Over the past few days, Chu Guang had enjoyed quite a run of good luck.
By the tenth day since the implementation of the Wartime Regulations, his little players had generated a total of 371 reward points for him—slightly exceeding his expectations.
Reasonably speaking, as midwinter persisted and blizzards raged nonstop, the players' range of activity should have shrunk.
Yet their daily quest completion rate hadn't dropped in the slightest.
Beyond being touched, Chu Guang was determined to put this wealth his little players had earned him to good use.
Considering he had enough medicine for now, aside from three advanced blind boxes, Chu Guang used the remaining 71 reward points to exchange for basic blind boxes.
It wasn't that he believed in superstition or rituals.
Rather, when he had done a single pull out of boredom earlier, he had actually opened a packet of high-yield rice seeds.
That was the second time he had drawn seeds from a blind box, following the cotton seeds.
Without hesitation, Chu Guang had immediately deployed that packet of seeds into a soilless farming unit that had just finished harvesting a batch of bok choy to begin breeding.
As for whether these pulled rice seeds yielded more than the rice seeds obtained for free from Floor B3, a comparison in time would tell.
Returning to the results of this lottery draw: while he hadn't pulled any seeds, the haul was still thoroughly delightful.
For those 71 reward points, setting aside 25 lollipops, 15 chocolate bars, and 8 tins of canned meat, there were actually ten 500-gram bags of salt, eight bottles of soy sauce, two bottles of vinegar, and three 3-jin bags of cornmeal.
While these supplies couldn't fundamentally resolve the food crisis, for the little players running shops, it was undoubtedly a blessing.
New seasonings were available!
An epic buff for life-profession players!
The other three advanced blind boxes hadn't disappointed Chu Guang either.
A set of Type 5 "Light Cavalry" exoskeleton, a Hummingbird drone, and a suit of carbon nanotube body armor.
To be honest, the shelter system's generosity this time was almost hard to believe.
Now he owned three Hummingbirds. While keeping watch over both the outpost and Changjiu Farm, he could even spare one to scout the wilderness.
After pondering for a moment, Chu Guang intended to put that set of Type 5 "Light Cavalry" exoskeleton on the NPC shop shelves.
Since the Type 5's performance parameters were more than double those of the Miner Type I across the board, Chu Guang simply added a zero to the Miner's price tag, pricing it at 20,000 silver.
As for the purchasing requirements:
Likewise, Awakened (LV10) + Citizen.
Just as Chu Guang was savoring the joy of a bountiful harvest and admiring the "Administrator perks" rolling off the conveyor belt, Xiao Qi's voice suddenly came through the wall speaker.
"Master, two more of your little players have reached LV10!"
"Two?"
Chu Guang started slightly, immediately opened the Administrator system, and switched to the player roster.
On the list, right behind two names, the gene sequence level clearly displayed the LV10 mark, and both had the same login status: "Locked for 5 hours."
"Fang Chang and Midnight Chicken Slaughter?"
It was actually these two fine gentlemen.
Midnight Chicken Slaughter's awakening was within expectations. The man had joined the game in its early stages, was a Strength-type, and was extraordinarily hardworking.
Chu Guang still remembered his feat of chopping down over two hundred trees in three days.
"Strength-types really are easier to level up."
"Agility-types seem to come next."
Currently, the highest-level Intelligence-type on the server was Kuang Feng, who had just reached LV9.
Ye Shi of the Perception-type had hovered at LV9 for a while now; he would probably awaken before long as well.
Thinking of this, Chu Guang felt a surge of emotion.
With his little players putting in so much effort, he had to work even harder himself!
Otherwise, people might think that Chu Guang's five months surviving alone in the wasteland had been for nothing, as if any random punk could waltz in and assassinate him.
What were they dreaming of?
Did someone think that typing console commands in a game made them invincible?
Never mind the "godly set" his players had ground out for him—with how slow the noobs' little limbs swung, sluggish as buzzing mosquitoes, he could strip off his gear and still thrash them hanging upside down.
Up to now, the only person on the entire server who had literally torn a Crawler apart with bare hands was Chu Guang himself. Shelter 404's overflowing martial prowess was no boast.
Still, maintaining a level advantage was very necessary.
Not entirely out of caution, but primarily out of consideration for the players' gaming experience.
After all, as everyone knew, the faction leader NPC in an MMORPG was always the highest level.
If the faction leader NPC was lower-level than the players, wouldn't the game feel too unrealistic?
...
Official forum:
Cut the Crap: "Day 10, brothers! Only 50 days left until winter ends!"
Elven King Fugui: "Giao! There are still 50 whole days?!"
Tail: "Since we can't go out to fight, let's have a snowball fight! (｀▽′)Ψ"
Sisi: "Ooh, that sounds nice."
