Active Skill: Storm Inhale

He had sixteen days left. After sixteen days, he would have to face two major crises simultaneously. One was the possible arrival of the ghost king, and the other was contact with outside factions once the rainy season ended. After the rainy season, a winter lasting several months would set in. Temperatures would plummet, and few merchant caravans or travelers would traverse the wilderness. In keeping with past customs, everyone—whether regional factions or Jiangbei City—would be busy rebuilding and repairing their battered settlements and city walls. No one had the time or inclination to trade across the wasteland. Because hardly anyone crossed the wilderness during the winter, the great clans would not bother setting up outposts out there either. Only after winter passed and spring arrived would the wilderness bustle with life again. Chen Fan's goal was simple: once the rainy season ended, he wanted a seat at the table. Killing ghost creatures to harvest ghost stones was a strategy for the rainy season. Once it was over, ghost creatures would no longer be so easy to hunt, and he would have to find other ways to earn ghost stones. Pondering his upcoming plans, Chen Fan walked into the Meat Grinder Passage and resumed setting up cannon towers. Over the past several days, Weiwei had excavated quite a few more alcoves inside the Meat Grinder Passage. One, two, three... A single cannon tower cost 480 ghost stones, while a Level 2 wall to conceal the opening cost 60 ghost stones—totaling 540 ghost stones altogether. That was the price of a single node in the Meat Grinder defense network. He intended to turn his rear base into a zone of firepower so dense that not even a mosquito could slip through. Even if the ghost king showed up, he would blow him into a sieve. After constructing twenty cannon towers in one go, he had spent 10,800 ghost stones. In return, the sheer cliffs circling the sinkhole now bristled with a total of thirty-eight cannon towers. The moment an intruder set foot into the depths of the sinkhole, those thirty-eight cannon towers embedded along the perimeter rock walls would unleash an airtight web of crossfire from varied angles and elevations, covering every conceivable blind spot. Best of all, an enemy would hardly be able to strike back. "That should do it." Having finished the work, Chen Fan walked along the wall and gazed down into the sinkhole bathed in ghost fire. The Meat Grinder's layout inside the sinkhole was largely complete. Thirty-eight towers would suffice for now. Next, he needed to think about defending the canyon. That could wait until daybreak. He looked toward the canyon passage, where a long, straight, two-meter-wide path of ghost fire stretched into the distance. That was the outpost's boundary, extended by the copper pipes laid across the ground. The camp was quiet at this hour, broken only by the occasional rhythmic thudding—the sound of the crocodile still tunneling away. He had ordered the crocodile to dig toward the canyon tonight, branching into both rock faces flanking the passage. Once morning came, Chen Fan would begin setting up towers along both canyon walls. Everyone else in the camp was already asleep. Chen Fan stood on the wall, staring out into the dark in a daze for a while before letting out a soft sigh and heading back inside to sleep. This world was awful. He had no ambitions of conquering territory or becoming a king. He only wanted to survive as long as possible in this world, to live on—and preferably to live comfortably. That was all he asked. He wasn't like Wang Mazi. Wang Mazi had been a traveling merchant and was endlessly curious about the outside world. Chen Fan had no such curiosity. Just consider how dangerous the outside world was—there were people capable of smashing a crater into a mountain with a single hammer blow. He simply wanted to stay quietly in Jiangbei, forge an impregnable rear sanctuary of his own, and live out the rest of his days in peace. Before long, day broke. The darkness blanketing the wilderness receded as usual, and the camp filled once more with bustling clamor. "Good work." Early that morning, Zhou Mo and the others set out to collect yesterday's haul from the unmanned outposts. Chen Fan, meanwhile, walked past the wall to the junction between the sinkhole and the canyon. He looked up at the rock faces on either side of the canyon, inspecting the openings Weiwei had carved out the previous day. There were six openings in total. The pace had been slightly slower than usual, but that made sense—tunneling all the way from the Meat Grinder Passage along the sinkhole's rock walls to reach the canyon covered a considerable distance. The workload had actually been heavier than normal. This area lay beyond the camp's boundaries. City defense structures could only attack enemies within the camp's domain. Installing cannon towers here and connecting them via copper pipes would power them, but the towers could only target enemies standing within the camp area provided by the pipes. Therefore, what he needed to set up was Meat Grinder