[New Expansion: "Swords into Plowshares"]
[Overview: The bitter winter draws to a close, and the season of rebirth approaches. We now enter the critical window for spring plowing and agricultural preparations. Only by securing next year's food supply can we awaken more fellow compatriots to the surface and advance to the next phase of our work.]
[Details: Starting today, Wasteland OL introduces a series of quests featuring farming, management, and related elements. Players may accept them via VM or by speaking with NPCs such as Luka, Guo Niu, and Guo Ma. Completing quests tagged with the expansion label awards event points.
Upon the expansion's conclusion, these points can be used for lotteries or redeemed for expansion-exclusive titles, special rewards, and agricultural land!]
Happiness had arrived all too suddenly.
Without the slightest forewarning—not even a promotional trailer—the Alpha 1.0 version and the new expansion landed abruptly on the official Wasteland OL website's announcement board.
At practically the exact moment the announcement went live, the players lingering on the site to share their daily adventures and the regular internet trolls erupted in an uproar!
In less than a minute, hundreds of comments flooded the thread below the announcement.
Tail: "!!!"
Jieyan: "New expansion?! Awesome!"
Makka Pakka: "Swords into Plowshares?! Event points can be exchanged for land?! Holy crap, my DNA is tingling!!"
Spare the Blade: "Life-skill players rejoice!"
Tengteng: "Wuwuwu, finally an expansion for life-skill players! I couldn't help out with combat at all. QAQ"
Yaya: "Don't worry! Leave the fighting to Yaya; Tengteng, you just focus on making pretty clothes! (＠≥︶≤＠)"
Ye Shi: "Pardon me for asking, but has Boss Ya ever been to the front lines? (Doge)"
Yaya: "??? Have you no manners?"
Indebted Big Eye: "Wait a minute. Between the first two expansions, 'Winter Is Coming' and 'Land Voyager,' which one didn't have life-skill players as the meta answer!?"
I'm the Darkest: "Exactly! Don't you dare try rewriting history! Combat players need expansions too! (Rage)"
Battlefield Atmosphere Group: "I beg you, devs, spawn another wave of marauders! I just saved up for an exoskeleton and spent a fortune bulletproofing it, only to be told those marauders ran off! T.T"
Commander Spring: "If you'd known, you would've spent that money on a tractor, right? Good thing I saved my silver. (Smirk)"
Ye Shi: "I suggest the next expansion be The Burning Crusade. I think we can totally take Xizhou City and help Big Sister Tengteng break into the northern market. (Doge)"
Elaina: "Open the door, free trade? Though I doubt the marauders over there can afford clothes. (Doge)"
Lightning King Professor Yang: "Tsk, you guys are still too young. Just because they're poor doesn't mean they lack surplus value. Can't afford it? Easy—go build a few plantations, send them in to pick cotton, and once they've got jobs, they'll surely be able to afford clothes, right? (Grin)"
Ye Shi: "Holy crap, my understanding of the meta is actually worse than an armchair gamer's?!"
Lao Bai: "Come work at our brick factory; we'll hire you as factory director. (Smirk)"
Lightning King Professor Yang: "Sigh, it's a long, tearful story. T.T"
Chu Guang glanced over the comments beneath the announcement and found that the players' enthusiasm for the new version and expansion was sky-high.
Many players were already sharing vegetable-growing tips on the forum, while the more hardcore among them posted blueprints for agricultural machinery.
Although most of these threads eventually derailed into humblebrags about how many mu of farmland people's families owned in the real world, a good deal of valuable experience remained.
He was confident it would come in handy during the upcoming spring plowing.
If the in-game avatars didn't require sleep and the players didn't have real-world jobs to attend to, eight out of ten would probably have strapped on their helmets and rushed online to start working already.
Meanwhile, the fresh recruits who had secured closed-beta access revelled in their joy, posting acceptance speeches one after another.
As for the armchair gamers who hadn't won access...
Chu Guang felt bad for them, but there was nothing to be done.
He truly was the game developer—no lie there.
Unfortunately, the game was not an actual game. Even a wish-granting machine like the "black box" required electricity and materials to manufacture hibernation pods, and its maximum output was only twenty-four units per day.
Something that didn't exist couldn't be conjured out of thin air.
Right now, reservations were nearing a hundred thousand, yet only three hundred incubation pods remained in total. Even if Chu Guang cracked open all those tin cans, the players' odds of winning a spot would be a mere 0.3 percent.
Bringing everyone into the game at once was impossible.
