I created a safe zone in the nightmare world.

"A lord-type weirdo?"

Among the materials sent back by Wu Feng, Shi An saw the following message.

There is no record of Tiannan City killing a Lord-type monster; it only briefly mentions Tiannan City's two classifications of monsters in the Ascension Realm.

Shi An stroked his chin.

"In the Pale Wasteland region, the giant octopus that I once glimpsed from afar, perched atop a building, looked bizarre; it was probably a 'Lord'!"

According to Tiannan City, "Lords" are restricted by rules and can usually only operate within their territory; most of the time, they are even dormant. But in contrast to these restrictions, "Lords" can command all the strange things within their territory.

"Is it merely a matter of strange orders?"

Shi An pondered.

He believes there may be more than that.

The "Lord" must wield some kind of nightmare authority. Back then, when the false leader merged with the nightmare, did he briefly touch upon this authority at the cost of his life?

If "lords" also possess this kind of ability, then killing a lord would likely be more difficult than imagined.

"No, that's not right," Shi An thought. "To conquer a nightmare, you must understand how to utilize the rules of the nightmare itself, not just rely on brute force." "Since you're a lord, your authority is related to this region. So, if we start by conquering the 'outer perimeter of the territory,' one small region at a time, wouldn't that weaken the lord's authority?"

Shi An must consider whether this possibility exists.

He would eventually eliminate such a lord in his safe zone, and that time wouldn't be far off. They had already conquered the stronghold of the strange forces; the next level of nightmare zones was this kind of "lord zone."

However, the fact that the "Lord's Zone" includes dozens or even hundreds of Nightmare Zones was somewhat unexpected for Shi An.

This is an interlayer between a single nightmare and a large area of ​​nightmares.

Shi An then thought back to the strange figure that Li Feng had encountered back then.

Like an ancient ship, it is huge and suspended in the air, with tentacles hanging down.

"That towering ship might be a patrolling type of strange entity? It just seems a bit weak, not yet at the level of the Ascension Realm."

Shi An had never truly witnessed the Ascension Realm; he was only referring to himself and the pseudo-boss from back then.

The ship's eeriness isn't that strong.

Moreover, Li Feng escaped from the strange creature on the ship.

"No, that's not right either. Occult beings must follow rules. The limitation of a lord-type occult being is its range of activity, while a wandering occult being... can appear anywhere and can hunt Dreamers who are far weaker than them. It's impossible for them to be without any restrictions."

"The most likely limitation is... that the power of the wandering, uncanny entity requires certain conditions to be fully unleashed. Perhaps it's time, or perhaps it's what the target is doing, or something else entirely."

Shi An pondered.

He needed to gather more intelligence to determine whether, when they were to conquer the Lord-type Mysteries in the future, the Roaming-type Ascension Realm Mysteries would appear...

Ascending to the Transformation Realm! Ascending to the Transformation Realm!

However, how to advance to the next level in the Ascension Realm remains a mystery.

"The creator of the safe zone, the powerful figure codenamed 'Shopkeeper,' is a Transformation Realm expert? Hiss!"

Director Dai gasped.

They just talked about the situation in the three cities of Baijiang recently.

I learned that both Baijiang and Lindong had experienced a "city-destroying disaster." Lindong fared better, managing to contain the calamity, but Baijiang was nearly wiped out.

"That's right. At that time, our Baijiang had already turned into a nightmare and was on the verge of collapse. In the end, that pseudo-human BOSS wielded terrifying power. It easily controlled the entire nightmare space, stirred up storms, and caused buildings to collapse behind it. It was like a god or demon. The various hall masters, who were half-step into the Ascension Realm, were powerless against the pseudo-human BOSS. At that time, we all thought that the pseudo-human BOSS's power had reached the Ascension Realm."

Yan Xiangtian had seen people in the Ascension Realm before!

Two of the three current leaders of Tiannan City existed before the era of the city's collapse.

Yan Xiangtian and Wang Tieshan had both seen those who had risen to the next level make a move, but they had never actually witnessed a battle between people at the next level.

Director Dai nodded slightly: "The pseudo-boss you mentioned likely held the authority of 'Lord' briefly under those circumstances! Therefore, it must have possessed the combat power of a Transformation Realm cultivator!"

"Because... even among the ascending-stage monsters, the lord-type monsters are not weak."

"Not all Ascendant Realm Anomalies are 'Lords' or 'Patrol Envoys.' If multiple Ascendant Realm Anomalies exist in a region, only the strongest one can wield the authority of a Lord."

