On the north shore of the Baiyue Strait, in the northwestern sector of Port French Fries, stood a three-meter-high earthen rampart behind a trench one pace wide. In front of it stretched a palisade wall crafted from sharpened wooden stakes.
In the thick grass not far beyond the palisade lay a chaotic sprawl of corpses.
Most belonged to mutants, though a few unfortunate players who had been caught off guard were among them as well.
Looking at the bodies littering the ground and the mud stained crimson with blood, Elaina flicked the safety back onto his rifle and spoke with a subtle expression.
"I keep having this illusion."
Standing nearby, Elven King Fugui glanced over at him.
"What kind of feeling?"
Scanning the dense rainforest and tangled grass ahead, Elaina pondered for a long time before offering hesitantly, "...It feels like this land is alive."
Blood-spattered tree silhouettes and tall grass rustled softly, their vibrant green glaring harshly beneath the scorching sunlight. In particular, the buzzing chirps of insects drifting from the shadows sounded like the low murmurs of a beast, and the lush canopy looked like its gaping maw...
This was not the first time he had felt this way.
He had experienced the exact same sensation the first time he ventured out to scout for fresh water...
***
Two hours earlier.
Just as dawn was breaking, over twenty industrious Strength-type players had logged on early, carrying axes and chainsaws as they headed into the forest northwest of the camp to clear the wilderness.
"Put your backs into it, boys! Let's reach the hilltop before sundown!"
"Awoo!"
Northwest of Port French Fries lay a relatively elevated ridge. Not only did it offer an unobstructed panoramic view of the entire harbor, but it also commanded an overlook stretching nearly ten kilometers along the coastline.
Beyond that, the area boasted abundant freshwater resources and the "ruin mines" commonly found across the wasteland, underscoring its strategic importance.
Securing the high ground to the northwest would undoubtedly provide an enormous boost to Port French Fries's development.
To facilitate the clearing and land reclamation, the Port French Fries Player Autonomy Committee had unanimously voted to construct a road leading up to the heights to accommodate vehicular transport.
The contract for clearing the route had been awarded for a price of one hundred thousand silver coins to a merchant caravan registered with the Merchant Guild under the name "Dogs on the Prowl."
In *Wasteland OL*, the merchant caravan system mirrored the corps system, functioning essentially as guilds for non-combat production and trade players.
After winning the bid, the caravan leader immediately hired a crew of Strength-type brutes to charge into the northwestern woods.
Yet they had barely worked for half an hour when more than thirty mutant spiders suddenly burst out of the jungle, colliding head-on with the players sweating over their labor.
Standing nearly as tall as a man, the spiders bore vividly patterned markings across their faces like butterfly wings. They could shoot exceptionally sticky webbing to bind their prey before ripping it to shreds with dagger-sized chelicerae.
"Holy crap! What the hell are these things?!"
The first player to lock eyes with the monsters was scared so badly he nearly disconnected on the spot. Fortunately, his nerves held up; grabbing his axe, he swung with all his might, the heavy blade smashing into the spider's carapace and sending bodily fluids spraying in every direction.
*Skrrreee—!*
The mutant spider let out a shrill screech, staggering back several steps.
The player was about to surge forward to deliver the killing blow, but before he could take a single step, a blast of white webbing plastered his face. Before he could even spot where the strike had come from, a colossal force shredded his flank.
Seeing his comrade go down, a nearby player dropped his axe without hesitation, unslung the assault rifle from his back, and flipped off the safety as he shouted at the top of his lungs, "Hostiles incoming—!"
In truth, if they had been able to open up sufficient distance, a mere few dozen mutant spiders would have been no match for these heavily armed, trigger-happy players.
Unfortunately, monsters in this game had never played by the rules of fair play; they never gave any warning before ambushing their prey.
Compounded by the dense jungle and choking undergrowth, several Strength-type players swinging axes and chainsaws were blinded by sticky silk the instant they caught a glimpse of a spider's outline, immediately stripped of their ability to fight back.
