Winter Is Coming!

"Leaves are withering, temperatures are falling, and an unprecedented crisis is closing in."

"This winter will be harsher than previous years, and it will arrive earlier... We don't have much time left to prepare."

"Starting now, we must make use of every minute—every second! Before things get completely out of hand, we must prepare for the coming cold wave!"

"The mission panel has been updated. It lists the supplies we need, the facilities we need to complete, and the corresponding rewards."

"Remember, only by standing united can we weather this crisis!"

"Winter is coming."

"This is fate's trial for all of us!"

An inspiring voice echoed through the shelter's residents' hall.

Facing the players' spirited gazes, Chu Guang delivered an impassioned speech, officially kicking off the prologue to the first expansion since the game's closed beta began—"Winter Is Coming."

And with the opening of this new chapter, the atmosphere at Vault 404's outpost began to change, just like that on the game's official website.

It wasn't just the players.

Even Chu Guang himself could feel a trace of urgency in the gradually cooling air.

The outpost's stockpiled supplies had never been particularly abundant, yet its population had surged from six to thirty—a full fivefold increase!

While the growing population brought more labor, it also multiplied the pressure on the outpost's supplies.

To feed the thirty mouths that were about to arrive, Chu Guang had been worrying himself sick these past two days. He was busy from dawn until dusk almost every day, taking Ye Shi, whose gene sequence specialized in Perception, out hunting everywhere just to stockpile a little more food.

For a time, the two of them had Water Caltrop Lake Wetland Park in an uproar.

Fortunately, the results were just as impressive.

Over three days, Chu Guang alone killed more than a dozen mutant hyenas. As for the wild rabbits and squirrels caught with traps, they were too numerous to count.

They were mutants, but they were still edible.

Meanwhile, Ye Shi, who handled sentry duty and locating enemies, successfully advanced from LV0 to LV1. Chu Guang, meanwhile, faintly sensed that he too was nearing a breakthrough.

However, the Administrator gene sequence was simply too unusual.

Chu Guang had yet to figure out the trick to leveling up. He could only use the medical examination equipment to confirm that the development progress of his gene sequence had indeed increased by a tiny amount.

On the other side, the other players performed just as outstandingly. It would not have been an exaggeration to say that each had their own special talents.

Using charcoal as a reducing agent, Old White and Fang Chang recovered a small amount of iron slag from iron-containing scrap such as rusted rebar and car parts through calcination. They then added the iron slag to the cement kiln, mixed it with crushed limestone and clay, and fired it to produce more reliable cement clinker.

It was physically demanding work.

Whether operating the blower by hand or hauling stones with the repaired two-wheeled cart, it took considerable effort.

But precisely because of that, Old White of the Strength type leveled up again. His gene sequence rose from LV1 to LV2, and his Strength attribute increased by one point as well.

As for Fang Chang, who took shifts with him, he finally broke through the barrier and advanced from LV0 to LV1.

However, the attribute that increased for him was not Strength, but Agility.

It seemed that while gene sequence development followed the principle of "use it or lose it," attribute growth was another matter entirely.

Speaking of leveling up, the most miserable one was probably Gale.

As of now, among the four closed-beta players, he was likely the only one whose gene sequence level was still 0.

He had caught quite a few fish with improved traps these past few days, but he always remained just a little short of the "experience" needed for LV1.

The "experience" gained from killing aberrations with traps seemed to be less than what one earned by killing them in direct combat.

Gale was quite puzzled by this.

But unfortunately, there did not seem to be any good solution for it so far.

Besides the four veteran admin players who had first experienced the game, the two newly joined newcomers were equally full of enthusiasm and had barely rested for even a moment these past few days.

For example, Damn, There Really Are Mosquitoes.

He was in no hurry to level up. He continued doing carpentry, occasionally helping out Old White and Fang Chang, or repairing Gale's damaged traps.

Other than that work, he kept himself busy with his own project.

According to Mosquito himself, he planned to build a simple wooden shack to serve as both his chemistry lab and storage room.

Over the past few days, while helping transport stones from the construction site, he had picked up quite a few bottles and jars, which he placed beside the shack.

