"...Ungrateful old bastard! If I'd told those marauders he had valuable bionic parts installed, would he still be alive right now? They would've hacked him into a human stump ages ago!"
Watching the retreating figure head down the stairs, Professor Sun Zewen grunted under his breath and limped toward his own quarters.
The New Alliance's Administrator had arranged a new job for him; from now on, he could continue his research on resonance fields and psychic interference devices.
Chu Guang intended to deploy psychic interference towers near the settlements to drive off mutant hyenas, moles, roaches, two-headed dogs, brown bears, jackals, falcons, and other common mutant species.
The specific method was using resonance fields to project feelings of fear at them, herding the mutants into the players' hunting grounds—or at least keeping them far away from farmlands and villages.
The problem that needed solving right now was that different creatures had their own specific "frequencies." Although there was existing reference data, targeted research on specific species was still required.
Before all that, however, he had to return to his room to pack his belongings. Soon he would have to make a trip to Shelter 401 to download data, before proceeding to the New Alliance's headquarters—Shelter 404—to begin his new life.
Inside the control room, Yin Fang remained by the terminal operating the mind-control tower, touching it here and inspecting it there, muttering over and over how incredible it was.
There were too many things in it that left him thoroughly baffled.
"...How does this thing pull it off? By mimicking the frequency of brainwaves? No... it doesn't seem to have anything to do with brainwaves... What medium is transmitting the information?"
Heya, uncharacteristically, showed little interest. She bit her lip gently, her eyes clouded with complicated emotions, seemingly lost in her own thoughts.
As for Chu Guang, he currently had no time to mind his two subordinates. Instead, he kept his eyes glued to the tablet in his hands, a faint, lingering smile playing at the corners of his lips.
The spoils of this operation were quite astonishing.
An old professor who researched "resonance field theory" and "psychic interference devices."
Although Professor Sun Zewen had been an unknown figure in the pre-war era, he was nonetheless a popsicle cryogenically frozen two centuries ago.
The other was a researcher specializing in bionic organs. While his personality was a bit rigid—or rather, a bit naive—that did not hinder his competence in his field of expertise.
And for Chu Guang, the price paid to acquire all this was nothing more than some contribution points and silver coins.
An absolute steal!
The only slight regret was that the other three residents of Shelter 117 had met tragic ends, which explained the origin of the three skeletons at the entrance to the ecological park and the iron plate engraved with the Torch emblem.
Shelter 401 had suffered equally heavy casualties. Aside from Sun Zewen, who had looked out for himself, only six "new-generation" shelter residents had survived.
These six could be said to have tasted the full cruelty of the world. Tortured almost beyond recognition by the marauders, even the light in their eyes had faded.
Chu Guang assigned all of them to Professor Sun Zewen to serve as his research assistants.
Shelter residents lived substantially longer than wastelanders. Though these people were no longer young, they had received the elite education of a shelter after all, so their foundational knowledge was far stronger than that of typical wastelanders.
The technologies related to "resonance field theory" and "psychic interference devices" had to be preserved and carried forward.
Professor Sun Zewen evidently understood this as well, readily accepting the assignment Chu Guang gave him.
As for the other 109 rescued slaves, most had been bought by Tus from slave traders. Chu Guang instructed the Ox and Horse Squad to escort them back to Dawn City alongside the captured spoils.
Adapting to a new life took time.
Before granting them freedom, Chu Guang needed to ensure they could earn a living rather than becoming a societal liability.
Fortunately, up to this point, job openings in the New Alliance far exceeded the available labor pool. The series of economic stimulus measures Chu Guang had implemented had drawn in a large influx of traveling merchants, leading to rapid expansion across primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors.
Chu Guang had already given Old Luka a heads-up; the latter would be responsible for resettling these unfortunates.
Beyond taking inventory of the spoils, Chu Guang, with Xiao Qi's help, sorted through the intelligence gathered earlier.
Just as he had suspected, Torch had visited this place twenty years ago and copied the resonance field research data from Shelter 401.
The collar around the neck of Nico, the Deathclaw pet Chu Guang kept, was a device developed through modifications of similar technical principles.
While an indiscriminate resonance field could not control a Deathclaw, inserting tubes directly into its brain was another story entirely.
Due to differences in ideology and objectives, the Torch members had split into two factions at Shelter 401. One faction headed south in search of alien biological specimens, while the other remained behind to build a home.
