Three Months' Results

Autumn passed and winter arrived. More than three months had elapsed since the joint effort to clear out the Chen Village pig farm, and time had now slipped into January.

During this period, the Xingyan Group base was struck by two beast tides; the first involved over one hundred and fifty beasts, while the second was even more exaggerated, reaching nearly three hundred.

In the first tide of over one hundred and fifty, four monsters as powerful as the Iron-Bristled Tusked Pig and the Unicorn Wild Boar appeared. They were named the Tiger-Striped Cat, the Unicorn Mastiff, and the Green-Crested Giant Chicken—the latter of which appeared in a pair.

During the second tide, the number of monsters that had broken through a certain threshold of strength suddenly jumped to thirty-seven, and the variety increased as well. There was even an exceptionally powerful monster resembling the Unicorn Mastiff, which was ultimately named the Unicorn Lion-Mastiff.

The base successfully defended against both tides, but because the second tide was so numerous and the monsters significantly stronger than anticipated, the outer defensive facilities were breached again. The monsters entered the interior of the base, and the base lost over a dozen promising combat talents.

As for the villages surrounding the base, they had basically been cleared out by the exploration teams dispatched by the Xingyan Group.

A month and a half ago, the exploration teams had already scouted the outskirts of Chuilong Town, but after observing the situation there, the group's senior management decided to postpone further investigation of the town.

Inside Chuilong Town, giant monsters wandered about from time to time. They were heavily mutated, making it nearly impossible to identify what animals they had evolved from.

Through observation and recording, the base's researchers determined that many of these monsters possessed strength exceeding that of all the monsters encountered in the previous two tides. Consequently, the researchers established a grading system for the monsters.

The three guards from the pig farm encountered earlier were classified as early-stage Tier 1 monsters; such monsters usually possess high degrees of mutation and have achieved significant breakthroughs in strength.

The leader pig from the pig farm was considered a mid-stage Tier 1 monster, possessing greater strength or speed than the early-stage ones, but without having undergone any further major breakthroughs.

Among the dozen or so monsters discovered in Chuilong Town, the weakest were at the level of that leader pig, while the strongest had broken through another barrier—the Tier 2 level established by the research institute. The previously encountered Unicorn Lion-Mastiff belonged to this tier.

These findings were only possible because the exploration teams had failed to penetrate deep into Chuilong Town; one could only imagine that even more powerful monsters existed in its depths.

Following this, after deliberation, the missions of the exploration teams were adjusted.

One exploration team was primarily responsible for re-clearing previously explored areas and maintaining clear roads to facilitate a rapid advance toward Chuilong Town in the future.

The other exploration team was tasked with opening a path toward the county seat, with the requirement that the progress be as slow, meticulous, and stable as possible.

Lin Chenxing's original logistics team was officially reorganized into the Third Exploration Team, tasked with clearing monsters around the base to reduce their numbers and weaken the scale of future beast tides.

These were merely the changes outside the base; the interior had undergone earth-shaking transformations as well.

The second-phase plot of land, which had previously remained undeveloped, had completed its initial construction. At the very least, the surrounding perimeter walls were finished, and several residential buildings had been erected inside. However, these were primarily low-rise bungalows, as overly tall structures were prone to attracting avian monsters.

This was a lesson learned in blood by everyone in the base.

A month ago, while an eight-story building was under construction, a worker was snatched away by an avian monster known as a Red-Feathered Eagle and was never heard from again.

Afterward, it was frequently observed that several avian monsters would quietly circle the sky above that eight-story building.

Consequently, until the base possessed reliable anti-air capabilities, the construction of high-rise buildings was no longer considered.

In addition, the underground spaces and corridors previously discussed were eighty percent complete, with only the newly constructed sections of the second-phase plot remaining to be connected.

Within this underground space, the most core facility—and the one the base had invested the most effort into—was a Martial Arts Arena. This arena occupied thirty percent of the total underground area and was fully equipped with all kinds of apparatus.

As the individuals with the highest combat power in the group, the directors and members of the Elite Squad would occasionally visit the arena to give lectures and provide guidance to everyone training there.

At this time, the base had a population of over seven hundred people. This included the three exploration teams and the newly formed logistics team, each with twenty members; over three hundred people who had no combat capability and focused solely on internal base affairs; fifty construction workers; nearly one hundred technical researchers; and the remaining two hundred, who were divided into three groups to rotate guard duty at every corner of the base every four hours.

Furthermore, there were over a dozen people serving as full-time coaches for the Martial Arts Arena. They were heroes who had retired from the front lines of exploration and combat, each carrying some form of injury that made them unsuitable for the front lines.

Of these seven hundred people, fewer than one hundred had been rescued from the thirty-plus nearby villages and enterprises. Initially, having suffered great trauma and lived in hiding for so long, a large portion of them had no desire to fight monsters and only wished to stay in a safe place to live out their remaining days. Only a small fraction were able to ignite a desire for revenge; most of these individuals joined the newly formed logistics team, hoping to eventually become members of an exploration team.

In three months, the base had held two martial arts tournaments. Excluding the directors and members of the Elite Squad, the number of participants reached over two hundred and thirty.

Through comparison, it was determined that, based on current strength, only the members of the three exploration teams and the remaining members of the Board of Directors—a total of sixty-two people—were capable of fighting a Tier 1 monster alone.

However, when compared to the strength of Tier 2 monsters, no one was yet capable of standing against them individually.

After all, the Unicorn Lion-Mastiff from the second beast tide had only been killed through the combined efforts of six or seven people, and everyone's weapons had been essentially destroyed in the process.

Since then, no one's strength had seen a major breakthrough, and no matter how the researchers in the institute studied the matter, they could not provide a definitive answer.

By this time, the research institute had restored many firearms based on previously archived data and had also developed a new type of firearm that used ammunition crafted from monster materials, which was named the Xingyan Gun Mark I. However, each shot required manual reloading, which meant these guns could only be used for sniping and base defense.

To survive, the three exploration teams had to frequently embark on journeys, hoping to find new methods and paths to save themselves.

He Qishun of the First Exploration Team began making multiple attempts to infiltrate Chuilong Town, but he was often blocked by large numbers of unranked monsters as soon as he stepped into a certain area, forcing him to retreat from the town in frustration.

Under the leadership of Lin Chenxing, the Third Exploration Team also began to venture deep into the surrounding forests, searching for the legendary treasures he imagined existed, but unfortunately, they returned empty-handed.

On January 27th, when the Second Exploration Team, responsible for scouting the path toward the county seat, arrived at the Huangkang Winery eighteen kilometers from the base, an unexpected encounter granted the base a new lease on life.