A light rain fell, washing away the bloody smell of the battle. The soldiers, exhausted from several days of fighting, returned to their towers to rest.

Zhang Shi deduced that with the arrival of the torrential rain, the zombies would likely go into hiding, and the nightly battles against the zombie horde would temporarily cease, which was a stroke of good luck for the survivors.

"The focus now needs to be on the issue of heavy rain."

As time passed, it reached midnight, and the long-awaited system notification sounded, waking up many survivors who had already fallen asleep.

[Survivors, congratulations on successfully surviving the extreme heat disaster. I wonder if everyone is satisfied with the zombie challenge I added.]

[In the coming days, the zombies will enter a period of dormancy, which is good news for you. You will no longer have to live in fear every night. The next period will be a valuable opportunity for development; please seize this chance to grow rapidly.]

At the same time, I will break down some of the barriers between zones, giving you the opportunity to meet more unfamiliar allies, and possibly enemies.

By the way, the natural disaster you will face next is: torrential rain.

[Later, the Wilderness World will rank survivors by the number of zombies they have killed. Survivors who rank high in their respective regions will receive generous rewards.]

As Zhang Shi predicted, the zombie crisis has been temporarily resolved. Moreover, the ranking rewards this time are very special. Not only have the servers been merged, but they are also different from the past, being ranked according to the number of zombies killed. It is expected that the leaderboard will be quite different from the last one.

Zhang Shi glanced at the number of viewers on the regional channel, which had surged from less than 3,000 to 100,000.

Zhang Shi had a premonition that it wouldn't be long before organizations emerged between the districts, and then the districts would be in chaos again.

Shaking his head to stop thinking about these things, Zhang Shi took advantage of the waiting time to click on the cheat code to sign in.

The system notifies you that you have received the following rewards for checking in:

[Barracks (White) x10]

"What do you mean? Are you implying that I'm not developing fast enough?"

Zhang Shi had figured out some patterns in the items he received from signing in, and guessed that the items he received were closely related to his current situation.

Before he could think much about it, the system had already completed and published the ranking statistics.

[Ding! Regional ranking statistics complete. Rankings are now published.]

[First Place, Zhang Shi's Reward: Stable (Purple) x1]

[Second Place, Zhao Feng's Reward: Ranch (Purple) x1]

[Third Place, Ge Dalong's Reward: Ark (Purple) x1]

[Fourth Place, Wu Qing's Reward: High-Efficiency Fertilizer Formula (Green) x1]

[Fifth Place, Liu Yu's Reward: Rocket Vehicle Design Blueprint (Green) x1]

...

Survivors, the theme for the Wilderness World from now on is: Conquest! We hope you can withstand the natural disasters, establish yourselves in this unclaimed land, and expand your territory.

The system was subsequently taken offline.

Zhang Shi glanced at the leaderboard and, as expected, the regional rankings had changed significantly since the last time. Because they had to fight massive hordes of zombies every night, Zhang Shi and his group unsurprisingly occupied the top four spots. Notably, Liu Yu was right behind them, suggesting that the information about zombies' fear of water had been quite helpful to him.

Chen Beipan, who had long held a place in the top three, has fallen out of the top ten this time. It is probably because the mutual aid group has fallen apart. He cannot attract too many zombies on his own, so his kill count naturally cannot increase.

For some reason, there was no world ranking this time, so Zhang Shi couldn't get a feel for the strength of the other survivors.

Although the reward this time is not of a high grade, it is definitely useful. It is a key building that cannot be obtained through any other means. Zhang Shi knows that if everything goes smoothly, the shelter will soon enter a new stage.

None of the four rested; they all gathered in the living room without prior arrangement. Zhang Shi activated the territory control module and placed the ranch on the plain outside the shelter. In the sunlight from the sunflowers, one could see tiny green dots suddenly sprouting from a patch of muddy land. Nourished by the light rain, the grass grew rapidly, and the first batch was expected to emerge by tomorrow.

Afterwards, Zhang Shi set up the stables.

This building can efficiently generate warhorses for the shelter, far surpassing ordinary barracks in both recruitment speed and quality. Zhang Shi plans to use these resources to create a cavalry force, and to this end, he specifically notified Gong Yi to expedite the production of a batch of horse armor tomorrow. Many assault soldiers, upon hearing the news, volunteered to become cavalrymen. Zhang Shi did not immediately agree, but instead planned to hold a selection process the next day.

Wu Qing's Shennongjia was already quite overpowered, and when combined with Zhang Shi's Farmer module, the crops in the shelter grew at an astonishing speed. With the addition of the highly efficient fertilizer awarded this time, Wu Qing calculated that any high-quality plant could be harvested within a day, making the shelter a true daily bounty.

Ge Dalong looked worried. His reward was an ark, which was comparable in size to a warship and made entirely of an unknown type of wood. It looked like it was specially made to deal with floods.

"I'm sure everyone knows about the prophecy of the Ark, so I won't jinx it. Everyone should be mentally prepared in advance."

Zhang Shi patted him on the shoulder again.

"This shelter is the culmination of our hard work. If a flood ever comes and we have to relocate, I will use tools to move it entirely. Please don't worry, we will start digging the moat tomorrow to make some preparations in advance."

...

On the first day of the torrential rain disaster, everyone got up very early without prior arrangement.

Just as Zhang Shi was about to plan his work for the day, Wu Qing called him to the farmland. When they arrived, Wu Qing was unusually anxious and uneasy. When she saw Zhang Shi, she took out a wooden bucket filled with fat worms, which looked like miniature versions of zombie parasites.

I discovered this when I was fertilizing this morning. This is only a small part of it. The entire farmland was infested with insects overnight. I'm afraid there might be something strange about these insects. You should take a look.

Zhang Shi nodded, activated his Focusing Technique, and discovered that it was just an ordinary cabbage worm.

Upon hearing this, Wu Qing's tense nerves relaxed slightly.

"Even ordinary insects are a bit strange. These farmlands clearly ignored the impact of the environment, yet they were infested with insects overnight. There may be other factors affecting them."

Zhang Shi looked up and asked tentatively, "You mean there's something wrong with this rainwater?"

Wu Qing nodded, adding, "It's not just the rainwater; the soil might be the problem too. Those mutated zombies emerged from underground, and these worms are so similar, I can't help but worry..."

Upon hearing this, Zhang Shi immediately built some greenhouses to cover all the farmland. As a precaution, he even activated the protective light screen again, and then handed over all the antidotes he had to Wu Qing.

"Notify me immediately if there are any problems. You should be extra careful when you come into contact with these worms."

Wu Qing felt a warmth in her heart. She pretended to be nonchalant as she took the antidote and gave a soft "hmm" in response.