54: Chapter 54 yielded fruitful results.

Zhou An casually closed the system panel and climbed out of bed on tiptoe.

On the small bed in the corner, Luo Ning was sleeping soundly, wrapped in her quilt with her limbs splayed, mumbling slightly in her sleep.

He didn't wake the girl, turned around, and walked out of the master bedroom to the washroom to freshen up.

After freshening up, Zhou An sat refreshed on the leather chair in the main control room and casually opened the material warehouse on the system panel.

Looking at that long string of numbers.

Tier 3 Supplies: 165 million!

"Coupled with the 1% daily automatic interest effect from the Hextech [Compound Interest]..." Zhou An calculated silently in his heart, and the corners of his mouth couldn't help but curl up wildly.

This meant that he didn't have to do anything now; every day, as soon as he opened his eyes, 1.65 million units of Tier 3 Supplies would appear out of thin air in the system warehouse! Getting 1.65 million for free every day—this rate of wealth accumulation would make even those large guilds with tens of thousands of members outside turn green with envy on the spot.

Zhou An looked up at the timeline in the top right corner of the main interface. There were about three months left until the next comprehensive district-wide settlement, which was about one hundred days.

"After one hundred days of Compound Interest, this base stock will swell to an astonishing number. It will be enough to cope with any sudden natural disasters or accidents before the settlement."

Closing the panel, Zhou An went downstairs to the dining room.

As soon as he reached the first floor, Zhang Ming, who was busy in the kitchen, wiped his hands and came out to greet him: "Boss, morning! Did you sleep well last night? Breakfast is just out of the pot, eat while it's hot."

Zhang Ming had prepared a sumptuous breakfast on time. While helping to pull out a chair, he smiled and introduced: "Boss, this morning I made blood crystal spirit wheat meat porridge. I marinated the minced meat with secret spices beforehand to completely remove the gamey smell; these cold-dressed mutant vegetables on the side are very crispy, just right for cutting through the grease. Try it and see if it suits your taste."

This meal left Zhou An feeling completely comfortable, with warm currents surging through his limbs and bones. High-grade ingredients combined with the amplification of [Cooking Mastery] swept away the exhaustion he had felt for days.

After eating his fill, Zhou An decided to inspect the development of various departments in his territory.

He walked through the corridor and first went to the cultivation chamber on the other side of the first floor to check on the crops, intending to find Li Muzi.

Entering the space, a rich, fresh scent of plants and abundant spiritual energy rushed toward him.

After Li Muzi's careful care and upgrades and expansion over this period, the originally small cultivation chamber had now been transformed into a sizable indoor ecological park.

Li Muzi was wearing a gray work uniform and gloves, weaving through a golden wheat field, recording data.

"Boss, you're awake!" Seeing Zhou An enter, Li Muzi pushed up the glasses on the bridge of her nose and excitedly greeted him.

"I'm here to see how your results are." Zhou An smiled and looked around. "How is the production volume currently?"

"It's simply a bumper harvest!" Li Muzi opened the electronic logbook in her hands like she was presenting a treasure, pointing to the wheat field in front of them emitting a pale red halo and a shrubbery not far away.

"After a month of breeding, we now have about 1,200 plants of [blood crystal spirit wheat] and over 400 plants of [wind spirit berry]. Both of these are Epic-grade species!"

"As for current daily production, we can pick over 400 catties of wind spirit berry every day, and the blood crystal spirit wheat can stably produce over 1,200 catties. Even if the five of us eat as much as we want, we still won't be able to finish it all!"

Li Muzi pointed to the mountain of storage boxes in the corner. "Over there, there's also a large batch of Blue and Green-grade healing and detoxifying herbs that I planted while I was at it; they have all matured and been put into storage."

Zhou An nodded in satisfaction. In this apocalypse where food was scarce, having such a stable and high-yield logistics base was the greatest foundation for competing for dominance in the sky.

"Oh right, Boss, I was just looking for you." Li Muzi carefully picked up two cloth bags from the workbench nearby.

