Chapter 38: Chapter 38: To Spurn a Gift from Heaven Is to Court Calamity
Evernight would fall in less than two hours.
Inside the camp’s Wooden House.
Zhou Mo stood inside, reporting, "Station Head, today’s haul was pretty good. We hit two destroyed outposts in one go and brought back 218 Ghost Stones. Those two locations had quite a few of them."
"Their station heads must have been frugal and never dared to spend them. Now that they’re dead, we get to reap the benefits."
"We also brought back plenty of food and other useful resources."
"But..."
"There aren’t many outposts left near us. The rest are all pretty far away, probably too far to make a round trip in a single day."
...
Chen Fan sat in his chair, his eyes narrowing slightly as he gazed at the Ghost Map hanging on the wall.
’That’s a problem.’
’There’s only so far you can go on foot.’
The rainy season had arrived early. Other than the outposts on the periphery of the Wilderness that had managed to retreat in time, none of the others made it. They were all destroyed out in the wild, and these ruined outposts often contained untouched Ghost Stones and the very resources they desperately needed.
’This is all a gift from the heavens, free for the taking.’
The ancients used to say...
To refuse a gift from heaven is to invite disaster upon oneself.
There were nearly thirty abandoned outposts. Even if each one only had 100 Ghost Stones, that would add up to 3,000—an astonishing fortune, and enough for him to upgrade the City Wall to Level 2.
He was genuinely tempted.
But—
The lack of mobility was a difficult problem to solve.
’Travel by foot is already limited, and the rainy season makes it even harder. Unless... I had a vehicle.’
The most common forms of transportation in this world were horses, camels, and the like.
They were the primary means of transport for the merchant guilds.
Then there was the man in the green robe he’d encountered. As a High Level Cultivator who had mastered the corresponding Cultivation Technique, he could cross dozens of meters in a single step with effortless grace.
He had neither of those options.
"No need to rush this."
After a moment of thought, Chen Fan said softly, "Let’s clear out the resources from the nearby abandoned outposts first. As for the farther ones, I’ll figure something out. Have you noticed anything unusual in the Wilderness? Anything different from before the rainy season?"
"Actually, there was one thing."
Zhou Mo sounded a bit puzzled. "On the way back to camp, I saw an egg. It was about the size of an ostrich egg with a soft-looking shell, just lying all alone in the Wilderness."
"I was thinking, there aren’t supposed to be any animals out in the Wilderness. What could have laid an egg there?"
"Just as I was about to go check it out..."
"...the egg suddenly broke, and this foul-smelling liquid spilled out."
...
After a long, expressionless silence, Chen Fan said softly, "Go outside and let the rain wash over you for a while longer."
"That egg might have belonged to a Ghost Object. I can’t smell anything on you, but I can’t be sure if a Ghost Object could. You need to wash that scent off in the rain for as long as possible to avoid leading disaster back to our camp."
The moment he finished speaking,
Zhou Mo’s expression changed. He instantly realized the gravity of the situation and, not daring to delay any longer, quickly left the Wooden House.
After Zhou Mo left,
Chen Fan began to take stock of the camp’s current resources.
They weren’t short on food or water for the time being.
He had 367 usable Ghost Stones, not counting the ones placed in the Ghost Fire.
There were another 50 Ghost Stones in the Ghost Fire, used for daily maintenance and to replenish the Arrow Towers’ consumption.
The entire camp’s safe zone was currently twenty meters in diameter.
The area within the core City Wall had a diameter of ten meters.
The core area was relatively small, but its small size also meant that building the City Wall cost less. He had therefore placed many of the core structures inside the walls, while some non-essential buildings were situated outside.
His future plan was to expand the camp’s overall area.
At the same time, he wanted to upgrade the entire existing City Wall to Level 2.
He also planned to build a new ring of walls around the camp’s perimeter, creating two layers of defense. The first barrier would protect the Ordinary buildings; if it were breached, they would fall back to the core area.
But...
His current resources were insufficient to support this plan.
Relying on killing Ghost Objects to obtain Ghost Stones was somewhat unreliable. He first needed to get his hands on all the Ghost Stones from those destroyed outposts in the Wilderness.
’A vehicle...’
...
An idea gradually formed in Chen Fan’s mind, though he felt the chances of success were rather low. His 2.0 heating system was, in truth, extremely simple in principle. It only seemed miraculous because the people of this Mystical World had never thought along those lines.
In essence, it was just using a Wooden Spike as a pressure-triggered Piston.
After a few moments of thought,
He took out two Ghost Stones and created another Beast Trap, then spent ten more to upgrade it to Level 2. This time, he chose the upgrade path: "Increased Earth Spike retraction speed."
He then crafted a Copper Pipe, a meter in diameter.
He placed the Copper Pipe over the Earth Spike.
Then he crafted another, thinner Copper Pipe. Standing on a table, he began repeatedly poking the Earth Spike at the base of the thick Copper Pipe.
Each poke activated the Earth Spike.
In turn, the thin Copper Pipe he was holding would be propelled upward.
It generated a powerful thrust.
That’s right.
He was going to build a vehicle.
The core principle was similar to an internal combustion engine. The only difference was replacing the "fuel-air mixture explosion" that drives the Piston with the activation of an "Earth Spike" to drive the Piston.
An extremely crude "Earth Spike" engine had taken shape.
All he needed to do was add a vehicle chassis, a Main Drive Shaft, and some gears and wheels to convert the Piston’s linear reciprocating motion into rotational motion.
With that, he could build an extremely crude vehicle. Its speed was anyone’s guess, limited as it was by the Earth Spike’s triggering force and reset speed.
’Gears?’
’This is a goddamn Mystical World, where the hell am I supposed to find gears? Besides, making gears requires tough, wear-resistant materials, and I have nothing like that in the camp right now. The Copper Pipes aren’t very strong; they’re just a basic building material.’
’Wait—’
His expression slowly turned strange.
’Isn’t there a pile of Ghost Material from the Mantis Ghost—the Mantis Arms—stacked up in the Warehouse?’
’I tested those things. They’re pretty tough.’
’Should I try it?’
’Let’s try it!’
Chen Fan immediately hopped off the table, scooped up the thick Copper Pipe and Earth Spike from the floor, and headed outside. If this experiment worked, all the resources in the destroyed outposts around the Wilderness would be his for the taking.
That was a haul of at least several thousand Ghost Stones!
...
There was a little more than an hour left until Evernight.
There was still plenty of time.
After receiving their orders, everyone in the camp sprang into action.
First, Chen Fan spent another two Ghost Stones to create a brand-new Wooden House. Wang Mazi and his men then started tearing it down with a great CLATTER and BANG, salvaging as many intact Wooden Boards as possible, which they then trimmed and fitted together.
Meanwhile, Qi Chong and his crew dug in the Farmland for a long time before they finally unearthed the deeply buried Monkey Head Ghost and began to skin it.
Zhou Mo was also squatting by the Farmland, clutching a Big Saber. He stared at the blueprints the Station Head had given him with a pained expression as he began to chop and break apart the bones in front of him.
It was the corpse of a Bamboo Pole Ghost.
The creature was long and slender.
Its bones were equally long, slender, and hard—perfect for a drive shaft.
Lame Monkey had attended a Private School for a few years, so he was relatively quick-witted. Holding a set of blueprints, he moved from place to place, inspecting the work and making constant corrections.
