Dust-Free Construction

After traveling for a long time, the tricycle slowly pulled up beside the old camp. "..." Chen Fan looked at the ghost creature corpses scattered across the camp grounds, keeping silent for a long time with mixed emotions. He had invested a great deal of sentiment into this familiar campsite. Last night. This old camp had suffered an assault from ghost creatures. There had not been that many—just thirty or forty, all monkey head ghosts—and they had done no damage to the camp. His primary purpose for this trip was to pave the road. He had not actually needed to visit the old camp; when he departed yesterday, he had already laid ten thousand meters of copper pipe, and all he needed to do was continue laying along yesterday's trajectory. Still, this was his first day away from the old camp, and he had wanted to take a look. "Just take the ghost stones." He looked toward Quehou, who was untying the rope to haul the corpses, and shook his head. "We're only here for a look. Once the road connects today, we can install the Clear Breeze Array. Traveling back and forth will be much faster then. We'll have Zhou Mo and the others haul the corpses back to the rear later." They had not brought a cart, so they could not carry the corpses away; forcing them on would only slow their speed. The Clear Breeze Array was an exotic treasure obtained from killing the mourning ghost chieftain. Placed within a ghost fire, it could blanket the camp's grounds in a fresh breeze, giving a modest boost to movement speed. "Let's go." ... Returning to the ten-thousand-meter connection point laid yesterday, the tricycle rolled slowly across the wasteland. Like an assembly-line worker, Chen Fan planted copper pipes into the earth beneath the wasteland one by one. It was not skilled labor, just rather exhausting, requiring continuous, mechanical repetition of the same task. Finally— The tricycle slowly rolled into the canyon. The copper pipes passed through the canyon and were laid all the way into the village. Now, he only needed to craft another ghost fire to connect the two camps. "Stationmaster." Zhou Mo jogged over out of breath. "It's basically all leveled. Are we setting up the new camp here?" "..." Chen Fan stood on the ground, surveying the village that had now been flattened, and shook his head. "No." He then upgraded the Level 3 arrow tower built atop the bunker the previous night straight to a Level 5 cannon tower. This consumed four hundred ghost stones. Upgrading to a Level 5 cannon tower required meeting two conditions: - [1: Consume 300 ghost stones.] [2: Consume 1 Mourning Lantern, 1 Ghost Eye, 1 Octagonal Conch... or any one of the listed items.] - There were twenty-seven options in total. Consuming any one of them along with three hundred ghost stones allowed an upgrade to a Level 5 cannon tower. He naturally chose the mourning lantern. After upgrading to a Level 5 cannon tower, there was not much change. Like the arrow fort, it remained a cube of brown stone masonry measuring one meter on each side. One face bore a rectangular aperture. Where a cold-glinting repeating crossbow had once been set, it had now become... a white paper lantern. At least on the surface, it did not look intimidating at all. - [Arrow Tower upgraded to Level 5: promoted to "Cannon Tower." Must be permanently mounted in place; cannot be moved at will. Power increased.] [Please select an upgrade path.] [1: Increased Rate of Fire.] [2: Increased Power.] [3: Reduced Energy Consumption.] - He chose the second upgrade path—increased power. What he needed most right now was raw power. He tapped the back of the cannon tower, revealing a slot, and inserted ten Level 2 ghost stones. The next moment— A flash of white light shone from the white lantern inside the aperture. *Boom!* The instant the cannon tower engaged, a milky-white beam of light as thick as a forearm shot from the aperture, striking square against the cliff face directly opposite the canyon passage. A tremendous blast erupted, scattering rock dust and pebbles into the air. The beam lasted for one second, during which it triggered continuous explosions. After each attack, it paused for a few seconds. Beams of white light slammed into the sheer cliff face in succession. He planned to blast a cave out of the mountain to serve as his base in the rear. ... The time it took to drink a cup of tea passed. "..." Chen Fan stood where he was, expressionless. The Level 5 cannon tower was even more powerful than he had imagined; compared to a Level 4 arrow fort, it was a qualitative leap. However... The rock of this mountain was also harder than he had imagined. He suspected it might be tougher than even a Level 1 wall. After a full cup of tea's worth of bombardment, it had merely blasted a shallow indentation of a cave into the cliff face. If this was the pace, carving out a full cave would take ages. "Being hard is good, too." He did not really see it as a bad thing. Being tough meant the natural barrier guarding his rear base would be much safer; it just made the initial ground-breaking rather laborious. Cannon towers could not be moved or repositioned. This cannon tower mounted on the bunker would have to stay here permanently, so he would not build too many just to excavate the cave, lest he waste resources. ... Another two hours passed. The furious bombardment had never ceased. The rough outline of the cave had finally been hollowed out. At his command, the cannon tower ceased fire. Zhou Mo and the others, tools in hand, swiftly cleared away the rubble and crushed earth before the rough cavern. It was a rough opening five meters high, twenty meters wide, and three meters deep. The next step was to erect a wall. Once the wall was built, cannon towers could be mounted atop it, speeding up the excavation while ensuring the towers would not go to waste by being permanently stuck elsewhere. "..." Chen Fan crushed a ghost stone in his hand. A translucent outline of a wall formed of white lines appeared before him. He slowly moved the projection, lining it up against the opening of the rough cavern. "Hm?" A flicker of surprise showed in his eyes. A cannon tower was not a precision construction tool, so there was no way he could blast out a rough opening that was exactly twenty meters wide; there would inevitably be discrepancies, such as 19.6 meters or 20.7 meters. His original plan had been to make fine adjustments with the cannon tower to trim away these discrepancies. To his surprise, the wall could seamlessly merge into the rock. Judging from the wall's projection, the cave he had excavated was 20.4 meters wide, yet he had no need to expand the entrance to 21 meters; that extra 0.4 meters of wall would automatically adapt to the rock. Of course, that 0.4-meter segment still cost the full price of crafting one meter of wall. Still, that was fine. It saved him quite a bit of trouble. Soon— A twenty-meter wall was constructed at the entrance of the rough cavern, fitting almost seamlessly. The next instant! Ten Level 5 cannon towers appeared in unison atop the wall. Chen Fan glanced down at the eerie green lantern tucked against his chest. After a moment's thought, he put it back. Using it to upgrade to a Level 6 cannon tower before expending its remaining four free uses felt like a waste. The ten Level 5 cannon towers rotated slowly, aiming their rectangular apertures into the cavern's interior. At his command, the furious bombardment began once more. *Boom, boom, boom...* Sounds like dynamite detonating in a mine echoed endlessly through the canyon. Gravel and dust showered down from high on the cliffs, and the ground trembled faintly. Flocks of birds flew out from the woods upon the mountain, circling in the sky. There really were quite a lot of birds here. And because of the rain, there was very little dust. In a sense, it could be called dust-free construction.