Absolute Beast Dominion - Chapter 397: Territory Bounty - 2

Chapter 397: Territory Bounty – 2

4 February, 501 AP

These past days, Leo had been busy completely consuming the Elasian Blooms after giving one petal each to Kaelion and Miho. Lily received 1 whole flower to consume over the span of the month, while he kept the rest for himself to consume whenever he could.

Tavian had finished the array and formation setups in the outer circle (the area outside the plateau). These included alarms, explosions, astral chains, and even a formation that would make an intruder fall into a pitfall the moment they stepped onto it. The pitfall itself was laced with sharp earthen spikes. Some arrays outright boxed the intruder inside an earthen room devoid of oxygen, condemning them to a slow death. Tavian could have made more advanced arrays, but the cost of maintaining such formations would be astronomical in the long run, especially when Leo didn’t have a stable supply of money.

So after basic frameworks for omnidirectional sensing array, he departed to handle business in his own territory.

As for the illusion arrays in the inner circle (the plateau area), he would begin working on them today. But before that, he needed to snap out of his awe-struck stupor.

“What the hell? How are you people so developed already?!” Tavian exclaimed, staring down at the water pool that had initially been made by Leo. For ease of reference, they called it the general water pool, while the one Lily constructed for the elves in the other corner was referred to as the water pool for female territory members.

In practice, however, only the elves and occasionally Miho would use it. Lily had raised sturdy earthen walls around the pool, which the elves later decorated so that no one could peek inside.

“You even have such exquisite houses!” Tavian added when he reached Leo and Lily’s home. As he roamed around, his eyes kept widening, and they nearly popped out when he felt the mana density skyrocket as he neared a certain location.

“What the fuck! You even have a Low Purple-tier Fluxsoil Heart as your territory beacon? Are we even living in the same world?!” Tavian blurted, completely astonished. He barely had a Low Green-tier territory beacon, and here was Leo.

Then he realized Leo even possessed a Mid-Green tier treasure that could qualify as another beacon—the Blueleaf.

“Wow… even your spare beacon, the one you want to use as bait, is ranked higher than mine…”

It was common practice to gather more treasures that boosted the surrounding mana density over time so that a territory could rank up. But Leo was already so far ahead that catching up now seemed impossible. Just in the past few days, Tavian had noticed a highly diligent alchemist crafting potions nonstop to sell in the academy for credits. Leo had even instructed that some traps be built around her house to keep her protected.

If I had to guess, his territory is already in the blue ranks. I’m very curious to see what rank it will be given after the bounty… Tavian thought. The territory prosperity ranking reward was issued at the end of every year, so he still had nearly 11 months to try and catch up.

But that alchemist… where did he find such talent?

A hint of jealousy crept into Tavian’s thoughts. Even though Leo had fewer members, the quality was simply too high. Even the elves, aside from their combat prowess, excelled at crafting exceptional bows and arrows from materials they themselves grew through their wood power—and they were slaves.

It’s literally free money…

Now even Tavian began to consider whether he should throw out some of the useless members he had taken in just to boost numbers and instead become more selective, like Leo.

What Tavian failed to take into account, however, was that Leo had to spend nearly 10K AC to keep the elves well-fed. More importantly, the elves were genuinely happy and satisfied, which allowed them to work so diligently. But compared to what they provided, that 10K cost was negligible.

Just a day ago, Leo had curiously taken a newly crafted arrow from Sylrael and asked about its price in Aurelius Hall.

The specialist had been visibly surprised by the craftsmanship. Though the arrow looked simple, the sturdiness and structure of its metallic arrowhead were nothing short of genius.

The aerodynamics of the head minimized resistance and allowed it to travel with minimal sound, making it almost undetectable—especially if wind magic was used to mask any disturbance. The arrowhead, despite seeming stronger than most metals, was remarkably light, allowing the arrow to travel even farther.

“It’s a great arrow. The arrowhead seems to be made of extremely strong material! If used by the right individual, it could even be effective against a 4-star beast. It would definitely sell for at least 2000 AC per piece,” the specialist said, his eyes gleaming.

Leo sucked in a breath. That was nearly 80 silver coins for a single arrow. The reason they were so expensive was that arrows could be retrieved after a beast was killed and reused, making them viable for prolonged use.

The elves produced around 100 of these arrows per day. Since Sylrael deemed arrow-making equally important as combat—being their primary weapon—she had assigned 4 elves everytime to work on them in rotating shifts.

This meant they were producing nearly 200,000 AC worth of arrows every day.

Leo had immediately gone to Lily, and after discussing it with her, they decided to supply all the avian beasts’ steel-like feathers to the elves.

The collected feathers alone amounted to more than 20 million AC if sold, as some of the fallen beasts were High 4-star, and their massive bodies naturally yielded a huge number of feathers. A single feather could be used to craft more than a hundred arrowheads. And they had more than a few dozen thousand such feathers stored in Leo’s spiritual space.

This investment was far too lucrative to ignore. Not to mention, the arrows would naturally enhance their territory’s overall firepower.

“What? There’s someone dumb enough not to be able to avoid these pointers even after knowing their exact location?” Tavian muttered, frowning in confusion after explaining to Leo about the astral chains, illusion arrays, and alarm traps he planned to set in the plateau’s interior region.