Chapter 199 - 198: Three Days of Waiting and Strengthening

Chapter 199: Chapter 198: Three Days of Waiting and Strengthening

After inspecting the Graveyard Demon, Gu Su felt quite confident. He was battle-ready, prepared to use the Graveyard Demon to deal a heavy blow to his enemies.

To his surprise, however, for the next three days, the defensive sectors ahead seemed to be on steroids, repelling every enemy that tried to charge through.

On the first day, he stood on the wall gazing into the distance for ages, but there wasn’t a single Ghost Shadow in sight.

The second day was just as quiet. The only movement came from the wind, which occasionally kicked up dust from the ruins and sent it spiraling past.

By the third day, he himself began to wonder if he’d been completely forgotten in this corner.

For three whole days, he hadn’t seen a single enemy shadow.

But Gu Su didn’t stay idle.

While it was a shame he couldn’t join the battle to claim more Resources and corpses, Gu Su didn’t waste these three rare days of free time. On the contrary, it was an incredibly productive period. He poured all his energy into meticulously managing the Graveyard Demon and enhancing his own abilities.

This peaceful, uninterrupted time allowed him to get hands-on, meticulously adjusting the Graveyard Demon’s internal layout. He optimized the positioning of defensive structures, functional areas, and Undead garrisons to their most logical arrangements.

He also tended to the unmanned buildings one by one, carefully checking for component damage, replenishing basic supplies, and making sure every facility could be activated at a moment’s notice.

Most importantly, every day, Gu Su was able to buy three pieces of white-grade equipment and integrate them into the Graveyard Demon.

At night, he could use the box to learn in his sleep, allowing the contents of the book *Circulation: The Foundation of a City!* to be infused directly into his mind.

The book’s contents were incredibly abstruse, explaining the fundamental principles of a city’s operation—things like energy cycles, functional zoning, and the interplay between buildings. When he first started reading, the jargon was like a series of tongue twisters that made his head spin.

But after three nights of study, the once-static text came to life, transforming into flowing images in his mind: the Graveyard Demon’s subterranean conduits, the pathways of circulating Yin Qi, the energy exchange between buildings... Suddenly, it all formed a clear, interconnected system.

It felt as if the Graveyard Demon was communicating with him face-to-face.

[You have finished reading *Circulation: The Foundation of a City!* You have acquired the new Skill: City Transformation.]

[City Transformation: Passive Skill, upgradeable. Allows you to transform a city based on your own understanding. The results may not be optimal, but they will perfectly align with your vision.]

Gu Su woke up and sat on the edge of his bed, stunned for several seconds before he slowly came back to his senses.

This Skill was unlike any he had used before.

Before, when he viewed the Graveyard Demon’s information from his residence, all he could see was cold, hard data: its total area, the number of buildings, the amount of remaining Resources.

He could make adjustments, but how to do so depended entirely on his own ideas. He and the Graveyard Demon were not on the same wavelength.

But now, things were different.

He could feel the Graveyard Demon’s presence.

It wasn’t the vague awareness of ’this is my territory,’ but a tangible, two-way Communication.

When he closed his eyes while sitting in the rocking chair in his small courtyard, he could "see" every corner inside the Graveyard Demon. He could sense which areas were running smoothly and which were painfully congested. He could even "hear" faint messages from the Graveyard Demon.

They weren’t words or sounds, but a hazy stream of consciousness, like a child just learning to speak, clumsily trying to express itself.

For Gu Su, this was a good start.

He could clearly convey his needs and ideas to the Graveyard Demon—for instance, his desire to optimize the defensive layout of the walls or create dedicated training grounds for his Undead and storage areas for Resources. It was like he could say, ’This is what I want, this is what you’re missing, and I can go find it for you.’

In turn, the Graveyard Demon could use this special form of Communication to report its own operational status, clearly informing Gu Su which rare materials and prerequisites were needed to make an idea a reality.

This was a far cry from the cold, rigid, and mandatory directives it used to issue, which left no room for flexibility.

For Gu Su, this two-way, living Communication was without a doubt the most precious gain of the past three days.

It allowed him to completely break free from his previous guesswork and uncertainty when it came to managing the Graveyard Demon. He now had a clear path forward. He was no longer just passively reacting to the Graveyard Demon’s changes but could proactively direct and plan his territory’s future development.

At the same time, Gu Su’s understanding of the Graveyard Demon became much more concrete.

For example, after the Graveyard Demon had devoured two Mobile Cities and a War Giant Beast, Gu Su only knew that they had been consumed.

Beyond that, he knew nothing.

He didn’t know how they were being used, where their parts had been integrated, or what happened to the components that weren’t used.

But now, thanks to the Communication ability granted by his City Transformation Skill, Gu Su not only knew these components existed but could also clearly see potential ways to modify and use them.

Based on the Graveyard Demon’s feedback, he could now clearly identify which rare materials were needed to utilize these frameworks. He could then purposefully trade for or search out these items, proactively creating the conditions to realize the full potential of these idle Resources.

This was far more efficient and reliable than his previous state of passively waiting and depending entirely on Luck.

Furthermore, thanks to his two-way Communication with the Graveyard Demon, Gu Su could also pre-configure a series of detailed settings for it.

For instance, he could designate specific functional zones within the Graveyard Demon, pre-setting the Attributes for areas dedicated to forging, Resource storage, and Undead training.

Later, when the Graveyard Demon absorbed buildings, components, or materials matching the Attributes of a specific zone, it would automatically prioritize allocating them to that area, saving him the time and effort of manual adjustment and placement.

Take his current Sand-swept Twisted Corridor, for example. He had long designated it as the exclusive zone for blacksmithing and forge-type structures. Now, whenever the Graveyard Demon absorbed any building or component related to forging or smithing, it would automatically be transported to the vicinity of the Twisted Corridor, requiring no effort on his part.

All Gu Su had to do was define a dedicated area for each type of structure and configure the presets. That way, as the Graveyard Demon continued to absorb and expand, it would automatically handle the matching and placement of new buildings, making the entire territory’s layout increasingly organized and efficient.

Only by getting the entire Graveyard Demon to work in this dynamic way could the city truly develop effectively.

In Gu Su’s mind, this was what true circulation meant.

It wasn’t just about controlling the flow of Yin Qi and energy sources, as he had previously thought.