It was the first day of Alpha 0.3 going live.
The test results of the new version were quite pleasing.
Through the players' division of labor and cooperation, the perimeter wall surrounding the outpost was finally completely finished.
This three-meter-high concrete fortification brought not only a sense of security, but also opened up possibilities for the players to play during the night.
Previously, as soon as six in the evening arrived, Chu Guang would lead the players back into the shelter to prevent these fellows from being carried off by mutants prowling for food.
Now, with the protection of the wall, as long as the players were willing, they could stay on the surface until their in-game characters started getting drowsy (their fatigue gauge ran out).
Of course, for safety's sake, Chu Guang still forbade the players from using facilities with open flames, such as the blast furnace, at night.
Smelting steel and firing cement during the day was fine—the woods blocked most of the smoke and dust, and firelight was not so noticeable in daylight. At night, however, all bets were off.
The mutant tribe on 76th Street was like a thorn stuck in the outpost's throat. Until that thorn was pulled, Chu Guang could never truly rest easy.
Besides the perimeter wall, the weapons shop and the bathhouse had also been completed one after another through the players' efforts. Though far from luxurious, they were fully functional.
Chu Guang was especially pleased with the partitioned bathhouse.
Before, whether it was him or the players, they had to go to the lake to wash up. Now with the bathhouse, sanitation could be handled right inside the base.
Of course, the wooden water tank on the bathhouse roof could only hold five cubic meters of water, so running out was inevitable with extended use.
When that happened, someone would need to manually haul water from the lake to refill the tank before those inside could keep washing, which was admittedly somewhat troublesome.
Therefore, the wise and great Administrator was considering turning the bathhouse from a public utility into a paid facility, charging a water fee of five copper coins per cubic meter. At the same time, he would create a water-hauler job responsible for filling the tank on the roof.
This was entirely reasonable.
Meanwhile, beyond construction, the players' performance in production, gathering, hunting, and crafting had also exceeded Chu Guang's expectations.
The introduction of currency had vastly stimulated the players' enthusiasm for production (gaming).
Merely hearing the clinking in their coin pouches was enough to dispel the fatigue and weakness in their limbs, keeping them laboring at their posts with soaring morale.
Among them, the best performers remained the Cow and Horse Squad.
The four veteran leeks truly lived up to their reputation as pro gamers. Their quadrilateral tactic integrated scouting, frontlining, DPS, and support into one, producing brilliant results in their very first cooperative venture.
By evening, having scouted south along the elevated highway, they had hunted a total of eight mutant hyenas and one mutant reindeer.
Their proceeds from selling the prey amounted to fifty-five silver coins—forty-three from the mutant hyenas and twelve from the mutant reindeer.
Although the meat yield of both mutant hyenas and mutant reindeer was not high, usually just over forty percent and never exceeding fifty percent;
even so, Brother Scrambled Eggs, acting as the temporary butcher, still managed to harvest over a hundred kilograms of hyena meat and over a hundred kilograms of venison from the carcasses.
This meat would be turned into smoked meat and stored in the warehouse. Before being cured into smoked meat, players could also spend money to buy fresh raw meat for their dinner.
It was worth noting that previously, everyone at the outpost ate from the same communal pot, with Brother Scrambled Eggs serving as the cook and arranging the menu for two meals a day.
What the players got to eat depended entirely on the chef's mood and whatever prey the Administrator happened to bring back that day.
Now, things were completely different.
The base's granary would be open to all players at fair and affordable prices, honest to young and old alike: one silver coin could buy one kilogram of green wheat, three hundred grams of raw meat, or two hundred grams of smoked jerky.
What did one silver coin represent?
According to the rules designed by Chu Guang, one silver coin was equivalent to ten copper coins, which was roughly the median hourly income of the players.
In other words, as long as most players worked diligently for an hour or two or patiently completed some quests, they could buy enough rations to fill their bellies.
