I stood in the center of the Verdant Jade Loam Soil, breathing in the air.
[Hidden Requirement Met: Establish Self-Sustaining External Ecosystem.]
[Hidden Requirement Met: Create Special Grade Hybrid Plant.]
[Hidden Requirement Met: Connect Domain to City Population.]
The text floated in my vision, glowing gold.
[Early Realm Advancement Granted.]
I felt the shift. It wasn't painful this time. It was like a dam breaking, but instead of water, it was pure vitality. My veins expanded, my bones grew denser, and the fatigue of the last few days evaporated instantly.
[Cultivation Realm: Sprout (Stage 2)]
[Soil Upgrade: Verdant Jade Loam (Grade 2)]
[Qi Capacity: 1,000]
[Heavenly Moss Upgrade: Grade 2 -> 96.4 Qi/Hour]
I looked at my hands. 1,000 Qi. I was a walking reactor.
"Good," I whispered. "I'm going to need it."
I walked to the rack and touched my gear.
[Verdant Jade Bamboo Sword (Grade 2)]
[Verdant Jade Bamboo Armor (Grade 2)]
I strapped the armor on.
I walked out of the greenhouse. It was 6:00 AM.
I pulled out my phone—still a Seaside model, unfortunately, as bio-tech hadn't quite cracked 5G yet—and dialed Sal.
"Wake up," I said. "We're building a highway."
An hour later, we stood at the sealed border of Southfield.
The massive bamboo wall I had erected to keep the world out loomed over us. Outside, I could hear the murmur of the squatter camps—people huddling against the warmth of our barrier.
"Bells," I said.
Bells, hovering ten feet in the air on currents of wind, nodded. "Clear the path. Got it."
He drifted over the wall. I didn't hear screams or anything like that, just the sound of intense wind pressure and the panicked shuffling of feet as the squatters were 'encouraged' to relocate a few hundred yards back.
"Clear!" Bells shouted from the other side.
I placed my hand on the wall.
"Open."
The bamboo stalks parted, creating a tunnel wide enough for Sal’s construction trucks and we walked out into the morning light of the Wilds.
"Alright," I said, looking at the broken, potholed road that stretched toward the horizon. "Our destination is the abandoned gas station ten miles west. That’s Objective One."
"Ten miles?" Sal asked, leaning on his shovel. "That's a lot of concrete, Boss."
"I lay the foundation," I said. "You just pave it."
I started walking.
I reached out with my Qi and with a capacity of 1,000, I didn't have to be stingy. I flooded the earth on either side of the road.
"Grow."
Massive stalks of Heavenly Bamboo erupted from the ditches and shot thirty feet into the air, weaving together to form impenetrable walls. The roots surged underneath the asphalt, breaking up the old road and knitting together to form a flat, stable and organic base.
I was building a tunnel. A Green Corridor.
Sal followed behind, his crew pouring quick set reinforced concrete over the root structure, smoothing it out into a highway that would last a hundred years.
As we walked, I put the phone on speaker. Grace and Aiya were on the line back at headquarters.
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"The Subterranean Route is too complex for now," I explained as I walked, shaping the world with my mind. "We need trains, we need tracks, we need ventilation. That's a Phase 2 project. This? This is Phase 1."
"And the point of this outpost?" Grace asked, her voice tinny over the Seaside network. "Why a gas station in the middle of nowhere?"
"It’s a proof of concept," I said. "For the Franchise Model."
"Franchise?" Sal asked, wiping sweat from his brow.
"Conquest is expensive," I said, pointing to the ruins of a movie theater we were passing. "Look at White Hill. They conquered a million people and went bankrupt feeding the people they subjugated. Bullets cost money. Garrisons cost money. Resentment costs money."
I stepped over a rusted car chassis.
"I don't want to conquer the Wilds," I said. "I want to acquire them."
"Explain," Grace said.
