At night, Chu Guang had a very, very long dream.
He dreamt that he was playing a ga called "The Sims," where day by day he went to work, ate, slept, and then woke up to go to work again, eat again, and sleep again—until one day, a truck ca barreling toward him, startling him awake.
"Fuck... even sleep is a grind, I must be going insane."
Couldn’t he have a nicer dream for once?
Gasping for air, he woke up in bed and instinctively reached for his chest, only to find his clothes soaked through.
"Did I crank up the AC too high?"
Muttering quietly, he hopped out of bed, stretched his limbs, and his joints cracked loudly, feeling extrely comfortable.
Wait a second.
Had he leveled up?
The thought struck him, and Chu Guang imdiately went to the resident hall to fetch a body scanner and perford a full-body scan on himself.
Sure enough, as he had guessed, his gene sequence had grown by one level, from V7 to V8!
[
ID: Chu Guang
Gene Sequence: Manager
Level: LV.7→LV8
——Basic Attributes——
Strength: 10
Agility: 6
Physique: 8
Perception: 7
Intelligence: 6→7
]
"The last few tis it was physical abilities that increased, this ti it’s my brain cells’ activity?"
Chu Guang flexed his arms, pondering while looking at the dical report.
"As I suspected, when I command other clones in battle, my gene sequence grows as well."
Of course, the attribute panel was just a reference.
Rather than just stacking data, being able to fully leverage the advantages of his bodily functions was key.
Just like with that Crawler last ti—none of its attributes aside from intelligence were lower than his, yet he still managed to pull off a clutch coback against it.
That was the perfect example.
"When the players’ levels reach around LV10, I’ll just throw Shelter No.117 at them as a dungeon to grind."
He heard there was power armor there.
Chu Guang was just missing a set of armor to pair with his Nitrogen-Powered Hamr.
Once he had both the armor and the weapon set, he’d be a true human Tank—not to ntion Crawlers, even more aweso Variants standing before him would only be good enough to scratch his itch.
Thinking gleefully to himself, Chu Guang headed to the next room to wake Xia Yan, ignoring her protests as he urged her to get up and start her work.
"Can’t you let sleep a little longer? There’s no business at the weapon shop at this hour!"
Standing in the elevator, Xia Yan complained quietly while combing her disheveled red hair with her free left hand.
"The morning hours are the most crucial for a day’s success, there’s no helping it. If you’re not diligent, how am I supposed to live a good life later? Don’t worry, once this winter is over, your workload will lighten up."
Chu Guang joked, watching the tuft of hair at the back of her head and reached out to press it down twice, "You better go to the bathhouse and get so water on that. I doubt it’ll stay down otherwise."
Her hair roots were pretty tough, it seed she’d been getting good nutrition lately.
Gosh, it’s killing my OCD...
Xia Yan was still sowhat sleepy, and as her mind fogged over, the mont Chu Guang touched her scalp, she jolted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, jumping to one side and huddling with her walking stick in the corner of the elevator.
"What are you doing!"
Chu Guang shrugged his shoulders, not quite sure how to explain, and frankly, too lazy to think about it.
Xiao Qi, who had been AFK and playing back the entire ti nearby, raised its cara, observing Xia Yan huddled in the corner for a while before speaking up unexpectedly.
"According to Xiao Qi’s analysis, the probability of Master having any ill-intentions towards you is less than 0.3%. From the DNA data, any chromoso preserved in the gene bank of Shelter No. 404 has greater reproductive appeal and value to be passed on than the chromosos you possess."
Xia Yan’s face turned as red as her hair instantly, glaring at the corner robot with a laugh that sounded almost hysterical.
"Hehe, hehehehe!"
She must have lost her mind.
Chu Guang also looked displeased, turning to Xiao Qi.
"Why is there still 0.3%?"
Was this AI also doubting the honest and upright character of a certain Mr. Chu?
Xiao Qi tilted its cara, speaking in a reasoned manner.
"Because after all, Master is a young man, so it’s understandable even if there are thoughts. After all, if there isn’t even a 0.3% chance, it seems like there might be a problem in so aspect, right?"
Chu Guang stroked his chin.
"...Now that you ntion it, that does make sense, I have no idea how to refute that."
Xiao Qi: "Right?"
Xia Yan didn’t react to the one-on-one conversation with the AI at all. He just sat there, chuckling darkly as if he had turned into an evil character.
Chu Guang always felt that sothing was off about the way he looked at Xiao Qi.
To be honest, this AI had probably been on standby for too long. Whether it was hardware degradation or sothing else, sotis its thought process really wasn’t too sharp, especially when it ca to speaking, and its emotional intelligence was extrely poor.
But giving credit where credit’s due, you were a rcenary once. How co you have such poor psychological resilience?
Or is it that anyone with a pair of hands could beco a rcenary in Giant Stone City?
Chu Guang didn’t know what to make of it.
...
Ever since Chu Guang stopped micromanaging players’ login rights and approved night-ti logins, he stopped sleeping in the residents’ hall and moved into the empty room next to Xia Yan’s.
Whenever he slept, he would entrust all of Outpost Base’s permissions to Xiao Qi, who was charging, with the only instruction being not to let the players rummage through his things.
