All interfaces faded away and a force tugged at Yu Zhiye’s consciousness, fishing him all the way up into overview mode once more.
From above, Yu Zhiye watched his entire pocket dimension rumbling…
The borders of the gray foggy hemisphere started unrolling outwards, and the land seemed to stretch ever slowly...
Every construct—shed, pond, and portal—all spaced out from each other and moved away from the shack as if the land was growing away from the core of this dimension...
Then, as abruptly as it began, the expansion came to an end with the borders expanded out by a meter on all sides.
But right after this expansion completed, the land rumbled once more and the foundation of what appears to be a construction in progress unearthed itself.
That eventually occupied a circular plot of land to the southeast—not far away from the portal.
The moment that completed, a seed-like orb of light shot out from the core of the dimension, passing through the walls of the shack and the shed.
Eventually, that orb planted itself into the new stretch of land opened up on the other side of the shed.
Once that light orb took root, a wooden shoot sprouted from the ground…
Like some fast-forwarded time-lapse, that single branch grew and branched out, weaving together around and around until it magically formed what appears to be a fish barrel.
As soon as that magical scene finished, the core came alive once more and Yu Zhiye felt his control over his consciousness getting reinstated.
“That’s it I guess?”
His consciousness checked out the stilled space.
“A minor expansion plus unlocking some new structures? Well, I guessed as much. Base-building games like these always have something along those lines.”
There’s nothing to be surprised about. What interested him more was the new structures and their functions.
Without further ado, his consciousness tapped on the construction foundation and prompted the interface to pop up.
[Observatory (Lv. 0)]
A lookout to scry the world beyond.
[Build]
x16 wood, x32 cobblestone, x64 sand, 10 core energy
“An observatory, huh? This… it can’t be for me to observe the stars or something, right? Don’t tell me I’m gonna get a side job as a fortune teller?”
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Since there was no clear description on what this construct was for, Yu Zhiye wasn’t sure about its exact functions, but…
“Well, just build it and I’ll know. Um, most of these resources shouldn’t be an issue, but wood… why wood again?”
Yu Zhiye felt sad inside. Right now, that’s like the hardest resource to come by.
Even if he wanted to fleece those other survivors, they don’t even have anywhere to get wood!
“Hopefully more people will dig up chests and sell the wood to me…”
Sadly, the hopes weren’t high there, at least not anytime soon.
“Ugh. Where else can I get wood—um... wood? That’s right, there’s still that.”
Yu Zhiye panned his consciousness over to other new object in his dimension: the wooden barrel.
“That’s wood, isn’t it? Is that the promotion resource charity awarded by the core or…”
Once his consciousness focused on that barrel, a description interface popped up.
[Mysterious Barrel]
A barrel that has gained mysterious properties by bounding to a mysterious core and taking root in this dimension.
[Effect]
Indestructible
Basic Resource Production
[Resource Type Selection]
[Wood] [Cobblestone] [Sand]
“This… is this what I think it is?!”
Basic Resource Production! It can’t be wrong!
This must be the cliché structure populating almost every base-building game: the resource generator!
“Sweet stars above! I thought my base was more geared towards a sandbox game and actually required manual resource gathering outside! But now it turns out...”
“I only needed to complete the cliché tutorial town hall upgrade! Isn’t that just great!”
Well, how can it not be?
Yu Zhiye was originally worrying about how to gather wood, and now this was like somebody giving him a pillow when he needed it most!
“Okie, calm down. It’s not too late to celebrate once I figure out how this works…”
Do as he thought. Yu Zhiye unceremoniously tapped on none other than… obviously, the wood button.
Once that got selected, bling~
A mysterious signal pulsed out. In response, a tiny orb of light shot out from the core and flew into the barrel.
In the blink of an eye, a creepy, mysterious eye cracked open a slit on the barrel’s surface.
At the same time, the resource type selection faded away and was replaced by a countdown.
[Timer]
07:59:59
“Hmm. Seems like this is the typical time-based harvesting to keep players engaged. Figures.”
What confused Yu Zhiye was the orb of light that shot out from the core. What could that be?
His consciousness shifted over to the shack and focused on the main core.
[Main Core (Lv. 2)]
The core of this pocket dimension that stores all energy collected.
[Core Energy Units] x2
[Upgrade] x25 core energy
The level was now 2. The upgrade cost now bumped up to 25. Nothing special there.
What caught Yu Zhiye’s attention was his core energy units.
“Nani?! Two points left? Shouldn’t there be three? A point got deducted somewhere? No wait, could it be…that orb of light?”
If it was, it totally made sense.
“Guess I can’t just create something from nothing. It seems to generate resources, it’ll cost a single core energy?”
That was an acceptable cost.
Yu Zhiye’s only worry was the cost-to-production ratio.
“Eight hours. It isn’t short, but isn’t long either. Just wait it out and I’ll know what I get. As long as it’s not a one to one ratio, I’ll be happy!”
In fact, Yu Zhiye was pretty happy already. Just this resource generator was worth it!
Besides, were these the only changes?
Once his consciousness breezed over the altar right below the main core, that prompted another familiar description box to pop up.
[Mysterious Altar]
An altar that has gained mysterious properties by bounding to a mysterious core and taking root in this dimension.
[Effect]
Soul-Recognition Barrier
Indestructible
+2 CE/day
Nothing much changed here, except that the daily core energy generation got bumped up from one to two!
“Cool. Cool! That’s double the passive income! Double the happiness!”
A single low-level upgrade brought so many surprises. How can anyone not be happy?
The question now is: will it be triple the happiness?
Thinking about the mysterious fishing rod in his inventory, Yu Zhiye dropped his consciousness back into his body and looked at the inventory hotbar that reappeared.
One glance at the fishing rod’s tooltip shocked him to the core!
“This is…!!!”