"We create a 'Starter Kit'," I said. "One Heavenly Filter for clean water. One Heavenly Moss patch for power and heat. Four Heavenly Mandrakes for perimeter defense. And bamboo seeds for walls."
"The essentials of civilization," Aiya noted.
"Exactly. We go to a settlement and we offer them the Kit. We solve their food, water, and security problems instantly. In exchange? We take 51% equity in their town or what constitutes a town out here. Then, they join the Eden Nation. They pay taxes. They vote. They become a subsidiary. This is of course separate from colonies we settle and create directly."
"You're franchising the apocalypse," Grace said, sounding impressed.
"Better than burning it down," I said. "We win hearts and minds by giving them flushing toilets and safety. Let Axehill rule over scared families. I want to rule over paying customers."
"Heads up," Bells shouted from above.
A pack of Monster Wolves—mangy things with exposed ribs and glowing red eyes—burst from the treeline ahead. They saw the construction crew and snarled.
Bells dropped from the sky and manipulated the air pressure around them.
The wolves were flattened against the pavement like they’d been hit by an invisible flyswatter.
"Pest control complete," Bells said, floating back up.
"Show off," Sal muttered.
We kept moving.
It took four hours to reach the gas station.
It sat at a crossroads, a relic of the old world. The pumps were gone, likely looted for scrap metal, but the main building was intact.
"Secure it," I ordered.
Bells did a sweep of the interior while I walked the perimeter.
I placed my hands on the dirt.
"Dominion."
Bamboo walls shot up, enclosing the gas station and a few acres of surrounding land in a square fortress. Mandrakes burrowed into the corners, their psychic screams ready to deter intruders.
"Clear," Bells called out.
"Good," I said.
I checked my watch. "The convoy from Adam should be here in about four hours."
We spent the afternoon setting up the Starter Kit. Sal created the town hall and hooked up the Filter to the underground tanks, turning them into a massive reservoir of clean water. I planted the Moss and weaved the Voltaic Vines into the building's breaker box.
When the lights came on inside the town hall, I felt a sense of satisfaction.
At 4:00 PM, the convoy arrived.
It was a fleet of trucks from the Adam colony, carrying two hundred settlers.
They rolled into the fortress and looked around, assessing the new digs.
"It's smaller than Adam," one guy noted, hopping off a truck.
"It's a franchise," I said. "It'll grow."
I turned to the group. "Welcome to Eve. You are exactly forty miles from Adam and ten miles from Eden. This is the bridge."
While the settlers began unloading crates and claiming sleeping spots in the fortified parking lot, I turned to Sal.
"Let's check the main building now," I said. "I want to see if there's anything useful in the back office before we turn it over to the governor."
"Sure," Sal said. "Maybe there's some old jerky."
We walked toward the glass doors of the gas station.
The moment we stepped inside, the vibe shifted.
It wasn't dusty or abandoned.
"Uh, Boss?" Sal whispered.
I looked around.
The shelves were fully stocked. Bags of chips, rows of candy bars, coolers full of soda. Pre-Collapse brands.
The floor was polished to a mirror shine and the fluorescent lights overhead hummed with a constant buzz.
Playing softly over the speakers was soft jazz.
"How in the hell?" Sal asked, reaching for a bag of chips. "Is this... fresh?"
Suddenly, the automatic doors locked behind us.
The air conditioning cut out and the lights dimmed.
"We're not alone," I said, drawing my sword.
A man popped up from behind the counter.
He was wearing a pristine blue vest with a name tag that was perfectly straight.
STEPHEN.
His hair was combed and his face was clean shaven, but his eyes... his eyes were wide, unblinking, and slightly too red around the edges.
He was holding a barcode scanner and aimed it at us like a pistol.
"welcome to 24/7 mart." Stephen said. "the mart open 24/7." "what can I get for you today?"
I stared at him.
"What the hell did I walk into this time?" I muttered to myself.
