Green Monster Epic

Not lingering long at the site of the ambush, and after a quick sweep for spoils, Allen hurried back to the quarry, worried that something might have happened there as well. Only after half a day, when he saw the densely packed, mountain-high piles of stone bricks, the increasingly wide and flat opening, and the tribesmen diligently wielding tools to chisel and split the rock, did Allen's somewhat anxious heart finally settle down.

“Has there been any trouble at the quarry recently?”

The current overseer of the quarry was Linus, whose hopes of advancing to High-Rank had faded. Now middle-aged, he had settled down, started a family, and fathered several Gnome children, making him much more stable than before.

Walking the path of a Druid had taught Linus a lot of useful knowledge and broadened his horizons. As a result, he managed the seemingly busy and trivial quarry in an orderly manner, which greatly reassured Allen.

Unfortunately, Linus's innate talent for spellcasting wasn't very good, and his rash and frivolous behavior in his early years had delayed his rapid development during his youth. Therefore, as he approached middle age, he remained stuck at the threshold of Level 12, the peak of Middle-Rank, unable to break through to High-Rank. It seemed his chances for professional advancement in this life were over.

Even some of the rising stars in the town, several younger tribesmen who had chosen the path of the Druid, had already surpassed Linus. This made him even more restless, and eventually, influenced by feelings of shame, he proactively proposed to Stoneborn that he be transferred to a tribal stronghold as a manager, to avoid the sight of the thriving newcomers in the town.

“No.”

Facing Allen, Linus didn't dare to be negligent. Although Allen rarely appeared in the tribe these days, his legendary deeds of the past had become the most popular stories among the tribe's younger generation, and everyone was filled with admiration for him.

“Okay, be careful recently!”

Allen nodded slightly. He knew very well that if the thief he had fought, who was an Advanced Middle-Rank Legend, really wanted to target Linus and the others, they probably wouldn't have any way to stop him.

“Understood.”

After inspecting the quarry, the wide mountain opening had already extended more than ten miles inward, and the mountain foot was out of sight in all directions. This was the result of the tribe's massive investment over the years, but it was still a long way from completely excavating a mountain pass!

The quarry and Green Lake Town were so full of stone that the tribe had specially allocated manpower and resources to build a wide road connecting the two places, wide enough to accommodate three or four carriages side by side.

Most of the tribesmen held a conservative attitude towards the excavation of the western mountains. The continuous excavation was not only enormously expensive but also consumed countless powerful laborers, which always made the daily production of farming and cultivation in the town more arduous.

Of course, there were also benefits. If the tribe's success rate of combat professions was compared, probably none of the tribes around Allen and the others knew had a higher overall success rate of warriors than Green Lake Town.

The advancement from Low-Rank to Middle-Rank, in a typical mature tribal training system, was mostly around ten to one. Ten Low-Rank warriors could often cultivate one Middle-Rank combat professional. The advancement from Middle-Rank to High-Rank was also roughly ten to one, which meant that a tribe needed about one hundred qualified warriors to cultivate one High-Rank combat professional. Often, the combat power of a High-Rank combat professional was not necessarily stronger than one hundred Low-Rank warriors. After all, numbers could often be used through formations, cooperation, and other methods to achieve an effect greater than one plus one equals two.

However, in the Green Field Tribe, with the continuous innovation of the magic cuisine series laid by Allen and the constantly improving training system, the probability of Low-Rank warriors advancing to Middle-Rank had increased by at least one time, reaching a ratio of five to one or even four to one. The advancement from Middle-Rank to High-Rank, thanks to the tribal welfare and benefits that stimulated everyone's fighting spirit, as well as auxiliary methods such as quarry cultivation and dish grinding, could barely achieve a doubled success rate, almost reaching a ratio of five to one.

This method of fundamentally enhancing the tribe's strength made the Green Field Tribe's weight in the hearts of the surrounding tribal leaders constantly become heavier.

Now, more than thirty years had passed, and the tribe's population had grown from just over five thousand to a medium-sized tribe with a population of nearly thirty thousand. If the number of High-Rank warriors in the tribe was considered, then the elite warriors they possessed were almost equivalent to the total number of elite warriors in a relatively large tribe with a population of 70,000 to 80,000. Such a rapidly developing tribe, with a new look every day, couldn't help but make the surrounding powerful tribes feel a bit of apprehension.

