Official forum.
The members of the Ox and Horse Squad who had logged off early were chatting in the off-topic section.
It all started with Ye Shi's reply beneath the official announcement. An acquaintance had spotted it, and to prove he hadn't just thrown his life away for nothing, but rather that the map design was absurdly difficult, he started a thread in the off-topic board describing just how perilously dire their situation had been.
Just as Ye Shi was detailing how thousands of drones had trapped them in the building and how he had fought a running battle to cover his squad's retreat, Kuang Feng's ID suddenly popped up in the thread.
Kuang Feng: "I was wondering if you'd be bored logging off alone. Turns out you're already here blowing hot air on the forums. (side-eye)"
Tyrannosaurus Warrior Has Blackened: "Hahaha! I knew it was bogus!"
A Bit Rebellious: "Called it! None of these luckers ever speak a word of truth!"
A flurry of laughing replies flooded the thread.
Although ninety percent of the people chatting on the forum at this hour hadn't even set foot in the game, it didn't stop them from joining in the mockery.
Curse these lucky bastards!
Take a spear to the face!
Ye Shi naturally ignored the armchair players' jeers. With a flick of his index finger, he switched his display filter to "View Closed Beta Players Only."
This was a new feature Brother Guang had rolled out a few updates ago.
The world instantly quieted down.
Pretending nothing had happened, Ye Shi continued typing.
"Holy crap?! Kuang Feng? How'd you end up logging off too?"
Kuang Feng: "After retrieving Luo Yu's VM, we tried retracing our steps. But as we were leaving the building, we ran into a massive swarm of evolved organisms..."
Kuang Feng gave a brief breakdown of what happened.
Shortly after exiting the tower, a dozen bipedal robots infested with slime mold targeted them.
Although their weapon systems were disabled, the mutant slime mold had granted them new weapons—tentacles.
Beyond that, there were "snails" using maglev rail cars as shells blocking the middle of the road, and mud monsters uglier than Zac jamming entire alleys.
In comparison, gnawers and crawlers seemed utterly weak!
Much like those "slime mold drones,"
the combat pattern of most slime mold fruiting bodies could be summarized in three stages: "rush the target," "close-quarters melee," and "feeding organ mauling."
Certain evolved organisms possessing host-hive characteristics could assimilate "intruders" into friendly units by injecting spores into their bodies.
A tiny minority relied on corrosive fluids or self-detonation to damage targets, though those mostly functioned as stationary traps with poor mobility.
These attack methods sounded primitive, yet it was precisely this primal approach that gave the team plunging into the Third Ring Road massive trouble.
Slime mold mutants naturally possessed ridiculous vitality, their HP sporting at least an extra zero compared to the players'.
After fusing with high-tech relics from the Era of Prosperity, these "evolved organisms" gained formidable physical armor and modes of mobility that defied the laws of nature.
Consequently, each of these evolved creatures fought like a Force warrior, their combat prowess terrifyingly overpowered.
"...Anyway, fortunately we didn't run into freaks in power armor like the Decayed Knight. After securing the mission objective, we rushed straight to the extraction point."
"Still, an accident happened on the way back. As expected, an Intelligence-type's athletic capability falls a bit short... Well, that's pretty much the gist of it."
Compared to Ye Shi's bombastic storytelling, the physics professor spoke far more reliably. Kuang Feng merely glossed over his specific cause of death, reluctant to dwell on the details.
Luo Yu: "Sob sob, too tragic."
Ye Shi: "What about your mechanical arm...?"
Kuang Feng: "I had Fang Chang chop it off."
Ye Shi: "Badass!"
Though a standard practical maneuver, being able to say it so casually was, in its own right, quite impressive...
Just then, Jieyan's ID popped up.
"Holy moly, you guys have already posted hundreds of replies!"
Ye Shi: "Damn! You're a Constitution-type, why are you out here too?"
Jieyan: "Ugh, don't ask. My hands got itchy and I touched a corpse. Turns out the damn thing wasn't dead yet—*whoosh*, it pounced, and I was gone!"
Kuang Feng: "..."
Jieyan: "*Ahem*, don't worry... Lao Bai and Fang Chang should be fine. We weren't far from the extraction point."
Kuang Feng: "Sigh, my expectations aren't high... As long as one person survives."
