First Blood!

Dead? Someone died?!

Old Bai was completely bewildered, taking a moment to process what had happened.

When he finally did, his first thought was, This game lets you die?

Honestly, unless you actively sought death or threw yourself into danger, it was quite difficult to die in this game.

Not only Old Bai, but Chu Guang was also utterly perplexed.

He hadn't expected the third batch of players to suffer a non-combat casualty so soon after coming online. This was at least half a month earlier than he'd anticipated...

The player who died had the ID [Ya Ya]. She had a "Perception Type" Gene Sequence and the Talent "Poison Intuition."

Chu Guang remembered sending her out this morning to collect berries and edible mushrooms. He had no idea how she ended up near the Mutated Leech Lair.

Using the Player List, Chu Guang could confirm the players' approximate locations. When he explored the area and found her last known location was near the Mutated Leech Lair, he immediately gave up on the idea of recovering the body.

Mutated Leech larvae were one thing. Their mouthparts had degenerated, making it difficult for them to suck blood. At most, they would eat some rotten food, and occasionally be gnawed on by Wasteland cockroaches and rats, or even caught by diligent players for bait.

However, adult Mutated Leeches were different.

These things would swallow their prey whole. Their digestive fluid, which had an anesthetic effect, would relax the prey's muscles within a minute and cause them to lose consciousness within minutes.

There was no doubt about it; by now, there probably wasn't even a bone left.

In any case, it was time for them to log out.

Chu Guang brought the players back to the Shelter in batches, settled them back into their Cultivation Pods to log out, and then returned to the surface alone, arriving next to the Active Matter Extractor.

A layer of dust had settled on the cylindrical extraction furnace. Since obtaining this thing, Chu Guang hadn't used it once because there was no electricity.

What was frustrating was that while the Cultivation Pods had wireless charging interfaces compatible with the Shelter, this item, a quest reward, did not. It only had a plug with positive and negative terminals.

Clearly, the designer of this system didn't intend for him to steal electricity from the Shelter.

"Xiao Qi."

"Yes, Master?"

"Tell me... how do I inject the synthetic material produced by this thing into the Cultivation Pods?" Chu Guang asked, stroking his chin.

"It's very simple, Master. The Active Matter storage tanks on the Cultivation Pods can be removed. You should be able to just pour the Active Matter in, right?"

Chu Guang nodded thoughtfully, then suddenly changed the subject.

"So... does that mean I can also remove the storage tanks from other Cultivation Pods?"

Xiao Qi paused.

"Uh, I don't know, Master. You're not thinking of stealing..."

"Borrowing."

Chu Guang interrupted Xiao Qi, stating with certainty, "I won't be able to get a Generator until the end of the month. I can't wait until then to revive the dead players."

"Anyway, there are still 70 cans unopened. They're just sitting there. Might as well utilize the Active Matter inside them first."

Xiao Qi quietly said, "But... what if you run out?"

Chu Guang said without hesitation, "We'll figure something out when the time comes. Let's solve the problem at hand first."

There were always more solutions than problems.

Increasing the death penalty, or adding extra penalties for consecutive deaths, should make these players curb their curiosity a bit.

When there were more players in the future, he could simply create a "Newbie Village" and not let them leave until they reached level five. There were plenty of ways to avoid waste.

Chu Guang still couldn't understand what this player named Ya Ya was thinking. Others aside, she was a Perception Type, after all.

When he returned to the Shelter later, he planned to talk to her in his capacity as the Planner.

However, the key issue now wasn't how the person died, but that the dead player was a Newbie and had no Contribution Points to deduct.

In other words, she couldn't afford the death penalty right now.

This was a bit troublesome.

He couldn't just let her owe it, could he?

What would the other players think? Wouldn't they all start acting recklessly?

"...It seems I'll have to set up forced labor or punitive tasks to substitute for the death penalty when they can't pay."

"Hmm, and also a decrease in Affection, and an extended Revival Cooldown for consecutive deaths."

There were always more solutions than difficulties.

Returning to the Shelter with Xiao Qi, Chu Guang first compiled and summarized the day's work results in a computer document.

This was a habit he had recently developed.

As the number of players increased, the daily changes in inventory were significant.

As the Manager, he had to plan and coordinate every single resource.