Ye Shi: "Hahaha, wouldn't Strength-types be totally OP then? (funny face)"
Tail: "Doesn't matter, Tail is super fast!"
During the peak log-off hours.
Just as everyone was browsing the official website to share guides as usual, an announcement suddenly popped up on the forum.
[Server Announcement: Congratulations to player "Fang Chang" for becoming the server's first Agility-type LV10 player!]
[As this player chose to make the achievement public, it will be inducted into the Hall of Fame.]
The moment the announcement went up, the forum erupted.
Tail: "!! Someone is actually faster than Tail! w(°Д°)w"
Sisi: "Wake up, Tail. He's a Tier 0 top dog; what do you have to compare?"
Tail: "QAQ"
Elven King Fugui: "Damn it, filthy Beater! How is Elven King not the fastest?! (raving mad)"
Lightning King Professor Yang: "Fuck! Count every single one of you, you're all fucking Beaters, alright?! I haven't even gotten into the game! T.T"
Silver Hand: "Strongly demand the devs wipe all data once the closed beta launches! (voice cracking)"
Silver Sword: "Agreed! (voice cracking)"
Edge Slacker: "Get lost, don't even dream about it!"
Indebted Big Eye: "Exactly! Do you have any idea how hard Brother Slacker worked feeding kills?! (funny face)"
Edge Slacker: "Fuck off!"
Only on the matter of whether to wipe server data would active players and spectator gamers never reach a consensus.
Today was no different.
The two camps split down the middle, bickering endlessly over whether the alpha test data should be wiped clean.
Neither of the two newly Awakened showed their faces from beginning to end, presumably lying low to avoid the storm.
Lurking on the forum and skimming through the threads, Chu Guang wore an old fatherly smile.
A wipe?
Not a chance.
That was what legitimate gaming companies did, and when had he ever claimed to be a legitimate gaming company?
All these accounts belonged to him!
Still, early-access players had begun "awakening" one after another.
It was foreseeable that over the next two months, the players would experience a peak wave of awakenings.
Once winter passed, he might even be able to muster a whole company of Awakened.
With such individual combat prowess, as long as their equipment kept pace...
Just imagining it was thrilling!
...
No. 81 Steel Mill.
Production was in full swing, presenting a bustling scene wherever one looked.
With the mobilization under the Wartime Regulations, more and more refugees had joined the production workforce. The mill's workforce had expanded to ninety workers, divided into multiple workshops based on varying production tasks.
Workers who had already mastered the production techniques were promoted to foremen, leading inexperienced apprentices to learn how to operate the machinery and recycle the junk scavengers hauled back from the wasteland into the goods they needed.
At this moment, inside Workshop No. 1 of the No. 81 Steel Mill, a 20mm autocannon sat on display in the center of the floor.
It featured a box-type receiver structure with simple recoil buffers on both sides and an air-cooling jacket at the base of the barrel for heat dissipation.
The magazine sat directly behind the receiver near the trigger, making reloading convenient for the gunner—fully operable by a single person and extremely user-friendly.
To protect the gunner and the ammunition rack, mounting slots were reserved on the front of the receiver to install or weld a 20mm steel shield.
That thickness was sufficient to deflect the vast majority of bullets and explosive shrapnel, providing the gunner with a relatively safe firing position.
Standing beside Chu Guang, Brother Levin, one of the directors of the No. 81 Steel Mill, pitched it to him with immense pride:
"A 20mm caliber, a 1,500mm barrel, 1,300mm of rifling, and ten rounds per magazine—empty in less than five seconds! As you can see, this piece of equipment is guaranteed to be the nemesis of any helicopter!"
Brother Toilet Cable, standing on the other side, chimed in with equal excitement:
"That's right, Lord Administrator! Not just a helicopter killer—I dare say even Crawlers or mutants charging on the ground couldn't take a direct hit!"
And if by some miracle one did survive?
Hit it again!
"Taking varied combat needs into account, we also designed phosphorus incendiary rounds, steel-core armor-piercing rounds, and high-explosive shells! Sadly, we couldn't figure out proximity fuzes, and the impact-fuzed HE rounds have a tiny chance of duds, but it's no big deal!"
"Not bad. But isn't ten rounds per magazine a bit too few?" Examining the autocannon before him, Chu Guang wore an expression of keen interest.
As if anticipating the Administrator's question, Brother Levin chuckled.
"Not a problem! We can bundle four autocannons together and fire in staggered bursts! That makes forty rounds!"
Brother Toilet Cable quickly backed him up:
"Exactly! If that's not enough firepower, we can put them on an eight-barrel mount and tow it behind a truck!"
Chu Guang nodded approvingly.
Just then, however, he remembered something and asked, "Right, what about that 88mm gun you were working on earlier? Didn't you have a prototype? Why don't I see it?"
