The Game Devs Are Way Too Generous!

Evening.

The players gradually returned to the sanatorium. Brother Scrambled Eggs, who was in charge of cooking, set up a large pot in the open space and began preparing the day's final meal.

Tonight's menu was salt-boiled horn potatoes with smoked bacon strips.

Thanks to the discovery of the new NPC outpost, the shelter players finally got to eat something other than fish soup.

These horn potatoes actually tasted pretty good. After boiling them in salt water and drizzling a little soy sauce over them, they tasted somewhat like KFC mashed potatoes.

The only problem was that they used up a lot of soy sauce.

Just making these twenty-eight servings of mashed potatoes had used nearly a fifth of a bottle of soy sauce, and that was while rationing it carefully.

Meanwhile, the shelter was also running low on salt, with less than half a bag remaining.

At this rate of consumption, they would be back to living on bland soup and plain water in a few days.

"Waaah! These mashed potatoes are way too good! Uncle Scrambled Eggs, can I have another bowl?" Teng Teng squatted on the ground with a bowl in her hands, looking utterly satisfied.

"There's no more. One bowl per person." Unhappy with being called "Uncle," Brother Scrambled Eggs rolled his eyes and replied irritably.

"Then can we have mashed potatoes again tomorrow?" Teng Teng asked pitifully.

"We can't afford it. There isn't much soy sauce left, so we need to save it. If you want mashed potatoes, get up and order takeout yourself." As he spoke, Brother Scrambled Eggs sighed inwardly.

Cooking for this bunch every day was truly exhausting.

After all his years as a chef, he had never pinched pennies for a boss like this. He practically wished he could split every grain of salt into two before sprinkling it in.

On the other side, Ye Shi sat among the players with a bowl in hand, vividly embellishing the events of the day so much that he had forgotten to eat.

When he got to the part about encountering the Crawler on the way back, he excitedly set down his bowl, picked up a twig, and began drawing on the ground.

"At the time, I was walking down the street when a chill suddenly ran down my spine, and every alarm bell in my body went off! Before I knew it, I raised my rifle and unloaded a full burst—"

Fang Chang, who was sitting beside him, could no longer listen and couldn't help exposing his nonsense.

"A full burst? Anyone who didn't know better would think you were carrying a Gatling gun."

Ye Shi gave a dry cough.

"That's not important!"

"And then? What happened next? Keep going! How did you guys take that thing down?"

"Yeah, yeah, don't interrupt him!"

The nearby players did not care much about those details. They were right at the exciting part, so who cared whether he was bragging? They all clamored for him to continue.

"Don't panic, everyone, listen to me. Just as the Crawler pounced, I went for a slide tackle—"

Seeing how interested everyone was, Ye Shi quickly got back into the groove and resumed his tale, describing how he had supported the Administrator while he was entangled with the mutant, how he looted bodies on the battlefield, and how he was later carelessly ambushed by some bastard before making a tactical logout and coordinating with his teammates for an incredible counterkill...

Fang Chang rolled his eyes as he listened. Unable to bear it any longer, he simply took his bowl somewhere else to eat. Out of sight, out of mind.

After dinner.

The sun was nearly down as well.

After carrying Xiao Qi down from upstairs, Chu Guang led the players back into the shelter in batches and watched them lie down in the incubation chambers to log out safely.

Other than Garbage Lord, who was still out grinding in the wild, everyone had returned.

However, Chu Guang was not too worried about him.

Through the player list, Chu Guang could confirm that the guy was still alive. It was just that he himself had logged out two hours ago.

No matter how hardcore someone was, it was impossible to stay logged into a game twenty-four hours a day. They had to get up to eat and stretch their limbs now and then.

Besides, the clones in the game needed rest as well. No one could stay awake twenty-four hours a day—not even lizardmen.

According to the information published on the official website.

Logging out was not limited to actively entering hibernation by lying back in an incubation chamber. Any act that caused one to lose consciousness could sever the connection.

That included, but was not limited to, knocking oneself unconscious with a blow to the back of the head, or finding a place to lie down and sleep.

It was just that this logout method was not very reliable.

For one thing, it could not "save" progress. For another, it was unsafe.

Clones rapidly synthesized by the incubation chambers did not possess any intelligence.

In other words, without a consciousness connected to them, these clones would barely react to outside stimuli beyond conditioned reflexes.

