Growing Corn Can Trigger a Server-Wide Announcement?!

The greenhouse ruins. First floor above ground. The place where the players had once fought with life and limb had now turned into a lush, thriving botanical garden. The soilless cultivation boxes were packed with corn, stacked and arranged tier upon tier like shipping containers. Back then, the situation here had been truly gruesome. The first person to go in, Brother Paddler, had only his VM brought back. The second wave had nearly suffered a total team wipe. It was not until Brother Mole developed the "shield wall strategy" that they finally broke through the deadlock. Later, once everyone's gear improved, farming this dungeon became far simpler. Lao Bai would tank in front in his heavy armor, while the players in the back line opened up with submachine guns, letting loose volleys of nine-millimeter rounds. Hit your own teammate? What did it matter? A nine-millimeter pistol cartridge couldn't penetrate steel plate anyway; at most, it left a few dents. These large-caliber, low-velocity rounds worked wonders against unarmored insectoid mutants. Their bellies were filled with water and slime to begin with; a seven-millimeter bullet might just punch a clean hole through them, but switching to nine-millimeter blew them right apart. After clearing the first floor, Chu Guang had immediately posted a quest, directing players over to plant corn. Now three months had passed—over ninety days in total—and golden ears wrapped in husks hung from the emerald stalks. Gazing at the ripe cornfield before him, Chu Guang wore the smile of a proud father and gave an approving nod. "Well done!" The seeds provided by the shelter had been genetically modified, so their growth rate was remarkably swift. In the real world, even an early-maturing variety of corn took a hundred days to ripen, yet here, roughly ninety days was enough. Right. He almost forgot the business at hand. Sensing the gaze full of anticipation behind him, Chu Guang snapped back to reality. Without a word, he calmly raised his index finger and swiped across his VM. Soon after. A quest completion summary was delivered to Makka Pakka's VM. [Quest: Day of Harvest (Complete)] [Rewards: 1,000 silver coins, 500 contribution points, 2,000 regional reputation.] "Holy crap! Awesome!" "A four-digit reward!" Staring at the stream of pop-up rewards, Makka Pakka was moved to tears of excitement. There was no need to even mention the five hundred contribution points. Faction contribution was always good stuff. Whether it was buying gear, picking up quests, or acquiring properties, everything was tied to it. The only slight pity was that the regional reputation awarded was for the outpost base, not Changjiu Farm. His reputation with Changjiu Farm had already reached "Friendly," just a sliver away from crossing the ten-thousand threshold to reach "Revered." Just as Makka Pakka was riding high on his excitement, another line of text popped up on his VM, nearly causing him to faint from sheer bliss. [Congratulations to player "Makka Pakka" for becoming the first player to harvest corn.] [Would you like to broadcast a server-wide announcement? Yes/No] Staring at the sudden surprise, Makka Pakka yelled out almost by reflex. "Yes! Yes!" Though Chu Guang really wanted to remind this fellow that shouting wasn't necessary and that tapping the VM screen was quite enough, seeing how thrilled the young player was, he decided not to spoil the fun. Three months. Persevering through it all truly hadn't been easy. From sowing to the final harvest, every single step had a corresponding quest, forming an entire quest chain. Since the automated watering and harvesting systems in the greenhouse ruins were damaged, many tasks that machines were originally supposed to handle now had to be done by hand. That included watering and fertilizing. Even though these quests came with rewards, compared to hunting and scavenging, they were undeniably a bit monotonous. To stick through a three-month quest cycle until the crop reached maturity proved that this Brother Makka was quite an exceptional fellow. At least in Chu Guang's eyes, he was on par with that angler who sat by the lake every single day, come wind or snow! [Server Announcement: Player "Makka Pakka" has successfully harvested the first batch of corn.] Staring at the notification box floating on his VM, Makka Pakka was excited enough to roll around in the cornfield. If the Administrator hadn't been standing right beside him, he probably would have done just that. "Hahahaha! I've finally got a server first under my belt too!" Chu Guang looked at the young player with a smile. "Can I leave the harvesting to you?" "Rest assured, Lord Administrator!" Makka Pakka thumped his chest and continued with glowing enthusiasm. "I can even help you haul it all to the granary!" Chu Guang said, "That won't be necessary. The workload is too heavy; I'll arrange hands to assist you." Turning his eyes back to the