Chapter 144: The Great Net

After sending Li Kuang and Lei Yan away, Lu Sheng began taking care of his own affairs.

His true body no longer needed to remain on Altar Mountain. He now had two choices: return to the camp and live out a leisurely retirement, or reside in sub-dimensional space, where he would be absolutely safe.

His spatial coordinates could now support two fixed points. He placed one on his clone and the other in his room.

From then on, returning to the camp would take no more than a thought.

After considering it, Lu Sheng made his choice without hesitation. His safety was the most important thing.

He would enter sub-dimensional space to recuperate, raise pets, cultivate flowers and plants, and grow vegetables.

His clone would venture through the outside world in his place. In this way, his life would be completely secure.

Since his main consciousness remained with the clone, staying in sub-dimensional space for a long time would not drive him into isolation. Besides, caring for living things would also dispel that hidden danger.

He did not bother returning his true body to the camp. He entered sub-dimensional space directly from Altar Mountain. Returning to the camp would be only a thought away, so there was no need to make things complicated.

Thus, his true body could cultivate in peace while his clone searched for resources.

With the two working together, Lu Sheng’s strength would increase much faster.

The only inconvenience was that the clone could not obtain cards directly. Whenever a card was acquired, it appeared with the true body, which was troublesome.

Lu Sheng could only accumulate cards for a while, then exchange bodies and hand them over to the clone.

After finishing these arrangements, Lu Sheng went peacefully to sleep.

He had fallen asleep, but some people had not.

Li Kuang and the others, who had received Lu Sheng’s support, were all cultivating desperately.

With large quantities of spirit fruits assisting them, their cultivation rose at astonishing speed.

Lei Yan and Li Kuang followed the same plan.

They would first raise a small number of elites to the fifth rank. The others did not need to hurry, but they had to reach at least the third rank.

A single fifth-rank spirit fruit was enough to raise one person to the third rank, not to mention that Lu Sheng had already given them spirit fruits once before.

The next day.

The first people Lu Sheng saw after waking were Li Kuang and Lei Yan.

As usual, they had come to report on their cultivation progress.

This was something Lu Sheng had specifically instructed them to do. The reports would also make it easier for him to arrange their duties.

Establishing an intelligence network from scratch would be difficult, but directly using an existing one might conceal dangers.

The best solution, therefore, was to place his own people within it.

There was no need to question Lei Yan’s loyalty. In Lu Sheng’s eyes, it was essentially beyond doubt.

As for Li Kuang, Lu Sheng did not believe there would be any major problem while watching his strength grow step by step.

Li Kuang was also highly intelligent. He had managed a thousand-person settlement in perfect order. Anyone capable of that had to possess a sharp mind.

Only after cultivating these people could Lu Sheng’s intelligence network become truly foolproof.

When it came to fighting, he could handle matters alone. What he needed was intelligence.

At present, even the weakest among Li Kuang, Lei Yan, and the others had reached the third rank. Such strength might once have been acceptable, but now the number of monsters throughout the world had suddenly multiplied.

This level of strength was no longer enough.

In Lu Sheng’s view, they needed to reach at least the fifth rank before they could be of real use.

His method of cultivation was simple: pour resources into them.

He once again gave Li Kuang and Lei Yan fifteen hundred fifth-rank spirit fruits each and let them distribute them as they saw fit.

After that, the points in Lu Sheng’s possession were reduced to only a few million.

He also discovered that the rate at which he earned points was slowing. This was probably because the number of low-rank monsters nearby was gradually decreasing.

The bloodthirsty mosquitoes needed time to fly farther afield, and more accidents occurred along the way, causing their numbers to fall.

After the last appearance of massive beams of light, no more monsters appeared in that monster world. Since the beams had stopped descending, not even a single dungeon had appeared again.

Lu Sheng had no idea what was going on. In any case, he felt that nothing good would come of it.

The beams would surely appear again, and the monsters would surely return. As for when that would happen, even Lu Sheng did not know.

All he could do now was improve his strength with everything he had, racing against time.

After dealing with Li Kuang and Lei Yan, Lu Sheng sought out Xiong Dabiao and Zhuo Lei.

They had discussed establishing the World-Extinguishing Alliance the previous day. Although time was pressing, he still needed to devote some attention to it.

Lu Sheng hurried over to the two men.

“How are things?”

“Leader, why are you in such a rush? Is something urgent?” Xiong Dabiao continued, “Actually, if you have something urgent to handle, you can simply send your monster subordinates. It is not as though they lack intelligence.”

“Once monsters reach the sixth rank, they are intelligent lifeforms in their own right. They gain basic intelligence at the third rank and can completely understand human speech.”

Lu Sheng suddenly froze.

Xiong Dabiao’s words had abruptly awakened him.

Why had he never thought of letting his subordinates hunt monsters on their own?

Why had he insisted on leading them personally?

The more he thought about it, the more excited he became, and the tension in his heart eased considerably.

Sometimes, using the right method was far more effective than charging forward blindly.

He had been leading more than three hundred sixth-rank monsters on sweeping expeditions, which was nothing but a waste of manpower. Most of the time, they were dealing with only one or two sixth-rank monsters.

