42: Chapter 42 Upgrade!

Early the next morning, the fortress's internal climate control system hummed steadily, emitting a reassuring low-frequency drone that kept the bitter chill of the polar night firmly at bay.

After a full night of self-repair, the armor plating that had been pierced yesterday was perfectly sealed, leaving not even a scratch behind. The entire Cloud Top Fortress looked brand new.

Zhou An finished washing up and arrived in the main hall, where a rich aroma of medicine mingled with the scent of rice, hitting him head-on.

Li Muzi had already risen early and was busy in the kitchen. Although she wasn't a professional chef, she made up for it with her attentiveness, carefully simmering a pot of thick, soft, and glutinous medicinal porridge using low-tier tonic herbs and high-tier spirit rice produced in the plantation.

"Boss, morning." Li Muzi walked over carrying a steaming bowl of porridge, her eyes filled with a trace of lingering fear and undisguised concern. "About what happened yesterday... Luo Ning said you guys successfully interfered with those colossi in the end. It's good you weren't hurt. I was in my room at the time, and I felt like the whole fortress was about to fall apart. My heart almost jumped out of my chest."

Zhou An took the porcelain bowl and drank a mouthful of hot porridge. The dense texture slid down his throat, turning into a warm current that reached his Dantian, dispelling the chill in his limbs and bones, and even dissipating a significant portion of the lingering mental fatigue.

He didn't intend to tell Muzi about how he had almost mutated into a monster yesterday and nearly strangled Luo Ning. He simply nodded calmly. "Mm, it's all in the past. We've already used the warp to escape the arena and returned to the standard route at 16,000 meters. The winds are relatively stable here, and there aren't any high-tier monsters. Let's just rest easy for these next few days."

"Heave-ho! Morning, Boss! Morning, Muzi!"

Accompanied by a series of light footsteps, Luo Ning bounded out from the end of the corridor like an energetic little deer.

The bandage on her neck had been completely removed. Under the miraculous efficacy of the epic-grade healing injection, the skin there was fair and smooth, with no trace of having suffered a severe injury.

She unceremoniously served herself a full bowl of porridge, sat down opposite Zhou An, and slurped away until her mouth was covered in rice grains.

Zhou An looked at her carefree demeanor, his expression softening slightly. He put down his spoon, reached out to tap the virtual panel in front of him, and quickly authorized a series of permissions in the system backend.

"Luo Ning, I just opened a separate high-level permission pool for you. You can call upon the Tier 3 materials, rare metals, and those high-tier blueprints we picked up yesterday in the warehouse whenever you want. You don't need to report to me anymore."

Luo Ning's rice-shoveling motion came to an abrupt halt, and she stared at Zhou An with wide eyes. "Really, Boss? You aren't trying to sexually harass me, are you?"

"Cut the crap. You've got so much drama just because I approved your budget."

Zhou An scolded her with a smile.

"You made the biggest contribution in this battle royale; this is what you deserve. Besides, didn't you say your 'sedative' was still in the experimental stage? Go ahead and research it to your heart's content, and take whatever materials you need."

"The Boss is generous! Long live the Boss! Muzi, did you hear that? I've finally achieved material freedom! Hahahaha!"

Watching Luo Ning's joyful retreating figure, Zhou An shook his head with a smile, then leaned back into the spacious chair and opened the system's task panel.

[Beast's Struggle (Battle Royale Quest) Completed!]

[Reward Obtained: Diamond Treasure Chest x 1!]

Added to the one he was awarded for ranking sixth overall, Zhou An now had two extremely rare Diamond Treasure Chests.

"Save them for now."

Zhou An resisted the urge to open them on the spot.

The current survival environment outside was extremely harsh. The refresh rates for material rains and floating islands had been lowered to freezing point by the polar night natural disaster, and the difficulty of obtaining treasure chests was countless times harder than back when he could grind for two days and top hundreds of them.

He planned to wait until the Cloud Top Fortress upgraded to LV4 to use the [Level Up!] Hextech to see if he could synthesize a higher-level god-tier blind box with these two Diamond Treasure Chests.

