The "black box" was borrowed by Yin Fang for research.
Considering how cramped Floor B2 was, Chu Guang found a slightly more spacious private room on Floor B1 to lend him as a laboratory-cum-"operating room."
However, Chu Guang soon discovered that this fellow hadn't just moved his personal belongings in—he had hauled his bed and bedding in as well.
From the looks of it, he intended to eat, sleep, and live at his workstation.
Confronted with this situation, Chu Guang, in his role as Administrator, spent a few seconds in deep self-reflection.
It was clear that his little players had indeed caused Dr. Yin no small amount of distress.
Even so, Chu Guang still felt Yin Fang's actions were rather redundant.
After all, as long as he still planned on heading down to Sector A on Floor B2 to eat, drink, and use the bathroom, running into players who took an interest in him would be practically unavoidable.
"Why bother?"
Trying too hard to avoid those energetic players only made them fixate on him more. Chu Guang was all too experienced in that regard.
*Hopefully Dr. Yin can adapt to his new life soon.*
Offering a silent wish of good luck, Chu Guang noticed the hour was growing late, so he got up and headed toward the market by the outpost's north gate.
As the newcomers of the Alpha 0.8 version gradually got the hang of the gameplay, a number of interesting new stalls had recently opened in the market.
For example, one selling ramen, and another selling fried rice.
The former was operated by a player using his real name as his ID. Word had it that his meat was sliced thinner than paper and his noodles were pulled as thin as data cables—thoroughly authentic.
The latter wasn't a newcomer; he was said to be an apprentice of [Scrambled Eggs with Tomatoes], going by the ID [Hot and Sour Shredded Potatoes], which was also a name that sounded quite appetizing.
However, due to the outpost's shortage of supplies, there were neither eggs nor Lao Gan Ma. Even though this brother tossed the wok with great fervor, it always felt like it lacked soul. Chu Guang had tried it once and hadn't gone back for more.
Seeing Chu Guang take a seat in front of his stall, Zhang Hai was so pleasantly surprised that he nearly sliced his own finger.
"Lord Administrator, what can I get for you?"
An NPC!
And the Administrator, no less!
Could he be triggering a hidden quest?!
Chu Guang had long grown accustomed to the newcomers' exaggerated reactions and paid it no mind.
Taking a seat at a wooden table, he said, "A bowl with meat."
"Coming right up!"
Before long, the ramen was served at his table.
White steam drifted upward, carrying the mingled aroma of noodles and meat, instantly whetting his appetite. The meat in the bowl nearly covered the noodles entirely, which didn't quite match the rumors.
Just as Chu Guang was about to take a bite, clamoring broke out nearby.
"Damn it! What a rip-off! Why do I only get this tiny bit of meat?"
"Yeah! That's way too damn little!"
"I strongly suspect this dog took all the meat from our bowls and dumped it into the Administrator's!"
Hearing his customers loudly grumbling, Zhang Hai remained entirely unfazed. Without even bothering to put on an act, he buttered up the NPC with righteous shamelessness.
"What are you shouting about? Are you an NPC? Can you give me a hidden quest? Can you boost me from Tier 5 to Tier 0?"
The players: "%#@!"
"..."
To keep the players from turning their grievances onto him, Chu Guang decided to pretend he hadn't heard a thing and concentrated on eating his noodles.
With the end of the month approaching, the weather grew colder by the day.
Yet the market at the north gate became livelier each passing day.
Everything was steadily improving.
The only slight disappointment was that Yaya's mushroom stall seemed to have shut down; Chu Guang hadn't seen her open for business for several days running.
What a shame.
Chu Guang had actually been quite fond of the mushroom soup brewed by that little player.
*I hope this damn winter ends soon!*
...
After dinner.
Returning to the shelter, Chu Guang first washed his face, then exchanged the 200 reward points he had earned from completing side quests for two advanced blind boxes.
Perhaps because he had washed his face, the rewards from the blind boxes unexpectedly did not disappoint.
Aside from an EMP grenade, he had actually pulled another set of Type 5 "Light Cavalry" light police exoskeleton!
"Holy crap! Washing my face actually worked?!" Looking at the equipment lying on the conveyor belt, Chu Guang beamed with pleasant surprise.
To tell the truth, before opening these two blind boxes, he had been somewhat pessimistic.
After all, not long ago he had drawn a second Hummingbird drone. From a superstitious standpoint, suffering a few bad rolls would only have been reasonable.