Later, Professor Zhao Yuan and the others who stayed behind took pity on a group of refugees fleeing from Boulder City—among whom was Tus, who had just been torn apart by Scavenger.
What followed was nothing more than the story of the farmer and the viper.
Those refugees had zero interest in their ideals. Relying on cunning and ambush, they easily overpowered the sheltered Blue Coats and used their technology to churn out pills.
It was precisely this series of events that caused Professor Zhao Yuan to lose faith in wastelanders completely.
As for the extrasolar colony mentioned by that old popsicle Sun Zewen...
That was still far too distant for Chu Guang right now.
Nevertheless, Chu Guang had Xiao Qi update the relevant entries in the official website's lore compendium to flesh out the worldbuilding.
...
Floor B1 of the Ecological Protection Park.
An underground passage connected this level to a nearby subway station, allowing pre-war tourists arriving via rail transit to walk straight into the park.
Now, however, like most subway tunnels in Qingquan City, this corridor had become a paradise for gnawers.
Suddenly, a beam of light cut through the dark corridor, accompanied by heavy footsteps coming from the stairwell.
Gnawers wandering in the dark turned their eyes toward the obnoxious light source, rotten mouths hissing in low growls.
Before they could draw close, however, thunderous gunfire erupted through the tunnel.
Sparks danced in the corridor as gnawers collapsed one after another. In no time, over twenty corpses littered the ground.
With smoke drifting from his gun barrel, Chu Guang, clad in power armor, crisply swapped magazines and unleashed another rattling burst of fire.
Once the gunfire died down, he lowered the smoking barrel and casually struck up a conversation with Professor Sun Zewen behind him.
"Did those marauders never consider clearing this place out?"
His eardrums nearly shattered, Professor Sun Zewen rubbed his throbbing ears and took a while to recover his senses.
"Clear this place? They wouldn't bother with such thankless toil. Those shortsighted barbarians only cared about raking in more plastic chips... I only learned later that wasteland survivors actually use casino chips as currency."
Chu Guang replied, "Not everyone. It's just popular around Qingquan City."
Professor Sun Zewen asked curiously, "What about you?"
"We have our own currency, of course."
The entrance to Shelter 401 lay along this hallway. In the pre-war era, it had been disguised as a workshop marked with an "Authorized Personnel Only" sign, separated from tourists by merely a locked door.
Now, however, forget a door—even the fist-thick wall had mostly been torn down, leaving only a pile of rubble on the ground behind which stood a half-open massive alloy door.
"More than twenty years ago, the shelter's power ran out, and we were forced to evacuate the underground and build a refuge on the surface... This place was abandoned."
Professor Sun Zewen took the lead, guiding Chu Guang into the shelter.
Since the reactor had shut down, the space behind the gear-shaped alloy door was pitch-black. Even the air filtration system had gone dormant, with only a handful of critical functional devices maintaining low-power standby on backup power.
Though Yin Fang had visited earlier, he had only roughly gathered public data stored in the shelter without thoroughly exploring its interior.
Considering that this place would serve as a new player hub in the future, Chu Guang felt it necessary to visit in person.
The moment Chu Guang stepped into the shelter, a pale-blue pop-up appeared in his field of vision.
[Quest: Restart Shelter 401's Fusion Reactor]
[Reward: Administrator Privileges for Shelter 401]
Looking at the pale-blue pop-up before his eyes, a surprised expression crossed Chu Guang's face.
Well, well.
He had barely set foot inside and already triggered a quest to obtain Administrator privileges.
Was it really that simple?
"Shelter 401 has four floors. Floors B1 and B2 are living quarters, B3 is recreation, and B4 is the agricultural zone. Theoretically, its maximum capacity is 1,600 people, but squeezing in 2,000 would be no problem."
Chu Guang remarked with slight surprise, "One more floor than Shelter 117."
Professor Sun Zewen nodded. "Yes, but Shelter 117 had a much larger budget than ours. Their living space per person was up to forty square meters, while ours was only half that."
At this, a trace of emotion surfaced on the old man's face.
"Unable to endure the cramped space, many chose cryogenic sleep... including me. But cryogenic sleep couldn't solve the problem. As energy reserves fell past the warning threshold, we had to wake from slumber and head to the surface to seek hope before power ran out completely."
Chu Guang's expression turned somewhat subtle.
Twenty square meters per person called cramped?
