Chapter Summaries

Sid and the Qinggang delegation visited Hope Village and were astonished by its rapid development, open market, and wage-based economy. As they entered the village, Sid began probing the guards about how Tian Yuan Territory operated, leaving the delegation with a sharply different picture of its system.

• Sid and Paine marveled at the roads, farms, and infrastructure as Fluttering Moth drove the Qinggang delegation toward Hope Village.
• Sid was shocked by Hope Village’s paved roads, drainage, hundreds of houses, expanding construction, and crowded market.
• Sid asked to explore the village on foot, and Paine exchanged gold for fifty Tian Yuan copper coins at the external rate.
• Sid and Sam realized the village guards carried usable guns and were highly capable, so Sid warned his group to avoid conflicts.
• Sid questioned the guards and learned that workers, including guards, received wages and could earn enough to eat well and save money.
• Fluttering Moth offered to guide the delegation into the village, while Sid politely offered to pay him for his work.

Sid, Sam, and the Qinggang delegation sampled Tian Yuan’s street food while secretly investigating the Industrial Core and the explosive material behind the Lightning Wall. They left with alarming evidence of Tian Yuan’s explosive reserves, while Su Mo revealed he had already moved the core to mislead them and prepared to erase its signal.

• Sam ordered a soldier to try stinky tofu, and the soldier loved it so much that Sid bought bowls for the whole delegation.
• Sid led the delegation through more than ten food stalls, and Sam exchanged a gold nugget for more spending money.
• Sam checked the communicator and concluded that Tian Yuan did not have Qinggang’s Industrial Core.
• Sam’s explosive analyzer detected a signal that quickly maxed out at 9999, frightening him and Sid with the scale of Tian Yuan’s explosive reserves.
• Su Mo watched the delegation leave and learned they had traded 360 grams of gold for goods.
• Su Mo told Chen Shen he had moved the Industrial Core west to mislead the delegation and planned to erase its signal.

Su Mo ordered Lü Kuan to study the Industrial Core and prepare to manufacture a Nuclear Generator, then revealed the territory’s super-realistic technology to him. In Qinggang New City, Adolf persuaded desperate Wanderers to consider leaving for a tribe that supposedly offered winter supplies, and he sold one of them a route map.

• Lü Kuan examined the Industrial Core and explained that it came from technology developed centuries after his departure from Blue Star.
• Su Mo told Lü Kuan to keep the core secret, gather its required resources, and study how to produce a Nuclear Generator.
• Su Mo decided to show Lü Kuan the super-realistic technology on B6 Floor so it could inspire the territory’s researchers.
• Edmund’s loudspeaker warned Qinggang New City’s new residents about the cold, promised supplies, and barred infected people from the western district.
• Adolf complained with other Wanderers that Qinggang New City offered little work or food, then promoted a western Wandering Tribe said to provide winter supplies.
• Adolf sold a route map to a burly Wanderer for two coins after persuading him to investigate the tribe.

The Qinggang delegation returned from Tian Yuan and reported its prosperity, technology, and stark contrast with their own failing shelter. Tang En dismissed their complaints, but after tasting the food they brought back, he secretly devoured it and tried to conceal his enthusiasm.

• The delegation returned to Qinggang through the damaged new city and complained about its worsening conditions and the idle guards.
• Sid, Paine, Sam, and the other warriors told Tang En about Tian Yuan’s thriving market, responsible guards, and powerful explosives, while Tang En dismissed their recommendations.
• Sid left a box of Tian Yuan food for Tang En, who ignored it and worked late into the night.
• Hungry at midnight, Tang En opened the box and was astonished by the flavor of the Small Steamed Buns and other dishes.
• Haren entered and caught Tang En eating the food, so Tang En ordered him to keep the incident secret.

Cui Ke led a group of former Qinggang Shelter residents toward a rumored Wandering Tribe Distribution Point, leaving the injured A Yan behind with a dagger and a chance to survive. A Yan outsmarted and killed the Mutated Hyena that had trapped him, then collapsed as Cui Ke and others appeared in the distance.

