"Today is January 1st, Year 2342 of the Old Era, and January 1st, Year 213 of the Wasteland Era. Below are today's top headlines from the Alliance."
"The New Year's Eve festivities have concluded successfully. Major settlements across the Alliance held grand celebration ceremonies on New Year's Eve to ring in the new year..."
"The Boulder City Hall announced that the curfew will be lifted starting today, and the lockdown on all gates along the Great Wall will also be officially ended as of now. At the same time, the city entry tax levied for the construction of the Great Wall will be abolished, and the height of the Great Wall will no longer be increased."
"In other news, to address the impact of the regional unrest in Qingquan City, a two-hundred-person volunteer team comprising teachers, medical personnel, biologists, and engineers has arrived at Dawn City's North Airport from Ideal City."
"In his New Year's Eve address, the Administrator stated that improving the living standards of residents remains the focus of the Alliance's work in the coming year. Currently, the Alliance's registered population has broken the one million mark. In addition to affordable housing and rail transit currently under construction, the Alliance will add twelve full-time schools and eight social welfare facilities..."
"Reporting for you, Survivor Daily Broadcast!"
Firewood crackled in the fireplace.
The cozy warmth induced a drowsy lethargy, making even the clear, resonant voice from the radio and the ticking of the wall clock seem stretched and slow.
This was Dust Town, situated on the edge of the ruins of Jinhe City in Jinchuan Province. It was a good seven to eight hundred kilometers away from Qingquan City—equivalent to the distance between Jiangcheng and Shancheng in the real world.
Ever since Boulder City joined the Alliance, several new signal towers had recently been erected. Various broadcast stations, including *Survivor Daily*, had added mediumwave and shortwave frequency bands.
Although radiation clouds and other anomalous weather conditions on the wasteland could disrupt electromagnetic signals, such interference was not absolute.
Now, faint and intermittent broadcasts from the Alliance could reach Jinchuan Province.
"Must be nice."
Listening to the broadcast, Wo Xiang Jingjing wore an expression of wistful longing.
He had heard that everyone who participated in the New Year's Eve event received a red packet, with prizes ranging from a minimum of 6 silver coins to a grand prize of a set of Dragoon power armor.
And one without any level requirements!
What a shame...
The event was only held within Alliance borders.
In all of Dust Town, there were only three players. Although they had dragged the locals into staging a sacrificial rite, the pitiful selection of food offered as tribute had amounted to barely anything.
After sharing the leftover offerings among the village children, he hadn't even bothered logging on last night, opting instead to stay offline and treat himself to takeout.
Sighing, Jingjing turned toward the lizard curled up warming itself by the fireplace and called out, "Hey, Scavenger."
Level 99 Scavenger scratched his butt, shifted into a lazier posture, and grunted back, "What?"
Wo Xiang Jingjing couldn't help saying, "We've been stuck in this dump for almost half a year now. Just how much longer are we gonna sit around here?!"
They had agreed to head south together.
Yet the other two guys had planted their butts right here and refused to budge.
Scavenger chuckled. "No rush, no rush. The whole 'Na fruit' thing hasn't been dealt with yet. We can't just leave these villagers in the lurch, can we?"
According to intel on the official website, it had been confirmed that Na fruit and emerald fruit were the exact same thing. Supposedly originating from the South Seas Archipelago, it had flowed into various regions across southern Central Continent through ports along the Coast of Death.
Jinchuan Province was one of the hardest hit.
Combining the official website's speculation about the upcoming version update, Scavenger and Brother Qiangren Suonan had unanimously concluded that some unspeakable conspiracy lurked behind the Na fruit.
And so they decided to stay.
On one hand, they could observe the condition of the villager who had consumed it; on the other, they could send observed samples back to the biological research institutes within the Alliance.
At the same time, they could keep tabs on the movements of a mutant tribe called "Qi."
