Second Awakening!

[Server Announcement: The Tide will end within seven days. Quest rewards will be delivered to player accounts within 24 hours...] Bathed in the morning light, the clock tower stood like a torch ablaze amid the ruins, burning the mutant slime mold's broodmother to ashes. This battle had exhausted nearly the entire ammunition stockpile of Shelter 404. Setting aside the 7mm ammunition, nearly a thousand rounds of various 20mm armor-piercing, high-explosive, and incendiary shells had been expended, while 88mm mortar rounds had pounded the enemy in wave after wave of bombardment without any regard for cost. Yet Chu Guang did not feel much heartache. Out with the old, in with the new. A massive fiscal deficit was certainly a headache, but Shelter 404's military-industrial production capacity had also been spurred to unprecedented heights under the stimulus of "void silver coins." At present, with an ample supply of raw materials, the maximum daily output of 7mm full-power cartridges could already reach two hundred thousand rounds, weighing nearly five tons. With the widespread deployment of Light Lances, No. 81 Steel Mill had already achieved mass production of 20mm armor-piercing rounds, drastically slashing production costs and labor hours. Right now, the two managers of No. 81 Steel Mill were researching improvements to mass-produce the more complex high-explosive and incendiary rounds, and results were expected before long. Once full-scale war broke out, this would become Shelter 404's greatest pillar of support! After the battle concluded. NPCs clad in protective suits went onto the battlefield to recover corpses. Patrol duties and the cleanup of surviving mutants were handed over to the guards, while the players withdrew from the front line in succession. Clone bodies needed rest. Many players had fought fiercely all night long, relying purely on surging adrenaline to endure the "Fatigue debuff." Once that high faded, yawns broke out across the crowd. The wounded players returned to the shelter, while the uninjured found a nearby save point—a hibernation pod—to log off. As for those who had fallen in battle or succumbed to fatal wounds, they had logged off long before. At this moment, every section of the official website was buzzing with activity. Tail: "Curse it all... Why was I assigned to Company C? I didn't even get to see what the boss looked like!" Unit assignments were randomized. To ensure that each echelon possessed adequate combat capability, Chu Guang had instructed Xiao Qi to balance the distribution. Aside from Company A serving as the vanguard and receiving the largest proportion of Awakened, the ratio of Awakened across all other companies was identical. Of course. The players had no way of knowing this. To the vast majority, failing to get deployed to the most thrilling and dangerous vanguard simply meant their luck had been terrible. Sisi: "It's the taking part that counts, taking part that counts. We took down three Tyrants, which is already pretty good. (pats head)" WC Really Has Mosquitoes: "Tyrants don't mean jack! I grabbed the heads of two bosses plus a world-first server announcement! Hahahaha! Feels so damn good!" I'm the Darkest: "Motherf—! Do you have any shame stealing kills like that?! I was literally about to basic-attack it!" Makka Pakka: "Exactly! That's way too much! Even I couldn't watch!" Cut the Crap: "Be a decent human being for once!" WC Really Has Mosquitoes: "Doesn't matter! A secured kill is pure profit! (smirk)" The undisputed MVP of the entire battle was taken by Mosquito without suspense. Those two one-hundred-kilogram aerial bombs dropped from the sky had blasted the Tide's node organism into paste, completely turning the tide of battle! Granted, the kill on the subsequent boss was heavily suspected of being a stolen kill... No matter how one looked at it, there was no need to ram the plane right into it, earning him plenty of complaints from front-line players. But would Mosquito care? Obviously not. It was his own plane; he could crash it however he liked. Not to mention, he was already thoroughly used to it. Commander Spring: "Honestly, I've been wondering this whole time: did your plane have landing gear at all?" WC Really Has Mosquitoes: "How could it not! Without landing gear, how could I have rolled off the building? The bomb slung under the belly would've scraped right against the roof! But later I realized it didn't really matter. Without a pitot tube or gyroscope, and with pitch darkness on the ground—never mind not having a runway—even if there had been one, I couldn't have landed. I figured I might as well just ram it." Brother Levin: "Not gonna lie, that 