Furthermore, when the number of immigrants exceeded the carrying capacity of a society, it wasn't necessarily a good thing.
Just like the wasteland refugees, if they couldn't be absorbed in a short period, they would instead turn into disruptors of existing order, becoming obstacles to development.
This was one reason why most multiplayer games on Steam became unplayable whenever a sale or free week arrived.
After browsing the trending threads, Chu Guang pondered for a moment and updated the Developer Log as usual.
Though the players were all hardworking, to help them better enjoy the game and appease the combat-oriented players who felt abandoned by the meta, Chu Guang felt it necessary to speak with them in his capacity as the developer about this brand-new version.
Guang: "Hello everyone, this is your dearest developer, Ah Guang. The planning department had a peaceful month, and no one was sacrificed this time, though that's beside the point. What matters is that after working overtime through the entire winter, we've finally achieved the Alpha 1.0 version!
"Thank you to all our closed-beta players for your continued hard work and support, to the programmers working themselves bald on overtime, and to the NPCs risking life and limb tightening bolts on the assembly lines. Without your tireless dedication, we could never have reached where we are today.
"Game development is no easy task, especially for an epoch-making game like this. We are currently in, and will long remain in, the primary stage of game development.
"Building a utopian virtual community is no small feat; it demands our collective effort. It might take a long time—perhaps three years, perhaps five—but we promise it won't take longer than our neighbors' Pie Citizen, Elder Scrolls VI, or the heavenly GTA VI, and we guarantee we will never put an unfinished product on the shelf just to fleece our players and run.
"I'm sure many of you have noticed that the content of this new expansion focuses primarily on 'management.'
"Through this approach, we hope to establish a near-realistic economic system. We want every player and NPC to play different roles within this simulated reality, take on different divisions of labor, and become builders of this virtual community.
"This may sound idealistic, but we believe it is well worth the attempt."
...
The next morning.
Before dawn had even broken, a large crowd of players surged eagerly toward Changjiu Farm, gathering in a dense throng before the warehouse doors.
Looking at the shelter residents gathered outside the warehouse, Luka, who had only just woken up, thought something terrible had happened and stood there dumbfounded.
"Is there anything you need help with?"
"To be blunt, I'm here for quests!"
"Fields! Where are the fields?"
"My hoe is already thirsting for action!"
Although Luka didn't understand a word they were saying, he quickly realized this was likely arranged by the Administrator.
He immediately checked his VM.
Sure enough, it was!
These shelter residents had all come to help!
After reading through the Administrator's instructions, Old Luka was touched and looked at the players crowded before the warehouse with newfound warmth.
Such a spirit of selflessness and diligence made it impossible not to feel respect.
With a solemn and serious tone, Old Luka spoke.
"We must sow the seeds in spring. Before we can plant them, we must clear the weeds from the fields, level the ground, drive off the mutants active in this area, and destroy their nests.
"Thank you. We are short on hands right now, and you could not have arrived at a better time!
"Please take your tools and follow me!"
With that, Old Luka led the way, bringing the players to the open ground west of Changjiu Farm.
The terrain here was relatively flat and close to the warehouse, making it comparatively easy to reclaim.
In the Administrator's plans, this land was collectively owned by the shelter. It would later be farmed by hired laborers, and the harvested grain would enter the granary as a strategic reserve to stabilize market prices.
Further west lay the land planned for leasing to private individuals, and beyond that was the area designated for prisoners of war to reclaim.
Upon arriving at the destination, specific reclamation quests quickly refreshed on the players' VMs, with the map marking the areas assigned to each player or team.
For every mu of arable land cleared, one would receive 100 event reward points.
Once the expansion ended, spending as few as 300 event points would allow a player to exchange for a mu of their own land, upon which they could grow whatever they wished, provided the land's purpose remained unchanged.
Spending a few more points even allowed one to purchase fertile plots along the banks of Ling Lake.
Under the allure of land ownership, the players' enthusiasm for reclamation reached unprecedented heights.
Watching their farming skill proficiencies tick steadily upward made many of them work with even greater vigor.
Using Awakened individuals to plow the fields.
Such a luxury was unique across the entire Qingquan City region.
Even so, reclaiming wasteland was no simple matter.
First came clearing the weeds.
Ordinary grass was manageable enough, but when encountering shrubs and old tree roots, one had to saw, smash, and dig the roots out completely.
Weeding alone was not enough; the land also had to be leveled.
