Chapter 158 - 157: Reading in a Dream

Chapter 158: Chapter 157: Reading in a Dream

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Returning to his tent with light steps, Gu Su immediately kicked off his shoes, flopped onto the bed, and opened his Attribute Panel.

Although Gu Su had said he would rest for a while, his body was telling a different story.

After all, the Graveyard Demon was his key asset; everything he had was riding on it.

Monitoring the Graveyard Demon’s growth from time to time was something Gu Su had to do.

But the data wasn’t very encouraging. The Graveyard Demon’s footprint hadn’t expanded at all, still stuck at the original 866 square meters.

Gu Su’s brow twitched. ’He couldn’t help but feel a little helpless.’ They had been docked inside the Ring Moon for the past few days, and all the land here was owned. The Graveyard Demon couldn’t even perform its most basic act of devouring and expanding; it could only maintain the status quo.

Fortunately, it wasn’t a total loss. The Deceitful Tree’s Attributes had undergone a welcome change; its upgrade progress had reached about 10% at Level 1.

Gu Su thought for a moment and immediately understood. All those items with a strong, eerie aura had been placed around the Deceitful Tree’s root system. It was their nourishment that had caused such a significant boost to its upgrade progress.

Unfortunately, within his Graveyard Demon, only the Deceitful Tree and the Yin Fire Heap could be upgraded steadily this way.

As for the other types of Undead buildings, he remained clueless. Gu Su had tried various methods but couldn’t find an effective upgrade path, which was somewhat of a headache.

After a moment of contemplation, Gu Su shook his head with a sense of helplessness. ’Looks like I need to pick up the pace of my studies.’

Without further hesitation, he got up and walked to a corner of the tent. From a stack of books, he pulled out one titled *Circulation: The Foundation of a City!* His fingertips gently smoothed the creases on the edges of the pages before he carefully placed it in a cardboard box beside his bed.

He then slowly lay back down on the bed, closed his eyes, and quickly fell into a deep sleep. Soon, only the sound of his steady, even breathing filled the tent.

Just as Gu Su sank into a deep sleep, a blurry black shadow suddenly materialized beside the cardboard box.

The shadow was thin and its features were indistinct, its form wreathed in a faint, almost imperceptible, eerie aura.

It silently crouched down. Its bony, well-defined fingertips gently lifted *Circulation: The Foundation of a City!* from the box. Its fingers glided over the yellowed leaves, flipping through them rapidly, as if the book held an immense attraction for it. It made no sound, not disturbing the sleeping Gu Su in the slightest.

Gu Su slept especially soundly, not waking until past four the next morning.

Just before he woke up, the black shadow vanished, and the book, *Circulation: The Foundation of a City!*, was placed back in the box.

Gu Su woke up suddenly not because he was well-rested, but because he was overwhelmed by an intense wave of hunger.

After working around the clock for a full day and night, his stomach was empty and he could no longer take it.

He pushed himself up into a sitting position, his head feeling a little groggy. ’He was still trying to figure out what to eat.’

After all, the pot by the Yin Fire Heap was gone, and he had no intention of drinking chicken blood straight like the Undead.

The next second, Gu Su felt a sudden chill in his mind as a massive amount of knowledge about urban construction flooded in like a tide, imprinting itself with perfect clarity upon his thoughts.

[You have read *Circulation: The Foundation of a City!* for 6 hours and gained a great deal of knowledge regarding urban construction!]

The system prompt echoed clearly in his mind. Gu Su froze, his eyes filled with shock and confusion. He even blinked instinctively, thinking he must still be dreaming.

’Wait, that’s it? No notification about unlocking any Passive Skills?’

’There were no Attribute bonuses, and it didn’t unlock any special abilities. So what was the point of the system even sending a notification?’

He muttered to himself, a trace of resignation on his face. He slowly stood up and stretched his stiff limbs to relieve the numbness from having lain still for so long.

But surprise aside, Gu Su was in an exceptionally good mood.

For one, he had slept so soundly that all his fatigue was gone; he felt refreshed and full of energy.

For another, the knowledge that had just flooded his mind happened to solve a puzzle that had long perplexed him.

He finally knew how to upgrade the various buildings within a city.

Gu Su walked to the entrance of the tent and pushed the flap open a crack to get some air. The cool breeze rushed in, clearing his head even further. He then slowly organized his thoughts, completely grasping the underlying logic.

The buildings within a city had three main methods of construction.

The first was to build them yourself using a complete building blueprint and the corresponding materials, just like the chicken coop and the Mushroom Cave in the Dark Erosion Cave. As long as you had the blueprint and enough materials, you could build them.

The second was to have the city itself directly annex and integrate them, incorporating them into its own operational system and using its power to give them form, like the Underworld Shop and the Combat Outpost.

The final method was like that of the Corpse Witch: find a suitable place to take root and begin operating, slowly building a track record. Once it reached a certain scale and demonstrated its practical function, it would naturally be recognized and accepted by the city.

But the logic for upgrading was completely different from construction.

You must never use building blueprints for an upgrade. If the blueprint doesn’t match the existing building’s Attributes or structure, not only will the upgrade fail, but it could even damage the building, leaving you with nothing to show for your efforts.

In truth, the principle behind upgrading was simple and also fell into three main categories.

The first was to continuously pour Resources of a single type into the building. As long as the stored Resources reached the required level, the building would automatically initiate its upgrade sequence and gradually transform.

The second was to let the building accumulate enough Experience through its operations—for example, by producing a certain quantity of Resources. Once it reached the required standard, it could also be upgraded.

The third was to assign suitable personnel to the building. Once that person fully mastered the building’s operational logic, became familiar with all its procedures, and could skillfully control it, they would automatically generate a building upgrade quest. At that point, Gu Su would only need to follow the quest prompts to complete the upgrade.

But now a thorny problem lay before him.

Of all the Undead buildings Gu Su possessed, only the Watchtower met the criteria for the third upgrade method. Alice was stationed there, responsible for sentry and observation duties, and she was familiar with all the Watchtower’s operational procedures. If Gu Su went and asked her, he could probably find out what was required for an upgrade.

The rest of his buildings were all unmanned and idle. Even if Gu Su wanted to upgrade them, he had no way of finding out how.

As for buildings from the Dark Erosion Cave—like the Mushroom Cave and the Five Poison Chicken Coop—they hadn’t yet met the standards for an upgrade. Even if Gu Su wanted to, he couldn’t upgrade them.

Nevertheless, Gu Su was quite satisfied with this development.

At the very least, Gu Su now knew the path forward!