8: Chapter 8, First Dungeon

Shelter Level 1 Hall.

Four players were staring at Lin Li with eyes comparable to fanatical cultists, their heavy breathing rising and falling in the empty metal hall.

"Great Commander Dawn! I am ready to die!"

"Please give the coordinates, praise the Seed!"

Looking at these clones who were as hyped up as if they had been injected with chicken blood, dying to grab broken spears and rush out to flatten the wasteland, Lin Li maintained his cold, heartless statue-like posture on the surface.

But in reality, under his large, face-covering sand-proof cloak, he was gritting his teeth, desperately holding back laughter, tears almost streaming down his face.

His toes were curling frantically; he wished he could dig out a luxury apartment from the floor.

Lin Li silently gave himself a thumbs-up for this high-level 'painting a big pie' technique.

He slightly raised his halberd and slammed it heavily onto the ground.

"Very well, Seeds, your courage deserves to be remembered. But the wasteland's night is a hotbed for mutations and despair. Hunters that feed on the invisible are about to roam the wilderness."

Lin Li continued to bluff in a grand, deep tone:

"On the surface outside the Shelter, radiation concentrations will skyrocket exponentially after nightfall. In your current state, your bodies are still too weak to withstand the radiation storms outside."

"Retreat for today, and deposit the scrap you've collected into the material Recycler. When the star of this planet rises again, that will be the moment you embark on your journey."

Having said that, Lin Li ignored the players who were still in a state of high excitement, turned around, and stepped into the elevator, his silhouette disappearing behind the metal door with extreme aloofness.

"Wow! Can an NPC's schedule really be this realistic?"

Why Panic When I Have Flash smacked his lips, still wanting more.

"Stop talking nonsense, everyone, let's log off quickly. We've been in the game for almost a day, it should be early morning on Earth in reality. I need to take a shower and eat; I'm starving."

Praise Ming Shen brushed the dust off his body.

"That's true, let's recharge our energy and start working tomorrow!"

The four of them skillfully classified the trash they had picked up and threw it into the funnel of the [Primary Material Recycler] that was rumbling in the first-floor hall, then laid side-by-side into the cold Hibernation Pods and clicked force logout.

...

Earth, a high-end flat apartment where every inch of land is worth gold.

The morning sunlight spilled through the huge floor-to-ceiling windows onto the soft, expensive carpet.

"Hoo—ha!"

Zhao Yan (Liver Emperor) opened his eyes abruptly.

He ripped off the high-tech VR connection helmet from his head, gasping for air, his eyes still carrying a trace of trance from not being able to pull himself out of the extremely violent environment of the wasteland.

Just then, the rosewood door of the bedroom was pushed open.

A tall young girl wearing a silk bathrobe with extremely exquisite features walked in carrying a silver tray.

On the tray were a cup of freshly ground black coffee and two slices of whole-wheat toast.

"Brother Yan, are you awake?"

Seeing the bloodshot eyes of Zhao Yan, and then looking at the game helmet he had thrown on the bedside, the girl's willow eyebrows furrowed slightly, her tone carrying a bit of resentment and heartache:

"Why did you stay up all night playing games again? This kind of immersive VR game puts a huge burden on the brain nerves. Don't you want your health anymore?"

Zhao Yan sat up from the bed, revealing his perfect inverted triangle abdominal muscles, honed by years of fitness, comparable to an ancient Greek sculpture.

He took the coffee with extreme laziness and took a sip, his deep, three-dimensional features revealing an undisguised arrogance like a domineering CEO.

It was an aura cultivated in an affluent environment and extreme self-confidence.

He raised his eyebrows slightly and looked at the girl with a casual gaze.

"Are you teaching me how to do things?"

This domineering CEO-possessed tone, if changed to an ordinary man to act out, would definitely be greasy enough to fry a plate of vegetables.

But on Zhao Yan's 360-degree dead-end handsome face, the lethality was simply off the charts.

