51: Chapter 51 End of the Polar Night

The long polar night felt like a nightmare from which one would never wake.

During the latter half of the month, gale-force winds carrying ice crystals howled day and night against the fortress's shields, like steel blades scraping against bone.

Every time one looked out the window, apart from the suffocating pitch-black darkness, there were only the occasional phantoms of massive monsters flashing through the gloom.

The numbers on the thermometer remained stubbornly stuck below freezing; it was oppressive, monotonous, and even the concept of time became blurred.

But this long darkness had finally reached its end.

When the countdown on the main control room's radar hit zero, a grand, synthesized system voice exploded simultaneously in the minds of the hundreds of thousands of survivors across the entire zone.

[Zone-wide Broadcast: The one-month "polar night Winter" natural disaster has officially ended!]

[The extreme cold currents are receding, and visibility on the fog routes is being restored. The light of the star is about to descend once again!]

Through the massive panoramic porthole of the Cloud Top Fortress, on the distant horizon, a streak of brilliant, blinding golden sunlight tore through the ink-thick veil of darkness like a sharp sword.

"My god... it's been a whole month, finally seeing the living sun again."

Li Muzi walked to the panoramic porthole and stretched vigorously, her bones making a faint cracking sound. She pushed up her glasses, unable to hide the excitement and fatigue in her eyes.

Beside her, Zhang Ming and Lin Qing huddled closely together. With their fingers intertwined, they gazed at the long-lost sunlight, feeling as if they had returned from another lifetime. Even Luo Ning, usually so carefree, was uncharacteristically quiet at this moment. She lay against the glass like a lazy cat, letting the golden light spill onto her pale cheeks, and squinted her eyes in comfort.

Accompanied by steady footsteps, Zhou An carried a cup of freshly brewed hot tea as he walked slowly from the first floor up to the main control room on the second floor.

Looking at the world outside, which had lit up once again, his previously taut nerves finally relaxed a little, and he couldn't help but let out a long, stale breath.

Zhou An walked over to Luo Ning, took a sip of hot tea, and couldn't help but complain.

"Thirty whole days in a dark room; every day was either brawling with stone monsters or guarding against the black fog. This kind of life is simply not meant for humans. I'd almost forgotten what daytime looked like. If the light hadn't come, I was afraid I'd have fallen into depression before I even mutated."

During this oppressive month, Zhou An hadn't been idle.

Relying on his abundant reserve stocks, he had forcibly used resources to raise the team's overall strength to an exaggerated dimension.

That broken LV1 airplane that Zhang Ming had snatched back was brutally upgraded two levels by Zhou An, pushed directly to LV3. As for the vehicles belonging to Luo Ning and Li Muzi, he had used a massive amount of materials to force them up to LV4!

However, since Li Muzi and Zhang Ming's warships were geared toward logistics and lacked strong aerial combat capabilities, Zhou An simply utilized the fortress's modular functionality to house these two auxiliary vehicles directly in the dedicated hangar on the third level of the Cloud Top Fortress, using them as auxiliary compartments for the fortress.

Zhou An leaned back in the captain's chair, calmly picked up his hot tea, and opened the regional chat channel.

Looking out, it was already difficult to find a "clean" name for a lone wolf on the entire scrolling chat interface. Almost every survivor speaking had an eye-catching guild prefix in front of their ID:

[Sky Engine]、[God's Domain]、[Four Seas]、[Beauty's Grace]...

Besides these, a brand-new major faction prefix had abruptly appeared—[Lone Wolves Alliance].

Zhou An browsed through the recent intelligence, his brows slightly raised.

This [Lone Wolves Alliance] was the sixth major faction that had risen rapidly over the last ten days or so. The alliance leader was named Alliance Leader Wu Feng. Zhou An had some impression of him; during the first comprehensive combat power settlement of the entire zone, this person had ranked nineteenth, and his strength was quite formidable.

