52: Chapter 52 Returning to Old Habits

While leaving Alliance Leader Wu Feng hanging, Zhou An did not idle. He knew very well that although the Lone Wolves Alliance had a large base, it was ultimately just a makeshift group thrown together. When it came to foundation and consumption capacity, the established guilds dominating their respective regions were the true giants.

His true target had never been just a flimsy Lone Wolves Alliance.

Zhou An scrolled through his contact list and opened the private chat interface of City Lord Zhao Tianyu, the president of the region's largest guild—the Tianqing Guild.

[Zhou An]: "President Zhao, now that the polar night is over, Sky Engine must be preparing to equip a Level 4 fleet on a large scale, right? I have a massive amount of ready-made Level 4 materials on hand. Care to negotiate?"

At this moment, inside the main control room of the Shenguo Ship, Sky Engine's headquarters, sunlight pierced through the thick bulletproof portholes, casting onto the floor which was as polished as a mirror.

Sky Engine's president, City Lord Zhao Tianyu, dressed in a crisp dark blue uniform, sat in a spacious leather swivel chair, flipping through the loss reports from the polar night.

Seeing the system notification, he picked up the fine porcelain teacup beside him and took a sip. His gaze fell upon the name "Zhou An," and a playful smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

Compared to Alliance Leader Wu Feng's testing and guessing, this top figure, who held the lives of tens of thousands in his hands, replied cleanly and decisively.

[City Lord Zhao Tianyu]: "Zhou An, ranked sixth in the entire region. You were frantically sweeping up goods before the polar night, and now you've actively come to my door. Let's not beat around the bush; you definitely hold some kind of [Resource Conversion] talent with an extremely high conversion rate. We in Sky Engine don't lack raw stock; what we lack is time. Just give me a price."

[Zhou An]: "Talking to smart people saves so much trouble. Level 3 for Level 4, at 2.7 to 1. As long as you have the stock, there is no ceiling on my production."

City Lord Zhao Tianyu looked at this offer, his slender fingers lightly tapping on the desk.

[City Lord Zhao Tianyu]: "2.7? Brother Zhou, if this price were for those small and medium guilds, it might be appropriate. But since you've come to me, you should know the scale of our Sky Engine."

[City Lord Zhao Tianyu]: "Sky Engine currently has eighty-six thousand registered members, and our daily throughput of basic resources is measured in hundreds of millions. The combined stockpiles of tens of thousands of people in our entire guild amount to billions of resources piled up like mountains! If you want a piece of this cake, I need a highly reasonable bulk trade price. 2.4 to 1. Sky Engine will sign an exclusive monopoly agreement with you, and all of our low-tier resources will be handled by you."

Looking at the numbers flashing on the screen, Zhou An's breath hitched slightly.

Over eighty thousand people! Billions in resource stockpiles!

This was the truly terrifying war machine. In comparison, the small workshops he had encountered before were simply not worth mentioning. Zhou An quickly calculated the math in his head: with the colored Hextech talent [Level Up!], his actual conversion cost was an absolutely lossless 2 to 1.

If the transaction went through at City Lord Zhao Tianyu's rate of 2.4 to 1, for every unit of Level 4 material he sold, he would make a net profit of 0.4 units of Level 3 resources. In the face of a scale in the "hundreds of millions," this 0.4 difference would be an astronomical figure enough to send him soaring to the sky.

[Zhou An]: "Deal. Let's sign the system monopoly contract."

[System Notification: You have signed the "Absolute Trade Monopoly Contract" with Survivor 'City Lord Zhao Tianyu'!]

The contract was generated instantly, protected by the system's supreme laws. Any party violating it would face devastating punishment.

After the deal was struck, Zhou An immediately stood up and walked toward the fortress's core warehouse. Looking at his basic Level 3 resources, which had already expanded to four million units, his gaze darkened as he directly activated his talent.

"Synthesize!"

In an instant, a dazzling, seven-colored glazed light flashed violently inside the warehouse. Before long, a full four million units of Level 3 materials were seamlessly converted into two million units of Level 4 materials under the 2-to-1 law.

"Trade request sent."

