My Players Are So Fierce

“Why is the desertification of this ground so severe?”

Old Chen came to the ruins of the inner city above the Blood Vulture Halls, led by his two students. He immediately noticed the terrible soil condition on the ground, bent down to grab a handful of soil and squeezed it in his hand.

The large clump of soil immediately scattered under external force, without any stickiness.

Moreover, the color of the soil appeared oddly grayish-white, making Professor Chen frown deeply.

“There’s no way to start construction directly in this condition, even with reinforced foundations. Have you measured it? How thick is this type of soil?”

“At least 1.5 meters down, mentor,” replied Grayman, pushing up his decorative glasses. He said to Old Chen:

“I asked around, and they say it’s because of the erosion of Spirit energy from the Astral Realm outside this world, causing the life force of this land to drain rapidly. The entire surface part of the city has been dragged into that alternate dimension, and the remaining land has been eroded by polluted energy, turning it into this state.

I think what the locals refer to as the loss of ‘land life force’ probably means this loss of fertility and desert-like condition.

And look!”

He pointed to the sky. There’s a 12-hour time difference between the game and reality, so it was nearly dawn when Old Chen entered the game.

He raised his head and could see the strange Astral Realm rift emitting a purple glow in the sky above, like a crack in the sky that was incongruous with the surrounding starry sky.

“The polluted Spirit energy from the Astral Realm is still constantly pouring in here. Lady Tris said this situation will last at least 10 years. Under its cover, the inner city area can’t return to its original soil quality. To be honest, the outer city area is slightly better.

They previously paved the roads with stone slabs there, which somewhat blocked the energy intrusion, and they have underground water channels, which to some extent alleviated the spread of desertification.”

“This won’t do,” Old Chen scattered the sand in his hand and patted his hands, saying:

“We need to think of a solution. If we must start work on such land, we first need to remove these non-cohesive, flowing sandy soils. In our world, we could directly do large-scale reinforcement of underground structures and then pour special cement to make building platforms.

But that won’t work here.

Doesn’t this world have magic? Do they have similar technologies?”

“We’ve asked about this too. Grandma Marianne, who is knowledgeable among the Witch Hunters, said that the earth priests of the Silver Dwarves are very good at dealing with this kind of thing. They can perform the Mother Earth’s divine arts here to restore the land’s vitality,” Bricklayer replied:

“But the awkward thing is, the Silver Dwarves are allies of the Goldflower Kingdom, and the Goldflower Kingdom has just defeated our Portia Federation. Although the war is over now, both sides are still in a hostile state.

However, Grandma Marianne also said that the Avalon Church can plant some special trees on such land. Under the catalysis of Nature Spirit energy, they can grow quickly, and when their roots intertwine to a certain extent, they can restore this land to be sturdy enough to support large buildings.

She said if we start now, everything going smoothly, we can achieve a similar effect in just over 3 months.

But the problem is that this is a vampire city, and planting so many trees feels a bit odd.”

Bricklayer said awkwardly:

“This is our second plan with Grayman, and we haven’t reported it to Regent Miriam and Lord Murphy yet. That’s why we invited you to come and see if there are any other solutions.”

“You can plant trees?” Old Chen hesitated for a moment and asked:

“And it only takes 3 months? So, those ‘Witch Hunters’ actually have ways to make plants grow, right?”

“Yes, they are experts in this field,” Grayman explained:

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“Although the old church no longer has Druids who are more skilled in this area, they can all use Nature Spirit energy to promote plant growth.”

“Then let’s plant grass,” Professor Chen narrowed his eyes and said:

“Didn’t you go to the Northwest for an investigation last year? Refer to the sand fixation technology there, look for similar plants locally, use grid-style planting and irrigation methods, these sandy soils are still within a manageable range.

Of course, we should plant trees too!

The entanglement strength of tree roots is much stronger than grass, and the combination of the two might be even more effective. Besides, it can be considered as preliminary greening for this ruins area. 3 months is also completely enough for you two to adjust the city planning, and then slowly push forward.

However, we need to think of a solution for that big ravine.”

He pointed to the huge ravine between the inner city and outer city areas, saying:

“We need at least 3 bridges, otherwise just material transportation will be a big problem. If you don’t plan to fill it in later, then introduce local water sources and turn it into an artificial river. Passing through the main structure of the city can also bring in some shipping industry and exotic flavor to this city.

Now tell me, how do you plan to layout the functional areas of this city?”

