Endless Winter: My Camp Upgrades Infinitely

Chapter 1155: Chapter 394: Exploration Competition—Winning Respect Isn’t So Easy (Part 2)

Under such circumstances, it was inevitable that hunting teams from the two towns would clash deep in the mountains.

Since the battle at Dajue Temple at the end of last year, Jiangxia suffered a great loss, with at least three or four thousand Cold Resistance Level individuals dying. The entire town’s Cold Resistance Level members now numbered less than two thousand. They still had to manage the over one-hundred-kilometer entrance to the mountains, leaving only thirty or so advanced hunting teams around Baisong Camp.

However, in He Yin Village, the Great Xia boasted over a hundred advanced hunting teams.

In such conflicts, Jiangxia was naturally at a disadvantage.

Initially, the first five or six conflicts were mere verbal disputes. Plus, the higher-ups in Jiangxia seemed to have given instructions for tolerance, as their hunters kept holding back, preventing the situation from escalating further.

But gradually, things started to change.

The advanced teams from the Great Xia began snatching Jiangxia’s prey, becoming increasingly arrogant and even starting to stake out territories within Moao Mountain, forbidding the people of Jiangxia Town from hunting there.

This only worsened the situation.

By the end of July, when an advanced hunting team from the Great Xia saw a Jiangxia team enter their marked hunting zone, they immediately tried to drive them away. Jiangxia’s side retorted, leading to a brawl from what was initially a verbal altercation.

Of course, Great Xia was the first to make a move.

The final result was predictable. Although Jiangxia’s team was also an advanced hunting team with a total of 25 members, only 4 were at the Cold Resistance Level; whereas the Great Xia team had 39 members, with 7 at the Cold Resistance Level.

It was fortunate that Great Xia didn’t go too far and only severely injured a few.

Yet, the Jiangxia team, growing more infuriated after the incident, went that very night to ask for help from Baisong Camp, and caught the Great Xia hunting team off guard, injuring a few of them in revenge.

This back-and-forth quickly escalated the situation!

In the end, more than thirty advanced hunting teams from the Great Xia ended up ignoring everything else, spending their days in the mountains searching for Jiangxia’s hunting teams. They not only took all of their prey but also severely beat them, threatening them not to hunt.

This ultimately forced Jiang YuanDong, the Deputy Army Chief stationed at Baisong Camp from Jiangxia, to personally go to Bashang City to find Deputy Director Xu Ning.

Due to Bashang City’s special status, there was no Defender appointed, so it was overseen by Yuwen Dao, Director of the Military Department, and Xu Ning, Deputy Director of the Garrison Department.

Yuwen Dao was busy with military affairs all day, so naturally, he had no time to attend to this, leaving the actual governance in Bashang to Xu Ning.

Upon hearing about the events occurring in He Yin Village, Xu Ning was shocked, being well aware of Xia Hong’s ambitions for Jiangxia Town. Discovering such a major conflict between the hunting teams, he immediately ordered the presence of Mountain Yu of the Bashang Hunting Bureau and He Yin Village Defense Commander Xiao Kangcheng to inquire about the situation of the hunting teams in He Yin Village.

"I don’t know! I haven’t been to He Yin Village in half a month."

To everyone’s surprise, Xiao Kangcheng was completely unaware of the matter!

The issue in He Yin Village was solely the result of spontaneous organization by the advanced hunting teams of the Great Xia. Upon realizing this, Jiang Yuandong felt incredibly complex emotions, adjusting his perception of the Great Xia’s capabilities to a new level.

Ultimately, Xu Ning gave Jiang Yuandong a satisfactory answer, stating that the two towns are now as close as family, and such a small problem as hunting should not cause disharmony. He ordered Xiao Kangcheng to quickly rectify He Yin Village’s situation.

Naturally, Xiao Kangcheng had no objections. Although he didn’t know as much as Xu Ning, he could surmise the Lord’s plans for Jiangxia, realizing that minor issues like this should not hinder the Lord’s grand design.

Thus, he immediately went to He Yin Village, stopping the behavior of those advanced hunting teams and imposing strict requirements on them to not proactively instigate conflicts with Jiangxia Town’s hunting team members. He also had the person who first made a move against Jiangxia apologize, thereby resolving the matter.

Even after this, Xiao Kangcheng felt it wasn’t a thorough resolution. To avoid further conflict between the two towns’ advanced hunting teams, he divided the twenty-kilometer mountain entrance from the north to the south into two sections. All advanced teams were only allowed entry through the southern ten kilometers, while the northern ten kilometers adjacent to Jiangxia were restricted to middle and low-level hunting teams.