Fortunately, their position was not far from the camp's defensive perimeter. Players operating in the vicinity rushed over in immediate support.
The rhythmic chatter of automatic gunfire drowned out the snarling clashes in the woods, and streaks of tracer rounds punched through leafy foliage and fluid-drenched carapaces.
Faced with a barrage from modern firearms, the mutant spiders' web-slinging and sharp fangs fell short. The skirmish swiftly devolved from an even clash into a one-sided slaughter.
After leaving behind more than a dozen corpses, the creatures apparently realized these two-legged animals were not to be trifled with, beating a hasty retreat into the depths of the jungle.
The victorious players tallied their losses and spoils, cut free the unlucky fellows trapped in spider silk, and hauled the fallen players' bodies back to camp to be sent into the active substance extractor to recover biomass materials for future clones.
Once the battlefield was cleared, everything appeared to return to normal.
The players of Port French Fries went back to their respective tasks—chopping wood, catching fish, mixing concrete, or venturing out to explore.
Yet just when everyone thought the day's trouble was behind them, less than two hours later, over a dozen hideous, sparsely furred mutant leopards came bounding in to stir up more chaos.
These beasts similarly offered no warning and struck without a shred of prelude, pouncing on anyone in sight and tearing into them with savage bites.
Once again, the casualties fell on the Dogs on the Prowl caravan and the Strength-type laborers they had hired.
Although the Perception-type player they had temporarily recruited sensed the danger in advance, it had left them with only a few scant seconds to react.
Many had barely dropped their axes and chainsaws and hadn't even had time to snatch up the rifles propped nearby to chamber a round before a dozen monsters were lunging right into their faces.
The combat power of this pack of mutant leopards far outstripped that of the previous mutant spiders, and the resulting casualties were far more severe than two hours prior.
In less than thirty seconds, nearly ten unlucky souls were bowled over and mauled to death on the spot, with only a few quick-witted players managing to fall back in time.
Looking at the utter devastation in the logging camp, the Dogs on the Prowl caravan leader wore an expression that was halfway between tears and rage.
"Does that damn trash dev have a personal vendetta against me or something?!"
Elaina patted his shoulder in sympathy. "My condolences, brother."
He and Elven King Fugui had been standing right by the gate earlier, and upon hearing gunfire, they had joined the other players in rushing out to lend a hand.
Just like the previous assault, after leaving behind ten corpses, the mutant leopards turned on their heels and vanished back into the treeline.
Elaina could not shake the feeling that these mutants were acting in coordination, taking turns coming right to their camp's doorstep to feed them kills.
"...Say, have you noticed? Over the past few days, the mutants attacking our camp have all been arriving in distinct waves, categorized neatly by species."
Elven King Fugui wore a wry expression. "Good thing they come in waves. If a massive swarm hit all at once, our camp might not hold up."
"Not necessarily... Whatever, let's collect the bounty first."
Elaina chuckled, bending down to hoist up a freshly slain mutant leopard. Glancing at Elven King Fugui, he called out, "Lend a hand."
They couldn't let their fallen brothers die for nothing.
"On it!"
Seeing Old Na starting to clean up the field, Elven King Fugui slung his rifle over his back, stepped forward, and grabbed the mutant leopard's hind legs.
One in front and one behind, the two carried the beast back into the camp, hauling the dead feline toward a butchering stall situated not far from the western gate.
A player in a leather apron was busily scraping a boning knife over a whetstone with rhythmic rasps. Judging by the sticky, congealed blood covering him from head to toe, the man had not taken a single break since early morning.
His username was Qingdeng Gujiu. Word had it he was a doctor in real life, though why he chose to play as a butcher in-game—a vocation that had zero connection to his real profession—remained a mystery.
Watching his practiced, fluid butchering motions, Elven King Fugui couldn't help guessing in his head that this fellow was probably just too embarrassed to admit he was actually a veterinarian.
Besides, with a handle referencing antique lanterns and aged wine, he sounded like an uncle born in the seventies or eighties—most likely an experienced old vet.