cornfield before him, Chu Guang couldn't help letting a faint trace of joy show on his face. So this was what a bountiful harvest felt like? Not bad at all. ... After assigning Brother Makka his new task, Chu Guang promptly left the greenhouse ruins and returned to the outpost base to find Guo Ma, handing off the harvest duties. With so much produce, relying on Makka Pakka alone would probably work him to death before he could finish. Besides, harvesting wasn't just about plucking the ears off the stalks; afterwards came threshing, sun-drying, and warehousing. Doing all that work in the ruins might prove even more troublesome than sowing the seeds in the first place. The first floor didn't have many vertical hydroponic grow boxes, so its actual cultivation area was slightly smaller than the other floors, but it still came to nearly fifty mu. Based on rough estimates from planting area and crop density, the yield would be around twenty-five tons, with an error margin within two tons. Even with rudimentary planting and management experience and insufficient fertilizer, the yield still reached nearly five hundred kilograms per mu. Aside from the first floor, the greenhouse ruins had many other levels. Not counting the reactor on the ninth floor and the devil moth broodmother's nest on the tenth floor, the five levels above ground and the eight below totaled thirteen floors, with a theoretical planting area of 870 mu! As of now, the five surface floors and the four upper underground floors had been developed into farmland. Half was planted with potatoes and half with corn, totaling a whopping 600 mu. These capacity would gradually be realized over the coming month, with an estimated total yield of 300 to 400 tons. Add in hunting, livestock, and other food sources, and it was enough to feed three thousand people for a year! Of course, the actual food consumption of players couldn't simply be calculated as one standard person's ration. Especially the Awakened: not only were their physical stamina and metabolic rates far beyond those of ordinary people, but their appetites were also two to three times as large. Even Chu Guang had felt it himself. In the beginning, a single can of rations lasted him two meals; now he wanted to crack open two cans in one sitting. In a sense, could this be considered a form of conservation of energy? If calculated according to the actual rate of food consumption, those 300 to 400 tons of grain might only last a short half-year. Even so, it was plenty. Once the thirty thousand mu of wasteland were reclaimed, even if the first year's production efficiency was only half that of the greenhouse ruins, the food produced would be enough to carry him through several major updates. The sections above B4 in the greenhouse ruins were reserved for farming. As for B5 through B9, Chu Guang had no intention of planting crops on all of them. Instead, he planned to use them as a breeding pit, harvesting every few months and leaving them for the players to repeatedly farm devil moths. As for the spirit leaf, he could harvest half and leave half. After each harvest cycle, the blast doors from B5 to B9 would be fully opened to let the moths in to lay their eggs. That way, an assembly-line harvest could be achieved. Once the tens of thousands of mu of fertile fields north of Ling Lake were brought under the plow, converting the entire greenhouse to breed devil moths wouldn't be an issue at all! Whether it was spirit leaf or devil silk, both were absolute rarities on the wasteland. Within a hundred li, his operation was likely the only one capable of steadily producing them. ... "Holy crap?! Growing corn gets a server-wide announcement?!" "Rigged! Totally rigged!" "Dammit, Boss Ya was one thing, but did Makka Pakka sell his soul and his ass to the devs too?" "Ugh! If I'd known, I would've found a plot of dirt and tossed a handful of seeds in!" "Looking at it from another angle, the lifestyle class players really are the chosen ones of this patch. If growing corn triggers a server announcement, then getting one for potatoes would make total sense, right?" "!!!" To the west of Changjiu Farm. The young players tilling the wasteland with iron picks and shovels chattered in a noisy uproar, while not far away, a tractor clattered along, dragging a harrow across the plowed field. Glancing back toward the perimeter wall that was now almost out of sight, Silver Daddy dropped his rake, out of breath, and sat down beside the ridge of the field, grimacing and grumbling. "How long the hell do we have to keep doing this?" Silver Sword swung his hoe in silence, replying without looking up, "Depends on how many event points you want to rack up." Silver Daddy said, "Holy crap! Does this event not even have a cap??" Silver Sword replied, "Nope." Silver Daddy: "???" Wasn't this going to turn into an absolute rat race to the heavens?! As everyone knew, when regular games held events, other than cash top-ups having no upper limit, any