Chapter 227: Third Week Settlement

Our Apartment Complex Transmigrated… Again

Qin Ziwen brought the Earth Spirit Source Stone to the Level 2 Iron Mine.

He embedded the Earth Spirit Source Stone into the iron mine card.

[Level 5 Curio] Earth Spirit Source Stone (can be embedded into vein resource points)

Earth Spirit Source Stone: After embedding into the corresponding resource point, it greatly increases the mine's output, slightly improves ore quality, and the vein has a small chance to produce refined ore.

After embedding, the iron mine underwent some changes.

The iron turned an even deeper hue, the ore exposed on the surface giving off a bright metallic sheen.

The changes here could not be hidden. Li Tieshan, who was responsible for weapon forging, noticed the difference immediately.

He hurried over, first saluted Qin Ziwen, then rushed to the vein, picked up a chunk of ore, weighed it in his hand repeatedly, and tapped it with his knuckles.

"Master, this ore... the purity is too high!" He suddenly looked up, his eyes full of disbelief. "This isn't just ore anymore, this is practically a lump of natural iron! There's almost no impurities. With a little forging, it can be made into ironware directly."

Qin Ziwen glanced at the spot where Li Tieshan had just picked up the ore. Several surrounding pieces of iron seemed to have life; they slowly compressed inward, filling the area that had just been taken.

This is the greatly increased vein output!?

Qin Ziwen's gaze sharpened.

Is this the effect of a Level 5 Curio?

And this was only the iron mine—what about rarer veins?

He thought of one more thing: these curios came from the Giant Rock Dragon, like parasites, drawing nutrients from the dragon's body.

If he hadn't killed the Giant Rock Dragon in advance, this parasitism would have continued for who knew how long. The number of qualified Earth Spirit Source Stones produced from its back would only increase, and the stones synthesized at the end would be of higher and higher grades.

Maybe they could even produce Level 6 or Level 7 Earth Spirit Source Stones.

Of course, this output depended on the Giant Rock Dragon itself. If the dragon couldn't hold on, the parasitism might end prematurely.

Night came, past midnight.

"You successfully survived one week on the Gobi map. Current day: twenty-fifth. You have advanced to Superhuman this week, obtained a large number of cards, completed the Hunting Ladder Level 3 task once, successfully hunted the Superhuman creature Giant Rock Dragon.... Comprehensive Score: 2711

"Rewards obtained: [Breakthrough Card] Limit Breakthrough Card1, [Duplication Card] Common Building Duplication Card3, [Expansion Card] Grassland Expansion Card (Large)2, [Function Card] Node1, [Upgrade Card] Building Upgrade Card1, [Enhancement Card] Human Constitution Enhancement Card (One-Star)3"

Qin Ziwen looked at the rewards; another Limit Breakthrough Card. Counting what he had in reserve, he now had four of them in total.

Next were the large grassland expansion cards—this time he was given two large expansion cards at once, enough to expand living space by twenty thousand square meters.

His Home's current total area was 25,198 square meters.

If he added the two new large expansion cards, that would be forty-five hundred square meters per side?—together roughly the size of six to seven football fields.

Then the Common Building Duplication Cards.

Counting previous reserves, he now had five of them.

Even stacked up, they could raise the shipyard to Level 3.

There was a restriction, though: this duplication card can permanently transform into any Common-level Building Card, but it can only duplicate the card itself, not the actual building.

To duplicate a shipyard, he first needed an existing shipyard building card.

Unfortunately, there were many types of building cards, and so far he had not found anyone else with a shipyard card.

Qin Ziwen could only hope silently that a shipyard card would appear during map settlement.

As for the routine Function Card, Qin Ziwen activated it by default.

[Activate Function: Level 3 Node]

[Permission increased. Current authority: Level 3 Authority (7/8)]

[Level 3 Node: Up to three spatial nodes can be established outside the Home. These nodes are two-way channels, but limited to the current map. Once set, a node cannot be changed for seven days.]

Qin Ziwen's eyes brightened; the node had finally become a two-way channel.

Although limited to the current map, that wasn't a big problem.

He thought of the biggest use: linking to the oasis node so they could pump large amounts of water from the oasis.

No more wasting a full day on travel.

The next map would be an island. Although there is a sea, everyone knew seawater couldn't be drunk directly.

Unless the island had direct freshwater resource points, drinking water would still be a major problem.

It would be fine to stockpile a large amount of water from the oasis first.

Regarding the newly obtained Building Upgrade Card.

In his view, the most cost-effective use of this card was to apply it directly to a high-level Common building.

The higher the Common building's level, the more worthwhile its transformation into an Advanced Building would be.

At present, the highest-level Common building in his Home was the Level 5 Farmland.

To go from Level 5 to Level 6 required sixteen farmland cards.

But just as he was about to use it, Qin Ziwen thought of the shipyard.

Upgrading farmland would produce the first Advanced building in the planting category.

That would help the Home, and be more long-term.

However, on the next map, the Advanced building that would be most useful would be one for shipbuilding.

After hesitating for a moment, Qin Ziwen kept the Building Upgrade Card.

He would wait until the shipyard's level rose a bit before using it.

As for the Human Constitution Enhancement Card (One-Star), after a moment's thought, Qin Ziwen decided to wait and observe.

The next morning after dawn, Qin Ziwen informed Jia Liangcai about upgrading the node to a two-way channel and had him arrange the work.

Before long, as the news spread step by step, the entire residential complex mobilized.

Water, meat, animals, and all kinds of supplies were steadily transported back to the complex through the node.

After nearly a month of Gobi winds and sandstorms, many of the plants originally planted in the complex's green belt had long since yellowed and withered.

But with the connected node, water resources became abundant, no longer as scarce as before. Some nearly-dead plants were pulled out and replaced with green plants from the oasis; the parched vegetation was doused with clear lake water.

People cheered joyfully. Some of them had not washed even once since traveling to the Gobi.

At most they had wiped themselves with wet towels.

Now they could finally take a proper bath.

At the oasis, many animals that had become wary of the frequently appearing humans after the earlier incidents now avoided them entirely.

Now that humans had suddenly increased in number, the animals were forced to give them space.

From afar, among the wild horse herd, Chitu called out while leading the herd to relocate. Lately Chitu had been living a rather carefree life; mingling with the herd, it had long forgotten the wider world.

Every morning it woke up surrounded by more than a dozen mares.

Still, it sensed that its time here would not last long, so Chitu prepared to carefully select some suitable elite horses to leave with it.