As for whether the players stuffed the food straight into their mouths, added seasonings to cook green wheat porridge or wheat cakes, shared a table with others, or even traded it, that was entirely up to them.
Earlier, when Chu Guang was designing this simple economy system, he had done some math.
A mutant hyena weighing just over thirty kilograms yielded about twelve kilograms of meat after removing the inedible viscera and head.
Purchasing the carcass from hunters at a base price of five silver coins, and hiring a butcher at an average cost of two silver coins to slaughter, carve, skin, and debone it, brought the total cost to a mere seven zero-cost silver coins.
Assuming twelve kilograms of meat was harvested, priced at one silver coin per three hundred grams of raw meat, twelve kilograms came to forty silver coins!
With an output value of forty silver coins and a production cost of seven silver coins, circulation costs were negligible. Thus, in this simple economic chain, thirty-three silver coins of surplus value would be generated.
This figure meant nothing to the players—they were playing a game, after all—but to Chu Guang as the Administrator, it meant everything.
As long as this economic chain from "prey to raw meat" kept running, every cycle would supply the outpost's granary with "raw meat worth thirty-three silver coins" and "pelts worth several silver coins."
Of course, the players could not possibly consume all the raw meat. Even if they emptied their pockets, they couldn't buy up everything they produced, nor would gorging themselves make any sense.
Therefore, aside from the small portion bought by players with the silver coins he distributed, the majority of the raw meat would remain, entering a new economic chain as "raw material" to be stored in the granary as dried meat for the shelter's food reserves.
Aside from the "prey to dried meat" industry, logging, salvaging scrap, firing cement, moving bricks, gathering, and fishing followed essentially similar economic models.
Using the two levers of commodity prices and quest rewards, he could easily regulate the inventory of various supplies and steer the players' current focus of labor.
For example, now that the perimeter wall was built, the base's demand for plastering and moving bricks had dropped. In its place was the need for more food and weapons to feed and arm more players.
Therefore, Chu Guang would suitably lower weapon prices at the woodworking shed to encourage players to order weapons and upgrade their gear, while simultaneously raising purchase prices for hunted game to prompt capable players to use their purchased weapons to hunt and build proficiency.
This way, the players gained money, gear, and combat experience. Meanwhile, Chu Guang not only amassed substantial food reserves, but also acquired a pool of martial-minded recruits.
It was practically a win-win!
No, make that a triple win!
Because Chu Guang, as the Administrator, won twice!
Those few coins acted like a catalyst. Though they created no value themselves, they had revitalized the entire outpost's economy.
Chu Guang felt he was an absolute genius.
The only minor issue was that no one was cooking dinner today.
Brother Scrambled Eggs hadn't saved up enough money yet, so his restaurant hadn't opened.
To save money, almost everyone ran to the warehouse for the welfare ration: buying a kilogram of ram horn potatoes for one silver coin, with teammates chipping in to rent a large cauldron, lighting a fire, roughly cooking them, and devouring them before renting the pot to the next group.
Even if they weren't thoroughly cooked, it didn't really matter. The tubers could be eaten raw in the first place; it was just a matter of hygiene and taste.
In an instant, having gained a goal to strive for, everyone suddenly stopped caring whether the food tasted good. They carried the spirit of hard struggle to the absolute limit, with only one requirement: as long as they could fill their bellies!
Only Yaya was an exception.
While everyone else was happily munching on potatoes, she couldn't even afford potatoes.
Because the Administrator had forgotten to issue her welfare subsidy, and she had logged on too late to find teammates, she sat in a corner with a resentful expression, chewing on sour berries and mushrooms.
In the end, Tengteng couldn't bear to watch any longer. She walked over and shared half a bowl of mashed ram horn potatoes with her.
Watching Yaya wolf it down, Tengteng couldn't bring herself to mock her and sighed.
"Starting tomorrow, you really have to do quests properly and earn money. I can't keep supporting you forever."
Yaya hugged Tengteng emotionally.
