Icefire Mushroom

"Phew~ This feels so good!"

Pu Shenqi sat up from his small secondary bedroom, which was 300 square meters.

He twisted his neck and stretched his back, feeling as if he had slept soundly and was full of energy.

It was very comfortable.

"Playing this 'Apocalypse OL' makes time fly. I haven't even played for that long, and it's already been 12 hours. The main reason is that the open-world map is too big; just traveling back and forth took several hours."

He glanced at the time: 6 AM.

"The game time and real-world time are 1:1, but the day and night are reversed. It's just getting dark over there, and it's just dawning over here. Perfect, it won't interfere with my activities during the day."

"Wait a minute!"

Pu Shenqi suddenly realized something.

"If I can use playing games to replace sleeping, doesn't that mean my life is effectively doubled in length?"

"I'm getting double the happiness!"

'Apocalypse OL' currently allows a maximum of 12 hours of playtime per day. After dark, NPCs will force players offline, citing that it's dangerous at night and soldiers need to rest.

Pu Shenqi routinely checked the forums, replied to some comments, and posted a few random threads. He naturally praised virtual reality games again, attracting the envy of many players who couldn't get reservations. What was already a happy day became even happier!

"Indeed, happiness isn't about how much you earn, but about... whether I earn more than others."

Happiness comes from comparison!

Opening his private messages, Pu Shenqi found Sentinel and asked about the game's monster-grinding mechanics.

Sentinel was online and replied instantly.

"In 'Apocalypse OL,' there's no such thing as respawning monsters. Every creature is unique and one-of-a-kind. This means you'll never kill two identical creatures."

Pu Shenqi was shocked.

"Then what happens if we clear all the monsters? What about new players? How will they level up?"

Sentinel: "We'll have our ways later; you don't need to worry about that."

Pu Shenqi asked again, "Okay then, as long as you designers have it figured out. By the way, I have a small question: why doesn't this game have a warehouse? We're throwing the equipment we get everywhere, and new players can just pick it up, which isn't safe at all."

Sentinel: "Don't worry, the game we're making has logic. We'll definitely add a warehouse function reasonably in a later update, so rest assured."

Pu Shenqi: "By the way, Brother Bing, can you extend my game time? That NPC you guys made is too annoying, directly forcing us offline. If I weren't afraid of his authority, I'd definitely hit him with some rap."

Sentinel: "Cough cough... This is mainly a requirement of the game's beta version, to prevent adverse reactions from prolonged use of the helmet. Also, I strongly suggest you get along well with the Lord."

Pu Shenqi: "Sigh! He's just an AI NPC, what does he know about games? I'm smiling on the surface, but cursing him in my heart. Can he see through me? Hahaha!"

Sentinel: "Hehe~ Then I wish you good luck."

Except for Thin Dog, Sentinel chatted with the other two players for a while longer, collecting all the issues raised by the players and including them in the next version's development plan.

After an hour of "Quantum Surfing," Cheng Shaofeng refocused his attention on the base.

"There will be more and more players soon, so I should create a warehouse for them."

Ensuring players' rights aren't violated is his responsibility as a designer. Otherwise, if players return from a day of grinding to find their stored goods stolen... that would be too upsetting.

The current players are generally well-behaved, but he couldn't say the same for future arrivals.

"So, the question is... how to establish a warehouse system?"

In games he'd played before, there was usually a warehouse NPC, or just a large chest placed in a safe zone. Players would clear out their inventory whenever they returned to town, selling useless items to shops and storing useful ones in the warehouse.

"I should set up both a shop and a warehouse. Buy goods from players at low prices, then sell them to other players at high prices, or sell them to merchants in Salt Well Town, or to the merchant caravan in Colossus City. After a few rounds of this, I'll become the richest person in the base."

Seeing Thin Dog and the other two frantically hunting Raiders today, collecting Biological Raw Materials and opening Loot blind boxes, Cheng Shaofeng was extremely envious!

Especially Thin Dog!

The equipment they three fought for was all worn by him, significantly boosting his combat power. Most importantly, he even dared to curse the Lord behind his back!

"I must arrange some special missions for him tomorrow!"

Cheng Shaofeng thought for a moment and had a rough idea of what he needed to do in the coming days.

"I succeeded! It's a dual-attribute weapon!"

