75: Chapter 75 Test

By the fourth hour of the novice quest chain, Lin Qiming saw the first piece of data in the backend that made him think, "These people might actually survive the first week."

It wasn't Iron Wall Rebirth. Iron Wall Rebirth had already led his temporary squad to complete two rounds of scrap collection with extremely high efficiency and clear division of labor—one person prying rusted plates, one loading bags, and one keeping watch. He didn't hesitate at all when forming the team, glancing at the few novices still looking around in confusion, picking two IDs that looked relatively calm, handing each a short club, and then heading straight for the scrap pile to the south. The entire process took less than thirty seconds. Hephaestus noted in the backend: "Possesses rudimentary squad command awareness."

It wasn't Grey Mist Walker either. During the first round of collection tasks, she casually drew a simple distribution map of the scrap pile, sketching it with charcoal on half an old canvas found at the supply point, marking high-density metal fragment areas and dangerous collapse points, then placed the map at the entrance of the Outpost for later players to reference. No one had asked her to do this. Hephaestus wrote in the system log: "First individual to autonomously produce a public good."

What made Lin Qiming sit up and take notice was Rookie One.

Rookie One, with an energy level of only 12 ona, encountered a lone Hive Giant Rat at the edge of the scrap pile. This Hive Giant Rat had an energy level of about 6 to 7, was about the size of a medium-sized dog, its fur covered in dull moss, and was gnawing on a pile of discarded synthetic fibers. Rookie One didn't run away, didn't scream, nor did he try to "communicate" with it like Iron Stomach. He squatted down, lowered his center of gravity, held the short club horizontally across his knees, and waited for a full forty seconds—until the Hive Giant Rat's attention was completely drawn to the food, then he silently circled around from the side and stabbed the tip of his crowbar into the Hive Giant Rat's hind leg Achilles tendon. The Hive Giant Rat shrieked and turned to pounce on him, but he had already retreated to a safe distance and fired three shots with his automatic rifle while retreating. All hit the torso.

After the battle, Rookie One squatted beside the Hive Giant Rat's corpse, using the short club to examine its teeth and claws, as if taking some kind of notes. Hephaestus's backend data showed that his battle time was thirty-eight seconds, health loss was zero, and ammunition consumption was three rounds. Solo kill. First kill of the first day.

"Should I give him a title?" Lin Qiming muttered to himself.

[The system does not support issuing titles to ordinary players who have not awakened their past life memories. But I can specifically name him once, of course, just a backend note.]

"Granted."

[Note added: 'Rookie One—First mutant rat solo killer. Energy level 12, but psychological quality might be the best in the whole group.']

Lin Qiming closed Rookie One's data panel with satisfaction and turned his gaze to the other side—then his expression quickly changed from satisfied to exhausted. Iron Stomach had already completed his eleventh death. This time, the cause of death was different from the previous ten: he had discovered a rock wall crack at the edge of the scrap pile that looked a bit strange, with a faint green fluorescent light shining from deep within the crack. He squatted in front of the crack, silently recited the sentence "Do not touch things that glow" from the mission prompt three times, and then reached his hand inside.

The death report was simple: [Cause of death: Contact with unstable Necrons energy residue. Right hand and forearm were instantly stripped away by the Gauss decomposition effect, then the energy pulse conducted along the nerves to the heart, triggering cardiac arrest. Death process experience: Extremely brief burning sensation (about 0.3 seconds), followed by loss of consciousness. Note: The mission prompt was written very clearly. You know how to read. I have confirmed it.]

Iron Stomach climbed up at the respawn point, his face wearing an excitement of having survived a disaster. He raised his right hand and looked at it for a long time—intact, five fingers spread, not even dust in the fingernails—and then said something that made everyone around turn their heads: "You know, the feeling of being hit by a Gauss ray is really strange. It's not burning, it's shattering. You are already dead while the fragments are still floating in the air."

Nightsong stood next to him, holding a charcoal pencil, drawing the dangerous area markers he had discovered today on a piece of scrap iron. He said without raising his head: "Next time, stick out your left hand; your right hand still needs to hold the knife."

"That makes sense." Iron Stomach nodded earnestly.

Lin Qiming silently raised the death warning threshold for Iron Stomach in the backend. Hephaestus's voice sounded at the right moment: [Do you need me to set up a separate "Do Not Touch" list for Iron Stomach? Currently, the dangerous substances that can be listed include Necrons energy residue, unpurified ancient one fragment, high-concentration radioactive waste, and that bag of chemical reagents you put under the processing table.]

"Set it. But do you think he will look at it?"

[No. But at least when he dies again due to touching dangerous substances, the system record can add a line 'Already warned in advance'. This can reduce my log redundancy at the audit level.]

Meanwhile, on the other side of the scrap pile, Rat Speaker was sitting on a relatively dry patch of gravel. Her collection bag was half full of metal fragments—not much, but enough to complete the task. At this moment, she was not collecting scrap, nor was she talking to her teammates. In front of her was a Hive Giant Rat. This Hive Giant Rat was slightly smaller than the one Rookie One had soloed earlier, but it wasn't a pup, with an energy level of about 5. It had an old wound on its left hind leg that hadn't healed well, making it limp when it walked. Rat Speaker was facing it, her lips moving, emitting a very low, very gentle sound—not like language, but more like some kind of unconscious humming, the pitch rising and falling slightly, as if imitating some melody that only she could hear.