When the population base reached a certain limit, even without the addition of foreign population, the population growth could reach a certain scale simply by relying on the tribe's own reproduction. Especially if a tribe's leader had been paying attention to the tribe's population growth and invested a lot of resources to encourage tribal reproduction, the number of offspring would always be larger than small-scale population trade.

The current Green Field Tribe no longer needed to engage in slave trade with outsiders. The number of newborn children each year was over a thousand. With the current scale of the tribe, it probably wouldn't take ten years before the population doubled again. On the contrary, the barren Green Field Plain, the farmland problem gradually emerged. The Turbid Water Creek flowing from Green Lake towards the northeast, all the way to Rapid Current Bay, the tribe's important food stronghold, the arable land along the coast had become fertile fields.

The flow of the Turbid Water Creek flowing out of Rapid Current Bay was so low that it couldn't even be called a creek anymore. The flow was only a few tenths of what it used to be, forcing Stoneborn and the others to build a dam more than ten meters high downstream of Rapid Current Bay to store water, in order to alleviate the crisis of the water level sinking.

Even so, the newly reclaimed land along the coast gradually couldn't meet the needs of the tribesmen who were accustomed to renting land after the land reforms. Many young people of the new generation went to the town's land management office, requesting to rent land according to the regulations, but the managers of the management office were no longer able to provide enough land, forcing many young people to find other business directions.

Merchants and sundries gradually became popular in the town. Because the young people didn't have enough land to feed their big appetites for the time being, they could only exchange for the food they needed by selling various daily necessities. After all, although land in the town had begun to become scarce, the families who had cultivated the land earlier had enough surplus grain to exchange for the necessary supplies to obtain a better quality of life.

The method of bartering was naturally backward. Therefore, monetary transactions, which had developed in the civilized world, also began to prevail around Green Lake Town, which brought no small convenience to Allen and the others' reforms.

The preservation of grain and materials required certain conditions after all, while the safekeeping of money was relatively much simpler. As long as the stability of prices could be guaranteed, then the tribesmen in the tribe with surplus materials would eventually be willing to take out those surplus materials and exchange them with other tribesmen in order to reduce trouble.

After staying at the quarry for two days and confirming that there was no danger, Allen turned around and flew south, heading straight for Mansa City, where he occasionally stopped.

During these few days, Allen's mind had been constantly thinking about who was the most likely suspect behind this attack.

The assassins who attacked Allen wouldn't have acted without a reason. Allen was, after all, a powerful Legendary figure, and he even had the glorious achievement of killing a Legendary in a duel of the same rank. Unless they were fools, they naturally wouldn't easily provoke Allen.

Although he couldn't track down the assassins who attacked him, the force behind them that hired or commissioned these assassins to attack him must have had a substantial conflict of interest with him and the Greenwood Tribe.

The biggest suspect was undoubtedly the Snowme Ogre Tribe, more than two thousand miles to the southeast. In recent years, the 'Thorn Ring' group, initiated by his blood relative Ajinaga, has been cooperating and maintaining close contact, firmly restricting the Snowme Tribe, which has extremely close ties with the Church of Nature, to the north of the Cato Mountains. How could this not make Yariel, the ambitious leader of the Snowme Tribe, feel resentful?

As the leader of the group, the Ajinaga Tribe was naturally targeted by the Snowme Ogres. However, the Great Earth Goblin Chieftain Bilaire was very cautious, uniting the team members such as Amansha and Algernon, while also complaining to the Oak Church, even though the Church of Nature has shown the demeanor of a leader in the Nature God System in recent years, it is not good to show an aggressive attitude towards the declining Oak Church.

After all, the now powerfully rising Church of Nature, and its deity, the Nature God O'Bie, inherited most of the power of the Father of the Oak Tree to have the scene of today.

Unable to deal with the Ajinaga Tribe, the Snowme could only change direction and seek other breakthroughs. The jackal-headed people of Coldwind Ridge to the north became a window for the Snowme Tribe to vent their anger. In recent decades, the territory adjacent to the Snowme Tribe has been constantly encroached upon by ogres, and friction between the two sides has become increasingly intense.

Until Crow Claw Tribe's jackal-headed leader, Maggot Eye, saw that the stalemate was unfavorable and turned to embrace the Church of Nature. In addition, the competition between the two major forces on the Talun Continent gradually became peaceful. With the mediation of the Church of Nature, the jackal-headed people reconciled with the ogres, and in turn, had the strength to confront the Thorn Ring team.

With the opponents to the north becoming partners, Yariel could only shift his expansionist gaze back to the south. In recent years, they have constantly sown discord among the tribes of the Thorn Ring, while also suppressing the weak Greenwood Tribe and the Wildheart ogres.

