66: Chapter 66 Upgrading from a Slingshot to a Cannon

"The moment to witness a miracle has arrived."

Zhou An took a deep breath and rubbed his hands together. He strode to the 19 floating Moon-Glitter Grade treasure chests, his eyes flashing with unprecedented fervor.

"System, open all Moon-Glitter Grade treasure chests!"

Hum—!

As the command was issued, the nineteen treasure chests, radiating a cool, cold light, disintegrated simultaneously, turning into a sky full of fragmented starlight. A series of crisp system notifications began to flood Zhou An's mind.

[Ding! Opened Moon-Glitter Grade treasure chests. Obtained core items:]

1. [Cloud Top Fortress LV5 Core Upgrade Blueprint].

"Beautiful! The bottleneck issue has been solved directly!" Zhou An punched the air, so excited he almost jumped up.

Immediately after, the light from the second and third treasure chests dissipated.

2. [Primal Space Core]: An extremely rare spatial expansion hub. It can be used to open high-dimensional independent spaces or upgrade specific spatial buildings.

3. [Mother of Life Activation Fluid (3 drops)]: Ignores all pollution and laws of death. It can forcibly hatch/purify high-level mutant creature eggs or restore dead plants to life.

Upon seeing the [Primal Space Core], a flash of inspiration suddenly struck Zhou An's mind.

"That's right! That LV1 spatial cultivation chamber!" Zhou An slapped his thigh. He hadn't upgraded the spatial cultivation chamber before precisely because upgrading it to LV2 was stuck on an extremely rare "spatial core" material. Now, he had just completed the puzzle!

And those three drops of activation fluid were practically a tailor-made life-saving medicine for the abyss-polluted [Star Skeleton Dragon Egg] and the newly dropped demi-god dragon egg!

Before he could think more, the next three moon-white rays of light condensed into blueprints and seeds.

4. [Moon-Glitter Grade Skill Blueprint: Super-Dimensional Composite Forging Technique]

Type: Permanent learning skill blueprint.

Effect: Master high-level composite material synthesis. For example: Consume 3 [Level 4 Steel] to fuse into 2 [Reinforced Level 4 Steel].

Characteristic: The finished product is still judged as Level 4 material, but its strength, toughness, and energy conductivity are forcibly increased by 50%! If this material is used when upgrading a vehicle, the vehicle's overall base attributes will receive a massive additional boost!

"A divine skill!" Zhou An gasped. With the blessing of his [Upgrade It] talent, the thing he lacked the least was basic materials. This blueprint was equivalent to raising the hardness of his vehicle by half a dimension out of thin air!

5. [Living Soil Source Formula (Moon-Glitter Grade)]

Type: Unlimited production blueprint.

Effect: By consuming a large amount of basic soil, low-level beast blood, and wood, the formula can continuously convert them into high-level spiritual soil with a "rapid ripening" effect.

6. [Moon-Glitter Grade Mutant Spirit Plant Seeds * 3]

[Moon-Soul Bone-Shaping Flower (Herb Type)]: A top-tier life-saving medicinal herb capable of bringing the dead back to life and regrowing flesh on bones.

[Star Spirit Marrow Rice (Food Type)]: Consuming it can permanently slightly increase the four-dimensional attributes.

[Radiant Jade Dew Fruit (Food Type)]: A top-grade high-level energy fruit.

Special resonance entry [All Things Revive]: After planting these three Moon-Glitter Grade plants, a spiritual energy field will form, forcibly increasing the yield of all surrounding plants by 100%!

"Boss, our team's future meals and medical care are truly invincible now..." Luo Ning stared at those seeds radiating a rich life aura, her eyes fixed, drool almost dripping down.

Beside her, Li Muzi was shaking with excitement, her hands tightly clasped together, as if she could already see the grand scene of a garden full of immortal herbs.

However, when the remaining 13 Moon-Glitter Grade treasure chests dissipated into light, Zhou An's originally ecstatic expression stiffened slightly.

[Obtained: Level 5 Refined Titanium Alloy 10000]

[Obtained: Level 5 Insulated Polymer Fiber 15000]

[Obtained: Rare Material Void Mythril 500]

[Obtained: Rare Material Deep Sea Blue Crystal 500]

[Obtained: Rare Material Sand of Time 100]

[Obtained: Astral Meteor Gold 30000]

...

The system notification sound rang for a full dozen seconds. In the remaining thirteen god-level blind boxes, not a single blueprint or exotic item had dropped; instead, they had opened up high-level materials piled up like small mountains!

Among them were not only massive amounts of Level 5 basic building materials but also various extremely rare special materials.

Looking at the materials piled up like a mountain, radiating blinding light, Zhou An let out a long sigh, his brow furrowed into a " river" shape.

"Sigh... a huge loss, simply a huge loss." Zhou An clutched his chest with a pained expression, disdainfully kicking a piece of priceless meteor gold on the ground. "Thirteen whole Moon-Glitter Grade treasure chests, and they all opened into basic materials! The system must have secretly adjusted the drop rate!"

Upon hearing this, Luo Ning turned her head sharply, looking at Zhou An as if he were an alien, the corners of her mouth twitching wildly: "Boss... do you have some misunderstanding of the word 'huge loss'? Those are Level 5 materials! You opened tens of thousands of units, and you're telling me it's a loss?!"

