Chapter 70.1: Little Blue Sea Nation
Cheng Qisheng had always known that the people of Blue Sea were exceptionally good at stirring things up.
She had always been tolerant of it.
After all, the people of Old Eighth were naturally energetic, loved exploring, and were, for the most part, incurable optimists. Preventing them from finding their own fun would be nothing less than suppressing their very nature.
But to be honest, she had never imagined she’d see this.
Stretching across the endless white snowfield stood a castle, silent and imposing.
Yes—a castle.
By Cheng Qisheng’s rough estimate, it covered at least half a square kilometer.
Compared to Blue Sea Safe City’s vast territory of over forty thousand square kilometers, it was insignificant.
But compared to the clusters of tiny wooden shelters surrounding it—so numerous they were obvious even from the air—the castle was astonishingly enormous.
Its massive gates were forged from black-gold metal, perfectly shutting out Dazzling Star’s icy winds and relentless blizzards. The central keep towered into the sky, while orderly residential districts spread out around it.
Looking more closely, she could make out watchtowers encircling the settlement, supply warehouses, hidden vaults for storing item cards, a cafeteria district, an indoor training ground, a medical center, a public hall where laws were posted, and even workshops where residents labored.
She also spotted squads of Dazzling Star natives patrolling the grounds. Hanging from their necks were identification badges clearly stating their rank:
City Defense Guard.
The place was practically a miniature Blue Sea Safe City. Aside from a few minor differences, most of its functional buildings were obvious copies of Blue Sea’s inner-city layout.
So when Cheng Qisheng finally focused on the three women responsible for all this and saw the titles engraved on the badges pinned to their chests, she found herself strangely unsurprised.
Song Xi served as President.
Shen Jinyang was the Marshal.
Wang Moning held the office of Pope.
They had even built a gigantic ice sculpture of Blue Sea’s Creator God outside the castle, sculpted entirely from packed snow. It stood well over ten meters tall.
The great Creator gazed at the statue of herself.
Across hundreds of billions of years, she had witnessed countless extraordinary sights.
Yet this was one of the rare occasions on which she found herself genuinely dumbfounded.
In Blue Sea civilization, there had never been a shortage of people eager to found their own nations.
After all, everyone loved to fight. Their blood ran hot, and unless they had been thoroughly beaten into submission, few were willing to live under someone else’s rule.
During the era of total war, after the great powers fell, countless small countries declared their extinction every day, while countless new ones sprang into existence.
Back then, many Blue Sea villages simply took down the wooden sign at the entrance that read “XX Village,” replaced it with one reading “XX Kingdom,” and confidently proclaimed that they had founded a nation.
Of course, a village was still a village. Its size hadn’t changed. Neither had its population. The only difference was that skirmishes with neighboring villages were now recorded in their histories as wars between nations.
But Song Xi and the others had founded a real country.
It had a homeland, soldiers, territory, and citizens.
An honest-to-goodness nation.
How on earth had they pulled that off?!
And what was the deal with this enormous castle?
Cheng Qisheng looked at the floating information panel hovering above it.
Building Name: Frost Fortress (Tier 8)
Building Type: Small Shelter (Protects Against Cold Winds)
Area: 0.5 km²
Capacity: 35,000 people
Indoor Temperature: Constant 16°C
Facilities: Central Constant-Temperature Heating System | Perimeter Watchtowers (30) | Circulating Water Purification & Supply Systems (2) | Residential Corridors (100) | Large Warehouses (15) | Guard Barracks (30) | Main Keep Palace (1) | Administrative Residences (9)
Cheng Qisheng was well aware that building item cards could be stacked together to raise a structure’s tier.
But this was the first time she had ever seen a Tier 8 building.
In fact, before today, the highest-tier building she had ever encountered was only Tier 3.
The people of Blue Sea never stacked their building cards.
Their goal had always been to collect as many item cards as possible and bring them back as offerings to their Creator God.
The people of Blue Sea were naturally tough—hardy, resilient, and thick-skinned. While they certainly appreciated a more comfortable environment, living in an ordinary Tier 1 building wasn’t particularly uncomfortable for them.
As for the natives of Dazzling Star, they would at most stack building cards to Tier 2 or Tier 3. Hardly anyone bothered going any higher.
That was because building shelters weren’t something you could simply construct with item cards and then live in comfortably for the rest of your life.
