Resettlement Plan

A twenty-four-hour ban was not particularly long. However, what Professor Yang had not anticipated was that following those twenty-four hours came an additional seventy-two hours of physical confinement. This immediately gave him—someone who had initially brushed it off as "no big deal"—a slight taste of the law's majesty. Strictly speaking, the twenty-four-hour disconnect penalty was a login restriction outlined in the Player Manual for violating game rules (such as safe zone PK-ing), whereas the latter was Dawn City's own public security regulation concerning "brawling in a public place." Indeed. Not only did players have to follow player rules, but they also had to obey the NPCs' laws and regulations. The former was presumably enforced by an irresistible force, equivalent to the "power of rules," instantly striking down even a T0 player. The latter, however, was independently enforced by local law enforcement authorities and offered some room for maneuver; one could appeal or hire a lawyer, just like an NPC who broke the law. It stood to reason that if someone were strong enough, slaughtering all the guards and breaking out of prison was also viable. Except, since this detention facility was probably located within a safe zone, the very moment one attempted a prison break, it would likely trigger the Player Manual's terms, resulting in compounded penalties for multiple offenses. Incidentally, because of the players' unique nature, serving time was also different for them compared to ordinary folks. Aside from a fixed daily deduction of eight hours, the sentence only ticked down while logged in. If a player did not log in and check in that day, the fixed eight-hour deduction was forfeited as well. Committing suicide during this period was entirely futile and would even be deemed a malicious violation aimed at evading punishment. Once a sentence exceeded twenty years, game access was revoked by default, and the player lost all eligibility to re-register. Therefore, even if one wished to do something that might turn their name red, it was best not to do it inside a safe zone. Otherwise, one was very likely to have "order established" upon them simultaneously by GMs, NPCs, and peace-and-justice-loving players. "Sigh... there's no way around it." Staring at the cold iron bars, Thunder King Professor Yang sighed, setting aside any thoughts of exploiting loopholes for now. Mainly because it was unnecessary. Seventy-two hours minus eight hours left sixty-four hours. Checking in once a day, he could be released in eight days. If he sat diligently in jail, he could get out of this damn place in two and a half days. The Alliance's laws were not overly harsh; it was better not to complicate things. Yet just as Professor Yang had resigned himself to his fate, Ye Ao in the adjacent cell refused to settle down. The moment this brat woke up, he grabbed the iron bars and rattled them until they creaked. Not only did he kick at the cell door, but he also hurled the foulest profanities to provoke the detention center guards. "Hey, hey, hey! You NPCs, do you have any self-awareness at all? I'm a player! A *play-er*! Do you know what that means? Yours truly has an *im-mor-tal body*! I can screw up countless times, but you can only screw up once! If you know what's good for you, let me out right now, got it?" "..." "Oho, playing tough, huh? Won't let me go? Tsk, doing it the hard way, are we? Just you wait! Once I get out, I'm gonna slaughter your Administrator in one punch! I know your *fa-tal weak-ness*~ Just you wait for the server wipe!" "..." "...Ungrateful bastards, is this how you treat your savior?! I—I'm a resident of Shelter 404! Do you understand the sheer prestige of being a shelter resident?! Crawl over here and lick the soles of my shoes, you trash!" "..." "Triggered, aren't you? You're definitely triggered, right? Dogshit devs, what kind of garbage design is this? If you don't know how to make a game, go beg for food! Eat my shit, trash! In real life, you're definitely some virgin neckbeard who's never even held a girl's hand, aren't you? Disgusting!" "..." "Bro... please, I'm begging you... let me out! I swear I'll never do it again..." "...?" Hey, hey, hey... Is this guy crying? Over such a petty setback? Professor Yang wanted to pretend he had not heard anything, but the sniffling and whining was simply too irritating. Moreover, since players were kept in solitary cells, there was no one else here besides the two of them. He could not even find another cellmate to chat with and distract himself. "Cut the chatter. Can you shut up already? You followed this game for five years—don't you know the NPCs speak the Human Alliance language? And clean up your mouth. Spouting 'shit' every other word only makes people think that's all you eat all day... Sigh, I truly pity your parents." Aside from a total lack of upbringing, he could not think of any better explanation. However, just as he was preparing to lecture the boy like an elder, Ye Ao Nai Wo He—who had been hiccuping through sobs just a second ago—suddenly flew into a frenzy as if pumped with a berserk syringe. "Holy shit, mind your own damn business, you old fossil! Trash! My punch packs six thousand tons of force, can you block it?! Eat my spit! Ptooey, ptooey, ptooey—!" "..." Veins bulged on Professor Yang's bump-covered forehead, and his teeth ground together audibly. *Motherfucker.