Chapter Sixteen: The Mysterious Shop

  After walking through the grassland and checking all the buildings, Li Zhong returned home and fully understood the detailed information about this functional integration through the system.

  The system function is integrated, and its significance lies in incorporating supporting facilities into the system, making various facility functions systematic, and unifying them with the main functional options of the system.

  This is great news for Li Zhong.

  To make an analogy.

  For example, the Beast Tamer's Arena. Originally, the Beast Tamer's Arena was just a place where Li Zhong kept and tamed various wild beasts to serve as backup for the War Rider Hall's success functions, completely managed by humans.

  But after functional integration, all functions of the taming arena have been systematized.

  After the domestication of wild beasts is systematized, as long as the person in charge follows the system's prompts, they can easily domesticate the beast without having to resort to cruel means such as starving or whipping it into submission. Instead, they can achieve this through spiritual closeness with the beast, thereby domesticating it. This is much more ingenious.

  In addition, a cultivation function has been added. Providing the necessary materials for cultivating the beasts in the taming arena can cultivate their quality to the pinnacle of the current rank, laying a solid foundation for the synthesis of war riders!

  Also like Medicine Field. This is a supporting facility under the Food Research Center. After functional integration, Medicine Field can also be upgraded to cultivate more effective medicinal herbs faster, laying the foundation for the Food Research Center.

  What surprised Li Zhuang the most was that several buildings belonging to the Jia Zhuang Research Center, after being systematized, had incredibly powerful functions that completely exceeded his imagination!

  Ore refining center, metal processing center, fur processing center, and armor-making equipment manufacturing center. These four small houses that were originally built for future plans have expanded nearly tenfold and become futuristic workshops!

  Seeing these several buildings enlarged, Li Zhēng discovered that the area of the grassland had not decreased at all, and even the layout had not changed. It was as if the entire grassland had simply grown outward a bit!

  How wonderful!

  These buildings have very powerful functions.

  Ores extracted from mountains can be refined into pure metals by putting them into the refining center according to operating regulations and smelting them in a furnace generated by the system.

  Metal is transported into a processing center, where system-generated processing equipment can easily process it into various alloys according to the processing formula.

  Put the alloy into the forging center, and the system-generated forging equipment can easily forge various armor and horse equipment according to the forging formula!

  In addition, the finished fur products processed by the fur processing center will also be crafted into various leather armor and horse equipment after being put into the crafting center!

  A fully automated assembly line factory, and it's a highly sci-fi flavored one!

  The only difficult part is that it requires a formula.

  Like cultivating a warhorse, forging armor must use a formula and is not random like synthesizing a warhorse or food. The formulas for cultivating a warhorse and forging armor are fixed.

  The formula has only two sources.

  One is completing special tasks and receiving random rewards. The other is the mysterious store that has been opened after the system function integration!

  So far, Li Zhēng has not completed any special tasks, so he doesn't have the formula in his hands. Now that the external situation has changed, the demand for armor is urgent, so it can only be purchased from a mysterious store.

  Opening the mysterious store, eight icons appear in consciousness.

  Upon closer inspection, four of the eight diagrams were actually formula papers. This made Li feel relieved - he was worried that they wouldn't be available for purchase. The goods in the mysterious shop were randomly refreshed every month. Looking at the other four diagrams, however, was astonishing.

  Apart from the formula diagram, the remaining four diagrams are in a mess.

  The first is a pair of leather shoes.

  It's completely useless!

  The second one was actually a sword, Chi Xiao!

  It's said that this is the sword with which Liu Bang, the great ancestor, slew the white snake. Although it's unclear whether or not it's a fake, it's still a pretty good item.

  The third was a long spear, called the Blood Dragon Spear. At first glance, the spear was dark red all over, with a shiny head, and except for some patterns on the handle, it didn't look conspicuous. However, this spear seemed to be made entirely of metal, so it must have been quite heavy, and using it would be very difficult.

  The last one is a piece of roasted meat!

  It's really laughable and tear-jerking at the same time. A mysterious store that's so cool it even sells barbecue!

  After glancing over these four items, Li Zhēn focused his attention on the four formula sheets.

  The first one is Li Zhēn's urgently needed armor formula, called the First-Order Armor Formula Blueprint. Take a look at the price tag below, and I immediately broke out in cold sweat.

  It's actually 10,000 gold!

  He held his breath and shifted his attention again. The second formula was a Tier 1 alloy processing formula. The price was three thousand gold, which made Li feel relieved.

  The third blueprint is a fur processing formula, priced at 3,000 gold as well.

  Li Zhēng knew that in order to complete the first-class armor, these three drawings were indispensable. Although the price was expensive, he held his breath and bought them anyway.

  Take a look at the backpack, and now there are 37,000 yuan. The amount seems not small. But you know, the synthesis of war riding and food, that consumption is fast!

  Every time one thousand gold, only thirty-seven times, can make Li Zhong a poor man!

  So for this period of time, Li Zhong had been forcing himself to hold back and not touch these two functions. The strange war ride and the incredibly mysterious food were indeed attractive! Fortunately, his self-control was still good, otherwise he would only be staring at the mysterious store with tears in his eyes now.

  Consciousness continuously touches three times, and the purchase of three drawings is successful. According to the system prompt, the formula will be directly transmitted to the A-armor research center for automatic analysis and research. After the analysis is completed, the supporting facilities affiliated with the A-armor research center will automatically generate a method for forging first-order A-armor.