The girl's fair cheeks flushed slightly, her momentum instantly weakened, and her voice was as soft and sticky as a frightened kitten.

"No... how would I dare to teach Brother Yan how to do things."

The girl pursed her lips aggrievedly and quickly explained:

"It's my dad who said that there is a very important overseas client to discuss a bottom-line contract at the company this morning. He specifically instructed that you must go to the company early to help him hold down the fort."

That's right, Zhao Yan is not only a super rich and handsome man in reality.

His proudest label is the absolute patriarch of eating soft rice.

Not only is his girlfriend a super rich second-generation beauty, but even his father-in-law has to rely on this prospective son-in-law's powerful business acumen and negotiation pressure that is even more ruthless than a bandit to hold the fort when discussing big deals worth hundreds of millions.

"See a client in the morning?"

Zhao Yan stretched lazily, his mind full of that desperate planet full of nuclear radiation and scrap iron.

Those firearm blueprints full of rust, those hideous and bloodthirsty green-skinned monsters, and the epic underground dungeon that was about to open!

Screw that hundreds of millions big deal!

What's more exciting than picking up trash in the wasteland?!

"Not going."

Zhao Yan refused categorically, "Tell the old man that I have a stomachache this morning and will go to the company in the afternoon."

The girl nodded obediently, without even a word of rebuttal:

"Okay, Brother Yan, remember to eat the toast while it's hot. I'll go call my dad."

Watching the girl's departing back.

Zhao Yan walked into the luxurious independent bathroom to wash up.

Cold tap water splashed on his face, making him feel more and more that life in the real world was insipid.

Every day, apart from luxury cars, business fraud, and looking at various beauties who throw themselves at him, this kind of life that is as flat as water and can be seen at a glance cannot stimulate his nerves that are constantly seeking extreme dopamine secretion.

Only that [warhammer 40,000 Online] full of blood and steel could make him feel the true meaning of living!

Zhao Yan wiped his face and casually clicked on QQ on his phone.

As soon as he opened the core test group of [I Also Want To Be Happy], a long, bold group announcement immediately occupied the entire screen.

The signatory was none other than the mysterious dog planner who had disappeared for a whole day — Immortal Lin.

[warhammer 40,000 Online Major Version Update - Wasteland Dawn: V0.11 Micro Patch Log]

"To all brave and death-defying core pioneers!

Because the backend detected that the survival pressure of players in the novice village (around the Fire Seed Shelter) did not meet our expectations, the project team held an all-night meeting to fine-tune the ecological intensity of the current universe:

1. Real Curse: Added underlying radiation value judgment and Warp toxin pollution attributes to most current wasteland creatures (such as mutant blue vultures, man-eating gophers, etc.).

Now, players who attempt to eat monsters raw to solve hunger, please note that it will cause your character's internal organs to melt irreversibly.

2. Basic Interaction Reconstruction: Engine underlying optimization, providing more realistic physical collision volume and prop interaction wear and tear.

The junk cold weapons in your hands have durability; they will curl if they hit hard objects.

3. New Database Faction: The worldview is gradually peeling away the fog!

There are not only monsters on the wasteland; [Ork Tribes] and [Human City Fortress] areas have been officially loaded into the sandbox. (The green-skinned boys are sharpening their knives in the distance).

Key Update Hint!

Epic exploration dungeon group officially launched: [Golden Age High-Wave Nutrient Paste Processing Factory Ruins (Deep Underground)]!

[Planner Immortal Lin's Survival Guide]:

On the wasteland, the first rule is always survival.

Food and pure water are core supplies more important than life.

The ruins of the food factory hide huge opportunities to solve the current food crisis in the Shelter, but at the same time, this complex underground ruin that has existed for tens of thousands of years is also a paradise for countless deadly mutant creatures to breed.

Please, The Fourth Calamity, explore carefully and use your wisdom to conquer it!

