Chapter 113

"Ya Ya can be sure that this bottle of milk is not poisonous!" After staring at the plastic bottle for a while, Ya Ya stroke her chin with confidence and gave a positive conclusion.

Chu Guang nodded and took the bottle back. "Thank you."

Ya Ya asked curiously. "By the way, what kind of milk is this? Is it delicious?"

Chu Guang replied casually. "It's probably just cow milk, do you want to taste it?"

"Yes!" When Ya Ya said this, she kept peeking at the VM on her arm. She heard Teng Teng say that if the task was triggered, there would be a prompt.

Strange, why no response at all?

Chu Guang didn't notice her secret movement. He just poured a bit of the milk into the bottle cap and handed it to Ya Ya.

After Ya Ya took it over carefully, she leaned in her nose and took a sniff. An indescribable expression suddenly appeared on her face.

"Smells weird, is this really cow milk?"

"Maybe it's camel milk."

"?"

What do you mean maybe?!

In any case, Ya Ya still pinched her nose and drank it for the sake of favorability and hidden missions. Maybe it was really camel milk. Anyway, it was hard to judge the taste, and it wasn't that tasty.

Ya Ya felt like she had drunk it before, but she couldn't remember where and when exactly.

Seeing that she didn't have any adverse reactions, Chu Guang turned around and left, no longer having any worries.

Looking at the back of the administrator, Ya Ya stood there blankly for a long time, and didn't blink until the administrator's back disappeared at the gate.

Wait, what about the reward?

Did he forget to give me the reward again?

The players next to her had noticed the situation here already, and when the administrator walked away, they immediately shouted loudly.

"Oooooooh, what did I just see?"

"Breaking news, the administrator fed Ya Ya some white milky stuff!"

"Breaking news, Ya Ya fed the administrator her milk!"

"What?! Boss Ya was XXOO-ed by the administrator?"

"Do you all want to die?!" Ya Ya, who was full of anger, grabbed a bunch of mushrooms and threw them at those players. The players who were hit by the mushrooms quickly picked them up and ran away.

.....

Official website announcement:

[Recently, our outpost has taken in a group of nomads from the wilderness. They are settling near us out of admiration for our outpost.

[Please treat them kindly, so that more NPCs will join us. Remember, your words and deeds will affect the world's evaluation of you.]

[NPC Camp: Nomads]

Official forum:

Big_eyes_in_debt: "Awesome!"

WC_really_has_mosquitoes: "Devs are awesome! (Cracking voice)"

Little_book_worm: "What about alpha 0.6? We need alpha 0.6!!"

Irene: "Careful Devs will add the version number for you, and then the announcement you see now will have the version number behind it. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)"

Tomato_scrambled_eggs: "They won't. At least they shouldn't."

Elf_Fugui_Wang: "Brothers, anything interesting happening in the dungeon yesterday? Did you find anything in the department store?"

Irene: "Find my ass. There was a creeper in it. Fortunately, I reacted quickly. Ample Time said that there may be a shelterer hidden there. We're going to take some time to dig it out."

The_Escaping_Mole: "Shelter?!"

Irene: "It's not a large shelter. It's probably a small shelter or something, and it probably had an accident. It's hard to say what's left in it. So we will just have to wait and see."

Construction_site_boy_and_bricks: "Occupying the supermarket in the early days of the apocalypse is very reasonable."

Teng_teng: "Does anyone understand spinning, my eyes are going to go blind from reading. (Dizzy)"

Night Ten: "The old brothers in the forum are only interested in researching things that would send them to jail in real life. You want them to research this? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) The risk is too low that they are not interested in studying it at all."

...

After putting the milk in the refrigerator, Chu Guang, who had returned to the shelter, first went to the B2 floor to take a shower. He then returned to the resident lobby on the B1 floor, sat in front of the computer, and started to work as a game designer.

Today, the official website was as lively as ever.

The most popular post was still posted by Brother There_will_be_ample_time.

But this time, it was not because of the strategy, but a piece of equipment.

At the time when the average per capita deposit did not exceed 100, being able to take out 200 silver coins to buy a bow could no longer be described as rich anymore.

After all, in the early stage, everyone all used their money to buy equipment, bullets, and supplies. How would they be able to save so much money?

Not letting the old brothers on the forum down, Ample Time shared the experience of using the mechanical compound bow, and even gave his bow a flamboyant name "Daybreak".

"This Daybreak is great in almost every aspect. It's just that its power is too great!"

