Inside the rainforest were monsters, animals, and nearly all the player factions.

In the beginning, aside from Black Blade's side, players in the Trial Grounds were divided into three factions.

Steve, Grayfist, and some scattered solo players.

At present, the solo player faction no longer existed.

Basically, the solo players had either followed Steve, or gone over to Grayfist.

And a portion of them had been taken in by Fat Cow (the captain of the five-man squad that once attacked Barbecue Sauce).

Xu Yuan's judgment of people had always been accurate, Fat Cow really did have some skills.

Back then, Xu Yuan handed over the forest's meat farm to Fat Cow and his people to manage, and also had them go to the grasslands to take in some solo players and form a faction.

Xu Yuan had only casually assigned them a task, but he hadn't expected Fat Cow and the others to complete it beyond expectations.

That brat Fat Cow, in the real world, was at least some kind of company boss, his skill at "painting big pies" (making grand promises) could be called first-rate.

After Xu Yuan left, Fat Cow first had his men rebuild the camp together with him.

Then, in the meat farm, he pulled in ten pigs and placed them in the camp.

Relying on those ten pigs, the newly built camp, and his silver tongue, he managed to rope in quite a few solo players.

He really did form a faction of his own.

Fat Cow's men, plus Steve's men, plus Grayfist's men,

At this point, 99% of the players in the Trial Grounds probably all belonged to Xu Yuan's camp.

Xu Yuan's original plan was to use the trading chain, gradually stockpile equipment, and once the accumulation was about enough, think of a way to fully incorporate both the villagers and the Pillagers.

But now it seemed there wasn't that much time left.

The Trial Grounds had to end within five days. Five days, neither long nor short.

Xu Yuan had to speed up the process, quickly unify the villagers and the Pillagers, in order to raise production capacity.

Put bluntly, in today's Trial Grounds, there were really only three factions left.

Xu Yuan, Tyrant HIM, and Annoying Village HIM.

Xu Yuan knew very well, both Tyrant HIM and Annoying Village HIM were men who licked blood off the knife's edge.

If they saw even the slightest chance of overturning things, they would go all-out, regardless of the cost. Follow current novels on NoᴠᴇFɪre.nᴇt

So, when facing Tyrant HIM and Annoying Village HIM, Xu Yuan absolutely had to hold overwhelming combat strength.

Only by letting them see the win rate was zero, would they completely give up.

Thinking of this, Xu Yuan immediately issued an order.

"Inform Blue Demon, have him return to the rainforest."

"The Trial Grounds process needs to speed up…"

Actually, after Xu Yuan's trading chain was formed, Xu Yuan basically hadn't planned any more actions to proactively advance the process of the Trial Grounds.

What he was doing at the moment came down to three things.

Opening underground tunnels between regions of the trading chain, gathering and controlling information in each region as much as possible, and analyzing what situations might arise in the Trial Grounds, then making countermeasures in advance.

From what Xu Yuan was doing, it was clear he didn't want to actively push forward the Trial Grounds' process for now.

With the situation currently in Xu Yuan's hands, pushing the Trial Grounds forward would actually be very simple.

After all, most of the people in the Trial Grounds were already members of Xu Yuan's faction, just some openly, some covertly.

With so many connections and resources, pushing progress would be an easy matter.

But Xu Yuan hadn't done so.

The main reason was that the Trial Grounds were essentially a miniature simulation of the main world.

At present Xu Yuan had already implemented new policies, and the impacts caused by those policies, the various unforeseen events triggered, could all be displayed directly within the Trial Grounds.

Put simply, the situations unfolding in the Trial Grounds would eventually all be mirrored in the main world.

After all, Xu Yuan's ultimate goal was to implement the new policies in the main world.

And it was exactly because of this that Xu Yuan hadn't advanced progress quickly.

Because Xu Yuan wanted to observe more, to observe those tiny details, to observe the demands of each side as they came into contact with the new policies.

He needed more "experimental data" to perfect his new policies.

Only in this way could the acceptance of the new policies across all factions be increased.

And only in this way could the speed of adoption and acceptance of the new policies in the main world be quicker.

If he wanted everyone to accept the new policy, he had to achieve balance.

Balance was very difficult, and so Xu Yuan needed time to observe.

But the Void had not given Xu Yuan this chance.

Xu Yuan also had no choice but to begin pushing forward the process of the Trial Grounds.

Fortunately, five days wasn't exactly short, though shorter than what Xu Yuan had originally planned.

———

Black Blade was just preparing to find a parrot to send a message to Blue Demon, when Xu Yuan suddenly seemed to think of something and called Black Blade back.

"Bring Barbecue Sauce along as well."

"Alright." Black Blade acknowledged and left.

To push forward the process of the Trial Grounds, the first step was to optimize the trading chain.

Although the trading chain had already been built, its production capacity was rather low. The main reason was that the chain wasn't transparent, and all three parties in the trade had high demand for the goods and equipment being traded.

