Daily Tasks

"A generator? What do you need that thing for?"

Present day, Jinling University cafeteria.

Professor Wang Haiyang paused his chopsticks as he looked at Professor Yanfeng sitting across from him, who had asked the question with complete sincerity.

He did not know much about Professor Yan. He only knew that Yan was from the Physics Department, around the same age as himself, both in their thirties.

He could not remember when they had added each other on WeChat, and they had never chatted after that. Wang was from the School of Engineering Management, so there had never been much overlap in their work.

But today, he had suddenly received an invitation from Professor Yan to have lunch in the cafeteria, saying that he had something he wanted to ask him about.

To be honest, when Professor Wang saw the words "ask for advice," he had assumed it was about research. Yet after arriving, he had not expected such a strange question.

The conversation continued amid casual chatter.

Yanfeng explained.

"...I recently read a novel, a post-apocalyptic one. I wanted to know how survivors would solve their electricity problem if something like that really happened."

"Why take things in a novel so seriously? Just see how the author writes it," Professor Wang Haiyang said with a laugh. "Still, that's an interesting question. An apocalypse... that would depend on what kind of apocalypse it was, and how many days had passed since the end of the world."

He liked reading novels too, though he mostly read cultivation stories and rarely read post-apocalyptic ones.

Come to think of it, he had never imagined that one day he would seriously discuss a novel's plot with a colleague at the university.

"In the setting, it's two hundred years after a nuclear war."

"Two hundred years? A nuclear war?" Professor Wang Haiyang froze for a moment and said hesitantly, "That could be troublesome. Unprotected electronic devices would be damaged by the electromagnetic pulse caused by nuclear explosions. The more sophisticated the instrument, the harder it would be for it to survive."

"Is there a solution?" Yanfeng asked with a deep frown.

"There is. For example, you can usually find backup diesel generators at residential complexes or restaurants. They aren't particularly sophisticated equipment, but after two hundred years... they've probably long since been scavenged. And even if they haven't, the parts inside would most likely have aged without maintenance for so long. Fuel is another problem. Two hundred years into the apocalypse... you can't expect to find gasoline still sitting in gas stations."

Wang Haiyang rubbed his chin, thought for a moment, and continued.

"But it's not completely impossible."

"What solution?" Yanfeng immediately asked.

"Generally speaking, every car has a recoverable alternator. As long as you can make the rotor spin, it can generate a stable 12V direct current. It should work after some repairs. For small-scale power generation, such as lighting, 12 volts is enough. If you can find an inverter, converting the direct current into 240V alternating current is possible too... Wait, do you really need to take notes on this?"

Wang Haiyang stared blankly at Yanfeng, who had taken out a small notebook and was diligently writing things down.

Was reading a novel really worth being this serious about?

Pushing up his glasses, Yanfeng said nonchalantly.

"Don't mind me. Please continue."

Wang Haiyang: "..."

He had always heard people say that everyone in the Physics Department was weird, but he had thought it was just a stereotype.

Now, he was starting to believe it.

The wasteland.

Vault 404.

Chu Guang slept on the floor of the residents' hall. He woke up at four in the morning, and the moment he opened his eyes, he saw a notification window pop up from the system.

Congratulations, Host. Achievement unlocked: "Novice Guide" (remained online for over 8 consecutive hours on the player's first day of login)

Reward: +10 Reward Points

There was something this good?

He could open another loot box right after waking up.

Rubbing his bleary eyes, Chu Guang opened the system and selected the Administrator Allowance subpage.

After hesitating between the Basic Loot Box worth 1 Reward Point and the Intermediate Loot Box worth 10 Reward Points, Chu Guang ultimately placed all his "chips" on the Intermediate Loot Box button and silently prayed in his heart.

Please.

Don't let me pull out a bottle of fucking cough syrup!

A pale blue glow flickered.

Under Chu Guang's nervous gaze, the alloy door on one side of the residents' hall wall opened, and a plastic-sealed syringe appeared on the platform.

Muscle Cell Enhancement Injection. (Permanently increases muscle strength by a small amount. Usage interval: 24 hours. Effects diminish with repeated use.)

"Permanently increases muscle strength?"

This was good stuff!

Without hesitation, Chu Guang immediately tore open the packaging and removed the needle cap, only to realize, unexpectedly, that there was no needle.

How was he supposed to use this thing?

After hesitating for a moment, Chu Guang pressed the tip of the syringe against his arm and pushed the button at the end that seemed to be a switch. His arm felt as though something had stung it, and then...

That was it.

"That's over?"

Chu Guang was a little bewildered. He swung his fist a few times but did not feel any obvious changes in his body.

Could it have expired?

After all, it was something from two hundred years ago...

Out of caution, Chu Guang still gave himself a physical examination.

Only after receiving the results did the confusion in his heart finally receive an answer.

