32: Chapter 32 The Title of Fate Master
The map was densely covered with points of light.
Each point of light represented the location of a Yanhuang Civilization survivor—those who had registered their coordinates in the help-seeking posts he had released. Behind each light point were two options: Teleport to Base, or Dispatch Volunteer Guard Reinforcements.
"The first batch of teleportation lists has been confirmed!" The Chief of Staff's voice came from nearby. "Thirty-seven thousand people, all non-combatants in danger zones with weak self-preservation capabilities!"
Zheng Yuanshan scanned the list.
There were men and women, young and old, as well as injured or disabled survivors. Here, "old" referred to those under seventy.
He reached into his pocket and grasped the assembly order. The copper-colored token was slightly hot.
"Teleport."
The token lit up.
Thirty-seven thousand beams of light rose simultaneously across the Magic Sea—some people had been huddled, shivering in tattered, rotting wooden boats. The moment the light beams descended, they vanished along with their boats. The next second, they appeared within the safe waters of the Fuxing Hong Base.
When an old woman in her sixties was sent by a light beam to the base dock, she was still clutching a bag of salted fish and half a bucket of fresh water.
She looked around blankly—the brightly lit base, busy soldiers, and orderly supply distribution points.
"Where... where is this?"
A female volunteer guard wearing a camouflage strap ran over to support her: "Grandma, you are safe. This is Fuxing Hong Base."
The old woman was stunned for two seconds, then she cried.
On the outer defense line of the base, Yanhuang Civilization soldiers who had undergone three days of assembly training were setting up formations with the help of the magic sea compass.
The distribution of red dots marked by the compass was the most precise battlefield intelligence—where the beast herds were dense, where the weak points were, and where the second wave of impact would come from.
"Attention, Area A defense line! Thirty Blood-Thirsty Sharks are accelerating their advance from the southwest! Expected arrival in two minutes!"
"Area B received, harpoon formation in place, detonation device on standby!"
"Area C reports, forty-seven Iron-Clad Crabs killed, zero casualties! The sneak attack from behind that the compass warned about eight minutes in advance was completely blocked by us!"
Zheng Yuanshan listened to the reports from each defense line, his tense shoulders relaxing by an inch.
The compass.
The value of this thing was even greater than the assembly order he had issued.
The assembly order saved ten thousand people, but the compass saved 1.4 billion.
And behind these two things stood the same name.
This was their luck, the luck of the entire Yanhuang Civilization.
The long, arduous, and grueling tempering had only just begun.
Tonight, the Magic Sea was immersed in blood and tears. Time had become imperceptible until the twin suns gradually ascended, tearing through the black curtain that carried a hint of blood.
Six o'clock in the morning.
The horizon revealed the first glimmer of gray-white.
A large number of sea beast corpses floated on the sea surface. The blood color was diluted by the morning light, turning into a dull rust color.
Six hours, one beast tide.
It was also the first death test for the entire Earth Star civilization on this Magic Sea.
It had passed, long and painful.
The mortality rate of the Yanhuang Camp—0.3 percent.
Out of 1.4 billion people, less than five million died.
These deaths mostly came from those isolated individuals who had insufficient karma points recharged on their Fate Platform compass, or who truly had no ability, poor self-independence, or those Yanhuang Civilization survivors who failed to activate the compass function in time or lost contact for various reasons.
The data for other global civilization camps would only be visible when the faction merit rankings were reorganized. But one could infer from the changes in the total faction merit of each civilization—the Indian Camp faction merit value fell from 180 million to 90 million.
A shrinkage in faction merit value only meant one thing.
The number of people contributing faction merit had dropped by at least half.
Yang Hang sat on a lounge chair, with a new glass of iced lemonade in front of him and six turrets whose barrels were still dissipating heat behind him.
Some charred scale debris was scattered on the deck—relics of those six high-level sea beasts.
He didn't look at the debris; he was looking at the Karmic Void Realm.
The energy pool.
In one night, it had expanded more than threefold.
Nearly 1.4 billion people in the Yanhuang Camp were on the Fate Platform, and nearly 1.4 billion people had activated the compass.