7mm peashooter of yours is way too weak. Why didn't you mount a 20mm autocannon directly? Wouldn't rat-tat-tat boom-boom-boom feel way better?" Ya'er I Wanna Go to the Restroom: "Exactly! Why not consider a 37mm cannon? We'll help you mod it! (funny)" WC Really Has Mosquitoes: "Get lost, get lost, get lost! Who asked you guys? It's just making a cannon, as if I don't know how to build one!" Brother Levin: "You know how? Lmao." Ya'er I Wanna Go to the Restroom: "Right! Keep bragging!" WC Really Has Mosquitoes: "@#$%!" Getting a plane into the air was far too easy: with enough speed, pull up the nose and up you went; if you couldn't, you just couldn't. But bringing a high-speed aircraft back down was exponentially harder! Speed, altitude, angle, and a flat runway were all indispensable, yet this wooden plane didn't even have an instrument panel. Even so, to Mosquito, this imperfect flight was by no means a bad thing. Though he had lost a plane, it had provided him with invaluable experimental data and flight experience. Next time, he was confident he could do better. As for the price? Just spectating for three days. No big deal! The thread soon went off the rails, turning into a verbal battlefield between No. 81 Steel Mill and Goblin Technology. Claims like "I forged the 88mm barrel myself" and "Only sissies play with 20mm peashooters, real men use large-caliber rockets" flew back and forth as the trio's bragging grew increasingly outlandish. Yet oddly enough, their arguments were well-reasoned and loaded with citations. Ordinary users couldn't jump into this kind of topic, so everyone drifted to other threads. In the end, Mosquito and the two mill managers, between the three of them alone, babbled the derailed thread right onto the trending list. Later, some tech-savvy lurkers came in to watch the fun, chiming in one after another until the thread edged closer and closer to borderline illicit territory. On any ordinary forum, moderators would have stepped in long ago to shut it down for self-preservation. Yet this forum had no such rules. The thread accumulated over a thousand replies without anyone calling a halt. Even after the two industrial titans called a truce, new posts continued to pile up, layer upon layer. Lightning King Professor Yang: "Sigh, having solid backing is truly awesome. You can talk about anything and be fine." Outlaw Qie Gewa: "It's not just about backing. This forum's server is downright spooky. A tech buddy of mine acted on a whim and tried to hack into the server to take a peek, but he couldn't even find the front door." Jarvan IV Ni Damu: "What's even spookier is that complaints about this website sink like a stone, whether submitted through external or internal channels. Even if grassroots officials didn't feel like dealing with it, they'd at least blacklist it, right? A site like this not getting blacklisted—I bet eighty percent there's someone high up protecting it." Proud Grandpa What Can You Do: "Heh, keep blowing smoke! It's just a gambling site. At most it falls under local public security. You think officials have nothing better to do than shoot the breeze here with you? 'Someone high up,' lmao." Regardless of whether there was backing from above, that wasn't something ordinary players could know. Maybe it existed long ago, maybe not, or perhaps the '100% immersive virtual reality game' was itself a testing ground for some mysterious research institute? Otherwise, there was no explaining why all the players in the game were domestic, without any language barriers between them. Of course, only the players with closed-beta access and the prospective players who had submitted reservation forms gave any thought to this layer. To the popcorn-munching onlookers and meme-loving netizens just along for the ride, the biggest controversy was whether such a game even existed in the first place. To say it didn't exist, the promotional PVs looked remarkably authentic. To say it did, it remained an urban legend circulating only within gaming circles, with less buzz than certain metaverse ventures milking investors for all they were worth. Every time this topic came up, people argued until they were red in the face, frustrated that the world wouldn't conform to their imagination. Just as the thread wandered further off track, an official announcement suddenly appeared pinned at the top of the forum, pushed across all sections. It was a gameplay PV, posted under the ID Xiao Qi. Though it ran for only three minutes, it distilled every thrilling moment of last night's "Battle of the Tide," capturing every shot from sky to ground with zero downtime! It was no exaggeration to say that every shot was a work of