After having met everyone, Shang retreated to the big castle in the middle of the town.
This would be his home for the foreseeable future.
'I need to give the residents some time to get used to me,' Shang thought. 'At the moment, they are still uncertain about my power, and if I implement all the changes I have planned now, many of them will leave.'
For the next couple of hours, Shang only remained on standby. There wasn't much he had to do as the Town Lord. Most of the town ran all on its own, and he only needed to get involved if it was time to use the Pathfinder Magic Circle or if there was a beast.
"There's a Peak High Beast approaching the town," Shang transmitted to the two guards in front of the town.
The two guards looked at each other with surprise.
The Surveillance Magic Circle didn't show any reactions.
Surveillance Magic Circles had several ways in which they operated.
Funnily enough, finding an Ancestral Beast was easier than finding an Archbeast for them. The reason was the sheer amount of Mana the Ancestral Beasts gave off.
Of course, the sensitivity of the Magic Circle could be increased, but it would also consume more Mana Crystals.
The setting the town's Magic Circle worked on would find a Peak High Beast if it entered a 100-kilometer radius of the town.
An Archbeast would be found within 250 kilometers.
An Ancestral Beast would be found within 1,500 kilometers.
The fact that the Surveillance Magic Circle didn't pick up the beast meant that it was over 100 kilometers away.
But their Town Lord found it already?
The guards had heard of Mages whose Spirit Sense was larger than normal, but all of these Mages were extremely outstanding and rare.
And their new Town Lord was one of these powerful people, even though he wasn't even a Mage?
"Should we deal with it, sir?" one of the guards asked.
"Is it your job?" Shang asked.
"It depends," one of the guards said. "If an adventurer team is interested, we generally leave it up to them. Right now, the beast is not within the critical zone of 25 kilometers of the town."
"I see," Shang answered. Even though he had been led around, he still didn't perfectly know what every single person in the town was responsible for. "Then continue as usual."
It was not yet time to change the rules of the town.
After some minutes, the Peak High Beast appeared in the town's Surveillance Magic Circle, and about two minutes later, a team of Mid High Mages led by a Late High Mage left the town.
As long as they didn't go past 250 kilometers from the town, they weren't in danger and could walk around outside.
The team quickly traveled towards the beast and engaged it.
Even though they were two levels below the beast, their combined firepower was enough to kill the beast without severely damaging the corpse.
They pocketed the corpse, returned to the town, and sold it for around 450 Grade Four Mana Crystals.
The town received around 20% of what it sold for.
Shang had done absolutely nothing, but he had just earned about 90 Grade Four Mana Crystals. Of course, a lot of that would get reinvested into the town or be paid to the guards and other employees.
Shang only continued watching the town. He had to learn as much about his town as possible. If he wanted his plan to work, he needed to know how everything worked in the town.
About half an hour later, a group of three Archmages arrived in front of the town.
The guards greeted the three Archmages casually since they already knew them.
This was one of the merchant groups.
They traveled from town to town, buying things that were cheap in one town and selling them expensive in others.
For example, Shang's town had a lot of Metal High Beasts, which were on the rarer side. Usually, Metal High Beasts were more common in the northern parts of the Twilight Dusk Family's territory or more southern, but that would already be outside the Twilight Dusk Family's territory.
The reason why there were a lot of Metal High Beasts walking around in this place was the Silver Abyss.
The Silver Abyss was a huge hole about 7,500 kilometers to the west of the town.
It had been created by a very powerful Peak Ancestral Beast that couldn't find any rivals anymore. It was the most powerful beast for over 10,000 kilometers around, and it decided that it would focus on itself.
It no longer felt the need to hunt and consume other beasts. It was only interested in understanding more about the secrets of metal while staying deep underground.
This phenomenon was actually quite natural since this was basically what every powerful Peak Ancestral Beast did.
This phenomenon was called Hibernation, and this was the last but also most difficult step to becoming a Beast Lord.
Not even 1% of beasts that entered Hibernation could become Beast Lords. Most of them just died of old age.
Since the Metal Ancestral Beast to the west was no longer keeping its Mana under control, the 500 kilometers around it had transformed into a land of metal, drawing all the scattered Metal Beasts to it.
Sadly, while Shang's town got plenty of Metal High Beast, they never got any Metal Archbeasts.
If one had paid attention, one would be able to guess why.
Such a valuable location like the Silver Abyss was obviously very interesting to a certain company.
The Natural Selection Company.
They were harvesting the natural treasures in and around the Silver Abyss, and that included the Metal Archbeasts.
Metal High Beasts were not that interesting to them, which was why a lot of them could leave without being killed.
The group of merchants entered the town and bought nearly all of the Metal Beast corpses while selling many other things.
Another 500 Grade Five Mana Crystals entered Shang's pockets.
Eventually, the merchants requested the use of the Pathfinder Magic Circle, and one of Shang's emblems shone a second later with the request.
The merchant group had already paid.
One use of the Pathfinder Magic Circle cost one Grade Six Mana Crystal.
For just basically pushing one button, this was a lot of money.
Shang activated the Magic Circle.
In just three seconds, it consumed over 200 Grade Five Mana Crystals as it gathered an insane amount of power.
And then…
WHOOOOOM!
Every True Mage and higher could feel the wave of massive Mana shooting out from the town towards the east.
The wave of Mana vanished, and a couple of seconds later, a map appeared in front of Shang.
Shang transferred the map to the person responsible for taking the requests, and that person handed the map to the group of merchants.
The group of merchants gave their polite goodbyes and left the town.
Some seconds later, the person responsible for taking the requests handed the map over to the resident Adventurer's Guild, who posted it.
This showed the current distribution of powerful beasts for several thousand kilometers to the east of the town.
The High Mages looked at the map with interest.
The further one went away from the town, the more natural treasures one could find, but of course, it also became more dangerous.
With luck, there were no Archbeasts or Ancestral Beasts close to these places, and the group of High Mages could try a raid.
Eventually, no one left.
The setup of the beasts was too risky this time.