rewards and points players could earn always had a cap. That was mainly to prevent players from farming stats into absurdity. Yet this game didn't seem to follow that tradition. As long as you were willing, you could grind forever—right until your character ran out of stamina, or until the anti-addiction system kicked in and forced a physical disconnect. Silver Hand, who hadn't spoken the entire time, couldn't help chiming in, "By the way, aren't you Constitution-type? How are you working slower than the two of us?" Silver Daddy rolled his eyes. "Hell if I know! In this game, Constitution only increases debuff resistance and recovery rate; it has jack-all to do with stamina! And what about you two? Didn't we agree that one would pick Strength and the other Agility? Why the hell did you both go Strength?!" "You dare call us out!" "Exactly! Didn't you say you were picking Intelligence-type?!" Seeing his two buddies glaring at him, Silver Daddy coughed awkwardly and gave a sneaky grin. "I heard this game has quite a lot of content. High Constitution, fast recovery rate... if I end up in an online romance later... you know what I mean." Silver Hand and Silver Sword exchanged a glance. They got what he meant. But... "I think that idea is entirely superfluous." "Indeed, I agree." "Damn it! What do you two mean by that?" Silver Sword shrugged. "Nothing, just that with a trash username like yours, an online romance might be a bit of a stretch." Silver Hand nodded. "Plus one. Not even a catfisher would date a guy with that dumb name." Silver Daddy: "#$%@!" ... While the newbies were toiling in the fields, Boulder City, situated on the edge of the Third Ring Road, welcomed a group of unusual guests. "Is this Boulder City?" "This wall is built like a dam..." "Holy mother of God... how much concrete did that take?" "No idea..." A concrete wall twenty stories high. Factoring in the rebar structure inside, the amount of cement and steel consumed had to be an astronomical figure. All the way down from the elevated highway, Lao Bai, Ye Shi, and Kuang Feng had their eyes glued to the massive barrier, unable to look away. Having already experienced that shock once before, Fang Chang looked fairly composed. He gave a light cough and said, "Act normal, you guys." Ye Shi swallowed hard and pulled his gaze back from the colossal wall. "I think I'm acting very normal. It's this game that isn't normal!" Standing beside him, Kuang Feng nodded as well. "Plus one." Though thinking so might be somewhat idealistic, if they were capable of building such a colossal wall, there was no reason they should be trapped inside by gnawers. It didn't make sense any way you looked at it. Unless the wall had fallen straight from the heavens. "Bunch of country bumpkins." Seeing their uncultured awe, a mercenary walking alongside the column scoffed quietly under his breath, only to be glared at by his squad leader. "Shut up." Seeing his boss speak, the mercenary immediately clamped his mouth shut, not daring to say another word. Pulling his gaze back from his subordinate, the mercenary leader glanced in the players' direction. Seeing they hadn't noticed, he felt slightly relieved. These people were remarkably strong. Whether it was the man carrying the bow on his back or the one shouldering the machine gun. Though it sounded somewhat outrageous, his gut told him that both of them were likely Awakened! A faction capable of keeping a Deathclaw as a pet was not one he wished to provoke lightly. The cargo was about to be delivered; stirring up trouble now would do no one any good. Coming off the elevated highway. Not far ahead stood the Far Wind Hotel, directly opposite the slums. As the group walked toward the entrance, quite a few people were eyeing them, particularly taking note of the goods packed onto the two-headed oxen. Several children sitting near the entrance of the slums took a look, seemed to recognize something, whispered among themselves, and quickly dashed back inside. Before long, several men with skulls tattooed on their faces stepped out from the slums. Seeing these individuals, Xu Shun calmly rested a hand on his waist, while Fang Chang and Lao Bai exchanged a glance and instinctively rested their hands on their weapons as well. Far from showing any fear, the players' faces displayed a hint of excitement. Was a cutscene triggering? Hurry it up! Reading the tension in the air, Shuyu's heart leaped into his throat. Yet remembering that he represented Shelter 404, he did his best to keep his face free of any nervous expression. "Tommy, where'd you get your hands on so much good stuff this time?" The bald man in the lead, who had a dagger tattooed on his face, cast an amused glance at the mercenary leader. The mercenary leader's face tightened as he said expressionlessly, "This isn't my cargo. But I advise you not to get any ideas about these goods, unless you think you don't have enough trouble already." "Ha, who's your employer?" Before the mercenary