If a mutant rat or cockroach happened to pass by at that time, it could gnaw a person away bite by bite.

But Garbage Lord had probably found a safe place to hide. At least for the moment, he was still safe.

Putting Garbage Lord's situation aside for now.

Chu Guang sat down in front of the computer in the residents' hall and, as usual, first compiled today's work results.

"The eastern wall has been completed."

"As for resources, construction material stockpiles gained 110 logs, one ton of charcoal, one ton of silicate cement, two stacks of mud bricks, and several hardened cement blocks. Consumption included 240 logs and 800 kilograms of cement... The timber stockpile has been declining for two consecutive days, but cement has actually started accumulating."

It seemed he needed to arrange for a few lumberjacks.

Or raise the daily logging requirement for players' quests.

"Food inventory: gained 350 kilograms of green wheat and Horn Potatoes, 2.5 kilograms of smoked meat, plus a small amount of berries and mushrooms. Consumed roughly 5 kilograms of smoked jerky, 10 kilograms of Horn Potatoes, as well as 50 kilograms of smoked meat and 20 kilograms of smoked fish for trading... We'll have to resume hunting tomorrow."

"Then there's the fur inventory... Aside from what was spent on trade, five pieces of fur were used as raw materials. Teng Teng actually made five pieces of clothing today? Not bad... Let me think, that should be 250 Contribution Points."

"Oh, and the increase in weapon inventory... I'll need to plan for an armory eventually."

Lastly, today's daily quests had earned seven Reward Points.

He could happily open blind boxes again.

After compiling the data, Chu Guang leaned back in his chair and stretched lazily.

At the same time he finished this work, the thirty activated cultivation pods in the next room had also completed scans of the clones inside, archived somatic cell samples, and compiled the players' genetic sequence development progress and panel data into a single chart.

Chu Guang gave it a quick look.

Perhaps because most jobs at the outpost at this stage involved physical labor, Strength-type players were clearly leveling up faster on average.

For example, Old White was already LV3.

Besides that, Ye Shi, who had been accompanying him on outings, had also advanced his genetic sequence from LV1 to LV2. His primary Perception attribute had reached 9, making him the player with the highest Perception in the entire outpost.

"Master!"

Watching Xiao Qi roll over to the desk with a whirring rumble, Chu Guang shifted his gaze away from the computer.

"What is it?"

"How did you pick up a strange woman from outside and bring her back?"

Chu Guang nearly choked on those words.

Though it wasn't exactly wrong, it somehow sounded very wrong.

"What are you talking about?"

"Xiao Qi saw it from the roof. You carried her back."

Chu Guang replied impatiently.

"So?"

With an uninflected electronic voice, Xiao Qi said aggrievedly, "Nothing. I just wanted to remind you that compared with clones, whose movements can be restricted at any time, the natives of the wasteland are much harder to control. You shouldn't trust them too easily."

"You're overthinking it. I've never completely trusted anyone, whether they're players or natives here," Chu Guang said flatly.

"Mhm, mhm, then I'm relieved!"

The camera on top of Xiao Qi's head bobbed up and down in a nod.

"By the way, you can trust Xiao Qi forever. No matter what happens, Xiao Qi will always be your most loyal assistant!"

"Okay, got it."

"So perfunctory!"

Couldn't this thing settle down for a while when it was charging?

Chu Guang restrained the urge to complain and continued staring at the computer screen.

More than ten minutes had passed since the players logged off. Unless something unexpected had happened, the official forum should be at its liveliest right about now.

It was time for some enjoyable lurking.

Humming a tune to himself, Chu Guang opened the official website's backend and first checked the number of reservations.

The little leeks holding out their bowls had doubled from just over a hundred to nearly three hundred.

The threshold for reserving the game had now changed from simply filling out a form to filling out a form plus answering questions.

Though they were all common-sense questions, anyone patient enough to read them through and fill in every blank could at least be considered serious about playing.

Those who passed could be said to be fairly high-quality users.

At the same time, traffic to the official website had increased significantly, with average daily visits reaching one thousand.

Not everyone who visited had registered an account, and even fewer had clicked the reservation button, but it at least showed that Wasteland OL was becoming increasingly well-known in gaming circles.

It was clearly just an unregistered, no-name website with nothing but a pile of written setting materials and a few photos of a construction site, yet it had somehow gathered so many people.

