Begging for monthly passes, begging for recommendation tickets, the arrival is spectacular. …… Upon seeing the Earth Spirit Spring, Ye Chen’s resolve to establish a base city here became even firmer. Soon after, it was the fifth month of the Dark Calendar, leaving only about eleven months until the winged man’s subordinates arrived on Earth to attack.

The base city had to be established within this timeframe. Whoever obtained the God Blood would inevitably trigger pursuit from that winged man. In his previous life, the Huaxia Base City barely survived by employing an enormous quantity of nuclear weapons, resulting in catastrophic casualties.

Now, the nuclear weapons were in the hands of various base cities; he only had two options: either steal others' nuclear weapons or rely on his own strength. "I'll focus on strengthening myself first. If I truly can't hold them off, then I'll steal some nuclear weapons from other base cities." Ye Chen mused inwardly.

He glanced at the Earth Spirit Spring, and with a thought, summoned the Silver Mechanical Warrior, commanding it, "You are to guard this place. No matter what, you must protect this pool of water." The Silver Mechanical Warrior nodded, then sat upon the mountain, activating its sensor to monitor the surroundings. Ye Chen moved in a flash, leaping onto the back of the Blood-Toothed Tiger.

"Return to the base city at maximum speed." Black let out a roar, then spun around and bolted, carrying Ye Chen across the suburbs and ruined cities. Cars on the street were easily crushed under the tiger's paw, and the zombies roaring out of the buildings were left far behind before they could even give chase. The wind whipped past.

Ye Chen sat upright on the Blood-Toothed Tiger's head, arms crossed, gaze fixed ahead. He watched the scenery rocket backward like lightning, calculating his next moves in his mind. Once the base city was established, perhaps he should head to Russia first to locate that ruin...

"Roar..." A distant roar interrupted Ye Chen’s thoughts. He frowned, turning his head to see several hideous, blood-soaked zombie monsters with savage fangs burst out of the nearby desolate ruins and lunge toward them. Black was about to charge forward to dispatch them, but Ye Chen said coolly, "Ignore them." Based on his knowledge of monsters, he instantly recognized these creatures were around level 20, their constitution too low to yield much Life Qi even if killed.

Time was critical right now; he couldn't bother with these. Black acknowledged this and ran straight ahead. It was a long journey from Hubei Province to Beijing.

The cities in the provinces along the way had not been cleared; they were overrun with monsters, zombies everywhere. Zombie-humans roamed the streets, and powerful monsters held sway in places like supermarkets, claiming territory. The Blood-Toothed Tiger moved like the wind.

Occasionally, when passing through the territory of a powerful monster, it elicited a few angry roars. Even though they had evolved into monsters, the instincts between animals remained unchanged; upon encountering a strong rival entering their territory, they would issue roars as a show of dominance and intimidation. The Blood-Toothed Tiger charged onto the expressway, following the main road.

Before long, they reached the bank of a wide river where a long bridge spanned the water, jammed haphazardly with stopped cars. The Blood-Toothed Tiger directly stepped on these cars to charge across. Its heavy body was enough to collapse the bridge structure, but its speed was immense; it spent less than 0.1 seconds on any single spot.

With just a slight exertion, it could leap dozens of zhang. "Hm?" Ye Chen frowned, noticing a long black shadow swimming rapidly beneath the bridge, its body long and thick, terrifying to behold, seemingly pursuing the Blood-Toothed Tiger. This river was exceptionally wide; if they fell in halfway, not even an immortal could save them.

Ye Chen knitted his brows and told Little Black, "Speed up." "En." Little Black had also seen the thick black shadow and stiffened internally, hurriedly exerting its full strength. After running for a short while, the bridge section ahead suddenly broke in the middle. Many dark shapes were swimming beneath the structure.

Ye Chen glanced at the distance to the opposite bank, estimated quickly, and decisively commanded, "Charge across!" Black hesitated for a moment, but upon hearing Ye Chen's firm voice, it did not question and instead bounded forward with all its might, leaping toward the far bank. Its body, spanning over ten meters, looked quite astonishing in mid-air. The gale rushed by, and time and sound seemed to freeze.

Ye Chen held his breath and looked down to see the surging river water churned by black shadows rising to the surface—they were Fish Monsters, human-like from the waist up with powerful, muscular fish tails below, possessing two human arms, making them extremely horrifying. Boom The Blood-Toothed Tiger’s forepaws landed on the bridge section on the other side, the weight causing the structure to collapse. Little Black was startled and quickly dug its claws in, pushing its body up into an arched, shrimp-like shape, then suddenly surged forward, clearing dozens of zhang in a leap, continuing to run at full speed, sweat chilling its entire body from fright.

Ye Chen remained calm, patting the Blood-Toothed Tiger’s head. "It's catching up." Indeed, beneath the bridge beside them, that long, thick shadow still clung tenaciously, following closely. Little Black controlled the Blood-Toothed Tiger to gallop wildly.

After a short run, they cleared the bridge and stepped onto the shore. Just as they breathed a sigh of relief, a splash echoed. The black shadow stopped beneath the bridge railing and emerged from the water.

Its body was tens of meters long, making even the Blood-Toothed Tiger seem somewhat small in comparison. It was covered in green scales, flicked a serpentine tongue, and possessed a pair of long, pale fangs, staring menacingly at Ye Chen and the tiger. "Water Python?" Ye Chen was slightly startled.

