55: Chapter 55 Fourth Tier

Late at night, the gathering inside the fortress finally ended in a tipsy atmosphere.

Zhou An returned to the master bedroom on the second floor. Just as he undid his collar buttons, preparing to take a shower to wash off the smell of alcohol, an indescribable, manic, and scorching heat suddenly surged within his body.

This wave of heat was like a wild horse off its leash, instantly sweeping through his entire body.

This was a sign of quantitative change leading to qualitative change.

For the past month, he had been pushing his mental limits under high intensity every day while subtly consuming large amounts of epic-grade ingredients; his body had long since become like a volcano filled with magma.

The few glasses of wind spirit berry fruit wine containing pure energy tonight became the straw that broke the camel's back, completely igniting the evolutionary engine within him.

"Crack, crack, crack..."

Zhou An's bones emitted muffled popping sounds, as if countless steel hammers were constantly pounding and reshaping them.

His muscle fibers were tearing, reforming, and contracting.

He gritted his teeth and gripped the edge of the bed tightly, letting the violent energy wash over every inch of his flesh without reservation. Fine beads of sweat seeped from his forehead, sliding down his firm cheeks.

[System Prompt: Host's physical body detected to have broken through the critical threshold!]

[Congratulations to Survivor 'Zhou An', life level has ascended to—Fourth Order!]

Whew—

The scorching heat gradually subsided. Zhou An let out a long breath, slowly stood up, and tentatively clenched his fist.

A faint sonic boom even came from the air. He could clearly feel that this Fourth Order physical body had completely transcended the realm of mortals, filled with terrifying power enough to tear apart steel.

Just as he stood by the bed feeling the surging power within him, the master bedroom door was pushed open with a "creak".

Luo Ning shuffled in wearing slippers. Her overly large white lab coat was draped loosely over her shoulders, and underneath, she was only wearing a slightly thin black lace camisole nightdress.

Because she had drunk quite a bit of fruit wine, her cheeks, which were usually sickly pale, were now flushed with an alluring rosy tint, and her large eyes carried a hint of tipsy haziness.

"Huh? Boss, why are you so red..."

Luo Ning stumbled over like a cat that had smelled fish. As an outstanding scientist, she keenly sensed the life magnetic field on Zhou An that had not yet been fully retracted.

"You've broken through to the Fourth Order?!"

Luo Ning's eyes instantly lit up, startlingly bright, and the tipsiness in her eyes seemed to have mostly faded.

She pressed up against him without any hesitation, her cool, soft little hands pressing directly onto Zhou An's scalding chest, groping him up and down as if inspecting an experimental specimen.

"This muscle density... this heart rate... it's simply a perfect biochemical work of art! Boss, let's make a deal. Let me draw a vial of blood to test, okay? Just a small vial!"

The catalysis of alcohol, combined with the surging blood and energy from his recent breakthrough, caused Zhou An's breathing to falter slightly.

Luo Ning was just too close. The girl carried a hint of fruity sweetness from the wine, mixed with her unique, cold scent of disinfectant, rushing at him without any defense.

Her restless fingers were still poking at his hard pectoral muscles. To see the veins hidden at his neck more clearly, she even stood on tiptoe, pressing most of her body against his chest without reservation, the warm and soft sensation being transmitted through the thin clothing.

"Stop it."

Zhou An's voice was low and hoarse as he grabbed her misbehaving wrist with one hand.

Before Luo Ning could protest, Zhou An applied a bit of force. However, because he couldn't control his strength well, Luo Ning felt the world spin, the scene before her instantly inverted, and her back sank heavily into the soft bed, with her hands pinned above her head by Zhou An with one hand.

The two of them were instantly caught in a dangerous and ambiguous posture.

Zhou An supported himself with one hand beside Luo Ning's ear, looking down at her from above. By the faint light filtering in from outside the window, he could clearly see Luo Ning's red lips slightly parted due to this sudden turn of events, as well as the gleam of panic intertwined with provocation in her eyes.

The temperature in the air seemed to be skyrocketing.

Luo Ning swallowed, her long eyelashes trembling slightly like a startled butterfly, but she refused to concede in the slightest.

Facing such an overwhelming disparity in strength, she instead deliberately puffed out her chest, a wanton, mischievous smirk curling at the corner of her lips: "What? You've got such a temper right after leveling up, wanting to use this beautiful girl as a sacrifice? Come on, who's afraid of whom? Let's see who gets drained and loses out first."

Looking at this little face so close at hand, clearly nervous yet pretending to be calm, the restlessness in Zhou An's heart, stirred up by alcohol and evolution, miraculously calmed down.

He stared at Luo Ning quietly for a while, a trace of helplessness flashing in his deep eyes, and then suddenly chuckled. He released his suppression of her, curled his finger, and flicked her smooth forehead without ceremony.

"Snap!"

"Ouch!" Luo Ning covered her reddened forehead, crying out in pain, tears almost bursting forth.

"With your Third Order physique and thin arms and legs, if I really used you as a sacrifice, I'm afraid your bones would just fall apart."

