There was less than two shichen(1 shichen equals 2 hours) left before the arrival of Perpetual Night.
Inside the wooden hut.
Zhou Mo stood in the room, reporting, "Station Master, the harvest today was quite good. We managed to visit two destroyed stations in one go and brought back 218 Eerie Stones."
"Given the big windfalls of Eerie Stones, probably the Station Masters were too frugal to spend them, but after their deaths, it all fell into our hands."
"We also brought back a lot of food and other useful supplies."
"However..."
"There aren't many stations left near us. The remaining ones are quite far away, and it might not be possible to make a round trip within a day."
"..."
Chen Fan sat on the chair, looking at the Eerie-hide map hanging on the wall, squinting his eyes slightly.
This was indeed a problem.
After all, traveling on foot was slow.
The rainy season had arrived early. Apart from the stations on the fringe of the wilderness, which managed to retreat in time, none of the remaining stations had time to evacuate. They had all been destroyed and housed many unattended Eerie Stones and resources they urgently needed.
This was truly a gift from the heavens.
As the ancients said:
"If the heavens bestow something and you do not take it, you will suffer the consequences."
There were nearly thirty abandoned stations. Even if each station had only 100 Eerie Stones, that would add up to 3,000 Eerie Stones—a rather astonishing fortune, enough to upgrade the city wall to Level 2.
He was genuinely tempted.
But—
The slow speed of travel was something difficult to overcome.
Apart from limited speed, traveling in the rainy season was challenging in itself. Unless... there was transportation.
The most common modes of transportation in this world were horses, camels, and the like.
These were the main means of transportation for the Chambers of Commerce.
Or, like the green-robed man he had encountered, a high-level cultivator who had cultivated a technique that enabled him to cover dozens of meters in a single step, moving with great ease.
He possessed neither of these.
"This matter is not urgent."
After thinking for a while, Chen Fan said softly. "First, empty the resources from the nearby abandoned stations. As for the more distant ones, I'll think of a solution. Are there any abnormalities out in the wilderness? Are there any differences compared to outside the rainy season?"
"There is indeed one thing."
Zhou Mo said with some confusion. "On the way back, I saw an egg, about the size of an ostrich egg. Its shell looked soft, lying alone in the wilderness."
"I thought there were no creatures in the wilderness. What kind of animal could lay eggs here?"
"As soon as I approached to take a closer look, the egg suddenly cracked, and a foul-smelling egg liquid spilled out."
"..."
Chen Fan remained expressionless and silent for a long time before saying softly. "Go outside and stay in the rain a bit longer."
"That egg might be the egg of an Eerie Creature. I can't smell anything on you, but I'm not sure if Eerie Creatures can. Try to stay in the rain as long as possible to wash away the smell, so as not to attract disaster to the camp."
As soon as he finished speaking, Zhou Mo's face changed. He immediately realized the severity of the problem and didn't dare to delay, but instead quickly left the wooden hut.
After Zhou Mo left, Chen Fan began to take stock of the camp's current resources.
Food, water, and other resources were temporarily not lacking.
There were 367 usable Eerie Stones, not counting the 50 placed in the Eerie Fire reserved for daily maintenance and replenishing the consumption of the Archery Towers.
Currently, the safety zone had a diameter of 20 meters.
The city wall had a diameter of 10 meters.
The core area was small, but this way, the city wall was also cheaper to build. Therefore, he had placed many core buildings within the city wall, while some non-core buildings were placed outside the camp.
His plan for the future was to expand the safety zone and upgrade the existing city wall to Level 2.
He would then build another city wall on the outskirts of the safety zone, such that there would be two barriers in place. The first would protect ordinary buildings, and if it was breached, they could retreat to the core area.
However...
His current resources were temporarily insufficient to make this plan happen.
The inflow of Eerie Stones from killing Eerie Creatures was somewhat unstable. He needed to get the Eerie Stones from all the destroyed stations first.
Transportation...
"..."
An idea gradually formed in Chen Fan's mind, though it seemed unlikely to succeed. His 2.0 Heating System was actually based on a very simple principle. It was just that the people in this world had never thought in that direction, which was why they would find it miraculous.
In essence, it was just using a "Spike Trap" as a pressure-triggered piston.
After thinking for a moment, he took out 2 Eerie Stones and crafted a brand-new Animal Trap. He then spent 10 Eerie Stones to upgrade it to Level 2, this time choosing the direction of "increasing the speed of spike retrieval."
He also crafted a one-meter-thick copper pipe and placed it over the Spike Trap.
He then made another thinner copper pipe, stepped onto the table, and continuously prodded at the Spike Trap at the bottom of the thick copper pipe.
Each prod would activate the Spike Trap once, and the stabbing copper pipe would be pushed upward, generating thrust.
Yes.
He was going to build a vehicle.
The core principle was similar to that of an internal combustion engine, with the difference being that the piston was driven by the activation of a Spike Trap instead of the combustion of an oil and gas mixture in an internal combustion engine.
A very crude "Spike Trap" engine had taken shape.
All that was needed was a vehicle chassis, a "main drive shaft," and gears, wheels, and other mechanisms to convert the linear reciprocating motion of the piston into rotational motion.
By then, a crude means of transportation would be complete. Its speed was hard to forecast, as it depended on the triggering force and reset speed of the Spike Trap.
Gears?
This was a fantasy world. Where could he find something like gears? Moreover, making gears requires relatively sturdy and wear-resistant materials. His camp currently had no such materials. Copper pipes weren't sufficiently tough; they were nothing but building modules.
Wait—
His expression gradually turned odd.
Wasn't there a pile of Eerie Materials from the Mantis Eerie Creature, "Mantis Arms," in the warehouse?
He had tested them before—they were quite tough.
Should he try?
Let him try!
Chen Fan immediately jumped off the table, picked up the thick copper pipe and the Spike Trap from the ground, and headed outside. If the experiment succeeded, the resources in all the destroyed stations around the wilderness would be his.
At least an income of thousands of Eerie Stones!
...
There was a little over a shichen(1 shichen equals 2 hours) before Perpetual Night.
There was still plenty of time.
After receiving the order, everyone in the camp began to work busily.
Chen Fan first spent another 2 Eerie Stones to build a brand-new wooden hut. Wang Mazi and his men began dismantling the hut to salvage some planks, then trimmed and assembled them.
Qi Chong led his subordinate to dig in the farmland for a long time before unearthing a Monkey Head Ghost buried deep underground to skin it.
Zhou Mo also squatted by the farmland, scratching his head as he looked at the blueprint given by the Station Master, while wielding the blade to split the bones in front of him.
These were the corpses of the Bamboo-Pole Eerie Creatures.
Its body was thin and long, and its bones were slender and hard and would make a perfect drive shaft.
Crippled Monkey had attended a few years of family school and was quick-witted. He held the blueprint and inspected everywhere, correcting from time to time.