Watching the pair carry their quarry over, Qingdeng Gujiu wiped his sweat, took a single glance, and jutted his chin toward the electronic scale beside him.
"Weigh it yourselves."
"Okie-dokie!"
Elaina dropped the mutant leopard onto the scale platform, while Elven King Fugui walked up and struck up a cheerful conversation with the shopkeeper.
"Business is booming, bro."
Qingdeng Gujiu let out a dry chuckle. "Bah, just hard-earned pocket change."
Curious, Elven King Fugui asked, "By the way, are you really a vet?"
"I—ptui, like hell I am! What veterinarian? I'm a real medical doctor!" Swallowing back the slip of the tongue that had almost escaped, Qingdeng Gujiu glared daggers at him.
Unfazed, Elven King Fugui grinned cheekily and pressed on, "For real? Then you get off work awfully early. Don't you ever work overtime?"
Qingdeng Gujiu waved a dismissive hand. "Bah, overtime my ass. I quit days ago."
"You quit?" Elven King Fugui blinked. "Why?"
Qingdeng Gujiu chuckled. "What do you mean why? My small clinic barely had any patients to begin with, and I was just drawing a meager fixed salary. The boss was sick of looking at me, and I was plenty sick of him. Why not find a job here instead? Making a cool hundred grand a month with minimal stress—who wouldn't want that? Once I've saved up enough, I'm opening my own hospital!"
"God-tier move!" Elven King Fugui looked at the man in admiration.
If he had that much money, he certainly wouldn't blow it on something like that.
Wouldn't it be far sweeter to just leave it in the bank collecting interest?
As the two traded banters, Elaina finished weighing the carcass and walked over from the scale, cutting into their chatter with a grin.
"Sixty-five kilograms total. Boss, what do you think is a fair price?"
Qingdeng Gujiu did a quick mental calculation. "I'll take a bit of a loss. How about 217?"
Before Old Na could answer, Elven King Fugui chimed in with a grin, "Round it up to 220. We've got to split it evenly, 110 each."
Qingdeng Gujiu agreed readily. "Done!"
Rolling up his sleeve to display his VM, Elaina couldn't help marveling inwardly. It seemed this fellow was truly raking it in as a butcher—he couldn't even be bothered to haggle over three silver coins.
After transferring the funds to Old Na and Old Wang, Qingdeng Gujiu dragged the leopard carcass off the scale toward the back of his stall, setting it beneath a shed for the moment to be processed later.
The cramped space beneath the shed was already piled high with game, most of it dragged in from the woods outside the camp's west gate.
Mutant leopard meat had an unremarkable texture, roughly on par with mutant hyena. Once butchered, it was typically air-dried, heavily salted, and converted into jerky to sell to expedition teams requiring non-perishable rations.
Being right by the coast, salt was the one thing they never lacked.
The jerky didn't fetch much, but the real profit lay in the pelt. A mutant leopard hide fetched significantly more than mutant elk leather. Taking advantage of the current scarcity on the market, whether they shipped it back to the Alliance or sold it at Silver Moon Bay, it brought in a handsome profit.
Aside from the leopards, there were the mutant spiders.
Although an unfortunate Intelligence-type player had proven with his life that the mutant spiders in this rainforest were inedible, their silk glands and venom sacs were prime materials.
The mutant spiders of Baiyue Province were far larger than those of River Valley Province, and the drops they yielded were of substantially higher quality.
Even though over a dozen Port French Fries survivors had died over the course of the morning, overall, it was still a profitable venture.
All things considered, that is.
Staring at the string of numbers on his VM screen as they walked toward the camp gate, Elven King Fugui suddenly muttered out of the blue, "Old Na, who do you think is constantly buying up silver coins?"
He had wondered about this question for a long time.
While most players started out treating the game as a casual side hobby, before long, they turned into hardcore full-time players like him, logging an average of sixteen hours a day.
If not for the fact that in-game characters needed sleep and his real-life body required food and exercise, he might have moved into the world of *Wasteland OL* permanently.
