"Mist-Dispelling Bonfire"
"Tier: Purple"
"Category: Special Building"
"Abilities: 1. To a large extent disperses the gray fog; 2. Grants humans within the range of the Mist-Dispelling Bonfire a rapid recovery buff."
Gazing out, the thick gray fog rolled back, and the scenery in view became clear.
Rolling hills, with minerals of various shapes scattered across their surfaces, sparse and strange plants, and a few malevolent entities remaining in place after the fog receded.
Not many, only a few dozen scattered about.
It seemed like there were endless malevolent entities within the gray fog, but very few appeared once it receded. The bonfire's mist-dispelling range was also vast, providing a far greater sense of security than the Brightlight Torch.
An Jianyou ran to a high point to observe, estimating the radius to be around 500 meters.
And,
She looked up, as if basking in the warm winter sun. The darkness and filth vanished, and the colors in her eyes became vibrant.
She saw no sun, yet the sunlight felt utterly real.
This was the first time she had witnessed sunlight in the bizarre realm.
It felt so good.
The others seemed ignited as well, shouting "For humanity!" and charging forward to dismember the few, weak, and scarce malevolent entities.
Beyond the 500-meter radius of the warm sunlight, the gray fog lay thick like a wall, but An Jianyou waited for a while and saw no malevolent entities emerge from it.
It seemed the bonfire was more than ten times stronger than the torch.
She blinked in surprise and softly said, "Okay," then took out another small item from her spatial ring—a Mysterious Concentration Detection Crystal.
It could absorb the ambient mystery in the world to detect the current environmental mysterious concentration.
She held the crystal, and after a moment, when its color subtly shifted, she placed it into another instrument. Two beeps later, the detection result appeared.
—0.8.
This value seemed… very low!
…
"Indeed, it is very low."
The mysterious concentration in most areas of the shallow bizarre realm is around 420, meaning one could accumulate 420 units of mystery per hour in such an environment without doing anything.
Enough for three awakenings!
However, staying in such an environment for an hour is a hypothetical scenario; even Fang You couldn't do it.
Under the burning of the Brightlight Torch, the gray fog had thinned considerably, and the surrounding mysterious concentration was about 10 units.
Within the Mist-Dispelling Bonfire's range, the mysterious concentration dropped significantly to 0.8 units.
The lower the concentration, the safer it was, and the less likely one was to be attacked by malevolent entities.
"But this safety is only for malevolent entities that act on instinct. If a claw of a highly intelligent evil god discovered this bonfire outpost..."
The bonfire only had a dispelling effect, not a defensive one.
If an evil god's claw attacked, a single expert beyond the human realm could inflict heavy losses on the Firewood elites.
Ultimately, it was still a matter of insufficient strength.
"This bonfire outpost must be preserved to allow the puppets and some awakened individuals to take turns mining the mysterious minerals here."
"This is currently the easiest mineral deposit to mine besides the secret lands, with diverse types and abundant reserves."
The mysterious mineral deposits discovered so far were not limited to this one; there were several. Among them was a rich vein of bizarre crystal, much larger than the small one in the secret land.
With two worlds devouring and merging, the transitional buffer zone in the shallow bizarre realm had indeed produced many treasures.
Perhaps it would be difficult to find legendary gold-tier treasures in this shallow area, but green-tier and blue-tier items were almost everywhere, and this was an uncharted virgin territory.
Firewood was the first to set foot here.
However, limited by their strength, many discovered mineral deposits were difficult to exploit... one couldn't have An Jianyou mine, her efficiency wouldn't suffice.
"For now, we will use this mineral deposit as an outpost and attempt to mine it."
"Let An Jianyou, Xing Jinglei, and Hei Dao take turns on guard duty. They can resist for a while in case of any unexpected events."
Then, he could descend to provide reinforcements.
This was the worst-case scenario, which might not happen, but he had to be prepared.
However, it was still troublesome.
"It will occupy a lot of time from my daily cultivation, and I'll be tied to the secret land, delaying my development speed."
"No, the personnel guarding this outpost can be rotated. Let the Liu family trio take charge. Although Liu Shang will definitely complain that I've taken her people, it's only temporary, and this is a suitable arrangement... it can free up An Jianyou to grind more bizarre entities and level up."
"She is one of the two who can reach the fifth awakening in a short period."
The other person, of course, was the great mentor Fang You himself.
However, An Jianyou had a replacement, but he did not. He was the current guardian combat power, able to fight with the power of the secret land.
In critical moments, he was the one who had to act.
The God-Slaying Weapon Shallow Red was also a top-tier combat force, but without his traversal ability through Xiao Huan, timely rescue would be impossible. Nurse Fang was irreplaceable.
Damn it!
"It will be fine once An Jianyou and Hei Dao raise their levels."
"Or if we can pull out some powerful bizarre weapons or trump card items, that would be good too."
…
A few days passed quickly, and Fang You's days were very regular.
Cultivating skills, exercising his body, and occasionally fighting bizarre entities to level up.
Because he was concerned about the situation at the bonfire outpost, he always reserved some strength during his training and grinding, not daring to tire himself out too much or sleep too soundly.
