15: Chapter 15 PV Terminal

"Hiss—"

On the second underground level of the Fire Seed Shelter, the airtight covers of four incubation pods popped open simultaneously.

Four figures, looking just like corpses coming back to life, jumped out impatiently.

"Holy crap! Finally online!"

"73, turn it on! Hurry! Where is my panel? Hand it over quickly!"

Flash shouted at the top of his lungs.

In the middle of the hall, STC-73, which was in sleep mode, was awakened by this roar.

Its scarlet optical lens flickered frantically twice, clearly extremely dissatisfied with this crude nickname.

"Correction. My designation is STC-73. If your severely atrophied carbon-based brain cannot even remember two Arabic numerals, I do not mind using a high-frequency laser to carve them onto your skull."

73's mechanical voice was cold and vicious, but it still dutifully completed its task.

It opened the door to room number three, revealing four palm-sized silver-white metal plates lying on the tool table.

These were the simple casings that Lin Li had specifically instructed 73 to add overnight.

To prevent this group of players from losing their equipment in the wasteland, a rough nylon lanyard had been thoughtfully threaded through the top of the casing, allowing it to be worn directly around the neck.

Flash grabbed one, hung it around his neck, looked down, and the corners of his mouth twitched wildly.

"Seriously... is the developer sick? I wear an ID badge like a beast of burden every day in reality. I finally get to play a 100% realistic holographic online game, and I have to wear an ID badge like a beast of burden in the game too?!"

"Be content, low-level scavenger."

73 mocked them mercilessly, "Given the creativity and survival value you have displayed so far, being able to wear a Golden Age industrial dog tag is already the greatest honor of your lives."

Ming Shen couldn't be bothered with the bickering between the machine and the person.

He couldn't wait to pick up his own pv terminal and pressed his thumb lightly against the smooth metal surface.

The interface was extremely simple, carrying a rugged wasteland industrial style.

[Player ID: Praise Ming Shen] [Level: LV 3] [Status: Healthy (Trace radiation deposits)] [Attribute Panel:] [Strength: 6] [Agility: 6] [Constitution: 6] [Intelligence: 7] [Perception: 7]

"Holy crap, brothers! It really is an attribute panel!"

Ming Shen's voice cracked with excitement, "This game actually has a leveling system!"

Hearing this, the other three also quickly lowered their heads to check their own pv terminals.

Liver Emperor glanced at his panel and scratched his head: "Huh? Old Ming, why am I different from you? My strength is 8 points, and everything else is 6. My intelligence and perception aren't as high as yours."

Miracle Walker and Flash also compared theirs.

Their attributes were exactly the same: Strength and Agility were 7 points, while Intelligence and Perception were only 6 points.

"The average value for various stats of a normal adult male should be around 3 points."

Ming Shen pushed up his non-existent glasses, his brain spinning rapidly, "The initial attributes of these clone bodies we have are definitely a cut above ordinary people on Earth! No wonder I haven't felt much effort when moving those big iron blocks these past few days."

Just as the four were excitedly discussing the differences in their attributes.

The elevator door leading to the basement slowly opened.

Lin Li, draped in a black tattered trench coat and carrying that cold Halberd in his hand, walked out expressionlessly.

The hall fell silent instantly.

Four pairs of eyes looked in unison at this Shelter manager, waiting with anticipation for the NPC to issue today's daily quest.

However, Lin Li did not deliver a chuunibyou speech as usual.

He walked up to the four players, his tone still cold, but lacking a bit of that condescending sense of command.

"Seeds."

Lin Li said slowly, "There are no mandatory directives for the Shelter today."

The players were stunned. No quest?

Lin Li continued, "But personally, I need to travel to an indigenous settlement more than ten kilometers to the northeast to conduct an extremely important material trade."

He paused, his gaze sweeping over the four, "The wasteland is fraught with danger, and I need your escort and assistance. This is not a mandatory system directive, but a personal request. Are you willing to follow?"

After saying this, Lin Li stood quietly in place, waiting for the players' reaction.

His pv terminal did not give any quest pop-ups, nor did it promise any point rewards.

Because this was indeed a spur-of-the-moment decision to trade bullets and return a favor along the way; there was no such quest logic in the system's underlying code.

The four players stared at each other, wide-eyed.

"Holy crap, no pop-up? No reward?"

Flash lowered his voice and ranted frantically in the team voice channel, "Is this NPC getting us to work as free labor?"