Over 900 million Yanhuang Civilization survivors frantically consumed karma points during these six hours to reorganize scans, inspect warnings, and confirm routes. Every expenditure was pumping blood into the energy pool. Coupled with the tenfold merit bonus during the beast tide, the collective merit brought by hunting sea beasts skyrocketed—
The total faction merit of the Yanhuang Camp was temporarily unknown, but the only thing clear was that its total merit must have skyrocketed.
And his personal merit value had also jumped directly from 550 million to 1.9 billion.
For a moment, he was dazzled. Although he was now the master behind the Fate Platform used by 1.4 billion people.
He was even regarded as a god-like existence by countless Yanhuang Civilization survivors, discussed and speculated about by countless people on the Fate Platform every day, but this still could not hide the fact that three days ago, he was just an ordinary person who had just graduated three months ago and was working.
He didn't even have much work experience in surviving in a peaceful society, let alone achieving such a level of success in such a savage and bloody world.
He hadn't fully transformed yet and needed some time to adapt.
In the World Echo of the Fate Platform, messages were still scrolling.
But this time, it was no longer complaints filling the screen, no longer boundless despair.
"I survived!!! I f*cking survived!!!" A survivor with the ID "Just Arrived at Magic Sea Can't Dance" sent three voice messages, each with a crying tone. "I thought I was dead last night! Three Blood-Thirsty Sharks chased and bit me for half an hour, and half my boat was bitten to pieces! As a result, the compass pointed me to a reef crevice, and I squeezed in and hid for the whole night! The sharks are gone now! I came out alive!!!"
"The compass saved my life!" Another survivor with the ID "Did Old Zhang Go Fishing Today" directly posted a series of picture livestreams. In the continuous photos, he stood on a Houseboat that had been gnawed down to just half, smiling at the camera, tears and seawater streaming down together. "When that group of Serrated Fish came from the south, the compass warned me twelve minutes in advance! Twelve minutes! I rowed faster than I ever have in my life! Look at what my boat looks like now? Only half left! But I'm alive! I f*cking survived!"
"Mine was even more outrageous," a female voice interjected, her voice still trembling. "My boat was smashed by Iron-Clad Crabs, and I was floating in the sea, surrounded by red dots. I was ready to give up—then the compass marked a piece of driftwood two nautical miles away for me. I swam over, I actually swam over. Now I'm lying on the wood waiting for rescue, and someone has already replied to my private message on the Fate Platform, saying they will arrive within half an hour."
"Thank you, Fate Platform!!!"
"Thank you, compass!!!"
"Thank you, Big Boss Yang Hang!!!"
Three exclamation marks weren't enough, so they added ten. If ten weren't enough, they added a hundred. The speed of the scrolling screen was so fast that it was impossible to see who sent what, only those keywords surged up like a tide—alive, compass, Fate Platform, Yang Hang.
"I used to say Big Boss Yang Hang was the Fate Master as a joke," a survivor with the ID "To Hell with the Deep Sea" sent a long voice message, his voice hoarse beyond recognition. "But after last night, I'm serious. Do you know? I was hiding under a pile of driftwood last night, and right above my head was a group of Blood-Thirsty Whales. The red dots on the compass covered the entire screen. I had already closed my eyes—then the compass marked a path for me. A gap between two red dots, less than thirty meters wide, just enough for my boat to squeeze through. I went. I came out alive. I don't know if this was a coincidence or what, but I count this life on Big Boss Yang Hang."
Hundreds of replies poured into the comment section instantly.
"I count it too!"
"+1!"
"+10086!"
"If it weren't for the compass, I would have been done for last night."
"I didn't even have a boat, just a broken board. The compass told me which way to row to avoid the red dots. I rowed for six hours, my hands are still shaking now, but I'm alive."
"Big Boss Yang Hang! Whether you can see it or not, this life of mine, Zhao Tiezhu, was saved by you!"
"Fate Master! Fate Master! Fate Master!"
Someone started spamming the term "Fate Master." Not "Big Boss Yang Hang," not "Top of the Rankings," but "Fate Master"—Lord of the Fate Platform, Lord of fate.
This word floated on the Fate Platform all night, from sporadic sentences to filling the screen, from filling the screen to becoming the only thing that could be seen in the entire World Echo.