It had nothing to do with simple gaming addiction.
It was purely because this world felt far too real.
It was practically a complete restart on life—and one without permanent death.
Yet thinking carefully, there were many deeply bizarre aspects.
Take the mysterious operator behind *Wasteland OL*, or the anonymous buyers on the Silver Exchange who listed purchase orders day and night, buying up every scrap of stock.
Thanks to an unspoken, tacit understanding maintained between both parties, closed-beta players in *Wasteland OL* only needed to complete a couple of quests in the game to cover their real-world living expenses. Those who played a bit longer and adhered to the relatively lax rules could comfortably lounge around in real life, living entirely free of conventional labor.
It felt almost as if a mysterious group of benefactors was supporting them for free, wishing nothing more than for them to pour every second of their lives into *Wasteland OL*.
He didn't dislike the arrangement; after all, he thoroughly enjoyed the fully immersive gaming experience, which had drastically curbed his material desires in reality.
He just couldn't quite fathom it.
What were those "big shots" pulling the strings behind the curtain actually after?
"Bah, if someone's willing to buy them, they naturally have a use for them. Why rack your brains over that?" Elaina cast him a sidelong glance, teasing him with a comical grin.
Elven King Fugui pondered for a moment, letting his imagination run wild. "Say, what if... Right now there are only tens of thousands of players, so the cracks don't show. But when the game enters open beta and massive swarms of people stop going to work to farm gold in-game full-time, won't society descend into chaos?"
Elaina: "Uhhh... Is it possible that silver coins can be exchanged for something that eliminates the need for people to work, or drastically reduces the labor required for certain jobs?"
Elven King Fugui paused. "What do you mean?"
Elaina replied casually, "Literally what I said. Take Dawn City, for example. In the early days, moving bricks relied entirely on Strength-type beasts of burden. Nowadays, a single miner's exoskeleton lets an ordinary person do the work of five. Doesn't that free up four people from backbreaking labor? Whether they go pour concrete, build furniture, or just lie in bed collecting basic welfare, isn't it way more comfortable than five people hauling bricks together?"
Of course, that calculation merely considered the total social wealth generated per unit of labor, without touching on distribution models or other systemic complexities.
Advancements in productive forces were merely a necessary condition for raising living standards, not a sufficient one; ending up like the Bugra Free State with high tech and low life was hardly out of the question.
Yet one thing remained beyond doubt: since someone was willing to spend real cash to subsidize them playing a game all day, their silver-earning gameplay within *Wasteland OL* had to be generating real-world social value proportional to that money.
Rumors had circulated on the forums before: the auctions held after every major expansion didn't just sell in-game assets—they auctioned off pieces of black technology.
Someone had even kept a close watch.
Shortly after every auction concluded, subtle ripples would emerge across academia or industry, whispering that some critical breakthrough had been achieved in a specific technology.
Then, after a bit more time passed, by the time people came to their senses, many of the fruits born of those breakthroughs were already in everyday use.
He still remembered that when *Wasteland OL* first launched, smartphones lasted one or two days on standby at most. Then, starting from an unknown date, major phone manufacturers rolled out models with battery lives lasting a full week.
Next came new energy vehicles, whose driving ranges suddenly doubled out of nowhere, sending the market capitalization of numerous battery and electric vehicle enterprises soaring more than twofold.
Elven King Fugui scratched the back of his head. "You mean to say... silver coins can buy miner exoskeletons in real life?"
Elaina flashed a helpless look.
"I was just giving an example. I didn't say it had to be an exoskeleton. It could be something far more fundamental with a much wider reach across various industries—like core technologies in energy, information, or materials."
At that point, he couldn't resist cracking a joke.
"Who knows, maybe one day the real world will end up like the 'Era of Prosperity.' Everyone can work a couple of days whenever they feel like it, and if they're in a bad mood, they can fire their boss and go party on the moon! Why worry about no one working once open beta hits? When that time comes, the Planetary Governor might be praying that all you idle bums go haul bricks in-game!"
