"It's up to us. I did my best."

"Mm."

Chen Fan looked at the travel-worn Zhou Mo before him. His already weathered face had been whipped bright red by the storm, and his lips had begun to turn blue. He clearly wasn't in good shape.

Even an ordinary person couldn't endure running back and forth through a storm for so long.

And on top of that, he'd had the pressure of knowing he had to return to Camp before dark.

After a brief pause, Chen Fan said softly,

"That's a bit of a shame."

"Thanks for making the trip. Go back inside, change into dry clothes, and warm yourself by the fire."

"It was no trouble."

Zhou Mo shook his head, took a burlap pouch from inside his clothes, and pointed at his subordinate. "All the Eerie Stones from that Camp are here, forty-eight in total. He collected them with me. I loaded everything else of value onto this Handcart and brought it back. We should be able to use all of it."

"Good."

Chen Fan accepted the pouch with a smile.

Naturally, he understood what Zhou Mo meant.

"Go get some rest."

There were two hours left until dark.

Time was short.

Chen Fan walked alone to the section of City Wall the Meatworm Wraiths had damaged the previous night. The thick green liquid left behind by their explosions had damaged the wall, leaving quite a few fist-sized holes.

The wall was three meters thick.

Damage of this extent had virtually no effect on it.

After all, only a few had slipped through, and there hadn't been many of them.

The next moment—

The City Wall around Camp suddenly became a ghostly structure composed of White Grade lines. Amid those lines, he could clearly see several broken ones in the section before him that needed repair.

-

"This repair requires 1 Eerie Stone."

-

"That's not expensive."

Chen Fan took an Eerie Stone from inside his clothes and crushed it. It immediately turned into a milky-white liquid and slowly flowed into the ghostly structure before him. The broken White Grade lines began repairing themselves at a speed visible to the naked eye.

A few breaths later,

The ghostly structure solidified again.

The City Wall before him was whole once more, as good as new.

"I wonder how other Builders repair their City Walls."

Chen Fan tilted his head toward the gradually darkening sky and murmured. He could repair the City Wall so easily because he had a panel, but how did Builders who couldn't see a panel do it?

Surely they didn't just build a new section whenever one got damaged?

He knew that Northbank City was a naturally occurring Eerie Fire zone of considerable size. The city's three major factions had worked together to build an Enclosing Wall around the entire City, on a scale far larger than his.

Without a way to repair the Enclosing Wall, the maintenance costs would be astronomical.

He didn't dwell on it.

He began counting his Eerie Stones.

He had 508 in total.

It was a considerable sum, but certainly not enough to upgrade the Enclosing Wall to Level 2. Upgrading this ring of wall to Level 2 required 1,600 Eerie Stones. Still... it was enough to strengthen Camp again.

There were currently two Level-3 Arrow Towers on the City Wall.

They were powerful enough.

But there weren't enough of them.

Building a Level-1 Arrow Tower cost ten Eerie Stones.

First, he spent a hundred Eerie Stones to build ten Level-1 Arrow Towers, fitting them all neatly into the slots behind the Parapet.

All ten Arrow Towers were made entirely of wood and looked fragile.

They weren't powerful enough, either.

He spent another two hundred Eerie Stones to upgrade all ten Arrow Towers to Level 2.

As the Eerie Stones turned into milky-white liquid,

The Arrow Towers began to change, growing as though alive into structures of wood and stone. The towers themselves became somewhat sturdier, and from the upgrade options that appeared,

He chose "Increase Crossbow Mechanism power" for all of them.

He spent another twenty-six Eerie Stones to build a twenty-six-meter Copper Pipe, connecting the ten Arrow Towers to the Eerie Fire at the center of Camp.

Since he had already connected the two Level-3 Arrow Towers to the Eerie Fire in Camp,

All he needed to do now was run the Copper Pipe along the City Wall, connecting those two existing Arrow Towers to the ten new ones in sequence.

It was the shortest route.

And it conserved the most resources.

The next moment!

The Copper Pipes connected beneath the bases of the ten Arrow Towers on the City Wall glowed White Grade, then quickly sank into the wall.

He placed fifty Eerie Stones in the Eerie Fire as a reserve.

They would cover the Eerie Fire's daily consumption and supply energy to the Arrow Towers.

With that—

The defenses of the entire Camp had taken a qualitative leap forward.

"..."

Standing on the City Wall, Chen Fan looked at the Arrow Towers rising along it and smiled with some satisfaction. Camp was now significantly safer.

Only then did he gaze toward the horizon and say softly,

"It's up to us. I did my best."

"The rest is in heaven's hands."

Although Camp was much safer now, it still couldn't withstand a head-on assault by a meatworm wraith tide.

After all that work,

He had 132 Eerie Stones left.

He looked at the building on the Lord Panel that he had yet to construct. Now he had enough Eerie Stones to spare to build it.

"Sacrificial Tower."

"Can obtain Special Resource. Construction requires 20 Eerie Stones."

After twenty Eerie Stones shattered,

A ghostly Sacrificial Tower composed of White Grade lines appeared before him. About a meter tall, it was a tiny, exquisitely crafted pagoda with seven stories.

It was built entirely of bluestone.

Its eaves were accented in dark red.

He placed it beside the Wooden Hut.

The ring of City Wall around Camp was ten meters in diameter, leaving little space inside. With a Wooden Hut, an Eerie Fire, and a Watchtower already in place, the remaining room was becoming rather cramped.

But there was nothing he could do. Expanding the area would increase the cost of the City Wall.

It would have to do for now. He could make adjustments later.

As Chen Fan looked at the tiny Sacrificial Tower before him, a panel slowly appeared.

-

"Sacrifice the corpses of Strange Entities to obtain Special Resource."

"The stronger the corpses of Strange Entities and the greater their number, the more valuable the Special Resource obtained."

"This building cannot be upgraded."

-

"So 'sacrificial' as in offering sacrifices?"

Chen Fan nodded thoughtfully. This building's effect was quite good. All the corpses of Strange Entities they had killed over the past few days had been buried in the Farmland. They could serve as fertilizer, but there were rather more than needed.

The Sacrificial Tower would provide a useful outlet for the corpses of Strange Entities in the future.

He made no further changes.

Instead, he quietly waited for eternal night to descend.

Two hours later,

The familiar, dense darkness appeared on the horizon and swept over the entire world like a tide.

The eggshell-like dome of light enveloped Camp once again.

"Huh?"

Crouched behind the Parapet on the City Wall, Crippled Monkey was the first to notice something unusual. Why had a portion of Camp's originally circular safety zone suddenly bulged outward? Confusion flashed in his eyes. "This..."

"What do you think?"

Chen Fan smiled as he gazed at the Gray Fog outside Camp, patiently awaiting tonight's attack by Strange Entities.

That was his latest creation: safety zone overflow!

This inconspicuous bulge would be the starting point for many of his wild architectural ideas in the future.

"...Why does it have an extra **?"

"..."

Chen Fan glanced at Crippled Monkey, then turned away and said expressionlessly, "Stay alert."