Wouldn't his Shelter 404 be considered a prison sentence then?
Still, having so many rooms here was a massive help to Chu Guang.
Shelter 117 had been converted into double rooms, boosting player capacity from 500 to 1,000.
Adding Shelter 401's 2,000 "beds," he would only need to squeeze out another 400 rooms to accommodate all the new players joining in Beta 0.1!
The pressing task now was finding fuel rods, restoring power here, and claiming the Administrator privileges.
Following Professor Sun Zewen's lead, Chu Guang took a broad tour of the shelter.
Compared to Shelter 117, which prioritized comfort, this facility leaned more toward the style of a research institute.
Single rooms ranged between 20 and 30 square meters, each equipped with a private bathroom and refrigerator. In many rooms, uneaten, spoiled chocolate and biscuits still sat in the fridges.
Living conditions here certainly hadn't been bad.
The orchard in the agricultural zone had even grown cocoa and coffee trees, though sadly, the plants had long since withered.
To Chu Guang's delight, however, when he reached the back of the agricultural zone, he found an unexpected surprise.
It was a cold storage unit storing seeds of over a dozen crop varieties.
Seeds for cocoa and coffee trees were preserved among them!
And in considerable quantities!
Judging by the flashing pale-green indicator light, the cold storage unit was still running steadily.
"Can the seeds in here still be used?" Chu Guang asked excitedly.
Sun Zewen nodded. "Of course. The seed bank has an independent power supply... Even with the reactor offline, the seeds here can be preserved for another one to two centuries. In fact, we planted some around the ecological park... but after the marauders seized this place, those crops fell into neglect."
He knew little of the specific conditions outside. While the marauders had granted him a degree of freedom, they forbade him from leaving the grounds of the ecological protection park, let alone heading into the surrounding forest.
Having toured the agricultural zone on Floor B4, Chu Guang now had a general grasp of Shelter 401's layout.
The two returned to the shelter entrance.
Glancing at the half-open massive alloy door, Chu Guang suddenly asked, "How many people were left when your door first opened?"
Sun Zewen pondered for a moment and replied, "Around seven hundred."
Chu Guang was surprised. "The numbers dropped instead?"
Sun Zewen sighed. "Those unwilling to sleep grew old and died. Those who remained alive were pessimistic about the future, and very few were willing to reproduce. I heard that while I was in hibernation, the Administrator broke the black box that produced contraceptive injections, but it proved utterly useless... In the end, the shelter was simply too small, and problems inevitably cropped up."
Chu Guang asked, "What about the rest?"
Sun Zewen replied, "Most of the first generation died of old age. Some of the new generation died in the Tide, while others fell gravely ill from failing to adapt to the surface. Later came the events you already know about... In short, those still alive today amount to only seven people, including myself."
Pausing, the old man continued:
"Administrator of Shelter 404, I have a treasure I intend to present to you."
Chu Guang looked at him with curiosity. "What treasure?"
A pleased smile appeared on Professor Sun Zewen's face.
"A black box! You're an Administrator, so you certainly know what that is; I won't bother explaining. One black box produces blue jackets, and the other produces VMs. The variable-temperature material of the former is phenomenal, while the latter has even broader applications—not only can it be repurposed into various survival tools, but it can also yield recycled carbon nano-electronic components."
Chu Guang looked at the old man in surprise. "The marauders didn't take them?"
Professor Sun Zewen chuckled softly. "The marauders? What would those crude barbarians understand about such treasures? I had no reason to tell them about such good things... But you are different. You are a shelter Administrator. I believe you will make proper use of our heritage."
"The problem right now, however... is that we had a minor incident earlier, and the black boxes are locked inside the Administrator's office. To open the office doors, the reactor must first be restarted."
In other words, recovering the black boxes required restoring power to the shelter first?
Chu Guang smiled brightly. "Thank you for your trust!"
"I assure you, we will make proper use of this heritage."
The Scientific Expedition was already searching for leads on fuel rods. Yin Fang had told him it wouldn't be much of a problem, and if things went quickly, they could secure them within a week.
Although Chu Guang already had a black box producing VMs, who would complain about having another?
Just like the black box producing hibernation pods, versatile items like these were always the more the merrier.
As for the black box that manufactured blue jackets, that was an even greater pleasant surprise for Chu Guang.
