Chapter 96 - 94: Shock of the Changing Terrain

Chapter 96: Chapter 94: Shock of the Changing Terrain

[Lord’s Mansion (Level 1): Protects the lord’s safety, increases resident trust, stabilizes public morale, and increases work efficiency by 20%.]

He found the description of the Lord’s Mansion a little strange, but the new addition certainly met his needs.

’So that means as long as I’m in the village and the Lord’s Mansion isn’t destroyed, I won’t be in any danger.

And any employee who joins Lin Xian Village will subconsciously come to trust and protect it.

This is pretty incredible! It’s almost like a special attribute, being able to change people’s minds.’

If someone with ulterior motives were to join Lin Xian Village, the longer they worked there, the more they would gradually be conditioned to protect it.

’Not bad, not bad. From now on, I won’t have to worry about new hires slacking off or cutting corners.’

After reviewing the Lord’s Mansion’s status, he searched again for the special reward for the terrain and environmental changes, but he couldn’t find anything.

’What the hell? The mission is complete, but there’s no reward?’

Unable to find it, he could only check the newly refreshed village upgrade quest. His expression immediately soured.

[Upgrade Conditions: Population reaches 100, all buildings constructed, all village buildings reach Level 2.]

’The other buildings are no problem, but where am I supposed to build a Wharf? I can’t just build one on a mountain.’

Lin Feng pictured it. If he really built something like that, everyone would surely think he had a screw loose.

But the upgrade conditions required it, so it seemed his only option was to pick a spot and build the Wharf in a rather unique way.

’Well, I’ve got my work cut out for me.’

He planned to take a look tomorrow and focus on upgrading all the completed buildings to Level 2 first.

After all, he didn’t need to alter the buildings themselves, just add an item to upgrade them.

As Lin Feng walked down the mountain, he failed to notice the unknown changes taking place on South Mountain, right before his eyes.

His mission reward had, in fact, already been delivered; he just hadn’t seen it.

...

The night passed quietly, and when Lin Feng woke up the next morning, he was greeted by a surprise.

[Lin Xian Tea (Basic Specialty): Lightly promotes digestion, improves vascular elasticity, and sharpens the mind for clearer thinking. Long-term consumption can slightly improve internal organ function.]

"Holy shit! How did I get a specialty product?"

The surprise came so suddenly that he scrambled to check the previous night’s logs. He discovered that the specialty product had appeared abruptly, three hours after the Lord’s Mansion upgrade.

He had been a bit down because the village upgrade hadn’t triggered a specialty product, but now he’d gotten one anyway.

’Don’t tell me the specialty product was held up because the basic construction wasn’t finished!’

He had assumed that every village upgrade was supposed to reward him with a specialty product.

Now it seemed the appearance of a specialty product was related to the village upgrade, but not a direct result of it.

Given the powerful effects of the Jade Grapes, Lin Feng didn’t dare underestimate the potential of Lin Xian Tea.

Promoting digestion meant food would be processed faster, which in turn meant the body would absorb nutrients more quickly.

Improving vascular elasticity was self-explanatory, as many diseases are related to it.

As for how "sharpening the mind for clearer thinking" differed from the spirit-boosting effect of the Jade Grapes, he would have to get his hands on some Lin Xian Tea and try it to find out.

The last function—and the most important one—was improving the body’s internal organs. The health benefits from that would be immense.

This Lin Xian Tea specialty was surprisingly user-friendly, requiring him to manually ’bind’ the effect to the tea trees to improve them.

For him, having manual control was an absolute boon, as it would help him avoid a lot of potential trouble.

What’s more, it started him off with five mu of land, not just one mu like the Jade Grapes had.

"KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK."

"Boss, come out, quick! Something big has happened!"

"What is it?"

Lin Feng quickly threw on some clothes, opened the door, and looked at the employee standing outside.

"Boss, you have to go see South Mountain! It collapsed!"

"South Mountain collapsed?"

"Yeah! A huge hole collapsed right at the base of South Mountain, and now the valley in front of the village is a lake."

Lin Feng headed toward the front of the village. When he saw the enormous cavern at the base of the distant mountain, he froze in place.

There hadn’t been the slightest sound last night. It made him think of the missing mission reward. ’Could this be it?’

This... this reward was a bit too much. It had just carved a massive hole right out of the mountainside. That was excessive.

A large crowd was gathered in the plaza at the front of the village, staring at the distant mountain. A hole, nearly ten meters wide, had been bored straight through the entire mountain.

"Did you guys hear anything last night?"

"Not a thing! We really didn’t hear anything. This is terrifying!"

"It’s unbelievable. A landslide of this magnitude, and it was completely silent."

"Hey, when are the boats getting here?"

"Professor, maybe we should wait. It might still be dangerous."

"..."

The cacophony of voices snapped Lin Feng back to his senses. He looked out at the valley that had become a lake.

"Boss Lin is here! Do you have any video of the other side? Could you let us see it?"

"This is incredible. To think there wasn’t a single sound last night."

A group of professors surrounded Lin Feng, intensely curious about what had happened the previous night.

They had just finished asking several people living in the village, and everyone said they hadn’t heard a thing all night.

"I’m not sure if any of our cameras were pointing in that direction last night."

"Then let’s go check the security room! Maybe a camera was pointing that way and recorded what happened."

Lin Feng wanted to go check by himself first, but he couldn’t just refuse them while they were all crowded around him.

He thought for a moment. ’There probably won’t be any miraculous phenomenon to see. The system upgrades are always so subtle.’

"Alright, let’s go to the security room and take a look."

All the curious onlookers followed Lin Feng to the security room, packing the small building to the brim while many more crowded around outside.

They quickly found a camera pointed toward South Mountain, but the distance was great, and the footage wasn’t very clear.

"The collapse started a little after 2 a.m. See? The water’s gushing out. There must be a karst cave under this mountain."

Lin Feng also watched the blurry footage with curiosity. The mountain hadn’t collapsed suddenly; instead, it had caved in slowly, bit by bit, like sand in an hourglass.

The process took a little over two hours to form the cavern they were now seeing.

"So that’s how it happened. No wonder it was completely silent."

"Professor, does that mean there’s a huge karst cave system under here?"

"Most likely. There’s an underground river down there, and constant erosion from the current caused the internal collapse we’re seeing now.

This kind of event is quite rare. As soon as the boat gets here, we’ll take our equipment and go investigate."

Lin Feng asked, "Given the situation, is Lin Xian Village in any danger?"

"It depends on the groundwater. If the water level doesn’t rise any further today, Lin Xian Village is in no danger at all."

They had inspected the geography and topography of the Lin Xian Village area countless times, and they were certain there had been no karst caves beneath the mountain.

Furthermore, the subterranean geology was solid bedrock, with no volcanic activity. Even if the water rose, it wouldn’t threaten Lin Xian Village.

The water would simply flow out through other fissures, though it might affect the highway below.

At that moment, countless videos and photos were being uploaded to the internet by village employees and tourists staying in Lin Xian Village.

The news spread like wildfire online. Many tourists who had been on their way to Lin Xian Village for the day found the posts and accelerated the spread of the information even further.

Wuyuan County authorities quickly got wind of the news. They dispatched personnel to Lin Xian Village and began intercepting tourists en route.

Until they had a clear picture of the situation, they didn’t dare let any tourists in. This, in turn, caused the would-be visitors to frantically inquire about what was happening in Lin Xian Village.

The buzz was growing rapidly. It was clear that Lin Xian Village was about to be a trending topic again.