The whole nation is trying to survive on the cable car; I'm choosing one of three options at ea

He opened the system panel and clicked on the three new features. He couldn't tell if he was looking for answers, a way out, or just wanted to take a look.

Guild system... Creating a guild requires one hundred Ghost Crystals, and each guild has a maximum of one hundred members. He didn't have that many Ghost Crystals, and he had no intention of forming a guild.

The cable-exclusive instance "Ash City" is displayed in gray with a small message: "Unavailable during siege."

Su Mu stared at the line of text for two seconds. It was pretty much as he'd guessed... those people falling from the sky, those besieging monsters, those defending the city—they were all part of the "instance." The instance couldn't be entered before the siege ended. And after the siege ended...

He didn't continue thinking about it.

He clicked on the third function.

[Individual Arena]

[Challenge the player's phantom; the higher your ranking, the richer the rewards.]

[Duration: 7 days]

Daily settlement time: 24:00

[Weekly settlement time: 22:00 on the 7th day, after which rankings will be reset.]

[Daily free challenge attempts: 5 times]

[Extra Challenge Tickets: Can be purchased with Mystic Crystals, maximum 5 per day, with prices increasing in tiers.]

Su Mu's gaze lingered on the words "can be purchased with Ghost Crystals" for a moment, then continued reading.

[Daily Reward (1rd Place): 80 Mystic Crystals, 1200 Arena Points]

[Daily Reward (2rd Place): 70 Mystic Crystals, 900 Arena Points]

Daily Rewards (Rank 10001 and beyond): 1 Mystic Crystal, 1 Arena Point

[Weekly Rewards Settlement Instructions]

[Rankings will be reset at 22:00 on the 7th day of each week. Rewards will be sent to your personal chariot; unclaimed rewards will be forfeited.]

[1rd Place: 800 Mystic Crystals, 12000 Arena Points]

[2rd Place: 700 Mystic Crystals, 9000 Arena Points]

[3rd Place: 600 Mystic Crystals, 7500 Arena Points]

[Rankings 4-5: 500 Mystic Crystals, 6000 Arena Points]

[Rankings 6-10: 400 Mystic Crystals, 5400 Arena Points]

[Rankings 11-100: 200 Mystic Crystals, 3000 Arena Points]

[Rankings 101-10000: 50 Mystic Crystals, 500 Arena Points]

[Rank 10001 and below: 10 Mystic Crystals, 10 Arena Points]

The weekly reward is ten times the daily base reward.

Su Mu's pupils contracted slightly.

Eighty strange crystals a day, that's five hundred and sixty crystals in seven days.

With the weekly rewards multiplied tenfold, the number one player can earn 1 Mystic Crystals every week.

That means that if someone stays at the top, they can acquire enough Mystic Crystals each week to buy level 2 access and upgrade a level 5 cable car. This is a huge temptation for all survivors... a huge reward, a huge gap.

But as he looked at the list of challenges, his brows slowly furrowed.

Arena rankings are not determined by challenging other players.

Within each of the ten thousand positions, there is a guardian, composed entirely of monster phantoms. For example, the guardian of the ten thousandth position is a level three ordinary monster, the nine thousandth position is a level three green monster, the eight thousandth position is a level four ordinary monster, the seven thousandth position is a level four green monster, and so on.

In other words, if you don't have a profession, don't change jobs, and don't have strong enough combat power, you won't even make it into the top 10,000.

And for those ranked 10,000th or lower, the daily reward is only one Mystic Crystal and a few Arena Points... What can you do with that little bit of income? Buy a bottle of water? Exchange it for an iron ingot?

Su Mu continued scrolling down and saw the exchange shop.

Competitive points can be redeemed for various items.

Upgrading a Level 6 cable car to a reel requires 70,000 competition points; the prices of various upgrade materials are also rising exponentially; upgrading a Level 2 cable car to a reel only requires 1,000 points, Level 3 requires 4,000, Level 4 requires 25,000, Level 5 requires 45,000, and Level 6 requires 70,000.

There are also blueprints, equipment, and consumables. Although these are basic-level items, they at least provide a stable way to obtain them.

Finally, he saw an entry he had never seen before.

[Cable car R&D materials (limited to 100 units per week)]

[Description: Improves the cable car's resistance and building properties; 100 points/each.]

Su Mu stared at the line of text for a few seconds.

The cable car is the foundation of survival in this world. Upgrades, expansions, and weaponry all begin here. The phrase "enhance resistances and building properties" means this item might be more valuable than any single blueprint. Limited to 100 per week, each costing 100 points, meaning you need 10,000 points per week to buy the maximum.

He glanced at the distribution of the monsters guarding the challenges in the challenge list.

For him, who was already at level nine and possessed rule-based talents, those gatekeepers were nothing more than things he could easily deal with.

"But this design..." Su Mu tapped his finger on the windowsill again.

This arena is not designed for everyone.

It is filtering.

The strong will acquire enough resources at the top to maintain their advantage, the middle class will barely get some basic security, while the bottom class will have their upward mobility slowly depleted.

If you can't even get into the top 10,000, you won't even get the guaranteed five Mystic Crystals.

Without the guaranteed minimum, you'll never be able to acquire Mystic Crystals and Points through this channel, and you'll be stuck using the most basic method of grinding monsters. Meanwhile, those at the top will become increasingly powerful due to their stable Mystic Crystal income, widening the gap between them.

The strong will always be strong...

Su Mu leaned against the cable car wall, his gaze shifting from the city wall ablaze with flames outside the window to the system panel.

The discussion in the channel continued... Some panicked, some watched and waited, and some had already started trying out the arena... But those voices didn't have much value to him.

He can't get involved in the siege battles outside, and the time isn't right for him to leave Ash City yet. Since he has nothing else to do, he might as well figure out this new feature first.

He opened the arena interface.