  After taking a deep breath, Li Zhēng focused his attention on the last blueprint.

  "Huh?"

  Amazing.

  This is a special terrain transformation blueprint! Its function is actually used to change the terrain!

  After a moment's thought, Li Zhēn realized that the function of this blueprint was indeed too powerful! Changing terrain, in simple terms, means turning mountains into flat land and grasslands into lakes!

  In an instant, Li Zhēng's heart was burning with unprecedented heat.

  He hastily took a look at the price, but it left Li Zhēn somewhat perplexed.

  It actually requires merit!

  What is meritorious service?!!!

  Regrettably, Li Zhēng had no choice but to give up this mouth-watering blueprint and focus his attention on the four miscellaneous items.

  Leather shoes and barbecue Li Jing are not needed, but weapons are a must.

  Li Zheng usually practiced with a gun, still using the most crude wooden pole with an iron head, which was of poor quality. It felt light and floating in his hand, completely not suitable for use.

  Carrying this kind of trash, if you go into battle, you'll be done for in no time.

  On the battlefield, without arms, there is no way to survive!

  He took a look at the price tag on the Blood Dragon Spear and was taken aback. It was actually 2,000 gold! Li Jing couldn't help but hesitate. The blueprint may have been expensive, but it was a long-term investment that would affect an entire army and a power. Although it was pricey, he could still accept it. But this single spear was worth 2,000 gold? This was simply daylight robbery!

  Look at Chi Xiao Sword next to it, it's also 2,000 gold!

  Li Zhong hesitated for a moment, but still resolutely bought these two weapons.

  He believes that whatever the system produces must be of high quality!

  Consciousness left his mind, Li Zhēng opened his eyes and saw a gun and a sword suddenly appearing beside him. The Blood Dragon Gun was about 1 zhang 2 chi long and weighed over 50 jin, with a spearhead that was about 1 chi long, having two blood grooves, sharp and bright, it was a deadly weapon for killing people.

  He raised it and swung it twice, but found that this long gun, which seemed to be made entirely of metal, was actually very elastic, no different from a good white wax rod. It was very handy to use.

  The Red Cloud Sword weighed around ten or so catties, its scabbard was ancient and simple, with dense grain patterns. With a "zhi" sound, the precious sword was drawn out, a cold light flashed before one's eyes. Upon closer inspection, the sword body emitted a blue-green color, like a pool of spring water, an icy feeling suddenly surged up to the heart.

  Laying down his arms, Li Zhēn felt a mix of happiness and slight regret in his heart.

  The prerequisites for forging a first-class armor have been fully met, and after the analysis is complete, it can be equipped with the war horse. Li Zhong's own required weapon has also been in place. However, this time in the mysterious shop, there was no formula for cultivating the war horse.

  If you buy a Battle Rider cultivation formula, after parsing it, you can make the cultivation fluid. In a short period of time, you can also greatly enhance the overall attributes of the Green Armor Battle Rider.

  More and more refugees were recruited one after another, although it increased the burden on the grassland, but also brought a large number of labor forces to the grassland.

  Soon, the total number of 300 soldiers was recruited.

  At this point, there is only one condition left to restrict the development of grassland armed forces, namely, armor.

  Preconditions met, what's left are materials - fur and minerals.

  Fur is easier to deal with, but mining ore is much more difficult.

  So in the following days, Li Zhong's busy center was transferred from the grassland.

  In the Helan Mountains branch behind the pasture, there are indeed mineral veins. Craftsmen in the pasture with experience in this area had already detected the existence of several mineral veins years ago.

  Two iron mines, one copper mine, two coal mines, and small-scale enrichment areas of tin, lead and other minerals.

  But these mines are located in deep mountains, not only is it inconvenient to extract them, but transportation is also difficult.

  Li Zhong had no better way at this point.

  If the terrain conversion blueprint in the mysterious shop can be purchased, it only takes a thought to solve this trouble. But that thing requires merit, Li Zhēn doesn't understand and doesn't have any.

  The only way now is to repair the road.

  Only by building a road leading to the deep mountain mine can the problem of transportation difficulties be solved.

  But this era had no gunpowder, and Li Zhong did not want to make gunpowder. As a result, only human power could be used completely. Moreover, some dangerous places could only be bypassed.

  This greatly increased the amount of engineering work - there were too few places in the mountains where you didn't need to take a detour!

  Fortunately, there is now a sufficient labor force in the pasture. In addition to the manpower needed to maintain the basic operation of the pasture, at least 500 people can be pulled out to repair roads.

  Even so, after calculation, it will take at least two months to build a simple dirt road.

  No choice, let's grit our teeth and get it done.

  Road repair and mining are carried out simultaneously, a two-pronged approach.

  As the ore was mined, transported to the grassland and thrown into smelting, Li Zhong also had Zhao Wu prepare manpower for rough processing of fur, and in a few days, they were busy with their feet off the ground.

  For a moment, Li Zhēn felt as if he had to do everything himself.

  At night, thinking carefully, I found that the various functions of the pasture have become somewhat confusing.

  That rough framework was still easy to clarify when there were not many people, but as the refugees continued to move in, and the population exceeded 2,000, with more work classifications, this framework became outdated. If there were people like Xun Yu or Zhuge Liang to assist, it would be fine, but unfortunately, Zhao Wu's ability was far from sufficient.

  It's time to formally establish a grassland management system!