Chapter 455: Taotie's Pocket

Great King wants to eat blast-fried giant squid, Zhao Bao can only rely on him. Coincidentally, the treasure ship has just returned and the squid is fresh; he hurriedly sent people to the ice storage to select.

At noon, Wei Ke and Wei Shen came over to keep him company for a meal, and discovered that the Great King's table was full of 'hard dishes'; besides the blast-fried giant squid, there were also grilled fish and fries, the only normal thing being the wild vegetable dumplings.

Wei Shen was extremely satisfied with the Great King's taste; the Northern Border had already harvested soybeans for a year, although the yield wasn't great, but there was already an oil press, and he felt that the fried foods at the Northern Border Prince's Mansion were especially fragrant.

The Great King and Wei Shen ate together very harmoniously, but Wei Ke couldn't stand it; ever since he knew that carrots could treat night blindness and were good for the eyes, he would actively put carrots into the Great King's bowl at the table, and if there were no carrot dishes, he would even pick out the nice-looking carrot slices from the side dishes and put them in the Great King's bowl—no one else in the mansion dared to do that.

After a satisfying meal, the Great King returned to his sleeping quarters intending to take a nap; just as he lay down, he heard a familiar bell sound and immediately sat up.

"It must be that the grain distribution is finished!"

He opened the light panel, and indeed, the screen was full of familiar little fireworks.

【Congratulations, Lord, for completing main mission two, successfully raising Youzhou's populace happiness index by six percentage points. Mission reward now issued: A-level turntable lottery; claim reward now? Yes/No】

The Great King wanted to laugh three times; indeed, scattering grain was useful!

This guy's eyes lit up straight away—the main mission is an A-level turntable, and he hasn't gotten an A-level in ages.

After claiming the reward, this guy was very eager and shouted for Tong Chen to come in and wash his hands.

Tong Chen was puzzled—hadn't the Great King just washed his hands before lying down on the bed?

After washing his hands again, the Great King went to touch his great auspicious beast White Ze, then finally sat upright on the bed and opened the turntable; the needle spun wildly for a moment before stopping at a colorless spot, and before the Great King could react, a transparent-colored box shot out……

"Ah~ My mine flew away!"

Based on past experience, this color at a glance is not gold or silver ore; the dream of getting rich is shattered.

This color is rare; the Great King was very curious, and he quickly clicked to claim it.

【Congratulations, Lord, for drawing the top-grade reward from the A-level turntable: Taotie's Pocket x1, already placed in the warehouse; please check.】

"What is this? What is Taotie's Pocket?"

The Great King instinctively reached into the inner pocket of his robe and felt around…… "Huh? Have I been scammed?! It couldn't just be a cloth bag, right? What kind of pocket could be better than Mengmeng's warehouse?!"

The Great King's defenses broke down; even White Ze, who had been far away and uninvolved, got up to watch.

The Great King quickly called up the warehouse, "I want to see what material Taotie's Pocket is made of!"

White Ze: "……Shouldn't you be concerned about its function instead?"

Great King: ……Alright.

He opened the warehouse, and the first row of newly refreshed icons turned out to be a tower-like thing—then this pocket became even stranger.

【Taotie's Pocket

Manufacturer: Star Ripple Realm

Appearance description: tower-shaped building, five underground levels, seven above-ground levels.

Function: storage of all things, no upper limit. 'Note: Storage of everything except humans; before retrieval, the stored item's state at the moment of storage can be preserved.'

Supporting manpower: technical NPCs x12 (recovered after three years).

Usage rights for Taotie's Pocket: until the Lord's life ends.

Additional note: Taotie's Pocket is a space-time stacked storage building produced by Star Ripple Realm, capable of devouring all things and being indestructible. However, once the usage period ends, the spatial and temporal laws will fail, turning it into an ordinary building.

The Great King stared wide-eyed after reading it once, but didn't understand.

After reading it word by word three times, he understood. "……My successor is also pitiful; when I die, not only will the powerful warship be gone, but the warehouse will also fail?"

