This time I chose Paladin.

Chapter 226 Turning Point, Preparation, and Push
After cross-verification and careful evaluation through multiple channels, Pingdu's senior management ultimately determined that the vast majority of the information submitted by Nie Weiyang was credible. Those remaining items that could not be verified on-site at the moment were marked as high-priority items awaiting investigation and incorporated into long-term planning.

It is often said that one should not use those one suspects and should not suspect those one uses, but Nie Weiyang himself also believes that careful verification is necessary.

In this era, no one can prove whether Nie Weiyang will lead people into a huge pit, let alone whether there is a bomb hidden in his secrets. His safety is something that even he himself cannot be completely sure of. If people choose to believe him directly, he will instead advise them to wake up.

In short, once a decision was made, the entire massive national machine began to operate with astonishing efficiency. Although communication, transportation, and the transfer of goods in the new world were far less convenient than on Earth, the courage and execution to concentrate resources on major tasks remained ingrained in the very bones of this civilization.

Plans were quickly formulated, reviewed, and issued.

Several joint exploration teams, comprised of high-ranking scholars, engineers, archaeologists, and elite guards, were quickly assembled.

Their mission was clear: one team headed to the coordinates provided by Nie Weiyang to try to excavate the former civilization server center buried underground in Zhongzhou, in order to prepare for the coming upheaval.

Energy supply, clearing physical pathways, research on pre-civilization document records... countless problems were broken down and assigned to various research institutes, who worked day and night to solve them.

Another team began preparations for exploring extreme environments, even though people may still be far from diving into the ocean.

Contacting coastal cities, designing deep-sea submersibles, enchanting pressure-resistant materials, and developing contingency plans to deal with mutated deep-sea creatures... all these tasks are a race against time.

Several top teams have also begun to conduct targeted research on information related to Administrator No. 2, Dream Eater, Blood Moon, pre-civilization space station, shelter, pre-civilization city, city voice, and planetary defense barrier. They regard all of this as a whole and believe that understanding the truth of these issues is one of the ultimate guarantees for long-term survival.

Another team specializes in recording the development, iteration, and pace of civilization in pre-civilization history, but there is very little reliable information available. They are very frustrated by this and have repeatedly lamented, "If only there were records of humanities, astronomy, and geography."

Oh, and of course, psychologists are indispensable; they're the only profession that relies entirely on mental power to unleash all their skills. But very few people actually work in this field. Most of them assist in research on the humanities and social sciences of pre-civilization eras, trying to understand what happened back then. A small group forms teams to study the psychology of existing individuals and groups, with targets including, but not limited to, Nie Weiyang and almost all powerful combat professionals.

Within just one month, the Pan-Asian Local Area Network project was put on the agenda and broken down into several phases.

The core objective of the first phase is to prioritize connecting major settlements and military strongholds within the territory of China, with Zhongzhou as the center, to initially achieve information sharing and strategic coordination.

Countless engineers, rune masters, and scholars of all kinds rushed to various places to survey routes and set up relay nodes. Countless messengers of all kinds also traveled through them. Before the network was built, they were the way people connected with each other.

The entire Pingdu, and even the vast area under its influence, seemed like a machine that had suddenly been partially unshackled, beginning to emit a deep and powerful roar.

Resources were channeled toward these key projects, personnel were mobilized efficiently, and proposals previously shelved due to factional disagreements or insufficient resources were re-evaluated and rapidly advanced. Orders were transmitted swiftly via encrypted letters, high-speed motorcycle messengers, and even tamed flying beasts. In factories, furnaces burned day and night, producing specialized equipment and building materials; in laboratories, lights shone brightly, the interplay of light and shadow on calculation papers and energy models; on training grounds, tactical drills against new threats and technologies were in full swing.

Everything is proceeding in an orderly manner.

But beneath this order, a hidden crisis cannot be ignored—one day, Nie Weiyang had just come out of a refuge in the mountains when he received a message delivered by a phantom spirit.

In Nie Weiyang's spiritual perception, Liang Zhenduan's message emerged clearly, like a stone thrown into still water:
[Old Nie, the situation has changed. The attempts to break Ping Xingdou out of prison have continued unabated. The enemy is elusive and uses bizarre methods, making them almost impossible to track using conventional means. Through the most basic human surveillance, we've confirmed that Ping Xingdou still possesses Star Stones, the quantity of which is unknown. His condition is extremely unstable, showing severe signs of mental corruption, most likely caused by the Star Stones, but the exact timing of his infection is uncertain. Be extremely careful.]

“…and star stones.” Nie Weiyang sighed softly, a cool breeze blowing through the mountains and forests.

He decisively took all the discovered star stones with him, but it seems he was a step too late.

This bizarre creation from outer space has a level of pollution and penetrability far beyond what ordinary people can imagine.

He had already submitted relevant information about the dangers of the star stones to Heito. These seemingly magnificent crystals are essentially aggregates of distorted souls, sharing similar characteristics with the distorted form of the Sun Lord—a powerful spiritual pollution force. In the previous cycle, these objects scattered around the world with the meteorite caused countless tragedies. They subtly distort the minds of those who come into contact with them, causing them to develop a morbid fascination and longing for the soul, death, and celestial bodies. Astronomy professionals, artists, and literary scholars are often the first to be affected.

However, this news cannot be easily made public.

Last week's bloody lesson proved that the suicidal nature of humans is immeasurable.

After discovering the dangers of star stones, a small country publicly called on its citizens to launch a "reject star stones" campaign and had the government purchase and dispose of them. However, the result was the opposite of what was expected. A large number of people who originally knew nothing about star stones began to frantically search for, dig for, and even hoard them out of curiosity about extraterrestrial treasures and greed for wealth, attempting to make a fortune from the disaster.

Even more frightening is that although backpack space can effectively isolate the direct effects of star stones, some people still take chances or carry them with them for various reasons—such as when their backpacks are full.

Last week, the first to be completely corrupted and cause a massive disaster was a major Star Stone dealer. No one knows whether he was corrupted before becoming a dealer or vice versa. His profession remains a mystery, but many suspect he might have been a criminal, orchestrating a post-apocalyptic financial scam based on Star Stones, public panic, and the erosion of national credibility, ultimately dragging that small country into the abyss.

Nie Weiyang also submitted the Star Stone and a warning to Pingdu about the suspicious profession of criminal traffickers. Although the latter's direct offensiveness seemed low, Pingdu, after combining it with Nie Weiyang's speculation that "they might be extraterrestrial henchmen," immediately raised its alert level to the maximum, almost regarding them as one of the highest-level potential threats.

Nie Weiyang shook his head slightly, focused his mind, and replied to Liang Zhenduan through his phantom spirit: [Message received. Gushi needs to be on high alert; the enemy will not give up. The Pingdu exploration team is estimated to arrive in Gushi in about a month; I will return before then.]

(End of this chapter)