The next morning, Jax was dragged from sleep by the rhythmic clang-scrape-clang of industry.

He cracked an eye open. Aside from Barnaby, who was still sawing logs and drooling into his pillow, the rest of the team was already up and grinding.

They hadn’t waited for orders. They had simply gotten to work.

The division of labor was seamless. Silas was down in the pit, chipping away at the Extraction Well for Energy Shards. Kaleb had taken over Barnaby’s usual grunt work, scavenging timber from the nearby ruins to haul back to the fortress.

Gareth had taken the short straw. He was handling the filthiest, most exhausting task: dragging the bloated carcasses of Sandworms into a pile and butchering them for Cores.

Annie noticed Jax sitting up and offered a warm, tentative smile.

“You’re awake, Jax. I made some porridge. Come get it while it’s hot.”

Jax scratched his messy hair, grunted an acknowledgment, and then slammed a heavy hand onto the sleeping mass beside him.

“Wake the hell up. Look at the time.”

Barnaby snorted awake, looking around in confusion. Jax checked his digital watch. 09:00.

He accepted the bowl of porridge, savoring the warmth against the morning chill. “Did the Guild Leader organize this?”

Annie paused, surprised by the question, then nodded. “Yeah. Gareth said you two were exhausted after the battle. He stepped up to manage the morning shift and told us explicitly to let you sleep in.”

Jax nodded, keeping his expression neutral, but inwardly, he chalked up a point for Gareth. The man knew how to play the game.

“Have you guys eaten? Sit down, join us.”

Annie hesitated. She glanced at the pot, then shook her head. “Millet is expensive. We’ll just chew on some roasted Sandworm meat later.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Jax said, waving a hand dismissively. “Sit. Eat. This porridge turns to glue if you leave it for a day anyway.”

Annie licked her lips, her hunger betraying her resolve. “Oh. Th… thank you.”

The hesitation in her voice, the excessive gratitude—it made Jax shake his head slightly.

They’re still walking on eggshells, he thought. Now that the Sentry Tower is up, the power gap has widened. They don’t see me as a partner anymore; they see me as a landlord. I’m the boss, and they’re just the hired help.

He couldn’t fix their mindset overnight, so he didn’t try. As the others returned from their tasks, offering him polite, deferential smiles, he just ate his food and turned his gaze to the fortress.

Time to upgrade.

He pulled up the interface.

[Blueprint: Fortress – Tier 2]

Requirements:

Stardust Stone: 100

Refined Iron: 100

Jax opened his inventory and grimaced.

“Short. Again.”

He had eighty units of Refined Iron and seventy of Stardust Stone. Close, but in the wasteland, ‘close’ didn’t count. He could only hope the daily quests over the next forty-eight hours would drop what he needed.

He looked up. The sky was a heavy, bruised purple. It was technically daytime, but a thick blanket of clouds choked out the sun, casting the world in a gloomy, suffocating twilight. It looked like rain, but the air was bone-dry.

It felt like the sky was holding its breath, brewing something nasty.

“Half a month,” Jax muttered. “Once the storm breaks, the Insect Swarm follows.”

He racked his brain for memories of the previous timeline. He recalled the devastation at Redrock Bastion a few months prior. The Swarm had turned the city into a slaughterhouse.

Official reports claimed two thousand dead and ten thousand injured. Jax scoffed at the memory. The government always massaged the numbers to prevent total anarchy.

He had been there. He had seen the bodies stacked like cordwood outside the city gates. The smell alone had lingered for weeks. The fact that the city defense force had to recruit two thousand fresh meat shields immediately after the siege told the real story. The death toll had been catastrophic.

Jax shook off the dark memory and opened the [Bestiary]. He navigated to the entry for the Rodent-Maw Creeper.

These things were the real problem. In the coming Swarm, they would be the vanguard.

Yesterday, his team had only scratched the surface of the Mount Sepulcher valley. They hadn’t dared to push past the Hive Spires. His gut told him that beyond those stone formations lay a nesting ground teeming with these things—and likely something far worse.

[Monster Analysis: Rodent-Maw Creeper]

Tier: 2

Attack: 80

Defense: 50

Speed: 30 (Surface) / 10 (Burrowed)

Rating: 120

Skills: Burrow, Acid Projectile

Jax frowned. If the next wave was heavy on Creepers, the fortress was in trouble.