art! Every frame was of photographic caliber! Although the gory portions had been technically toned down, it did not detract from the viewer's experience. From the particle effects of every speck of dust to the sharp, chiseled contours of the azure power armor, the realism was beyond reproach. Many netizens even marveled: If you turned off the filter, it looked practically real! And this time, Brother Proud Grandpa broke all precedent. Within less than an hour of having his face slapped, he sourly made his second post of the day: "Heh, keep hyping it up..." "If this is actual in-game footage, I'll stream myself eating shit!" Whether it was actual game footage no longer mattered. That intense, heart-pounding battlefield, paired with the stirring background score, had not only prospective players watching with boiling blood, but even the actual players who had just logged off itching for another round. Battlefield Atmosphere Group: "Awesome! I'm on TV again! Hahaha!" Elaina: "And this time you didn't play a corpse. (funny)" Commander Spring: "Good thing I put my gear on! (grin)" Yaya: "Wait, why is the video posted by Xiao Qi today? Wasn't it always Ah Guang before?" Tail: "I'll tag her for you! (≥ω·＊)丿 @Xiao Qi" Usually, this planner named Xiao Qi didn't interact with users on the forum; even Tail hadn't expected to actually summon her. Yet right then, something unexpected occurred. Xiao Qi: "Ah Guang? He's asleep. o(＊////▽////＊)q" Yaya: "???" Tail: "?" Ye Shi: "What the hell?! Isn't Ah Guang single? (shocked)" Fang Chang: "Watch out for scumbags. This guy has never posted an official announcement on Moments. Remember to check his phone and see if it's set to visible only to a certain someone. (smirk)" Xiao Qi: "Hehe, don't talk nonsense! We're not in the kind of relationship you think." Tengteng: "Then what kind of relationship are you in? Do you know each other in real life? Have you met the parents? (curious)" Xiao Qi: "He's my master. o(＊////▽////＊)q" The thread went quiet for a moment. Though it was only for a single second. Tengteng: "Let's dial the police first." Xiao Qi: "QAQ?" ... Players could take off their helmets and get out of bed, but Chu Guang had no such thing as a helmet. After staying awake for more than twenty hours straight, he collapsed into bed and fell asleep the moment he returned to the shelter. When he woke, night had already fallen. "...Slept through the day again, huh." Rubbing his groggy eyes, Chu Guang slowly sat up from the bed with a murmur, glancing at the puddle of liquid beneath it. Accelerated metabolism caused heavy sweating, and this time the volume was noticeably greater than before, to the point where he felt somewhat dehydrated. A feeling of power coursed through his entire body, and his mind and vision were clearer than ever before. Chu Guang could even faintly make out the partial fingerprint left on the doorknob. Without any surprise. He had leveled up again! "My previous development progress was 19%." "...So now it should be 20%?" A second awakening! Chu Guang felt a surge of joy. Though he wished he could go for a medical checkup this very instant, the sense of disharmony brought about by his abruptly heightened physical functions made him hesitate to get out of bed immediately. Sitting on the edge of the mattress, he gently flexed his fingers and limbs, adjusting to the changes taking place within his body. He wasn't bragging. Right now, he was confident that he could dodge oncoming bullets relying purely on his intuition, reflexes, and physical strength! Of course. Such things were fine to know in his own heart; there was no need to go out of his way to test them... Stepping into the elevator, Chu Guang initially intended to take a shower first before heading to Heya's for an examination, but right then, a thought struck him. "Come to think of it... hasn't the quest to unlock Floor B4 been completed?" At the thought, Chu Guang could no longer stay calm. Last time Floor B3 was unlocked, he had recovered two black boxes from the warehouse, resolving the issues of the players' difficult saves and insufficient stat panels. This time, he had wiped out the Tide and unlocked Floor B4. Asking for a black box that could print power armor wouldn't be asking too much, would it? Besides incubation pods and black boxes, there were bound to be other good things! However, the moment Chu Guang eagerly reached out to touch the elevator's screen, a pale-blue floating prompt appeared before his eyes. [Remaining time until unlock: 6 days, 12 hours, 13 minutes, 6 seconds] Seeing those words, Chu Guang nearly coughed up blood in frustration. Damn it! Hadn't the Tide already been repelled? The quest was