"What do you know?"

"Except for those rare materials that can't be bought, for these basic Level 5 building materials, I just need to take out the Level 3 materials from the warehouse and use [Upgrade It] to spend some time merging them all the way up; I can have as many as I want! Using Moon-Glitter Grade chests to open things I can synthesize myself, isn't that just pure waste of chests?"

Luo Ning was completely speechless. She took two deep breaths, silently turned around, and muttered through gritted teeth: "...Evil capitalist, the well-fed don't know how the hungry suffer!"

"Alright, alright."

Zhou An laughed, patted Luo Ning on the shoulder, and waved his hand heroically.

"Store all materials in the warehouse for later use. Once Muzi and the others finish their shift, we will immediately start a major overhaul of the entire fortress! We've already won big in this event!"

Just as Zhou An was happily calculating that after everyone had rested, he would catch the tail end of the event to make one last haul, that cold and grand system synthesized voice exploded over the entire Gray Fog World without warning.

[Region-Wide Announcement: The large-scale cross-region encounter event has ended prematurely!]

[Thank you all survivors for participating.]

"Damn! Ended prematurely?!"

The smile on Zhou An's face froze instantly, and he couldn't help but curse, "I even prepared the ticket for the second entry. System, you can't afford to play, right?!"

However, before Zhou An could finish complaining, the system's voice did not disappear but instead became extremely sharp. Piercing red warning boxes, like death warrants, began to flash wildly in the vision of all players.

[Highest Level Regional Warning!!!]

[Abnormal spatial fluctuations detected! An unknown abyss creature swarm has forcibly broken through the barrier and intruded into the 10,000-meter to 20,000-meter airspace!]

[All survivors located at this altitude, please pay attention to concealment and defense. Good luck to you all!]

The atmosphere in the cockpit instantly dropped to freezing point.

Li Muzi, who was originally secretly happy about the big harvest, turned pale instantly.

She pushed up her glasses on the bridge of her nose in a panic, her voice trembling uncontrollably: "Bo-Boss... 10,000 to 20,000 meters... isn't that the airspace where we are operating? That means those 'dirty things' that originally only stayed below 10,000 meters have all come up?"

This was simply a disaster. Recalling the terrifying giant eye at 9,500 meters deep that had nearly caused everyone to mutate just by glancing at it, if monsters of that level were flying everywhere, the entire survival zone would definitely turn into a true hell on earth.

"What are you panicking about? If the sky falls, the tall ones will hold it up. If it's really the end of the world, we'll all just finish together."

Zhou An comforted her in a low voice.

He turned to look at Luo Ning, who was still stunned, and ordered quickly: "Luo Ning, take out all the blueprints that dropped from those three unlucky guys! Main cannons, interference towers, power cabins—install what you can, upgrade what you can. Before the monsters find us, get the fortress's combat power to the max as soon as possible!"

"Got it! Leave it to me and EVA! As long as there are enough materials, I guarantee I'll arm this hunk of iron to the teeth!"

Luo Ning immediately hugged a pile of blueprints radiating purple and gold light and rushed to the main control console.

Zhou An turned around and solemnly handed the [Moon-Glitter Grade Mutant Spirit Plant Seeds] radiating a rich life aura and the [Mother of Life Activation Fluid] to Li Muzi.

"Muzi, don't think about what's happening outside. Your task is to take Old Zhang and the others and plant these Moon-Glitter Grade things as fast as possible. The fortress's logistics and our lives are all in your hands."

Feeling the trust in Zhou An's eyes, Li Muzi took a deep breath and nodded firmly: "Understood! I'm going to the cultivation room now!"

After watching everyone leave, Zhou An walked alone to the captain's console and solemnly took out the [Cloud Top Fortress LV5 Core Upgrade Blueprint] from his space.

As the blueprint unfolded in mid-air, the list of terrifying materials required for the upgrade appeared on the holographic screen:

[LV5 Mobile Fortress Upgrade Requirements]:

Basic Materials: Level 5 Refined Titanium Alloy (10000 / 10000), Level 5 Insulated Polymer Fiber (15000 / 15000)

High-level Materials: Astral Meteor Gold (30000 / 30000)

Rare Materials: Void Mythril (500 / 500), Sand of Time (100 / 100)

Core Pre-requisite Material: [five-source power core] (0 / 1)

Looking at the screen full of green "Satisfied" checkmarks, Zhou An let out a long sigh of relief. He rubbed his chin, recalling his pained complaints when opening the chests earlier, and couldn't help but cough in embarrassment.

"Ahem... it seems the materials opened from those thirteen Moon-Glitter Grade treasure chests weren't a loss after all. I can indeed synthesize the basic Level 5 building materials, but these 500 Void Mythril and 100 units of Sand of Time are genuine non-sellable items. If I hadn't opened these, I wouldn't even be able to gather half of the material list right now."

Zhou An comforted himself, his gaze finally landing on the last line of the list. Now everything was ready, except for that most crucial [five-source power core]. This thing didn't even have a recipe hint; it seemed he would have to rely on luck in the coming days.