Her fingers were resting on her knees, palms up, unmoving. The Hive Giant Rat stopped about a meter away from her, its whiskers twitching violently, its ears rotating back and forth, and a very low purring sound coming from its throat. A kind of indescribable tension permeated the air—not hostility, nor friendliness, but a more primitive, subtle resonance between testing and responding.

Grey Mist Walker passed by, stopped, watched for a few seconds, and frowned: "What is she doing?"

"She says she can feel the rat's mood." Rookie One walked over from the direction of the scrap pile, carrying his automatic rifle, his face still stained with the rat blood splashed on it earlier. He pointed the butt of his gun in the direction of Rat Speaker, "She says this rat's leg hurts and it's very hungry, but it's not particularly angry—because its nest was just taken over by another, larger one. Was the fat one I killed earlier the big one? Maybe not, she says it was another one. Anyway, she is talking to it."

The expression on Grey Mist Walker's face seemed to be considering whether to stop her, or at least remind Rat Speaker to be careful. But she saw that the Hive Giant Rat did not attack—it just tilted its head, its ears twitched, and then it slowly turned its head to look at Rat Speaker's fingers. Rat Speaker took a small piece of low-quality Nutrient Paste out of her pocket, placed it on the ground closest to her knees, and then slowly retreated a few centimeters. The Hive Giant Rat stared at the gray paste, its nostrils twitched, and then it stuck out its tongue and licked it into its mouth. Its ears twitched again, and it made a very low purring sound.

"She's feeding it?" Grey Mist Walker lowered her voice, "The Nutrient Paste issued for the mission?"

"It's her own share." Rookie One said, "She didn't eat at noon either. When I went to get supplies earlier, I saw her break her own share in half, putting one half in her pocket." He paused and added, "She gave the other half to me. Said if I didn't eat, I wouldn't be able to carry the gun."

Grey Mist Walker was silent for two seconds. She looked at Rat Speaker—her energy level was not much higher than Rookie One's, only 14 ona, but she sat in front of the Hive Giant Rat, her expression focused and calm, as if she were having a conversation with something she knew others couldn't understand. The Hive Giant Rat moved a little closer, and this time it didn't stop, but rested its head on Rat Speaker's knee, its cloudy yellow eyes slightly narrowed. Rat Speaker reached out and touched the back of the Hive Giant Rat's ear with her fingertips—that sensitive area where the fur was sparse enough to see the dark red skin underneath—and scratched it gently. The Hive Giant Rat's purring grew louder.

"Its name is Mao Mao." Rat Speaker suddenly spoke, her voice very light, but very certain, "It told me its name is Mao Mao. It has been hungry for three days, the wound on its leg was from being bitten by other rats, and its nest is under that collapsed pipe over there. It originally had five pups, two died last month, eaten by something bigger. It said that thing is not a rat, it's something else."

Rookie One blinked. "Something else? What something else?"

"It can't explain clearly. But it's very scared. That thing has green eyes and walks without making a sound." Rat Speaker paused, her fingers not leaving the back of the Hive Giant Rat's ear, "It's not a living thing."

Grey Mist Walker and Rookie One looked at each other. Grey Mist Walker squatted down, looking at Rat Speaker at eye level: "You can't be serious, right? You think this rat is talking to you? What it just told you—it can say all these things?"

Rat Speaker raised her head, looking into Grey Mist Walker's eyes, without any avoidance, nor any sign of argument. She just explained very calmly: "It's not talking. Not talking like we do. It's that I can feel—feel those images. I can feel its leg hurts, can feel that it's scared, can feel that it has seen something. Green light. Very cold. No sound. It has seen that thing eat its pups." She lowered her head, her fingers continuing to scratch the back of the Hive Giant Rat's ear, "It is very sad."

"So... are you treating it as a teammate now?"

Rat Speaker was silent for a moment, then said softly: "It's just hungry. It's not bad."

Grey Mist Walker stood up and turned to walk towards the scrap pile. After walking a few steps, she looked back at the Hive Giant Rat lying on Rat Speaker's lap. It didn't bite Rat Speaker, didn't run away, didn't make any threatening sounds. It just rested its head there, eyes half-closed, its purring deep and steady, like an old engine running slowly. Grey Mist Walker withdrew her gaze and said to Rookie One: "Help her replenish the Nutrient Paste. Deduct it from my share."

When Lin Qiming pulled up the detailed data of Rat Speaker in the backend, the muscles on his face remained motionless, but his fingers slid rapidly across the panel, opening her psychic perception monitoring records. Over the past four hours, her psychic perception threshold had steadily remained at four to five times that of an ordinary player. No corruption value growth. No negative status at all. This was no longer just a coincidence, nor was it luck, and it certainly wasn't a system error. Her soul had almost no projection in the Warp, but instead, like clear lake water, it clearly reflected the chaotic and disorderly low-level biological signals of the Hive Bottom. Every rat's hunger, fear, and pain were transformed into concrete and vivid images in her perception.

"She is a natural psychic sensitive, in the harsh environment of the Empire, she would probably be taken away by the Black Ships at fifteen, her soul extracted and burned to Ashes, not even her name would be left in the archives." Lin Qiming typed a line in the detailed archive column of Rat Speaker: Spontaneous Hive Mind Resonance—first trigger. No corruption. Can be listed as a first-generation Librarian candidate. Then he closed the panel, his voice very light, as if talking to himself, or as if concluding for Hephaestus. The assistant didn't say much either, just left a concise four-character evaluation in the system remarks column: "She is not courting death. She is learning to understand this world."