The wilderness.
Raving Wang Clan Station 16.
Zhou Mo and his subordinates had been toiling for a long time in the heavy rain, following the coordinates on the Eerie-hide Map, before they finally arrived at this Station.
A few lonely wooden cabins stood in the pouring rain.
Outside the cabins, there was a patch of farmland and... an Eerie Fire.
Aside from that, there were no defensive structures at all.
In fact.
Almost all Stations in the wilderness had no defensive structures.
After all, except during the rainy season, Eerie Creatures hardly ever invaded camps. If, by some small chance, such an event occurred, it often triggered a chain reaction; a few defensive structures provided little help.
"This guy's luck is really something," Zhou Mo muttered as he stood outside the camp, vigorously pounding his thighs to relieve the fatigue from the long journey. He gazed at the simple camp before him and sighed, "No defensive structures at all, yet he managed to survive last night."
"If it weren't for the Station Master, he definitely wouldn't make it through tonight."
"Let's head in."
"Maybe we can have something warm to eat before continuing our journey back to camp."
Their own Station had endured a fierce battle last night, and they had only survived thanks to a stroke of luck. This Station didn't even have walls—it had relied purely on luck to make it through.
"Old Chen?"
"Old Chen!"
Zhou Mo called out loudly as he walked into the Station, his voice finding its way through the rain into the cabins. Under normal circumstances, barging into a camp like this was a serious taboo, but at the moment, he couldn't afford to care about such things.
If he remembered correctly, the stationmaster here should be Old Chen.
However.
No one answered.
"Sleeping this soundly?" Zhou Mo furrowed his brows as he walked up to one of the cabins. He knocked on the door a few times before forcefully pushing it open and shouting, "Old Chen, you..."
His voice came to an abrupt stop.
His right foot, which had been about to step into the cabin, froze mid-air.
After a long pause.
He finally looked up at the two bodies hanging from the rafters like cured meat, sighed softly with a complicated expression, and said, "It seems your luck wasn't so great after all, Old Chen..."
The two bodies hanging from the rafters swayed gently in the wind.
Clearly, when the Perpetual Night descended last night, Old Chen and his subordinate couldn't bear the pressure and chose to end their lives by hanging themselves.
It was understandable.
He could empathize completely.
A camp without any defensive structures, during the rainy season's Perpetual Night, was like a lone piece of wood far at sea. The raging storm stirred up waves and the endless terror lurking beneath the surface, bringing a sense of utter despair—the kind of despair where there was no hope and no possibility to see the next sunrise.
No one could withstand that kind of pressure.
The sea is beautiful.
Azure.
But at night, it holds no beauty. The pitch-black surface, like the Perpetual Night, brings only despair and helplessness.
"..."
After a long silence, Zhou Mo finally instructed his subordinate, "Go outside and check the farmland. If there are any plants we can use, gather them and load them onto that cart in the corner."
Only then did he step forward to take down the bodies, checking their pockets for any valuable items.
He also stripped off their clothes and took them, along with the rope.
Outside, the Eerie Fire was already faint. With the death of the Station Master, the fire was dying out. It wouldn't be long before it went out.
...
There were roughly less than two shichen(1 shichen equals 2 hours) left before the Perpetual Night descended once again.
Chen Fan woke up, threw off the blanket, put on his still-damp clothes, washed up with the rainwater he had collected, and stood by the wooden door to look outside. He stretched with a long yawn before turning to the fireplace inside the cabin.
Even though there was a fireplace, amidst the continuous rain, it was still extremely damp and cold.
He hadn't slept very comfortably last night, shivering from the cold.
The living conditions were rather poor.
Only he was inside the cabin; the others were all busy working outside.
Stepping outside the city walls, he saw Crippled Monkey burying the bodies of Eerie Creatures in the farmland.
"Young master."
Noticing his arrival, Crippled Monkey hurried over and said excitedly, "The growth is promising. They should be ready to harvest by tomorrow."
"Mmm."
Chen Fan glanced at the half-meter-tall seedlings in the farmland outside the city walls and nodded with a faint smile. "Keep up the good work."
If he remembered correctly, tomorrow would be exactly the third day of the rainy season.
This batch of crops was scheduled to mature around this time.
The earthy scent in the rain helped clear his mind. He looked down at the three Extraordinary Treasures in his arms—these were his gains from last night. The next step was to further strengthen the camp to prepare for any crises that might arise tonight.
The first Extraordinary Treasure was a blueprint.
Similar to the "Watchtower" building blueprint, it was as thin as a cicada's wing.
Only...
The structure depicted on the blueprint was extremely simple—just the surreal image of a copper pipe, like a drainpipe, with no apparent practical purpose.
Extraordinary Treasure Name:* Copper Pipe
Extraordinary Treasure Grade: White
Extraordinary Treasure Effect: This Extraordinary Treasure is the blueprint of a building module compatible with all structures.
"..."
Chen Fan crushed the blueprint in his hand, and an immediate change appeared on the Perpetual Night Lord panel in his mind. This time, it didn't add a new buildable structure but instead introduced a new category.
Currently Buildable Structures...*
Eerie Fire, Arrow Tower, City Wall, Farmland, Wooden Cabin, Sacrificial Tower, Watchtower, Animal Trap.
Currently Buildable Building Modules...
Copper Pipe.
The description of this building module blueprint was rather brief.
Copper Pipe: Compatible with all structures. Requires 1 Eerie Stone per meter to construct.
Though he didn't quite understand what it meant.
He knew one thing: truth comes from practice.
He crushed an Eerie Stone, and as a milky-white liquid flowed through the air, a one-meter-long ethereal form of a copper pipe slowly surfaced in mid-air. Its size could be adjusted at will, from as narrow as one centimeter to as wide as one meter.
He chose 10 centimeters.
The moment the ethereal form of the copper pipe appeared.
All the structures in the entire camp instantly transformed into illusory shapes made of white lines, just as they had been just ahead of their construction.
The Eerie Fire, the city walls, the wooden cabin—all turned into illusory shapes.
But Crippled Monkey and the others showed no reaction, clearly indicating that only he could see this.
The scene before him looked like...
Like...
He narrowed his eyes slightly and guided the incorporeal copper pipe silhouette toward the Eerie Fire. When the two incorporeal structure silhouettes approached each other, they instantly merged and solidified rapidly.
Immediately afterward, the entire camp returned to its original state.
The surreal form had dissipated.
And the Eerie Fire, situated in the center of the camp, had also changed. Originally, the base of the Eerie Fire was a pile of stones cradling a bonfire, with flames burning in a cold white color.
But now.
A copper pipe seemed to have become part of the base of the Eerie Fire, blending seamlessly with it as it rested on the ground. From another angle, one could faintly see the cold white flames flowing back and forth within the copper pipe.
"..."
Looking at this scene, Chen Fan froze in place, a flicker of disbelief in his eyes. Could it be... could it be...
Without a moment's hesitation.
He consumed another 20 Eerie Stones to construct a 20-meter-long copper pipe!
As the surreal form of the copper pipe floated in the air, all the structures in the camp once again transformed into ethereal shapes made of white lines.