You Can Even Eat in This Game!

[Active Substance Extractor User Manual:] [1. Active substance is the primary raw material for synthesizing clone bodies, including but not limited to minerals required to construct the human body, twenty common amino acids, and two rare amino acids.] [2. The raw material for the active substance extractor is animal carcasses, with primates of the mammalian class, chordate phylum being optimal, yielding an extraction efficiency of up to 90%. Non-primates rank second, while invertebrates have the lowest extraction efficiency, at under 10%.] [3. Extraction efficiency also correlates with the degree of decay.] With the player recruitment quest completed, the reward and the manual arrived simultaneously. Inside Shelter 404. Chu Guang read the manual projected onto his retinas while sizing up the coffin-like lump of iron sitting beside the conveyor belt. According to the manual's introduction, this contraption was used to produce the "raw material for synthesizing clones"—namely, "active substance." Put simply, was its function basically corpse recycling? Looking at the manual's description, however, the carcasses of mutants seemed to fall within the scope of recycling as well. Having gotten a general grasp of how this thing worked, Chu Guang hauled it onto the elevator using a handcart scavenged from outside, riding up to the surface alongside it. He had no desire to drag dead bodies into the shelter. As for electricity... There would always be a way. The elevator climbed slowly, coming to a steady halt before the doors slid open. Just as he pulled the handcart out of the elevator, Xiao Qi's voice reached him from upstairs almost at the exact same moment. "Master!" "What is it?" "Something seems to be happening on your players' side... A large black bird is attacking them! On the north side of the sanatorium!" A large black bird? Chu Guang was taken aback for a second, but his expression shifted immediately. Dropping the handcart, he rushed out toward the grounds beyond the sanatorium. ... "Holy crap! Brother Night, that was insane!" "That forward dive roll earlier was slick!" "Get lost! I was scared out of my damn mind! Don't just stand there like idiots—hurry, come help me!" In the woods north of the sanatorium. A black bird perched on a branch ten meters up, its sharp gaze locked dead onto the cluster of players on the ground. Its legs were slightly bent, kite-sized wings folded back, ready to spring into a dive at any moment. Hearing the commotion from Ye Shi, the other three players immediately dropped what they were doing and rushed over with their axes. Perhaps seeing the strength in numbers on the ground, the black bird didn't immediately launch a second dive. Instead, it stayed perched out of everyone's reach, biding its time. Gale Force 8 crouched, picked up a black feather from the ground, and inspected it with a few glances. "Looks a bit like a crow." "Are crows this freaking big?!" Glancing at the claw marks gouged into the wood nearby, Ye Shi backed away, his heart still pounding. "This thing's probably a mutant... a creature mutated by gamma radiation or something else. I read the lore on the official website," Fang Chang said, keeping a wary, unblinking eye on it. Ye Shi: "There's lore on the website?! Wasn't there just a pre-registration page?" Gale Force 8: "That was days ago... The website updated with new features yesterday. Didn't you check?" "Stop shooting the breeze! What the hell do we do now? Just stand here and stall?" Ye Shi nervously took another step back. Now Gale Force 8 was the closest to the bird. Four players and one bird were locked in a standoff. Just then, a whoosh cut through the air above the four players, rocketing straight toward the massive bird. "Skraa!" Though the stone missed, it startled the great bird, which fluttered into the air and hopped to another branch. As it beat its wings and finally steadied itself on the branch, it saw the human on the ground pick up another stone and fling it over. The bird was completely infuriated. This was the first time it had ever seen someone act so insolently toward it in its own territory. With a sudden thrust from its coiled legs, it leaped from the branch like an artillery shell bursting from a barrel, plunging straight toward Chu Guang. Its sharp talons thrust forward like deployed grappling hooks. Yet a beast was still a beast. Even if it grew another head, it could never decipher the mocking smirk curving the corner of that mouth. Tossing aside the stone in his hand, Chu Guang expertly grabbed the steel pipe stuck in the ground and thrust its sharpened end violently forward. In the span of a spark, there was no time to dodge. Although the moment the bird saw Chu Guang pick up a weapon it had never seen before, it had flapped its wings in sudden alarm trying to pull back, momentum made evasion virtually impossible. The steel pipe drove deep into its chest like a javelin. "Skraa—!" A piercing screech echoed through the woods. Feathers spattered with blood scattered through the air. Watching the bird struggle and fly away, Chu Guang silently stepped forward and picked up the blood-dripping pipe from the ground. "That's no crow." "Its scientific name is a falcon... or at least it was, two hundred years ago." The four players stared at him, dumbstruck, awed by the fluid, seamless sequence of moves. Holy shit! So badass!! What they didn't know, however, was that for the vast majority of