Dividing his monsters into multiple groups would yield much better results.

After roughly forming the framework of a monster army, Lu Sheng turned his attention back to the matter at hand.

“We have already contacted them, and they have agreed to gather together. They will all come tomorrow.” Seeing that Lu Sheng had not spoken, Xiong Dabiao answered his question.

Zhuo Lei followed up. “The people on my side will come tomorrow as well, together with those Xiong Dabiao contacted.”

Both men knew people from District 21, so it was only natural that the two groups were acquainted and would come together.

Lu Sheng nodded. “Good. Then we’ll leave it at that. If anything happens, use the transmission bugs to inform me.”

Under the eyes of Xiong Dabiao and Zhuo Lei, Lu Sheng left the meeting room and hurried away once more.

“Why is Lord Lu Sheng always in such a rush?”

“I have no idea. Perhaps something important came up.”

Xiong Dabiao could not guess what Lu Sheng intended to do, and he did not plan to waste time thinking about it. He only needed to do his own job well.

Lu Sheng was hurrying back, of course, to organize his forces.

He divided the more than three hundred sixth-rank monsters in his possession into twenty teams.

Each team consisted of fifteen sixth-rank monsters and was equipped with one hundred and fifty thousand bloodthirsty mosquitoes. The mosquitoes would deal with the low-rank monsters, while the fifteen sixth-rank monsters would handle any sixth-rank opponents.

Afterward, Lu Sheng had sent out three hundred sixth-rank monsters, leaving five seventh-rank monsters and fifty sixth-rank monsters behind.

He also sent out three million bloodthirsty mosquitoes. These were the mosquitoes that had matured the previous night. He had long since fulfilled the conditions for the fifth-rank mosquitoes to act freely, so after being sent out, they would naturally return in a day and a half.

Lu Sheng dispatched all twenty teams. With fifteen sixth-rank monsters in each, they were more than capable of dealing with the current situation in the wilderness.

To prevent accidents, Lu Sheng instructed the monsters in each team to kill themselves if they encountered a danger they could not resist.

If they discovered a large gathering of monsters, they could also kill themselves and return to report the news.

With that, the intelligence problem was temporarily solved.

All the monsters he had dispatched formed a vast net, while the monsters in the wilderness were fish.

He intended to cast that net over a wide area and catch every monster at once.

If there were any great fish the net could not hold, he would personally step in and eliminate them.

Through this process of conquest and assimilation, Lu Sheng believed that he would soon wipe out every monster across this stretch of wilderness.

The monsters he killed would become his subordinates, and his subordinates would not die easily.

By using battle to sustain battle, it would not take long for all of District 13 to belong to him.

After that, he could attack the other districts in the same manner.

His strength would then increase tremendously in a very short time.

All he needed to do was remain at home, refine the resources his monsters brought back, and raise the strength of his true body as quickly as possible.

Xiong Dabiao and Zhuo Lei had just left the meeting room when a squad of sixth-rank monsters came toward them.

Seeing that the group was heading outside, and knowing that they were Lu Sheng’s subordinates, the two men stepped aside to let them pass.

But as soon as one squad had gone by, another emerged.

Just as the two men were about to leave, yet another squad appeared.

In the end, they simply stopped moving and decided to see how many subordinates Lu Sheng had dispatched.

As they stood there watching the monster squads depart, their shock grew with every passing moment.

Every one of them was a sixth-rank monster.

Each squad contained fifteen sixth-rank monsters.

How many squads had already passed before their eyes?

Ten.

Ten squads had already gone out.

And more continued to stream forth from inside.

The two men exchanged a glance, unable to suppress the shock in their eyes.

“How many sixth-rank subordinates did Lord Lu Sheng have last time?”

“I think it was forty.”

“And now?”

“There are already more than one hundred and fifty...”

The two men swallowed hard. This was even more astonishing than the five seventh-rank monsters they had seen the previous day.

After watching for a while, they exchanged another glance and broke into laughter.

“Those arrogant fellows are going to suffer this time.”

“Ha-ha! Lord Lu Sheng is definitely going to cure them of that arrogance once and for all.”

The leaders of the forces they had accepted would not, of course, be complete fools.

But once a person had occupied a position of power for long enough, some arrogance was inevitable.

That illness was easy to cure. The moment they encountered someone stronger, they would immediately become obedient and dare not cause trouble.

“I wonder how Lord Lu Sheng plans to deal with them.”

“Who knows? Still, I should notify a few of my friends. Whether they listen to me or not will no longer be my concern.”

“Exactly. I’ll notify some of my friends too.”

The two men exchanged mischievous smiles.

Although they warned their friends not to act too arrogantly, for some reason, they secretly hoped those friends would be a little arrogant.

They waited for a while. Only after no more monster squads emerged did they prepare to walk inside.

At the same time, they carefully memorized the number of monsters that had marched out.

Never before had they felt that their mathematics and patience were so exceptional.

This was the first time since taking their current positions that they had ever yielded the way to “people.”

A full twenty squads of monsters.

Three hundred sixth-rank monsters.

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