This involved digging up high ground, carrying the earth in baskets to fill the depressions, building field ridges, and hauling chemical fertilizer or manure to heap across the fields.
Once spring truly arrived, the soil would need a deep plowing to break apart the large clods, sift out buried concrete rubble and non-biodegradable trash, and set up fences around the perimeter to prevent critters from ruining the wheat seeds.
Fortunately, Qingquan City lay in the plains. For an ordinary survivor family working together, clearing two or three mu over an entire autumn was considered quite good.
Yet that was in autumn.
If one were unfortunate enough to hit a harsh winter, where snow fell just after the harvest, it became pure agony.
Forget the unmelted snow—even where the snow had cleared, the soil beneath remained frozen solid.
Striking down with a mattock left only a white scratch, as if hitting a brick wall. Aside from jarring one's hands painfully, it produced no effect at all.
Thus, reclaiming land in winter required more than mere hoes; one had to switch to pickaxes meant for breaking rock and chip away by force.
It could be called remarkably realistic.
...
Toward evening.
Sitting by the edge of a field ridge with an iron pickaxe and a hoe across his shoulder, Ye Shi panted heavily.
"Damn it all. A guy like me, who begs his roommates to fetch takeout and only takes out the trash if it's on my way, actually did farm work for a whole damn day!"
A Perception-type's initial strength was typically 5, reaching 7 after awakening—equivalent to 140 percent of an average adult male, slightly better than an Intelligence-type.
Even so, it had exhausted him thoroughly.
The fatigue debuff had already appeared on his VM, and both his arms and legs felt heavy as lead.
If this were reality, it wouldn't just be exhaustion; his muscles would probably be screaming in agony by now!
On the flip side, the day hadn't been without its rewards.
He had cleared a whole mu of land all by himself, boosting his farming skill proficiency straight to Level 2—just one level away from unlocking the first achievement under the farming skill tree.
Shouldering his hoe, Lao Bai, who was equally worn out, caught his breath and said, "I've done farm work before, but I've never used tools this primitive."
He was likely the most capable member of the Ox and Horse Squad, having cleared three mu on his own.
That was roughly five times the efficiency of ordinary refugees!
Ye Shi shot him a curious look. "By the way, Lao Bai, what do you actually do in real life? How do you know how to fire bricks, burn charcoal, and do farm work?"
Lao Bai chuckled. "Didn't I mention it before? My hometown is in the countryside. When I was a kid, I'd occasionally help out with chores. It doesn't have much to do with my life now; hardly anyone back home farms anymore, and I'd nearly forgotten it all. But experiencing it again brings back some nostalgia."
Ye Shi uttered an "oh, oh" and nodded half-comprehendingly.
Having grown up in the city, he knew little of such things.
Walking over to sit beside him, Kuang Feng wiped his sweat, gazed at the fruits of their labor, and narrowed his eyes. "We can't go on like this. Doing it this way, who knows how long it'll take... We have to improve our tools."
Fang Chang nodded in agreement. "Indeed. Sharpening the axe doesn't delay the woodcutter. If we keep slogging like this, we might not even clear ten mu by the end of the month."
Ye Shi looked at the two of them. "Do you guys have any good ideas?"
Fang Chang and Kuang Feng exchanged a glance, and the latter nodded. "Wait three more days. A friend of mine just got closed-beta access; he should be able to help out by then."
Ye Shi asked curiously, "Who? Guy or girl? What kind of friend?"
Kuang Feng couldn't be bothered to entertain him.
Pausing briefly, he continued, "Professor Wang from the neighboring engineering academy. His field is mechanical engineering and automation.
"When it comes to applied knowledge, he knows far more than I do."
...
Two days had passed since the launch of the new expansion.
At present, at least two-thirds of the eight hundred players across the server were participating in land reclamation.
As for the remaining third, even if they had no interest in "100% realistic farming" and didn't care to grind farming proficiency, they still supported the reclamation work indirectly through other means.
Take No. 81 Steel Mill, for example.
In just two days, by using molds for casting, they produced five hundred sets of steel structural components for agricultural tools.
After small workshops in the industrial zone rushed to fit wooden handles onto the hoes, pickaxes, and other implements, the first batch was swiftly delivered to the front lines, replacing the inefficient, low-quality wooden and stone tools.
Another example was WC Really Has Mosquitoes.
Brother Mosquito had come through once again.
He had slightly modified the Hell's Breath, increased the output power of its locomobile, and assembled a makeshift tractor.
