32: Chapter 32 Second Settlement

Cloud Top Fortress landed steadily on the central plaza of the ancient ruins.

The massive hatch opened slowly, and Zhou An walked out first, clad in his combat armor.

Luo Ning held a submachine gun to scan the surroundings, while Li Muzi followed at the rear, carrying a metal collection box.

This was a grand ruin of an ancient temple. The towering stone pillars were covered in weathered, mysterious runes, and in the center stood an altar.

Unexpectedly, there were no high-tier monsters guarding this place.

Perhaps the earth-shattering guild battle earlier had scared away the nearby monsters, or they had already perished during the Floating Island's descent.

"Boss! Come quick! There's loot in the altar!"

Like a little sprite discovering treasure, Luo Ning rushed onto the altar in a few quick steps.

Zhou An walked up and looked. On the recessed stone platform in the center of the altar lay a dozen crystals emitting a dazzling golden light, and beside them sat a treasure chest shimmering with a platinum luster.

[Obtained: Floating Island Core Crystal x 14!]

[Obtained: Platinum Treasure Chest x 1!]

"Good grief, a giant Floating Island is generous indeed; it dropped 14 at once!" Zhou An was overjoyed. Combined with what he had left, he had instantly gathered more than half of the core crystals needed for Luo Ning and Li Muzi to upgrade to LV3.

"Boss, you guys, come over here and look!"

Li Muzi's extremely excited voice came from behind the altar.

The two hurried around the altar. They saw a patch of extremely peculiar plants growing in the cracks of the ruins behind the temple.

They were only about half a meter tall, with leaves that were a sickly pale white, but hanging between the branches were clusters of berries that were as crystal-clear as rubies, emitting a faint glow.

Wearing isolation gloves, Li Muzi was carefully observing these berries, her cheeks flushed with excitement.

"This is... [wind spirit berry]! A special mutated plant of blue quality!"

Li Muzi pushed up her glasses and shared the scanned information with Zhou An.

[Name: wind spirit berry (Blue)]

Attribute: Edible mutated plant.

Effect: Consuming a single berry directly can forcibly stimulate human potential for the next 5 minutes, increasing speed and endurance by 5%!

Note: Consuming a large amount in a short time will cause muscle tearing. It is not only a life-saving medicine but also an excellent base material for refining high-tier enhancement potions.

"Increases speed and endurance?!"

Zhou An's eyes lit up.

5% didn't sound like much, but in those life-or-death extreme battles, that 5% speed was often enough to determine whether you would smash a monster's head or be disemboweled by its sharp claws!

"Muzi, is this thing easy to grow?" Zhou An asked immediately.

"These are rare mature plants! It saves the long seed germination stage!"

Li Muzi nodded repeatedly with excitement.

"As long as we transplant them back to our [spatial cultivation chamber] and irrigate them with the spiritual spring water from the [Source Pure Water Matrix], I guarantee they will not only survive but their yield will also double!"

"What are we waiting for? Dig them all up! Roots, soil, the works—don't leave a single scrap for anyone else!" Zhou An immediately issued the "scorched-earth" order.

The three got to work immediately. Li Muzi displayed the professional competence of her [Shennong] talent, carefully digging up all nine wind spirit berry plants by the roots and placing them into the specialized temperature-controlled collection box.

In addition to these core treasures, a large amount of basic supplies was scattered in the corners of the temple ruins.

[Obtained: Level 2 Stone x 3000, Level 2 Steel x 1500, Level 1 Wood x 20000, various common treasure chests x 15...]

Although these things were no longer worth mentioning in Zhou An's eyes, adhering to the fine tradition of "never leaving empty-handed" and "stocking up," Luo Ning still diligently operated the fortress's mechanical arms to sweep all these supplies away.

They were busy for three whole hours. It wasn't until the radar showed that the Floating Island had descended to the dangerous altitude of 13,000 meters and was starting to show signs of collapse that the three of them returned to Cloud Top Fortress, satisfied.

"Phew—"

Luo Ning collapsed onto the leather sofa, gulped down a large mouthful of pure water, and couldn't help but click her tongue as she looked at the cargo hold filled to the brim.

"Boss, I finally understand why those big guilds would risk their lives just to seize a Floating Island."

She pointed at the pile of resources, speaking with a mix of lingering fear and immense excitement: "Just the output of this one giant Floating Island—a dozen core crystals, a platinum treasure chest, plus those rare plants and massive amounts of materials... If you manage to seize this haul, even if you're a lone commander, it's enough for you to comfortably and stress-free survive the next major phase's survival crisis."

"This is the snowball effect."

Zhou An took off his combat armor and picked up a cup of hot tea.

"In this world, if you get ahead by one step, you stay ahead. Whoever secures the first-hand core resources will always be able to crush others."

He gazed out the window with profound eyes: "Alright, everyone, since we've eaten our fill, don't just sit around."

"In this high-altitude region, there are a full 10,000 such fat sheep."

...

Time flew by during the frantic hunting in the high altitude.

Over the past two days, [Cloud Top Fortress] became the most terrifying ghost in this airspace.