Phase Two. Chen Fan quickly returned to the camp, climbed through the Meat Grinder Passage, and emerged at the six excavated alcoves flanking the canyon. Standing at the edge of an opening, he looked down at the canyon below. It was an ideal vantage point, roughly forty meters above the ground. To enter the sinkhole, there were only two routes: through the canyon or down from the top of the rim. For anyone entering via the canyon, this was the ultimate firing position. He spent 3,240 ghost stones to erect a Level 5 cannon tower inside each of the six alcoves Weiwei had dug overnight. The tilt angle of the cannon towers was substantial, but enemies hugging the base of the sheer cliffs directly below would still be hard to target. Placing three on each side eliminated any blind spots. With that done, he used copper pipes to connect the six cannon towers to the ghost fire. Now, the moment the pipes were energized, all six towers could unleash their wrath. However, since the ground below fell outside the camp's radius, they couldn't hit anything yet. One more step was needed to make the setup complete. Chen Fan stepped out of the camp once more and entered the canyon passage, glancing up at the alcoves on both sides. By this time, Weiwei had already followed his instructions and excavated a pit one meter beneath the floor of the canyon passage. Chen Fan walked up to the pit and built a Level 3 ghost fire inside it at the cost of 63 ghost stones. Then he filled the dirt back in over it. Dusting off his hands, Chen Fan nodded in satisfaction. The Level 3 ghost fire inside the pit remained unlit, but it was already linked to the camp's Level 5 ghost fire via copper pipes. With a single thought, he could ignite it in an instant. The moment it lit, the six Level 5 cannon towers on both canyon walls would activate simultaneously, bombarding any enemy foolish enough to venture into the canyon. After choosing the upgrade path that expanded camp area, a Level 3 ghost fire could achieve a maximum diameter of fifty meters. That was just enough to span the width of the canyon. The entire canyon stretched a thousand meters long. In other words, he needed only twenty Level 3 ghost fires laid out in sequence. The moment all of them flared to life, the entire canyon would fall within his field of fire. He dubbed this deployment Meat Grinder Phase Two. The tranquil, seemingly harmless canyon would instantly transform into a frantic slaughterhouse the moment Phase Two was triggered. Of course, it was only a rudimentary prototype right now. The project was massive and could not be completed quickly. Once Meat Grinder Phase Two was initiated, those twenty Level 3 ghost fires would be ruined after the battle. Naturally, if he didn't want them ruined, he could keep them lit continuously. The daily upkeep wasn't prohibitive—around twenty ghost stones a day, equivalent to maintaining two Snow Lotuses. But doing so would forfeit the element of surprise. The primary scenario he envisioned for Phase Two was when an enemy cautiously pushed through the canyon passage to assault the sinkhole, stretching their army into a long column within the gorge. Someone like the ghost king, for instance. The enemy would never imagine that this thousand-meter canyon, shrouded in pitch darkness, could turn into camp territory in the blink of an eye. The surprise factor of triggering Phase Two at that moment would be devastating. Being forced to abandon his old camp had taught him many hard lessons. Ghost creatures would often deliberately linger just beyond the camp's boundary to harass him, and because he dared not pursue them into the dark, he could only endure their attacks. It had been infuriating. This thousand-meter canyon was his trap. With twenty Level 3 ghost fires, the fixed cost for each activation would be 1,260 ghost stones—an expense he could well afford. Any adversary worthy of triggering Meat Grinder Phase Two would surely yield more than enough spoils to cover the bill. "Not bad." Standing in the center of the canyon, Chen Fan looked up at the flanking cliffs with a satisfied expression. All that remained was to fill the canyon with defenses before the rainy season ended. He had buried the ghost fire one meter deep not because he didn't want it deeper, but because copper pipes could only be laid up to one meter underground. Any deeper, and the pipe wouldn't be able to connect to the fire. "Good work." Chen Fan looked at the crocodile wagging its tail beside him, clearly fishing for praise, and said approvingly, "Keep it up. Try to hollow out the Meat Grinder Passages on both sides of the canyon as soon as possible." Returning to the camp and stepping onto the wall, Chen Fan looked down at the two exotic treasures he had retrieved from the warehouse. After clearing the battlefield following the fight with Qianhu, two exotic treasures had dropped from Qianhu himself. Another two had dropped from the thousand-odd corpses. Wang Kui had stored both in the warehouse, and Chen Fan hadn't inspected them yet. He turned the familiar bead over in his hand. *** **Exotic