Under the cruel pressure of the polar night, those remaining lone wolves who resisted exploitation by large guilds and were unable to survive on their own had finally, in helplessness, banded together for warmth, electing Alliance Leader Wu Feng as their leader to form this massive alliance.

By this point, the remaining four hundred thousand or so people in the entire Zone 997 had been completely carved up by these six major factions. There were no longer any truly independent lone wolves in the sky.

Watching this clear-cut division of power, Zhou An tapped his fingers rhythmically on the tabletop.

"The whole zone has been carved up; everyone has turned into 'pendants' or cogs for the guilds..."

Zhou An suddenly realized a fatal business crisis he was about to face.

"The upgrade threshold for LV4 is ridiculously high, requiring tens of thousands of units of Tier 4 materials plus special curios. According to the current resource acquisition rate, even if ordinary people worked themselves to death, it would be impossible to upgrade to LV4 alone. This means that for a long time to come, only the core high-level members of the major guilds will be qualified to upgrade their vehicles."

"Low-level survivors cannot upgrade independently; all the materials they gather will be forced to be handed over to the guild at 'internal prices.' The large guilds have perfectly achieved self-sufficient internal closed-loop trading."

"This also means..."

Zhou An looked at the millions of units of Tier 3 basic materials in his system storage and pursed his lips in annoyance.

"My 'reseller' business is going bankrupt."

Without a vast and free market of lone wolves, who was he supposed to sell the massive amount of low-tier materials in his hands to? Should he lower his head to those large guilds and do wholesale?

"Want to create an internal economic cycle? Kick me out of the trading market?"

Zhou An leaned back in the captain's chair, watching the internal trading information with clearly marked prices from various guilds, and quickly calculated a way to break the deadlock in his mind.

"Since the lone wolf market is gone, I'll just have to play with the house."

Zhou An's gaze swept quickly over the names of the six major factions and settled on the [Lone Wolves Alliance].

He decisively opened the private chat interface with Alliance Leader Wu Feng of the [Lone Wolves Alliance].

[Zhou An]: "Alliance Leader Wu Feng, the polar night has just passed, and the Lone Wolves Alliance is newly established—everything is waiting to be done, right? I have a batch of Tier 3 and Tier 4 materials here; I wonder if you're lacking any?"

Soon, there was a quick reply from the other side. As for the name Zhou An, there was no faction in the entire zone that dared to ignore it now.

[Alliance Leader Wu Feng]: "So it's Brother Zhou An. I won't speak in riddles; our Lone Wolves Alliance has many people and many mouths to feed. We don't lack basic stocks, but we do lack the high-tier Tier 4 materials needed to support the upgrading of our main fleet. I wonder how you want to trade, brother?"

[Zhou An]: "We are all straightforward people. Tier 3 basic materials for Tier 4 materials, at a ratio of 3 to 1. However much you want, I will provide."

At this moment, thousands of miles away.

Through the wide panoramic porthole, one could see a massive but somewhat chaotic fleet.

This was the team the Lone Wolves Alliance had just formed not long ago. Warships and civilian aircraft of various sizes and models were barely maintaining their formation. Many of the ship hulls still had frost and scratches left over from the polar night storms, exuding a sense of vicissitudes after the great catastrophe.

Inside the main ship in the center of the fleet, Alliance Leader Wu Feng was sitting in a study that was quite elegantly furnished.

He looked at the price quote on the virtual screen, his brows slightly furrowed, and his slender fingers tapped lightly on the desktop.

[Alliance Leader Wu Feng]: "Brother Zhou, this appetite is a bit too big. Everyone is doing internal circulation now; the internal guidance price of Sky Engine and the others has already been pushed down to 2.6 to 1. Your 3 to 1 lacks sincerity. 2.4 to 1—if that works, we can have a long-term partnership."

Zhou An, who was in the fortress, watched the other party's practiced haggling, gave a disdainful chuckle, and quickly tapped on the keyboard to counterattack.

