"Lord, may we ask if there is anything you need us to do for you?"
When the subjects saw Ethan return, they immediately gathered around him again.
This made Ethan feel even more uneasy.
Right now he only wanted to understand what exactly had happened, so he simply told the subjects to wait where they were, then went upstairs by himself to get the magic book.
"Something must have happened in the Fog World when I was sleeping."
He went upstairs.
Ethan quickly retrieved the magic book placed by the bedside.
The moment he opened it.
He immediately received quite a few notifications.
[A7 District player Ethan (ID: 888), congratulations on becoming the number one in District 7, you are automatically promoted to the Lord of District 7]
[Next is the regional elimination system. Districts 1 to 10 are directly renamed as A District, with the number of people filled to 1000 (10 lords among them), and the main duty of the lords is to lead the residents and players of District 7 to confront the other numbered districts in A District.]
[PS: A District will carry out a regional elimination match (time limit 15 days). The top three lords of A District can survive, and all the rest of the players will be eliminated. (They may choose to become territory residents or be erased)]
"Holy crap!"
"It's turned into a regional competition again, are they even giving people a way to live anymore?"
And regional confrontation was clearly far more difficult than before.
Previously he only needed to worry about himself alone, the so-called one eats enough, the whole family is not hungry.
But now he had to think of an entire District 7.
If the players in this district all turned out to be total slackers, wouldn't he also be dragged down?
And very likely, in the end, they would be wiped out by other districts and he would end up erased.
"What the hell!"
'So sneaky!'
'This damn Fog World just refuses to let anyone farm quietly.'
It had to force everyone into a guild model, high-level players carrying low-level players, then eliminating all the trash guilds.
But thinking about it, from now on, everything he needed to upgrade would only get more and more advanced.
The little bit he could harvest alone was definitely far from enough to support that, and the players of his original district, whether in combat power or equipment, were super weak. There was simply nothing worthwhile to squeeze out of them.
Now that he had become a lord, he had to find a way to improve the strength of District 7's players, get them to earn more money and kill more monsters.
That way he could squeeze them and actually get something out of it.
"Yes!"
"Not bad! Not bad!"
He could even come up with something like a shared economy.
These were all little streams of money.
Then, Ethan looked at the second private message.
[Eliminated players of District 7 may choose to become territory residents or die directly.]
[Becoming territory residents means their original consciousness will be erased, and they will become the lord's private property, tradable and enslaveable. (But not to be abused.)]
[District 7, number of people who voluntarily chose to become territory residents: 20]
[District 7 player Ethan (ID: 888), congratulations on becoming the most popular lord, you will receive an extra reward.]
[Residents +20]
"But I didn't even have to do anything?"
Ethan was a little confused.
'How did I become the most popular lord and even received 20 residents for free?'
He now immediately had 40 residents.
Ethan saw that beneath the announcement, there was even a lord ranking list.
He discovered that the number of residents for the first place was him, with a total of 40 people.
But the second lord's residents were only 21 (after adding the reward residents), almost half his number.
As for the lords beneath that, the number of residents decreased bit by bit.
After understanding things a bit, Ethan opened the third private message.
[Congratulations on obtaining the title of World's Number One Developer, and receiving the following rewards.]
[All Attributes Doubler Ticket +1]
[All Attributes Doubler Ticket: a scroll that permanently doubles your basic attributes.]
The last reward made Ethan's eyes light up.
"Finally something genuinely useful for me."
Most of what he had gained so far were external items.
Things that truly raised his actual ability were few, or practically none.
Now that he had the All Attributes Doubler Ticket, he could directly double his power. It was simply a timely rain. [T/N: It would be better to increase his stats to 50 or 100 and then double it, if it has no cap.]
But Ethan did not plan to use it immediately.
Because he still had some Red Dragon meat. He planned to eat some dragon meat first, then use the Doubler Ticket. Wouldn't that be equivalent to doubling the effect of the Red Dragon meat?
He really wanted to give himself a like for his cleverness.
"I'm so smart."
Since he now understood the source of the residents, Ethan naturally didn't reject them as much anymore.
After all, in the real world, if you wanted to hire 40 people to serve you, the price would be extremely high.
If you compared a lord to the boss of a company, then he had basically gotten 40 employees for free.
And these 40 employees didn't even require salaries, they just needed food.
———
He went downstairs.
Only then did Ethan carefully take another good look at his residents.
"Greetings, my lord."
The forty residents were very cooperative.
The moment Ethan walked downstairs, they immediately knelt on one knee in a neat and respectful greeting.
"Alright, everyone get up."
Ethan made a gesture, then swept his gaze over them again and found that among these residents there were both men and women, and the numbers seemed uneven.
To make their division of labor more suitable and clear.
Ethan said, "Men on the left, women on the right, stand separately, I'll count the numbers."
"Yes, my lord!"
All the residents responded.
But one person remained standing in the middle, looking left and right with hesitation, "Lord, may I ask where a ladyboy should stand?" [T/N: 😐]
"Men to the left, women to the right, ladyboys stand in the middle," Ethan glanced at him, "In a moment, whichever side needs you, you go there."
"Yes, my lord."
The ladyboy agreed.
But although he answered with his mouth, he muttered under his breath, "I'm not a brick, why should I move wherever they need me."
'Hm?'
At this moment.
Ethan noticed a red exclamation mark above the ladyboy's head.
He looked carefully.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
[Resident (ID 001): Gender: None]
[Special ability: Can foresee danger, suitable for exploring maps. As long as you give him a sharp dagger and enough torches, he will become your best help in exploring new areas.]
[Loyalty: 59 percent]
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Loyalty had dropped by 1 percent. Ethan hadn't expected it to fall so fast.
But considering that this person was actually a talent with a special ability, he decided to hurry and find a way to increase this person's loyalty.
Very soon, the residents had lined up exactly as Ethan requested.
Ethan was too lazy to count them himself, so he ordered the two lines to count off.
"One!"
"Two!"
"Three!"
"Fo..."
After they finished, Ethan finished counting as well.
There were 29 men, 10 women.
Not bad, more men and fewer women was definitely a good thing in a survival world.
It wasn't that Ethan discriminated against women, but he needed more men to do physical labor, such as quarrying stone, chopping wood, and so on.
Women's physical strength would always be a bit weaker.
But having no women wouldn't work either.
Because Ethan's villa still needed people to maintain it, and the residents' food, clothing, housing, and daily needs also required cooks, cleaners, and even medical personnel, and so on.
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