Choosing a Desert

In the Courtyard, beneath the blazing summer sun, the gusts from Lin Tuo's fists gradually subsided.

Yet Lin Tuo remained unable to calm down for a long while.

Over the years, because of work, although he had kept up his martial arts practice, he had ultimately... grown lax.

He had thought that after quitting and returning home, he would need some time to pick up his skills again. Yet who could have imagined that... merely absorbing Yangcheng City's Aether would not only remake his entire body, but also fuse together everything he had learned over twenty years in one stroke, pushing the Weapon Transformation Fist to the minor mastery realm.

"No. Empowered by Aether, this is no longer a mortal martial art. It's practically Spells." Lin Tuo let out a harsh breath.

He felt utterly refreshed, his mind exceptionally full of vigor, his body light as though it might float away. But he knew that strike just now had been a special case.

If he wanted to reproduce it, it would not be so simple. He would have to spend time fully digesting the Aether stored within his body.

This experiment also confirmed what the Evolution Sandbox had said. This mysterious gas truly offered enormous benefits to life.

"How much Aether do I have in my body now?" Once he had calmed himself, Lin Tuo could not help asking.

Host's current Aether value: 98 points

"The entire Yangcheng City, with several million people, only produced less than a hundred points?" Lin Tuo asked in surprise.

Then the Evolution Sandbox's response surfaced in his mind:

Collecting Aether through the Sandbox incurs substantial conversion losses...

The explanation was very long. Lin Tuo closed his eyes and sorted through it before finally understanding the mechanism.

Simply put, there was not so little Aether above Yang City. But activating the Sandbox to collect and convert it caused major losses to that energy in the process itself.

In other words, most of what had been absorbed was wasted during conversion... What Lin Tuo received was merely what remained.

Of course, theoretically, the Sandbox was not the only way to absorb Aether. After mastering the Qi-Eating Method, Lin Tuo could also draw in the gas directly through breathing exercises.

However, that method was even less efficient than the Sandbox... and consumed an enormous amount of time. All things considered, using the Sandbox was still more worthwhile than cultivating through breathing exercises himself.

"Then how can I obtain more Aether? Do I have no choice but to wait for it to slowly regenerate?"

Lin Tuo tried asking. Just 98 points had granted him such tremendous improvement—something no Sentient Being could refuse.

According to the information he had received, Aether naturally regenerated very slowly. Now that it had been harvested clean, it would take many days for Yang City's Aether concentration to recover.

Keyword triggered. In response to the host's request, two viable solutions are now provided.

Solution One: Purchase area from the Store to expand the range of Observation Mode.

Lin Tuo froze for a moment, then immediately understood the logic behind this solution.

It was simple. If Aether existed widely throughout cities and rural areas, then he could currently only absorb it within Yang City. As long as he expanded the observable urban area within the Sandbox, he could absorb Aether from other cities.

Imagine it—if one day he could purchase enough area to compress the entire Earth into the Sandbox, then Lin Tuo could theoretically harvest the entire globe.

"But... that won't work..." Lin Tuo thought it over, his expression turning bitter.

The Store charged 1,000 points for ten thousand square kilometers, while he only had 98 points... nowhere near enough.

Even if he expelled all the Aether from his body, he still could not afford it. Unless he slowly saved up until he reached 1,000 points, then expanded the area.

But who knew how long that would take...

Perhaps sensing his emotions, new information appeared in his mind once more:

Solution Two: Use the Evolution Sandbox's "Creation Mode" to provide a new source of Aether.

"Creation Mode?" Lin Tuo immediately shifted his gaze to the Virtual Panel.

This mode was located directly beneath Observation Mode.

Yet he had no idea what it meant.

The next second, a lengthy explanation transformed into a stream of information and poured into his mind.

Simply put—

Observation Mode observed a real region that existed somewhere on Earth.

Creation Mode, meanwhile, used the Evolution Sandbox to select an area on Earth and establish a self-operating Sandbox. Or, put another way, it "cut out" a portion of Earth.

It would isolate it as an independent space.

Using the Sandbox's functions, it would evolve Civilization from nothing, create new Sentient Being populations... then use the differing flow of time between reality and the Sandbox to rapidly harvest Aether from the Sandbox World.

The principle was simple, but the impact this function had on Lin Tuo was immense.

"Using a real area on Earth as a Sandbox, evolving Civilization inside it, harvesting Aether... Does it really have to be this huge?"

After all, this was not as simple as shutting himself away and tinkering with a Sandbox World on his own.

The Civilization Lin Tuo created would genuinely exist on Earth!

Moreover, every lifeform and material he created in the Sandbox would exist on Earth at a 1:1 scale.

The moment Creation Mode was activated, it would inevitably cause a global uproar in this information age.

Imagine if Lin Tuo used the entirety of Antarctica as a Sandbox... In perhaps only a few dozen minutes, news of Antarctica's mysterious "disappearance" would spread across the globe.

And once he removed the Sandbox's isolation, humanity would discover in astonishment that the barren Antarctic continent had become something entirely different...

What an uproar would that cause?

With heaven and earth as his Chessboard, every move Lin Tuo made would stir global waves.

"Is there no... other, gentler solution?" Lin Tuo swallowed and tried to ask.

"Fine. Looks like there really isn't one. I won't make things difficult for you." Lin Tuo sighed, rubbed his face, and began thinking seriously.

Though the idea had sounded absurd at first, the more he considered it, the more feasible it seemed. Not every region on Earth was inhabited.

Using those barren lands as a Sandbox should not be a problem... right?

Besides, no one would know he was the one behind it.