Now that the attack on him has occurred, if the assassins were really successful, then the biggest beneficiaries would undoubtedly be the major forces adjacent to the Greenwood Plains.

Regarding Ajinaga's compatriots, although there has been cooperation, Allen has never let down his guard. The more excellent the Greenwood Tribe performs, the more interested Ajinaga Tribe, which is constantly adjusting its direction and seeking development, becomes. If there is an opportunity to annex the Greenwood Tribe with its more than 30,000 members and incorporate them into their two fortress populations, then the tribe's potential and the quality of the army will be greatly improved.

Of course, Allen believed even more that the other party should not have such a short-sighted idea. After all, at this time, whether Ajinaga was in the Thorn Ring team or in a stalemate with the Snowme Tribe, what they lacked most was not the number of low and mid-level soldiers, but the number of top absolute powerhouses.

As long as everyone is still in the camp of the Nature God System, then a large-scale military war between the two races is basically impossible. Instead, challenges and duels between powerhouses can both compete for the winner and be accepted by the ground walkers of the Nature God System.

Unfortunately, the Great Earth Goblin Reina, who formed a goblin family with Allen, has not yet given birth to a child with Allen's bloodline. This made Bilaire, who had made the marriage alliance, feel frustrated, and also made Allen himself somewhat regretful.

Perhaps, this is related to the change in the life essence of Legendary powerhouses, so they have not been able to leave a bloodline to continue until now. However, because of this relationship, coupled with Bilaire's distribution of the fortress's benefits to Allen, the alliance between the two sides is very stable and cannot be easily shaken.

On the other hand, the Snowme Tribe, if they could take this opportunity to eliminate Allen, they could not only weaken the strength of the Thorn Ring team, but also shake the foundation of their alliance based on interests.

Without Allen sitting in the Greenwood Tribe, in the eyes of the Ajinaga Tribe, it would be a fat prey. They would certainly not want to see the foundation laid by Allen collapse, but would take advantage of the marriage relationship to annex the Earth Goblin bloodline race with more than 30,000 people.

In the eyes of other tribes, unless it is a fighting genius with outstanding talent who may be promoted to Legendary, they will reach out to win them over. Otherwise, in general, they will not take in too many bloodlines of other races to survive in their own forces. The survival resources in the wilderness are not abundant. When a tribe develops to a certain scale, the survival of its own bloodline becomes difficult, so where can there be resources to support the vassals of other races?

However, the annexation of the Greenwood Tribe by the Ajinaga Tribe may shake the foundation of cooperation for the Thorn Ring team, whose alliance foundation is not strong. No one wants to see their cooperating partner annex another partner and strengthen themselves.

From this perspective, the Snowme Tribe is indeed the most suspicious, but the Ajinaga Tribe is also equally suspicious. Who can guarantee that Bilaire, the shrewd Great Earth Goblin, did not calculate that Allen and other partners would speculate in this way, and act in the opposite direction?

Of course, the other allied teammates of the Thorn Ring are not without suspicion.

As mentioned earlier, with the rapid development of the Greenwood Tribe, the potential shown by their tribe is really alarming. Perhaps in a few decades, another genius will emerge from the Greenwood Tribe and be promoted to Legendary. Coupled with the speed of their population growth, then the Greenwood Tribe can basically achieve the major elements of becoming a large tribe.

Every additional large tribe is a considerable threat to the surrounding tribes. Although the Greenwood Plains are barren and do not have many valuable products, the wealth underground is always unexpected. Perhaps one day a goblin will find an important and valuable resource with a hoe?

Moreover, as long as the leader of a large tribe has some talent, their population expansion is not too slow. The scope of future power radiation will naturally expand outward. Having one more large tribe as a competitor is ultimately not a good thing in the long run.

Then, the Amansha and Algernon tribes, who seem to be maintaining a friendly attitude towards Allen at this time, may not have acted in this way.

Therefore, Allen needs to go to Mansha City to inquire about information from the Assassin's Guild to see if there is an opportunity to learn some clues from them.

The three assassins acted efficiently and decisively, retreating decisively when they saw that the situation was not good, without being sloppy. At first glance, it was a typical professional assassin style. Allen has taken on several tasks from the Assassin's Guild over the years, so he naturally knows the other party's style. Therefore, he has great confidence in believing that the mastermind must have posted a task in a place similar to the Assassin's Guild and entrusted it to professional assassins to carry out the assassination.