Zhou An rolled over and sat on the edge of the bed, took a deep breath to steady his breathing, and his tone returned to its usual laziness.

"Stop playing with fire here. Go to sleep early; there's serious business to attend to tomorrow."

Luo Ning rubbed her reddened forehead, pouted indignantly, and climbed up from the large bed. Although she was muttering and complaining about him "not knowing how to cherish a girl", a trace of relief she hadn't even noticed herself quietly flashed in her eyes.

"Boring boss, destined to be single for life, with nothing but your scrap metal in your head."

Luo Ning grabbed the white lab coat that had slipped off her shoulders, ran barefoot back to her exclusive small bed in the corner, turned off the bedside lamp with a "click", and rolled herself into the quilt.

The master bedroom fell into quiet darkness once again. Both of them lay on their respective beds, listening to each other's gradually steadying breathing.

"Goodnight, unromantic boss." A sleepy, muddled mutter came from Luo Ning in the corner.

"Goodnight, crazy girl."

...

The next morning, golden sunlight pierced through the fortress's energy shield, illuminating the main control room.

Zhou An woke up on time and enjoyed a breakfast of spirit wheat carefully prepared by Zhang Ming in the dining room.

The physique of a Fourth Order powerhouse made him feel so energetic that it was almost overflowing. Just as he wiped his mouth and prepared to go to the deck for a patrol, that cold and grand system broadcast voice suddenly rang in his mind.

[Region-wide Announcement: Congratulations to all survivors for successfully surviving for four months in this broken world.]

[There are 90 days left until the next region-wide comprehensive strength rating settlement.]

[Starting now, the region-wide limited-time event is enabled: 'Gift in the Mist'.]

[Event Description: Encounters in the sky, the probability of random ruins and ancient secret realms appearing will significantly increase! In this stage full of variables, opportunity and destruction coexist; please explore at your own discretion, survivors.]

Zhou An casually opened the chat channel, which had already exploded.

"Encounter probability increased? What is an encounter?"

"The guy above, are you stupid? It must be those dungeons that drop god-tier gear! I'm going to go check it out; maybe I can get rich in one go!"

"It's probably not that simple... The system called it a gift, but it also said destruction coexists. Is there any big shot who can explain how this encounter actually works?"

The channel was buzzing with discussion, filled with blindly optimistic sentiments. Zhou An looked at those posts, sneered, and decisively closed the screen.

Encounters? That thing is no playground.

He still clearly remembers the twelve mountain-like stone giants he encountered last time at the Ancient Judgment Arena.

That absolute sense of oppression that transcended ranks—if he hadn't used the tentacle of that unknown creature to corrupt the colossus in the end, and with Luo Ning turning the tide, the three of them would have long since become rotting meat in those ruins.

"Luo Ning, come to the cockpit for a moment." Zhou An called out on the fortress's internal communication channel.

A moment later, Luo Ning walked in, wearing her signature oversized white lab coat, with half an unfinished energy bar hanging from her mouth, shuffling in her slippers with a devil-may-care attitude.

As soon as she entered, she exaggeratedly looked around the spacious and private cockpit, then her eyes landed on Zhou An with a teasing look: "Yo, calling me alone to such a closed environment with only two people early in the morning... So, Boss, you like doing things in the cockpit? Is it exciting, or do you think it's exciting? Do you want me to cooperate and scream a little?"

"Shut up, let's talk business." Zhou An had black lines all over his head, the veins on his forehead throbbing, as he directly interrupted her nonsense.

He pointed to the event announcement that had not yet dissipated on the screen: "The system has enabled an encounter event. I want to hear your opinion. Should we actively seek out these ruins?"

When it came to business, Luo Ning put away her devil-may-care attitude.

She leaned against the console carelessly, a fanatical light flickering in her eyes, and asked back without hesitation: "Go! Why wouldn't we go? Boss, you've leveled up to the Fourth Order, so why has your courage shrunk instead?"

"Those stone lumps last time were indeed hard to deal with, but I don't believe every encounter is a guaranteed death trap."

Luo Ning bit through the energy bar in her mouth and rubbed her hands excitedly.

"Science needs a large number of live specimens, and the fortress also needs more advanced core technology. We can't wait for blueprints if we just hide at home and farm."

Luo Ning thought of something, then, like a magic trick, she pulled a constant-temperature password box with a cold, hard metallic luster from the huge pocket of her white lab coat.

"Click."

She entered the password and opened the box. Inside were ten exquisite micro-syringes neatly arranged, their needles gleaming with a chilling, bone-piercing cold light.

"This is the highest crystallization I extracted after working overtime day and night during this period, completely 'draining' the remaining tissue of that tentacle."

"[Potent Anti-Mutation Inhibitor], there are only ten of these in total. Its effect is at least three times stronger than the experimental version I used on you before. Simply put, even if your SAN value drops to 1, as long as you inject this, it can forcibly lock your neurons within ten minutes, allowing you to retain the last sliver of your sanity."

Luo Ning divided the syringes into two portions and solemnly pushed five of them in front of Zhou An.

"Five for each of us."