The higher a building’s tier, the more fuel and maintenance materials it consumed.
Having once struggled with a mortgage, Cheng Qisheng couldn’t help but feel the two were remarkably similar.
The difference was that a mortgage was repaid with wages earned from work. If you couldn’t keep up with the payments, you could still sell the house to recover some money, or stop paying altogether and let the bank foreclose on it.
Shelters on Dazzling Star were far less forgiving.
Their occupants had to risk their lives fighting snow beasts to obtain item cards as an energy source. If the energy supply stopped for even a single day, the fireplace that provided heat would cease functioning, and everyone inside would be at risk of freezing to death. If no energy was supplied for more than three days, the shelter itself would freeze and become permanently damaged, never functioning properly again.
A Tier 1 shelter was a simple wooden cabin, the most common dwelling among the local population.
It occupied just thirteen square meters and came equipped with a fireplace, a bed, a table, and chairs. The ceiling was so low that no one could stand upright inside—they had to keep their heads slightly bowed as they moved around—but it was still sufficient for two people.
To keep it running, the occupants only needed to light a Tier 1 torch that could burn continuously for fifty days, or consume a single red item card. Either source provided enough energy for the cabin to function normally for three months.
A Tier 2 shelter looked like a sturdy wooden barracks from the outside.
According to the information Moonspirit had shared earlier, a Tier 2 shelter could withstand sudden blizzards. It covered fifty square meters, featured a larger and warmer fireplace, had a ceiling about two and a half meters high, and included a small loft, a bathroom, and a storage room in addition to the main living area.
To keep the entire house warm, its occupants needed to keep at least three Tier 1 torches burning simultaneously. Alternatively, they could consume one red energy item card every month. If they were unlucky and the card contained less energy than usual, they might need to use one and a half—or even two—red cards instead.
A Tier 3 shelter resembled a large stone house from the outside.
Its interior was even warmer than the previous two tiers. Covering an area of 120 square meters with ceilings over three meters high, it featured three separate bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a shower room. As long as fuel or appropriate consumable materials were supplied, it even provided hot water.
But to keep it functioning normally, every five days its owner had to feed it one red item card with the appropriate energy type for the building, as well as one blue item card to supply its daily water needs.
Item cards didn’t just fall from the sky!
Besides, apart from the common white item cards, the drop rates for every other color were fairly low.
In other words, if a family pooled together enough silver building cards to create a Tier 3 shelter in hopes of living comfortably, they could kiss a peaceful life goodbye.
Day after day, they would have to fight snow beasts without rest.
They might spend an entire day hunting, finally kill a beast, only for it to drop no item card at all—or perhaps just the most common white card.
Then they’d have to do it all over again the second day, the third day, the fifth day…
They would spend every single day scrambling to gather at least one red card and one blue card every five days.
And once they could no longer keep up with the cost, the Tier 3 house that had consumed so much of the family’s hard work would slowly deteriorate into nothing more than a damaged, unusable shell.
The only Tier 3 shelter Cheng Qisheng had ever seen was in the Puya region.
Many natives of Dazzling Star had been brought back to Blue Sea Safe City by its residents and converted into believers. Among those new converts was one man who owned a Tier 3 shelter.
As a native-born inhabitant of Dazzling Star, his combat power had reached 82.
That was probably why he had been able to afford a Tier 3 shelter in the first place.
Yet despite having combat strength that could be considered exceptional among the natives of Dazzling Star, that new believer had never dared upgrade his shelter to Tier 4.
Song Xi had the highest combat power among the trio.
When they had first been tested, her score had been 73.
During their journey across Dazzling Star, she had frequently dealt with snow beasts in swift, decisive battles, so her combat power had undoubtedly increased somewhat.
Cheng Qisheng estimated it was probably around 76 to 79.
She hadn’t even broken 80.
So how had Song Xi—the former captain of the Explorer Squad and now the President of Little Blue Sea, Blue Sea’s branch nation on Dazzling Star—managed to build a Tier 8 shelter while leading two teammates whose combat power was even lower than her own?
Even more astonishingly, the entire country was run by Dazzling Star natives.
Throughout Little Blue Sea—yes, that was literally the country’s name—Cheng Qisheng saw locals busily handling official affairs under titles such as Chancellor, Minister of Finance, Judicial Officer, Chief Secretary, and High Priest.