The Howitzer Turret was a beast, but it was a hungry beast. Two Tier 1 Energy Shards bought him fifteen shells. That was fine for tight clusters of surface targets, but the Creepers spent half their time underground.

Shells impacting the sand just threw up dust clouds. Unless he scored a direct hit on a surfaced enemy, he was wasting ammo. To kill a burrowed enemy, he’d need to carpet bomb the area, and he simply didn’t have the economy for that.

He checked his Energy Shard reserve. It was dangerously low.

“This isn’t sustainable,” he whispered. “If the Swarm hits and I’m out of juice, the turrets are just expensive lawn ornaments.”

He looked down over the edge of the platform. Silas was down there, swinging his pickaxe with mechanical rhythm.

I need to double production.

The Extraction Well supported two miners. Silas, working his ass off, capped out at ten shards a day. That wasn’t enough to feed the guns.

Jax’s gaze drifted to Gareth.

The Guild Leader was currently hauling a slimy worm carcass. As a combatant, Gareth was dead weight. He was timid, lacked combat instincts, and panicked easily. His only contribution to a fight was throwing torches. Even Annie had more grit.

But as a miner? He’d be perfect.

The only variable was trust. Jax couldn’t just hand over access to his resource production to someone who might stab him in the back.

“System,” Jax queried internally. “Confirm capacity for the Extraction Well.”

[System Query]

Tier 1 Extraction Well Capacity: 2 Personnel. Current Slots Available: 1.

Jax nodded. He needed to vet Gareth. Now.

Lunch was another round of roasted Sandworm meat and the leftover cold porridge.

The atmosphere was surprisingly light, mostly thanks to Silas. The older man was a social chameleon, chattering away about gossip from The Sprawl to fill the silence.

Jax picked at his food, half-listening, his eyes tracking Gareth.

When the meal wrapped up, Jax stood and walked over to the Guild Leader.

“Ahem. Gareth.”

Gareth looked up, wiping grease from his mouth. “Yeah?”

“Your hair is a disaster.”

Before Gareth could react, Jax reached out and firmly placed his hand on the man’s head, fingers digging into the greasy scalp. To an observer, it looked like a rude, bullying gesture—a display of dominance.

Gareth flinched but didn’t pull away. He laughed awkwardly, scratching his head as Jax pulled back.

“Ah, yeah. I’ve been thinking about shaving it all off, honestly. Water’s too precious to waste on washing hair, but… I’ve had this long hair for years. Hard to let go. I guess you just get used to the smell, right?”

Jax didn’t hear a word of the excuse. He was staring at the holographic readout that had flashed across his retina the moment he made physical contact.

[Scan Complete]

Target: Gareth (Lv. 3) Loyalty: 62/100

Over sixty, Jax thought. Passable.

He could bind him. It wouldn’t trigger a betrayal. But he needed to sweeten the deal. Slave labor bred resentment, and resentment lowered Loyalty.

While Jax calculated, the atmosphere at the table shifted.

Silas had gone quiet. He stared at Jax, then at Gareth.

Touching another man’s head without permission was aggressive. It was disrespectful. Jax wasn’t the type to bully people for fun, so there had to be a reason.

Silas’s mind raced. Why is he inspecting him? Is he checking his fitness? Is he… planning to put him to work in the mine?

Cold sweat pricked Silas’s back. The mine was his domain. It was his value proposition. If the Boss brought in a second miner—especially one who was already a leader figure like Gareth—Silas’s importance would plummet. He would be replaceable.

I’m losing favor, Silas realized, his heart hammering against his ribs. If I’m not the only source of shards, I’m just another mouth to feed.

Jax ignored the palpable tension radiating from the older miner.

“Gareth,” Jax said, his voice cutting through the silence. “Come here.”

Gareth stood up, wiping his hands on his pants, looking exhausted from the morning’s labor. He climbed up the rope to the platform where Jax stood waiting.

“What do you need, Jax?”

Jax didn’t speak immediately. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of glowing crystals—over a dozen Tier 1 Cores.

He held them out. The faint hum of energy filled the space between them.