Not only could it haul cargo, but he had also attached a harrow behind it for tilling.
That contraption had proven to be a massive help.
However, Mosquito wasn't entirely generous. Seeing that no one would buy it at the price of 2,000 silver coins, he immediately launched a rental service.
Ten silver coins for an hour, or fifty silver coins for a full day.
The players cried foul at the rip-off, but to boost their efficiency, they bit the bullet and paid up.
Seeing how easily money was made, No. 81 Steel Mill next door immediately began reverse-engineering it, producing a prototype of their own and advertising a daily rental rate of just forty silver coins.
Chu Guang placed an order of ten units with each enterprise at 2,000 silver coins apiece, requiring delivery by the end of the month.
Completing the order also yielded 5,000 points of regional reputation for Changjiu Farm and 500 contribution points.
Faced with orders worth 20,000 silver coins, Mosquito and the two directors of Mill No. 81 promptly promised Chu Guang that they would work overtime to deliver the equipment as soon as possible.
In addition to the quests aimed at life-skill players, there were also quests geared toward combat players.
These included hunting mutant wild boars, destroying hyena dens, building fences, and so forth.
On the evening of the expansion's second day.
Outside the Changjiu Farm warehouse.
Facing Chu Guang, who had come to inspect the work, Luka excitedly reported on the progress of the reclamation.
"My Lord, in the past forty-eight hours, your residents have cleared one thousand mu of wasteland!
"At this rate, we won't even need until the end of the month—in fifteen days at most, we'll reach our target of ten thousand mu!"
As he spoke, Luka's face beamed with incredulous joy.
He had originally assumed the shelter residents wouldn't adapt to such high-intensity labor, but to his surprise, they were far more capable than he had imagined. In just two days, they had completed a tenth of the projected goal.
According to the Administrator's plan, the first batch of planned farmland spanned thirty thousand mu.
Ten thousand mu would be reclaimed by the shelter residents, while the remaining twenty thousand would be divided equally between the prisoners of war and the refugees.
At this rate, this year's land reclamation might even exceed the target!
Though the seeds had yet to be sown, he could already picture the sea of gold stretching for miles and granaries filled to the brim!
Chu Guang, however, wasn't surprised by Luka's report.
Mainly because he had never worked the fields himself and had little sense of how difficult reclamation truly was.
"One thousand mu... calculated across six hundred people, that's an average of 0.8 mu per person per day?"
Stroking his chin, Chu Guang pondered for a moment. "Is that considered fast or slow?"
"My Lord, that is already exceptionally fast!"
Hearing the Administrator's humblebrag, Old Luka broke into a sweat and explained, "Reclaiming wasteland is different from regular farming; the workload is immense. Especially now, before the snow has fully melted, the snow must first be turned out of the soil.
"By mid-month or the end of the month, our progress will be even faster!"
Chu Guang nodded, speaking with satisfaction. "Thank you for your hard work!"
Hearing the Administrator's praise, Old Luka's face flushed with proud color, and he said respectfully, "My work is nothing. It is your residents—they are simply too capable.
"By the way, now that the blizzard has stopped, the refugees housed in the abandoned department store can be gradually relocated back to the farm. We cannot keep feeding them for nothing indefinitely."
Chu Guang nodded. "Yes. After resting for an entire winter, it's time to find them something to do."
Having concluded his inspection of the spring plowing preparations, Chu Guang took a turn around the warehouse, intending to head over to the guard team to check on the recruits' training.
Just then, however, he received a communication request from the outpost.
The line connected.
Before Chu Guang could ask what it was about, Liu Ding's voice immediately came through the earpiece.
"My Lord, a merchant caravan has arrived from south of Wetland Park! They are currently halted outside the park's south gate!"
"A caravan from the south?" Surprise flitted across Chu Guang's face, and he followed up at once, "Are they from Boulder City?"
"Yes..." Liu Ding said cautiously. "The leader of the caravan is named Liszt. He claims to have met you once before and wishes to see you."
Liszt?
Hearing that familiar name, Chu Guang froze for a second, after which an expression of keen interest spread across his face.
Well, well.
I've finally waited you out!
To this day, Chu Guang had not forgotten the vow he had made back then.
The next time that fellow came here...
He would fleece him within an inch of his life!
A pleasant smile broke across Chu Guang's face, and he continued in a genial tone, "Liszt? Why, he's an old friend of mine.
"Invite him to the reception room and prepare some tea.
"Tell him I'll be right there!"
Chapter 240