild monster run off?'
Just as Wang Yi was wondering, a flash of light suddenly appeared in his vision, and a translucent blue Treasure Chest materialized.
The Treasure Chest sat properly on the distant slope. Suddenly, a huge boulder next to it began to move.
With a loud CRACK, a fissure split the center of the boulder. It then separated into two halves. CRACK, CRACK! Two enormous pincers rose up, and what looked like legs sprouted from beneath the boulder, hoisting the entire thing up.
Immediately after, a pillar-like object rose up from behind the rock. The top of the pillar drooped, revealing a hooked stinger.
"Heavens, it really is a monster!"
Pang Damao cried out in alarm and fell right on his butt.
Man Datou looked as if he were facing a formidable enemy. Yang Qingniu and the other five new Civilian Militia recruits were also startled, huddling together with wide eyes.
"This is..."
Wang Yi, however, remained calm. He even rubbed his chin with interest.
What had appeared before him was none other than a gigantic scorpion with rock-like skin. Its raised tail stinger reached three meters high, and its head had six crimson eyes!
The system prompt was slow to arrive: "Ding! One wild Treasure Chest has been discovered. Warning: This chest is guarded by a wild monster!"
"Ding! One wild monster den has been discovered. Current den set to: Rock Giant Scorpion Nest. Rock Giant Scorpions will respawn here periodically. Maximum number of Rock Giant Scorpions: one. Area of activity: 100-meter radius. Alert range: 30-meter radius. The Rock Giant Scorpion will actively attack any who enter its alert range."
'A wild monster den, huh? How interesting!'
A thought flashed through Wang Yi's mind. He calmly and unhurriedly said to the group, "Everyone, don't panic. This thing is called a Rock Giant Scorpion. As long as we stay thirty meters away, it won't attack. Now, on my command, fall back! Go back and prepare some ropes and such. I, your Lord, intend to capture this monster alive!"