Chapter 13: Basic Stone Wall

Chapter 13: Basic Stone Wall

Jack looked down at his palms, slowly flexing his fingers before tightly clenching his fists. A subtle surge of energy rippled beneath his skin. After allocating his stat points and gaining fresh levels, the newly unlocked physical power felt almost surreal, humming like a low voltage inside his muscles.

"You feel it too, don't you?" Aria asked, hovering beside his shoulder and looking at him with a surprisingly thoughtful expression. "It’s weird... back in my home world, getting stronger required endless practice, channeling mana, and years of effort. But here, it's like... even if you trained for a decade, you wouldn't get this instant satisfaction of getting stronger with just a single thought."

"Yeah," Jack muttered, looking out toward the hazy, ash-choked horizon. "I think it's because it's a borrowed system mechanic—a shortcut we can't fully control or comprehend yet. Or maybe it just feels jarring because we had such a massive jump in power in such a short amount of time."

Aria shook her head, her blue hair swaying as she clenched her tiny fists with newfound determination. "Well, whatever! Survival is survival. Let's keep going. I want to grow way stronger so I can actually crush these monsters myself!"

---

Hours blurred together as the scorching sun slowly sank beneath the jagged, fiery peaks of Server 09.

By the time Jack and Aria finally trudged back toward the safe zone, they were accompanied by a terrifying sight: a slithering, skeletal legion of thirty-two reanimated undead beasts. Bone serpents, ash lizards, and fiery hounds marched in eerie, synchronized silence behind their master, their empty eye sockets burning with faint green necrotic light.

As they crossed the glowing blue perimeter line into the cooling sanctuary, Aria gasped, her jaw dropping as she looked around.

"Wow... the territory looks completely different than how we left it this morning!"

The ground inside the fifty-meter safe zone had been thoroughly cleared. Jagged obsidian boulders, ****tered debris, and uneven rock formations had all been smoothed out and flattened into pristine building plots.

"Hmm... Hey, Brul! You around?" Jack called out, scanning the base.

There was no answer. The base was completely quiet, save for the hum of the cooling spire.

Jack tapped his temple, bringing up his internal system clock, and paused as a realization hit him. ‘Ah, right... his shift ended. That labor contract functions like a magical portal. He works his designated hours, then teleports back home to his family until tomorrow morning.’ Jack rubbed his chin, analyzing the situation. ‘At this rate, if I want to build up a proper fortress before the first Monster Wave hits, I’m going to need a lot more dwarf workers.’

"So, we need more resources to build a surrounding defense wall," Aria said, flitting over to inspect the cleared perimeter. "Who's going to build it? Is it like the other structures, where the system automatically constructs it once we provide the blueprint, or do we need workers?"

"I think the system can handle basic assembly, but we need to speed up," Jack replied, his eyes narrowing in calculation. "We don't have much time left before the beginner protection period ends. I’ll need to hire more dwarves. I can use the beast cores we collected today to recruit them, but first, I need to check the structural requirements for a proper perimeter wall. If the system doesn't offer a direct automated blueprint, I’ll have Brul and the new dwarves build a physical barricade manually. My undead beast legion can easily handle the heavy lifting and resource transport to assist them."

"Sounds like a solid plan to me," Aria yawned dramatically, her shoulders slumping as her tiny wings flickered sluggishly. She rubbed her eyes with two tiny fists. "Anyway... I am completely drained. I'm going to catch some z's. If you need something, do not call me. I strictly require my beauty sleep!"

Without waiting for a response, the tiny fairy zipped toward the wooden cabin, ducked inside, and slammed the door shut.

Jack chuckled softly to himself, shaking his head. ‘So even fairies hit you with the "beauty sleep" line, huh?’

"Alright," Jack muttered, turning toward the open expanse of the base. "Let's start investigating."

Jack walked over to the outer edge of the safe zone, right where a perimeter wall would naturally need to be placed to encom the Elemental Cooling Shrine. To his surprise, as soon as he focused his intent on the boundary line, a semi-transparent blue construction outline materialized automatically.

The system already had a default [Basic Stone Wall] available in the base menu—no rare blueprint scroll required. He could build it directly, provided he had the necessary building materials.

‘Great. Now we just need to scale up our labor force,’ Jack thought, turning his attention toward the Dwarf Worker Cabin.

He approached the small stone structure and tapped the interface floating above the doorway to access the recruitment menu. A glowing red warning popped up immediately:

[Notice: Base recruitment limit reached for [Dwarf Worker Cabin (Level 1)].]

[Current Units: 1 / 1]

[To increase unit capacity, you must upgrade the structure.]

[Structure Upgrade Requirements: Volcanic Stone x50, Wood x50, Beast Cores x25]

"Beast cores aren't an issue—we have plenty of those from today's hunt," Jack analyzed out loud. "And as for the stone..."

He opened the system’s base inventory tab to check the yields from Brul’s daily mining labor. He was eager to see just how much raw stone the dwarf had managed to extract while flattening the safe zone.

[Resource Yield: Volcanic Stone x349]

"Perfect," Jack smiled, feeling a wave of relief. "That's more than enough stone. Now I just need wood... which means it's time to trade with other survivors."

Jack immediately opened the system's global market interface. He browsed through the active listings and saw thousands of trades rapidly scrolling past as survivors from different biomes tried to barter for survival items. However, when Jack attempted to list a chunk of his surplus Volcanic Stone to buy wood, the system instantly blocked his input, flashing a bold yellow prompt across his vision:

[System Error: Trading function locked.]

[Requirement Unmet: You must construct a [Trading Center] within your base territory to enable cross-server item exchanges.]

Jack froze, his eyes widening in pure disbelief as he stared at the screen.

"What?!" Jack muttered, his mind racing. "A lot of people in the global chat were already trading resources... which means they’ve already built their Trading Centers! But to get a Trading Center, you need a blueprint scroll... I’ve killed a ton of monsters, didn't I drop any building scrolls?!"

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