• Cui Ke led eight wanderers through the ruins toward the Distribution Point after they rejected life behind the Great Wall.
• A Mutated Hyena attacked the group, wounded A Yan, and forced Cui Ke to decide whether to carry him onward.
• Cui Ke took five of A Yan’s twenty-one coins, gave him a short dagger, and continued with the others toward the Distribution Point.
• The Mutated Hyena toyed with A Yan as he tried to fight and bargain, then waited until he appeared to have given up.
• A Yan sprang up when the hyena bit his wound and beat it to death with a chunk of concrete.
• A Yan collapsed beside the dead hyena, and he glimpsed Cui Ke and several other figures approaching.

A Yan woke after Xia Zuo saved him with a Red Potion, while the survivors prepared to return to Wasteland Bone Village. Su Mo accepted Pingtan Shelter’s second invitation and traveled with Liu Lu to meet Hunter Tiger, where he considered a road and the future of the West Suburbs Alliance.

• A Yan woke at the Qinggang Distribution Point, and Xia Zuo told him that the village chief’s Red Potion had saved him after his fight with a hyena.
• Xia Zuo learned that the rest of the team had suffered further losses to mutated venomous lizards and spiders, then decided to request armed protection for the return journey.
• Cui Ke asked about Wasteland Bone Village, and Xia Zuo promised food and said he would take the survivors there the next day.
• Liu Lu delivered Pingtan Lord’s invitation to Su Mo and explained that Hunter Tiger wanted closer cooperation, possibly including a road connecting Pingtan and Tian Yuan.
• Su Mo accepted the invitation, flew Liu Lu to the Warning Wall, and considered rebuilding the West Suburbs as a shared area for Blue Star people.
• Su Mo dismissed the shelters seeking alliance protection as leeches and told Liu Lu they could wait until winter or until their food-producing machines broke down.

Su Mo visited Pingtan Shelter as the West Suburbs Alliance leader, where Hunter Tiger welcomed him and showed him the shelter’s defenses and living areas. The tour left Su Mo disappointed by the shelter’s aging, uncomfortable design, but Hunter Tiger promised to take him to the place that held its true soul.

• Hunter Tiger prepared Pingtan Shelter to welcome Su Mo, and residents greeted him in China Language when his airship arrived.
• Hunter Tiger welcomed Su Mo with a flower wreath and a formal ceremony, while a resident photographed the visit.
• Hunter Tiger guided Su Mo through the shelter’s defensive lines and explained their history, including how he had defended Pingtan Shelter from past attacks.
• Su Mo entered Pingtan Shelter’s residential levels and found their dim, noisy, run-down design disappointing.
• Hunter Tiger said the residential levels were not worth seeing and offered to show Su Mo the place that held the shelter’s true soul.

Su Mo toured Pingtan Shelter and learned about its overcrowding, history, power supply, and military strength. Hunter Tiger offered to lend him two thousand veteran soldiers and proposed building a forward base behind the Warning Wall, leaving Su Mo to consider both plans.

• Hunter Tiger explained that Pingtan Shelter’s population had outgrown its living levels, leading to residents being driven out and the Elimination System being imposed.
• Su Mo saw the shelter’s Nuclear Generator and learned that it depended on scarce Fuel Rods supplied by the Foundation Merchant Ship or corporate convoys.
• Hunter Tiger showed Su Mo the Pingtan Army’s forces and offered to lend him two thousand soldiers to help train Tian Yuan Territory’s troops.
• Su Mo agreed to take the borrowed soldiers and asked Hunter Tiger to choose obedient ones.
• Hunter Tiger proposed building a forward base behind the Warning Wall and explained that he wanted to abandon plans to develop the western suburbs because rebuilding them would consume too many supplies.

