Everywhere He Reached Was His Territory!

He connected this twenty-meter Copper Pipe to the one linked to the Eerie Fire and ran it through the base of the City Wall.

It stretched all the way beyond the camp.

Extending one meter.

The next moment—

Once he finished building it, the Copper Pipe solidified, and the cold white flames within the Eerie Fire flowed into it.

And he witnessed an utterly shocking sight.

The area around that one-meter section of Copper Pipe extending beyond the camp had also become a Safety Zone!

"..."

Chen Fan's breathing stalled. He looked at the "Copper Pipe" building module on the lord panel, then, after a long while, threw back his head and laughed. "Good, good, excellent!"

This "Copper Pipe" could actually extend the Safety Zone's range!

The Eerie Fire would flow along the Copper Pipe. Everywhere it reached was his territory!

Countless wild construction fantasies almost instantly surfaced in his mind!

For example—

A nighttime road!

There was no such thing as traveling at night in this world, but with Copper Pipes, he could absolutely create a road that allowed passage through Eternal Night.

Once he had enough resources in the future, he could even use Copper Pipes to encircle the entire continent. The whole Eternal Night Continent would become his territory as far as the eye could see!

If the Eternal Night Continent were a body—

Then his Copper Pipes would be the capillaries spread throughout that body.

And this was merely one of the most basic uses of the "Copper Pipe."

He crouched outside the camp and looked at the "Copper Pipe" lying across the cracked Wasteland. With a thought, the pipe transformed back into a line-drawn "phantom," and a Dual-Pipe Triple Connector appeared at its end.

It could connect three Copper Pipes.

This building module had a huge advantage: even after solidifying, it could return to its phantom state and be freely modified again without consuming any resources.

At the moment, this Copper Pipe was ten centimeters wide.

The Safety Zone around it extended half a meter on each side, for a total of one meter.

He wanted to see whether a thicker pipe would change the Safety Zone's range.

He immediately built another Copper Pipe one meter wide and connected it to one of the ports. The other two ports remained sealed while unconnected.

He was actually experimenting as well.

After all, connecting a ten-centimeter Copper Pipe to a one-meter Copper Pipe was somewhat difficult.

It was like driving a large vehicle.

The dimensions were completely different.

But when in doubt, leave it to the panel.

As the phantoms of the two pipes slowly fused together, the pipes of vastly different sizes also merged completely into one. There was not the slightest trace of welding, as though they had been born that way.

At the same time—

The Safety Zone on either side of this one-meter "Copper Pipe" still extended only half a meter, for a total of one meter.

But including the space occupied by the "Copper Pipe" itself, this stretch of Safety Zone protruding beyond the camp could reach two meters in width.

"Hoo..."

Chen Fan let out a soft breath, rose to his feet, and with a thought, sank the Copper Pipe into the ground. Buried beneath the wasteland, it left no trace at all.

Even Crippled Monkey and the others had no idea what exactly had happened. They only knew that he seemed to be building something they had never seen before.

After all, Crippled Monkey and the others could only see the camp's exact Safety Zone once Eternal Night descended and the Eerie Fire's ring of light spread outward.

He was the master of this camp.

Naturally, he could immediately sense every change within it.

"Good stuff!"

Chen Fan grinned again. If ordinary buildings were the number one, incapable of any free adjustment—for instance, an Arrow Tower was over three meters tall, and once built, that was its fixed height, neither lower nor higher—

Then that was set in stone.

This building module, however, was like 0.1, allowing free DIY customization.

Whether its width, length, or connectors, whether straight, curved, or serpentine, all could be freely customized without consuming additional Eerie Stones. On its own, the building module had no value at all.

But the building module applied to every building.

Which meant—

He could use it to create all sorts of buildings at 1.8, 2.7, 3.1, and so on—structures with an extremely high degree of freedom, perfectly tailored to his camp. His control over the entire camp and his freedom of design would become greater, leaving him far more room to operate!

Chen Fan paid no more attention to this Copper Pipe. It was merely a test piece. He still needed to see whether Copper Pipes could interact with other buildings.