Treasure:** Wind-Sheltering Pearl **Grade:** Green **Effect:** Essential material for constructing a Wind Tower, a specialized city defense building capable of whipping up powerful winds. *** An old friend. He had obtained a Wind-Sheltering Pearl before and used it to build a Wind Tower. He glanced at the slender, elegant tower of dark basalt behind the wall. It was a striking structure. Though classified as a white-grade building, it looked astonishingly cool. The bronze eagle perched atop the Wind Tower and the countless spiral and streamlined silver runes embedded in its surface made for a handsome sight. "Hmm..." Without hesitating, he spent 1,000 ghost stones along with the Wind-Sheltering Pearl to upgrade the Wind Tower to Level 2. In his view, upgrading this tower to Level 2 was certainly better than building a second one. The next instant, the myriad silver runes on the tower's surface flared with light. Their flickering accelerated, then snapped still. Its appearance remained unchanged. A panel materialized before his eyes. *** **Wind Tower upgraded to Level 2. Wind force increased, adjustable.** **Please select an upgrade path:** 1. **Warm Gale:** Blows warm winds, raising the temperature within camp boundaries. 2. **Chilling Gale:** Blows cold winds, lowering the temperature within camp boundaries. 3. **Qualitative Change:** Nature of change unknown. *** Chen Fan stood in place, expressionless and silent. The first option was genuinely great. The temperature was dropping by the day, and winter was fast approaching. Having something like that would make the entire camp delightfully warm. The second option would be wonderful in summer as well. Yet... Who could resist a qualitative change? He certainly couldn't. This didn't leave him any real choice at all. This was only the second time he had encountered a qualitative change. The last time, it had granted the wall the Thorns Counter-Armor effect, which had proved exceedingly useful. Without a shred of hesitation, he hurried down the wall and returned to his quarters. He bathed. He burned incense. Only after completing these rituals did he return to the wall, take a deep breath, and confirm the third upgrade path. *** **Beginning qualitative change...** **Qualitative change complete.** 3. **This Wind Tower can activate the active skill 'Storm Inhale.' Once triggered, it generates a powerful, adjustable suction force within the camp's domain. (Common)** *** "Uh..." Chen Fan stared at the Wind Tower's panel with mixed feelings. *** **Building:** Wind Tower **Grade:** White **Level:** 2 **Effects:** 1. Can unleash gale-force winds. 2. Can activate Storm Inhale. *Note: Upgrading to Level 3 requires 2,000 ghost stones and Wind-Sheltering Pearl ×2 or Wind-Calming Pearl ×2, etc.* *** "Storm Inhale?" This counted as the camp's second active skill, the first being Arrow Rain Storm. However, he couldn't quite figure out what he was supposed to use this for. Gathering loot? That sounded like it would be a mess. Corpses and debris would get slammed against the base of the wall by the suction, making cleanup even more of a headache. Perhaps it could be used against enemies. When foes charged into the canyon, one inhale... Suck them straight into the sinkhole, then trigger Meat Grinder Phase One. "Hmm..." Chen Fan grinned. That sounded quite promising as a crowd-control skill. But his eyes quickly caught the appended condition: *Only effective within the camp's domain.* In other words, it couldn't suck enemies out of the canyon into the sinkhole. Not unless he ignited the ghost fires buried along the canyon passage. But if he was already lighting those ghost fires... Why bother with the Wind Tower? He could just trigger Meat Grinder Phase Two directly. "Forget it." After mulling it over, Chen Fan put the question aside. He couldn't think of an immediate use for Storm Inhale, so he would leave it be for now. A purpose would present itself eventually. He turned his attention to the second exotic treasure. *** **Exotic Treasure:** Soybean **Grade:** Green **Effect:** Must be planted in Level 2 farmland. Maturation cycle of 5 days. Delicious, slightly enhances physical constitution. **Cultivation Requirement:** Must be watered twice daily with ghost blood. *** An exotic treasure of the ghost flora variety. He called over Qi Chong, who had been lounging beside the farmland praising the sunflower day in and day out, and handed the ghost plant over to him. He also constructed two more plots of Level 2 farmland, given that there was a generous quantity of soybean seeds. "Phew..." By now, dawn had just broken. With his tasks finished, Chen Fan swept a glance over the camp, stretched his back, walked past the wall, and mounted his horse for a ride through the canyon. He had no intention of leaving Nameless Mountain, merely wanting to take a stroll along the gorge. A person couldn't just sit on the wall all day. Sitting around too long ruined the body. He needed to move every now and then. If only it would stop raining. Though clad in a coir raincoat and bamboo hat, the persistent downpour was truly getting on his nerves.