Yet the system had refused to play by the book, tossing him an SSR right off the bat.
Chu Guang figured it had to be because he liked doing good deeds on ordinary days.
His luck was simply absurd!
After retrieving the exoskeleton from the conveyor belt, Chu Guang originally intended to put it up for sale in Boss Xia's weapon shop.
However, after a few seconds of thought, he dismissed the idea.
The reason was simple.
Up to this point, apart from the one Miner Type I exoskeleton given away in the lottery, not a single one of the nine listed in the shop had been sold.
It wasn't just because of the purchase threshold requiring a "Citizen Contribution Level and Player Level LV10," but also because of the equipment's price tag.
2,000 silver coins.
The number of players across the entire server who could scrounge up that much money could be counted on one hand.
Furthermore, as police equipment from pre-war society, the Type 5 "Light Cavalry" exoskeleton outperformed the Enterprise-designed Miner Type I in every metric, not to mention its built-in composite ballistic armor. Its price couldn't possibly be lower than the Miner Type I, could it?
If taken to the Enterprise on the East Coast, this pre-war gear could be traded for at least five sets of the Miner Type I, to say the very least!
"The price in silver coins can be discussed later. The Miner Type I is Level 10 gear, while top-tier stuff like the Type 5... ought to require at least Level 15 or Level 20 to make sense.
"Before the lower-tier gear has even sold, putting higher-tier gear on the shelves serves no purpose other than letting it gather dust."
In that case, he might as well hand it over to the guard corps for NPCs who had duty requirements to use first.
Without disrupting the game balance of *Wasteland OL*, this was the best way Chu Guang could think of to let the equipment realize its proper value.
Glancing at his remaining single-digit reward points, Chu Guang casually tossed them all into basic blind boxes.
However, his earlier burst of good luck seemed to have exhausted his fortune; nothing good came out this time—nothing but lollipops.
And they were the ordinary kind with no stat buffs.
Even so, Chu Guang didn't mind.
One shouldn't be too greedy.
Pulling a set of exoskeleton was already a massive win!
With the blind boxes finished and the players' peak log-off hours approaching, Chu Guang originally planned to lurk on the forum for a bit. Yet just as he sat down in front of the computer, a pale blue pop-up window appeared before his eyes.
[System: Player "Fleeting White Horse" has reached 10% gene sequence development progress.]
Huh?
"A player has already hit Level 10?"
Chu Guang was pleasantly surprised. He immediately pulled up the player list and spotted Lao Bai's user number at a glance.
"Xiao Qi, pull up this player's stat panel for me!"
The speaker on the wall responded at once.
"Understood, Master!"
Shortly after, a table appeared on the computer screen atop the desk.
[
ID: Fleeting White Horse
Gene Sequence: Strength-type (Stage 2)
Level: LV9 → LV10
—Base Attributes—
Strength: 12 → 17
Agility: 6 → 7
Endurance: 6 → 7
Perception: 6 → 7
Intelligence: 4 → 5
]
[
Talent:
Limit Break (Strength-type): Break beyond physical limits for 0.5–3 seconds, gaining a 150%–200% Strength attribute bonus. Fatigue accumulation rate: 200%–400%. Cooldown: 30s–1min.
]
Staring at the stat panel, Chu Guang rubbed his chin with great interest.
"Strength-type awakening grants 5 points to the primary attribute and 1 point to all others... These panel stats are quite impressive."
In particular, that 17 points in Strength was already equal to his own!
And that "Limit Break" granted up to a 200% Strength bonus for a short duration, turning 17 Strength into 34 in a flash?
Although its brief duration was a drawback, for a melee player, victory or defeat was decided in an instant anyway.
To achieve strength rivaling a mutant within a human body for a brief period was already terrifyingly powerful!
Chu Guang had no doubt whatsoever that his little players would come up with all sorts of crazy tricks with this skill.
"Awakening takes six to eight hours, during which the clone cannot be awakened... It seems my guess was correct: level-ups happen during sleep."
Perhaps because bodies grew during sleep?
Chu Guang noticed that incubation pods could accelerate the process to some extent.
In addition, once a clone awakened, the active substance required for resurrection increased from 1 unit to 2 units. The cooldown, however, remained unchanged at 72 hours.
After sorting through the data gathered from Lao Bai, Chu Guang selectively updated the official website's database.
Hopefully, this information would provide some reference for his players.
...
