107: Official public beta

After a few days of a brief internal test, "Wasteland Online" finally began its open beta for the entire train.

During this period, Lu Yang further expanded the early activity space for players.

For example, a Guardian Square was added, and in the center of the square stood a statue of a warrior holding a bayonet, ready to charge at any moment, named the Guardian.

Players could bless him once a day with complimentary flowers to receive a reward of 3 rice seeds.

This was a protective mechanism established to prevent negative energy outbursts, capable of generating an army of heroic spirits for defense at critical moments.

To the west of the Guardian Square, there was a magical herb garden containing dozens of magical herbs of various colors, roughly divided into four types: Nightlight Mushroom, Youjing Grass, Sword Thorn Flower, and Bluebell Fruit Tree.

These four magical herbs were the main ingredients used in the magic potion preparation room to concoct Constitution Potions, Spirit Potions, Strength Potions, and Agility Potions, respectively.

Players could exchange one kilogram of rice for one portion of magic fertilizer each day to fertilize these four magical herbs, accelerating their growth.

If a player successfully fertilized, he would receive one magic copper coin.

Once the magical herbs in the magical herb garden matured, players could use their accumulated magic copper coins to purchase the mature magical herbs.

Furthermore, after gathering enough medicinal materials, they could ask the old Kobold guarding the magical herb garden to refine the corresponding magical potions for them, enhancing their character attributes and providing a certain degree of feedback to reality.

In reality, this was Lu Yang's guiding method of using spiritual energy to turn the fake into reality.

Old Ode had only given him Nightlight Mushroom and Youjing Grass seeds.

There were no Sword Thorn Flowers or Bluebell Fruit Trees.

If Lu Yang wanted to successfully create Strength Potions and Agility Potions, he could only use this method.

By leveraging everyone's desires, he could manifest real Sword Thorn Flowers and Bluebell Fruit Trees from false ones, just like the rice before.

So he had to give everyone hope.

Of course, this progress would not be too fast.

After all, Sword Thorn Flowers and Bluebell Fruit Trees were not things that existed in this world.

Judging from the condensation progress on the first day, it would take at least 100 days to successfully condense Sword Thorn Flower and Bluebell Fruit Tree seeds.

Lu Yang didn't know if he could speed it up later; he could only observe for now.

And so, Lu Yang had everyone working in the game while he searched for new mining spots in the Donglin Plain.

Unbeknownst to him, he drove into the Eternal Night Zone, an area he had rarely visited before.

Before Lu Yang started selling Ghost Killer Flintlock Rifles on a large scale, few Train Captains would set foot in this area.

Although some Train Captains later ventured there, they usually left after excavating previously collected mining spots and would not linger too long.

Especially after the Golden Coast trip, the Train Captains were scattered and teleported back, making even fewer come here specifically.

The reason Lu Yang drove this way was because a regularly refreshed new mining spot appeared here.

Although it was only a Level 1 mining spot, it was a rare psionic stone mining spot that had been very uncommon before.

That's why he came here.

Unlike the scene when he first became a Train Captain and fled in a panic from the Eternal Night Zone.

This time, Lu Yang installed dozens of large lights around the entire train, shining in all directions, and the music from the dynamic speakers never stopped along the way.

Now that the Xinhuo Train had been upgraded, he wished some ignorant oddities would come looking for trouble.

Upon reaching the mining spot, he finally detected a few Level 1 wraiths, but after they got closer, before Lu Yang could even test the effect of the peace talisman, they were all absorbed by the Magic Net Core.

Lu Yang quickly entered the Magic Net Space with his consciousness to observe.

In the lower Magic Net Space, a giant millstone was grinding the few wraiths that had just been captured, bit by bit, like grinding grain.

At the millstone's outlet, two lumps of purified substances were extracted.

One lump was bright and clean, the other dark and defiled.

These were positive soul essence (positive energy) and negative soul dregs (negative energy, dark energy).

Their quantities were similar.

But the sensory experience they gave was completely different.

Just as Lu Yang was thinking about how to deal with these two lumps of refined energy, he saw the millstone gradually disappear after processing the wraith oddities.

Then, two transparent doll appeared; one held the positive soul essence and scattered it into the magical herb garden, and the other held the negative soul dregs and scattered them into the wilderness.

After the positive soul essence was scattered into the magical herb garden, the progress of the magical herbs that were originally incubating suddenly increased by a small margin, although not much, it was about half a day's worth.

And after the negative soul dregs were scattered into the wilderness, dozens of zombies of game levels 1-3 were gradually generated.

Lu Yang immediately understood that this was the processing of soul energy according to his arrangements.

He just hadn't expected that the Magic Net Core also had the ability to capture and process low-level oddities.

The Magic Net Core truly gave him many surprises.

After observing for a while longer and seeing nothing unusual, Lu Yang exited the Magic Net World.

After several days of development, in the game world, the Train Police Officers had gradually all leveled up to Level 3 and above.

The limit for other ordinary players was Level 5, but for these Train Police Officers who had received some combat training, Lu Yang opened the adventure world to Level 3.

However, because not many low-level zombies were currently being generated in the adventure world, Lu Yang was not in a hurry to assign them tasks to clear out the zombies.

Instead, he gave them some time to purchase equipment.

But there were also a few bolder ones, such as the exploration team formed by Wang Hu and Wang Iron Hammer, who went ahead to investigate the wilderness.

However, they only explored outside the city ruins, and when they encountered zombies, they mainly tried to avoid them.

They would only clear them out if there was absolutely no way to avoid them.

Then they discovered that even the weakest Level 1 zombies were not easy to deal with, even with their current Level 1 weapons and an average Level 3.

A 100-point health bar required them to cooperate and attack dozens of times.

However, the drop rewards were quite abundant.

In addition to more than a dozen Level 1 rice seeds, there were also more than twenty copper coins and a Level 1 riot shield.

However, in the zombie's final frenzy, Wang Iron Hammer was bitten and suffered some injuries.

Although he wouldn't be infected like in the outside world, he did get a 12-hour zombie poison debuff.

During this period, Wang Iron Hammer's physique would decrease by 20%, meaning his maximum health bar would be reduced by 20%, and he would forcibly lose 1 health point every hour.

The wound was also numb and had no sensation.

Unless a zombie poison cleansing serum was used, the debuff could not be removed.

However, the zombie poison cleansing serum was a bit expensive in the shop; even the cheapest Level 1 zombie poison cleansing serum cost 30 copper coins.

So, from an economic perspective, Wang Iron Hammer chose to endure it.

But it also served as a reminder to the Train Police Officers on their first expedition that although the zombies in the game were not as dangerous as those outside, they were not that easy to deal with.

Fortunately, they won their first battle and even dropped a shield, the most expensive piece of armor in the shop.

It wasn't a loss.

And after killing the zombies and getting the drops.

Everyone also provided a lot of positive spiritual energy feedback, which collectively was much higher than harvesting 10 rice fields.

However, the spiritual feedback obtained from killing zombies was a one-time thing, far less lasting than farming and harvesting vegetables.

After another half-day of driving like this.

The Xinhuo Train finally reached the Level 1 psionic stone collection point marked on the resource detection radar.