However, months had passed since then, yet neither the Na fruit nor the mutant tribe had shown any new movement. Wo Xiang Jingjing was growing somewhat impatient.
They hadn't made an inch of progress for months!
Even if they weren't going south, couldn't they at least party up, go home, and save their spawn point?!
Looking at Scavenger's relaxed expression, Wo Xiang Jingjing couldn't resist mocking him, "You haven't gotten addicted to playing god, have you?"
Scavenger froze for a second, then burst into laughter. "Hahaha, no way! How could I?"
The laugh was more than a little hollow.
Wo Xiang Jingjing couldn't resist rolling his eyes.
Just then, a series of knocks sounded at the door—thump, thump, thump—originating so low down it was as if they were coming right off the floorboards.
Guessing who it was, he sighed, pushed himself up from the blanket-draped chair, and walked over to pull the door open.
A fat rat, standing knee-high, slipped inside from outdoors. The chilly draft that swept in with it made Scavenger pull his neck into his collar.
"Something's happened."
The moment he heard trouble had arisen, Jingjing perked up with excitement. Scavenger, who had been lounging by the hearth, was no longer sleepy either, scrambling up nimbly to join them.
"What happened?!"
"Spill it!"
Seeing his two companions' eager expressions, Qiangren Suonan cleared his throat and adopted a mysterious air. "Haven't I been keeping an eye on Hope Town lately? Yesterday, a few charlatans showed up there."
Wo Xiang Jingjing paused. "Charlatans?"
"Yeah, priests or apostles or whatever. I figured something was fishy about them, so I snuck in after them and eavesdropped on their conversation. They spouted a whole load of gibberish—basically that the radiance of heavenly fire will soon shine upon this chaos-corrupted land, all sins will be purged, and those who embrace glorious evolution will join a divine kingdom free of all suffering and disease... Then, right after that, they demanded that the locals build a church for their Holy Son."
Wo Xiang Jingjing asked blankly, "What do they mean by 'evolution'..."
That was the only keyword he had caught onto.
Qiangren Suonan shook his head. "No clue. Maybe it's the Na fruit. At first I thought the Na fruit was brought in by mutants, but who knew it was those bastards from down south pulling the strings..."
As he spoke, he dipped a paw into the melted snow on his fur and drew two inverted triangles on the floor.
"They had this symbol drawn on their robes."
Scavenger leaned in for a closer look, his brow furrowing. "A torch?"
Qiangren Suonan nodded. "Yeah. The Church of the Torch."
Wo Xiang Jingjing rubbed the back of his head, not quite understanding. "Honestly... I don't really get why you two are watching the Church of the Torch so closely. As long as they don't stir up trouble, who cares what they believe?"
There were plenty of people in the Alliance who worshipped the Great Horned Deer God, and most survivors in Sunset Province worshipped their Spirit of the Sand Sea.
When there are no laws to restrain people's conduct, faith can serve at least a small purpose.
Granted, Project Torch was nothing good, but aside from having a similar symbol, the Church of the Torch didn't seem to have any direct connection to it.
He was a newcomer who joined during the Closed Beta, so he didn't know much about what had happened back in Alpha.
Qiangren Suonan glanced at him. "What if there are mutants among their missionaries?"
Wo Xiang Jingjing was stunned. "Mutants?!"
Don't mutants treat humans as food?
What kind of insane faith could assimilate even mutants?!
Scavenger grinned. "Even without that, there's no way we'd let them off the hook. I haven't forgotten that back during the Bone Chewers' Rebellion, the Legion and the Free Confederation supplied weapons to those marauders, while they gave those marauders faith and high technology. The Alliance's earliest batch of neural-link gear was seized right from their hands."
Almost the entirety of central River Valley Province had been slaughtered clean by that bunch. Many of the Alliance's residents were survivors of that catastrophe; this debt was bound to be settled sooner or later.