With this arrangement, the conflicts between the two towns were completely resolved.

However, solving this problem brought about a new issue.

That is, the exploration speed to the north drastically slowed down!

This was to be expected; after all, it had previously been done by advanced hunting teams, and now being replaced by middle and low-level teams naturally lowered the exploration efficiency.

Exploration efficiency is crucial as it affects the rate of new species discovery and determines the operational range and efficiency of material acquisition for stationed personnel, all of which are decisive factors for He Yin Village’s monthly profit values.

Profit values are directly related to the annual evaluations of all Defense Envoys.

Due to the mass discovery of new species in Moao Mountain, He Yin has become the most popular post in Great Xia, with its profit figures jumping to fifth place among all posts since being established in July.

At this rate, making the top ten by the end of the year shouldn’t be a problem.

Xiao Kangcheng had worked hard to be transferred from Zhaoyang to Bashang, not only rising to become Mountain Yu of the Bashang Hunting Bureau but also concurrently serving as He Yin’s Defense Envoy. With all eyes on him now, there were already rumors in Xia City suggesting that it was due to his Minister father-in-law’s influence that he landed such a good position, with many people eyeing his position, waiting for him to make a mistake.

In such circumstances, Xiao Kangcheng naturally treaded with caution, eager to manage every aspect of He Yin Station excellently.

The slowdown in exploration efficiency was intolerable to him.

But redirecting advanced hunting teams back could again cause conflict with Jiangxia. What should he do? Moreover, such frequent changes in orders would only prove his incompetence as a Defense Envoy.

After much contemplation, he came up with an exploration competition.

He selected elites at the Earth-digging Realm Limit from all the middle and high-level hunting teams, forming temporary teams, and divided the entire ten-kilometer mountain entrance to the north into different regions, letting these teams conduct focused exploration.

Naturally, as a Defense Envoy, he didn’t have the authority to implement such plans, so he approached Xu Ning, the de facto governor of Bashang. Xu Ning, upon learning of the plan, immediately gave his support and personally communicated back to the Xia City Camp Needs Department to request resources for the competition rewards.

Coincidentally, Xia Chuan learned of this matter.

Adding fuel to the fire, Xia Chuan directly authorized the Camp Needs Department to allocate Dan Medicine worth a total of 300,000 Contribution Points, alongside various cultivation resources for the competition, and even publicly announced the competition in Xia City.

As a result, the He Yin exploration competition quickly became popular.

After all, 300,000 contribution points were at stake, and given that the He Yin station was already quite popular, this led to a surge of Earth-digging Realm Limit elites from all middle and high-level hunting teams descending upon He Yin.

Today, the Earth-digging Realm Limit elites in Great Xia cannot be compared with those from a few years ago.

The elements for Cold Resistance Level cultivation are well-known, so to secure higher Battle Body Talent qualifications, anyone with some talent and sufficient resources generally opts to hold off on advancing, to fully exploit the Reshaping Skin process to its limits.

Those meeting both these criteria are usually the youngest and most outstanding individuals in Xia City, with relatively good backgrounds.

According to Xiao Hen’s understanding, over 400 people came to participate in the He Yin exploration competition this time, most of them around the age of twenty, the youngest being fifteen and the oldest no more than twenty-five.

The age is secondary, but the crux of the matter is these individuals’ cultivation levels!

Their basic strength is generally above fifty thousand pounds, with a few even surpassing one hundred thousand pounds.

Take Xiao Hen himself for instance; his basic strength is over ninety thousand pounds, making him top-tier in intermediate Battle Body Talent. He initially thought he was doing pretty well, capable of ranking within the top five if not the top three.

However, the reality was that he couldn’t even make the top ten.

This was without even considering age!

Take Luo An, for example. Despite having a basic strength of only sixty-one thousand pounds, he wasn’t yet sixteen years old this year, while Xiao Hen was already twenty-two.

In his team of sixteen, thirteen of them had a basic strength over fifty thousand pounds, and that wasn’t all; the ages were crucial.

He was the oldest among the sixteen.

Thinking of this, Xiao Hen glanced at his cousin, Xiao Yan, with a sense of defeat in his eyes.

His cousin Xiao Yan was not yet sixteen this year, but his basic strength had already reached forty-six thousand pounds. At this rate, unless his Battle Body Talent was lacking, it was only a matter of time before he surpassed him.

Sigh...

Thinking of this, he let out a small sigh, feeling embarrassed to refute the others’ words.