Ten o'clock at night.
After finishing tidying up his new room, Yin Fang came to the Administrator's Office once more to find Chu Guang.
"Could you give me a few more VMs? Twenty would be enough."
Hearing this bizarre request, Chu Guang paused for a moment and looked at Yin Fang.
"What do you need so many VMs for?"
Although Floor B2 had a reserve of nearly a thousand VMs, there were currently five hundred players, which averaged out to less than two per person.
Even without accounting for natural losses from accidents, NPCs also needed VMs to issue quests and communicate with players.
While Chu Guang hadn't faced a VM shortage yet, the stockpile was nowhere near abundant enough to be squandered at will.
"Though I'd prefer a professional workstation computer, you clearly don't have one here," Yin Fang continued, glancing at the retro-styled "suitcase-type" computer on the desk. "The processing power of a VM's processor is a bit weak, but with some modifications, it'll work. If twenty of them are daisy-chained together, it can barely meet my work requirements."
Chu Guang shook his head and said, "Twenty VMs is too many! If it's computing power you need, the shelter's server has plenty. I can allocate some to you—how does that sound?"
Yin Fang's eyes lit up. "That would be ideal! Even so, I still need a few VMs to serve as monitors and an operating interface—"
"Three," Chu Guang held up three fingers. "Is that enough?"
Looking at those three fingers, Yin Fang scratched the back of his head with a headache.
"I'm not sure... To be honest, this is my first time trying to DIY a makeshift workstation like this. At the Academy, all personnel ranked D-class and above have their own independent laboratories where they can carry out equipment modifications and sample analysis—"
"Then I'm truly sorry, but conditions here are what they are, so I'll have to trouble you to make do." Chu Guang cleared his throat lightly and looked at him seriously before continuing, "However, I promise you that I'll have my people keep an eye out while scavenging. If they find usable electronic equipment, it'll be brought to you immediately. As for VMs... that's all I can give you for now. If it's really not enough, let me know."
"We're in the startup phase after all, right?" Yin Fang gave a helpless shrug, showing he had no objection.
He was well aware of Shelter 404's difficulties.
This place was so barren it was as if thieves had cleaned it out. He had never seen such an impoverished three-digit shelter. Leaving aside basic amenities like a medical station, it didn't even have an automated kitchen; food had to be hauled in from outside!
It was truly tough on the residents here. Every last one of them was a paragon of labor, optimistic to an inhuman degree.
If it were any other shelter, the Administrator forcing them to eat mutated food alone would probably have been enough to spark a rebellion.
Carrying the three VMs he had received from Chu Guang, Yin Fang was about to walk out the door when Chu Guang suddenly remembered something and called out to stop him.
"By the way."
Stopping at the doorway, Yin Fang looked back. "What is it?"
Chu Guang continued, "If I wanted to refuel the shelter's reactor, where should I look for fuel rods?"
Hearing this unexpected question, Yin Fang froze for a second, then recoiled in shock once it registered.
"What do you mean? Your shelter is out of fuel?!"
Chu Guang coughed and said, "Not my shelter, one that I... picked up recently."
Even so, Chu Guang had no clear idea how much power was left in Shelter 404 either.
To this day, he had not yet unlocked the floor where the reactor was located. Even if he wanted to refuel the shelter, there was nowhere to put it, so he could only hope that the shelter's current energy consumption rate remained within the first-generation manager's projections.
If it all ended in a GAME OVER due to a power outage, that would be utterly tragic!
Hearing Chu Guang's explanation, Yin Fang breathed a sigh of relief. Pausing briefly, he continued:
"Fuel rods for shelters aren't easy to find. After all, the original intention of the Shelter Project was never to keep survivors underground forever. Some shelters would even gradually shut down life support systems after unsealing, or adjust full-circulation systems to semi-circulation, in order to urge the residents to return to the surface and join reconstruction efforts."
Chu Guang furrowed his brows. "Meaning there's no way?"
"Not necessarily," Yin Fang shook his head. "As far as I know, the organization that designed the reactors for shelters in the Mid-Continent region was Mid-Continent Aerospace. In terms of specifications, those reactors share the same model as the 'Gonggong' series space stations and N-series spacecraft."
Chu Guang couldn't help but say, "I can't go up into space to find that stuff."