Qiangren Suonan furrowed his brows tightly. "I don't know what they're plotting, but I've got a bad feeling about this... Besides, if all the surrounding settlements start worshipping that Torch crap, what happens to the Great Horned Rat and the Great Horned Deer God?"
Wo Xiang Jingjing had been pondering seriously during the first half of the sentence, but at the second half, he nearly choked on his own spit.
"...You bastards are just worried about being kicked off your altars!"
Scavenger gave a cough, ignoring the roast. "At any rate... once the Church of the Torch is involved, we can't take this lightly. I'll hop on the forum first to see what the others think."
What he truly dreaded was something else.
Perhaps it wasn't that the Church of the Torch had assimilated the mutants, but rather that those lunatics had systematically turned humans into mutants through some method, altering the land until it was only fit for mutants to survive.
Prolonged consumption of Na fruit by ordinary humans and animals produced hallucinogenic effects, plunging them into a state known as a "trance."
Yet for mutants, the effects brought by the Na fruit seemed to be entirely beneficial. They grew stronger, and their desire for combat and reproduction became even fiercer.
Mutant tribes that lived by raiding rarely exceeded a hundred in number. Even the mutants of the Great Desert had only pushed their numbers to over a thousand after learning farming, livestock breeding, and division of labor.
Yet here, the mutant tribe called "Qi" boasted a population of over ten thousand!
Relying solely on primitive farming and husbandry, it was impossible to sustain a population of that magnitude.
Intuition told him that some terrifying conspiracy was brewing across this land...
Closing his amber eyes, Dust Town's "Lizard God" hastily logged off to head to the official website.
Jingjing parted his lips, just about to say something, when hurried knocking at the door cut his thoughts short.
He walked over and opened the door. The village chief stood outside, looking nervous. "My lord, forgive the intrusion... Guests have arrived at the village entrance."
Jingjing frowned. "Guests? What kind of guests?"
It was winter now; traveling merchants wandering the roads were virtually nonexistent. Even those on the road headed straight for their destinations for safety's sake. Unless their supplies were running dry, they would never approach settlements that looked so impoverished.
The village chief lowered his gaze and said respectfully, "The fellow claims to be a servant of the Holy Son, spouting all sorts of nonsense. He insists our eyes are blinded by barbarism and wants to save us from suffering..."
With that, the old man clenched his fists and spat indignantly, "I told them we have our own faith! We don't need their heretical nonsense, and we certainly don't need their Na fruit!"
Jingjing exchanged a glance with the fat rat behind him.
Holy crap!
They've preached all the way here?
Talk about fast!
...
Wasteland Online Official Website.
The forum was as lively and cheerful as ever.
[Event Announcement: The New Year's Eve festivities have concluded successfully!
Boulder City Division Results: The most popular dish among players was "Creamy Leech and Mushroom Soup." The most popular dish among wastelanders was "Cotton Candy." The most popular dish favored by the Administrator was "Pan-Fried Corn Beef Patties"!]
[Update: Added "Mercenary Guild" System]
[Description: Certain commissions from the Merchant Guild have been transferred to the Mercenary Guild. Players can now register as mercenaries and accept missions through their VMs.]
Tail: "Waaaah, Mercenary Guild! My Mercenary Guild! I clearly came up with it first! QAQ"
Jieyan: "Haha! Proof that Ah Guang copies straight from the forums! (smirk)"
Sisi: "Pat pat, don't cry, Tail. We can always set one up outside the Alliance."
Gui Gui: "Ooooh! Our cotton candy actually made the cut!"
Feng Qing: "Hell yeah, limited-edition title unlocked! Hehe, so happy!"
Ye Shi: "Damn it, why sweets again?! Pretty sure it was sweets last year too! Do these wastelanders crave sugar that much?! (frantic)"
Brother Scrambled Eggs: "Exactly! Why didn't our braised battleship shrimp win? It was so delicious! T.T"
Ye Shi: "What's worse, Fang Chang's wife only gave us an 8!"
