Ten thousand I am across the heavens

After Xi You successfully placed his people on the train, as expected, he successfully predicted the price fluctuations of the goods. He used this opportunity to amass a fortune. In a short time, he became a prominent figure in the town, enjoying considerable prestige both among the common people and in official circles.

He hoarded goods and engaged in speculation quite discreetly among the common people. Whenever a city faced a shortage of supplies, he would pretend to take out a portion of the goods and distribute them for free, earning a reputation for philanthropy among the populace. The majority of his profits, however, were used to manage his organization and support wealthy and powerful figures.

An organization capable of managing dozens of people is a force to be reckoned with in the city. If these people can be tightly bound together by shared interests, even the city's higher-ups will have to take their opinions seriously.

Xi You, however, seized this opportunity to climb the social ladder. The influence of tradition was still significant. He didn't want this era. He rose up in rebellion, questioning the inherent nature of kings and nobles, because through his observations, he discovered that traditional thought was quite stubborn, especially among warriors loyal to their lords—a distorted and twisted ideology. The mere existence of a nobleman brought him unparalleled prestige.

So, taking advantage of the opportunity to get close to the higher-ups, he chose the shortcut to quickly improve his status: creating an opportunity to seduce the city lord's daughter.

If he had done this when he was just an ordinary railway worker, even if he had succeeded, it would have been tantamount to suicide.

Regardless, he should at least be a reasonably good match for her. If she's just an ordinary railway worker, he might die in some unknown corner one day.

But now things are vastly different. He has hundreds of people working for him, and dozens more are closely tied to his interests. He's managed to cultivate a clean image, presenting himself as a handsome young man. With this persona, if he were to win over the city lord's daughter, he would truly be qualified to be her husband and rightfully inherit the city. In this world isolated by zombies, city-states abound. To control even one city, not just one of the largest, is to be considered a regional ruler.

With his understanding of people's hearts and meticulous planning, Xi You successfully won over the city lord's daughter, just as he had hoped.

The process went even more smoothly than he had imagined. He discovered that if you treat dating as a task, rather than focusing on fulfilling your own and the other person's emotional needs, pursuing someone becomes quite simple, especially with his numerous helpers. He devised a plan, executed it meticulously, and pre-defined the general flow of events after each meeting. He also learned how to handle unexpected situations. Pursuing the city lord's daughter was no more difficult than secretly regulating market prices.

Having reached this point, he naturally rose to a high-ranking position within this fortified city. But his ambitions clearly didn't stop there; he also wanted to conquer other towns and eliminate the zombies surrounding them.

In his view, the zombies outside weren't really a problem. Although the so-called Kabane seemed strong—with tough bodies, weak hearts, and steel-like membranes protecting them, even ordinary steam guns could hardly harm them—these creatures originated from living people. Their current large numbers were due to the massive population deaths in the wilderness or the destruction of former cities during the previous plague. Countless people infected with the plague turned into Kabane.

Ultimately, these monsters will dwindle with each kill, and humanity has already built fortress after fortress, barely managing to maintain a stable, self-sufficient existence without collapsing. Therefore, eliminating these invading monsters is only a matter of time.

Therefore, he initially set his sights on other cities. Currently, the strength of the major towns is not actually that great. Instead, the power he holds is at a point where the gap between him and the power of the entire world is the smallest.

Once these zombies are wiped out and humans can freely live in the outside world without any obstacles, a true chaotic era will begin. Different towns will fight each other like feudal states. He believes that by seizing this opportunity and taking the initiative, he can not only plunder the wealth of other towns and make his own city-state stronger, but also increase his chances of surviving until all the zombies are killed.

Having clearly defined this strategic objective, he began to infiltrate other forces both overtly and covertly. He even personally traveled to other city-states to make contact with their people and develop spies. His goal was to secretly have these spies work together at a crucial moment to open the city gates and let the zombies in, thereby destroying the entire city. Once the city was in chaos, he would drive the Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, posing as a savior, to these cities to absorb their population and resources and expand his own power.

In some ways, his methods are almost identical to those of the villains in the original storyline, except that his start was much worse than the villains', and his research on the Kabane was also less in-depth.

However, this gap can be bridged through technical exchanges, while the knowledge from the Gu Realm that he carries in his mind is not so easily deciphered by the other party.

In his view, even outdated steam-powered equipment had room for improvement. And once he truly became a beneficiary, he no longer kept those technologies hidden, and tried his best to reproduce all the technologies from his memory that could potentially be realized in this world.

The upgraded equipment can easily penetrate the heart of the Kabane, allowing them to control a larger area outside the city walls. They can cultivate and plant crops there, build new outer walls, and thus gain more profits through trade and attract a larger population.

At the same time, he also obtained some technology related to zombies, which was not even stolen by his spies, but rather obtained by him through secret human experiments.

Although the Kabane have lost their human reason and become monsters that treat people as food, in terms of physical function alone, these monsters far surpass ordinary humans.

Therefore, it is theoretically possible to study this organism and, during the process of humans transforming into this special life form, to truncate the process, retaining only the part that enhances physiology.

