Previously, in order to keep the valley hidden, Henry Clark went through a lot of trouble to cut timber. He would rather personally lead the peasants far away to find forests for logging than cut down the trees near the valley’s exit. Later on, the coastal woods were almost completely cut down, and only then did he feel it necessary to clear a path for easier passage, which finally led to cutting the trees outside the valley.

Henry Clark could check relevant resources in his mind, and he always wanted to meticulously plan development and production, but time and again, his good plans were disrupted. Just like this time—he wanted to produce more peasants to lay a better foundation for future development, but after learning from Charles Webb that the Jie people of Buqi City were about to take action, he was forced to increase military units.

Because the system is currently in the “Feudal Age,” the military units Henry Clark can produce are actually quite limited. The strongest unit is the swordsman, who comes equipped with armor upon production. The others—scout cavalry, spearmen, archers, and skirmishers—are really not impressive in either attack or defense.

There’s one unit that deserves special mention: although “scout cavalry” has “cavalry” in the name, they are actually the most useless unit. Scout cavalry are more like scouts specifically designed for reconnaissance; they’re really not suitable for direct combat. Moreover, the breed of warhorses isn’t great and they’re quite delicate—they don’t eat grass, only fine grain, and each one eats enough for three people.

Henry Clark has produced quite a few military units over time, with spearmen being the most numerous. If you count carefully, the number produced definitely exceeds 350, but why are there only a little over a hundred left? It’s because the system-produced soldiers are too single-minded: whatever order Henry Clark gives, they carry it out exactly, fighting fearlessly in battle.

In cold weapon combat, it’s basically a situation of “kill a thousand enemies, lose eight hundred of your own.” Unless the difference in strength is like heaven and earth, don’t even think about winning without losses. “Fearless in battle” isn’t purely a compliment; in the heat of battle, it means a tough fighting style, but usually, such units suffer shockingly high casualty rates.

Passing through the woods and arriving at the valley, the first thing you see is a row of stone-quality city walls, connected to the steep mountainside, with a city gate in the center. There are no flags on the walls, only a few squads of soldiers patrolling back and forth.

After entering the city gate, you see a flat area of about five or six kilometers, filled with numerous buildings such as the town center, barracks, archery range, stables, blacksmith, market, and mill.

The system’s buildings all have a thatched-roof style, which is the style automatically generated by the system peasants during construction—it’s not because Henry Clark has any kind of obsession.

Speaking of which, there’s a rather frustrating story: back then, Henry Clark was so desperate for food that after building a mill, he slaughtered a donkey, thinking that putting it in the town center would convert it into a system food unit. But… the meat produced by the system—whether donkey, horse, or human—just couldn’t be turned into food units.

That mill, now missing a donkey, still stands in the valley. Compared to the other mills, which occasionally echo with donkey brays and the sound of grinding stones, that quiet mill is a constant slap in Henry Clark’s face.

With a mill, how could there be no farmland? Farmland exchanged with system resources requires 60 wood in the game, but for Henry Clark, it’s 35 wood and 15 grain. Actually, when he used to play Age of Empires, he always wondered: why does farming require wood? Shouldn’t it just need seeds?

Now that the game has become reality, Henry Clark’s old confusion has come back to bite him. Just look at how he even dragged out the mill’s donkey to kill—it shows how desperate he was for food.

They were gone for nearly four months. When they left, they had nearly five hundred soldiers (including Jin soldiers); when they returned, only a little over three hundred remained. The biggest losses were among the spearmen and archers: 89 spearmen and 29 archers died. Actually, they took 10 scout cavalry out, but only 2 came back alive, while not a single swordsman died. The Jin people lost 46 men.

The changes in the valley made Henry Clark almost unable to recognize it when he returned. Only after seeing it with his own eyes did he realize that the buildings constructed later were poorly planned, squeezing the arable land for farms.

[It’s time to expand the system’s things… like farmland and military buildings, outward. Also, let me check the resources again. There might be a big event coming up, so I should carefully consider which units to produce next.]

The display in Henry Clark’s mind showed: 12,579 wood, 35,200 food, 1,205 gold, 2,430 stone, and 1,400 iron.

With these resources, it’s actually enough to upgrade from the “Feudal Age” to the “Castle Age.” But even after Henry Clark built all the required buildings, the upgrade icon was still gray, leaving him anxious and helpless.

Henry Clark put in some extra effort to check the units he had produced. This couldn’t be seen on the system page, so he had to rely on his own notes. According to them, he had 50 peasants, 12 scout cavalry, 60 swordsmen, 131 spearmen, and 61 archers. He wasn’t even sure if the numbers were accurate.