Even a weak, fake boss can still wield power, which can be considered a transformation.

Besides,

Zhu Chenying, the head of the Zhu family, was also an old acquaintance of his. Dai Xin knew very well that Zhu Chenying was much stronger than him and was one of the most promising people to advance and transform.

Only through transformation can one truly transcend all worldly illusions.

"It's good that we humans still have someone at the Ascension Realm. I just don't know how this shopkeeper advanced to the Ascension Realm." He shook his head again as he spoke. "If nothing unexpected happens, it must be some kind of unrepeatable super opportunity."

Think about it too.

They don't even have a way to advance in Tiannan City, let alone in the safe zone?

He had also heard that, apart from the shopkeeper, there weren't many truly powerful individuals in the Safe Zone. This sounded very plausible; a lone powerhouse had stumbled upon an ultimate opportunity, broke through to higher realms one after another, and then emerged to establish the Safe Zone.

To put it bluntly, humanity knows too little about the Nightmare World. Compared to the real opportunities in the Nightmare World, the outstanding research achievements of Tiannan City are still... insignificant.

"Hearing you say that, creating safe zones, sheltering those who have fallen into dreams, organizing nightmare strategies, opening up wonder buildings... I'm getting more and more curious about that shopkeeper."

The next day.

Director Dai finally made time and decided to go to the Ark to find out what was going on.

He was indeed curious.

I wasn't that curious at first. Tian Hua and the other loyalists of the Safe Zone never boasted about how strong the Safe Zone was. On the contrary, Lao Yan and the others had a very high opinion of the Safe Zone.

If he didn't know Yan Xiangtian's character well, Dai Xin would have suspected that Old Yan had taken money from the safe zone.

After falling from Tiannan City into a dreamlike state, Director Dai, Jiang Xun, and several other high-ranking officials of Tiannan City fell directly into a certain part of the Nightmare Wilderness.

Since the Nightmare Wilderness surrounding Tiannan City had been conquered, the eerie places had been largely cleared out, and camps had been built up, they could easily pinpoint their location.

The Safe Zone Ark is docked not far from the Yuanyang Base.

Before long, Director Dai and his group arrived near the ark.

"This ark is truly enormous! Forget about a mobile camp; it could practically house a mobile nightmare town!"

Actually too.

Yan Xiangtian and his team initially envisioned Fangzhou as a base capable of housing tens of thousands of people, in order to rescue a group of survivors when Baijiang fell.

However, the Ark played a greater role in the hands of the safe zone.

The group boarded the ark.

Tian Hua, who was having a great time exchanging ideas with experts in Tiannan City, had to rush back to the Ark to receive Director Dai and his team.

"Our ark now has several areas: a residential area, a temporary living area, an experimental area, and a planting area."

Tian Hua explained.

The Ark itself was enormous, and its internal cabins were naturally quite spacious.

Inside, as early as the Salvation Society era, it was transformed into multiple areas, including an entertainment area, an experimental area, and a training area.

Because there weren't many residents on the ark, the space was always very spacious.

After the safe zone took over, Shi An carried out more construction and renovation on the Ark.

What he built the most of all was, of course, the countless magical sentry towers surrounding the ark's deck.

"Yes, these are the defensive facilities built by our store manager. The Ark itself doesn't have much combat capability, but since we have these spell sentry towers, our Ark research department has been able to go to some strange and densely populated places to conduct investigations and research."

That didn't work before.

While the Ark possesses the ability to conceal itself and remain undetected by the supernatural, this is contingent on it not acting recklessly and maintaining a certain distance from them. If the Ark were to venture into a cluster of supernatural beings, or openly pass near some truly terrifying creatures, it's difficult to guarantee that nothing bad would happen. Moreover, much of their research requires them to leave the Ark and go underground to collect data.

I couldn't do it before.

Mingguang was reluctant to use the defense force to deal with the supernatural beings. Later, Tianhua also realized that Mingguang was just using salvation and research as a pretext.

right now,

With the Ark's powerful firepower, they were able to penetrate many areas of the Nightmare. Not only him, but all the researchers on the Ark were overjoyed, praising it as the best era ever.

Director Dai and Jiang Zhenshou observed the peculiar structure of the sentry tower.

"The ability to mass-produce these devices undoubtedly indicates that the security zone has developed its own technology."

"It seems the safe zone is much more dangerous than I imagined!"

There are quite a few forces that possess wonders.

But they merely possessed the spectacle, and by sheer luck, they occupied it.

