Refuse heaven's gifts and suffer the consequences

There were less than four hours left before Eternal Night descended.

Inside the Camp's Wooden Hut.

Zhou Mo stood inside, delivering his report. "Station Master, we did pretty well today. We visited two destroyed Stations in one trip and brought back 218 eerie stones. Both Stations had quite a stockpile."

"Their Station Masters probably scrimped and saved, unwilling to spend them. Now that they're dead, we've reaped all the benefits."

"We also brought back plenty of food and other useful resources."

"But..."

"There aren't many Stations left near us. The others are farther away, and we might not be able to make a round trip in a day."

"..."

Chen Fan sat in his chair, looking at the Ghosthide Map hanging on the wall, his eyes narrowing slightly.

That was a problem.

There was only so far they could travel on foot.

The Rainy Season had arrived early. Apart from the Stations around the edges of the Wasteland, which had managed to evacuate in time, none of the others had escaped. They had all been destroyed out in the wilds, and those ruined Stations often held plenty of unclaimed eerie stones and resources they desperately needed.

All of it was ownerless wealth, a gift from heaven.

As the ancients said:

Refuse heaven's gifts and suffer the consequences.

There were nearly thirty abandoned Stations. Even if each held only a hundred eerie stones, that would add up to three thousand—a staggering fortune, enough for him to upgrade the City Wall to Level 2.

He was sorely tempted.

But—

Their limited ability to travel on foot was another difficult problem to solve.

They could only walk so far to begin with, and the Rainy Season made traveling even harder. Unless... they had transportation.

The most common means of transportation in this world were horses, camels, and the like.

Those were what merchant associations mainly used to transport goods.

Or there was the Green-Robed Man he had met. As a high-level Cultivator who had learned the appropriate technique, he could cover dozens of meters in a single step with effortless grace.

Chen Fan had neither option available.

"There's no rush."

After thinking for a while, Chen Fan said softly, "Clear out the resources from the nearby abandoned Stations first. I'll think of a way to reach the farther ones. Have you noticed anything unusual on the Wasteland? Anything different from outside the Rainy Season?"

"There actually was something."

Zhou Mo sounded puzzled. "On the way back to Camp, I saw an egg about the size of a camel egg. Its shell looked soft, and it was lying all alone on the Wasteland."

"I figured there weren't any living creatures on the Wasteland, so what animal could have laid an egg there?"

"I'd just gone over to take a look."

"Then the egg suddenly broke, spilling a pile of foul-smelling egg fluid."

"..."

Chen Fan remained silent and expressionless for a long while before saying softly, "Go outside and stand in the rain a while longer."

"That might have been a Strange Entity Egg. I can't smell anything on you, but I'm not sure whether Strange Entities can. Stay in the rain as long as you can to wash off the scent, so you don't bring disaster down on the Camp."

As soon as he finished speaking,

Zhou Mo's expression shifted. Instantly realizing how serious the problem was, he dared not delay and hurried out of the Wooden Hut.

Only after Zhou Mo left

did Chen Fan begin taking stock of the Camp's resources.

They had enough food, water, and other supplies for now.

They had 367 eerie stones available, not counting those placed in the Eerie Fire.

There were another fifty eerie stones in the Eerie Fire, used for routine maintenance and replenishing the Arrow Towers' expenditure.

The Camp's entire safety zone currently measured twenty meters in diameter.

The core area within the City Wall measured ten meters in diameter.

The core area was small, but that also meant building a wall around it cost less. That was why he had placed many of the essential buildings inside the City Wall, while putting some nonessential buildings outside the Camp.

His next plan was to expand the Camp's overall area

while upgrading the entire existing City Wall to Level 2.

Then he would build another ring of walls around the Camp's perimeter, giving it two barriers. The first would protect the ordinary buildings, and if it fell, they could retreat to the core area.

Only...

His current resources weren't enough to support that plan.

Obtaining eerie stones by killing Strange Entities was somewhat unreliable. He needed to get his hands on all the eerie stones in those destroyed Stations out in the wilds first.

Transportation...

"..."

An idea gradually formed in Chen Fan's mind, though he felt its chances of success were rather low. The principle behind his Heating System 2.0 was actually extremely simple. It only seemed miraculous because the people of this world had never thought along those lines.

Essentially, it merely used a "wooden spike" as a pressure-activated piston.

After thinking for a few moments,

he took out two eerie stones and made another Beast Trap, then spent ten eerie stones to upgrade it to Level 2. This time, he chose the option that "increased the retraction speed of the Ground Spikes."

He also made a Copper Pipe one meter thick.

He fitted the Copper Pipe over the Ground Spikes.

Then he made another, thinner Copper Pipe. Standing on the table, he repeatedly jabbed it at the "Ground Spikes" at the bottom of the thick Copper Pipe.

Each jab activated the Ground Spikes once.

The Copper Pipe jabbing at them was then thrust upward.

It produced a burst of force.

Yes.

He was going to build a vehicle.

Its basic principle resembled an internal combustion engine. The difference was that, instead of an exploding fuel-air mixture driving a piston, the activation of the "Ground Spikes" would drive it.

An extremely crude "Ground Spikes" engine had already taken shape.

All he needed now was a vehicle chassis, a "main drive shaft," and components such as gears and wheels to convert the piston's linear back-and-forth motion into rotation.

Then he could build an extremely crude means of transportation. How fast it would go was hard to say, since that depended on the Ground Spikes' activation force and reset speed.

Gears?

This was a fucking fantasy world. Where was he supposed to find gears? Besides, making gears required strong, wear-resistant materials, and his Camp currently had nothing of the sort. Copper Pipes weren't particularly sturdy; they were building modules.

Wait—

His expression gradually turned odd.

Wasn't there a pile of "mantis arms," Ghost material from Mantis Entities, sitting in the Warehouse?

He had tested the stuff. It was pretty sturdy.

Give it a try?

Give it a try!

Chen Fan immediately jumped off the table, picked up the thick Copper Pipe and Ground Spikes from the floor, and headed outside. If the experiment succeeded, all the resources in the destroyed Stations around the Wasteland would be his.

That would mean at least several thousand eerie stones!

There were a little over two hours left before Eternal Night.

They still had a fair amount of time.

Once the orders were given, everyone in the Camp got to work.

First, Chen Fan spent another two eerie stones to build a brand-new Wooden Hut. Wang Mazi and his men began noisily tearing it apart, removing as many neat planks as possible, then trimming and assembling them.

Qi Chong led his men in digging through the Farmland for a long time before finally unearthing the Monkey-Head Entity buried deepest and skinning it.

Zhou Mo also crouched beside the Farmland, staring with a headache at the plans the Station Master had given him while using his Great Knife to split and break down the bones before him.

They belonged to the corpse of a Bamboo Pole Entity.

Its entire body was long and slender.

Its bones were likewise long, slender, and hard, making them perfect for a drive shaft.

Crippled Monkey had attended a Private School for a few years and was relatively quick-witted. With the plans in hand, he went around inspecting everyone's work and making constant corrections.