survivors capable of traversing the wasteland alone, this level of skill was nothing more than basic survival proficiency. Over the past five months, Chu Guang hadn't learned much else, but he had honed his javelin-throwing skills to perfection—pinpoint accuracy anywhere within ten meters. Otherwise, he wouldn't have had the luxury of standing here showing off. "A falcon?! This big?" Gale Force 8 said in astonishment. It completely upended everything he knew about birds. Fang Chang swallowed hard. "Because of gamma radiation?" "Not just gamma radiation. Viruses, bacteria, genetic weapons... a multitude of factors combined to create everything we see today. Of course, mutants are only one of the threats we face. Under certain circumstances, humans can be far more dangerous." Chu Guang looked up at the pine tree in front of the four players, then continued: "That falcon just now probably built a nest in this tree. No wonder it didn't leave even with so many of you here." Generally speaking, avian creatures rarely provoked ground-dwelling organisms larger than themselves; their diet mainly consisted of mutated cockroaches, rats, and squirrels. Although the creature had flown off, it couldn't get far. It was likely waiting to die in a tree nearby. While this sharpened pipe lacked brute armor penetration, its hollow center acted as a natural blood gutter. Once it punctured a body, death was practically guaranteed. Forget a bird—even if a human took a hit from it, stitching that wound closed would be a nightmare. Ye Shi lowered his head in shame. "Sorry... I was so focused on chopping wood that I didn't notice." "No need to apologize," Chu Guang said, glancing upward. "Bird eggs are a great find." They were in for a treat shortly. ... Chu Guang's judgment was quickly proven right. Beneath a crooked tree, he found the black bird, now completely lifeless. Bleeding it with a dagger and plucking its feathers clean, Chu Guang tossed it into an iron pot set over a stove improvised from bricks, stuffed dry branches and dead leaves underneath, and lit the fire with matches bought earlier. Cooking smoke drifted upward. Before the water boiled, Chu Guang pulled the blanched bird from the pot, skewered it on a steel rod, and roasted it directly over the fire. Roasted alongside it were several bird eggs. There was no salt, nor any spices. Even so, it was vastly superior to half-cooked green wheat mush. "Can you... actually eat this thing?" Looking at the "mutant" on the iron rack, Ye Shi felt an instinctive repulsion, yet as the rising aroma continued to tease his nostrils, he couldn't help gulping down a mouthful of saliva. You could actually eat in this game! For a foodie, this was an absolute, unexpected delight. It instantly made him feel that the entire morning's hard labor had been completely worth it. "Once it's cooked, it's edible. I'll tell you which parts aren't," Chu Guang said, slowly turning the spit so every side received even heat. Opportunities to eat game on the wasteland were rare. Even when one occasionally managed to catch edible game like this, it would quickly spoil due to a lack of preservation methods. Here, salt was an even scarcer resource than electricity. Especially for survivors living in landlocked cities like Qingquan City, using large quantities of salt to cure food was largely unrealistic. As for refrigerators, Chu Guang had heard the mayor's castle had one, but he had only ever heard of it; he had never actually seen it. Of course, survivors weren't entirely out of options. For instance, the neighboring survivor settlement—Mr. Brown's Farm—produced a variety of tobacco leaf rich in tar and aromatic compounds such as alcohols, aldehydes, and ketones. Even without salt, smoking meat with it could extend food's shelf life by several months. "Manager, sir, exactly how much timber do we need?" Waiting for food to cook was pure agony. To divert his attention from the meat, Fang Chang took the initiative to strike up a conversation. Hearing the question, Chu Guang answered casually: "As much as you can chop." The players exchanged glances, looking rather unmotivated. Chu Guang didn't pay it much mind at first, but then a realization suddenly struck him. They were "players"—in other words, "outsiders." Unlike him, who had transmigrated here for real, they could leave at any time. They didn't feel any pressing urgency to survive. Even if he told them how important it was to stockpile timber, they wouldn't truly comprehend what those words meant. Their status as players dictated that they viewed things from a different perspective than his. Even if they didn't mind grinding, it was hard to sustain continuous effort for zero return. Quests needed objectives. Naturally, they needed rewards too. "Let me see..." Rubbing his chin, Chu Guang fell into thought. Suddenly, an idea came to him. "At four in the afternoon, we'll tally today's results." "For trees as thick as an arm, one contribution point per meter. For trees as thick as a thigh, two contribution points per meter—" To Chu Guang's utter surprise, the moment the words left his mouth, the four slacking salted fish holding their bowls snapped upright in unison. "Manager, sir! I suddenly don't feel very hungry!" "Me neither!" "There's still a while before food's ready anyway—I'm gonna go punch two more trees!" "I suddenly feel an urge to chop something down!" Chu Guang: "...?" He hadn't even explained what contribution points were used for yet...