"It's time to go back."
Chen Fan stood alone on the wasteland, glanced around, then mounted his horse and hurriedly bolted toward the camp along the Copper Pipe road.
The Copper Pipe had been activated.
Within the camp's range, the "Breeze Formation" would empower his movement, as if on a highway.
Just as he returned to the camp, he happened to meet Zhou Mo, who was riding a Skeleton Horse that trailed several carts, also just returning.
"Station Master."
Seeing Chen Fan return, Zhou Mo immediately came up, saying with excitement, "With the copper pipes connecting this place and the old camp, a round-trip is much faster than before. Also, I saw many Eerie Creature corpses at the old camp."
"Many Eerie Creatures have been attacking the old camp these past few days."
"Eerie Creatures are just too rampant during the rainy season."
"There are roughly over three hundred Eerie Creature corpses, but I didn't see any exceptionally strong Eerie Creatures, nor any Extraordinary Treasures or anything."
"Mm."
Chen Fan nodded with a light laugh, "Hand the corpses over to Wang Kui for processing."
Now, there was a set of corpse processing procedures in place at the camp.
Eerie Stones were to be dug out and warehoused.
All usable Eerie Materials from the corpses were to be extracted; blood was to be drained into containers. Some corpses were to be buried in the farmland, some sent to the Sacrificial Tower, and some roasted. The entire process, aside from its only drawback--- demanding too much manpower, was well-rounded.
...
Inside the camp.
Chen Fan was taking stock of the camp's assets. Today, 5 unmanned outposts were built. The camp currently had 3,155 Eerie Stones remaining.
The Eerie Stones were running low.
Tomorrow, he would see what the unmanned outposts' hauls were like.
As for now...
He aimed the Level 5 Cannon Tower mounted on the fortress outside the city wall at a spot on the cliff about thirty meters from the ground and blasted out a shallow pit.
"Hey."
After doing this, he looked towards the crocodile waiting to be fed. This crocodile seemed to have mistaken "Hey" for its own name. Every time Chen Fan called "Hey," the crocodile would look over. Now, it happily waddled over and quietly lay down beside a dirt mound.
"Go into Cave No. 1 and dig a tunnel inside leading to that shallow pit. Can you do that?"
Just as he was about to explain in detail with gestures again, the crocodile looked up at the shallow pit high on the cliff, then opened its mouth, as a thin stream of green liquid accurately hit the pit. Then it quickly crawled up close to the city wall at Cave No. 1, looked back at him, and signaled for him to open the wall.
"Do you really understand what I said? Don't dig haphazardly."
After a moment's hesitation, Chen Fan had the city wall sink into the ground and let the crocodile in.
About a stick of incense's time(15 minutes) later.
"Thud".
A crocodile head suddenly poked out from the shallow pit thirty meters high on the cliff above the city wall, then quickly drew back. Soon after, the crocodile bolted out from the cave, wagging its tail at him as if asking for a reward.
...
At the pit above Cave No. 1, thirty meters from the ground.
Chen Fan brought Zhou Mo and a few others along the tunnel to this place.
"Oh, my god..."
Wang Kui lay prone on the ground, cautiously poked his head out to look down at the bottom of the abyss pit, then swiftly withdrew, "This is way too high. If you fell from here, it would probably hurt quite a bit."
"..."
Chen Fan did not go near the rim of the pit; he was also afraid of falling. From behind, he leaned out to look down into the abyss pit, his eyes full of satisfaction. That creature's efficiency was higher than he had imagined. Compared to digging a large cave, this smaller project was even faster.
"How did that crocodile find the target point you gave, Station Master?"
Pockmark Wang scratched the back of his head, his face full of confusion.
"It probably located it through that spit." Zhou Mo answered Pockmark Wang's question before turning to Chen Fan, "But Station Master, is it necessary for us to place a Cannon Tower in such a high place?"
"I feel our camp is already safe enough now."
"Of course it is."
Chen Fan turned his head to look at Zhou Mo, "Do you remember how the old camp was destroyed?"
"The level of the city wall was low; it couldn't withstand the lantern-holding Mourning Specter boss."
"No."
Chen Fan shook his head, "That was only partly true. The main reason was that the city wall could only hold a limited number of Archery Towers. If the firepower had been sufficient, even if that Mourning Specter boss could split, it would have been instantly killed upon reaching the splitting limit."
"We learn from our mistakes."
"We must not repeat the same errors."
"The defense capabilities are indeed strong enough, but defense alone cannot protect us forever. Even the best defense will eventually be worn down. What we've got to do is, after withstanding the enemy's first wave of attack, crush them with firepower."
"This abyss pit has natural cliff walls on all four sides."
"These are perfect locations for deploying Cannon Towers."
"With enough Cannon Towers high on the cliffs around the abyss pit and on the canyon walls, this place will be impregnable. No one will be able to breach it."
After saying this,
He consumed one white Mourning Lantern and 480 Eerie Stones to build a Level 5 Cannon Tower at this opening. Then, he took out some Copper Pipes and laid them along the tunnel until connecting it to the Level 5 Eerie Fire to provide energy for this Cannon Tower.
He also consumed 60 Eerie Stones to build a one-meter Level 2 city wall to block the opening.
The upgrade direction chosen for the Level 2 city wall was 'perfectly blending into the surroundings'.
...
Chen Fan and the others returned to the bottom of the abyss pit.
Looking up at the opening thirty meters from the ground, there was no trace of anything amiss. The city wall had merged seamlessly with the cliff face.
When the city wall opened, this hidden Cannon Tower would begin pouring down fire from up there.
"Station Master..."
Zhou Mo looked on in a daze, "An Eerie Fire extends to a maximum height of fifty meters. If we place Cannon Towers at positions higher than fifty meters, they won't be able to attack Eerie Creatures that have entered the camp's range."
There was a height limit to the Eerie Fire safe zone.
Fifty meters.
But hardly anyone paid attention to this, as it was practically never a concern.
"That's nothing."
Chen Fan said calmly in a soft voice, "As long as we build another Eerie Fire at a position fifty meters above ground, we can extend the height by another 50 meters. Repeating this can endlessly extend the height of the camp range. These Eerie Fires usually remain inactive; they are only activated when faced with a major enemy."
"But activating them once would cost dearly..."
Zhou Mo dithered.
This meant that these Eerie Fires would all become one-time-use structures. According to the Station Master's plan, to deploy a large number of Cannon Towers along the canyon and on the four cliffs of the abyss pit, there should be at least 100 Eerie Fires. Calculated at the price from the Rivernorth Marketplace, that would cost about 6,000 Eerie Stones.
And that was only the case when all were Level 1 Eerie Fires; yet the safe zone of Level 1 Eerie Fires wouldn't match this plan; at the very least, they should be Level 2 or Level 3 Eerie Fires. The cost of the Eerie Fires alone would be an astronomical figure.
"It will indeed cost us an arm and a leg."
Chen Fan smiled, "But these Eerie Fires won't be activated under normal circumstances. Once activated, it means we have reached a life-or-death moment. I call this defensive deployment the 'Meat Grinder.'"
"When the Meat Grinder has been activated, if we lose, we won't need to worry about the cost."
"And if we win,"
"An enemy that forces us to activate the 'Meat Grinder' will surely bring us enough returns."
Besides...
With the Perpetual Night Lord Panel, building a basic Eerie Fire only costs him 3 Eerie Stones.
For him, the cost was not too high.