Everywhere It Reached Was His Domain!

He connected the twenty-meter copper pipe to the one attached to the Eerie Fire and ran it through the base of the City Wall.

It stretched all the way outside the Camp.

One meter extended beyond its boundary.

The next moment—

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

Then he witnessed something utterly astonishing.

The area around the one-meter section of copper pipe outside the Camp had become part of the safety zone!

"..."

Chen Fan stopped breathing. He stared at the "Copper Pipe" Building Module on his Lord Panel, then finally burst out laughing. "Good, good, excellent!"

This "Copper Pipe" could actually extend the safety zone!

The Eerie Fire would flow along the copper pipes, and everywhere it reached would become his domain!

One wild construction idea after another sprang into his mind almost instantly!

For instance...

Nighttime roads!

Nighttime travel simply did not exist in this world, but with copper pipes, he could build a road that people could use during eternal night.

Once he had enough resources, he could even encircle the entire continent with copper pipes. Everywhere he looked across the Eternal Night Continent would be his domain!

If the Eternal Night Continent were a body...

Then his copper pipes would be the capillaries running throughout it.

And this was merely one extremely basic use for "Copper Pipe."

He crouched outside the Camp and looked at the "Copper Pipe" lying on the cracked Wasteland. With a thought, he turned it back into a "ghost outline" formed from lines, and a "Dual-Pipe Triple Connector" appeared at its end.

It could connect three copper pipes.

This Building Module had one major advantage: even after solidifying, it could return to its ghost-outline state and be freely modified without consuming any resources.

The copper pipe was currently ten centimeters wide.

The safety zone around it extended half a meter to either side, totaling one meter.

He wanted to see whether adding a thicker pipe would change the safety zone's range.

He immediately built another copper pipe, one meter wide, and attached it to one of the connectors. The other two connectors remained sealed when no pipes were attached.

He was experimenting, too.

After all, connecting a ten-centimeter copper pipe to a one-meter copper pipe was no easy task.

It was like handling an oversized ride.

The sizes did not even match.

But—

When in doubt, leave it to the panel.

As the two pipe outlines slowly merged, the pipes of completely different sizes fused seamlessly together. There was not a single welding mark, as though they had always been that way.

At the same time...

The safety zone on either side of the one-meter-wide "Copper Pipe" still extended half a meter, totaling one meter.

But including the space occupied by the "Copper Pipe" itself, this section of safety zone protruding beyond the Camp reached two meters in width.

"Phew..."

Chen Fan exhaled softly and stood up. With a thought, he sank the copper pipes underground, burying them beneath the barren soil without leaving any visible trace.

Even Crippled Monkey and the others had no idea what had happened. All they knew was 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 fell and the Eerie Fire's halo spread out.

He was the owner of this Camp.

Naturally, he could sense its changes immediately.

"Good stuff!"

Chen Fan grinned again. If ordinary buildings were the number one, with no room for customization—for example, an Arrow Tower stood over three meters tall, and any he built had to be that height, with no way to make it taller or shorter...

Then that value was fixed.

This Building Module, however, was a 0.1 that he could freely customize.

Width, length, connectors, straight sections, curves, serpentine shapes—he could customize them all without spending extra eerie stones. On its own, the Building Module had no value.

But Building Modules could be used with every building.

Which meant—

He could use it to create all kinds of 1.8s, 2.7s, and 3.1s: highly customizable buildings perfectly suited to his Camp. He would have greater control and freedom over the entire Camp, with far more room to maneuver!

Chen Fan left the copper pipe alone. It was merely a prototype, and he still needed to test whether copper pipes could interact with other buildings.

Over the next hour...

He was incredibly busy.

He constantly connected different buildings with copper pipes, looking for possible interactions. Only after spending forty-seven eerie stones on copper pipes for various experiments did he stand atop the City Wall and gaze down at the Camp within, grinning in satisfaction.

His hands rested on his hips, and his eyes brimmed with pride.

This was his domain.

Even the rain, which had felt chilling before, now seemed like champagne at a victory celebration.

First, he connected his "two Arrow Towers" to the "Eerie Fire" using copper pipes.

Activating an Arrow Tower consumed eerie stones, but reloading them over and over was too much trouble. In particular, activating the skill "Arrow Rain Storm" required reloading after every use. However brief the reload time was, it still imposed a delay.

What was more...

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

But once they were connected...

All Arrow Towers would prioritize consuming the eerie stones inside the "Eerie Fire," saving him the trouble of repeatedly reloading them. If a special situation required him to use "Arrow Rain Storm" several times in succession, there would be no interval between uses.

They had gone from single-shot loading to fully automatic.

When an Arrow Tower activated, eerie stones would shatter inside the "Eerie Fire," transmitting energy to the tower through the copper pipes.

While he was at it...

He also built a copper pipe with one end connected to the Boiler on the Furnace inside his house and the other to the roof. Rainwater would flow down the pipe into the Boiler and be heated until scalding.

Then he built another copper pipe.

One end connected to the Boiler, while the other ran through the walls surrounding the Wooden Hut and beneath its floor.

Scalding water would flow through the pipe, keeping the interior warm.

He named it the "1.0 Heating System."

He had just gone inside to try it out.

The house was wonderfully warm.

There was none of the damp chill from the previous night.

Although this "1.0 Heating System" was nearly perfect, it had one small flaw: there was no source of pressure. Hot water struggled to flow through copper pipes that curved up and down, and without circulation, the warmth would not last long. 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 activated when it sensed weight.

Known fact two: triggering a Ground Spikes Trap consumed no eerie stones.

The conclusion...

It was a "power source" that could be activated repeatedly without consuming any resources... or, in other words, a "piston."

Only after prolonged use would it wear out and shatter.

So he planned to use this piston to build a Heating System that could automatically circulate hot water.

But that would be his planned "2.0 Heating System."

Tonight, he had other things to work on first. For now, the "1.0 Heating System" required manual hot-water replacement... meaning that whenever it felt cold, he would dismantle the copper pipes, pour out the water, and refill them.

It was somewhat troublesome.

But it would do for now.

The Building Module offered an extremely high degree of freedom, but it could not be upgraded. There was no upgrade option.

"Now this is what a Builder should be capable of..."

Standing on the City Wall, Chen Fan looked down at the Camp within, his eyes full of satisfaction. Although the Camp had possessed several buildings before, it had always felt rigid to him. But with the addition of "Copper Pipe"...

Every building was now linked together like a network of blood vessels.

Only now...

Did he feel that the entire Camp had truly come alive.

Only now did it feel like an extension of his own body.

Once everything was done, Chen Fan happily descended the City Wall, preparing to repair the damaged section that the Meatworm Wraith had attacked the previous night.

The Meatworm Wraith's self-destruction had indeed damaged that section of the City Wall.

Fortunately, it was not serious, and the foundations were unaffected.

Just then—

Zhou Mo and his subordinate walked through the Torrential Rain to the edge of the Camp. Looking at everyone inside, he called out, "Station Master, we're back."

Crippled Monkey hurried forward. Only after testing both of them and confirming they were not Impostors did he bring them before Chen Fan.

"Station Master."

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

"The bodies were already cold when we arrived."

"In the entire Wasteland... ours is the only Station left..."