leader could reply, a voice drifted out from the group. "Liszt." Stepping forward from the column, Qian Lai looked at the bald man with the dagger tattoo and continued, "Any problem with that?" Hearing Liszt's name, the bald man's expression shifted slightly, his mocking demeanor softening a touch. "Of course not. I was actually just wondering... with so many herbs, do you need someone to help sell them? We could be of service." Qian Lai said impatiently, "A hundred chips per kilogram. If you can take the whole batch, I can give you a ten percent discount." Buying the entire batch would probably cost tens of thousands of chips. However... If they could swallow this shipment and refine it into spirit water, turning a profit of two or three times over wouldn't be an issue at all. The bald man looked conflicted and said in a low voice, "...That, I'll have to ask my boss." Qian Lai said concisely, "I can wait until eight o'clock tonight. You know how to reach me." Having hit a wall, the lackeys retreated into the slums. Staring at their departing backs, Shuyu turned to Qian Lai and asked, "Who are they?" "The Dagger Gang. Sometimes they tattoo a dagger on their faces, sometimes on their arms. Pay them no mind; you won't need to deal with the likes of them." Qian Lai then looked at Tommy, the mercenary leader, and urged, "Let's move. Linger here too long and other flies will come buzzing." The party continued on their way, lining up at the city gate for inspection. The militia members handling the checkpoint showed surprise when they saw the cargo on the oxen's backs. "Another batch? Where on earth are you getting all this?" He recognized the man before him; it seemed he had come through a week ago as well. Qian Lai lied through his teeth. "A plantation down south. The survivors there had quite a stash." The militia guard clearly didn't buy the nonsense, but he said nothing, merely dropping a hint. "This stuff will probably take a heavy tax." "Of course, we're law-abiding citizens." With a friendly smile, Qian Lai smoothly pressed a pouch of chips into their hands, exactly as he had done during his last visit. The militia guard who took the money peeked inside the pouch, smiled knowingly, fished out two chips to slip into his own pocket, and then walked over to the desk by the gate. "Just some vegetables." The officer in charge of registration glanced at the pouch of chips placed on the desk and casually made two checkmarks in his ledger. "Let them through." Shuyu gave Qian Lai a slightly surprised look. That was it? Noticing his gaze, Qian Lai chuckled softly and kept his voice down. "Food isn't taxed, so this saves money... You see, we have our overhead too." Shuyu asked, "Paying money means no inspection?" Qian Lai pondered a moment and said, "Not necessarily. It depends on the situation, and on the person. If you tried to smuggle contraband inside, it'd still be rather tricky." Shuyu nodded thoughtfully. Although he wasn't unfamiliar with business, he couldn't help feeling that things here were far more complicated than back home... Having paid the entry fee, the group made it into the city without a hitch. Per the contract, the mercenaries escorted them to the warehouse district, where they settled their pay with Qian Lai. The warehouse Liszt rented sat not far from the entrance of the warehouse district, with plenty of room left inside—more than enough to store a ton of goods. After everyone unloaded the cargo together, Qian Lai had the guard with the bandaged arm lead the two-headed oxen back to the pens by the entrance of the warehouse district to return them. He then turned to Shuyu and the others, offering a warm smile. "If you don't want to rent a warehouse, you can leave your goods with us. It's not that much anyway." Shuyu politely declined. "No need, we're planning to rent a storefront." Qian Lai said courteously, "In such a hurry? Boulder City is huge; you could take your time looking around and pick a better spot." Shuyu shook his head. "The Lord Administrator instructed me to find a place near the warehouses; that will suffice." Boulder City's warehouse district was very close to the city gate. Just across the street lay the trading post, and behind that was the market where locals shopped, making transit quite convenient. The liaison office was meant for practicality; there was no need to locate it in an exceptionally bustling area. Even a small place would do, with the monthly rent kept under a thousand chips if possible. Once conditions allowed in the future, they would buy a whole building outright. Those were the instructions the Lord Administrator had given him before departure. Qian Lai said nothing more, but he still enthusiastically led them outside the warehouse district to find a place to rent. There were plenty of vacant buildings here, and the rent was surprisingly affordable. A 120-square-meter storefront cost only 800 chips a month, averaging just twenty chips a day. For an extra two