For example, a villager's wooden sword cost 1 emerald to exchange.

To make that trade happen, the villager, the Pillager, and Xu Yuan all had to profit.

In other words, to complete that trade, at least three wooden swords were needed. Let's take three as an example.

Three wooden swords meant three emeralds.

Suppose the Pillagers produced 1 emerald per minute, then completing this trade would take 3 minutes.

In theory, three minutes could produce three wooden swords.

But since the three sides weren't openly in the same faction, within those three minutes each side only got one wooden sword.

That is to say, to obtain one set of resources, it took three times longer than normal.

At present, in the Trial Grounds, on the villager side there was only Mustard and a few small animals taken in.

The animals had no use for equipment. Mustard alone, how much gear could he even wear?

Meaning, up to now, through the trades, Mustard already had quite a few idle "wooden swords." He couldn't use them, but every time a trade happened, he still claimed his share.

Although the Pillagers had more numbers than Mustard's side, their situation was the same.

After all this time trading, the Pillagers' forces had long since been fully armed.

They also had quite a pile of unused "wooden swords."

In other words, both Mustard's side and the Pillagers were in a state of limited manpower but overflowing goods and equipment.

The stockpiled gear and materials they had, aside from giving them a "sense of security," had no real meaning.

And even that "sense of security" was false.

Because they knew in their hearts, before a great war arrived, equipment was important, but so was manpower.

At present, neither of them had contact with other factions, so inwardly they both felt insecure.

Xu Yuan had intended to let Mustard and the Pillagers gradually realize the problem on their own, but time no longer allowed it.

Actually, when Xu Yuan's trading chain was formed, Mustard and the Pillagers were already in the same boat as Xu Yuan.

The gear and resources stockpiled by Mustard and the Pillagers in the trades were, bluntly, Xu Yuan's reserve supplies.

It was just that neither Mustard nor the Pillagers knew the other side existed.

But since they agreed to the trade, with their understanding of each other, they must have already planted seeds of suspicion.

Wouldn't Mustard question the source of the emeralds? After so long in the Trial Grounds, could he not know that minerals were scarce here?

Such a huge influx of emeralds in one trade, Mustard had no doubts at all?

The same applied to the Pillagers.

So many diamond weapons being produced, how many diamonds would that require?

Even discovering a diamond vein wouldn't sustain such massive trade volume. Not to mention, finding ores in this world was already hard enough, let alone diamonds, let alone diamond veins.

These two leaders weren't idiots. In their hearts, they should already know which side the other party in the trade really was.

But for the sake of the situation, they had tacitly chosen to turn a blind eye.

This was why Xu Yuan was completely calm, letting the situation play out naturally, and why he wasn't worried in the least about Mustard or the Pillagers causing changes.

They both already had mental expectations.

When the truth finally surfaced, they wouldn't make any extreme moves.

But not extreme didn't mean cooperative.

This was why Xu Yuan had Black Blade send word to Barbecue Sauce and Blue Demon.

Barbecue Sauce and Blue Demon had contact with Mustard and the Pillagers respectively.

They would understand more clearly what each side was thinking.

Even though Xu Yuan was prepared to speed up progress, he still needed an entry point.

He had to listen to both sides' demands first, in order to find a balance point.

If he could succeed in finding a balance between the villagers and the Pillagers, Xu Yuan would have resolved the grudge between the two factions that had lasted since their very creation.

———

About an hour later, Blue Demon appeared in the rainforest.

After Xu Yuan chatted idly with him for a quarter of an hour, Barbecue Sauce came flapping in.

Seeing Barbecue Sauce panting and out of breath, Blue Demon chuckled and teased.

"What, you with wings flying actually came slower than me walking on two legs?"

Hearing Blue Demon's words, Barbecue Sauce flew straight up to him.

Then pecked at Blue Demon's head twice with his indestructible little beak.

"Cluck cluck cluck!! Cluck cluck cluck!! (Long time no see! And the first thing you say is to blame me!!)"

"Cluck cluck!! Cluck cluck cluck cluck!! (I'm so mad!! I'll peck your head into a bird's nest!!)"

Barbecue Sauce's attention was completely caught by Blue Demon's words, and he didn't notice anything different about him.

But Xu Yuan, at the side, did notice Blue Demon's change.

Blue Demon had actually cracked a joke.

You had to know, Blue Demon had always been the type with a straight-laced personality.

Very steady, not much of a talker.

Even when he did speak, it was concise, and occasionally carried some deep meaning.

Blue Demon gave people the feeling of a stern university professor.

A man upright and proper, never the kind to joke.

═❀═❀═❀═❀═❀═❀═

patreon.com/AmbitiousTranslator

🥳Joining Patreon keeps me motivated and eager to work diligently, so please consider joining.🥰 You can access upto 20 advance chapter through Patreon.