"These are seeds I extracted from the fullest fruits during this time. This bag is for the blood crystal spirit wheat, about 600 of them; this bag is for the wind spirit berry, over 300. See if you can use your talent... to raise them a level higher?"

"No problem, leave it to me." Zhou An took the bags. "Ten into one, upgrade for me!"

Seven-colored light instantly enveloped Zhou An's hands. He saw the over 600 Epic-grade spirit wheat seeds in the bag, which were emitting purple light, begin to quickly dissolve and recombine. A moment later, the light dissipated, and in the palm of Zhou An's hand were over 60 seeds that were crystal clear throughout and emitted a faint golden light.

[Obtained Item: blood crystal spirit wheat seed (Legendary Grade)] Effect Mutation: Production volume greatly increased! After consuming when mature, the original effect of "slightly improve physique" transforms into "permanently improve physique"!

Immediately after, Zhou An followed the same procedure and threw the over 300 wind spirit berry seeds into the synthesis light.

Very quickly, over 30 Legendary-grade wind spirit berry seeds, faintly surrounded by micro-cyclones, were freshly baked.

[Obtained Item: wind spirit berry seed (Legendary Grade)] Effect Mutation: After consumption, the increase in physical stamina and neural reaction speed skyrockets from the original 10% to 30%! And the effective duration is greatly extended from the original 10 minutes to 30 minutes!

Looking at the two types of Legendary-grade seeds in his hand that had undergone a qualitative change in attributes, Zhou An solemnly handed them back to Li Muzi.

"Find the best spiritual field and plant them. These things will be our fortress's strategic reserve resources from now on; they can be used as stimulants at critical moments."

Li Muzi looked at the seeds emitting golden light in her hands, her hands trembling with excitement: "Legendary-grade crops! Don't worry, Boss, I will absolutely treat them like ancestors; I guarantee every single one will sprout successfully!"

"Well done, Muzi. The fortress's success today is inseparable from your logistics support." Zhou An patted her shoulder, not sparing his praise.

Having received Zhou An's affirmation, Li Muzi smiled until her eyes turned into crescent moons, and she ran toward the core cultivation substrate full of energy, impatiently beginning a new round of sowing.

Leaving the vibrant cultivation chamber, Zhou An followed the corridor back to the open kitchen on the same floor.

In the dining room, Luo Ning had also arrived. She was sprawled on a large leather dining chair without any decorum, holding a golden, crispy spirit wheat meat patty in her hands, eating until her mouth was covered in grease.

Seeing Zhou An enter, she mumbled an indistinct "Morning, Boss" and waved a hand stained with oil droplets casually.

Zhou An smiled helplessly, nodded at her, and then walked straight toward the kitchen counter.

At this time, Zhang Ming was wearing an apron, busy at the counter, sweating profusely, his hands processing complex ingredients like a butterfly flitting through flowers.

His wife, Lin Qing, was skillfully helping on the side with cleaning, sorting, and handing over tools. The couple worked with great tacit understanding; although Lin Qing's current system designation could only be considered an "attachment" to Zhang Ming, she was very diligent and quick when helping out in the kitchen.

"The boss is here!" Lin Qing had sharp eyes and quickly wiped her hands on her apron, greeting him respectfully.

Upon hearing this, Zhang Ming quickly turned off the fire, wiped the fine sweat from his forehead, and greeted him with an excited face: "Boss! You came just in time; I was just planning to go find you to report! Come quickly and see the new things I've developed during this time, incorporating the ingredients from Manager Muzi!"

Like he was presenting a treasure, he pulled Zhou An to the sterile thermostatic storage cabinet nearby and proudly pulled open the cabinet door.

He saw dozens of well-sealed metal cans neatly stacked inside, divided into two striking packages: red and blue.

"Boss, this is special combat food I developed using the limit amplification of the [Cooking Mastery] talent!"

Zhang Ming picked up a red can, his eyes flashing with a fanatical light, as if looking at a perfect work of art.