The normally taciturn Kuang Feng couldn't help praying for his teammates this time.
Experience points didn't matter, but the gear absolutely could not be dropped.
Frugality was a universal trait shared by every *Wasteland OL* player.
It wasn't that players didn't want to splurge, but rather that the conditions simply didn't allow it.
Mass-produced items like the LD-47 assault rifle were fine; if one broke, they could just buy another. But for weapons carrying [Rare] or [Special] prefixes, once lost, they wouldn't even know where to replace them!
As the scheming game planner put it, weighing mission risks before deciding whether to deploy high-value equipment was an integral part of the game.
The thread soon drifted off-topic.
Seeing the entire server's top-tier force getting battered so thoroughly by mutants inside the Third Ring Road, active players and spectators alike sparked a new debate:
Was the future of this build route "Genetic Enhancement" or "Mechanical Ascension"...?
***
While the forum buzzed with heated discussion, the two surviving members of the Ox and Horse Squad finally returned to Dawn City under the escort of Brother Edge and his team.
The harvest this time was astounding.
Not only had the squad recovered the missing pilot's VM and tissue samples of the mutant slime mold from inside Qingquan City's Third Ring Road, but they also brought back numerous illustrations and wreckage fragments of evolved organisms!
The latter was particularly significant.
Beyond expanding the lore database on the *Wasteland OL* official website and feeding more hype to armchair gamers, it provided abundant research material for the Scientific Expedition.
Those evolved organism remains were like living fossils.
With their own bodies, they preserved the forms and working mechanics of high-tech devices from the Era of Prosperity.
For a New Alliance whose scientific research relied entirely on salvaging, the value was immense!
Since Yin Fang was currently repairing fuel rods in Xizhou City and couldn't return right away, Chu Guang sent the biological samples to the Medical Lab first, handing them over to Heya for study.
As for Yin Fang, Chu Guang asked him to analyze the data from the pilot's VM remotely.
Chu Guang had always sensed something fishy about Luo Yu's crash.
The pilot's own account on the forum had further strengthened his suspicion.
That glider hadn't gone down by accident.
Something had shot it down...
Before long, Yin Fang completed his data analysis.
Over the comms channel, he reported, "Your guess was spot on. That little plane of yours was indeed brought down, and it was struck by something like an EMP weapon."
An EMP?!
Against a wooden glider?
A bizarre expression settled on Chu Guang's face.
Be reasonable.
That plane Mosquito built was as stripped-down as could be.
Apart from the battery and a handful of gauges that involved some circuitry, the rest of the craft was virtually void of electronics.
As everyone knew, without electromagnetic pulse hardening, smaller electronics suffered far more severe damage from an EMP.
Even against brick-thick vintage cell phones and old-fashioned tube radios, an EMP's impact was quite limited.
Let alone a wooden aircraft designed by Mosquito.
"Are you sure you didn't misread the data?"
"I'm certain. Absolutely certain. If I couldn't even parse data from a flight recorder correctly, the last twenty-odd years of my life would've been a waste."
Pausing briefly, Yin Fang continued, "Weird as it sounds, according to the VM's recorded telemetry, the electromagnetic pulse struck almost simultaneously with the hard impact."
"A plausible inference is that the EMP caused the VM's positioning components to fail. Due to low ambient visibility, the pilot lost his bearings, which ultimately caused the crash."
"...That does make sense." A somber look settled over Chu Guang's face.
If the cause of the crash was an EMP attack, only two possibilities remained.
Either an evolved organism inside the Third Ring Road, or the homies in Boulder City had greeted him with a firework.
The latter was improbable.
Using an electromagnetic pulse weapon against early-modern scrap was like lighting a nuclear bomb just to watch a firework.
And it wouldn't necessarily even work.
But if it were an evolved organism...
Chu Guang could hardly fathom how the mutant slime mold had pulled it off.
Seeing Chu Guang remain silent, Yin Fang shared more of his thoughts.
"...To be frank, I'm developing a grudging respect for that wretched slime mold. Between the parasite on Bucky and the power armor and tanks that showed up during the Tide, the learning capability and environmental adaptability displayed by that slime mold is giving me a certain... feeling."
Here, Yin Fang paused, searching for the right words.
Chu Guang could roughly guess what he meant, but prompted anyway, "A feeling of what?"