Su Mo learned that Nuclear Generators required Fuel Rods and discovered the academy’s Jiu Zhou Great Rift Valley Base might have around five hundred of them. With that supply potentially enough to power many deployments, he decided the base had to be dealt with.

• Su Mo failed to persuade Hunter Tiger to fund rebuilding the western suburbs, but secured two thousand combat-ready people and three months of material supplies from Pingtan Shelter.
• Lü Kuan confirmed that the Nuclear Generator could be built, though it needed Fuel Rods to start, and Su Mo promised to find a way to obtain them.
• Su Mo visited Katerina’s research facility at the Breeding Farm and learned that her bunker had used a Nuclear Generator; she offered him her four remaining Fuel Rods.
• Katerina explained that some academy research institutes used Nuclear Generators, and a laborer recalled seeing van-sized units on the third underground level of the Jiu Zhou Great Rift Valley Base.
• Katerina estimated that the base might store about five hundred or more Fuel Rods, and Su Mo resolved to find a way to wipe it out.

Su Mo prepared to use veterans from Pingtan Shelter to strengthen Tian Yuan Territory’s forces and support distant settlements, while his team recovered four Fuel Rods from Pumpkin Bunker. Two thousand veterans arrived at Tian Yuan Territory, where scout Yu Ran entered and found a set of unfamiliar new-recruit signs.

• Su Mo judged the Great Rift Valley Base reachable but postponed an attack until the Metal Sigh Disaster ended, planning to train Hunter Tiger’s veterans first.
• Hunter Tiger sent two thousand veterans to serve as Volunteer Soldiers in Tian Yuan Territory, and Su Mo assigned Su Deben to receive and screen them at Dragon Rise Village.
• The team at Pumpkin Bunker found four Fuel Rods, and Su Mo considered using the resulting power to send a carefully chosen force to Giant Tree Root Sea Area.
• The veterans left Pingtan Shelter and reached Tian Yuan Territory’s High Wall, where Yu Ran checked in as a scout and received a temporary Identity Card.
• Yu Ran entered the territory and saw five large signs directing new arrivals to the cafeteria, resource department, central notice, check-in, and pickup areas.

New recruit Yu Ran explored Tian Yuan Territory’s welcome facilities and learned that the veterans’ treatment would depend on their performance. At the reporting station, he received the first trial mission: find a randomly assigned token and reach the military camp by the following afternoon, leaving him eager to prove himself.

• The new recruits read that their treatment would depend on their performance during the coming week, then prepared to eat and report for their trial mission.
• Yu Ran stored his luggage at the New Soldier Resource Department and was astonished by the territory’s unfamiliar procedures.
• Yu Ran entered the New Soldier Cafeteria, where Ma Haoge served him vegetarian ramen, and he later ate several bowls of ramen and tofu brain.
• Yu Ran read the first trial mission’s rules: recruits had to find a token at a random location before going to the military camp, with elimination for anyone who failed to arrive by four the next afternoon.
• Yu Ran considered the mission’s challenges, revived his competitive spirit, and reported in.

Su Deben began testing the retired Pingtan Shelter veterans with a token-retrieval march, intending to turn them into effective soldiers for the Tian Yuan Territory. After finding Gudexi's misplaced token, Yu Ran chose to tell him where it was, leaving their trial underway in the rain.

• Su Deben sent two thousand veterans across the plains to find their tokens and reach New Recruit Camp, while Zero monitored their progress.
• Yu Ran regained confidence during the march, but rain forced him to shelter in an abandoned hut, where he found a token labeled with Gudexi's name.
• Yu Ran continued toward his own destination after leaving the token in the hut, then encountered Gudexi searching the wrong location.
• Yu Ran recognized Gudexi's name and realized his token was in the hut, several kilometers behind them.
• Remembering how a fellow soldier had avoided responsibility in the past, Yu Ran told Gudexi that someone had moved his token to the hut.

