Dusk arrived.
The players trickled back into the sanatorium. Brother Scrambled Eggs, who ran the kitchen, set up a large cauldron in the clearing and began preparing the day's final meal.
Tonight's menu was boiled salted ram horn potatoes served with dried smoked meat.
Thanks to the discovery of the new NPC settlement, the shelter's players finally had something to eat other than fish soup.
The ram horn potatoes tasted pretty good. Boiled in salted water and drizzled with a dash of soy sauce, they tasted somewhat like KFC mashed potatoes.
The only problem was that it used up quite a lot of soy sauce.
Just preparing these twenty-eight portions of mashed potatoes had consumed nearly a fifth of a bottle—and that was while being stingy with it.
On top of that, the shelter seemed to be running low on salt, with less than half a bag remaining.
At this rate of consumption, everyone would be back to subsisting on watery broth in just a few days.
"Mmm! This mashed potato is amazing! Uncle Scrambled Eggs, can I have another bowl?" Squatting on the ground with a bowl in hand, Tengteng wore a blissful expression.
"No more. One bowl per person," Scrambled Eggs snapped, rolling his eyes in annoyance at being called "Uncle."
"Are we having mashed potatoes again tomorrow, then?" Tengteng asked pitifully.
"Can't afford it. We're running out of soy sauce and have to ration it. If you want mashed potatoes, wake up and order takeout yourself," Brother Scrambled Eggs said, sighing inwardly.
Cooking for this bunch every day was truly exhausting.
In all his years working as a chef, he had never pinched pennies like this for any boss, practically wishing he could split a single grain of salt into two.
Meanwhile, sitting among the players with his bowl in hand, Ye Shi was embellishing every detail as he recounted the day's events, so engrossed he even forgot to eat.
When he reached the part about encountering the Crawler on the way back, he set down his bowl in excitement, picked up a twig, and began sketching on the ground.
"So there I was, walking down the street, when a sudden chill ran down my spine and alarm bells went off all over! In the nick of time, I whipped up my rifle and emptied a whole mag—"
Fang Chang, sitting beside him, couldn't listen any longer and called him out.
"A whole mag? Anyone listening would think you were holding a Gatling gun."
Ye Shi gave a dry cough.
"That's not important!"
"Then what? Then what? Keep going! How'd you guys wreck that thing?"
"Yeah, exactly! Stop interrupting!"
The surrounding players didn't care about the details; they were thoroughly entertained. Who cared if he was bragging? They all clamored for him to continue.
"Don't panic, everyone, listen to what happened next! In the blink of an eye, the moment the Crawler lunged at me, I hit the dirt with a sliding tackle..."
Seeing how intrigued everyone was, Ye Shi quickly hit his stride again. He went on describing how he had supported the Manager when he was locked in combat with mutants, how he had looted corpses on the battlefield, how a scoundrel had ambushed him, and how he had tactically disconnected to coordinate a clutch counter-kill with his teammates...
Fang Chang rolled his eyes. Unable to bear it any longer, he picked up his bowl and moved elsewhere to eat, out of sight and out of mind.
Dinner finished.
The sun was about to dip below the horizon.
Carrying Xiao Qi down from upstairs, Chu Guang led the players back into the shelter in batches and watched them lie down in the incubation pods to safely log off.
Except for Scavenger, who was still out in the field, everyone had returned.
However, Chu Guang wasn't too worried about him.
Through the player list, Chu Guang could confirm that the guy was still alive, although the player himself had already logged off two hours ago.
No matter how hard someone grinded, it was impossible to stay plugged into a game twenty-four hours a day. One still had to get up to eat and stretch.
Besides, the clones in the game also needed rest. Nobody could stay awake twenty-four hours straight—not even a lizardman.
According to the information published on the official website, lying back down in an incubation pod for voluntary hibernation wasn't the only way to log off; any loss of consciousness would disconnect the link.
This included, but was not limited to, knocking oneself out with a blunt object or lying down somewhere to sleep.
However, this logout method wasn't very reliable. For one thing, it didn't save progress, and for another, it wasn't safe.
The clones synthesized rapidly by the incubation pods possessed no independent mind. In other words, without a consciousness linked to them, these clones hardly responded to external stimuli beyond basic reflexes.
If a mutant rat or cockroach happened to pass by, it could easily chew a clone down to nothing, bite by bite.