* *My fists are itching again!* ... Perhaps due to the sudden influx of new players, Dawn City's detention center had never been this noisy. Overall, however, most players were relatively normal; only one or two excessively self-absorbed individuals were making a racket. "Even the 'key persons of interest' can log into the game normally, so other players shouldn't be an issue. Using the Wandering Marsh as a starting village is a bit too much... It's more suitable as a level-20 zone. Dumping new players there is purely making trouble for the locals, and it might even disrupt our takeover of the Science Committee." "In short, 'if the code runs, don't touch it'... As for the rest, we can deal with it after open beta." On the B5 level of Shelter 404. Staring at the surveillance feed on the screen, Chu Guang stroked his chin in thought. Watching the meticulous Administrator, Xiao Qi swung her calves from where she sat on the armchair's armrest, gazing up at him with an expression full of admiration. "As expected of Master! Even in the new era, you're still working diligently behind the scenes, worrying yourself sick over the players." Chu Guang smiled faintly and replied in a relaxed tone: "Haha, hardly 'worrying myself sick.' The overall 'framework' of the game is already complete. The remaining work is just minor fine-tuning." His current mindset was rather like someone who had finally finished building a massive castle out of toy blocks. Once he confirmed the castle was habitable, he could step back and leave the finishing touches to others. Punishing lawbreakers was the guards' job, trying criminals was the judges' job, enacting laws was the Representative Council's job, departmental operations were coordinated between ministers and the future consul, and regional matters were handled through consultations between local representative councils and local chief executives. That was basically the entire framework. As for what kind of branches this sapling would sprout, or what kind of forest it would grow into, that depended on how hard the wind blew and how heavily the rain fell from the sky. As the designer of this entire "game," his role ended there. "Speaking of which, what's the situation over in the Beta World right now? I heard their nuclear fusion reactor achieved successful ignition?" Xiao Qi: "Mhm! It succeeded a month ago!" "Is that so? Not bad, not bad at all." Chu Guang's face wore a smile of genuine gratification. Long ago, he had jokingly promised brother Kuang Feng that once everything was over, he would compensate him with a Nobel Prize. Looking at it now, however, a mere medal hardly seemed worthy of Professor Yan Feng's achievements. Speaking of his good brothers' dreams, he recalled that Fang Chang's dream seemed to be bringing Dolly into reality to meet his parents and holding another wedding in the real world. That actually seemed the easiest to achieve—just preparing a clone in reality to serve as a vessel for her consciousness would do the trick. As for Ye Shi, that guy's dream had basically already been fulfilled in the game; there was nothing much to say. As for Lao Bai, he had the mindset of a "retired old timer"—as long as he could enjoy a peaceful life at his leisure, he was content with whatever. To be honest, besides continuing to maintain this white lie, Chu Guang had also considered another ending. Namely, going big once everything concluded and simply revealing the truth about Wasteland Online to the public. Put simply: *No more pretending, cards on the table! Not only are we an advanced civilization, we are literally you two hundred years into the future!* Wasteland Online's open beta servers would launch as scheduled, but no longer mediated through morphogenetic field technology. Instead, it would be an actual MMORPG running on the Beta Universe's local servers. Running on local servers in the Beta Universe, he could add exaggerated skills not found in reality to the base game, along with surreal-tier monsters that only appeared in the Void. Creating this game would be easy. Ideal City had a ton of game studios that could take on the job, and several of them were even founded by his little players. That way, new players could experience the expansions they had missed during the closed beta, while veteran players could revisit old storylines with a "nostalgia server" mindset and make up for past regrets. As for the Wasteland Online "closed beta server," it would be renamed the "Alpha Server." Functioning as a test server for the Beta Server, it would only be accessible to players who had obtained closed beta qualifications, players who had pre-registered during the closed beta phase, and outstanding virtual account holders from the Beta Server. In addition, silver coins and the existing technology transfer channels would only be tied to the Alpha Server. The Beta Server would utilize an entirely new in-game currency system, operating like a normal MMORPG. Although disclosing the truth might cause a certain degree of worldwide panic, in the long run, this seemed the closest thing to having the best of both worlds. A real world could never satisfy everyone's gaming experience, but a truly virtual world could! Besides, the wasteland could not accommodate hundreds of millions of players anyway. If open beta still required capping player numbers, it would not be any