Made of variable-temperature material, the blue jackets automatically adjusted breathability and heat dissipation according to ambient conditions, keeping the wearer's body temperature within a comfortable range as much as possible.
From now on, players would no longer have to worry about wearing their "out-of-print skin" blue jackets on long trips for fear of tearing them to shreds!
...
The official Wasteland OL website.
Today, the forum was bustling as usual.
The spark was the Jungle Corps posting their combat recording on the forum.
Those beefy dudes clad in heavy armor and wielding machine guns thoroughly caught the eye of fellow male players, so much so that of the thousands of new pre-registered players, at least half selected the Strength-type as their first choice on the questionnaire.
In comparison, the Burning Corps drew the short stick.
Although in terms of sheer combat power, the Burning Corps was clearly superior to the Jungle Corps, their customized squad loadouts lacked instant visual recognition in small-scale skirmishes.
To put it plainly:
No matter how efficient combined arms tactics were, they couldn't match the raw visual impact of an armored juggernaut. Ten KV-1 exoskeletons welded with steel plates lined up in a row—the sheer spectacle of machine guns blazing was enough to make anyone's blood pump.
Still, while the Jungle Corps stole most of the limelight, Mosquito's airstrike had nonetheless stunned many spectators.
In particular, that final incendiary bomb he dropped made both factory heads over at Steel Plant No. 8 cry foul at its defiance of science.
Ya'er I Wanna Go to the Restroom: "Holy shit! You even cooked up incendiary bombs?!"
Whose Athlete's Foot Is Levin: "Brother, what did you use for the thickening agent?"
WC Really Has Mosquitoes: "Guess! (Smirk)"
Soul Chaser: "Use an aqueous solution of sodium soap and aluminum sulfate to produce aluminum fatty acid soap. Thickening fuel is child's play! Noobs!"
WC Really Has Mosquitoes: "???"
Lower the Volume I'm Braum: "Awesome!!! You guys really belong behind bars!"
Doomsday Lone Wolf: "I suggest you guys go register yourselves with the police..."
The veteran players' posts mostly revolved around tactical combinations and gameplay for the Corps system updated in the Beta test, or discussed the new map in Qingquan City's Eastern District.
The entire Eastern District was basically primeval forest.
Vegetation density and humidity were far higher here than in northern and western Qingquan City, and large numbers of wild mutants roamed the collapsed ruins and overgrown streets.
Beyond Ironback Apes and Silvermouth Snakes, Brother Fang Chang compiled several common monsters and updated them in a post for other players to reference.
This time, not only Brother Fang Chang, but even Kuangfeng uncharacteristically wrote a post, attaching photos he had taken of Shelter 401.
When Yin Fang had previously gone to the shelter to retrieve data, Kuangfeng happened to take the escort quest, which was when the photos were snapped.
"...Like Shelter 404, Shelter 401's power source is suspected to be a controlled fusion reactor. However, because its energy is depleted, the shelter is currently in an abandoned state."
"I spotted a quest on the Scientific Expedition board to search for fuel rods. I'd recommend everyone grind their Scientific Expedition profession level when they have time. Even though their quest chains take longer, once your level is up, the rewards for completing an entire quest chain are quite generous."
Kuangfeng phrased things rather discreetly.
Considering that these players were always clamoring for the developers to wield the nerf hammer, he didn't disclose how much they had actually received from Yin Fang.
Even so, despite knowing Scientific Expedition quests yielded high returns, most players still leaned toward Hunters' Guild quests.
After all, the former often required trekking over a dozen kilometers deep into no-man's-land to battle unknown dangers, all to search for documents and data whose very existence was uncertain.
Even the slightest mistake could lead to a total team wipe.
Unless players had absolute confidence in their own and their teammates' strength, few non-hardcore players would choose such high-risk, high-reward quests.
While veteran players exchanged walkthrough strategies, newbies from the Beta test flooded the general chat board, which had no posting threshold, to share their "closed-beta impressions."
Falling Feather: "This game is way too hard. (T_T)"
Gentle Breeze: "Aren't there any easier mobs? Those screeching gnawers are terrifying. QAQ"
Feeder with a Sniper: "Sure there are. Roaches are way easier to bully than gnawers. They don't make a sound when they scurry out—quiet as can be. (Dog head)"
Corner Camper: "Sigh, newbies these days can't endure any hardship! Back in our day, we hit the Tide the second we stepped into the game. Straight into hell mode from day one."