Fang Chang: "You guys... You insisted on judging by looks and picked a bunch of pretty girls as judges, and now you blame them for liking sweets? (side-eye)"
Last night, he had dragged Dolly over to patronize his buddies' stall, showing plenty of support by ordering a huge bowl.
In the end, because it was too greasy, Dolly barely ate two bites, and all the peeled shrimp ended up in his stomach.
Out of a perfect 10, an 8 was actually pretty generous.
However, because the final score wasn't a simple average or sum of points, but calculated using a specific formula where the "approval rating" and the number of judges attracted were heavily weighted, a single high score was hardly enough to win.
Although the heavily oiled, smoky braised battleship shrimp had indeed attracted many customers, it couldn't compete with the smell of cotton candy wafting down the entire street all night.
And best of all, cotton candy didn't fill you up; even on a full stomach, you could still eat a bit.
With so many buffs stacked, the outcome had seemed decided from the very start...
Ye Shi: "Hiss... We rushed into this blindly!"
Lao Bai: "Hahaha, got it. Next time we pick from drinking buddies and make bar snacks! (smirk)"
Teng Teng: "Ah, but honestly, seeing Xiao Yu look so blissful surrounded by cotton candy was just too wholesome."
Yaya: "Totally~"
Ye Shi: "!!! I vote for Xiao Yu!"
WC Really Has Mosquitoes: "Waaaah, damn it, I want to adopt one too!"
Tail: "@Guang, Officer, this is the guy right here!"
WC Really Has Mosquitoes: "Damn it! I was just shooting my mouth off! (panicked)"
Elaina: "Time to open a file on you, bro. (funny)"
WC Really Has Mosquitoes: "%¥#@!"
Level 99 Scavenger: "Breaking news! Sounds like the southern expansion pack is finally making moves!"
Fang Chang: "What moves?"
Level 99 Scavenger: "A few Church of the Torch apostles came preaching to Dust Town! They've already reached within eight hundred kilometers of us!"
Canyon Mole on the Run: "Where on earth is Dust Town..."
Level 99 Scavenger: "Uh, that place I told you guys about earlier, hehe."
In Debt God: "Ohhh, that village of yours. (funny)"
Construction Site Boy and Bricks: "Pfft, I thought it was something big. (funny)"
Level 99 Scavenger: "Screw you guys! I'm being serious here!"
Lao Bai: "Brother Scavenger, your settlement is near Jinhe City, right?"
Level 99 Scavenger: "Yeah! Right there!"
Lao Bai: "All right. We happen to have a quest heading to Jinhe City in a couple of days anyway, so we can check out the situation while we're at it. (grin)"
Brother Edge: "Damn! What quest?"
Lao Bai: "Recovering nuclear fuel. (grin)"
Brother Edge: "Holy crap, that's awesome!!!"
Commander Spring: "Crying from envy! T.T"
Lao Bai: "Cough, we'll be counting on you for supplies!"
Level 99 Scavenger: "Haha, don't worry! We lack everything here except food! By the way, bring us a few bags of seeds and fertilizer. It's been ages since a caravan visited here!"
Ye Shi: "Damn, are you guys running a poverty alleviation project over there?!"
Level 99 Scavenger: "What do you mean poverty alleviation?! This is expanding the Alliance's frontiers!"
Elven King Fugui: "Isn't it just playing cult leader? (funny)"
Level 99 Scavenger: "Cough, that was just bragging, don't take it seriously..."
Elaina: "How come I heard there are already statues of you? (funny)"
...
Boulder City Hall, Administrator's Office.
While the players were chatting away on the forum, Chu Guang held an investigation report from the Guards Corps in his hands.
Long before the snow fell, he had ordered Lyu Bei to dispatch a century from the Guards Corps south to Jinchuan Province to gather intelligence on the "Na fruit."
Back then, the Na fruit had first surfaced at an Alliance festival.
