I have an idea that you can send troops on a quest, and they can find stuff like loot, gems, etc. and when they return on the quest, they return with massive amounts of loot. Almost like single player, but you can send them to specific locations, like a haunted castle, or the ruins of an ancient civilization.
another idea, build a dock for that body of water next to the border of the village, and run quests to the bottom of the ocean for loot, gems, or a free level up on any building, or troop.
For the free level up, it starts to level up that building/troop/spell, but you still have to wait the required amount of time if you normally leveled up that object. Also, it would be really rare. One thing. If for example, your townhall level is 8, and you want to level up your cannon form level 10 to eleven, you can't do that unless you upgrade your townhall to nine. One detail, you can't upgrade your townhall with the insta upgrade.