47: Chapter 47 Planting Outposts as Tree Nests

Following the charred corpse of the Fire Attack Team being dragged deep into the gully, the Outpost finally became completely quiet!

The main shed was still smoking, a corner of its roof had collapsed, and burned rafters slanted into the cracks of the floor.

Jiang Ming did not pursue the watcher in the distance.

He simply inspected the node map of the forest will from start to finish.

The pulsation of the main tree core was steady.

The dark red core of the secondary tree core slowly contracted deep in the wet clay.

The color was a bit darker than when it had just condensed!

It was not damaged, but temporarily weakened after excessive load, requiring high-quality devouring to replenish.

He renamed the Outpost on the map.

Tree Nest No. 1.

It was not a temporary battlefield, nor a bait-and-kill zone, but his first fixed node in this world.

The modification started from the bottom of the main shed!

He transferred the three thickest energy-transporting roots in the main root network to the bottom of the shed base, carving out the first root chamber along the base of the load-bearing pillars.

The root chamber was not large, only holding a curled-up mycelial core, but the four walls were entirely woven from lignified roots, damp and constant-temperature.

It was separated from the secondary tree core by only a layer of compacted wet clay.

The wooden fence wreckage was rolled up from the mud by his lateral roots and obliquely inserted into the periphery of the root chamber.

Forming an inward-tilting protective circle—not to guard against humans, as humans were not to be feared now, but to guard against large anomalies rushing in from the flanks.

The old wooden stakes at the lateral warning points were originally just erosion anchor points, but now they were connected by his parasitic tendrils into a set of conductive contact points.

If any wooden stake was touched, the signal would instantly spread throughout the entire Outpost node network!

The tree core began to officially take over this ruin.

Every time the secondary tree core pulsated, the mycelial network at the bottom of the root chamber pumped a round of nutrients toward the fence.

The outer damp soil zone was slowly moistened into a semi-liquid mud layer more suitable for root flow.

Those two heavily injured guards were still alive.

They were inside the door frame of the main shed, with broken legs and cracked ribs, breathing shallowly and rapidly.

Jiang Ming left them behind to let them live until the Fire Attack Team arrived.

Repeating the old trick!

Save or not save?

Now that the Fire Attack Team was dead, their value was used up.

Two thick roots reached out from under the wooden board, wrapped around their ankles, and dragged them down.

The struggle lasted for a few seconds, and then the devouring was completed deep in the mud layer.

Bone slag and residual flesh and blood were directly filled into the nutrient layer at the bottom of the root chamber, becoming the first batch of local fertilizer for the Tree Nest.

The traces of the old guards were completely cleared from then on.

Ditch modification was the next focus.

He connected the culvert of the water storage ditch and the downstream bend of the drainage ditch with lateral roots, and led a short underground runoff from the wet mud layer behind the main shed.

Walking a circle around the main shed base to form a ring-shaped damp soil zone.

The damp soil zone was not deep, but the humidity was constant, and the root system traveled through it with almost no energy consumption.

The repair efficiency of Photosynthetic Energy Storage increased significantly within the damp soil zone, and the fire-burned branch breaks completed preliminary scabbing within half an hour.

Ah Qiu's remains curled up by the edge of the wooden board.

His heartbeat had stopped; before the big fire burned in, the spore mycelial network had experienced a brief full-frequency disorder due to the high-temperature shock.

Ah Qiu's central nervous system was completely disconnected at that instant.

Jiang Ming withdrew the mycelium from his body, reclaimed the residual energy of the spores, and then dragged the corpse alone into the root chamber.

When devouring, no complete memory fragments appeared, only fragmented sensory remnants:

The Outpost Manager's fingers drawing the roster on the board with a charcoal pencil, the subtle folds of the paper packet of hemostatic powder in the medicine box being reopened and resealed.

The glance of a certain sentinel who quickly scanned both sides when secretly hiding half a bag of salt under his bunk.

These fragments could not piece together a complete picture, but they all pointed in the same direction:

These humans were not a single mass...

Inside the Settlement, there were not only discipline and rules, but also extortion, hoarding, and shifting blame onto each other.

The cracks were not only outside the stronghold.

During the day, sunlight fell on the burned-through roof, and Photosynthetic Overload was activated.

Jiang Ming repaired while testing the node bonus of the Tree Nest.

Triggering the Tree Realm within the range of the Tree Nest consumed significantly less energy than in the wild.

The root chamber beneath the shed base pre-stored the basic energy required for activation, and the anchor stakes and conductive contact points shared part of the command load.

The deployment Speed of the Tree Realm root network was shortened to within one second.

Through the secondary tree core, the Tree Domain was mobilized to carry out mental suppression on the target inside the Tree Nest.

The precision was also improved, and the oppression level had one more subdivision than in the wild.

He began to design a special camouflage for this node: the surface of the main shed maintained a burned-out state, with charred wood stubble turned outward.

Viewed from a distance, it was just a ruin burned hollow by the Fire Attack Team.

But in the root chamber directly below the ruin, the secondary tree core was pulsating at a stable frequency.

The mycelial network expanded slowly at the bottom of the ditch.

In the evening, torchlight appeared at the end of the transportation route in the distance.

It did not rush over, but stopped at the end of the line of sight for a while, and then retreated.

The Infected Crow flew back from the direction of the fork, and the images brought back were very blurry, but clear enough to see the movements of human figures:

Someone dragged away the empty kerosene barrels dropped by the Fire Attack Team from outside the Wooden Stake Area.

Someone nailed a new marker sign to the trunk of the withered elm tree at the fork, and then drew a thick line spanning across the road on the ground with lime powder.

A signal flag was inserted on each side of the horizontal line.

Restricted Entry Line.

It was not the restricted entry line of the Outpost, but the blockade line on the periphery of Black Tree Mouth.

The Settlement did not immediately launch the next round of attack.

After the news of the total annihilation of the Fire Attack Team was brought back, divisions arose within the higher-ups!

The Restricted Entry Line drew a clear boundary.

Some wanted to seal off Black Tree Mouth, while others insisted on mobilizing heavier firepower to suppress them; neither could convince the other.

Jiang Ming did not rush to destroy that restricted entry line, because the blockade line itself would not starve people, but arguments would.

For every extra day the Settlement argued, there was an extra day of internal consumption.

Taking advantage of this brief stagnation period, he pushed the root network further.

The lateral roots extending southeastward from Tree Nest No. 1 had already touched the next fork of the transportation route.

The road surface of the fork was repeatedly trampled and compacted, and the marker stakes on the roadside were engraved with digital codes and directional arrows.

The numbering system was more complex than the markers in the Outpost area, clearly approaching the outer activity circle of the Settlement.

When the night completely descended, the sounds coming from the distance changed.

Not the sound of footsteps, not the shaking of torches, but wheels.

Heavy wooden wheels rolled over the gravel road, with a very slow rhythm, stopping and sounding again.

Not pushed by manpower, but by large pack animals.

The Infected Crow flew over in the dark.

By the moonlight, it saw a flatbed heavy wagon moving from the direction of the Settlement toward the outer sentry points, piled with wooden barrels and long cargo boxes covered with oilcloth!

It did not come directly toward the Outpost, its direction leaned southwest, but it was already very close to the periphery of Black Tree Mouth!

The Settlement had not given up...