"A feeling... that they're more suited to this planet than we are."
Pausing again, Yin Fang added in an uncertain tone, "Haven't you noticed? We're scavenging the past, and so are they. Though their methods differ entirely from ours, the reality is that they're drawing nourishment from our ancestors' legacy."
"The first generation of evolved organisms still relied on external tools to augment themselves. Take that Decayed Knight we met before—its strength derived from the armor wrapped around it. Tough as it was, the supply of power armor is finite; take one down, and there's one less."
"By the second generation, however, they no longer need external tools. They can evolve their own knockoff 'power armor' and reproduce on a massive scale... You know what I'm referring to."
Thoughtfully, Chu Guang said, "You mean the 'Tyrant'?"
The name that struck terror into countless wastelanders.
In a one-on-one fight, even an Awakened would find it a nightmare to handle. Standard 7mm rounds could barely scratch it. At medium to long ranges, heavy-caliber light or heavy Lance rifles could deal with it, but at close range, effective counters were practically nonexistent.
Over the comms, Yin Fang nodded.
"Precisely!"
According to earlier research from the Medical Lab, a Tyrant could be viewed as two fruiting bodies combined.
The inner body resembled an underdeveloped gnawer, while the outer body formed a self-healing chitinous shell.
Though a clumsy imitation, numerous similarities proved that the Tyrant had evolved directly using the Decayed Knight as a blueprint.
"...The Tyrant is the most prominent example. Between the Decayed Knight and the Tyrant, we find behavioral, sociological, and biological links."
"This sprawling hive has spawned tens of thousands of evolved organisms to achieve a social division of labor. Their imitation of us might be crude for now, but historical experience shows that everything matures over time."
"I dare not even imagine what things will look like a century from now, or what the third generation of evolved organisms will become."
"Unlike mutants who merely gave up being human, they are becoming us, assimilating us, and seeking to replace us."
Yin Fang let out a soft sigh.
"That's what chills me to the bone..."
***
Dawn City industrial zone, Goblin Technology workshop.
Surrounded by piles of parts and blackboards, Mosquito and his four self-taught "apprentices" were still tearing their hair out over the task assigned by the Administrator.
To break through speed limits, the engine problem had to be solved first.
The ideal approach was jumping straight to a turbojet.
Yet even the simplest turbojet required at least a compressor, a combustion chamber, and a turbine.
The fan and compressor blades operated at tolerable temperatures and could be made directly from A3 aluminum alloy, but turbine blades were an entirely different matter.
Operating temperatures exceeding a thousand degrees drastically weakened steel and titanium, leaving nickel as the only viable choice.
Even with single-crystal nickel alloys, the risk of melting under extreme heat remained, requiring tiny internal channels and cooling holes cast inside the blades.
This was an intricate process, demanding extraordinary precision from both materials and casting techniques.
Fortunately, Factory 81 had offered to lend a hand with the engine blades.
Building a MiG engine was unrealistic, but attempting its predecessor—the Ta 183—was worth a shot.
A sufficient number of long-range jet-powered cruise missiles—or jet aircraft—could at least secure the New Alliance a sliver of an advantage in the skies.
Assistance from a peer workshop was undeniably great news for Goblin Technology.
If they could manufacture the blades, at least half their troubles with the turbojet would vanish.
However...
Before Mosquito could celebrate, he realized a problem even more severe than the engine itself.
They had no fuel!
In the real world, aviation fuels came in plentiful varieties.
Here, it was the wasteland.
The New Alliance's fuel supply relied predominantly on Kam tree plantations, but this bio-crude oil was too "light" and lacked highly branched isoalkanes.
Using it as an industrial raw material was fine, since Alliance industry wasn't overly picky about isoalkane content. Refining it into general fuel was also acceptable; even raw, it would ignite through an atomizer.
Aviation fuel, however, couldn't be faked so easily.
The core component of aviation kerosene was multi-branched isoalkanes, followed by strict tolerances for sulfur content, impurities, and other parameters.
Even if they lowered requirements for caloric value and energy density, there existed no established process to refine bio-crude oil into aviation fuel.
Because Kam trees didn't exist in the real world, there was nowhere to copy homework from.