People from other worlds might not be willing to try such a dangerous technological approach, nor might they even be able to conceive of it. But the Gu world has developed to this point precisely because its people are more accepting of all sorts of strange and unusual Gu insects.

Essentially, a Gu Master is raising Gu worms using their own body. If they aren't fed regularly, the Gu worms will either die or, worse, suffer a backlash from them. While the latter is less likely, among the myriad of Gu worms, there are still many twisted and terrifying ones—types that are unsettling to even look at.

He was already quite accustomed to that kind of cultivation method. In his view, enhancing physical constitution through viral infection was a perfectly normal approach. And through his secret human experiments, he had successfully created a small number of enhanced warriors through special compression of the neck blood vessels. Although women made up more than 80% of these enhanced warriors, which seemed very strange, it didn't prevent him from utilizing this fact.

To this end, they even took the initiative to use their spies in other cities, secretly opening the city gates and causing several massacres, completely destroying two surrounding cities in the hands of the Kabane. Meanwhile, they took advantage of the chaos to send soldiers to wipe out the zombies that entered the city and rescue a large number of residents from other cities.

In the chaos, some people were missing, but no one suspected anything. These missing people were all thrown into human experimentation. In this way, he could legitimately acquire a large population and secretly cultivate a powerful enhanced warrior force.

The subsequent plot unfolded as expected. These individuals were inherently powerful and possessed an advantage in mechanical technology. Although they started slower than the villains, their development was far faster. They were even more rational and composed than their psychologically twisted and deranged antagonist, and far more ruthless in their actions. Numerous cities were ravaged by their machinations.

He was ruthless enough, and incredibly calm. With his intelligence consistently sharp throughout, he was destined to emerge victorious in this island survival battle.

They conquered cities and territories along the way, initially under the pretext of saving these cities besieged by zombies, but later they directly raised the banner of rebellion and engaged in head-on confrontation with the main force of the empire.

Although they encountered story instances created around female Kabaneri in several battles and suffered some losses, the relevant technology was quickly reverse-engineered. In this era, few people had the time or energy for scientific research, and the research achievements of the few who did were ultimately not very technologically demanding.

After the Empire's only technological advantage was neutralized, the battlefield became one-sided.

After his last opponent fell, he naturally shifted his focus to clearing out the remaining Kabane on the continent. Without a powerful enemy to threaten him, he gradually lost the motivation to continue fighting. In the years that followed, he became like many incompetent rulers in history, indulging only in his own pleasures. The kingdom he had established could maintain stable operations even without him. In fact, given his prestige, he only needed to keep a slight eye on the country's affairs to prevent any possibility of power slipping away.

The only risky thing he did in the latter half of his life was to transform himself into a Kabaneri, because he realized that human lifespan was ultimately too short. Becoming this special life form might extend his own life. This idea arose because he discovered that the women in his harem seemed to age much more slowly than normal humans.

After countless human experiments, his technique had become incredibly advanced. Even with the risk of failure, he chose to take that risk and ultimately succeeded.

But this is the extent of the extraordinary level this world has reached. Achieving immortality through technology is practically impossible with current technological capabilities. And achieving immortality through supernatural power and advanced technology is far beyond the reach of this world's current level of fantasy.

He could only watch in despair as his body aged day by day. His entire life was recorded by the system, resulting in a lower-than-average rating.

He was already considered exceptionally talented. His innate ability to see through people's hearts, coupled with his natural talent for deception, allowed him to thrive in an unfamiliar world.

Compared to Xu Duo, who was born into an era with far less advanced technology than the technology he encountered, Xu Duo was born into the steam age. The knowledge he possessed offered him limited advantages. Yet, through his own abilities, despite a difficult start, he accomplished unification in a remarkably short time with very few mistakes. In the eyes of the Ghostly Demon Lord, this was an excellent character worthy of cultivation.

Different people will make different choices and experience different circumstances. After Mo Chengzi transmigrated, he was immediately thrown into the world of Lord of the Rings and placed into a body that was extremely weak for him.

Although he didn't know the plot, he had already been placed in the main group. Knowing the mission was to destroy the Demon King's creation, he naturally joined the group. He didn't use much of the skill he acquired in the Republic of Mountains and Rivers, which was enough to complete the mission of destroying the One Ring.

The main point is that in the original story, the main characters were able to successfully complete the mission. With him as a fresh addition, the difficulty was further reduced. Even Gandalf, who was dual-wielding a berserker, did not perish on the way.

After completing the main quest, he didn't develop any ambition to conquer the world. Instead, he began to diligently study the magic of this world. Not everyone wants to conquer the world, nor does everyone want to be an emperor.

He just wants to go home. This world is unbearable for him in every way; it's like a modern person being thrown into ancient times. Even more extreme, it's like a modern person being thrown directly into primitive times. If given the choice between being an ordinary person in modern times or a tribal chief in primitive times, most people would choose to be an ordinary person in modern times.

And so it is for him now. Going home is far more important than ruling this world, and the difference between him and other souls will manifest itself in countless reincarnations in the future.

[To be continued]

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