The truth was, Charles Webb knew there would be a lot of people, but he never expected to find himself stuck behind an endless line. When he looked out and saw a sea of people, he was honestly stunned. He tried to observe carefully, but before he could make sense of anything, that massive line came to a halt, and then a group of about two hundred people slowly approached them.

All two hundred or so were dressed in crimson battle robes. The swordsmen wore armor, while the rest did not, but every single one of them was armed with a weapon that suited them. Their steps were perfectly synchronized, lifting their legs and stamping the ground at the same time. The rhythmic “thump-thump” of their marching made this group of just over two hundred exude the imposing presence of several thousand.

In fact, all the infantry produced by Henry Clark's system were of the same mold—able to march in formation without any training, practically comparable to the clones used in the grand military parades of the Celestial Empire.

Uniform battle robes, every soldier armed with a suitable weapon—during the Sixteen Kingdoms period of the Eastern Jin, such a force would already be considered an ultra-luxurious armed unit, enough to intimidate anyone who saw it.

Charles Webb was indeed intimidated. He thought to himself, “This can’t be right. It’s only been four months since I last saw him—how did that guy surnamed Liu manage to assemble such an elite force?”

In reality, when Henry Clark first started butting heads with Charles Webb, he was as shabby as could be. During the Dark Age, he wasted a lot of development time just producing barbarians for show. Otherwise, he’d probably be even better off now.

It must be explained that Henry Clark's golden finger, that is, the “Age of Empires II: The Conquerors” population cap, is 500. At present, he has 50 villagers, 20 scout cavalry, 60 swordsmen, 200 spearmen, and 80 archers.

The “sword of Damocles” hanging over Henry Clark is the 500 population cap. If his golden finger could only produce 500 population units, that would undoubtedly be its greatest flaw. There’s another flaw, too: other transmigrators with systems always get some beautiful “guide fairy” or something, but his system just calls itself “I, myself,” and has a strong “10086” customer service vibe—never answering any questions, making him figure everything out on his own.

There must be more than just a 500 population cap, or else Henry Clark really wouldn’t have much to play with. He guessed that he just hadn’t found the threshold yet. For example, when he wanted to upgrade from the “Dark Age” to the “Feudal Age,” a quest appeared requiring him to kill two wild boars.

Henry Clark speculated that upgrading from the “Feudal Age” to the “Castle Age” would also require a quest, and that increasing the population cap must be possible too—he just hadn’t found the trigger yet.

When Henry Clark produces system units, the resources required are the same as in the game. But for development-related tech upgrades—like upgrading barbarians to swordsmen, or research in the blacksmith’s shop—the resources required are different from the game, ranging from ten to a hundred times more, and the higher the tech level, the more complex the resources needed.

In some games, there’s a “combat power” stat. Henry Clark can check his own combat power, as well as that of both sides. For the units he produces, spearmen generally have a combat power between 45 and 50; archers, 35 to 40; scout cavalry, 50 to 55; swordsmen, 55 to 60.

Actually, a combat power over 40 is already quite good. Henry Clark could grab any random Jin person and find their combat power is usually between 20 and 30, mainly because the Jin people are so frail. The Hu people he’s encountered generally have a combat power over 40, with a rare few even around 75.

There are also differences in resources. For example, one jin of grain equals 2 units of food; three jin of wild fruit equals 1 unit of food; one jin of meat is 10 units of food; one jin of fish is 8 units of food. He guessed this might be related to nutritional value—the more nutritious, the more units you get.

For other resources, one cubic meter of wood equals 100 units; one jin of gold equals 250 units; one unit of stone equals 10 cubic meters, and so on. There are many such differences. The strangest thing is that after Henry Clark upgraded from the “Dark Age” to the “Feudal Age,” the system added a new resource: iron. But in the game, there’s no such resource unit as iron.

Even stranger, it’s unclear whether there are any gold mines in the Qingdao area, but there definitely aren’t any exposed gold mines. Yet Henry Clark somehow found one, along with a high-quality stone mine. All he could say was that the “system” was truly heaven-defying.

The system was so heaven-defying it even changed part of the terrain. Near Jiaozhou Bay, a valley about five kilometers in diameter appeared, embraced by two mountains with only one exit. A mountain spring flowed down to form a stream, and at the exit was a dense forest, with the sea not far beyond.

Inside the valley was where Henry Clark's town center was located, along with everything he had developed. The Jin people he had taken in were settled elsewhere. After all, for him, nothing was more important than ensuring the safety of the source of his golden finger—that is, the town center!

After Henry Clark came up with his people, he and Charles Webb stared wide-eyed at each other—one filled with curiosity, the other also curious...

“Charles Webb, what do you mean by blocking the road with your people!?”

“Liu, where did you get so many people?”

They spoke almost at the same time, then both fell silent. The scene quieted down instantly.

Chapter 6: A Merciful Man