But even the lucky ones can never build a force with a solid foundation and deep roots.

"I just don't know whether this spellcasting sentry tower or our Tiannan City's spellcasting machine gun is stronger or weaker."

"No, comparing it to the machine guns that our Tiannan City has been developing for many years is unfair to the sentry towers in the safe zone. The spell-based machine guns are a defensive weapon created through the collaborative efforts of many researchers!"

If the sentry tower is half the level of a machine gun, that would be quite good.

Jiang Zhenshou thought to himself.

Then, several strange flying figures appeared in the distance.

Since the Ark wasn't in concealment mode, it was naturally spotted by the strange entities. They changed direction and flew straight towards the Ark. Soon, sentry towers opened fire.

Bang bang bang!

Accompanied by a deep sound, one after another, magical energy projectiles smaller than a fist were fired out.

Although this shell was inconspicuous, even smaller than the spell missiles conjured by the Dreamer, Director Dai, Garrison Commander Jiang, and the others could still tell at a glance... "This shell is incredibly refined, no, not just refined, the spell power it contains seems to have undergone some kind of compression, it's very ingenious!"

"If it's a shell like this..."

Sure enough, as expected, those flying monsters couldn't even withstand a single shot and were instantly torn to pieces.

"That's pretty impressive!"

Jiang Zhenshou's evaluation.

He estimated that the firing rate of this sentry tower wouldn't be too high, but even so, one shot could kill an ordinary monster, which was still very powerful. Most importantly, this magical sentry tower obviously didn't have high construction requirements and wasn't built at a huge cost.

They are just some standard defensive devices.

After all, on the deck of this ark alone, they saw hundreds of sentry towers.

Tian Hua led the group from Tiannan City inside.

Jiang Zhenshou had been here once, but he hadn't looked closely at the time, and his understanding of Fangzhou was only superficial.

He believed the Ark was incredibly powerful and had countless uses. That was true, but the Ark also held secrets, secrets created by the safe zone. "This area is our experimental planting area."

Tian Hua smiled.

This is the area he is in charge of. His research focuses on using incantations and spells to increase crop yields, including the cultivation of precious medicinal herbs. The planting area is quite large and is divided into several experimental zones.

In the first few experimental areas, the soil appeared to have been transported from different areas of Nightmare Wilderness.

It is evident that the safe zone is used to test the impact of soil from different areas on crop cultivation.

"This is the core area, the 'Four Seasons Greenhouse' area."

Director Dai looked inside.

To everyone's surprise, the greenhouse was filled with many precious medicinal herbs, including twenty or thirty rare and precious ones!

It's important to know that transplanting and ensuring the survival of medicinal herbs after harvesting is extremely difficult, requiring not only fertile soil but also meeting numerous other conditions.

However, this greenhouse not only grows medicinal herbs, but also at a very high density.

This is unreasonable!

Tian Hua also felt it was unreasonable.

Because this four-season greenhouse was the store manager's doing. His job was indeed to grow medicinal herbs and accelerate their growth, but at the same time, Tian Hua was also researching whether there was a chance to replicate another four-season greenhouse.

The store manager said that if we could replicate it, even if it only had half or a third of the capabilities, it would be a great achievement.

Tian Hua also vaguely guessed that this four-season greenhouse was probably... at least a kind of wonder building!

"This factory is called the Weird Incineration Plant. We can extract some special materials by incinerating the Weird."

"Four Seasons Greenhouse" and "Mysterious Incineration Plant" are both rare buildings that Shi An built on the Ark.

Three buildings can be constructed on the ark.

The highest rarity level.

Shi An had accumulated a lot of architectural blueprints, but most of them were not very useful.

These buildings are somewhat redundant if built within the safe zone, but they would be perfect if built on the Ark.

The third special building is

"A figurehead that seeks to benefit and avoid harm!"

That is, an inconspicuous human figure built at the bow of the deck.

When Director Dai, Jiang Zhenshou, and the others passed by, they didn't notice anything different.

In fact,

This is the most precious and rare building on the Ark.

It further enhanced the Ark's ability to avoid disasters.

At the same time, Tian Hua can write the types of materials they need into the figurehead to obtain guidance. This guidance ability can only be used once a week and cannot be used to find overly high-level treasures, but it is just right for finding "materials with certain properties".

It is precisely because of the support of these spectacular buildings that several project teams on the Ark have made breakthroughs.

As they were speaking,

The group had already entered the cabin.

We've arrived at the gate of the safe zone.