With Old Luka outside to keep an eye on Shelter No. 117, the other players could frolic as they pleased—it wouldn’t matter.
All through the previous night, the furnace of the Active Substance Extractor hadn’t stopped.
With 6 Cannon Fodder during the day and an additional 21 at night, they had produced a total of 12.3 units of active substance. Adding the previously accumulated 4 units and deducting the 1 unit loss caused by Crow, the stock of active substance had reached 15.3.
An extractor could only hold 25 units; once full, they could only extract it and store it in plastic bottles.
He wasn’t sure if it would spoil if stored outside.
Anyway, Shelter No. 117 wasn’t as short on active substance anymore. As long as the deaths weren’t aningless, a reasonable attrition rate was acceptable.
Besides forbidding players from provoking the green-skinned musclen on Street No. 76 or harassing neutral survivors in the south who could be allied with, Chu Guang’s restrictions on players’ activity scopes weren’t as strict as before.
Perhaps after so ti, it might be appropriate to reduce the Contribution Points penalty for death.
When Chu Guang surfaced, many players had already logged on and were busy shuttling through the industrial area with a bunch of clanging parts.
Currently, more than 40% of the industrial area’s orders were coming from the proprietress of the weapon shop, including parts needed for making gun fras and copper casings and gunpowder for bullets.
Among the fifth batch of new players who had joined the Ga, there were a few fresh faces specializing in tallurgy who had chosen the Intelligence System. Their developnt direction was clear—they were aiming to beco lifestyle-oriented players.
Thanks to the repeated practice and improvents by players "Ya Er I Need to Go to The Bathroom" and "Ward’s Athlete’s Foot Who Levin," the Outpost Base’s steelmaking technology had significantly advanced.
Now, these guys were contemplating how to recreate the Besser acid-bottom blow converter thod from the mid-19th century.
Without the ans for large-scale production of pure oxygen, Besser’s "air steelmaking" thod was a good choice.
While they struggled to remove phosphorus from the ore, they actually used scrap steel, which naturally contained no phosphorus, forego the listone phosphorus removal step altogether.
As for the "gas porosity" issue, it could also be addressed by drawing on later experiences, such as adding "deoxidizers" after blowing.
However, everything hinged on first needing a furnace 1.2 ters tall, lined with tetravalent compounds like silicon dioxide and zirconium dioxide as acid refractory to prevent the furnace itself from lting in molten iron.
This was a major test for the sintering process.
Yet these eager players didn’t seem to be daunted by this difficulty; instead, they saw it as a challenge.
Previously, the big shots had been one-upping each other on the Forum with their boasts.
Now that they had their closed beta access, it was ti to show their real skills. Even if they hadn’t tried it before, they had no choice but to forge ahead.
Chu Guang couldn’t fault these players’ diligence, but the planning of the industrial area was rather rough around the edges.
Charcoal pits for burning charcoal sat right next to brick kilns, and just a few steps away were steel-making furnaces, with no semblance of proper planning.
This simply wouldn’t do.
As everyone knows, if the first house isn’t positioned well in a building ga, the rest of the planning ends up in chaos.
To save himself from being tornted by OCD and for the safety of these players, Chu Guang took a wooden stake and a wooden board to the south side of the sanatorium. He planted the stake in the ground and hung the board on it.
Then he rapidly wrote line after line with a marker pen on the board. After he finished, he stepped back two paces to admire his handiwork.
[Industrial Zone No. 0 Decree:]
[1. The area south of Outpost Base is designated as the industrial zone.]
[2. Applications are required for new facilities and must be submitted to the Manager or the Manager’s assistant. These should specify the project, type of operation, budget, and estimated area, and construction can only comnce within the approved area.]
[3. Use of roads, exceeding planned area, or other illegal constructions will be cleared and removed.]
"Not bad."
Chu Guang nodded in satisfaction.
After all, Decree No. 0 was just a draft; the fewer the words, the better.
Fewer words would reduce the players’ reading difficulty and make it easier to manage. After all, there was no point writing a lot only for everyone to claim they hadn’t seen it.
Details about security deposits, rent, managent fees, taxes, etc., would be supplented later in the form of the [Industrial Zone Managent Regulations]. The current regulations were just to prevent the players from building haphazardly and blocking the path from the south gate to the respawn point.
Before he even walked away, the nearby players spotted the sign and gathered around out of curiosity.
"Industrial Zone No. 0 Decree?"
"Area south of Outpost Base designated as industrial zone... holy shit?! Epic enhancent for lifestyle careers?!"
"Enhancent my ass, do you think they’re giving you a BUFF! This notice just ans you can’t build randomly inside the base anymore. You have to apply first, then build, plan your structures."
"Ah? So it’s a nerf?"
"But think of it another way... even if you haven’t purchased land in the industrial zone, you can now use industrial zone land through approved applications? And this area doesn’t count towards private land area?"
"Holy cow! Aweso!"
"This isn’t a nerf at all! Lifestyle careers have hit the jackpot!!"
"Stoked!"
Having deciphered this notice of fewer than a hundred words, players in the vicinity of the "NPC" erupted in excitent!
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