Elven King Fugui stared. "Holy crap, the Era of Prosperity is just the game's lore! And what on earth is a Planetary Governor?"
Elaina rolled his eyes.
"That's why I said *suppose*! Can't you have a little imagination, man?"
Elven King Fugui knitted his brows, thinking it over.
"Still, going by what you said, if there really is some black tech that can free everyone from labor, nuclear fusion would at least have to be cracked, wouldn't it...?"
The problem was that such preposterous technology didn't exist on Earth.
It couldn't just materialize out of thin air, could it?
Could the operator of *Wasteland OL* be researching it all on their own?
Advancing the scientific and technological progress of an entire civilization single-handedly—did an organization that godlike even exist in the world?
No—
Wait.
Thinking carefully, the company running *Wasteland OL* was indeed terrifyingly competent.
Setting aside that fully immersive gaming helmet that allowed users to live out a second life in their dreams, the mere fact that no one to this day knew the company's official name was already beyond surreal!
Sometimes Elven King Fugui couldn't help wondering if their dear Ah Guang had been abducted by aliens.
"...Whatever it is, that technology is guaranteed to be insanely expensive. That might very well be why silver coins fetch such a high price."
Patting Old Wang on the shoulder, Elaina teased before continuing, "For a brighter tomorrow, for our reality to usher in the Era of Prosperity as soon as possible, and so our dear Old Wang can finally buy an android maid in real life... how about we figure out which ruin to raid today?"
Compared to those far-off matters, this was the far more pressing question.
For top-tier players like them, hunting mutants merely covered their ammunition expenses. If they truly wanted to strike it rich, they had to target the pre-war ruins.
Pulled out of his daydream by Old Na's ribbing, Elven King Fugui chuckled.
"Ah, that's easy. We just have to wait a little bit and someone will hand out quests."
Elaina paused. "Someone's handing out quests?"
"Yeah, I heard from Ye Shi that the Scientific Expedition is coming over aboard the *Niuma* to set up a local branch here in Port French Fries. I remember they set off the night before last, so they should be arriving any moment—"
Elven King Fugui tilted his head toward the sky.
Coincidentally, before the words had even left his mouth, two silvery silhouettes emerged in his field of vision, drifting in tandem just beneath the cloud layer.
His eyes lit up instantly.
"Holy crap! They're already here!"
And two airships at that?!
Elaina pulled out his VM and took a look. The previously grayed-out [Scientific Expedition] sub-tab in his quest interface had lit up once more, becoming selectable.
He immediately tapped it open. A prominent regional quest instantly caught his eye:
[Quest: Search for the Baiyue Province Broodmother]
[Issuer: Alliance Biological Research Institute]
[Description: Based on clues obtained by the Alliance Biological Research Institute through analysis of the ancestral strain of na fruit, a mutant slime mold broodmother is suspected to exist, or to have once existed, within Baiyue Province. The province's anomalous biological evolution may be linked to this entity.]
[Objective: Find it!]
[Reward: Submitting any valuable clues will grant milestone quest rewards. The player or team that ultimately discovers the broodmother will unlock the exclusive title 'Jungle Conqueror,' along with a combined reward of 10,000 Contribution Points and 1,000,000 silver coins!]
The moment he saw the reward section, Elaina froze for a solid half-minute, until a stunned cry erupted from beside him.
"HOLY CRAP?! ONE MILLION?!"
Having opened his own quest log at some point, Elven King Fugui stared with saucer-wide eyes at the long string of zeroes on his VM screen.
Particularly when he noticed that this quest had branched out from the na fruit strain sample they had gathered earlier, his face instantly twisted into an expression as agonized as severe constipation.
"Damn it! That son of a bitch Fang Chang ripped us off completely!"
If he remembered correctly, that sample had only sold for ten thousand silver coins! After deducting equipment repairs and splitting it among ten players, each had walked away with barely a few hundred silver coins.
This wasn't just a loss—they had been fleeced down to their underwear!
Chapter 670