Yu Ran and Gudexi reached the barracks after surviving a series of challenges, while Su Deben used Virtual Reality to test the recruits’ character and abilities. At four o’clock, late arrivals were eliminated, and the recruits were ordered to fall in for what came next.

• Yu Ran found that his relic had been moved, but Gudexi returned with both relics and helped him reach the barracks.
• Su Deben revealed that the second trial tested temperament and character, then sent exhausted recruits into Virtual Reality challenges designed around cooperation and conflict.
• Yu Ran and Gudexi crossed a river, a swamp, and other hazards before submitting their relics and Identity Cards at the barracks.
• Yu Ran and Gudexi rested among the recruits, then watched guards break up a fight between people who had discovered their relics were hidden.
• At four o’clock, guards removed two recruits who had arrived one minute late, and a loudspeaker ordered everyone to fall in.

Su Deben criticized the veterans for their slow assembly, then showed them the fate of Ye Chu and Yin Xing after their failed trial. When Tian Yuan Territory workers welcomed the two veterans and fed them, the watching soldiers were moved by an unfamiliar, tangible feeling.

• Su Deben berated the veterans for taking over five minutes to assemble and provoked them by calling them useless.
• Su Deben showed Ye Chu and Yin Xing searching through trash for food after failing the trial and being abandoned by Pingtan.
• The veterans fell silent as they watched Ye Chu and Yin Xing eat scraps, and Su Deben challenged their idea of dignity.
• Wang Yulong recognized Ye Chu and Yin Xing as volunteers from Pingtan and took them into the Netherworld Factory cafeteria for food.
• Ye Chu and Yin Xing wept over their bowls of noodles while the workers left them alone, and the watching veterans felt their eyes sting with an unfamiliar emotion.

Ye Chu and Yin Xing were welcomed and fed in Tian Yuan Territory after failing the military trial, then offered guard jobs at the Netherworld Factory instead of being sent straight back to Pingtan Shelter. Their response ended with them kneeling in the revered Blue Star soldiers’ ceremony.

• Workers and villagers treated the eliminated veterans Ye Chu and Yin Xing as honored guests, prompting the chapter to question what soldiers were truly fighting for.
• Ye Chu told Wang Yulong that he and Yin Xing had failed the trial and needed to return to Pingtan Shelter, and Wang arranged meals and transport for them.
• No One Knows More Than Me verified the pair’s identities with Lu Zhou, who confirmed they were legitimate volunteer soldiers and suggested offering them guard work.
• Know-it-all Bro offered Ye Chu and Yin Xing a week-long guard job at the Netherworld Factory, with meals, lodging, and ten iron coins per day.
• Ye Chu and Yin Xing accepted the offer by kneeling in the revered ceremony of Blue Star soldiers.

Su Mo accepted a time-limited challenge to enter the first Tian Yuan Army training camp through possession, hoping to earn Route Assimilation Cards. He awoke in the body of the new soldier Wu Xin as the veterans began settling into their squads and dormitories.

• Su Deben forgave the veterans’ past violations, ordered them to learn the Tian Yuan Army’s rules, and announced that training would begin after they collected supplies and rested.
• The system offered Su Mo a ten-day challenge to participate in training as a randomly selected new soldier, with Route Assimilation Cards among the rewards for placing first.
• Su Mo accepted the challenge after recognizing the cards could grant Route Abilities to non-game humans, and told his management team he would be secluded for ten days.
• Yu Ran was assigned as squad leader and reunited with Gudexi, Wu Wenbin, and Zheng Cong in their shared dormitory.
• Su Mo possessed the soldier Wu Xin and began receiving memories of Wu Xin’s life and experiences.

Su Mo used Wu Xin’s memories to investigate whether a falling meteorite had caused Earth and Qinggang City to transmigrate, then completed a ten-day recruit-training challenge while possessing him. After returning to the shelter and claiming no reward yet, Su Mo began preparing for the Metal Aging Disaster, which was two days away.