Grayman and Bricklayer exchanged glances and took out the map they had just brought, saying to their mentor:

“The outer city area is small and the land is less affected, so we plan to first establish a temporary gathering point in the outer city and build the residential area. The remaining area will be divided into 7 main streets along two central axes, making it square-shaped to improve land utilization.

With the current population of Crimson Citadel, the outer city will be sufficient for use for a long time after it’s built. After the inner city is rebuilt, the outer city will be used as a large trading area.

This large ravine can serve as a separation between the inner and outer cities, dividing the trade and residential, administrative and church areas.

Although Lord Murphy hasn’t specifically designated it, we think we should build a new ‘Midnight Tower’ in the center of the inner city area during the later stages of city construction as a landmark building for Crimson Citadel.

Both inner and outer city areas have relatively complete sewer systems that can be used directly, but previously they directly discharged domestic sewage into the Kadman River. Of course, we can’t do that now, so we need to build a sewage treatment and filtration place outside the city and also create several water storage areas.

In the recent Ghoul Disaster event, there were villains who tried to poison the city’s underground water system! So Lord Murphy gave special instructions to separate the underground water from the daily-use water sources.

Regent Miriam’s intention is to use the Baron of Leim territory in the north as the core residential area of the Count of Kadman territory in the future. She hopes we can also do some water conservancy planning to facilitate irrigation for the 5 collective farms and such.

But this really touches on our knowledge blind spot.”

“So, your job is not just building a city, but also doing construction planning for the entire count territory? This is equivalent to doing overall planning for a prefecture-level city. No wonder you were in such a hurry to pull this old man into the game,” Old Chen grinned and said:

“This job is indeed not something you two greenhorns can handle.”

The two guys grinned.

Obviously, it was because their experienced mentor had already boarded the pirate ship.

Oh my, now they have someone to take the blame, which greatly reduced the pressure on these two who lacked confidence.

“We’ve roughly calculated, mentor, that the entire Transia region is equivalent to the overlap of one and a half central provinces, but this place is famously sparsely populated. Even at its peak, the population of such a large area didn’t exceed 2 million, and now after 10 years of war, the population here has sharply decreased to below 300,000.

So the planning isn’t very difficult. With an expert like you taking charge, it can be done in a few months,” Bricklayer flattered on the side:

“If you go with us to register with the Regent now, you’ll be the chief architect of Transia. You’ve never taken on such a big job in reality, right? How exciting is this? And the NPCs basically don’t interfere with our planning, the freedom in this aspect is super high!

You can even build a pyramid in Transia if you want, as long as the reason is appropriate, it can be approved.”

“Nonsense!”

Old Chen admonished:

“Where would they find enough manpower here to build a pyramid? With their current small population, it’s already difficult to build this city, and this job isn’t as easy as you think.

Before I start mapping, I need to walk around the entire Transia area, look at the topography here, and also need some local chronicles and such. You two should follow me for some field trips next.”

“It’s chaotic out there,” Grayman shook his head and said:

“Other players are still eradicating gnolls now. If you want to go out, the NPCs won’t let you. It takes 3 days to respawn after dying once, which is too time-consuming. Why don’t you go check out the collective farms first?

Let’s three master and apprentices settle this matter first to show the NPCs the capabilities of our ‘Stonemason’s Guild’, then we’ll talk about the whole Transia affair.

I think this is the main quest for us administrative players.

Combat professions need to pacify the threats on this land, manufacturing players need to make this place prosperous, and we administrative players are responsible for construction. This game has actually made clear the gameplay for various professional factions from the beginning.”

“I don’t understand much of what you’re saying, but everyone doing their part is obviously a good thing,” Old Chen nodded and said:

“It seems the NPCs in this game are really intelligent.”

“They’re not just intelligent, professor. Take a look at this first,” Grayman grinned and handed several planning drawings to Professor Chen. The latter took them and glanced at them, then frowned and said:

“What is this drawn here? A child’s scribble? If this house design were actually built, I’d write my name backwards if it could withstand one rainstorm without collapsing.”

“Hehe, this was drawn by my ‘apprentice’,” Grayman said proudly while scratching his head, but was glared at fiercely by Old Chen, who said:

“Don’t you know your own level? Still teaching apprentices, you’re misleading the younger generation!”

“It’s a professional quest, professor,” Bricklayer sighed continuously and said:

“We have to take apprentices. Grayman took 5, I took 6, all smart boys and girls carefully selected by Lady Miriam from the camp. We need to get them to pass the ‘Junior Architect Assessment’ within 3 months.