Although Heya told him it wasn't as terrifying as imagined, he had still caught the whiff of conspiracy.
The findings of the Guards Corps and the discussions of the players on the forum happened to corroborate his earlier suspicions.
"Looks like it's not just viruses and bacteria... Even the Church of the Torch, mutants, and southern slaveholders—three heaps of trash with zero in common—have been tied together by this little fruit."
Reading through to the end of the report, Chu Guang clicked his tongue.
According to the Guards Corps' investigation, the sphere of influence of the Church of the Torch overlapped almost completely with the cultivation areas of the Na fruit!
This was clearly no coincidence!
Taking advantage of the Jinchuan slaveholders losing their grain market in southern River Valley Province, those cultists secretly promoted the cash crop known as "Na fruit," and then exported the Torch faith to survivor settlements that had become utterly dependent on it.
As for why those survivors were so obedient, the clue uncovered by the Guards Corps was that the Church of the Torch possessed an antidote called "Holy Water."
It was common knowledge that most humans and animals grew increasingly docile after prolonged consumption of Na fruit, intermittently falling into a hallucinatory state known as a "trance."
Specifically, they lost all response to external stimuli, remaining immersed in a blissful hallucination until death, offering no resistance even when preyed upon.
Much like a horsehair worm in a praying mantis.
Given the properties of the Na fruit, humans or animals that entered this "trance" became Na fruit in another sense, passing the "seeds" along the food chain.
Only powerful species born from laboratories, such as mutants and Deathclaws, possessed a degree of immunity against falling captive to the Na fruit.
The Holy Water developed by the Church of the Torch could awaken people from the "trance," allowing them to live lucidly within the blissful illusion.
Initially, some slaveholders merely fed Na fruit to their slaves to make them docile and obedient. Later, after experiencing the "benefits" of the fruit themselves, the slaveholders began consuming it as well, ultimately surrendering their loyalty willingly to the Church of the Torch, which held the Holy Water.
Yet that wasn't all the Church of the Torch had done.
On one hand, they played the role of shepherds, indoctrinating survivor settlements and turning the people there into sheep in a pen.
At the same time, they used the lambs in the pen to buy off the mutants of Jinchuan Province.
Addicts locked in a "trance" wouldn't break down no matter how they were tormented. To the brutal mutants, they were both the most delectable delicacies and the ideal breeding beds for propagating offspring.
This was another lead uncovered by the Guards Corps' investigation.
Originally, the slaveholders of Jinchuan Province had been evenly matched with the mutants thanks to weapons manufactured in southern River Valley Province.
However, once infected by the Na fruit, the survivor settlements that once held the upper hand almost immediately lost all combat effectiveness and were swiftly absorbed into the Church of the Torch's sphere of influence.
Meanwhile, the mutants rarely invaded settlements brought under the Church of the Torch's domain, and even if they launched a brief incursion, they quickly pulled out.
This proved beyond doubt that the Church of the Torch and the mutants of Jinchuan Province had struck some tacit understanding, if not an outright pact.
After finishing the report on the Na fruit, Chu Guang turned to another investigation report regarding the Church of the Torch.
Previously, he had suspected a connection between the Church of the Torch and the Enlightenment Society, but to his surprise, the Guards Corps' findings pointed in the opposite direction.
The core of Project Torch was to destroy the world before creating it anew, ultimately achieving rebirth in a civilizational sense.
The doctrine of the Church of the Torch was cut from the same cloth as the unfinished Project Torch. They likewise believed the world needed to be destroyed once, but their specific path was completely different from that of the Enlightenment Society.
What they wanted to build was not a new world ruled by pre-war elites, but rather, through biological technology, to enable humanity to undergo a metamorphosis at the species level—
Namely, using the civilizational legacy of the Old Humans to incubate the chrysalis of the New Humans!
They possessed no high-efficiency neutron eradication technology, nor did they expect to wipe all species from the surface with the push of a button.