• Su Mo learned the recruits’ backgrounds and strict dormitory rules, then asked squad leader Yu Ran whether a meteor had been shattered over Qinggang City before transmigration.
• Yu Ran confirmed that missiles had shattered meteors before, while Su Mo recalled seeing what looked like a massive meteorite descending and wondered whether it had triggered the transmigration.
• Su Mo considered whether other cities and untransported forces had escaped selection, and concluded that he needed to investigate the research institute for answers.
• After ten days of training, Su Mo took first place in five categories as Wu Xin, and 1,917 recruits passed and received their ranks.
• The system returned Su Mo to the underground shelter and announced that he had completed the challenge; Wu Xin retained altered memories of the training.
• Su Mo checked the territory and learned that the Qinggang Shelter had visited twice to discuss cooperation while taking food, then began preparing for the Metal Aging Disaster.

Hades struggled to overcome the dwarves’ cognitive barriers and ordered more experiments as he weighed whether to return to hibernation. Meanwhile, Su Mo sent Wu Xin to assist Bao Lei in the crowded Giant Tree Root Sea Area, then claimed a reward that gave him Route Assimilation Cards and Eyes of Reconnaissance, one of which Number Zero began absorbing.

• Hades interrogated a dwarf whose answers revealed the Myriad Kingdoms Dwarves’ location and weaknesses, but cognitive barriers blocked questions about their technology and plans.
• Hades heard the dwarves invoke a Dwarf God and a human Su God, then summoned Tang En and Edmund to receive orders as he considered whether to resume hibernation.
• Su Mo assigned Wu Xin to lead a team to the Giant Tree Root Sea Area and follow Bao Lei’s directions, where more than a million survivors had gathered.
• Su Mo claimed the Challenge Task reward, receiving two Deployment Room uses, Route Assimilation Cards, and three Eyes of Reconnaissance.
• Number Zero revealed its self-evolved screen and asked to absorb an Eye of Reconnaissance, which Su Mo allowed.

Su Mo inspected Tian Yuan Territory’s thriving farms and Hope Village, then prepared for an expedition to the Nine Provinces Great Rift Valley Research Base. Meanwhile, a fleet from the Tundra Tribe arrived at the Giant Tree Root Sea Area, drawing attention as its largest fleet.

• Su Mo visited New Discovery Farm, praised Mist Tractor’s work, and discussed the blocked Red Core Shelter greenhouse and its Radiation Beasts.
• Su Mo toured Hope Village, ate at the Caveman Chinese Restaurant, and saw its growing shops and prosperous residents.
• Su Mo returned to his office and reviewed plans for an expedition, intending to act once the veterans’ weapons came off the factory lines.
• A fleet of thirty-five ships carrying Tundra Tribe members arrived at the Giant Tree Root Sea Area and attracted the attention of independent players.

Lu Yongyi brought the Tundra Fleet to the Giant Tree Root Relay Station after surviving repeated attacks from human fleets during the voyage. As he questioned a local broker about the station’s powers and its absent manager, the broker demanded five kilograms of grain to explain why the crowded settlement remained mostly peaceful.

• Lu Yongyi recalled how rival fleets had attacked the Tundra Fleet during its migration, costing it nearly ten ships and forcing it through several life-or-death battles.
• The Tundra Fleet docked at the Giant Tree Root Relay Station, where crowds of traders and job seekers surrounded the thirty-thousand-person fleet.
• Bao Lei learned from Li Tie that the fleet had at least thirty thousand people, then left the pier to prepare for possible upheaval.
• Lu Yongyi paid a broker half a kilogram of grain per question and learned that Da Luo Shan, Xiao Jing Biantai, and Fan Lunding controlled the pier, shore, and surrounding waters.
• The broker told Lu Yongyi that the former manager had fled and the small Security Team could not maintain order, then demanded five kilograms of grain to reveal why the station remained harmonious.