It’s not just us.

All administrative and manufacturing players have to take apprentices.

This is part of the professional gameplay. This damn game always makes these details particularly realistic. Those kids are quite eager to learn, but all kinds of problems give us headaches.

I feel it’s almost the same as the apprentices in the old society. Anyway, Regent Miriam’s original words were that if their learning progress is unsatisfactory or they disobey our orders, we can even use corporal punishment or send them to prison.”

“What?” The old professor’s eyes widened as he exclaimed:

“Have games become so crazy now? Doesn’t this violate the relevant legal regulations?”

“That’s why we say this game is real,” Grayman sighed and said:

“You’ll understand when you play longer. Anyway, there’s always been a saying on the forum that the underlying logic of this game is designed to completely mimic the operation mode of the real world in the Middle Ages.

The development team has been emphasizing that their goal is to create a 100% real virtual world. Some people even guess that this might be a big project with national backing, aiming to develop the legendary ‘Second Life’ to alleviate various social contradictions in the real world and such.

Anyway, they blow their own horn with vivid details.”

“100% real? Is that possible?” Old Chen hesitated for a moment, then asked in a low voice:

“Have you two tried making cement here?”

“Huh?” The two graduate students looked at each other, not quite understanding their teacher’s meaning. Professor Chen walked forward while reminding them:

“Don’t underestimate cement. Although its manufacturing process isn’t difficult, the various materials and preparation processes involved all follow physical laws. I believe current technology can simulate a relatively realistic virtual reality, but if they want to create a 100% realistic environment, they need to put effort into these invisible foundations.

A completely real world cannot be built on the basis of illusory world rules.

In other words, if you can make cement in this game, it proves that the development team isn’t joking.

They are really seriously simulating the basic logic of the real world’s operation, and have even simulated the physical and chemical laws of the ubiquitous substances that make up the world.

To put it more mysteriously, it’s gone from ‘looking like’ to the level of ‘truly meticulous’.

To be honest, I don’t quite believe they can achieve this step. Just the manpower and resources needed to simulate the real world to this extent are too great, but it doesn’t prevent you two from trying in your spare time.

Also, I just had an idea.”

Old Chen stood by a weathered ruin in the inner city area, casually picked up a cracked wooden board from the ground, looking at the faintly visible patterns on it, he said:

“You two have about 2 years until graduation, so let’s make the urban planning of Transia your graduation project.

What you two said earlier is right, this old man can’t mobilize so much manpower and resources in reality for you two to practice, but in this very realistic game, you already have all the conditions that building designers dream of.

Complete it as perfectly as possible!

Such a big project, whether from the design perspective or the project management and personnel mobilization experience in implementation, material allocation and other details, is invaluable wealth for you.

If you do well, I won’t hold back your graduation and I’ll write you job recommendation letters.”

He turned back to Grayman and Bricklayer with a smile and said:

“Don’t look at me as just an ordinary teacher now, I still have some connections in several design institutes, so, for the sake of your future, work hard.”

“Oh…”

The two guys were momentarily struck by lightning, they now deeply regretted pulling Old Chen into the game and letting him see the vast world of Transia.

What to do now!

What was originally supposed to be writing a thesis and doing a few designs to graduate has suddenly upgraded to this hellish difficulty?

“Ah, um… Professor, can we call for help?” Grayman scratched his head and said:

“Like our senior schoolmates who have graduated before, we two alone really can’t handle this job.”

“Ha? Dream on!” Old Chen, wearing novice boxer shorts, put his hands on his hips and said:

“Don’t you have your own apprentices? Don’t you like to teach? Figure it out yourselves, if you dare to call for help, forget about graduating. Don’t think it’s difficult, just as you said earlier, the current state of Transia waiting to be rebuilt is like a blank canvas, allowing you to wield your brush freely.

So, be bold, don’t be afraid of making mistakes.

I’m here, I’ll remind you two before you make a big mess.”

“That’s right, don’t be afraid of making mistakes, be bold and do it!”

In the night sky above the three, the Blood Vulture Spirit Revnor flew by silently.

Through its eyes and perception, Murphy heard the conversation between this master and two apprentices. Sitting in the office of the halls, he smiled like a fox who had stolen a chicken, and said in a drawling voice:

“Even I, the local lord, am not afraid, what are you afraid of! Splash your knowledge and your creativity freely on this land waiting to be rebuilt. Everyone will thank you, my warriors!”