Extraterrestrial demons invaded; I laid the groundwork eight years in advance.

Early morning at Xiaoqingshan Villa.

Shen Bai sat on the futon in the center of the study, slowly opened his eyes, a faint golden light flashed in his eyes and then disappeared, before returning to calm.

Second-order duality.

Three days have passed since the second invasion. Since returning home the day before yesterday, he has devoted all his time to cultivation during the break before dawn. He has not only stabilized his realm but also made a small breakthrough.

He stood up and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window.

Nowadays, apart from practicing techniques, he rarely goes to the training room anymore—he prefers to look up and see the scenery outside rather than that dull basement.

The sky outside the window was just beginning to brighten, and the bamboo forest swayed gently in the morning breeze, casting dappled sunlight on the floor.

On the windowsill, a raven quietly gazed out the window.

Noticing his approach, the raven turned and glanced at him; its eyes, glowing with a dark purple light, were even brighter than they had been three days ago.

In the past few days, Raven has finished digesting the contents of the exclusive cultivation method and has begun the first level of cultivation.

Whether it was due to a compatible cultivation method or outstanding bloodline, its progress was extremely rapid—it had already stabilized at the third level of the first tier, and the illusionary abilities of the Crow's Eye were also continuously increasing.

Shen Bai withdrew his gaze and raised his right hand.

With his right palm facing upwards, a subtle spatial ripple appeared in his palm—not spiritual power, nor blood and qi, but a special ability derived from the spiritual system.

Spatial abilities.

When he first constructed the Divine Refining System, he used the innate supernatural powers in myths and legends as a reference and deduced the path to awaken supernatural abilities in the Divine Refining Path based on the underlying logic of the attributes of all things.

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Everything in the world has its own attribute bias. When mental power reaches the second level, a qualitative change touches its origin—the mental power becomes strong enough to interfere with the material world, and can thus leverage its corresponding attribute and awaken the corresponding superpower.

There are countless types of superpowers, but according to his original idea, they can be roughly divided into three categories.

Elemental System: Can manipulate natural elements in the real world such as fire, water, wind, thunder, and ice.

Physical Body Type: The body undergoes mutations, resulting in enhancements in strength, speed, defense, and recovery.

Mentalist type: Possesses relatively rare abilities such as spatial manipulation, time perception, mind reading, precognition, and illusion.

Among the three systems, spatial abilities are among the rarest abilities in the mental system, which is related to its attribute bias.

Through these few days of training, he has been able to sense spatial folds within a 20-meter radius and teleport short distances within that range. Although the distance is limited and the energy consumption is relatively high, it is enough for him to gain the upper hand in battle.

As for other uses, he is not yet capable of achieving them with his current mental strength.

He withdrew his supernatural powers, stretched his shoulders and neck, knowing he still had a lot to deal with today.

"Little Orange, the latest situation on the black market."

"Master, the network and key personnel behind the black market transactions have been fully investigated. The sellers are mainly individual cultivators, while the buyers are concentrated in a smuggling gang led by Zhao Desheng."

"They have a transaction this afternoon, and all the people involved are under surveillance; we can make an arrest at any time."

Shen Bai looked at the dense records and location information on the panel and tapped his fingers lightly twice on the windowsill.

Can't wait any longer.

"Xiao Du, come on, I'm taking you out today."

A raven flew up from the windowsill and landed on his shoulder. The man and the raven walked out of the villa, and the car drove out of Xiaoqingshan in the morning light.

8:00 AM, Dawn Headquarters Base.

In the large conference room, people sat on both sides of the long table, all of whom were core members of the Dawn Squadron above the rank of captain.

They all bore the scars of battle that had not yet fully healed, but their auras were steady and sharp—each of them had broken through to the second rank.

Shen Bai sat down in the main seat, and a raven flew up from his shoulder and landed on the windowsill.

Dozens of people stood up at the same time, and Shen Bai raised his hand to gesture for them to sit down.

"Let's begin."

Liu Feng stood up and walked to the front of the conference room.

The large screen on the wall lit up, displaying two documents—casualty statistics on the left and an expansion plan on the right.

"The casualty count is complete." Liu Feng's voice was lower than usual. "This invasion resulted in the deaths of 1,945 people and the serious injuries of 5,824. The seriously injured are currently receiving treatment at Shuguang Hospital and are expected to return to their units within two weeks."

Li Zhou took over the conversation and continued the report.

"The compensation for the victims will be distributed according to the standard and will be handled by Shuguang Group. It is expected that all the compensation will be in place in the next two days. The families will be assisted and comforted by designated personnel, and their living difficulties will be resolved as much as possible."

Shen Bai nodded.

"What about the expansion plan?"

Liu Feng switched the screen display.

"The number of official members has been expanded to 50,000, and the best members will be selected from the reserve members who have already broken through to the first level."

"Reservists will continue to be recruited, expanding to 50,000 as well. There are still tens of thousands of people in the Dawn Project's talent pool to choose from, which fully meets the needs of this personnel expansion."

After listening, Shen Bai remained silent for a moment.

"not enough."

He leaned back in his chair, his gaze sweeping over every face in the room.

"Based on previous events, the next invasion will be several times larger than this one, and at least 200,000 personnel would be needed to be safe."

There was a moment of silence in the conference room.

Two hundred thousand people, twice the original plan.

"Understood, I'll readjust the grouping plan." Liu Feng paused for a moment, "However, sir, I have two questions."

"First, the existing bases are already saturated, with each base able to accommodate a maximum of 5,000 people for training at the same time. If we want to expand to 200,000, we will need at least 20 more facilities of the same size."

"Secondly, there is not enough personnel. The Dawn Project talent pool only has more than 50,000 qualified people. If we recruit from the public, we cannot gather that many people in a short period of time."

Shen Bai leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingers lightly twice on the table.

"The expansion plan will initially be implemented with 100,000 personnel," he said. "I will handle the subsequent issues of venue and personnel."

Liu Feng quickly took notes on the tablet. "Understood."

Shen Bai then looked at Gu Weijun.

Gu Weijun adjusted his glasses and took the initiative to report:

"The latest information on extraordinary disciplines has been distributed to researchers, and it has already begun to enter the practical application stage."

"Materials research for second-tier monsters has begun. The scales are five to seven times stronger than those of first-tier monsters. Our current crafting capabilities are fully capable of supporting the processing needs, and mass production of equipment is not a problem."

"The research on the rune array project has just begun and is still in the experimental stage. It is still a long way from being implemented."

"Regarding potions, a new batch is under development—covering areas such as accelerating cultivation, healing, and enhancing abilities. Several of them have already completed testing and are available in the store."

"Okay, let's get this going," Shen Bai said.

The meeting lasted for nearly an hour, and after each item was finalized, everyone left one after another.

"Chen Fan," Shen Bai called out.

"arrive."

Chen Fan walked over.

"It's time to close the net on the black market."

"You will personally lead the team and bring along the people from the Extraordinary Management Bureau to pursue legal action."

"receive."

Chen Fan responded and turned to leave the conference room.