[Blood Crystal Concentrated Nutritional Meat Can] Formula: Epic-grade blood crystal spirit wheat, high-grade mutant beast prime meat... Effect: After special molecular technology high-temperature stewing and powerful compression, under the talent amplification, the consumption effect is increased by a full 30% compared to eating it raw!

"This isn't even the most exaggerated part!" Zhang Ming said excitedly, his tone filled with unconcealable pride.

"Boss, I have carefully calculated its energy intake and the human body's absorption and conversion rate. If an ordinary Tier 1 survivor eats one can of this blood crystal meat can every day for a month, they don't even need to inject any advancement serums; just by relying on the accumulation of physical potential brought by this high-intensity dietary supplement, they can forcefully break through to Tier 2!"

Hearing this, Zhou An's eyes lit up suddenly, and an extremely pleasantly surprised light erupted in his pupils. "Without serums, forcefully eating one's way to Tier 2?!"

This was absolutely a terrifying achievement that subverted the world's rules. In this apocalypse, increasing one's tier was as difficult as ascending to heaven. Currently, the only known path in the entire district was to obtain extremely rare high-grade gene serums. And the drop rate for such serums was extremely low, only dropping from high-level system treasure chests or by killing high-difficulty boss monsters.

During this long month of polar night, all survivors in the entire district were merely struggling to survive, and the system had not released any welfare events for dropping treasure chests at all.

Zhou An himself, because he was busy acting as a "reseller" to frantically accumulate wealth, plus the severe weather with raging winds outside the fortress, had not gone out to hunt specifically.

The two Diamond treasure chests in his system space had been there for nearly two months, waiting to collect the third one so he could use the [Level Up!] talent to synthesize a Legendary-grade treasure chest.

"Well done! Zhang Ming, you've made a great contribution!" Zhou An patted his shoulder heavily, not sparing his praise. "The strategic value of this thing is immeasurable. With it, we can mass-produce Tier 2 or even Tier 3 absolute combat power in a very short time!"

Having received such high praise from Zhou An, Zhang Ming was so excited that his face turned red, and he quickly picked up the blue can to introduce it:

[wind spirit berry jam] Formula: Epic-grade wind spirit berry +, auxiliary herb extract... Effect: Consume before battle to boost the increase in physical stamina and reaction speed by another 30% on top of the original base, and can instantly clear muscle fatigue and soreness. An absolute miraculous medicine for actual combat.

"Good! Very good!" Zhou An looked at Zhang Ming with satisfaction, waved his hand, and gave an extremely generous promise.

"You kid really didn't disappoint me. Prepare the advancement blueprints and material list for the airship in the next two days; in a while, I'll directly upgrade your warship to LV4! Let your [Cooking Mastery] talent rise another tier as well!"

"Thank you, Boss! Thank you, Boss!" Zhang Ming and his wife bowed repeatedly in excitement, and Lin Qing's eyes were even slightly red. They knew that once Zhang Ming's vehicle was upgraded to LV4, they would have completely established a firm footing in this apocalypse.

Zhou An smiled and stopped them. "Everyone has been stuck in the fortress working around the clock this month; it's been hard work. At noon, use your best skills to make a table of good food, and let's celebrate properly!"

Three hours later.

Inside the spacious circular panoramic restaurant of [Cloud Top Fortress], the lights were brilliant, and the aroma of food wafted everywhere.

A table was filled with sumptuous dishes. Although everyone had been on the same boat this month, because everyone was frantically busy—Zhou An was in seclusion processing materials, Muzi was soaking in the greenhouse farming, Luo Ning was blowing up the laboratory doing research, and Zhang Ming and his wife were doing logistics—the times when the five of them sat together to eat in a relaxed and comfortable manner like this could be counted on one hand.

Zhou An sat in the main seat, picked up the exquisite crystal glass in front of him, which was filled with purple-red fruit wine brewed from wind spirit berry and glacier water.

Li Muzi, Luo Ning, and Zhang Ming and his wife also all raised their wine glasses with smiles on their faces.

"This glass of wine is to the sun that has finally risen again in this damned apocalypse. And also to ourselves."

"Cheers!"

"For the Boss! For the fortress! Cheers!"