"Especially for a charged shot, ordinary wooden arrows won't be able to stand its force at all. After the string is pulled to the maximum, the switch on the bow can be pressed to activate the electric power connected to the gear, so it's not that difficult to operate it. However, the moment I let go of the string, I could feel at least a hundred pounds of force! It can even reach over two hundred when the bow is fully charged! So when the arrow is released, it can easily blast a Cruncher's head to pieces!"

WC_really_has_mosquitoes: "Are you sure that you are shooting an arrow, not a cannonball?"

Elf_Fugui_Wang: "I'm dying with envy!"

This_lord_is_arrogant_what_can_you_do: "Lmao, it's just mere 200 pounds of force, what's there to be excited about? My ancestors were from the great prairie. It was a basic requirement for everyone to be able to handle a 500-pound draw weight bow; if you couldn't handle a 1000-pound draw weight bow, you would be ashamed to call yourself a man."

Irene: "Yes, yes. After all, your ancestor was Genghis Khan. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)"

Little_book_worm: "This equipment is too unbalanced. It's even stronger than a gun. How can you not nerf it?!"

Ample Time immediately panicked when he saw someone asking the devs to nerf his weapon. "What's unreasonable about this? The background settings are all in the near future. Is 200 pounds too much? Not at all! Have you played Graphics Card Crisis? The compound bow ins that game also has electromagnetic acceleration!"

"And this thing would consume a lot of arrows. There are only twenty arrows in a quiver, and the arrows that are fired using charged shot can't be reused again. Unless it is a powerful monster that is too difficult to deal with, I usually don't even dare to use this weapon!"

The_Escaping_Mole: "I suspect you are trying to show off! (Flipping a table)"

Elf_Fugui_Wang: "Yes! Definitely!"

Ample Time: "..."

Actually, in the long run, paying 200 silver coins for this bow was definitely worth it, because the value of a currency would definitely change, but the value of the Wasteland Online's gear wouldn't.

The equipment officially released by Shelter No. 404 would always be the best, and the awesome weapons would always be awesome even until the server was shut down.

Of course, the premise was that the weapon would not be broken and the equipment would not be dropped.

The death penalty in this game was far more than just the loss of contribution points. As everyone's equipment became more and more expensive, the cost of death also came with the cost of equipment loss.

This was especially not good for players who liked to play alone.

Levels and experience could be saved, but equipment couldn't be saved.

If they were unfortunate enough to die outside the outpost and had no good friends to help them pick up the equipment and VM, they could only ask someone for help on the forum or release a mission in the mission interface.

In addition to Old Brother Ample Time flexing his weapon, there were many people on the forum discussing internal combustion engines and steam engines.

As for the cause, it was Miss Teng Teng seeking help on the forum.

These players didn't know what spinning was, and they didn't care about the original poster's problem at all. They just wanted to find a place to show off how they became a master of any subject after 5-seconds of research online.

The topic quickly shifted from Spinning Jenny to the most advanced non-woven fabric, and melt-blowing processes.

In a way, those people were really incredible. After all, pretending to be an expert of a subject while researching the information they needed wasn't an easy task.

However, there were occasionally one or two real experts in the post.

Under the current conditions of the outpost, it may be difficult to build an internal combustion engine. After all, the steel plant was still researching seamless steel pipes.

If they wanted to build an internal combustion engine casing that could withstand continuous high temperature and high-pressure gas, at least the cold rolling process technology must be unlocked first.

But then again, who would use an internal combustion engine to weave?

Just how boring one had to be to come up with such an idea?

Instead, the steam engine was a good idea.

A boiler that burned continuously would release relatively mild energy, and the requirements for material strength were not that difficult to achieve. The most important thing was that it was not picky about fuel.

Whether it was for power generation or industrial production, it was a good idea.

Teng Teng took notes while looking at the forum, replied diligently, and asked questions repeatedly, trying to get everyone to focus on the original topic.

It seemed like she was going to make a steam-powered spinning machine, modeled after the old spinning jenny machine.

The players on the forum, both Combat Profession players and Life Profession players were very good.

Looking at these capable players, Chu Guang's heart was filled with joy.

Very nice.

...

It snowed all night last night.

The next morning, the ground was covered with thick snow again.

At the east gate of the outpost, three old men in animal skins, roughly forty or fifty years old, were pacing back and forth at the gate, as if they wanted to go in, but they didn't dare to.

Thinking that they probably had some urgent matters, Chu Guang called them over. "What are you doing here?"

Afraid of offending the ruler, the old man lowered his head tremblingly. "Sir, we don't have any malice. We just want to see if you need any help?"

