Chapter 19: Epic Building, Small-scale Fortress

"Oh, for heaven's sake... I can't fall back asleep."

An Wen looked at the time displayed on his mobile phone - it was 7:35. He could not stand it any longer.

It was no wonder that the more troubled people were, the poorer the quality of their sleep was.

He had originally intended to wake up only at 11 a.m., so that he could recharge and replenish his energy, but he ended up waking early in the morning.

It was even earlier than the usual time he would normally wake up. He wanted to continue sleeping, but found that he could not fall back asleep.

He was euphoric, but he appeared slightly dazed, despite not feeling extremely lethargic.

"Forget it, I shall get out of bed and go for breakfast."

Sluggishly, he got out of his bed...

Then, he left his house in an unhurried manner.

Even though he was dawdling, when he finished his breakfast, it was only 8.40 a.m.

By 9 a.m., An Wen could really not stand it any longer.

He could not adapt to such an idle life all of a sudden.

To rediscover his 'usual' self, he decided to play some computer games.

"Eh? FPX won the championship? When did they win?"

When An Wen turned on his computer, he discovered that the finals of the S9 Championship had ended. FPX had cleanly swept G2 with a score of 3-0 to clinch the championship.

"Hmm... FPX won the championship, but why is PDD trending now?"

An Wen clicked onto the website to check it out.

Oh!

So that's why!

First, it was the player Ning, and now it was the player Tian, both of whom Liu 'PDD' Mou 'sold at a discounted price' before they became legendary players!

"Epic!"

An Wen exclaimed in awe when he finished reading the article.

What more did he need to say?

The respective FMVPs in the S8 and S9 World Championships were both the players who played the 'jungler' position on the champion teams, and both of whom were 'sold' by Liu Mou to other teams prior to them winning the championships and attaining their legendary titles. If that was still not considered 'epic', what else was?

Did the player Xiao Longbao also have to become the FMVP of the following year's S10 Championship?

If such turned out to be true, would it not mean that any competitive Esports team who wanted to clinch the global championship have to buy a 'jungler' from PDD first?

An Wen was in awe as he navigated around numerous other websites to read more about the topic.

It was still extremely enjoyable to be watching the 'show' from the sidelines.

By noon, An Wen had turned off his computer and took out his mobile phone.

"Yes, it's me... It's nothing, I just wanted to tell you that I will be away for some matters tomorrow. If there is anything you need to talk to me about, keep it on hold until I return the day after... Yes, yes, that's all... Alright, bye-bye."

"Manager Yuan, don't deliver any goods to me today or tomorrow, I will be away these two days... Yes... I should be back the day after... Wait for my call... Alright... Bye-bye."

An Wen called the renovation company as well as the company that sold temporary modular units respectively, and informed each about him being away for the next two days.

After all, starting from 2 p.m. that afternoon, until 2 p.m. the following afternoon, he had to be in the other world.

If he did not inform them beforehand and they were unable to contact him, it would result in delays.

After he informed the two companies, An Wen filled another bowl of food for An Yuan.

Everything was settled.

An Wen ate his lunch, then forced himself to rest for an hour in the afternoon.

"It's time to go."

At two-thirty in the afternoon, An Wen promptly traveled to the other world.

At this point in time, the sun in the other world had already risen, and the snow on the ground had melted.

An Wen traveled to the top of the city wall. He then pushed the final block of rock from the wooden plank of the scaffolding onto the wall, such that the block of rock became a pilaster.

Click!

In the instant when the rock and the city wall fused together, the entire wall turned into one complete structure.

At that moment, a dull, golden glow enveloped the entire city wall.

"It's perfect."

From his numerous years of experience in gaming, An Wen knew that a building with such a dull golden color was certainly legendary.

The moment the glow of light disappeared, he queried the attributes of the city wall.

"Defensive Building: Impregnable Fortress"

"Grade: Epic"

"Attributes: Negates all attacks weaker than Tier 3 (Special), Base Defense Strength +150%, City Defensive Weapons Power +100%, Weapons Storage Quantity +200%, Durability +150%, Ranged Damage Resistance +150%"

"Special Effect: City Defense System Modification Techniques Activated"

"Durability: 4,500,000 / 4,500,000 (3,000,000 x 150%) (Can be restored using Survival Points)"

"Defense Strength: Melee Defense 750,000 (5000 x 150%), Ranged Defense 750,000 (5000 x 150%) + Negate first 250,000 Damage, Tier 1 and Tier 2 Attacks unable to reduce Durability (Special)"

(Detailed statistical calculations are shown only for the first time and will not be given in future)

When An Wen finished reading the list of attributes, he was so excited that he became immediately stupefied.

"Damn!"

As an engineering student, An Wen was not extremely culturally literate, so he could only use such a word to describe his own feelings at present.

After some time, An Wen finally calmed down.

He then clicked to open the City Defense System Modification Techniques page.

Initially, An Wen thought that the City Defense System Modification Techniques would be a skills tree, similar to the woodworking techniques. 

However, upon opening the page, he realized that it was completely different.