Walker also frowned, "A pure errand quest? Doesn't even give experience points?"

Just as they were about to back out, Ming Shen's eyes suddenly lit up, and he slapped his thigh in excitement!

"What the hell do you know! This is the real master-level hidden plot!"

Ming Shen analyzed enthusiastically in the voice channel, "Think about it, this game claims 100% realistic feedback! Since everything follows realistic logic, the NPC definitely has a hidden favorability or trust system!"

"How cold and aloof is Officer Dawn usually? Now he is actually asking us for help in a personal capacity! What does this mean? It means our performance yesterday has initially gained his recognition!"

Ming Shen became more and more excited as he spoke, "Brothers, this is absolutely an excellent opportunity to grind favorability with a faction leader! Once the favorability is maxed out, we might be able to get exclusive hidden class quests in the future, or even be gifted top-tier power armor directly! This is a huge win!"

Hearing this analysis, which perfectly fit the logic of a hardcore RPG online game, the other three players were instantly brainwashed, their eyes glowing with greed.

"Let's do it! The officer's business is our business!"

Liver Emperor was the first to jump out, thumping his chest and shouting, "Wherever Boss Dawn points, I'll strike!"

Lin Li's large trench coat collar covered half of his face.

He bit down hard on his molars to keep himself from laughing out loud.

The imagination of these players was even more outrageous than the AIs of the Golden Age!

He clearly just didn't want to give out points to avoid inflation later, but they ended up imagining it as a hidden favorability quest!

"Very good, take your weapons and get ready to depart."

Lin Li nodded coldly and turned towards the exit.

...

For this outing, they didn't ride those two hand-crafted shock-absorbing bicycles.

Because Lin Li needed to carry a large amount of protein blocks for the trade, the bicycles simply couldn't carry them.

"Old Gan, go move the remaining materials from yesterday over here!"

Before leaving, Ming Shen dove into workshop number three and stood in front of the Matter Constructor.

He was surprised to find that this originally dilapidated machine was running exceptionally smoothly today, and even the harsh friction sounds were gone.

The holographic screen of the console had also become clearer.

Ming Shen did not know that this was the result of Lin Li using precious nano-repair fluid to partially repair the machine last night.

"The blueprints have been updated! And the precision has been greatly improved!"

Ming Shen clicked excitedly on the screen.

In less than ten minutes, the constructor spat out a pile of standardized metal parts.

The four players scrambled to assemble them.

Soon, an extremely sturdy metal single-wheeled handcart with a very stable chassis appeared before them.

"That's not all."

Ming Shen licked his lips, his eyes becoming extremely fanatical.

He threw a solid, high-strength alloy steel pipe into the recycling slot and then rapidly drew blueprints on the holographic screen.

"Hiss—"

Sparks from high-temperature cutting flickered.

Just a few minutes later, with a clatter, a metal pipe that was still radiating high heat fell out of the constructor's exit.

Flash leaned over to take a look and gasped.

The inner wall of this metal pipe had actually been polished to have extremely uniform, perfect spiral rifling!

"Holy crap! Old Ming!"

Flash lowered his voice and looked at Ming Shen in shock, "You actually managed to craft a gun barrel with rifling?! That's criminal!"

Ming Shen carefully put the barrel away and pushed his glasses, "With this thing, as long as we can get gunpowder and primers in the wasteland, I guarantee I can issue every brother a bolt-action rifle, and we can completely bid farewell to the cold weapon era."

"Awesome," Liver Emperor gave a thumbs up.

Everything was ready.

Liver Emperor pushed the handcart loaded with protein blocks wrapped in rags.

The four of them brought their spears, greatswords, and heavy crossbows, followed behind Lin Li, braving the wasteland's gale, and marched on foot towards the continuous mountain range in the northeast.

On the wilderness, yellow sand filled the sky.

The players chatted in the team channel while walking.

"I just carefully pondered our attribute differences."

Ming Shen said while vigilantly watching the surrounding ruins, "The leveling mechanism of this game is very much like Skyrim; it doesn't rely on experience points to hard-point attributes, but rather on proficiency behavior feedback."

"What do you mean?"

Walker didn't understand.

"Look at Old Gan."

Ming Shen pointed at Liver Emperor, who was pushing hundreds of pounds of weight while walking as if flying, "He has been pulling scrap metal and smashing steel bars in the ruins every day for the past two days, doing heavy physical labor, so his strength has directly grown to 8 points!"