Still, Scavenger had likely found a safe spot to hide; at least for now, he was quite safe.
Setting Scavenger's situation aside for the moment, Chu Guang sat down in front of the computer in the resident hall and, as usual, compiled a summary of the day's achievements.
"Construction of the eastern perimeter wall complete."
"Regarding resources: building material inventory gained 110 raw logs, one ton of charcoal, one ton of Portland cement, two stacks of yellow mud bricks, and a number of hardened concrete blocks. As for consumption: 240 raw logs, 800 kilograms of cement... Timber reserves have declined for two days straight, but cement is actually starting to run a surplus."
It looks like I need to assign a few lumberjacks, or increase the logging quota in the players' daily quests.
"Food inventory: gained 350 kilograms of green wheat and ram horn potatoes, 5 jin of smoked meat, and a small quantity of berries and mushrooms. Consumption: approximately 5 kilograms of dried smoked meat, 10 kilograms of ram horn potatoes, plus 50 kilograms of smoked meat and 20 kilograms of smoked fish traded away... Hunting will have to resume tomorrow."
"Next, pelt inventory... Aside from what was traded away, raw material consumption was 5 pelts. Tengteng actually crafted 5 garments today? Not bad... Let me see, that should be 250 contribution points."
"Right, there's also the increase in weapon inventory... I'll need to design an armory down the road."
Finally, today's daily quests brought in 7 reward points.
Time to enjoy opening some blind boxes again.
Having finished compiling the data, Chu Guang leaned back in his chair and stretched.
Just as he wrapped up this work, the thirty activated incubation pods in the adjacent room finished scanning the clones and archiving somatic cell samples, compiling the players' gene sequence development progress and stat sheets into a single table.
Chu Guang glanced through it.
Perhaps because the outpost's tasks at this stage were predominantly physical labor, Strength-type players were clearly leveling up faster across the board.
Old Bai, for instance, had already reached LV3.
Additionally, Ye Shi, who had been accompanying him outside, saw his gene sequence rise from LV1 to LV2. His primary stat, Perception, reached 9, making him the outpost's highest-Perception player.
"Master!"
Watching Xiao Qi roll over to the desk with a whir, Chu Guang looked away from the computer monitor.
"What is it?"
"Why did you pick up a strange woman outside and bring her back?"
Chu Guang nearly choked on his breath.
While there was nothing technically inaccurate about that description, it sounded strange when phrased that way.
"What kind of nonsense are you babbling?"
"Xiao Qi saw it from the roof! You carried her back over your shoulder."
"And so?" Chu Guang replied impatiently.
In a flat, robotic monotone, Xiao Qi answered aggrievedly, "Nothing! I just wanted to remind you that unlike the clones, whose movements can be restricted at any time, wasteland natives are much harder to control. It's better if you don't trust them too easily."
"You're overthinking it. I've never fully trusted anyone—neither the players nor the locals here," Chu Guang said flatly.
"Mm-hmm, then I'm relieved!"
The camera atop Xiao Qi tilted up and down in a nod.
"By the way, you can always trust Xiao Qi! No matter what happens, Xiao Qi is your most loyal assistant!"
"Right, got it."
"So perfunctory!"
Can't this gadget just quiet down while charging?
Suppressing the urge to snark back, Chu Guang turned his attention back to the screen.
It had been a dozen minutes or so since the players logged off. Predictably, this was peak activity time on the official website's forums.
Time for some delightful lurk-browsing.
Humming a tune to amuse himself, Chu Guang opened the website backend and first checked the pre-registration numbers.
The little leeks holding out their bowls had doubled from just over a hundred, and now stood just shy of three hundred.
By now, the barrier for pre-registering had shifted from simply filling out a form to filling out a form plus taking a quiz. Although the questions covered basic common sense, anyone patient enough to read through the quiz and fill in every blank could at least be filtered as a dedicated player. Those who passed could be considered top-tier material.
At the same time, website traffic had surged considerably, reaching an average of a thousand daily visits.
Though not everyone registered an account or clicked to pre-register, it at least showed that Wasteland OL's profile was rising steadily in gaming circles.
It was plainly an illicit website lacking even formal registration records, offering nothing beyond walls of lore text and a few construction site photos. To think it could attract so many people.
Chu Guang couldn't help musing to himself, "There really are plenty of bored folks out there."
Just as well.
Since they had time to spare, they might as well come work for him in the "game."