"This... is this a real-time strategy game that focuses on technology advancement?"

Shown on the page was not a list of skills, but icons of different defense fortifications.

Furthermore, the icons were aligned in a straight line that extended downwards.

Although some of the icons would branch out to one or two sub-branches, the icons that were part of sub-branches did not link up with icons of other branches.

There were currently only five icons that were lit.

They were not crafting skills, but instead a series of various defensive buildings.

The icon at the very top depicted a wooden palisade.

"Defensive Building: Wooden Palisade"

"Materials Required: 5000 units of Wood"

"Crafting Skill Prerequisites: Wooden House, Lever Mechanism, Mortise and Tenon"

"Survival Points Required: 3000 Survival Points"

"Construction Duration: 6 hours"

The very first icon depicted the most basic defense fortification; in theory, An Wen should have constructed the wooden palisade first.

However, he 'cheated'.

As a result, he skipped the wooden palisade, the foundational stone wall, the small-scale city wall, as well as the large-scale city wall, building a small-scale fortress instead.

"Defensive Building: Small-scale Fortress"

"Materials Required: 10,000 units of Stone, 800 units of Wood, 300 units of Rock"

"Crafting Skill Prerequisites: Large-scale Mechanisms, Stone Column Palace (Locked), Bronze Smelting (Locked)"

"Survival Points Required: 3,500,000 Survival Points"

"Construction Duration: 80 hours"

After looking through the long chain of icons, An Wen turned folly once again.

In theory, the setting of the game was such that it required him to construct a wooden palisade first.

Subsequently, he would then unlock more crafting skills progressively and enhance the fortifications used.

In addition, it seemed that he did not even need to build the city wall on his own; he merely needed to provide the required materials and Survival Points.

However, he had foolishly worked for half a month.

That was not all.

Based on the settings of the game system, he was supposedly still unable to light up and activate the Small-scale Fortress.

It was not because he did not have sufficient Survival Points, but because he had not discovered Bronze Ore.

"This is another bug of the game world. I have yet to light up and activate the skills below Stone, neither have I discovered Bronze Ore, but somehow, the city wall I built still fulfilled the prerequisites of the Small-scale Fortress and unlocked it?"

In that case, the reinforced concrete and metal plates that An Wen purchased in the real world were also able to fulfill the prerequisites.

An Wen came up with the conclusion after pondering about the problem for a short amount of time.

However, the issue at hand was actually not too great of a deal.

A small-scale fortress was not something that was extremely remarkable, for it could not defend against modern-day firearms anyway.

The reason why An Wen was astonished and remarked about the fact that he was playing a real-time strategy game that focused on technology advancement, was due to the fortifications that appeared further down the page - it was as if they emerged from extraordinary science fiction.

"Defensive Building: Ring of Stars"

"Materials Required: 120 billion units of Special Metal, 80 billion units of Special Composite Material, 13 billion units of Rare Metal, 500 units of Antimatter"

"Crafting Skill Prerequisites: ??? (Locked), ??? (Locked)..."

"Building Prerequisites: ??? (Locked)..."

"Survival Points Required: 5000 AA Survival Points"

"Construction Duration: 300 years"

There were more defense fortifications below Ring of Stars, but the pictorial icons were unclear; they were simply displayed as question marks.

Such fortifications were beyond An Wen's consideration anyway.

Regardless, the materials required to construct the Ring of Stars alone were completely out of An Wen's reach.

Not to mention the duration of 300 years that was required to construct it.

"It's enough to enjoy looking at the details, there's not even a need to consider them. I should focus on dealing with the monsters attacking the city first, and think about other matters later."

An Wen was almost drooling as he looked at the descriptions of the unthinkable fortifications.

Nevertheless, he still closed the page. After all, he knew that fortifications like the Ring of Stars were completely out of his league at present.

Click, click, click...

Subsequently, An Wen began installing archer towers.

There were 13 archer towers on top of the city wall in total, with one every 20 meters.

An Wen had built each of the archery towers over the past couple of days. Although it seemed like a lot of work, the archer towers were actually very easy to build.

They were simply a combination of a wooden tower and a repeating crossbow, with no other materials required.

If An Wen had more time, he would certainly have made many more of them.

After the archer towers were installed, they automatically fused into the city wall, becoming a part of the defense system.

"Yes, this is perfectly in line with the game settings."

As An Wen looked at the archer towers that had fused together with the city wall, he remarked that it was completely logical.

It was a game after all!

Could the player have been expected to manually control the archer towers to attack?

Had An Wen discovered such a setting earlier, he would only have built one archer tower, and he would not have crafted so many foolishly.

Similarly, the stone catapults were capable of attacking automatically as well.

However, both the archer towers and the stone catapults had to be fused together with the city wall before they could attack monsters automatically.

Otherwise, he would have to operate them manually.

Very quickly, 13 archer towers and eight stone catapults were installed.

An Wen also placed barrels of petrol on the eight stone catapults - the first wave of attacks would use incendiary barrels of petrol.

As for the second wave of attacks, it would use...