In this dungeon exploration, picking up valuable old-era NPC quest items and handing them over to the supreme administrator will earn massive contribution points!

Since the currency trading system is not yet open, and there will not even be a false concept of gold coins in the short term.

Therefore, points will be the only hard currency for you to exchange for high-level gene upgrades and unlock Tier 2 armor blueprints! In the future, it can even be used to exchange for important items or permissions that cannot be exchanged for ordinary currency. Its function is unparalleled!"

After sending this long article, Immortal Lin disappeared again like a real dog planner.

But the atmosphere in the QQ group had completely exploded.

[Liver Emperor]: "Brothers, holy crap!! A dungeon has opened! The planner has directly opened a large-scale epic dungeon!! Big move indeed!"

The miserable cloud players in the group who didn't have a spot also followed and frantically spammed the screen.

[Miracle Walker]: "Why!! Why can't this game be accessed by the Huyu platform for live streaming!! I told the room manager and fans in my live broadcast room yesterday that there is such a badass 100% immersive game. Not only did they not believe it, they also said I was schizophrenic and wanted to raise funds to send me to a Putian-affiliated psychiatric hospital!!"

[Devil Muscle Thor] suddenly popped up and sent a voice message, his voice filled with thick disdain, but no matter how one listened, there was a sour tone:

"Saying it as if it's true. Not providing video footage is suspected of false advertising! When I get into the game, if it can't achieve the physical engine interaction feedback that this dog planner brags about, I will definitely follow the network cable and demolish his home in the wasteland!"

[Praise Ming Shen] immediately jumped out to control the situation:

"Alright, everyone, stop bickering. Those without spots keep being sour, those with spots, pay attention and listen."

As the only high-end scientific research personnel and deep textual research party among the four, Ming Shen showed extremely strong team think-tank attributes.

"I have carefully studied this minor version update announcement, coupled with our real hunting experience in the game today, the hardcore level of this game is simply beyond the normal imagination of Earthlings for online games!"

"Since there is such a perverted radiation food chain setting, that newly opened dungeon as the first large-scale dungeon, although it is definitely not impossible to clear for hardcore players, it is definitely not for us to take tetanus spears and mindlessly mow the grass!"

"We must make extremely precise tactical plans to conquer this underground food factory! This is definitely a tough nut to crack!"

[Why Panic When I Have Flash] expressed agreement with both hands and feet.

[part:gemini-3.0-Flash]

"I agree with Ming Shen! When I was online for the last time today, I had been running all day without eating. My head was spinning, and the thunder in my stomach was louder than the thunder outside. I had an extremely realistic illusion that if I didn't find a way to replenish my energy, my character would definitely starve to death on the spot!"

"You can tell from the details of the death penalty that the difficulty of this dungeon is definitely not low. There are only four of us. Once we're wiped out, it's a mandatory 24-hour confinement! During the early exploration phase, no one can afford to waste that kind of time!"

Seeing that everyone was taking it seriously, Praise Ming Shen's logic became exceptionally clear:

"First of all, the intelligence is currently very clear. The dungeon is underground, fifty-five kilometers to the southwest."

"Fifty-five kilometers in a wasteland filled with traps and monsters... relying solely on our two legs to travel is a fatal problem."

"Add to that the game's current strict rest mechanism. Even if we aren't burned to death by high-concentration radiation at night, we must return to the Shelter to sleep and log off. This means the time we actually have for exploration every day is extremely tight!"

Ming Shen posted a summary document in the main group.

"Therefore, I believe our exploration tomorrow must proceed steadily in three stages!"

"The first stage is to solve the vehicle problem and shorten travel time. That 'Wasteland Beast Taming' thing is definitely out of the question; we can't even feed ourselves. But!"

"We've already verified that the Constructor can craft simple cold weapons, but that is definitely not its physical limit!"

"After logging on tomorrow! Old Liver and I will be responsible for staying at the Shelter. We'll use scrap metal, plastic, and other junk to test the current physical construction limits of that machine."