"How about giving it a try first?"

Once the thought emerged, it could no longer be suppressed. After a brief hesitation, Lin Tuo returned to the Old House, came to the Sandbox, and used his mind to tap the Creation Mode button on the Virtual Panel.

The display changed.

Yang City within the Sandbox abruptly turned into countless rays of light and vanished.

In its place appeared a flat world map!

That was right!

A dynamic world map had appeared inside the entire Sandbox!

However, unlike Observation Mode, this map was somewhat illusory. Its details could not be seen clearly; only the world's major continents and oceans could be distinguished.

Directly in front of Lin Tuo, the closest landmass was the white expanse of Antarctica. Moving his gaze forward, he could see a piece of land standing alone in the vast sea.

"Australia."

Lin Tuo softly spoke the word. Although the global map before him contained no labels or territorial borders, a continent as distinctive as Australia could still be recognized at a glance.

"If this is Australia, then this blue region on my right should be the Pacific Ocean, while the one on my left is the Indian Ocean..."

Lin Tuo muttered to himself as he tried to identify the various regions.

He had to admit that without national borders, color-coded regions, and written labels, the world map before him had suddenly become unfamiliar.

By comparison, Huaxia's Boundary was easier for him to find. After all, he had looked at this map countless times since childhood.

At that moment, Lin Tuo also noticed a faint grid overlaying the map, dividing the entire world into square after square.

Creation Mode activated. Please select a Sandbox area.

Reminder: The selected area must be smaller than 300,000 square kilometers.

The information surfaced in his mind. Lin Tuo paused, then understood its meaning. Like Observation Mode, the Sandbox he wished to create was subject to limitations. At present, he could select at most 300,000 square kilometers of land.

As for whether the capacity could be expanded later, that remained unclear.

"If the area is too small, it probably won't be able to evolve much Civilization at all, and the Aether it provides will be scarce..." Lin Tuo murmured inwardly, calculating that he needed to make full use of the 300,000-square-kilometer limit...

"Where should I choose?"

Lin Tuo's gaze swept across the world's seven continents.

"Hmm... I can't choose densely populated places, or wouldn't that make me some world-ending demon king... I can only pick uninhabited land... Antarctica is large enough, but its location is too unusual, and it's too far away... Hm?"

Suddenly, as Lin Tuo's gaze passed over northwestern Huaxia, it came to an abrupt stop.

There lay the country's largest "uninhabited zone"—the Takk Desert.

"I remember reading in a book that this desert covers a total of 330,000 square kilometers..." Recalling that figure, a thought immediately surged into Lin Tuo's mind: This is the one!

The area was about right, and it was barren enough.

It was within the country, close enough to him.

Moreover, the country had been carrying out greening projects for years. Countless people hoped to turn the desert into an Oasis. If he selected this place as his Sandbox, perhaps he could directly alter its ecological environment.

Once he closed the Sandbox in the future, it might even benefit the locals.

As for any potential negative consequences... with him, the Creator, standing guard, they could also be avoided to the greatest extent possible.

"What happens if there are humans and buildings within the area I select?"

Lin Tuo tried asking.

During Sandbox construction, Sentient Beings and designated creations within the region may be relocated.

"It can do that too?"

Lin Tuo froze for a moment, and the last of his doubts vanished.

He immediately bent down and began operating it.

Each illusory grid his hand touched represented a selected area.

Because the entire desert was not a regular shape, this took him quite a bit of effort. During the process, he also selected the buildings that needed relocating—mainly several desert highways—and marked the locations to which they would be moved.

After finishing everything, he had selected a little under 290,000 square kilometers of land.

Selection complete. Construct a Sandbox in the selected area?

"Yes!"

Host confirmation received. Clearing Sandbox area... Relocating selected buildings... Generating Isolation Shield...

Information appeared in his mind. Then the image within the entire Sandbox shifted. The world map vanished, leaving only the desert region Lin Tuo had selected.

Then, a translucent curtain of light rose around the Sandbox and joined together overhead, like an enormous transparent dome that isolated the entire desert from the outside world.

Meanwhile.

In the endless Takk Desert, it was afternoon, when the sun was at its fiercest.

Across this Gobi and wasteland made of gravel and sand, several vehicles sped along a black highway like a ribbon of satin.

This was a moderately famous film crew that had come specifically to this desolate, sparsely inhabited land to shoot on location.

Inside one of the vehicles.

"How much longer until we get there?" A crew member fanned himself with one hand, wiped away sweat, looked at the rows of poplar trees alongside the road, and could not help asking.

The script supervisor beside him glanced at his phone and said, "Soon. What's the hurry? The sun's brutal right now. Why are you in such a rush to get out..."

"Hey, why has my GPS stopped working... Is this map app broken or something?"

"What happened?" someone in the vehicle asked.

"My phone map's positioning seems to have failed. We were just here, so why does the map suddenly say we're dozens of kilometers away..."

The script supervisor was grumbling in confusion when he suddenly heard the driver cry out, "Fuck!"

The entire vehicle began slowing down as well.

"What now?" Everyone in the car was alarmed and turned to look.

Then they saw the driver wearing the expression of someone who had seen a ghost. He pointed at the windshield, his face pale, his expression terrified, his words jumbled. "We... no... the road... it..."

"What exactly happened?"

"We... the road beneath us seems to have... moved!"

At that moment, in the Takk Desert—

Four desert highways quietly "moved" at the same time!

Stories like this were bound to have bugs; they were hard to avoid. I would do my best to reduce major oversights. As for certain details, I could only ask everyone to bear with them.