Subsequently, Zhou An opened the drop statistics from the twelve colossi that had killed each other last night.

He didn't know until he looked, but upon seeing it, even Zhou An, who was accustomed to seeing big scenes, couldn't help but hold his breath.

[Loot Statistics from Killing Ancient Arbiters (Boss and Elite Tier):]

[Special Component 1: Sky Heart (Oddity)]: 12 pieces!

[Special Component 2: Quantum Matrix Hub]: 26 pieces!

"Indeed, wealth is sought in danger..."

Zhou An swallowed, unable to help but mutter to himself.

He had originally thought the LV4 upgrade special components were the hardest to get, yet they had overflowed several times over in this battle royale! He now had so many Quantum Matrix Hubs he could practically use them as bricks to throw around for fun.

Finally, Zhou An took a deep breath and checked his basic material reserves.

After this brutal cross-region resource harvest, combined with his previous accumulation from buying low and selling high, his Tier 3 material stockpile had snowballed into a terrifyingly astronomical figure—a full 3.6 million units!

...

Everything was ready, all that was missing was the upgrade.

Zhou An took a deep breath and clicked on the dark gold LV4 advancement blueprint.

[Cloud Top Fortress LV4 Advancement Requirements List]

[Tier 4 Titanium Armor Plate]: 20,000 units

[Tier 4 Nano Flame-Retardant Composite Fiber]: 15,000 units

[Tier 4 Superconducting Liquid Gel]: 10,000 units

[Tier 4 Micro Nuclear Fusion Core]: 5,000 units

[Special Component 1: Sky Heart (Oddity)]: 12 / 3 pieces (Completed)

[Special Component 2: Quantum Matrix Hub (Epic Tier)]: 27 / 1 set (Completed)

"Basic materials require consuming 100,000 units of Tier 3 materials..."

Zhou An looked at his 3.6 million unit stockpile, a look of extreme arrogance appearing on his face.

Zhou An didn't hesitate at all and pressed the extremely dazzling [Advance] button on the control panel.

[System Prompt: Deducting Tier 4 basic materials x 50,000 units! Deducting Sky Heart x 3! Deducting Quantum Matrix Hub x 1 set!]

[Cloud Top Fortress LV4 advancement officially begins!]

[Estimated upgrade time: 24 hours.]

As the system prompt faded, the entire Cloud Top Fortress was instantly enveloped in a layer of extremely dense energy.

During these 24 hours, although the interior of the fortress remained stable, the external armor, skeleton, and even the underlying physical structure were undergoing an extremely violent reorganization and transition.

One day later.

When the dark gold light enveloping the fortress receded like the tide, a true "aerial overlord" hovered shockingly beneath the sky of this polar night.

The most intuitive change was its propulsion system.

The four extremely bulky heavy ducted fans that had originally been mounted around the hull had now completely disappeared.

In their place were four plasma jet thrusters with a heavy metal sci-fi texture! Like the huge nozzles at the bottom of a launch rocket, they were currently spewing extremely stable azure blue exhaust flames. Every expulsion carried a low rumble that tore through the air, endowing this steel behemoth with terrifying thrust!

Zhou An stood before the main console, suppressing the excitement in his heart, and summoned the brand-new vehicle panel.

[Cloud Top Fortress]

[Level]: LV4

[Area]: 400 square meters (Expanded to a three-layer 3D structure)

[Maximum Speed]: 200 km/h

[Core Devices]:

[Void Warp Stealth Field (Legendary)]: Perfect optical and radar stealth, capable of shielding detection across tiers.

[Poseidon's Tear Water Source Sublimator (Legendary)]: Produces blue-quality psionic spring water.

[Weapon Configuration]:

High-energy electromagnetic main cannon, plasma bombardment matrix, dual rapid-fire cannons, high-frequency cutting beams... all have undergone a full series of upgrades.

Defense System: Tier 4 composite energy shield (significantly improves impact resistance and energy absorption rate).

