Stockpile grain, delay claiming the crown!

But what had happened during the day made one thing clear to him: very few travelers passed through this area!

He could not earn many Eerie Stones by charging for lodging. If he wanted to live long enough, he would have to obtain Eerie Stones by killing strange entities.

He could not simply live off his reserves.

He needed a steady source of income!

The next moment—

He thrust his arm into the scorching flames of the Eerie Fire. Strangely, neither his skin nor his clothes suffered any damage. He took a whole Eerie Stone from the fire, clasped it together with the one he had just acquired, and slowly closed his eyes.

Then!

Under Crippled Monkey's incredulous gaze, the two Eerie Stones in his hand began melting rapidly. They turned into a milky-white liquid that flowed between his fingers, but before it could hit the ground, it transformed into dozens of illusory white strands. They floated in midair, arranging themselves into an orderly pattern and gradually solidifying.

A few seconds later.

A Steel Beast Trap fell from the air onto the ground.

This was the level 1 Beast-Trap Snare he had just crafted at the cost of two Eerie Stones. It could injure low-level strange entities, providing him with a steady supply of Eerie Stones!

"It worked."

Standing where he was, Chen Fan looked down at the extremely simple-looking Beast Trap and smiled. The tangled tension, fear, and bewilderment of suddenly finding himself in this dangerous, unknown world faded considerably in that instant.

At least... there was hope.

He no longer felt hopeless.

"Young Master!"

Having witnessed everything firsthand, Crippled Monkey had gone pale with excitement. But after glancing at the Wooden Hut, he forced his voice down and said shakily, "Young Master, you've actually awakened as a Builder!"

"And you succeeded on your very first attempt at building!"

"As soon as the master hears about this, you'll be able to return to the Family and receive the finest treatment. No one will ever be able to bully you again, Young Master."

"The master will definitely see justice done for all the unfair treatment you've suffered over the years!"

"No."

A gleam flickered in Chen Fan's eyes as he chuckled. "I don't much like other people deciding things for me."

Hundreds of years ago, Eternal Nightfall descended.

The world's order had collapsed in an instant. Countless people had met gruesome deaths at the hands of strange entities, leaving corpses scattered everywhere. But through trial and error paid for with countless lives, people gradually discovered a way to survive.

All they had to do was absorb an Eerie Stone.

It would enhance their physical capabilities and even allow them to learn spells to fight strange entities, much like immortals.

These people were collectively known as Cultivators.

However—

Hiding was the primary means of survival in this world. Even the strongest Cultivators could not fight the endless tide of strange entities in the darkness. If they failed to stay near an Eerie Fire when Eternal Nightfall descended, they would be worn down and killed, no matter how powerful they were.

A fortunate few, however.

After absorbing an Eerie Stone, they would become special Cultivators, often possessing unusual abilities.

Nightwalkers, for instance, could still see within a certain range after Eternal Nightfall descended.

Alchemists, meanwhile, could combine the corpses of strange entities with Heaven-and-Earth Spirit Herbs to create pills with all manner of miraculous effects.

Compared with ordinary Cultivators, special Cultivators such as Nightwalkers and Alchemists were stronger and had more tricks at their disposal. Any faction would welcome them as honored guests. If they were willing to sign a contract and join, they would receive a generous monthly stipend.

Among these special Cultivators, one type held the highest status and was also the rarest: Builders!

Eerie Fire, for instance, was a Builder's creation. No one other than a Builder could construct something like it.

Without Builders, this world would have perished long ago.

Whether it was the towering city walls of the various cities or the defenses around the headquarters of the various families, all were the work of Builders!

To judge a faction's foundations, one need only look at whether it had a Builder.

The foundation of the North River Chen Family was a Level 5 Builder retained by the family!

The Chen Family had seventy-seven Stations in total. Every Station's Eerie Fire had been created by this retained Builder, and those Stations continually brought the Chen Family substantial income.

And he—

Had now become a Builder himself.

Only...

His abilities were a little more advanced. According to the memories in his mind, none of the existing Builders could use Building Blueprints directly. Killing high-level strange entities had a small chance of yielding a Building Blueprint. Other Builders studied the structure's appearance on the blueprint, gathered corresponding materials, added Eerie Stones, and experimented with constructing it.

Once they succeeded, they memorized the recipe and treated it as a closely guarded secret, passing it down by word of mouth.

Eerie Fire, for example, was the most common structure and one of the few whose recipe had leaked. The widely circulated recipe called for "ten to thirty Eerie Stones, a strand of hair from an impostor ghost, a Back-Bearing Ghost's head, a Daylight Ghost's heart, a wisp of Withered Grass... seven materials in total."

But in reality.

According to the Eerie Fire blueprint listed among the basic structures on his panel, constructing an Eerie Fire required only three Eerie Stones and a wisp of Withered Grass that could be picked up anywhere to serve as tinder.

As for why anyone had come up with such a complicated recipe...

It was entirely because other people could not see the full contents of the Building Blueprint. Through experimentation, they had combined those seven miscellaneous materials, only for the other materials to dissolve one another away, leaving nothing but a wisp of Withered Grass.

Put simply, they had stacked a bunch of bugs together until the process ran successfully.

Remove even one step, and it would crash again.

Nor was there any need to spend so many Eerie Stones. That was solely because constructing without directly using a Building Blueprint resulted in energy loss. By using the Building Blueprint directly, he achieved one hundred percent energy efficiency. Compared with other Builders, he could construct a structure more cheaply and reliably.

If everyone else climbed a Mountain by taking a winding mountain road, he took a cable car. The shortest distance between two points was a straight line.

More efficient, more direct, faster!

"Phew..."

He let out a soft breath, carefully placed the Level-1 Beast Trap at the edge of the circle of light, then kicked it into the darkness. He began looking forward to what he would find after daybreak.

He had no intention of returning to the North River Chen Family.

The former owner of this body would certainly have wanted to return to the Chen Family at once. After all, he wanted his father's approval. But Chen Fan had no such messy notions.

Once a man started seeking other people's approval, half his life was already a lost cause.

Besides, even if he wanted to return, he could not.

Without a Message Talisman or enough money for the journey, he had no way to return to the Family or even contact them.

What he needed to do was slowly build a sanctuary of his own here. Once he had accumulated enough strength to protect himself, he could consider other matters.

This world had more than ghosts that devoured people at night. It also had ghosts that devoured people during the day.

He could not focus solely on dealing with strange entities.

Stockpile grain, delay claiming the crown!

That six-character maxim would be his plan for the foreseeable future.

He was not going anywhere.

He would stay right here!