Yin Fang nodded. "Indeed, recovering fuel rods from outer space is unrealistic; conditions up there aren't much better than on the ground, and might even be worse. However, while we can't go into outer space, we can search for inventory that was never sent up. Besides that, research institutions affiliated with Mid-Continent Aerospace should also have these fuel rods... I heard their backup generators used similar models."
Chu Guang stared at him with bright eyes. "Do you have a good plan?"
Yin Fang hesitated. "I can't guarantee anything, but we can give it a shot... If we can obtain the production data and product serial numbers from Mid-Continent Aerospace or its subordinate factories, we should be able to pinpoint some usable fuel rods."
If he remembered correctly, there should be such facilities in the southern part of River Valley Province.
Furthermore, usable electronic equipment ought to be found there, which was precisely what Yin Fang urgently needed right now.
Hearing this, Chu Guang sprang up from his office chair with a whoosh. Overjoyed, he walked up to him and placed both hands on his shoulders.
"I leave it to you!"
Faced with such an ardent gaze, Yin Fang froze, speaking with little confidence. "I can only say I'll do my best..."
It was now Year 211 of the Wasteland Era, preceded by a three-year war. Across these two-plus centuries, anything could have happened.
Even the sanatorium on the surface of Shelter 404 had been visited by scavengers more than once—it was just that no one had discovered a shelter hidden beneath that seemingly broken elevator.
If they could secure fuel rods, not only could the quest associated with Vault 117 be completed, but the potential energy crisis of Shelter 404 would also be resolved.
Killing two birds with one stone!
In high spirits, Chu Guang waved his hand and promptly allocated a "huge sum" of 10,000 silver coins to the fuel rod recovery project.
Searching for fuel rods compatible with the shelter reactor would become the first mission of Shelter 404's scientific expedition team.
As head of the expedition team, Yin Fang could use this budget to recruit players to explore targets or post public bounties.
At the same time, however, Chu Guang cautioned him not to spend the money all at once; sometimes offering too much wasn't necessarily a good thing.
The specific methods for utilizing the budget, as well as the baseline reward settings for various quest tiers, were detailed in the *Shelter Resident Handbook (NPC Edition)*.
This was required reading for every NPC taking up a post in Shelter 404.
If there were any doubts regarding a clause, one could click the question mark icon on the handbook page in the VM to ask the Administrator's Assistant, "Xiao Qi." Online twenty-four hours a day, Xiao Qi would answer every query.
However, just like when Boss Xia had first arrived, Dr. Yin felt nothing toward things like silver coins, using the opportunity to complain instead.
"You're still using metal currency? Don't you find that troublesome?"
Chu Guang said dismissively, "Metal currency has its own benefits. The clinking of coins makes people work harder, and tangible, visible money is easier for strangers to accept... Still, I've recently been considering switching to a more convenient currency system. Go tend to your own matters; you don't need to worry about this issue. I'll handle it."
After Dr. Yin left.
Sitting before the computer, Chu Guang switched back to his role as game developer and logged into the backend of the official *Wasteland OL* website.
When he previously unsealed Vault 117, Chu Guang had only recovered the power armor, Dr. Principle's briefcase, and the administrator's VM; many areas had yet to be thoroughly explored.
At present, two quests remained in his quest log.
One was refuel the reactor of Vault 117, which would grant Administrator privileges over Vault 117 upon completion.
The other was triggered by Dr. Principle's videotape.
Namely: carry a VM and explore all areas of Vault 117, which would unlock Floor B3 of Shelter 404 upon completion!
Chu Guang had already entrusted the task of finding fuel rods to Yin Fang.
As for the latter quest, current exploration progress stood at 21%. Chu Guang intended to leave the rest to his little players.
The mutants at the shelter entrance had already been dealt with, so mapping out the area wasn't particularly difficult. It was the perfect opportunity to hand out some benefits to his players.
Having made up his mind, a smile crept onto Chu Guang's face. Placing his hands on the keyboard, he began assigning "tomorrow's" homework to his little players:
[Announcement: Player "Fleeting White Horse" has reached Level 10, becoming the first Strength-type player to achieve 10% gene sequence development progress!]
[Announcement: A new version is on the horizon! The non-time-limited event "Our Neighbor" will officially begin tonight at 19:00!]
[Event Details: Carry a VM to tour Vault 117 and check in at all locations. Reach 100% exploration progress to receive a mysterious grand reward!]
[Note: This event has no time limit. Anyone possessing a VM may participate. To avoid traffic congestion, players are advised to travel during off-peak hours!]
Chapter 184