Their true objective was to utilize the biotechnology they excelled at, over a long and gradual process, to make this land fit only for the survival of "lifeforms defined by themselves."
They promised their believers that all survivors who suffered hardship or bore sins in the Old World would receive eternal blessings in the New World.
Put in plain terms: so long as believers worked diligently and contributed to the Church of the Torch's grand plan, they could all become great "Gestalt lifeforms" in the New World.
And the so-called Gestalt lifeform was the very root of the Wilante, the eightfold-growth clones, and the mutants—a singularity technology left unfinished in the pre-war era.
This was undeniably a mad endeavor.
If the Enlightenment Society was terrorism aimed at the post-war order and old civilization, then the Church of the Torch was terrorism aimed at Old Humans in a speciation sense.
In the doctrine of the Church of the Torch, mutants were explained as "intermediate products along humanity's path toward the Gestalt lifeform."
Those coarse, savage green apes were not perfect, whether aesthetically or civilizationally. Yet in the Church's teachings, mutants—who were far better adapted to the wasteland than Old Humans—were still superior to Old Humans and possessed a much higher "starting point."
Thus, they would use biotechnology to transform some devout believers into noble mutants, granting them unmatched physical prowess and privileges elevated above ordinary human followers—the docile lambs!
However, the Church of the Torch's upper echelon did not voluntarily turn themselves into mutants.
They were still waiting for a more perfect vessel.
And those mid-level members who had already become mutants were likewise waiting for better vessels, ready at any moment to metamorphose into the new lifeform.
"...Without a doubt, the Church of the Torch is our most pressing concern right now, far more urgent than those criminals to the north."
Reaching the end of the report, Chu Guang delivered a concise assessment.
"I think so too," Lyu Bei nodded beside him, adding in a low voice. "Though one thing bothers me. The nuclear fuel the Academy promised us happens to be in Jinhe City, and that mutant tribe called 'Qi' is there too... I suspect those crafty researchers are trying to use us as their hired gun."
Although it was blatantly obvious, Chu Guang gave the young man a surprised glance and smiled approvingly.
"Well done. I'm glad you can see that."
Lyu Bei smiled bashfully. "It's all thanks to your guidance..."
Chu Guang smiled faintly, glancing at the map hanging on the wall. His gaze swept past the Free Confederation and the Great Rift Valley, settling on the Wandering Marsh to the north.
"Many among us picture the Academy as a bunch of bookworms, but in reality, those guys aren't dull in the slightest. On the contrary, they're cunning as foxes."
"They probably have more tricks up their sleeves than the Legion and Enterprise combined, and they're masters of deception. To make us willingly bite the hook, they deliberately pretended to hand us a bargain. While we were locked in fierce combat with the Legion in Sunset Province, they had probably already set their sights on our south."
Lyu Bei furrowed his brows. "So that's how it is..."
Chu Guang nodded. "It's an open gambit. Even if we know they're using us, for now we have no choice but to follow the course they envisioned."
That was a thousand cubic meters of liquid helium-3!
A whopping 127 tons of nuclear fusion fuel!
Whether for the Alliance's power armor or for the fusion reactor in Xizhou City, he had to get his hands on that energy!
Even if it meant doing another job for the Academy, such abundant energy was more than generous as compensation.
Besides, the Church of the Torch was on the verge of reaching into Jinhe City. If the Alliance took no action, that nuclear fuel might end up in the hands of the Church of the Torch.
Pulling his gaze away from the map, Chu Guang said slowly, "Xiao Qi."
An energetic voice rang by his ear. "Right here, Master!"
Without the slightest hesitation, Chu Guang immediately commanded, "Notify the Burning Corps to assemble at least a century on standby in Boulder City, ready to depart for Jinhe City in Jinchuan Province within three days!"
The voice responding to him held no hesitation either. "Understood!"
Chapter 556