finished too! Did it really have to wait until spore concentrations outside returned to normal levels before opening the doors? Rushing wouldn't help. Chu Guang took a deep breath and pressed his index finger against the button for Floor B3. In any case. He would figure out the changes in his own body first. ... Medical Lab. Walking out from the adjacent analysis room, Heya handed the data-filled tablet in her hands to Chu Guang, who was seated on the scanning bed. "...Incredible. The changes occurring in your body are growing more and more astonishing. Are you certain you haven't used any drugs or other technical means?" Taking the tablet, Chu Guang merely glanced at it twice before switching to the more concise and intuitive stat panel. "None. By the way, does this count as a second awakening?" Heya raised an eyebrow, asking curiously, "A second awakening? Is that a technical term? Has someone conducted similar research?" Chu Guang replied offhandedly, "No, it's just the customary term wastelanders use for this phenomenon... I heard it from others too." As for whether anyone had researched it, only the researchers themselves would know. The wasteland had no forums for academic exchange, and the gap in knowledge and perception was wider than the gap between rich and poor. Even in modern society, not everyone could distinguish between selective gene expression and DNA mutation, let alone nearly illiterate wastelanders. Still, a place like the Academy ought to have some understanding of this phenomenon, right? But the Wandering Marsh was too far from here. [ ID: Chu Guang Genetic Sequence: Administrator (Stage 2) -> Administrator (Stage 3) Level: Lv. 19 -> Lv. 20 —Basic Attributes— Strength: 18 -> 23 Agility: 13 -> 18 Constitution: 16 -> 21 Perception: 14 -> 19 Intelligence: 15 -> 20 ] [— Talents: 1. Wild Instinct: Can awaken wild instincts under extreme conditions. For the duration, all attributes increase by 10–15%, and fatigue accumulation rate increases by 20–30%. 2. Mental Deterrence: Exerts psychological pressure on fully sentient life forms weaker than oneself, weakening their will to resist. 3. Hive Mind: Can share 3–15% of the Intelligence attribute with fully sentient life forms weaker than oneself, granting them inspiration and a boost to thinking speed. This effect is influenced by distance, number of targets, receptivity, and other factors, with a maximum range of 10m. ] Reading the attribute panel from top to bottom, a look of surprise surfaced on Chu Guang's face. Good grief. A five-point boost to all attributes! No wonder he felt like he had turned into a superhuman the moment he woke up today. But what in the world was that last skill? It could enlighten someone's brain? His Intelligence attribute was currently 20. Calculated at the maximum 15%, that was only a 3-point boost, but compared to an ordinary human whose baseline Intelligence was only 5 points, wouldn't that be equivalent to increasing neural cell activity by 60%? Even when used on a group, there was a guaranteed baseline of 0.6 points! This talent was pretty damn impressive! However... Just how was such a thing achieved? Seeing Chu Guang lost in thought, Heya pondered for a moment before suddenly speaking up. "Research on the broodmother will still take some time, but regarding the evolved organisms... I discovered something rather unusual." "Evolved organism" was what wastelanders called the node organisms. Although few knew what role they played in the Tide, the vast majority could tell that they were distinctly different from common mutants like gnawers, crawlers, or even Tyrants. Whether in their combat style or their command over lower-tier individuals. They were like abnormal variants among the mutant slime mold. Chu Guang looked up at Heya and asked curiously, "What did you find?" "Cross-referencing samples recovered from the Decayed Knight, the Empress, the abandoned tank, and the trucks, I found some peculiar DNA fragments in some of their cells..." Heya walked over to Chu Guang's side and swiped lightly across the tablet with her index finger. The screen quickly shifted from the stat panel to another research report. "Does it look familiar?" Chu Guang noticed the image in the report: two uncoiled long strands of DNA, flanked by another diagram depicting structures resembling neural synapses. As for the numbers and symbols. He was certain. This was the first time he had ever seen them. "Just give me the conclusion." Heya did not seem surprised that Chu Guang would say that. "It's still too hasty to draw a conclusion, but multiple clues point toward the exact same thing." "Those 'evolved organisms' were very likely transformed from humans!"