"And I'm different from Old Gan; I spend most of my time drawing blueprints at the console, so I'm gaining Intelligence and Perception."

Ming Shen turned to look at Flash and Walker, "You two spent yesterday running like crazy, kiting the boss, and doing extreme micro-management, so your Agility and Strength grew the fastest. This shows that every action we take in this world is affecting the genetic development of this body in real-time!"

"That makes sense!"

Flash suddenly realized, "This setting is too hardcore!"

"And..."

Ming Shen lowered his voice, his tone becoming somewhat mysterious, "Have you ever thought about our origins?"

"We all came out of incubation pods when we logged in, not even having parents. Combined with the desperate and dark background of warhammer 40,000..."

Ming Shen analyzed confidently, "I can bet on it! These bodies of ours are definitely biological weapons specifically designed!"

"Holy crap, this background setting is cool!"

Walker waved his fist excitedly.

Lin Li, walking in front, listened to the whispering behind him, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly.

Although completely wrong, I have to say, the logic these players use to find reasons for themselves is truly seamless.

Just at this moment.

Flash suddenly leaned over to Ming Shen, raised his eyebrows cheekily, and asked in a low voice, "Old Ming, tell me... since this game claims 100% realistic feedback. Even pain, taste, and fatigue are so real..."

He winked at Ming Shen, "Then can we... do that thing in the game? Isn't there some kind of red-light district run by NPCs in this wasteland?"

"Cough, cough, cough."

Ming Shen was choked by Flash's sudden train of thought and coughed violently, his old face turning red, "This... how would I know? If the development team dared to open such a feature, this game would probably be banned before it even reached open beta."

Lin Li, walking at the very front, heard this, stumbled, and almost fell headfirst into a sand pit.

"These damn punk kids... what kind of filthy trash is filled in their heads." Lin Li roared frantically in his heart.

More than an hour later.

Braving the scorching wasteland star, the group finally arrived at their destination.

Lin Li stopped.

"We have arrived."

The players poked their heads out from behind the handcart and looked ahead.

Following Lin Li's gaze, at the foot of the rolling, barren, dark red mountain range, a huge natural cave appeared.

And on the periphery of this cave, a curved defensive wall up to ten meters high had been forcibly pieced together using huge rocks and metal scrap.

It tightly protected the entire cave entrance behind it.

"Shangdi Settlement." Lin Li said in a low voice.

The players stood on the sand dune, overlooking this indigenous camp on the wasteland, all stunned into silence by the scene before them.

At the entrance of the wall, sandbag bunkers were piled up.

Several guards wearing tattered hazmat suits and pig-snout gas masks were patrolling back and forth at the entrance, holding a few rusty old-fashioned rifles.

Their movements were not stiff, but rather full of the vigilance and nervousness peculiar to wasteland survivors.

Whenever a gust of wind blew, these guards would reflexively shrink their necks, raise their muzzles slightly, and stare intensely into the depths of the sandstorm with bloodshot eyes.

At the high point above the wall, there were even hidden sentries disguised with rags.

If Ming Shen's perception hadn't reached 7 points, he wouldn't have been able to discover the gunman hiding in the shadows, aiming at them with a sniper scope.

Inside the wall further away, one could vaguely hear the sound of mechanical rotation, as well as muffled coughing and cursing.

"My God..."

Walker opened his mouth wide and muttered to himself, "How is this a game NPC? These micro-expressions, these tactical movements, this guarded look in their eyes... this is clearly a living, real world struggling for survival in the wasteland!"

Flash also put away his usual playful attitude and subconsciously tightened his grip on the hilt of his greatsword.

He felt a strong sense of oppression.

Those guards were holding real guns!

Under the hardcore mechanism where there are no respawn points and death means logging off, facing such a settlement armed with thermal weapons, these few players with cold weapons were really like ants that could be crushed at any moment.

"Put away your weapons."

Lin Li ignored the players' shock.

He slung the Halberd behind his back, straightened his trench coat, and his tone returned to that absolute coldness and majesty.

"Remember, we are here to trade. Without my order, no one is allowed to speak, and no one is allowed to draw their weapons."

"Move."

Lin Li waved his hand, and with the four pushing the cart, they strode towards the tightly closed gate of the settlement.

"Stop! Take one more step forward, and I'll blow your head off!"