Using his legendary-grade stealth force field, Zhou An targeted giant Floating Islands where big guilds had battled to mutual exhaustion, or those that had just breached the defense lines of the core area.

They moved as if in an unmanned land, forcefully snatching food from the jaws of several major guilds.

Until the 48-hour limited-time event ended completely, the Floating Islands filling the sky, amidst the system's countdown, plummeted like meteorites that had lost gravity support, falling straight into the bottomless fog abyss below.

"What a huge harvest..."

Inside Cloud Top Fortress, Zhou An looked at the loot before him and couldn't help but sigh.

Besides the massive amount of supply blind boxes of various levels, the core gains were extremely eye-catching:

[Floating Island Core Crystal]: 27! Perfectly completing the quota needed for Luo Ning and Li Muzi to upgrade to LV3!

[Various exotic plants/seeds]: Filled two entire thermostatic boxes, all of which were moved into the cultivation chamber by Li Muzi as if they were treasures, saying she was planning to cultivate a type of mutated aloe vera that could detoxify.

As the bell of midnight chimed in everyone's minds, everyone's actions paused simultaneously.

[System Important Announcement!]

[The second comprehensive settlement for Area 997, officially beginning!]

The three were startled, and only then did they remember the system's reminder that the settlement would happen when the event ended.

[Settlement dimensions: Personal combat power, vehicle civilization level, total supply/resource storage comprehensive score.]

In an instant, a massive golden holographic leaderboard was projected onto the retinas of all survivors. Everyone held their breath, staring fixedly at that list.

[First Place: City Lord Zhao Tianyu (Tianqing Guild leader). Comprehensive score: 180 million! Awarded unique divine power gift!]

[Second Place: Guild Leader Lin Xiaotian (Divine Domain Guild leader). Comprehensive score: 160 million!]

[Third Place: Scar (Blood Blade Guild leader). Comprehensive score: 140 million!]

[Fourth Place: Guild Leader Qian Wanguan (Four Seas Chamber of Commerce leader). Comprehensive score: 130 million!]

[Fifth Place: Minister Su Hongye (Hongyan Pavilion leader). Comprehensive score: 120 million!]

[Sixth Place: Zhou An (Independent player with no faction). Comprehensive score: 24.5 million!]

[Seventh Place: ... Comprehensive score: 3 million!]

The list only showed the top 100, but just looking at the data for the top ten, the entire region channel fell into a deathly, eerie silence, followed by overwhelming, frantic exclamations.

"Holy shit! The top five all have scores in the hundreds of millions?! Is this fucking data something a human can achieve?"

"Duh! Top guilds like Sky Engine and Divine Domain have at least tens of thousands of people under them! They confiscated the supplies of all their low-level members and forcefully stacked the guild leader's score up!"

"Look at sixth place! Zhou An?! Isn't that the legendary independent player who was first on the supply leaderboard before?"

"My god, he's an independent player without any guild support, and he managed to get a score of over 24 million? And he left seventh place behind by a gap of 20 million?!"

Inside the fortress hall.

Luo Ning looked at the leaderboard and pouted, somewhat unwillingly: "Boss, why are you only sixth? You've looted so many chests these past few days and upgraded to LV3; I thought you could get first place."

Li Muzi pushed up her glasses: "Ningning, don't forget, the Boss is only one person."

She pointed at Zhou An's extremely distorted score radar chart: "Look, the Boss's [Personal combat power/vehicle civilization level] score is as high as 15 million, which is the undisputed first in the entire region! It's even 3 million higher than City Lord Zhao Tianyu's!"

"But... in [Total supply storage], the Boss only has a score of less than 10 million. And those five guild leaders ahead of him, their supply scores are all in the 'hundreds of millions'!"

Zhou An leaned back on the sofa, his expression extremely calm.

"This is normal. When the first batch of cold-weather supplies was issued, everyone was in the novice stage, and guilds had just started, so I could rely on my talent to stay ahead of them."

Zhou An analyzed calmly: "But things are different now. Giants like Sky Engine and the Four Seas Chamber of Commerce have completely formed, and they control the life and death of tens of thousands of low-level players. With just one order, even if tens of thousands of people only hand in one piece of wood a day, the supplies gathered in their guild leader's hands are an extremely terrifying astronomical figure."

"No matter how much I harvest on my own, it's impossible to compete with the collective productivity of hundreds of thousands of people in terms of total supplies. Being able to pull the total score to sixth place through personal combat power and top-tier materials, leaving the seventh place behind by several times, is already the limit."

"The Boss is right."

Li Muzi nodded in agreement.

"We are taking the elite route."

[Ding! Settlement rewards are being distributed.]

[Congratulations to survivor Zhou An for achieving sixth place in the comprehensive ranking. Reward: Diamond Treasure Chest x 1.]

With a flash of light, a brilliant diamond treasure chest landed in front of Zhou An.

"Only the top five get special item rewards, and the first place gets a divine power gift. Sixth place just gets a chest to brush me off."

Zhou An casually patted the diamond chest and stored it into his inventory.