An Idea

After putting away his Symbiotic Snake, Lu Heng calmed down completely and began to take stock of all his inventory, calmly planning the follow-up matters for Stone Cave Shelter to Bronze Tier.

The 500 Bronze building materials needed for the upgrade have been obtained from opening enough treasure chests, fully meeting the upgrade threshold. What truly needs consideration are the three additional special functional auxiliary materials that need to be inlaid during the upgrade.

He roughly judged that Nightmare Stone was very suitable as a main building material; its stable texture and inherent eerie energy made it perfect for reinforcing walls. Night Stone, Night Stone, was different. Its strength lay in offense; forging weapons and crafting offensive equipment would fully unleash its value. Using it directly in the Shelter's walls would be burying its offensive potential, which seemed like a waste. He didn't plan to use this material for construction for the time being.

In addition, three special items can be embedded to add unique abilities to the Shelter. Embedding ordinary miscellaneous items is meaningless and a pure waste of precious auxiliary material slots; careful selection is essential.

Lu Heng first ruled out Heart of Evil.

The unique nature of this item is that it is the sole core for building the main base. It absolutely cannot be consumed or embedded in the current small Stone Cave Shelter. Once used, the subsequent plan to build a base in the larger world will be directly scrapped, so this option should be discarded.

He then looked at the Nightmare Bell.

The control and suppression effect was indeed practical, but after repeatedly weighing the issue of adaptability, he concluded it wasn't suitable.

Then he looked at the family portrait of the Pure Water Lotus Seed and the Evil One.

Both items are usable, offering reliable functionality in purifying the environment and warding off strange disturbances. However, their drawbacks are also obvious: their seeds overlap with the functions of the Purifying Water Lotus, limiting their overall effectiveness.

Lu Heng walked to the Planting Room, bent down to plant the Sleepless Flower, and organized various supplies in the planting area. His gaze inadvertently swept over the three props: Sunlight Pearl, Moonlight Pearl, and Star Tear.

The three items, representing the Sun, Moon, and Stars, look exceptionally harmonious when placed together.

Lu Heng stared at the three items, pondering to himself.

If these three items are used as functional accessories, the overall quality is much higher than the previous options. However, there are also risks involved. Star Tear can continuously produce resources, but once they are integrated into the building walls, no one can say for sure whether the production will be interrupted.

Based on previous upgrade experiences, it can be inferred that upgrading and modifying buildings mostly involves using the power of the items themselves to enhance the Shelter. It's possible that the original effects of the beads can be retained.

But this was merely his conjecture, and there was no way to verify it. The worst-case scenario was that Star Water would cease to be produced.

The cost is considerable, but the benefits are equally enticing. The warmth of sunlight, the tranquility of moonlight, and the nourishing starlight of Star Tear —if all these effects are applied to the Shelter, the overall improvement will be substantial. Weighing the pros and cons, Lu Heng felt more and more that this combination was worth a try.

He added the Sun, Moon, and Stars set to his shortlist, and tentatively finalized the materials for upgrading the Shelter, but there was no rush to start construction immediately. He also kept the Night Stone in mind for forging offensive equipment.

Lu Heng didn't linger at the Shelter. He passed directly through the Shelter's insulating light barrier and stepped into the Town Ruins. He navigated the dilapidated town streets with practiced ease, heading straight for the Suburban Park he had visited before.

Upon arriving at the park, he looked at the stone pavilion in the center of the lake and walked straight towards it.

Standing firmly in the center of the pavilion, Lu Heng no longer hesitated.

He retrieved the blueprint for the Otherworld Base Blueprint, took out the Heart of Evil, and used the Nightmare Stone as the main building material. With all the construction materials in place, Lu Heng confirmed the start of construction.

Buzz.

An invisible force of rules instantly enveloped the entire Lakeside Stone Pavilion.

The original pavilion structure was quickly reconstructed, extended, and elevated, with the stone texture being refined and reshaped layer by layer. The original small, single-story lakeside pavilion was instantly expanded into a two-story stone building with a cool and solid texture and a stable structure. The building's appearance is understated and unassuming, blending into the park environment without showing any abnormality.

A few moments later, the construction was completely finished.

The Wristband displayed a series of system notifications.

[Special Main Base Construction Completed]

[Enable Dual-Base Communication: Allows for two-way fixed-point teleportation with Cliffside Shelter]

[Camouflage Function Activated: The base automatically disguises itself as an ordinary building, concealing all special features.]

[Heart of Evil Exclusive Effect Activated: The base has a built-in malicious detection field that can display all malicious anomalies in the vicinity; it also comes with a repulsion field that actively disperses and deters supernatural or eerie entities.]

Lu Heng stepped into the brand-new Lakeside Base.

As soon as I stepped inside, the Wristband screen refreshed again, and another batch of permission unlocking prompts popped up.

[Unlock Global Region traffic linkage permissions]

[Unlock cross-outpost information exchange channel]

[Unlocks the functions of goods trading and resource exchange at outposts]

These are privileges that only the main base possesses; the original Cliffside Shelter did not have them.

Lu Heng casually tapped the World Public Channel corresponding to the Wristband.

The interface has finished loading, but the channel is empty.

Online users: 1.

He was alone.

There were no messages, no pending orders, and the entire channel was completely silent.

Looking at the empty channel, Lu Heng couldn't help but feel a little frustrated. He had finally unlocked all the trading and communication functions, but there wasn't even a single person he could talk to.

But it didn't take long for him to realize the key point.

The fact that he is the only one online in the channel means that he is currently the only one in this ruined town who has unlocked the advanced main base. Other survivors, even those small, clustered teams and settlements, are far behind in development and are not qualified to activate this advanced access.

Thinking about it this way, most of the frustration in his heart dissipated. Compared to the other survivors, he was already ahead in terms of both resource accumulation and base level.

Lu Heng stopped worrying about the lack of people on the channel and decided to test the base's teleportation function. With the Illusory Camouflage providing cover, the environment was safe enough to verify whether two-way teleportation was reliable.

He scanned the room and soon saw a special door that had appeared out of thin air. It wasn't part of the building's original structure, but a teleportation entrance generated by the base.

Lu Heng reached out and pushed the door open.

Behind the door was not a corridor, but another identical door.

He continued forward and pushed open the second door.

The environment changed abruptly.

Without any transition, he was automatically teleported back to the house in the Cliffside Shelter.

Lu Heng stepped onto the balcony and looked up. The barrier of light that had been blocking the entrance to the cave had completely disappeared.