Apart from anti-aircraft firepower, he currently needed a sufficiently reliable fire support weapon.
And by support, he didn't mean Mosquito's Flying Guillotine rocket.
He meant the kind that could coordinate with frontline infantry to drop high explosives accurately right onto an enemy's head.
For some reason, upon hearing Chu Guang's words, both Brother Toilet Cable and Brother Levin wore subtly awkward expressions.
The latter coughed lightly and said, "That gun's muzzle velocity just wouldn't climb... We initially planned to convert it into a howitzer, but we never found the time. Then Mosquito came along, made an offer, and claimed he wanted to continue our research, so we bundled up all the unrifled barrel blanks and sold them to him."
At the mention of this, Brother Toilet Cable looked indignant. "Turns out he had no intention of continuing our research at all! I only found out later that he cut the barrels into short sections to make short-barreled 88mm mortars."
Brother Levin shook his head. "Utterly whimsical!"
Hearing that, Chu Guang was briefly taken aback.
Then he was rendered speechless.
Modifying an anti-aircraft gun into a mortar...
Could you even do that?!
...
The southern outskirts of Tianshui City.
The abandoned Beipo industrial zone.
Crumbling factories and derelict buildings stood everywhere, and concrete debris scattered across the ground lay as thick as the snow drifting from the sky.
Inside a workshop whose walls remained relatively intact:
Emaciated, rag-clad slaves hauled supplies from a warehouse into the factory floor under the watchful eyes of marauder overseers brandishing weapons and whips.
A massive vat was suspended here.
Filled to the brim with bubbling molten iron, it was fed constantly by slaves shoveling coal into the furnace chamber, making the entire room as sweltering as midsummer.
The adjoining workshop was equally scorching.
More than thirty iron anvils lined the spacious hall. Bare-chested slaves swung heavy hammers, pounding furiously at the red-hot castings resting on the anvils.
Once hot-forged, these crude castings were ferried to another workshop, where skilled craftsmen finished them using simple tools like rasps and files, after which porters carried them to the final workshop for assembly.
The overseers' gazes instilled primal terror in the slaves, making their calves tremble involuntarily.
Those eyes didn't look at them as humans.
They looked at meat on a butcher's block.
Yet being able to work here at least meant they wouldn't be eaten. Work hard and you survive... that was the "promise" the overseers gave them.
The survivors penned up in the dungeons fared far worse.
Only two fates awaited them:
Either become cannon fodder, or become rations.
And in winter, the latter was vastly more likely than the former.
In the second-floor office above the workshop, it was as warm as spring.
Behind a weathered desk sat an unkempt man in a leather jacket, dangling a wooden pipe from his mouth.
The smoke curling from the burning spirit leaf made him narrow his eyes in intoxicated pleasure.
His name was Black Snake, a chiliarch of the Bone Chewer tribe, ordered to lead a thousand-man unit south on a raiding expedition, only halted here by the heavy snow.
Though the Snake Clan he belonged to did not hold as high a status as the Fang Clan within the Bone Chewers, they were still considered direct bloodline. Every one of the nine centurions under his command was a battle-hardened, ruthless fighter.
Actually, there had been ten before.
However, the centurion named Ka had run into an ambush by local Qingquan City survivors on his way to establish an outpost, and was currently missing.
Black Snake didn't mourn a mere centurion—if he wished, he could promote another at any time.
What truly pained him was the loss of nearly a hundred and fifty brothers in that battle, along with nearly a hundred 100mm artillery shells and dozens of tons of rations.
Whenever he recalled it, rage flared within him.
Those profligate bastards!
They had actually dumped all his nutrient paste down the sewers and torched his dried rats and jerky!
Waste was shameful.
He swore he would reclaim every scrap of lost supplies from those people in full.
"Listen to the rhythm of that iron being struck, how wonderful it sounds... Once winter ends, we'll have equipment for two more hundred-man companies!"
By using nearly a thousand slaves, he had solved the logistics for fifteen hundred men.
These slaves served not only as labor, but also as food.
Black Snake felt he was nothing short of a genius.
Standing nearby, staff officer Vides watched him with a far less optimistic expression.
"This campaign should not be dragged out too long. You must have noticed that when your subordinates attacked the local survivor settlements, they encountered fierce resistance on both occasions... Clearly, those survivors have realized the danger, even formed an alliance, and relocated their peripheral settlements."
"Isn't that wonderful?"
Black Snake's eyes narrowed slightly, a wisp of smoke trailing from his nose as he continued, "Once they gather together, we can wipe them out in one fell swoop, sparing us the trouble of chasing them all over the place!"
Hearing this, Vides shook his head.
That thinking was far too idealistic!
He had learned earlier from Kevin that the survivors in Qingquan City's northern suburbs appeared to have mastered stamped receiver manufacturing.