Although Chu Guang was rather skeptical about the safety of such a little wooden shack, seeing how much the guy was enjoying himself, he felt it was better not to interfere too much with the players' choices.

Compared to Brother Mosquito's leisurely pace, Tomato Scrambled Eggs was practically the model of a hardcore grinder.

As the outpost's cook, he was not only responsible for preparing meals but also had to help the Administrator deal with the game brought back from hunts.

This included bleeding, skinning, deboning, cutting the meat, and, most importantly, smoking it.

Since the outpost's salt supply was nowhere near plentiful enough to use for curing meat, Brother Scrambled Eggs adopted the most primitive smoking method.

That was, adding nothing at all.

He hung the cut meat directly on a rebar rack and placed it inside a kiln built from clay and earthen bricks. He used charcoal to create smoke, slowly roasted it over low heat to dry out the moisture in the meat, then sealed the entrance with pine branches and leaves.

The smoked meat made this way was actually more like air-dried meat. Even without salt, it could be preserved for some time, and there was no need to fancily wrap tobacco leaves around its surface.

By early or mid-next month, winter would be setting in.

When that time came, they could wrap the jerky in plastic bags or bark and bury it directly in the snow. It should keep without much trouble until spring next year.

The tradeoff was that smoked meat made this way was, in both texture and flavor, difficult to describe politely.

Besides that, Tomato Scrambled Eggs had not wasted the hides skinned from the mutant hyenas. He had collected them and used them to make leather.

In truth, tanning leather was a fairly complicated and tedious process, far more troublesome than making jerky.

However, what the shelter needed right now was not smooth, supple high-end fur, but merely warm material that could keep out the cold. Quality requirements were practically nonexistent.

As a result, many unnecessary steps could be skipped.

Earlier, when Old White had been making plant ash, he had saved the filtered potassium-alkali water in scavenged plastic buckets.

Tomato Scrambled Eggs put all of that potassium-alkali water to use as tanning liquor, soaking the cleaned raw hides stripped from their prey in it.

Once the hide had fully bonded with the tanning agents, it could be hung on a simply constructed tanning rack to dry. That would produce a piece of leather with passable quality.

"...Respected Administrator, I have to report that I really can't keep up with everything over here anymore. I desperately need an assistant—even just one would do!"

As he accepted the freshly killed prey from Chu Guang, Tomato Scrambled Eggs's gaze drifted unconsciously toward Ye Shi.

He always felt that this guy seemed awfully free. Other than helping the Administrator carry prey, he had never seen him do anything else.

Why not...

Have him lend a hand.

Ye Shi saw through what he was thinking at a glance and hurriedly waved his hands.

"Don't look at me. I'm very busy."

What a joke.

Where else could he find such a good deal as leveling up alongside an NPC and getting free experience?

There was no way he was going to learn cooking with this guy!

Seeing Ye Shi resist so fiercely, Tomato Scrambled Eggs could not help rolling his eyes and grumbling inwardly.

Busy my ass!

Seeing Tomato Scrambled Eggs complain to him, Chu Guang spoke to reassure him.

"Ye Shi needs to help me search for prey, and his sense of danger is also crucial, so I can't have him stay behind to assist you. But I promise you, your problem will be resolved soon. Our reinforcements are already on the way, and they'll reach the surface shortly."

"All right, thank you... If that's really the case, then that would be wonderful."

Tomato Scrambled Eggs sighed. After a brief pause, he continued.

"There's one more thing. Although I tried tanning leather, I can only handle the basic processing. As for turning it into clothes... I really have no idea how to do that."

Chu Guang said with a smile.

"Don't worry about that. Among the reinforcements arriving soon is someone skilled in that area. I'll leave the tanning and the production of warm clothing to that person."

Not just tailors.

Among the twenty-four newly selected closed-beta players, there were people from all sorts of professions.

They might not necessarily be experts in their fields—some were even students—but they could still be useful within the limits of their abilities.

Besides, there was also the internet.

Chu Guang was full of confidence in these energetic, highly motivated players. As long as they worked hard enough, sooner or later, he would be able to move into a big house.

Everything was rock solid!