Endless Winter: My Camp Upgrades Infinitely

Chapter 914: Chapter 345: Mirror Valley Defense Commander Luo Ming, Beast Tide, Great Xia’s 6 Armies (Part 2)

Last June, Luo Ming led his team in Arrow Bamboo Forest to successfully hunt down an Advanced White Bear. It was the third type of Advanced Cold Beast they had hunted, so after submitting that White Bear to the Camp Supply Department of the Inner City Main Building, the Luoyang Team smoothly advanced to become the 508th Advanced Hunting Team under the Hunting Department.

Upon hearing the number 508, Luo Ming couldn’t help but smile bitterly. He thought that by advancing to an Advanced level, he, as the team leader, would have some standing in Great Xia. Not that he could enter the view of Lord Xia Hong, but at least Minister Xia Chuan and the Hunting Department Director would notice him.

Clearly, he was thinking too much.

Buried inside Luo Ming was some frustration. In the early days, he could stand on equal footing with Xia Hong. Now, with such a gap between their statuses, adding to that, Xia Chuan, Yuan Cheng, Qiu Peng, and even his former subordinates Luo Yuan and Zhao Long all outranked him. Naturally, he found it hard to reconcile with himself.

Realizing that even breaking through the Cold Resistance Level and advancing the Luoyang Team to an Advanced Hunting Team couldn’t bridge the status gap, he began contemplating other ideas.

At the end of last June, right when the Luoyang Team had just been promoted to an Advanced Hunting Team, Great Xia established a new East City Eighth District. Li Longkai, the former defense commander of Mirror Valley, was promoted to East Eighth District Camp Supply Deputy Military Preparation, leaving the position of Mirror Valley Defense Commander vacant.

Upon learning this news, Luo Ming immediately went to the Garrison Department to apply for the competition.

Currently, all official positions in Great Xia are divided into six ranks: First Rank for Minister; Second Rank for Eight Departments Director; Third Rank for Vice Director; Fourth Rank for Eight Departments chief positions in places like Outer City Eight Districts, Long Mountain, Wuyuan, East Ridge, and Fifth Rank for deputy positions; Sixth Rank for Defense Commanders in small posts like Beehive, Xiling, Zhaoyang, and Baiyuan.

Of course, Great Xia has more positions than these, but they are mostly classified by these representative titles.

Mirror Valley is also a small post, so the title of Mirror Valley Defense Commander is a Sixth Rank position.

Though it’s the lowest Sixth Rank position, the competition is unusually fierce, especially with so many now at the Cold Resistance Level in Great Xia, making it a situation of many monks with little porridge. Naturally, Luo Ming’s process of taking office wasn’t smooth.

The Garrison Department’s standards for selecting a garrison include two criteria: personal strength, the overall strength of the hunting team, and the ability to manage. Fortunately, Luo Ming was not weak in these three abilities, so he stood out among many contenders and eventually took on the role of Mirror Valley Defense Commander smoothly.

Upon assuming the role, he learned about the concept of Creation Value and realized that having strength alone wasn’t enough; improving the Creation Value of a post was the only way to climb to the top of Great Xia. Naturally, Luo Ming put all his efforts into it.

Mirror Valley is located just north of Arrow Bamboo Forest, with no other posts nearby, offering good resource endowments. However, since the third year of Great Xia, when the north city wall of Xia City extended to the south of Arrow Bamboo Forest, the situation became different.

With the north city wall already near Arrow Bamboo Forest, Xia City, of course, allocated part of the hunting teams to start hunting and gathering in Arrow Bamboo Forest. This broke the situation where Mirror Valley exclusively occupied the Arrow Bamboo Forest.

After taking office in Mirror Valley, Luo Ming spent considerable effort drawing a large number of low- and mid-level hunting teams from Xia City; he also invited a bunch of professionals from the eight Logging Departments in Outer City to teach people at the post to identify plants and impart gathering techniques. Moreover, he personally drove everyone at the post to hunt, gather, and explore tirelessly. In this way, during the two months after taking office, as Li Baihe just mentioned, the Creation Value of Mirror Valley repeatedly hit new highs, averaging between 300,000 to 350,000, ranking third among many small posts with impressive performance.

Until early September last year, when the four-monthly Beast Tide of Arrow Bamboo Forest came, the Creation Value of the entire Mirror Valley in September didn’t even reach 50,000, making Luo Ming suddenly dumbfounded.

It was only then that he remembered the Arrow Bamboo Forest’s four-monthly Beast Tide and why he could take on the role of Mirror Valley Defense Commander so smoothly. Everyone knew about the Beast Tide, aware that being Mirror Valley Defense Commander was a thankless task with significant effort but little reward, making it hard to increase the Creation Value. So upon taking the position, the others competing with him actually had average abilities.

Later, after inquiring, he learned that the first Mirror Valley Defense Commander, Yue Feng, was promoted to Longshan Guardian, and his successor, Li Pingkai, had to endure the position for four years before being promoted to East Eighth District Deputy Military Preparation. This confirmed Luo Ming’s thoughts.

The subsequent developments went as he expected. Even though he could keep Mirror Valley’s Creation Value in the top three among all small posts during normal months, every time the Beast Tide month came, the data would plummet, and the ranking would drop significantly.

"The total Creation Value for six normal months is 1.89 million, but the combined value for the two Beast Tide months is barely over 70,000. This means the total for the first eight months of this year is 1.96 million, and with this September wasted, even if the last three months reach 350,000 each, the annual total Creation Value for Mirror Valley will be just 3.01 million. Never mind the eighth, it’s unlikely to even stay in the top twenty!"

After calculating this, Luo Ming’s face was full of gloom.

In the previous five years, Great Xia’s overall territory hadn’t expanded much, but thanks to the survey and exploration of Longyou Land, many new posts were added. Now excluding the eight districts within Xia City, there are 26 external posts.