ID: Chu Guang

Genetic Sequence: Administrator

Level: LV.5

--Basic Attributes--

Strength: 9

Agility: 6

Constitution: 7

Perception: 7

Intelligence: 6

"The genetic development progress didn't change, but Strength and Constitution each increased by 1 point... Damn, this has some real kick!"

Under normal circumstances, if a twenty-year-old adult male had not undergone special training, his Strength and Constitution would usually both be 5 points. The number 5 was also the baseline for every attribute.

In other words, 1 point of Strength and Constitution was equivalent to 20% of a normal adult male's physical ability.

Chu Guang was now only 1 point of Strength away from possessing twice the strength of a normal adult man.

Looking at his updated attribute panel, Chu Guang considered doing a few push-ups to test it out. But at that moment, he suddenly noticed that new missions had appeared in the Administrator Log.

When he opened it, Chu Guang froze.

Good lord.

Before he went to sleep yesterday, there had only been one unfinished side mission. Today, the number of unfinished missions had directly become 20+!

The missions came in all sorts of varieties.

They ranged from relatively easy tasks like "Hunt a mutant creature," "Stockpile 5 tons of timber," and "Stockpile 100L of fresh water," to tasks that looked like a massive headache, such as "Repair the sanatorium's outer wall" and "Repair the wall on the sanatorium's second floor."

As for rewards, they ranged from a minimum of 1 point to a maximum of 20 points.

All these missions shared the same tag—"Daily."

"What does Daily mean? Do they refresh every day?" Chu Guang could not help grumbling.

However, no one answered him.

The Vault system could not talk, and Xiao Qi was standing guard at the sanatorium outside. He was the only one in the entire Vault.

Chu Guang silently calculated that if he could complete all twenty missions, he would earn a total of 150 Reward Points.

Of course, at least three-quarters of those Reward Points would not be easy to obtain. At the very least, they could not be done in a day or two.

Chu Guang fell into thought.

If he did all these missions himself, he would definitely work himself to death. But if he handed them over to the players, it seemed he would only need to spend a few "Contribution Points."

With that thought, his plan instantly became clear.

There were marker pens in the drawer of the computer desk.

Taking one, Chu Guang immediately rode the elevator to the surface. After searching through the sanatorium, he found a plastic board that the scavengers had not yet picked up and burned.

After dusting off the plastic board, Chu Guang drew two lines on it with the marker, then erased them and nodded in satisfaction.

"Not bad."

Writable and erasable.

You'll do!

After spending some time selecting several missions from the Administrator Log that players had a chance of completing, Chu Guang wrote them on the plastic board.

Collect timber (requirement: usable as construction material): 1 Contribution Point per meter.

Find water storage containers (material: plastic, metal. Shape: barrel-like, jug-like. Requirement: the bigger, the better!): 1–10 Contribution Points.

Search for recyclable scrap: 1–? Contribution Points.

...

"Mission accomplished!"

He checked the time. It was four thirty in the morning, leaving an hour and a half until the agreed login time.

Chu Guang did not idle around. He returned to the Vault, turned on the computer, and logged into the official website's backend. He discovered that the number of reservations had actually increased by another ten compared to last night.

It was now 35 people.

It seemed that yesterday's discussion in the group had indeed drawn in some traffic. Another ten fresh little leeks had raised their hands.

However, Chu Guang reckoned that the user potential of the Ox-Horse Club had probably been squeezed to its limit.

After all, it was only a gaming group with around a hundred people. The active users could be counted on one hand. Those 35 people might already be every living person in the group.

"Should I consider another promotion method?"

Running advertisements was not very realistic. Wasteland OL's official website was not registered domestically. For all he knew, the server might not even be on Earth.

There was another problem as well.

Once he started drawing traffic from a larger pool, a large number of "low-quality users"—in other words, troublemakers—would inevitably pour in.

Those people might have clicked yes simply because they thought it was fun, or perhaps they had clicked it by accident.

Recruiting players like that would only cause trouble.

"I need to raise the reservation threshold..."

Chu Guang pondered this and silently made a note of it.

Later, he would have Xiao Qi modify the official website again. For example, moving the reservation option from the first-level page to a second-level page, requiring users to register an account and fill in their phone number and shipping address before making a reservation.

Although the Vault system did not seem to need things like players' shipping addresses, doing so could at least filter out some less determined players and "invalid reservations."

What if someone made reservations using multiple devices?

Or simply used bots and virtual machines?

After thinking about it, Chu Guang tossed the question aside.

Since the system could deliver helmets to users with perfect accuracy, it surely had a way to verify the identity of those making reservations.

Worrying so much himself would be needlessly pessimistic.

"The new main mission hasn't triggered yet. The conditions probably haven't been met."

"I'll leave the daily missions alone for now. The key is that remaining 'side mission'—I need a generator with 10KW of power."

Electricity was a major problem.

The Vault could not be living in the future while the surface still lived like primitive society.

For Chu Guang, who came from modern society, life without electricity was not much different from primitive society.

"I should figure out how to solve the generator problem first!"