The division of responsibilities was so chaotic that even Cheng Qisheng, who normally paid little attention to Blue Sea’s internal politics, could tell that many of those offices had simply been made up on the spot.
She even spotted someone whose official title was Steward of Little Blue Sea, directing the distribution of supplies in the cafeteria.
Meanwhile, the nation’s three actual leaders—President Song, Marshal Shen, and Pope Wang—were happily riding their beloved snowmobiles in hot pursuit of a fleeing snow beast.
Their excitement was obvious.
As they chased after it, they shouted at the top of their lungs and hurled spears one after another.
“Faster! Faster! Go, go, go!”
“Woohoo! I hit it!”
It looked for all the world like a royal hunting expedition.
Cheng Qisheng waited patiently for five minutes.
Only after they had slain the snow beast and collected a single white item card did she send down a divine oracle.
The great Creator could have simply looked through the hazy fragments of the trio’s memories.
Instead, she chose to ask them directly.
Although what Cheng Qisheng really wanted to ask was, “What exactly did you three do? How did you manage to pull off something this enormous all by yourselves?”
She still followed protocol.
First, she praised the trio for answering the Creator’s divine call and spreading the faith wherever they went.
Only then did she inquire about the origins of Little Blue Sea.
The three women beamed with excitement.
Their faces were filled with reverence, adoration, and a quiet sense of pride.
They had been separated from their great Creator for far too long. Although their God bestowed blessings upon them from time to time, hearing a divine oracle with their own ears was an entirely different kind of joy.
Song Xi, speaking first as the team’s leader—or perhaps as the nation’s President—answered,
“My God, we obtained a Guixu Storage Relic from a golden item card.”
Beside her, Wang Moning immediately opened the backpack she carried everywhere.
From inside, she carefully took out a small cloth pouch no larger than the palm of her hand. It resembled a scented sachet embroidered with delicate snowflake patterns.
She raised it high above her head so their great Creator could see it.
Song Xi explained,
“Although it’s tiny, this relic can convert objects that have already been taken out of item cards back into item cards. And when those cards are used again, the objects can be restored once more.”
Under normal circumstances, once a building card was activated and became an actual structure, it could never be turned back into an item card.
That was why Blue Sea’s residents almost always lived in Tier 1 shelters while they were away from home.
After all, they weren’t natives of this world.
Why spend the effort constructing luxurious buildings?
Once their great Creator summoned them home, they would leave, and those shelters would simply be abandoned where they stood.
In fact, they usually didn’t even open golden item cards.
Those cards often contained unusual treasures.
What if they turned out to be enormous and impossible to transport back?
It was far better to take the unopened card home and offer it directly to their great Creator.
The trio, however, were in a different situation.
They had no wings…
And for the time being, they were stranded far from home.
Moreover, because they were constantly on the move, the trio encountered far more snow beasts than Blue Sea residents who remained in one place. They also ran into a much wider variety of species.
From the very beginning, the three of them had followed a simple philosophy:
If we can beat it, we fight. If we can’t, we run.
So they traveled while battling, battling while traveling, gradually accumulating item cards of every color.
This was completely different from voluntarily setting out to explore.
Being stranded outside against their will made every Blue Sea resident feel restless.
Their greatest goal now was simple:
Get back to Blue Sea Safe City.
With that in mind, they turned their attention to the golden item cards.
Their snowmobiles had come from a golden item card.
So perhaps…
…another golden card might contain an aircraft capable of flying on Dazzling Star.
Or, even better, a teleportation item that could send them directly back to Blue Sea Safe City.
Because of that, they opened every golden item card they acquired.
They also traded item cards that produced supplies in exchange for unused item cards from the local inhabitants.
Some of the treasures that came out of the golden cards were useful to them.
Others were too cumbersome to carry or simply unnecessary.
Those they traded away for item cards the locals had no use for.
Building cards, for example.
The natives of Dazzling Star rarely upgraded their shelters, so building cards weren’t particularly valuable to them. They were more than willing to exchange them with the trio.
The three women didn’t rely solely on item cards for trading, either.
They also bartered with the carcasses of snow beasts.
After all, they killed snow beasts wherever they went. Most of the creatures were enormous, far more meat than the three of them could ever eat, and too cumbersome to haul around. Trading the carcasses to locals for more supplies was a much better deal.
