When morning light spilled over the treetops again, Xu Wuyi emerged from the Cultivation Room, sat down on a tree stump, and accepted the tea Zero Seven brought him. He held the cup and sat quietly in the morning light for a while, extending his perception along the network's main channels and scanning the warm golden points of light scattered throughout the territory. When his perception swept past the western side of the Central Defense Line, it paused—the Hybrid Overlay's coverage had expanded again overnight. It had already passed the fifth node and was slowly advancing toward the sixth.
He took a sip of tea without lingering over that area. He continued extending his perception outward, and when it reached the area near the eastern boundary of the Northern Sector Defense Line, he sensed something else—a similar overlay had appeared there as well. Its density was slightly thinner than the overlay on the western side of the central sector, but its form and composition were identical. It was as though an undercurrent flowing out from the core had gathered Star Beast energy residue along the network and was now spreading across the entire network's surface at an even pace.
He set the cup back on the cut surface of the stump and returned to the hall. Zero One's system displayed the latest Hybrid Overlay distribution map on the control console's light screen. The covered areas were marked in darker shades, and the coverage had already surpassed a considerable portion of the network's total area. He stood before the screen for a while, then pulled up comparison data for the energy barrier operating efficiency in covered and uncovered areas. Barrier efficiency in covered areas was generally more than ten percent higher than in uncovered areas. The improvement remained stable, with no