Zhou An packaged these two million Level 4 materials and sent them directly to City Lord Zhao Tianyu.

[Ding! Trade successful!]

[You received: 4,800,000 Level 3 materials!]

With just a single flip, Zhou An's stockpile had not shrunk at all; instead, it skyrocketed by eight hundred thousand units out of thin air!

He picked up his teacup from the side, looking at the massive influx of resources with a calm expression. He knew that upgrading from Level 3 to Level 4 Apocalypse-class required an astronomical amount of resources. A common warship required at least twenty to thirty thousand Level 4 materials, and if it was an elite battleship, the requirement would more than double.

The two million units he had just sent seemed massive, but in reality, it was only enough for Sky Engine to arm fifty to sixty Level 4 capital ships. For Sky Engine, which boasted eighty thousand members, this was merely the beginning.

For the entire month that followed, [Cloud Top Fortress] completely devolved into a sleepless, super processing factory.

City Lord Zhao Tianyu, the helmsman of the Tianqing Guild, was indeed a ruthless character, possessing sharp vision and immense courage. Spotting Zhou An's heaven-defying conversion rate, he directly initiated a brute-force dumping mode. Over the course of a month, the basic Level 3 resources that the eighty thousand-plus members of the Tianqing Guild had risked their lives to scavenge flooded into Zhou An's system space like an opened sluice gate.

That was a whopping eight hundred million units of resources!

If it were any ordinary conversion talent user facing such a massive data onslaught, they would have likely suffered from mental exhaustion and ended up brain-dead at the console. But Zhou An, relying on the extreme boost of "Last Stand" at 20 SAN points, along with the absolutely lossless synthesis law of [Level Up!], forced himself to become an emotionless perpetual motion machine.

During this month, his daily routine was monotonous and dry, reduced to three mechanical steps: receive, synthesize, and click trade.

But if one were to calculate the profits involved, it would be enough to drive anyone mad.

A whopping eight hundred million units of Level 3 materials passed through Zhou An's hands just once and became four hundred million units of high-grade Level 4 materials. Immediately after, he delivered them back to Sky Engine at the agreed-upon exchange rate of 2.4 to 1, directly cashing out nine hundred and sixty million units of Level 3 resources!

With this single round trip, Zhou An made a net profit of one hundred and sixty million units out of thin air!

This staggering wealth of one hundred and sixty million units, if placed in the outside world, would be enough to buy all the warships and lives of dozens of small and medium guilds. Yet, when the final transaction was completed and he looked at the suffocatingly long string of zeros in the system's backend, Zhou An could not summon even a shred of excitement.

"EVA... shut down... all external connection receiving channels..."

Zhou An slumped over the main console, his voice as raspy as sandpaper rubbing against itself.

Thirty consecutive days of high-intensity, round-the-clock extreme operation, coupled with the pursuit of that terrifying 80% production bonus, had forced him to keep his SAN value strictly at 20 points—the life-and-death red line where aberration could occur at any moment. But without him realizing it, his SAN value seemed to have dropped to 1 point, triggering his passive. He had to go back and rest.

A tsunami of exhaustion instantly submerged him completely. Whispers of the mad abyss exploded in his mind, and the intense dizziness even made him forget to take a sip of the sanity-restoring Spiritual Spring Water by his hand.

Stumbling, he supported himself against the wall and walked toward the master bedroom on the second floor.

The world before him had begun to collapse. His vision was filled with large, distorted, disgusting patches of color. The metal patterns on the walls seemed to come alive, turning into countless whispering mouths. The overlapping double vision made his steps feel as light and unstable as if he were walking on cotton.

*Thud!*

The master bedroom door was violently slammed open by him.

Luo Ning, who was originally sleeping lightly on the small bed by the window, was instantly awakened by the heavy footsteps and the loud crash. She rubbed her bleary eyes, not even having time to sit up and check the situation.

"Boss? Are you done with..."

Before Luo Ning could finish her sentence, a pungent wind carrying a strong scent of blood and the abyss swept over her. A dark figure radiating extreme pressure, accompanied by heavy, beast-like panting, pounced on her without a word.