Jieyan: "Cut the crap, stop bragging! Back when you started, you were chased all over the place by gnawers. I couldn't even bear to watch!"
Unprofessional Anti-Mantou: "Dammit! These jerks post on the forum every day about how cute pigs are and how much they love piggy, but the moment they see me in person, they either try to pull down my pants or ask me for doujins! Now no girls will team up with me! So mad! ヽ(`Д′)丿"
Qiangren Suonan: "Wuu wuu wuu, say no more, bro. These superficial simps are as shallow as it gets! If you really can't stand it anymore, come to Xizhou City. My place is pretty big, feel free to drop by, I'll power-level you."
Unprofessional Anti-Mantou: "Bro! I'm on my way! QAQ"
Elaina: "Fast-forward to: 'Brother Qiang, please don't.' (Smirk)"
Tengteng: "To think there's a ship even I can't sail... Guess I really am too young. (T_T)"
Yaya: "???"
Awoo Sesame Paste: "Meow meow meow?"
...
Shelter 404.
Spending the entire morning on it, Chu Guang moved the Administrator's office to the viewing room on Floor B4.
Not only did it have ready-made furniture and a private shower, but it was also spacious and offered a vastly better environment than his previous makeshift office.
Since this floor wasn't suitable to open to other players anyway, leaving it idle was a waste; putting the space to use made far more sense.
Sitting on a soft sofa, Chu Guang sipped the Happy Water he endorsed while browsing the official forum, seeing what kind of new antics his little players had come up with that he hadn't anticipated.
A week had passed since the Beta test launched.
Over the past four days, thirty to forty newcomers had entered the game daily, bringing the server's player count from 1,500 up to 1,620.
"At this rate, we'll break two thousand in two weeks, won't we?"
Chu Guang glanced at the tablet beside him.
On it were listed last week's expenditures across various departments.
The most eye-catching line was quest payouts.
Over the past week, quest earnings issued by the shelter to all players had approached 900,000 silver coins.
Meanwhile, players' average daily income had risen in tandem to 97 silver coins.
Of course, this number was largely driven up by T0 to T2 tier players; the income growth curve for players below Level 10 was still relatively gentle.
Chu Guang had also noticed recently that the inflation caused by issuing money to players wasn't actually as bad as anticipated.
For one thing, players had an internal economic cycle: money earned by Player A was either spent with Player B or spent at NPC shops run collectively by the shelter, with only a tiny fraction flowing directly into the outside market.
For another, players didn't have families to support or children to raise. At most, they ate a bit more, and combined with everyone's habit of hoarding money, their spending power wasn't quite as high as imagined.
The storage balancing system Chu Guang established in earlier versions had stabilized the prices of basic commodities like grain and minerals to a certain degree.
After several update adjustments, that system was running relatively smoothly.
However, expecting one single method to solve all problems was unrealistic.
As player count and levels steadily rose, new problems began cropping up.
New players took far too long to put together a full set of equipment—grinding for half a month just to gear up—while veterans had more silver coins in their pockets than they could spend, forcing him to hike prices on high-end gear through the roof.
How could he give new players an enjoyable gameplay experience while giving veteran players greater incentive to make money?
Simple.
Build a "reservoir" to hold the excess silver coins.
At this thought, Chu Guang straightened up on the sofa, fingers clicking and clacking rapidly across the keyboard as he created a new folder.
[Beta 0.2 Version Update: Silver Coin Trading System]
[Changes: Players who have obtained a VM can digitize their silver coin assets, synchronizing them in real-time to their official forum accounts to trade them with other players in the form of digital currency.]
[Note: Cloud players may also participate in trading.]
Of course, this was only a rough draft; the exact trading rules would still need careful design. But those were minor details; there were countless real-world precedents to draw from.
Looking at the finished document, a cheerful smile spread across Chu Guang's face.
While it wasn't convenient for him to directly hand RMB to players working hard in the game, someone else would gladly do it for him.
What chips, dinars, or CR? What did any of that matter?
Could the native currencies of this wasteland be cashed out for real money?
Not only would Chu Guang give the players a reason to earn money even harder, but he would also make them obediently surrender the foreign exchange they earned from other survivor settlements to him.
As the value of silver coins grew, more "useful" professional players were sure to emerge.
"Complaining you can't afford gear?"
"Always clamoring to make backroom deals?"
"The market's open. Go wild."
Chapter 292