Over the next half hour—

He was extremely busy.

He constantly used Copper Pipes to connect the various buildings, searching for possible interactions. After spending forty-seven Eerie Stones building Copper Pipes for all sorts of experiments, he finally stood atop the City Wall, looking down at the camp within and grinning with satisfaction.

Hands on his hips, his eyes were full of pride. This was his territory.

The rainwater that had originally felt cool and damp now looked like champagne at a victory banquet in his eyes.

First, he connected the two Arrow Towers to the Eerie Fire with Copper Pipes.

Activating Arrow Towers consumed Eerie Stones, but repeatedly loading them was too troublesome. Especially when activating the active skill Arrow Rain Storm, every use required another reload. Even if the loading time was extremely short, there was still an unavoidable time limit.

What was more—

As the number of Arrow Towers increased in the future, he would struggle to keep up.

But after connecting them—

All Arrow Tower consumption would prioritize the Eerie Stones within the Eerie Fire, saving him the trouble of loading them again and again. And if special circumstances arose that required him to use Arrow Rain Storm multiple times in a row, there would be no interval whatsoever.

It had changed from single-shot loading to fully automatic.

When an Arrow Tower activated, Eerie Stones would shatter inside the Eerie Fire, transmitting their energy through the Copper Pipes into the Arrow Tower.

Incidentally—

He also built a Copper Pipe, connecting one end to the boiler atop the stove inside the house and the other end to the roof. Rainwater would flow down the pipe into the boiler and be heated until scalding hot.

He built another Copper Pipe.

One end connected to the boiler, while the other ran through the walls surrounding the wooden house and underground.

Boiling water would flow through the pipes, keeping the interior warm.

He named it the "1.0 Heating System."

He had just gone inside to test it.

The room was extremely warm.

There was none of last night's damp, bone-chilling cold.

Although this "1.0 Heating System" was nearly perfect, it had one small flaw: it had no source of pressure. Hot water could not easily flow through Copper Pipes that constantly bent and rose and fell. Without flowing, the temperature would not last long, and this world had no such thing as a circulation pump.

But where there was a will, there was a way.

He already had a plan.

Known fact one: a Ground Spikes Trap would trigger when it sensed gravity.

Known fact two: triggering a Ground Spikes Trap consumed no Eerie Stones.

Conclusion—

This was a "power source" that could be triggered repeatedly without consuming any resources. Or, it could be understood as a "piston."

Only after being used for a long time would it finally wear out and shatter.

So he planned to use this piston to create a heating system that could automatically circulate hot water.

But that would be the "2.0 Heating System" in his plans.

Tonight, he had other things to do first. So far, the hot water in this "1.0 Heating System" still needed to be replaced manually. Whenever the temperature felt low, he would dismantle the Copper Pipe, pour out the water, and refill it.

It was somewhat troublesome.

But it was enough for now.

Building modules had an extremely high degree of freedom, except they could not be upgraded. There was no upgrade option.

"This is what a Builder's methods should be!"

Standing atop the City Wall, Chen Fan looked down at the camp inside, his eyes filled with satisfaction. The camp had possessed several buildings before, but it had always felt somewhat stiff. Now, with the addition of the "Copper Pipe"—

Like blood vessels, it linked every building together.

Only now—

Did he feel that the entire camp had truly been brought to life.

Only now did it feel as natural as moving his own arm.

After finishing all this, Chen Fan cheerfully descended from the City Wall, preparing to repair the damaged section where the Meatworm Wraiths had attacked the previous night.

The Meatworm Wraiths' self-destruction had indeed caused some damage to that section of the City Wall.

But it was not serious and had not affected the foundation.

Just then—

Zhou Mo led his men through the torrential rain to the outside of the camp and shouted toward everyone inside, "Station Master, we're back."

Crippled Monkey quickly stepped forward. Only after testing that the two men were not impostors did he bring them before Chen Fan.

"Station Master."

"We arrived too late. Everyone at Qiuhe Wang Family Station No. 16 hanged themselves last night."

"By the time we got there, the bodies were already cold."

"Across the entire Wasteland, there's... only this one station left."