hundred chips, the landlord indicated he could rent them the two upper floors of empty rooms as well. To purchase it outright, however, such a building would not only cost nearly 300,000 chips, but would also incur a monthly management fee and property tax of fifty chips. Looking at the text blinking on his VM, Ye Shi counted on his fingers, then looked toward Fang Chang beside him in confusion. "1,666 chips per square meter. Is that considered cheap or expensive?" Fang Chang thought for a moment before replying, "By price-to-rent ratio, it's cheap. By local prices and income, it's on the expensive side. If I remember right, at the textile mill in the nearby industrial zone, they get two meals of nutrient paste and a daily wage of three to four chips?" That came to a monthly wage of only 90 to 120 chips, not even enough to buy a rifle. If they were child laborers, most factories gave only one chip a day, or simply covered food, paying wages weekly or settling them entirely in manufactured goods. Because the smallest denomination was one chip, it wasn't even possible to calculate the locals' hourly wage. By contrast, engineers earned far more, their salaries generally ten times higher than those of ordinary workers. If the job site was outside the city or at other nearby survivor settlements, it was likely to double on top of that. Some technical personnel who mastered scarce skills could even reach three-digit daily wages. However, those national treasures rarely went outside the city at all. Normally, they lived in high-end apartments near the inner city, with some simply moving into the luxurious inner city itself. As for mercenaries? Most of them only earned enough to cover today's expenses; discussing their income was meaningless. The NPCs were still haggling over the rent. Exercising his bargaining skills to the fullest, Shuyu had already whittled the rent down to nine hundred chips a month. This price was scraping against the landlord's bottom line, but seeing as properties here weren't like those in the bustling districts and truly proved difficult to lease, he could only patiently wear down his lips against these people. Ye Shi calculated for a good while, then suddenly snapped his head up. "Damn, if I'd known, I should've saved up my chips!" Lao Bai gave him an odd look. "What would you save that stuff for?" "To buy a place!" Ye Shi's eyes gleamed. "Once the new map opens up fully, people will definitely come, right? We could rent it out to them! Isn't that way sweeter than trading them directly for silver coins?" Rent it to Tengteng! Ten thousand silver coins a month! Rich girl Tengteng could definitely afford it! Kuang Feng: "..." Fang Chang said speechlessly, "Have the chips you've touched even added up to ten?" Ye Shi: "Uh, fair point." Lao Bai: "Besides, what's the use of buying here? It's so far from the respawn point. We might as well build our own house beside the base." "Still, speaking of which, Boulder City must have shops too, right?" Kuang Feng, standing on the street, looked left and right. "Did you check the prices on that kind of gear?" "A Drone X-2 assault rifle is 150 chips. Judging by its design, it looks like a knockoff of the G9 assault rifle. Pipe rifles are dirt cheap; felt like they were sold by weight." Kuang Feng asked right away, "What about bionic prosthetics?" Fang Chang paused for a moment. "That... I didn't see any. I browsed several weapons shops and didn't spot a single one, but they do sell those exoskeletons." The moment they heard that, the three of them grew instantly excited. "Holy shit, exoskeletons?!" "Are you sure?" "Quit running your mouth, hurry up and take us there!" "What good will going there do you? Do you have the money to buy one?" Looking at his starry-eyed teammates, Fang Chang sighed helplessly. "...Whatever. You'll understand once you get there." Ye Shi had already hoisted the pack from the ground onto his back, grinning as he spoke. "Bring these along too! Maybe we can sell them for some cash!" Fang Chang said exasperatedly, "Even if we sell them, the chips belong to someone else, alright..." Ye Shi: "Doesn't matter! We agreed before setting off that half the chips from the sale are ours!" Fang Chang blinked. There was an agreement like that? Yet seeing the look on his three teammates' faces, they didn't seem to be joking. Seeing these bumpkins pick up their bundles from the ground, the landlord who was in the middle of haggling thought they weren't going to rent after all. In a sudden panic, he blurted out hurriedly, "Eight hundred! Eight hundred is fine! But you have to pay three months' rent upfront, plus one month's deposit! This is the absolute rock-bottom price, you won't find anywhere cheaper!" Not about to let the opportunity slip, Shuyu immediately said, "Deal!" Standing nearby, Qian Lai stared at the man in disbelief, his opinion of him completely flipped. Good grief. Two upper floors snagged for free? This guy might actually be quite a talent.