"Tengteng, are you an angel?!"
Looking at Yaya's teary eyes, Tengteng, her face squished out of shape, sighed and slipped out from under her arms with flushed cheeks.
"...What kind of nonsense are you babbling?"
The sky gradually darkened.
Strolling through the base, Chu Guang inspected his territory and checked on the players.
Although most players wanted to stay a while longer, dawn would break in the real world in two hours, and the working stiffs would have to wash up, get ready, and head out to work.
Chu Guang figured it was getting late and was just about to call them together when heavy knocks sounded against the base's north gate.
*Thump, thump, thump.*
The players looked toward the gate. Chu Guang's right hand instinctively gripped the pistol in his pocket, but he soon let go.
Checking the player list, he confirmed that the person outside should be Scavenger.
Glancing at the two players closest to him, Chu Guang instructed, "Fang Chang, Fleeting White Horse, go open the gate."
"Yes, sir!"
Fang Chang and Fleeting White Horse jogged forward, lifted the bar latching the gate, and worked together to pull the wooden gate open a crack.
Catching sight of Scavenger squeezing through the gap, Fang Chang and Fleeting White Horse jumped in fright.
"Holy crap?!"
"Bro, what happened to you?!"
Blood!
All over him!
Though some wounds had already healed, many more visible bite marks and gunshot wounds covered his body.
Seeing Scavenger in this state, Chu Guang frowned slightly, already guessing what the fellow had run into.
Fortunately, if the other side had mistaken him for a mutant—and a not particularly tasty one at that—a pursuit was unlikely.
Paying no mind to his injuries, Scavenger rushed up to the Administrator and panted, "A marauder camp! About two kilometers north of the abandoned construction site, roughly three to four kilometers from here! It's an old tire factory!"
Ye Shi couldn't help asking, "Did you get into a fight with them?"
"No, no, I swear I didn't provoke them!"
Scavenger waved his hands frantically to clear his name. Stealing a glance at the Administrator, he continued, "I was planning to withdraw, but I ran right into their patrol... I saw there were only three of them."
Ye Shi: "And you fought them anyway?"
Scavenger's expression grew awkward, and he looked away.
"Uh... they spotted me. I had no choice."
It seemed the fellow had lost the fight.
Hardly surprising, though. A three-man patrol would likely have a dog, which was probably where the bite marks had come from.
Even though this guy held an absolute advantage in stat sheet attributes, squaring off against battle-hardened veteran marauders was not something he could easily win.
It was already lucky enough that he had managed to run back.
"A tire factory to the north, is it? Understood," Chu Guang nodded, looking at Scavenger. "Head back to your incubation pod and rest first."
The incubation pod had the function of accelerating tissue and cellular repair for clones synthesized by itself. Combined with Scavenger's own Constitution attribute, he should fully recover before long.
"Yes, Lord Administrator." With that, Scavenger wagged his tail and limped toward the sanatorium.
Along the way, many players noticed his condition and began whispering among themselves.
"Look how badly hurt he is!"
"I heard he found a marauder camp."
"A marauder camp?! Is a new dungeon opening?!"
"Badass!"
"Damn it, I've got to pool my money and buy a gun fast!"
"Sigh, what a dilemma. Should I buy land first or a gun first?"
"Don't be an idiot. Move bricks first."
Clearly, these players did not realize how thorny the situation was; instead, they discussed it with excitement plastered across their faces.
That was understandable.
To them, after all, this was just a game.
Only Chu Guang, as the Administrator, felt a sense of urgency creep between his brows.
To the north was a marauder camp, to the east was a mutant lair, to the west lay Ling Lake, and to the south was the territory where survivors from Bet Street and Brown Farm operated.
The outpost's location was truly unfavorable, its room for growth hemmed in tightly.
"Whether it's the marauders or the mutants..."
"To break this deadlock, there's no choice but to fight them..."
Chu Guang had already decided on the contents of the next expansion pack.
Chapter 51