However, after several days, the outpost remained peaceful. The Firewood awakened individuals who took on the task of rotation, guarding, and mining hadn't even encountered a few attacks from bizarre entities.
It had become boring.
The Liu Ji trio had even started engaging in cultivation around the outpost. Unfortunately, the soil in the bizarre realm either only supported a very small number of plants or was simply barren and dry, incapable of growing anything.
After much trial and error, Liu Ji chose to plant Thorn Seeds.
She planted them in circles around the bonfire outpost. It had to be said that with these special seeds cultivated with their abundant life energy, the overall defensive capability of the outpost had increased by several times.
During this period, there was also good news.
After breaking a worker puppet, Master Wang Chui finally developed Firewood's own worker puppets.
—Mining Type 1 Puppet (Green)
—Construction Type 1 Puppet (Green)
Colloquially known as the "teenager version" of worker puppets, many abilities were stripped away, and their intelligence was far inferior.
Master Wang had initially planned to develop only one teenager version of the puppet, but the worker puppet had too many functions to integrate into one.
Therefore, he had to break it down into two different series of puppets.
This was still very good, especially the mining puppets, which were highly satisfactory for current needs. Fang You immediately instructed Xiao Huan to place an order with the forging department for twenty… fifty of them!
After all, most of the manufacturing materials could be mined from the mysterious mineral veins, so they were not lacking; they could build as many as they wanted.
It's just that the intelligence was indeed a bit lacking.
Kandela's worker puppets could autonomously complete most tasks with a single command, while Firewood's teenager version required manual cooperation.
Ultimately, it could significantly improve mining efficiency.
Fang You opened his status panel.
"Mystery: 80083"!
His grinding efficiency hadn't been high recently, but after all, the AOE from killing the Throne-level Priest and dealing with the avatar of the Blood Emperor had affected a large number of bizarre entities, accumulating quite a bit. These past few days, whenever he opened his personal panel, he finally saw this "!" symbol.
"However, it only requires 80,000 mystery? I thought it would be 160,000."
The reduced mystery requirement made him feel uneasy instead.
Clicking the "!" symbol to check, he indeed found…
"Fifth Awakening Guidance: Can consume 200 Bizarre Crystals and 200 Fate Points to guide the 'Savior of Fate' to awaken, but the following conditions must be met:"
"1. Accumulated Mystery Value greater than or equal to 80,000." (√)
"2. Two-dimensional sum greater than or equal to 80." (√)
"3. Dual control of body and energy." (√)
"4. Pollution degree less than or equal to 10%." (√)
This pollution degree manifested in various ways, such as post-awakening sequelae, post-bizarre item usage sequelae, bodily mutations, auditory hallucinations, and so on.
Usually, individuals who had just survived the awakening tribulation would have a relatively high pollution degree, possibly 30% or 40%. As the mystery integrated into the body gradually calmed down, the sequelae would also gradually decrease. Once it dropped below 10%, one's state would be relatively stable.
The more stable and pure one was, the easier it was to survive the awakening tribulation.
As for these, Fang You was actually unsure. After all, his awakening was "Guide, awaken me!" There were no post-awakening sequelae for him in Firewood, so there was no basis for comparison.
This information was obtained from Yi Yueluoxi and was a bonus.
Condition four was meaningless to him, as his pollution degree was 0% when he first achieved the fourth awakening; it was a perfect awakening.
"Guidance·Awakening only requires a pollution degree of less than 10%, but if one awakens normally using boiling potions, perhaps it needs to be less than 5%, less than 3%, or even lower, to ensure not to die during the awakening process?"
The above were not all the conditions; there was a fifth one.
"5. Awakening Ritual: 1000 Bizarre Crystals, High-tier Mysterious Polymer, High-tier Mysterious Materials of Light and Fire properties, one of each."
"This condition is not mandatory, but performing the awakening with the ritual conditions met can increase the success rate by 30% and is also a prerequisite for complete awakening."
Fang You glanced at it.
If he included condition five, his awakening success rate was a full 71%. Even without the 30% bonus, it was still a 41% chance, which was quite high.
When others awakened, it was always a gamble for their lives.
"However, even for a perfect awakening, I need to gather condition five."
"High-tier Mysterious Polymer can be dropped by bizarre entities of four-star or above. High-tier Mysterious Materials of light and fire properties are even rarer, requiring purple-tier mysterious materials."
Even with the same tier, materials were worth significantly less than bizarre items or weapons, but they were still extremely precious treasures.
For ordinary experts beyond the human realm, gathering them might take a very long time, even a lifetime.
Difficult to find!
Difficult to buy!
Those that were for sale were extremely expensive.
But Fang You...
He glanced at his warehouse inventory. "I'm short by one high-tier mysterious material of light and fire properties; one was used a few days ago and melted by Master Wang Chui, but it's not a big deal."
He consumed a "blank clue" and immediately obtained the location of the target material.
He then issued a mission, asking An Jianyou to lead a team to retrieve it.
In just half an hour, the material was obtained. The rest were all in the warehouse.
Ah~ This is the joy of a Firewood mentor.