different from closed beta. The more Chu Guang thought about it, the more viable it seemed. Tapping his index finger lightly on the armrest, he looked at Xiao Qi and said: "Speaking of which, after the controlled fusion ignition, did anyone over in reality notice any clues... for instance, realizing that Wasteland Online is actually a real world?" Xiao Qi answered in a crisp voice: "Master, speculations like that have existed since the start of the Alpha test, but they never became mainstream. On the contrary, with the successful ignition of controlled nuclear fusion, the 'Adventists' who support the 'Friendly Contact Theory' have become the mainstream among middle- and high-level officials across various countries." "Furthermore, according to Xiao Qi's investigation, statements such as 'an advanced civilization enlightening Earth civilization through the medium of the ninth art' now appear in high-level government documents with an overwhelming advantage over the 'Hostile Observation Theory.' In some underdeveloped regions and smaller economies, authorities have even encouraged their citizens to visit the official Wasteland Online website to register reservations!" Considering the value of silver coins, such an occurrence was hardly surprising. After all, silver coins could genuinely be exchanged for technology. Even if a player did not have enough to trade for tech, they could still trade them to major powers for foreign currency. In every respect, it was far more reliable than mining cryptocurrency, and it did not consume much electricity either. It was not that Wasteland Online lacked foreign players; it was just that due to language and cultural barriers, both their player base and their post counts on the official forum remained relatively limited. "Is that so? Looks like the option of revealing the truth has some groundwork after all... What about Shelter 404-Beta? What's going on over there?" After unlocking the B5 level, Chu Guang had read through the complete Shelter 404 project. According to the project documents, Beta Fission could be regarded as the Professor reborn into the year 2014 with his complete memories intact. To build a massive shadow organization in the pre-Era of Prosperity era and carry out such a colossal plan behind the scenes in just seven short years, that guy was truly a remarkable talent. Of course, looking at Chu Guang—who had cleared "Wasteland Online" in merely five years—from the other man's perspective, the sentiment would likely be the same. Both had pushed things to the absolute limit in their respective domains. If they ever had the chance to meet face-to-face on the same timeline, they would probably feel a mutual respect for one another. Xiao Qi: "Beta Fission has already transferred Administrator authority to Shelter 404 of the Alpha Universe... which means our side. As for the Professor himself, he seems to intend to explore the world outside the Solar System. Supposedly, that was his original historical mission, and he intends to see it through." "A historical mission, is it... In terms of a sense of responsibility, he's cut from the exact same cloth as that guy." The "that guy" Chu Guang referred to was naturally the Alpha World's Professor who had died two hundred years ago and whom he had met once through video. Xiao Qi: "Hehe, he's also a lot like Master~" "Me? Not at all. I wouldn't exile myself outside the Solar System just for such a shallow reason." A faint smile curled at the corners of Chu Guang's lips. Although he dismissed the notion of being lumped together with that man, there was no disdain in his voice. That guy probably had other reasons. However, only the man himself knew, and there was no point in outsiders guessing. Seeing Chu Guang fall silent, Xiao Qi continued in her crisp voice: "Currently, Shelter 404-Beta's helmet production capacity has reached 3,000 units per day, with an inventory of nearly 200,000 units! In theory, we can immediately onboard 200,000 new players and maintain a rollout of up to 3,000 closed beta slots per day!" Chu Guang rubbed his chin with his index finger, contemplating. "If we distribute them at this rate, we can add at most one million players a year. Furthermore, considering the growing player count, maintaining the morphogenetic field devices will also become an issue... It seems the 'Alpha-Beta Server Split Resettlement' plan is imperative." "Server Split Resettlement Plan?" Xiao Qi expressed confusion at this unfamiliar term, but Chu Guang planned to explain it later. For now, there were more important matters at hand. "By the way, who is currently handling the operations over in the Beta Universe? Beta Fission?" Xiao Qi shook her head. "No... The person currently in charge is his assistant, a doctor named 'Yuan Li.'" Yuan Li? Hearing that distinctive name, Chu Guang was surprised as long-dormant memories surfaced. According to the records from the Great Rift Valley, after the Post-War Reconstruction Committee dissolved, Dr. Conclusion had led the core personnel of the Technical Department to the Wandering Marsh, while the other two figures regarded as founders by the Academy—"Yuan Li" and "Method"—had vanished directly from the wasteland. Later, he had found Dr. Method in Shelter 101, whereas Yuan Li's whereabouts had remained unknown all along. To think that guy had actually run off to the Beta World... "To think it was him."