When wood was insufficient, he mobilized the Players to cut trees. When food was scarce, he sent everyone out to hunt and forage, ensuring that construction and production could proceed smoothly and wouldn't stall due to a shortage of any single resource.

"Building material inventory received 84 logs, 500 kg of carbon, 500 kg of calcium carbonate cement, two stacks of yellow mud bricks, and several pieces of hardened concrete blocks. Consumption... 220 logs, the cement produced today was basically used up, and an additional 200 kg was consumed from inventory."

"Roughly."

"Food inventory received 50 kg of smoked jerky, 10 kg of smoked fish... and 2 kg of edible roots and a small amount of raspberry berries. Consumption was about 10 kg of smoked jerky. The stew tonight was pine nut and fresh fish soup, so no smoked fish from inventory was used."

Perhaps I should hire a warehouse manager.

He also needed to find a more accurate scale and measuring tools.

Chu Guang spent some time distributing Contribution Points to each Player's personal account based on the statistics provided by Xiao Qi and the actual situation.

New Players mainly earned Contribution Points by moving bricks, calculated at 10 points per hour, so their points were mostly around 90 and 100.

Only Tengteng's Contribution Points were still 0.

However, making clothes was a skilled job, especially with unfamiliar materials. It would definitely take some time to figure things out.

Once she fully adapted to the tools and materials here, he believed her Contribution Points would quickly snowball.

After distributing the Players' rewards, Chu Guang then opened the System to check the rewards for today's daily tasks.

[Task: Cut ten trees, Reward: 1 Reward Point]
[Task: Kill one Mutant, Reward: 3 Reward Points]
[Task: Collect 1 ton of stone, Reward: 1 Reward Point]
[Task: Stockpile 10 kg of food, 1 Reward Point]

A total of 6 Reward Points.

In fact, the amount of work completed by the Players far exceeded the requirements of the daily tasks, but the easily obtainable Reward Points each day were limited.

Chu Guang calculated the Reward Points obtained in the previous days. Including today's points, he had a total of 17 points.

Let's gamble!

After a brief thought, Chu Guang, who had opened the [Manager Allowance] sub-page, threw 10 points at the Intermediate Blind Box and used the remaining 7 points to draw Beginner Blind Boxes.

Soon, the wall trembled.

As the alloy door opened, the rewards from the Blind Boxes rolled out along the conveyor belt.

[Nano Healing Needle: Primarily used for non-fatal external injuries. It can enhance tissue repair capabilities in a short period to accelerate wound healing.]

This thing must have come from the Intermediate Blind Box.

The specific therapeutic effect was not written, the side effects were unknown, and the active ingredients and mechanism of action were also not indicated. Like the previous Reinforcement Needle, it was a product with no label, no manufacturer, and no quality certification.

Chu Guang wasn't injured at the moment, so he temporarily put the healing needle into the drawer of his computer desk and then looked at the other rewards.

As expected, five out of the seven rewards were Lollipops.

One of them was orange-flavored. Like the previous chocolate-flavored one, it had a 10-hour Attribute buff, but it increased Constitution instead of Strength.

As for the other two, one was a 200g net weight chocolate bar, and the other was a 230g net weight can of beef.

Emmm...

The chocolate should be edible, but was the canned beef really okay?

If Chu Guang remembered correctly, canned food was invented during the Franco-Prussian War in the 1800s. This old can might even be older than the antiques in museums in his original world...

Forget it... I'll find a Player to try it later and see if it's edible.

Chu Guang hesitated for a long time. Finally, he decided to wait until the Players came online tomorrow and pick a Player with high Affection to treat them to a meal.

Surely no one would refuse such a good thing.

After confirming the rewards, Chu Guang returned to his computer and sat down. He didn't open the group chat immediately. Instead, he opened the Official Website Forum and looked for the Player with the ID [Ya Ya].

He expected it to take some effort, but as soon as he opened the forum, he saw this ID on the homepage, with nearly a hundred replies.

Wuwuwuwu, it's my fault for being reckless! I shouldn't have put myself in danger! I beg you, Planner, please be merciful, I really didn't do it on purpose, please don't ban my device! QAQ

Ban the device?

It couldn't be that serious, could it?

Chu Guang had just finished reading the title and didn't understand what was going on. It wasn't until he continued reading the entire post that he finally figured out what had happened.

This guy...

He really wasn't just ordinarily courting death.