"As long as the underlying engine is as awesome as the developers bragged, even if we have to crank it by hand, we'll try to craft a simple transport vehicle to speed up our travel! At the very least, we'll make a batch of high-lethality trap components!"

"The second stage is intelligence reconnaissance. Flash and Miracle Walker, you two are the slipperiest. You'll head out light tomorrow morning and prioritize scouting the path to the southwest. Look for water sources that aren't heavily contaminated along the way, and figure out if there are territories belonging to Greenskins or other large mutant monsters nearby."

"Remember, only scout the path. Do not be stubborn and enter the ruins first! Stay alive and draw the map of the illuminated areas in a notebook to bring back!"

Seeing this plan, the three of them simultaneously posted a 'received' hand gesture emoji in the group.

...

Meanwhile, at the far end, Lin Li was sitting in the cold main control room of the Shelter, wearing a trench coat.

He was sucking on his last lollipop to replenish his blood sugar while sitting in front of the computer, frantically lurking and watching their screens.

Seeing the players organized by Ming Shen able to come up with such a reasonable and efficient strategic plan for exploration, Lin Li was so gratified he almost wanted to cry.

"Excellent, absolutely perfect!"

Lin Li was moved to tears. "What noble spirit! No need for a boss to force overtime, no need for HR brainwashing. As perfect workers of The Fourth Calamity, they should possess this kind of highly proactive, self-whipping strategic vision!"

"Your hypocritical face is making me physically ill."

STC-73, floating in mid-air, used its eternally flat, rough electronic voice to ruthlessly puncture Lin Li's ecstasy.

"Furthermore, Great Creator. According to my continuous monitoring of your various physiological indicators, your fragile carbon-based heart is suffering due to consecutive all-nighters, high mental excitement, and long-term sugar deprivation."

The Men of Iron's red light flickered, issuing a fatal warning: "You are less than 14.7 hours away from sudden death caused by cardiac arrest."

The smile on Lin Li's face froze instantly.

"This damn body... its genetic potential is infinite, but this metabolism is truly life-threatening."

He rubbed his temples hard and retorted through gritted teeth:

"Shut up, you scrap metal! What do you know about 'cultivating immortality'?"

...

A night in the real world passed quickly.

When the equatorial winds of this peripheral planet gradually weakened and that oppressive dark red stellar glow reappeared at the end of the horizon...

Inside the Fire Seed Shelter, four quiet Clone Body Pods simultaneously emitted the hiss of airtight pressure release.

"Work, work, work!"

Why Panic When I Have Flash was the first to jump out of the Hibernation Pod.

Without even wiping the moisture off his body, he grabbed the chipped scrap iron sword from the corner and rushed out of Room Two like a gust of wind.

"Walker! Hurry up! Our mission is to be scouts to the southwest. Speed, speed!"

Miracle Walker slung his bow across his back, hurriedly put on his gray overalls, and ran out after him.

When the two of them rushed out of the Shelter's heavy airtight doors and faced the endless, scarred black-purple wasteland plains...

Flash suddenly slammed on the brakes.

He looked around blankly and scratched his messy hair.

"Holy crap, this game doesn't even have a starting compass or a mini-map. There's scrapped steel everywhere, blocking the view. This southwest direction... how are we supposed to find the way?"

"A small problem like this is well within my professional expertise as the Miracle Walker."

Miracle Walker gave a cheeky grin and walked to a relatively flat patch of sandy ground. He picked up a straight alloy pipe and shoved it firmly into the soil.

Next, he placed a small stone at the tip of the shadow cast by the pipe.

"It's morning, the star rises over here. The shadow moves according to that sun-like ball of junk."

Miracle Walker gestured while professionally drawing a cross-coordinate axis on the ground.

"We wait fifteen minutes. After the shadow's tip moves, we connect the two points. The first point is West, the second point is East."