That meant they could mass-produce reliable firearms and ammunition in a short span at minimal cost.
By contrast, his own side suffered from a lack of machinery and effective logistical support. Even if the slaves contributed a bit, frankly, their output was quite limited.
The longer this war was delayed, the more dangerous it would become for them!
Yet compared to Vides, Black Snake, as chiliarch, remained thoroughly optimistic.
"Relax, my friend."
"I know they might not be pushovers, but we have that."
100mm howitzers!
When a twenty-kilogram shell struck, not a blade of grass would survive within thirty meters, and half-meter-thick concrete fortifications would shatter like glass!
That terrifying firepower was enough to drive any survivor settlement under ten thousand people to despair!
And they had two of them.
Black Snake leisurely pinched more dried shreds of spirit leaf into his pipe; after all, there was nothing else to pass the time with this winter.
Just then, a knock came from outside the office.
Granted permission to enter, a marauder clad in a heavy fur coat walked in, snapped a sloppy, half-baked military salute, and droned in a muffled voice:
"Report!"
"Chiliarch Lion Fang sent a messenger with word that they have constructed infantry fortifications in Yuanxi Town. He invites you to join him and take part together in the spring hunt!"
"Yuanxi Town?"
Black Snake reflexively glanced at the map on the wall, but didn't spot the place.
Standing beside him, Vides spoke up to remind him:
"Yuanxi Town is directly north of Qingquan City, roughly ten kilometers from Qingquan City's Yumu District, and about twenty kilometers from the concrete fortifications built by those survivors in the northern suburbs."
Meanwhile, the southern outskirts of Tianshui City where they were currently located lay roughly northeast of Qingquan City.
Pausing for a moment, Vides fulfilled his duty as a staff officer and offered his counsel:
"The survivors in Qingquan City's northern suburbs are no easy prey. Concentrating our forces against them is a sound choice."
With two thousand-man units, the issues he worried about would vanish.
With so many men, sheer weight of numbers alone could bury the northern suburban survivors!
However, his superior clearly did not share that view...
"Why should we join forces with them? We can take the northern suburbs of Qingquan City on our own." Black Snake's eyes narrowed.
By marauder rules, whoever conquered a territory had the right to plunder it!
Teaming up with the Fang Clan meant getting only scraps of broth at best.
But if he took northern Qingquan City alone, he would feast on all the meat.
He had artillery, armor, and more than enough infantry. Dealing with a bunch of junk-scavenging ragpickers was well within his means.
Why share glory and plunder that belonged to him?
"Lion Fang may be a chiliarch like me, but they belong to the direct line. If we operate together, he outranks me by half a grade."
"The survivors in the northern suburbs are easy picking, but that Boulder City is a tough bone to chew. If we tag along with them, they might end up using us as cannon fodder."
Narrowing his venomous, serpent-like eyes, Black Snake continued unhurriedly:
"Not only will we not march alongside them, but we must also beat them to the punch—taking down the prey with one lethal strike in the shortest possible time!"
A look of resignation crossed Vides's face.
He knew all too well that when it came to strategic decisions, this man would never listen to him.
Most marauders were the same: their eyes saw only plunder, driven into battle by innate barbarism and ferocity, nothing more.
Even if the Bone Chewers seemed a bit more organized or eccentric, at their core they were no different.
A dog could never break its habit of eating shit.
Watching Vides lapse into silence, Black Snake offered an easy chuckle and comforted him:
"Relax, my friend. I'm not underestimating our opponents. I made this assessment only after learning about their strength from the brothers who retreated from the front line."
He still held genuine respect for this strategist who had helped him win numerous battles.
Had it been anyone else questioning him like this, the grass on their grave would already be twenty feet tall.
"Want a puff? You're no longer with the Legion; there's no need to bind yourself to their regulations. With us, you can enjoy all the wealth and pleasures you desire."
Looking at the pipe Black Snake offered, Vides shook his head.
"No thanks. I need to keep a clear head at all times."
Men of the Legion did not smoke.
At most, they drank alcohol.
For him, gold, fine women, and good liquor were all he needed.
Black Snake waved his pipe with a grin.
"That's just what it does. Spirit leaf sharpens your wits a hundredfold. But if you don't like it, forget it."
Leaning back against his chair, Black Snake looked at him and said, "I need you to draw up a plan to help me win this war in the shortest time possible."
Vides pondered for a moment before speaking.
"How about mid-January?"
"By then, the blizzards should have mostly subsided, and weather conditions shouldn't be too severe. We can hit them with a surprise before spring begins."
Right as winter broke, those survivors were unlikely to have prepared extensive defenses; the harsh winter affected everyone equally, defenders and attackers alike.
Black Snake snapped his fingers.
"We'll do as you say!"
Chapter 216