White Ze nodded, "Looks like that." Whoever saw it would suspect that Mengmeng is the Great King's biological father to that extent.

Great King: ……How tragic.

The more the Great King looked, the more dissatisfied he became: "Isn't this just a warehouse? Why call it Taotie's Pocket, scaring the hell out of me…… No! Being able to swallow all things and not break down—isn't that a mighty treasure? Why didn't this time have confetti, nor was it marked as top-grade? This sounds no worse than the treasure ship!"

White Ze speculated: "Because it's useless? Maybe they know you have nothing worth storing—your national treasury is so empty you could run horses in it?"

Great King: ……

The Great King's little heart felt chilly: "Indeed, back then there wasn't even enough to eat; giving a big warehouse, what could be stored? Does Northern Border grain ever spoil? No!"

However, the Great King's big eyes lit up immediately: "No, it's still useful—seafood and vegetables! In this cold Northern Border, my winter stores of potatoes and cabbage no longer need to be buried in pits!"

White Ze: "……Sounds even more useless."

The Great King didn't care; seeing the side quest pop up afterward, there was nothing to worry about. This guy isn't greedy—letting his people reap some real benefits is enough. Construction is great, and there are construction tasks to reap.

The Great King accepted the side quest to construct Taotie's Pocket,

【Already accepted the 'Taotie's Pocket' infrastructure task, official subsidy: all raw materials; all tools and equipment;

On-site technical supervisor NPC x1 (to be recovered after task completion);

Professional technical manpower x5000 (to be recovered after task completion);

Logic chain supplement: recruit local manpower x5000;

Estimated construction period: five months (150 days)

Mission supplies: summer work uniforms x5000; winter work uniforms x5000; work meals x5000 x150; work wages x5000 x150;

Winter construction subsidy: cold-resistant tents x500】

The Great King was delighted beyond words: "It's still a big project!" Regardless of usefulness, being able to scrape wool and employ the populace is a good reward.

"Exactly, with such a huge capacity, we can't dig it up too quickly, or people will get suspicious," the Great King said, feeling pleased.

However, this warehouse's name is really too strange, not at all to the Great King's aesthetic. He was extremely curious, and as soon as he received the mission supplies, he first checked the building's construction plans.

The Great King and White Ze observed together for a while, nobody speaking, as the Great King's claws pulled and dragged on the diagram, "So Taotie looks like this? Is it your colleague?"

White Ze: "……No, I've never seen it before."

The Great King forced a compliment: "Very special."

After hastily giving praise, he couldn't help but complain: "Star Ripple Realm is surely eighty thousand civilizations behind us—how could this be considered tower-shaped? Whose tower looks like this?!"

They call it Taotie's Pocket, and its shape is genuinely realistic, not at all fake. The entire building on the ground looks like a fierce beast pouncing down from the heavens, its mouth wide open, terrifying and ferocious.

This mouth is the building's main entrance; the mouth spans the two lower levels, the tail tip is the spire, levels three to seven are its body—overall a huge-mouthed ferocious beast, and moreover dull and lusterless, which the Great King dislikes.

"With this kind of warehouse design, thieves wouldn't dare come."

Bai Ze reminded him, "The treasury is sitting idle, yet you still want to pour manpower and resources into building such a massive irregular warehouse—later the court might well object."

Great King startled awake, "Right, it looks too strange; to others it's completely unnecessary to waste people's money and effort, not something Youzhou should be doing at this stage. Many cities out there still lack walls—this dreamy project is totally off-track, isn't this harming me?"

Bai Ze: ……

Hearing the Great King say that others were slacking off, it was actually quite refreshing.

The Great King's anxious nap was completely ruined; he rolled twice on the bed and suddenly sprang up, "Got it!"

Bai Ze raised his head, "Your Majesty will soon have a Daoist priest as a good friend; after knowing him, Your Majesty will wholeheartedly follow the Dao, and the Daoist priest thinks we can build!"

Bai Ze: ……Impressive

Passing the buck, even the future progressive tense.