"Then we draw a perpendicular line: North is in front, South is behind. Once the coordinate system is out, for fifty-five kilometers southwest, the deviation definitely won't exceed five degrees!"

In this hardcore, veteran-level game without magic circles or quest navigation arrows...

The players were forced to push the various wilderness survival skills they had learned on Earth to the limit!

While Flash and Walker were squatting on the ground drawing maps with shadows...

Inside the Shelter's main hall.

"Old Liver, quick! Go outside and scrounge up some more of that slippery, greasy plastic casing!"

Praise Ming Shen was currently shirtless.

His face was covered in dust, and his hands were operating rapidly in front of a massive, dilapidated machine.

Although the machine was heavily damaged, its underlying 3D printing principles and physical fusion modules could still barely function.

Liver Emperor was like a tireless groundhog.

He went back and forth, tossing large amounts of scrapped metal, synthetic plastic pipes, and even a section of an alloy skeleton from some unknown creature into the nearby Recycler.

Then, these raw materials with extremely high impurities were transported to the console in front of Ming Shen.

Ming Shen's eyes were glowing, staring at the holographic preview screen on the console as if he were looking at a peerless beauty.

"This physics engine... it's divine! It doesn't just support dummy-proof blueprint printing; it even supports manual editing of stress structures for those of us with modeling backgrounds!"

Ming Shen began dragging lines on the control panel.

"Since it can assemble bows and arrows from the cold weapon era based on physics, it means this machine still retains the ability to construct basic mechanical components."

He took a deep breath and pressed a red casting button on the side of the machine.

"Vroom, vroom, vroom—"

The machine emitted a piercing grinding sound, accompanied by a flicker of electrical sparks.

From the bottom exit slot, along with a pungent spray of metal coolant, a fist-sized object dropped out with a 'clink'.

Once the construct had cooled slightly, Ming Shen picked up the object, which still carried some residual heat.

It was actually a helical compression spring made from recycled crude steel!

"Perfect! This rebound torque! This toughness!"

Ming Shen's hands trembled slightly with excitement.

He pressed the spring down hard. Although the surface was pitted and not smooth due to the rough material, it was absolutely a mechanical power source component that fully complied with classical mechanical standards!

"Old Liver, we were right!"

Ming Shen roared in excitement, "This junk machine can really let us be Tony Stark in the wasteland!"

Liver Emperor also had a look of disbelief as he stared at the spring. "Holy crap! You can even play the game like this? What are you trying to do?"

"I want to test its limits on precision!"

Ming Shen's scientific research mania had completely flared up.

He began frantically modeling on the screen again, modifying data.

This time, he attempted to construct something that would severely test the processing precision of the machine—high-hardness balls for a ball bearing.

Ten minutes later.

A pile of metal scrap, ruthlessly spat out by the machine, fell to the ground.

Because the purity of the recycled junk was insufficient and the precision machining cutters of the Constructor were damaged, the resulting balls were either elliptical or as brittle as biscuits, completely unable to withstand the torque of large machinery!

"No... limited by the current purity of raw materials and the half-broken level of this machine, precision bearings at this micro-level cannot be made."

Although Ming Shen was somewhat discouraged, as he looked at the large, rough spring and the sections of hollow steel pipe in his hand, the light in his eyes grew brighter and brighter.

This light even carried a hint of hair-raising madness.

"Since we can't make a vehicle driven by an internal combustion engine..."

Ming Shen grinned, revealing a smile wilder than a wasteland Greenskin:

"I'll use these scrap steel pipes and broken wheel hubs..."

"Relying purely on physical potential energy and leverage principles,"

"To hand-craft a truly human-powered off-road miracle car!"

Lin Li, lurking in the shadows and watching Ming Shen's maniacal expression through the monitor, almost dropped the halberd in his hand.

Not only could he make tools, but he was even going to force together a vehicle that didn't even have a blueprint in the game?

"He's actually got some skills!"