Biofuel was already a frontier topic in emissions reduction; while "milestone achievements" and slideshow presentations were a dime a dozen, no one had ever succeeded in replacing oil wells with crops to resolve carbon emissions and industrial supply simultaneously.
Petroleum grown straight from the soil?
If such a miracle existed,
the whole world would go mad for it!
Just as everyone racked their brains without a shred of a solution, Zhui Hun broke the silence.
"How about... we try solid fuel? Like burning coal?"
Beside him, Duo Ming's eyes lit up.
"You mean the Lippisch P.13a?"
Sha Shen perked up excitedly. "Awesome, bro! I've seen that thing before!"
Though only in a game.
Quan Jia shook his head from the side and picked up a piece of chalk from the floor.
"Cut the crap. Wasn't that thing a ramjet?"
Saying so, he sketched a simple structural diagram in an empty spot on the blackboard. It looked slightly simpler than a turbojet.
Only slightly, though.
"That concept remains purely theoretical to this day. Sure, people dug it back up recently, hyping it as the breakthrough for hypersonic craft, but the thermal barrier issue was never resolved. Plus, inadequate fuel caloric value is a massive hurdle. As for the P.13a... it was just a paper project. It never saw combat, and whether one was even built is a mystery."
Mosquito looked at him strangely. "Don't you work at a drone factory?"
Quan Jia grinned sheepishly. "Heh, just an amateur hobby... What does it matter? Your family runs a furniture factory!"
Mosquito blurted out, "I really do run a furniture factory!"
Quan Jia chuckled. "I didn't say you didn't."
Although the problem remained unsolved, the mood had livened up.
Everyone tossed out ideas back and forth. Even if most were wildly impractical brainwaves, it beat sitting in silence and watching the clock tick.
Right then, a knock sounded at the door.
Mosquito got up and opened it, only to find an NPC guard standing outside.
Seeing the black uniform, Mosquito froze, blurting out in the Human Alliance language by reflex:
"It wasn't us."
The guard froze too, looking baffled.
"What... wasn't you?"
Noticing the guard's confused expression, Mosquito realized he had jumped to conclusions and cleared his throat awkwardly.
"Nothing... Just habit, hehe."
Whenever guards came knocking, it was never good news—either something had blown up or caught fire.
It had practically become a conditioned reflex.
The guard eyed Mosquito suspiciously for a moment, then, keeping things strictly professional, held out a parcel.
"Someone asked me to deliver this parcel to you."
"A parcel for me? From who?" Mosquito took the parcel, thoroughly confused.
"A young girl, about this tall... blonde hair. She didn't leave a name, only said to bring this parcel to Goblin Technology." The guard gestured with his hand to indicate her height—around a meter and a half.
Mosquito instantly realized who it was.
"Oh, right, right! That Pai? Thanks!"
"You're welcome."
Having delivered the package, the guard didn't linger. Having fulfilled the task assigned by the Administrator, he turned and left.
The door closed.
Carrying the parcel, Mosquito strutted back to his apprentices.
A gift from an NPC!
A moment like this was made for bragging!
Sure enough, the four brutes spotted what was in his hands. Sha Shen was the first to lean in, asking curiously, "What do you have there?"
Mosquito chuckled smugly. "Remember that girl from yesterday?"
Zhui Hun was stunned. "Pai?"
Mosquito waved the parcel proudly. "A gift for me."
The group blinked in disbelief, then exploded in uproar.
"Holy crap?"
"You absolute animal!"
Mosquito rolled his eyes. "Piss off! So vulgar! Can't she just admire my vast intellect and want to study under me?"
Sha Shen gagged. "I'm gonna puke."
Ignoring the guy, Mosquito unwrapped the parcel.
Yet when he saw what was inside, he froze.
The package contained a glass bottle filled with a clear liquid.
Holding it up to examine it, Mosquito looked utterly baffled.
"What the heck is this?"
Zhui Hun rolled his eyes. "Aren't you supposed to be vastly knowledgeable?"
"It's from an NPC, probably some quest item... Why don't you take a sip?" Quan Jia urged.
Honestly, Mosquito had been considering just that.
Still, it paid to smell it first.
He unscrewed the cap and brought his nose close, but the pungent stench that drilled into his nostrils instantly twisted his eyebrows into knots.
"Holy shit!"
What kind of stuff stank this badly?!
Chapter 346