"We want to find some work to do."

"We are too old to hunt animals, but we can still move some stuff and repair some stuff."

Oh, so they are looking for work.

Chu Guang suddenly had an idea, and he said, "The snow on the outpost's main road needs to be cleared. 2 silver coins per person per day. If you want to do this work, you can go to Luca."

The responsibilities of managing the warehouse and the granary had been handed over to the newly trained warehouse managers, and Old Luca was their foreman, responsible for communicating with other NPCs, including trading with survivors on Bett Street, and telling the outpost's rules to the refugees outside.

This identity was a bit like a butler.

After hearing Chu Guang's words, the three old men's eyes lit up.

Two silver coins could be exchanged for two kilograms of shofar potatoes.

With three people, that would be six kilograms of shofar potatoes!

With such a low salary, no players would be willing to accept this task. After all, the "hourly salary" of players was at least 1 silver coin or more, and lower than that would not be worth it.

But for refugees, this salary was already very high.

"Thank you, kind sir!"

"Thank you for your generosity!"

"Don't worry, just leave it to us!"

The warehouse had brooms made of wooden sticks, as well as shovels for shoveling snow. They just needed to shovel the snow into a cart, push it out of the outpost, and dump it outside.

However, apart from the cart, these refugees did not use the tools from the warehouse, but returned to their camp to bring their own tools.

Seeing that they started to clear the snow quickly, Chu Guang instructed Little Seven to keep eyes on them, and then walked to the industrial area by himself without paying any more attention to it.

When he walked into the industrial area, Chu Guang found that two players, WC_really_has_mosquitoes and I_have_to_go_to_the_bathroom, were standing at the door of Teng Teng's hut, measuring with a ruler while gesturing and communicating something.

Out of curiosity, Chu Guang stepped forward and asked. "What are you doing?"

Hearing the administrator's voice, the two immediately stopped their work and said excitedly. "Dear administrator, we are designing a steam boiler!"

"That's right! This is a new job for our steel plant!"

"It's also a new job for Goblin Technology!"

A steam engine.

Seems like they only discussed it on the forum a few hours ago. I didn't expect them to start designing it so quickly.

Their efficiency is really high.

"What are you planning to do? Burn firewood?"

I_have_to_go_to_the_bathroom: "The firewood is not strong enough. Our initial plan is to imitate the generator you bought and make a wood gas generator! While burning the boiler, the heat from the boiler can also be used to generate wood gas!"

WC_really_has_mosquitoes: "Actually, I planned to use biogas at first. Our septic tank is full of feces anyway. But that thing is a bit difficult to collect, and the heat in the feces doesn't seem to be enough in winter, so we can only wait until the spring of next year to study it."

Chu Guang: "Mhm, take your time."

The speed of manual spinning and weaving was too slow.

The outpost also didn't have such a huge manpower. Devil Moth's cocoons had already piled up into two hills outside the warehouse.

If the spinning industry could be developed before the spring of next year, not only the defense power of the players would be able to be increased to a higher level, but the outpost would also be able to earn a large amount of money through the trade of Devil's Silk Cloth, and use the earned money to develop more advanced industry.

Coincidentally, female workers could be recruited from the refugee camp. At that time, the spinning factory could be built at the east gate, and that area would be a light industrial zone in the future.

Passing by the steel plant, Chu Guang saw Who_will_smell_my_athlete's_foot.

Instead of thinking about how to develop steam engines with his good buddy, this player pushed a red-hot "big iron barrel" out of the plant building with a cart quickly and rolled it into a snowdrift.

In the sizzling sound, white mist rose up, the red-hot iron barrel cooled down instantly, and half of the pile of snow melted away, turning into steaming mist.

"What is this?" Chu Guang asked curiously, looking at Brother Athlete's Foot shovel the snow on the big iron barrel.

Brother Athlete's Foot turned around and said with a smile. "107mm mortar, administrator!"

What?

Chu Guang stared at that thing for a while, and couldn't help asking. "...You call this thing a mortar?"

"That's right. Although it's just a barrel," Brother Athlete's Foot continued with a smile, "The stamping process will still need a little bit more time, and our budget is almost exhausted, so we can only take some side jobs to make some money."

"It happened that Goblin Technology just placed an order. Brother Mosquito said that big is justice, and justice is explosion, so he wants us to help him make a big gun barrel. Even if it is a cast gun barrel, he will find a way to rifle it himself. I think this order is not that difficult, so I made him one... Hehe, it's a big order. It's 200 silver coins."

Chu Guang didn't know how to respond for a while.

But...