Ground Spikes

He looked at the Level 1 Beast Trap before him.

There were currently five Beast Traps in the camp. Over the past few days, he had earned quite a few Eerie Stones through them, and crafting one Beast Trap only required two Eerie Stones.

Upgrading a Beast Trap to Level 2 was not expensive either. It only required ten Eerie Stones.

He decided to test its effects.

Immediately afterward.

The ten Eerie Stones on the ground shattered instantly, transforming into milky-white liquid that flowed into the Beast Trap beside the Farmland. A panel slowly appeared before him.

-

"Beast Trap upgraded to Level 2. Upgrades into 'Ground Spikes.' Must be permanently installed in a fixed location and cannot be moved at will. Can be triggered repeatedly."

"Please select an upgrade direction."

"1: Blend into the surroundings. Quite well-concealed and extremely difficult to detect."

"2: Increased power."

"3: Faster Ground Spikes retraction speed."

-

The Beast Trap before him had already become the phantom image of a square Ground Spikes structure, one meter long and one meter wide, awaiting placement.

He chose the second upgrade direction.

Then he placed it directly in front of the Farmland.

It looked rather abrupt.

Amid the cracked wasteland was a square patch of bare ground covered in dozens of neat holes. It looked like the heartwood of a tree riddled through by borers. He picked up a Strange Entity corpse that Crippled Monkey had yet to bury in the Farmland and tossed it over the holes.

The next moment!

"Click!"

With a soft sound, dozens of thick, tough, jet-black wooden spikes shot violently out of the ground like venomous snakes striking, at a speed too fast for the naked eye to catch. They instantly pierced through the Strange Entity corpse.

Its power was on an entirely different level from the Beast Trap.

Only then did the thick wooden spikes begin to retract slowly. After roughly several breaths, they withdrew into the holes again. If stepped on again, they would trigger once more!

It made up for one of the Beast Trap's greatest flaws: its inability to trigger repeatedly.

Its power had also increased dramatically.

"Not bad."

Chen Fan nodded with slight satisfaction. Cheap, useful, and free—no Eerie Stones were needed to sustain it with energy. As long as it was not scrapped, it could be used indefinitely.

If he had chosen the third upgrade direction, the Ground Spikes would retract faster and trigger more frequently.

But he felt that for something like a Ground Spikes Trap, the most important thing was its ability to kill with a single blow. Instantly killing the Strange Entity that stepped on the trap was what mattered.

No matter how fast it was, insufficient force would still make it all for nothing.

Forty-six Eerie Stones remained.

Standing beside the Farmland, Chen Fan rose and looked up at the darkening horizon in the distance, his eyes narrowing slightly. In his building panel was a structure called the "Sacrificial Tower," which required twenty Eerie Stones to construct.

Its effect was rather vague.

-

"Level 1 Sacrificial Tower": Can obtain special resources. Requires twenty Eerie Stones to construct.

-

He definitely did not intend to keep too many Eerie Stones on hand tonight. He was considering whether to build several more Ground Spikes or construct the Sacrificial Tower. The former could immediately strengthen the camp to the greatest extent.

As for the latter, judging solely by its description, it was most likely related to the camp's middle and later stages. Those special resources obtained would probably be useless in the short term, and they could not possibly be given to him for free. He might even have to trade Eerie Stones for them.

It was the sort of building that devoured gold like a beast.

After a while.

He took out forty Eerie Stones and upgraded the remaining four Beast Traps to Level 2. He chose the second upgrade direction for all of them, then placed them neatly along the side of the Farmland closest to the edge of the camp.

The Farmland was five meters wide.

One Ground Spikes Trap was one meter wide, and five Ground Spikes Traps were five meters wide.

They fit the Farmland perfectly.

The arrangement looked quite neat and harmonious, the kind of layout that could cure obsessive-compulsive disorder.

"This is much better."

Chen Fan looked at his handiwork with satisfaction. With these five Ground Spikes Traps, his Farmland should be protected well enough. As for the remaining Strange Entities, there were still the Arrow Towers on the City Wall. In the end, he decided to cast thoughts of the Sacrificial Tower aside.

He would survive tonight first. As long as he lived, he would have plenty of time to study what the Sacrificial Tower was. If he could not survive tonight, then no matter how incredible the Sacrificial Tower was, it would have nothing to do with him.

Besides.

He felt that, for him right now, the Farmland was more important than the Arrow Towers. Once the Ghoststone Vein Seed matured, it would bring in a batch of Eerie Stones. He just did not know how many—perhaps there would be a little surprise.

"Everything is ready but the east wind!"

He raised his head toward the horizon. This was already the limit of what he could do. As long as the Strange Tide did not kill him immediately tonight, he could use the Eerie Stones dropped by Strange Entities tonight to strengthen the camp again and raise its upper limit once more!

It was an opportunity.

It was also a crisis.

Everything depended on whether he could endure tonight.

Just then—

"Young Master!"

Crippled Monkey's voice came from the City Wall. Lying atop the battlements, he shouted down at him, "The Wooden Hut has been completely dismantled."

"Good."

Chen Fan turned and walked toward the City Wall. As he approached it, the wall before him suddenly sank into the ground. He walked inside the City Wall and looked at Wang Mazi and the others in the heavy rain, as well as the neat pile of lumber stacked in the corner and several porcelain vats filled with bedding.

He took two Eerie Stones from his robe and tossed them into the air.

Immediately afterward.

A phantom Wooden Hut slowly emerged in the middle of the camp. As the milky-white liquid formed from the melted Eerie Stones flowed into it, a solid and imposing Wooden Hut settled firmly onto the ground.

It was clearly more than a level above the crude Wooden Hut from before.

The weather was getting colder and colder.

And there was a torrential downpour.

That old Wooden Hut could not even keep out the wind, much less the rain. These two Eerie Stones had to be spent.

He walked into the Wooden Hut, took another Eerie Stone from his robe, and inserted it into the indentation by the entrance before looking out at Wang Mazi and the others. "All of you, come in. The rain is heavy outside. Get everything sorted before dark."

"There's a fire inside. Go warm yourselves up, and don't catch a chill."

When Wang Kui brought these six people back to the station, he had also brought back plenty of clothing, food, and other daily necessities. Those items needed to be sorted now as well, but Chen Fan did not need to worry about such matters. Crippled Monkey could arrange everything perfectly on his own.

"Yes!"

After nodding heavily, Wang Mazi hurriedly called the others over to take everything out of the porcelain vats and tidy up the hut.

"Hurry!"

Out in the wilderness, Wang Kui and Little Qiu happened to run into the station chief of the Qiuhe Wang Family halfway along the road. Dressed in coarse cloth and carrying a long blade, the other man was leading his subordinates through the rain at a dead run.

"It'll be dark soon! If we don't get back now, it'll be too late!"

Facing the torrential rain, Wang Kui shouted at the top of his lungs. They had been sent out to collect supplies from nearby abandoned stations, and now that their mission was complete, they were preparing to return.

Visibility in the wilderness had originally been extremely high, but in the heavy rain it had become terribly low. Without the Ghosthide Map, they would certainly lose their way.

"It's right ahead."

Wang Kui glanced at the Ghosthide Map in his hand and ran with all his might while panting. However, in the next moment, his body came to an abrupt halt, and he stared ahead blankly.

Then he looked at the Ghosthide Map in his hand again.

They had not gone the wrong way.

This was Jiangbei Chen Family Station No. 37.

But when had that City Wall appeared?

He remembered that there had been no such thing in the camp when he left, right?