[Auxiliary System Upgrades]:

[Wide-Area Life Radar]: Scanning radius expanded to 100 kilometers, ignores low-tier stealth.

[Secondary Energy Booster Pump]: Engine overload efficiency doubled.

[a70 fighter]: Skeleton reshaped, upgraded to a hypersonic wingman, capable of independent patrol strikes.

In addition to these conventional cross-tier enhancements, an [LV4 Exclusive Optional Loading Module] popped up on the system panel.

[Optional Loading: Swarm Drone Hangar]

Consumption: 35,000 units of Tier 4 materials.

Location: Occupies the newly generated third floor.

Effect: Can accommodate up to 2,000 combat swarm drones! Each drone comes with high-explosive micro-missiles and laser cutting beams, possessing the absolute strength of a LV1 vehicle!

Operating range: 50-kilometer radius centered on the fortress for blind-spot-free coverage reconnaissance and suicide strikes.

Note: Requires massive resources to rewire and rebuild after destruction.

"Two thousand LV1-strength suicide drones? Who the hell can withstand this kind of saturation bombing!"

Zhou An gasped after seeing this description.

As for that 30,000+ unit Tier 4 material consumption? To others, it was an astronomical figure, but to Zhou An, who possessed a Tier 3 stockpile of several million, he didn't even need to blink an eye.

What's more, he possessed the [Little Giant], an extremely broken gold Hextech. Its durability and damage status recovered automatically every hour. This meant that as long as these drones weren't instantly annihilated, even if they were exhausted, as long as the fortress core remained intact, the system could use the Little Giant's recovery property and the inventory stockpile to carry out a continuous stream of "automatic replenishment"!

"Load!"

Zhou An paid the materials without hesitation.

Immediately after, the main console screen flickered in an extremely sci-fi manner, and an extremely gentle, yet slightly mechanical-sounding synthetic female voice rang out throughout the entire fortress.

"Beep—LV4 vehicle advanced AI butler has been activated."

"Nice to meet you, Captain. Please name me and set the basic voice parameters."

Zhou An raised an eyebrow; this LV4 tech tree was indeed absurdly advanced, having even created a true artificial intelligence.

"Name: EVA. Voice setting: Cold female voice, with a bit of mechanical reverb."

Zhou An quickly issued the command.

"Name confirmed. EVA is at your service."

EVA's voice immediately became exactly as Zhou An had requested, cold and efficient.

"Captain, it has been detected that the fortress's physical space has expanded to three layers. The [Area Module Customization Adjustment Function] has been unlocked. Would you like to restructure the interior space now?"

As EVA's voice fell, an extremely intuitive 3D holographic projection appeared before Zhou An, and all the rooms and facilities inside the fortress were broken down into movable glowing building blocks.

"There's such a good thing?"

Zhou An immediately got to work, beginning a major overhaul.

"The third floor, which is the top floor. It has the best view, but it's also the most dangerous."

Zhou An swiped his finger, "Designate everything as [Swarm Drone Hangar] and [Core Weapon Containment Bay]. Pile all the a70 fighter and those spare heavy weapons up there."

"The second floor, the middle layer. This is the core living and command area."

Zhou An dragged and combined the modules.

"[Main Control Cockpit] goes in the front of the second floor, right next to our [Master Bedroom]. That way, if there's an emergency, we can take over the ship as soon as we step out."

"The first floor, the bottom layer."

Zhou An stuffed all the remaining living modules in there, "Kitchen, living room, gym area, all on this floor."

Thinking for a moment, Zhou An specifically carved out a large, independent area reinforced with extremely thick explosion-proof walls.

"Set this area as [Mechanical Laboratory], leave it for that girl Luo Ning to mess around in, so she doesn't blow up her own bedroom one day."

"Layout confirmed. Module reorganization begins."

With EVA's command issued, a very slight mechanical interlocking sound immediately came from inside the fortress.

Within just a few minutes, the previously slightly crowded living area instantly transformed into the set-up configuration.