Chu Guang could not help but marvel inwardly.

"There really are a lot of bored people."

Perfect.

Since they had nothing better to do, they might as well come work for him in the "game."

Closing the backend page, he entered the forum.

Just as Chu Guang had expected, the players who had logged off had all come here to check in, and the forum was bustling with activity.

Even Garbage Lord, who had logged off two hours ago, was hanging around on the forum.

Junk Collector Level 99: Damn, I'm exhausted today, but luckily I still got something out of it! About two kilometers north of the abandoned construction site, there's a tire processing plant. There are people patrolling nearby with dogs—possibly a raider camp, but I'm not sure yet! I'm planning to get closer and take a look once it gets dark. After I confirm it, I'll come back to the forum and brag about it.

{Gale: 666!}

{Old White: Damn, no wonder I didn't see you when I logged off! Also, why can you log in during the day???}

{Junk Collector Level 99: If you were a mutant, you could too! Enough bullshit, I'll log back in after resting for a bit. (grins)}

{Ye Shi: You came here just to flex, didn't you!}

{Quit Smoking: Forget logging in during the day—even if you just let me log in and take one look, I could die without regrets! T.T}

{Ya Ya: I'm still on resurrection cooldown. Quack, I'm crying.}

{Junk Collector Level 99: (grins)}

Aside from Garbage Lord showing off by himself, most of the players on the forum were enthusiastically discussing the new NPC the Administrator had brought back, as well as the newly discovered survivor settlement.

They were especially interested in the latter.

Near the top of the long list of posts, Chu Guang quickly spotted an analysis post written by Long Days Ahead.

As always, the guy was good at summarizing, and his posts were the most popular on the forum. If circumstances allowed, Chu Guang almost wanted to hire him as the game's planner.

...I have to praise this Alpha 0.2 update! It was obvious that the game developers had put real effort into it. This was seriously conscientious work!

The update contained far more than the handful of optimization items listed on the official website. New factions, new monster models, a larger map, and more—the content was much richer than I had imagined!

Take Brown Farm, which traded with us this time. The moment I reached the concrete walls surrounding it, I was blown away by the game developers' art design. That sense of immersion was hard to put into words. Whether it was the post-apocalyptic architectural style or the detailed textures of the different NPCs' clothing, you could see the care put into every detail! It wasn't just recycled assets with new skins slapped on!

Then there was the combat system test. On the way back, we were attacked by Crawlers, leading to a thrilling but ultimately safe battle. Before this, I'd always thought mutants with such absurd combat power existed only in the setting. I never expected them to already be implemented in the current version!

I have to say, our Administrator truly deserved his title as the newbie guide. His combat power was ridiculously strong! When the Crawler pounced, neither Ye Shi nor I could react in time. We were practically just spectating while he did all the damage. He actually took down a two-meter-tall Gnawer with nothing but a little water pipe! It got my blood pumping!

Also, personally, the biggest surprise was the new NPC joining our outpost! Her special identity might bring us even more new gameplay, such as weapon modifications, or perhaps more side quests and so on... I think we can definitely look forward to it!

I'll keep updating this post with more intel about the Alpha 0.2 update. Any fellow wastelanders who are interested, feel free to drop a follow!

Conscientious, huh.

Ah, how embarrassing.

After reading the post from beginning to end, Chu Guang grinned so broadly he couldn't close his mouth.

But honestly, Chu Guang felt that he really had been conscientious enough. At the very least, he hadn't gouged the players' wallets.

For a next-generation game that could free up your dreams and sleep, if Goose Factory or Pig Factory were running it, did you think you could play without paying a few hundred or even a thousand bucks?

Forget playing—you'd probably need to buy a membership before you could even grind!

What?

No money?

That was easy. You wouldn't mind using your own hands to plaster walls, right?

After all, otherwise how would they highlight the prestige of RMB warriors using plastering trowels to build walls? Of course, you could also choose to watch two hours of ads to unlock a membership discount coupon.

At least Chu Guang couldn't bring himself to do something so scummy.

Since the guy had praised him for being conscientious, Chu Guang featured Long Days Ahead's post.

Casually closing the post, just as Chu Guang was wondering what to do to pass the long night, Xiao Qi's resentful voice came from beside him.

"Master."

"The woman you brought back has woken up."