Xiao Xiao shouted excitedly in front of the "Attribute Conversion Tower."

Cheng Shaofeng's hand trembled slightly: "Damn it, has the player's equipment been upgraded again?"

He used his base administrator privileges to check the weapon attributes Xiao Xiao had just identified.

[Piercing Radiation Stone Spear]

[Quality: Quality]

[Physical Damage: 13~25]

[Physical to Pierce: 35%]

[Pierce Damage: 5~8]

[Radiation Damage: 2~7]

[15% Physical Damage converted to Radiation Damage]

"Wow, this weapon's base damage includes Physical, Pierce, and Radiation. And it has damage conversion too. Zero, what does this damage conversion mean?"

Zero: "Master, Physical to Radiation Damage conversion means that when attacking with this weapon, 15% of all Physical Damage is converted into Radiation-attributed damage. The same applies to Pierce Damage. If the enemy doesn't have corresponding resistance, it can cause higher damage. However, Raiders generally have higher resistance to radiation in their bodies, so converting Physical Damage to Radiation Damage will likely backfire."

"Oh, I see. The base damage of this weapon is pretty good too. The materials Thin Dog and the others found are really useful."

As Cheng Shaofeng was examining the weapon's stats, Brother Hat returned with a small sack on his back.

He dumped a pile of fruits and mushrooms from it.

"Look what I found! There are so many resources on the surrounding mountains. Just gathering them is enough for us to eat."

Xiao Xiao looked at the various, completely unfamiliar mushrooms with alarm.

"Brother Hat, are you sure people won't die after eating these? We haven't even finished our beginner quests yet. I heard from Thin Dog and the others that if we die before making our own clones, we might not be able to resurrect!"

"Heh! I've been eating mushrooms for years, I can tell if they're poisonous just by looking. Believe it or not, look..."

[Wild Poison Mushroom]

[Contains deadly poison, may cause death]

[Possibly a material for making poison.]

"See? It's poisonous! Throw it away, throw it away, not eating this!"

Cheng Shaofeng exclaimed from the side, impressed.

"So, your 'just by looking' actually meant looking at my machine's display screen! That's really something!"

However, the [Attribute Conversion Tower] was indeed useful. It identified all the fruits and mushrooms Brother Hat had picked, finding 13 edible types and 10 materials for poison.

Brother Hat said to Xiao Xiao, "I've scouted around here and found quite a few resource gathering spots. Come out with me to gather resources when you have time, it even gives experience!"

"Gathering gives experience? Wait, let me check my watch. Hey! Crafting equipment also gives experience! Crafting a weapon gives 8 points! I have 16 experience points now!"

"Nice, nice. Gathering gives me very little experience, I have to gather quite a few to get 1 point. I guess I picked up a lot of useless stuff. Once I get the hang of it, the experience should increase faster. It seems the game designers have also considered the leveling needs of casual players, which is interesting."

Xiao Xiao: "Mmm, Sentinel seems like a really good person. He didn't know me from Adam, but he gave me this precious beta testing spot. It's so touching."

The two chatted for a while.

Brother Hat ran up to the Lord with half a bag of poisonous mushrooms.

"My Lord, do you want this?"

Cheng Shaofeng: "?"

You thought I couldn't see your identification results, right?

You want to poison me, don't you?

Alright!

Players are rebelling!

Brother Hat saw Cheng Shaofeng's confusion and quickly explained.

"My Lord, I was thinking... what if you could use it? Like, invite a competitor to a mushroom feast, and then there would be no more competitors. You could just sell it for some money afterwards to recycle it."

Selling useless items to the store was a common understanding among players.

Cheng Shaofeng also understood that Brother Hat wanted to sell it for money, not poison him and become the Lord himself. He opened the bag and took a look.

"Huh? Is this... an Icefire Mushroom?"

Cheng Shaofeng picked out two red and blue mushrooms. They looked like they could kill someone with a single glance.

But Cheng Shaofeng's past self, as a scavenger, knew that although this mushroom was highly poisonous, when processed using special methods, it became a top-tier medicine. The merchant caravans in Colossus City would buy it.

One mushroom cost 30 yuan.

In Salt Well Town, that could buy 25 jin of beans, which was a 12-day supply for an adult.

This meant that Brother Hat had earned 50 jin of beans from his outing.

"Where did you gather this kind of mushroom?"