Looking closer, he immediately saw four protruding features on the emerging python. He suspected that given a little more time, claws would sprout, and it would transform into a Flood Dragon. "Looking at its appearance, I wonder how many Fish Monsters it has consumed.

A common water snake only evolves to a few dozen levels at 1H4 level, but this one has reached four or five hundred levels!" Ye Chen glanced at it, then quickly urged Little Black, "Run!" Black immediately bolted away. The Water Python hissed a few times, its long tail angrily striking the river water, then plunged back in, vanishing without a trace. Not long after, Ye Chen, riding the Blood-Toothed Tiger, arrived outside Beijing City.

He recalled the tiger and proceeded alone. In a short while, he was back at the base city. He went directly to Elvie's temple; the girl was still sketching weapon blueprints.

"Huh?" Elvie looked surprised when she saw Ye Chen. "Why are you here?" Ye Chen looked at her and said, "I need to build a city, preferably one like this steel city—one that can move around like a spaceship as long as it has enough energy." Elvie paused, then her delicate eyebrows furrowed slightly. "For this, you'll need a great many materials, as well as human resources and energy." Ye Chen pondered for a moment.

"The raw materials for manufacturing the city can be an amalgamation of gold, silver, copper, red gold, monster skeletons, and other materials. I will find a way to collect those later." To build an entirely steel city required an astonishing amount of material. Although Ye Chen desperately wanted to plunder a ruin similar to Atlantis and claim the remaining castles and houses, such ruins were too high-level.

The higher the level of the ruin, the more difficult it was to obtain. The Atlantean civilization alone was fraught with danger. If he hadn't fortunately rescued Elvie, he would have been pulverized by the mechanical guardians left behind in the city.

There were some ruins whose locations he knew, but he lacked the strength to acquire them. Elvie nodded. "Once you've collected all the materials, I can design the blueprints for you." Ye Chen nodded, then left the temple.

Using his communicator, he inquired with Xu Tianguo about the guild's situation, learning that everything was proceeding normally recently, which put his mind at ease. Now, in the Huaxia Base Cities, many shops were trading under the name of the Brightness Guild, making it quite famous within the base city; many people knew of the Brightness Guild. Ye Chen instructed Xu Tianguo to open several more hotels for the Brightness Guild and to process the blood collected from hunting monsters into food, developing all aspects of the business.

He knew that soon, the profits earned by the hotels would far exceed those from weapons. For the next two days, Ye Chen requested a high-grade virtual helmet from Elvie and honed his combat skills in the virtual battlefield. Although his constitution did not improve, his combat power increased.

In the virtual world, Yanhuang City. The buildings in the city featured an ancient style, possessing a unique charm. Ye Chen stood on the street, noticing that the people coming and going all carried a faint, almost imperceptible killing intent.

On both sides were entertainment venues like hotels, where the food consumed was entirely virtual and free of charge, allowing some hungry people to feast to their heart's content—though their stomachs would still rumble once they left the virtual world. "Brother." A crisp voice sounded. A girl dressed in ancient style clothing, with fair skin and a delicate face, chased after him from the back of the street.

There was a tiny crimson dot on her brow, obscured by a lock of black, fine hair; otherwise, it would have definitely attracted attention. Red-tier warriors were rare treasures in this current stage, only achievable by those who had mastered arts like Tai Chi, Xing Yi Quan, or those in the assassin profession. Ye Chen turned, smiling.

"What's making you so happy?" Ye Zhu looked at the man in front of her, dressed in ancient martial artist robes, who bore a slight resemblance to Ye Chen but with noticeable differences in appearance. Knowing this was the virtual persona Ye Chen had created, she smiled. "On Combat Platform 05, the third-ranked fighter on the Yanhuang City Warrior Rank, 'The Executioner,' and the fourth-ranked, 'Cold Blade,' are scheduled for a duel.

Both are Red-tier warriors! Shall we go watch?" Ye Chen rubbed his nose. "Let's skip that one.

I plan to hone my combat skills in the Virtual Combat Tower later." He wasn't particularly interested in duels between Red-tier warriors like these. Ye Zhu stuck out her tongue slightly. "Alright, then I'll accompany you to the Combat Tower." "En," Ye Chen nodded.

The two turned and headed toward the Combat Tower, setting their opponents and battle arenas, honing their skills. They engaged in countless simulated battles against AI opponents, accumulating rich combat experience. Three days later.

Ye Chen stretched his limbs, taking off his long robe. As he stroked the softness of the fabric, he couldn't help but recall the girl who had pricked her fingers multiple times while sewing this robe for him. His expression softened almost unconsciously.

He slowly folded the robe neatly and put it away in his runic space, placing it in a cabinet in the spaceship's control center for permanent safekeeping. Afterward, he changed into the set of leather armor stitched from the hide of an 85-level Three-Eyed Wolf, preparing to leave the base city to hunt a few monsters in the wilderness and raise his constitution to level 100. "Beep beep..." Suddenly, the communicator chimed.

Xu Tianguo's voice carried a note of excitement. "Boss, I have great news for you! Two extremely powerful and terrifying monsters have been battling their way over from another city and are now gravely wounded.

Members of the major guilds are recruiting people to kill these two monsters and claim their corpses!"