[Zhou An]: "Alliance Leader Wu Feng, Sky Engine's guidance price is for their internal core members. With your Lone Wolves Alliance being so loose, can the people below get that price? 2.6 to 1, that is my bottom line."

The two of them pulled back and forth fiercely in the private chat, with constant verbal exchanges analyzing the situation and weighing the pros and cons.

[Alliance Leader Wu Feng]: "2.5 to 1, that can be considered a reasonable market price. I don't know how big of a volume Brother Zhou can handle?"

In the main control room, Luo Ning, who had been peeking at the screen, pursed her lips, snatched the virtual keyboard, and typed out a line of text, sending it over.

[Zhou An]: "Currently, I can immediately deliver about two million units of Tier 4 materials. If you can handle that, I can provide a large, stable supply in the future."

"Hiss—"

"Two million units! And high-purity Tier 4 materials at that?!"

Alliance Leader Wu Feng took a deep breath, and a look of doubt and uncertainty flashed in his eyes.

"It seems... that mysterious reseller who was frantically sweeping the market and disrupting prices during the previous fire rain and sky island events was definitely him." Alliance Leader Wu Feng muttered to himself with certainty.

Alliance Leader Wu Feng was a smart person; his brain turned rapidly, and he quickly analyzed the cards Zhou An held.

"A single person, or a small team, could absolutely not have saved up such a massive high-tier material stockpile just by grinding chests. He must possess some kind of heaven-defying [Material Conversion] talent!"

Alliance Leader Wu Feng stood up and paced back and forth in the study, his gaze sweeping over the low-tier fleets outside the window that were crying out for resources.

"We also have people with conversion talents in our alliance, but those talents are too useless; not only is the conversion process long, but the loss rate is terrifyingly high. If you put in one hundred Tier 3 materials, you'd be lucky to get ten Tier 4 ones out."

"Zhou An's talent must have an astonishing conversion rate. Otherwise, he couldn't have accumulated this kind of wealth in such a short time, nor could he have climbed directly to the sixth position in the entire zone during the previous combat power settlement!"

Alliance Leader Wu Feng's eyes flickered. He desperately wanted to know what Zhou An's bottom price really was. Just how exaggerated could his lossless conversion ratio be? If it were a 1 to 1 lossless conversion, then Zhou An would simply be the most terrifying resource money-printing machine in this world!

Thinking of this, Alliance Leader Wu Feng's desire to test him gained the upper hand. He decided to take the risk of suppressing the price to probe Zhou An's bottom line.

Returning to the desk, Alliance Leader Wu Feng quickly typed:

[Alliance Leader Wu Feng]: "Brother Zhou, you also know that our demand here is high. If I'm not mistaken, you must have a material conversion talent, right? If we sign a long-term exclusive supply agreement, can we push the ratio down a bit more? 2.3 to 1! As long as you agree, all the low-tier materials of our Lone Wolves Alliance from now on will be handled by you!"

However, after this message was sent, it was like a stone sinking into the sea.

One minute.

Ten minutes.

Half an hour.

Zhou An's avatar was calmly lit, but there was not a single word of reply.

"Damn it." Alliance Leader Wu Feng slapped his thigh in annoyance, his brows furrowed tightly. He looked at the motionless chat box, knowing that he had been too greedy and perhaps too hasty.

Meanwhile, in the Cloud Top Fortress, Zhou An comfortably closed the chat box, picked up his teacup for a sip, and even hummed the tune of an old song with satisfaction.

"Boss, why aren't you replying to him? We'd still make a killing at 2.3 to 1!" Luo Ning asked from the side, confused.

"Being anxious is good." Zhou An smiled coldly and leaned back against the wide chair back. "In this market monopolized by the seller, the biggest taboo is to follow the buyer's probing. Once he feels that I can still concede, future business will be hard to do."

He looked at the sea of clouds outside the window, which was once again bathed in sunlight:

"Let's leave him hanging for three days and three nights."