Closing the backend page, he navigated to the forums.
Just as Chu Guang had anticipated, the players who had logged off had flocked here to report in. The forum was buzzing with activity.
Even Scavenger, who had logged off two hours earlier, was hanging out here.
Scavenger Lv99: [Damn, today was exhausting as hell, but thankfully I got some results! About two kilometers north of the abandoned construction site, there's a tire processing plant. People are patrolling nearby with dogs—looks like a marauder camp, but I'm not sure yet! Once it gets dark, I'm gonna creep closer to check it out, then come back to flex on the forums once I'm sure.]
{Gale Force 8: 666!}
{Old Bai: Holy crap, no wonder I didn't see you when logging off! Also, how the hell can you get online during the day???}
{Scavenger Lv99: If you were a mutant, you could too! No more BS-ing, I'm logging on after a short break. (Grin)}
{Ye Shi: You're just here to humblebrag!}
{Quitting Smoking: Forget getting on during the day—if I could just log on for one look, I could die happy! T.T}
{Yaya: I'm still on resurrection cooldown, crying my eyes out.}
{Scavenger Lv99: (Grin)}
Apart from Scavenger flexing on his own, the vast majority of players on the forums were passionately discussing the new NPC the Manager had brought back, as well as the newly discovered survivor settlement.
The latter, in particular, sparked immense interest.
At the top of a long list of threads, Chu Guang quickly spotted an analysis post penned by "Ample Time Ahead."
As always, the guy was a master at synthesizing information, and his threads enjoyed the highest popularity on the forum. If circumstances allowed, Chu Guang would have been sorely tempted to hire him as the game's lead designer.
[...I really have to sing praises for this Alpha 0.2 update! It's clear that the game developers are showing tremendous sincerity—they are truly conscientious!]
[The content in this update goes far beyond the few optimization notes listed on the website. New factions, new monster models, a vastly expanded map, and more—the scope is far richer than I previously imagined!]
[Take Brown Farm, which traded with us this time. The moment we walked under that concrete perimeter wall, I was blown away by the developers' art design. That feeling of immersive realism is hard to put into words. From the post-apocalyptic architecture to the fine fabric textures of different NPCs' clothes, every detail shows deliberate craftsmanship rather than reskinning reused assets!]
[Beyond that, there was a test of the combat system. On our return journey, we were ambushed by a Crawler and fought a hair-raising yet manageable battle. Before this, I thought mutants with such absurd combat prowess only existed in the lore, but it's actually been implemented in the current build!]
[I have to say, our Manager truly lives up to his role as the tutorial guide—his combat power is utterly absurd! The instant the Crawler leaped at us, neither Ye Shi nor I could react in time. We were basically spectating from the sidelines while he dealt all the damage by himself, managing to wreck a two-meter-tall Gnawer with nothing more than a little steel pipe! Watching it made my blood boil with excitement!]
[Also, for me personally, the biggest surprise was the arrival of a new NPC at our outpost! Her unique background might unlock all kinds of new gameplay mechanics for us, like weapon modification or even additional side quests... I think there's a lot to look forward to!]
[I'll continue updating this thread with more intel on the Alpha 0.2 update. Wasteland friends who are interested, feel free to drop a follow!]
"Conscientious," eh?
Well, now I'm blushing.
Having read the post from start to finish, Chu Guang grinned from ear to ear.
All things considered, Chu Guang felt he truly was generous enough. At least he wasn't fleecing the players' wallets.
If a next-gen game capable of liberating dreams and sleep were operated by the likes of Penguin or Pig Factory, did you really think you could play without shelling out a thousand or eight hundred bucks?
Forget playing—if you wanted to haul bricks, you'd probably have to buy a VIP membership first!
What?
No money?
That's easy. You shouldn't mind applying mortar with your bare hands, right?
After all, if you didn't do that, how could the pay-to-win whales laying bricks with trowels show off their noble status? Of course, you could also choose to watch two hours of ads to unlock a VIP discount coupon.
At the very least, Chu Guang could never bring himself to do something so unscrupulous.
For the sake of being praised as conscientious, Chu Guang pinned Brother Fang Chang's thread as a featured post.
Closing the thread casually, Chu Guang was just pondering how to pass the long night when Xiao Qi's aggrieved voice drifted from beside him.
"Master."
"The woman you picked up has woken up."
Chapter 41