On the forum of the official website.

Yaya, who had just gone offline, rushed to the forum immediately.

Yaya: Big news! That piece of paper that says 100CR can actually be exchanged for money! Guess how much I traded for it? (*≧▽≦)

Night Ten: Speak of the devil.( ?° ?? ? °)

Irene: ( ?° ?? ?°)

Yaya: Hey! Don’t interrupt, do you still want to know?!

Sisi: 10 silver coins?

Ample Time: C’mon, don’t leave us hanging.

Quit Bullshit: That’s right! Hurry up and speak!

Tail: (Pitchfork.gif)

Yaya: Haha. When I was selling my mushroom soup, a sneaky NPC suddenly came to me, took out a piece of paper, and wanted to take my pot away! Then, just when I didn’t know what to do, the administrator suddenly appeared! Speaking of which, the administrator’s new armor is freaking cool. I don’t know if I can buy that skin.

Escaping Mole: What the heck?! Why are you telling us those unimportant things?!

Teng_teng: ???(╯°Д°)╯︵┻━┻

Yaya: 100, 100 silver coins! The administrator took that piece of paper and gave me 100 silver coins! I was about to tell you, so don’t rush me. QAQ

The whole thread fell silent for a moment, then dozens of replies popped out at the same time.

White: ?!

Gale:...

Night Ten: What the hell?

Ample Time: 100 silver coins?!

Yaya: Please don’t spam. It’s actually 200 to be precise... Because I also exchanged the other 100CR paper note I got yesterday with the administrator. The administrator also praised me, saying that I am a good kid, hehe. (=. =)

Irene: @#!^

Two pots of mushroom soup were exchanged for 200 silver coins! Her luck was simply off the charts!

Players on the forum were so envious that they felt like the early access to the new expansion was no longer that great...

…

Meanwhile, the reception room of the outpost…

"

Hiccup

~ This wine is not bad. The fruity aroma of grapes is mixed with the fragrance of oak. Even in Enterprise… This will still be considered a rare treasure."

"You know how to appreciate wine?"

"Of course, my father has a wine cellar. There are a lot of wines in his collections, and he would go there for a while every day. Well, it’s not to drink wine, but just to feel the atmosphere there. I suspect that those bottles will turn into vinegar if it goes on like this... Sigh, I really want to go home." There were a few empty wine bottles on the table. Luo Hua was so drunk that he leaned back on the chair and burped, talking non-stop.

Chu Guang responded perfunctorily, and took time to glance at the VM, which listed the information Little Seven had helped him sort out.

[155.

This person has a wealthy family and holds a middle-level position in the First Pioneering Corps. It is speculated that the crew of the Pioneer are all middle-level and high-level staff in Enterprise, and their status is not low.

]

All this information was exchanged by him with a table of barbecue, a pot of soup, and a full six bottles of wine.

In normal times, Chu Guang would definitely not be able to eat so extravagantly.

Well, his sacrifice paid off regardless.

From the head of logistics in the Pioneer office located in the outpost, Chu Guang got a lot of interesting information.

First of all, Enterprise was located in Among Clouds Province in the easternmost part of the Central Continent. It was the estuary of one big river and two tributaries to the sea. It was also the political, economic, and cultural center before the Prosperity Era. It had four strategic areas, three metropolitan areas, two industrial areas, and a historical ancient city.

As for the headquarters of Enterprise, it was located in the ruins of the industrial zone between Twin Cloud City and Descending Cloud City, ??above Shelter 6, in a place called Ideal City.

There were huge walls as high as dams, towers that touched the clouds, and aircrafts shuttled between the streets, but they couldn’t fly very far. People were crowded in a city of less than 500 square kilometers, and most people lived underground without windows; few people could see the clouds outside the floor-to-ceiling windows.

When Chu Guang heard this, he felt like Ideal City didn’t sound that ideal. However, he didn’t know how many percent of the information this drunk guy told him was true.

In addition, unlike Xia Yan’s hearsay, there were not many factions and serious internal friction within the Enterprise, but they were not the kind of organization that the mercenaries in Boulder Town understood.

For example, Enterprise did not have a ruler in the strict sense, but only had an Enterprise board of directors with a rigorous organizational structure and a clear division of power. Most of the members of the Enterprise board of directors were composed of the chairman of the branches, and there were smaller subsidiaries under them.

Some of those branches produced steel, some produced cement, and some made guns, cannons, drones, and sold clones or android companions. Silver Wing Corporate Group was just one of the groups with the larger market value, but the market value changed every day, making it difficult to say who was the largest.

Ten years ago, Enterprise did send an expeditionary force inland, but the target was not Clearspring City in the southern River Valley Province, but the Great Rift Valley in the north.

People always liked to take credit for themselves. As long as the same thing passes through the mouths of two people, it may evolve into more than three different versions.

And even if one of the versions was able to survive to the end, it didn’t mean that it would be the truth. It could only mean that this version was the most talked about, and people were more willing to believe it as the truth.

However, according to Luo Hua, it was true that the expeditionary force had failed, because for a period of time, good news from the front line could often be heard from various channels.

But suddenly one day, everyone stopped talking about it.

Except for those investors who bought war bonds who killed themselves, everyone seemed to pretend that nothing had happened, and none of those people who joined the expeditionary force ever came back.

In a sense, the Pioneer was also a similar existence to that expeditionary force. In order to build this magnificent onshore fortress, Silver Wing Corporate Group also issued a considerable amount of bonds and promised some benefits to the rich who bought them.

Well… The second half was actually Chu Guang’s speculation, but who cared?

Perhaps Chu Guang hadn’t thought far enough. He felt that if he lived in such an environment and had a large sum of money in his pocket, he would definitely not waste the money on investments like that.

In addition, from Luo Hua’s, Chu Guang also learned that the goal of their trip was to go to the west to find a place called Shelter 0.

Legend has it that it was the birthplace of a grand plan, and the place where the founder of the Prosperity Era, the pioneer of the Grand Future, and the immortal who gathered countless glory were buried.

It was seen by some as the last hope.

"... Since you have such advanced technology, why do you still want to pin your hopes on the legendary existence? You actually don’t know where it is, right?" Chu Guang poured Luo Hua a glass of wine and asked, "And based on your description, since you can build a fort on the ruins, Hmm… Have you all never thought of starting over?"

Luo Hua sighed and waved his hand drunkenly. "I’ve heard this argument too many times... My friend, what’s the furthest place you’ve been to? At most, you have probably traveled from the north of Clearspring City to the edge of the fifth-ring. Starting over again? It’s not as simple as building a few houses."

Chu Guang said with a smile, "After all, I’ve only come out of the ground for a few months... I’m also curious about what the world has become."

"It sucks." Luo Hua shook his head. "What’s the scariest mutant you’ve ever seen? A Cruncher? A Creeper? We refer to them collectively as Slime Mold Parasites. Do you know where they came from? Have you seen their hive?"

Luo Hua continued, "I’ve seen them all. I’ve even seen a whole skyscraper-sized hive where runaway slime molds merged with reinforced concrete and covered half the city. The survivors there resisted, but failed. The city was swallowed up bit by bit... We were helpless, we could only take dozens of people who survived and leave them by the lake 50 kilometers away."

Chu Guang’s expression changed slightly.

He had heard that Clearspring City seemed to have a hive in the city center, and mutants such as Crunchers would spread out from the city center every once in a while.

Survivors of Boulder Town call it The Tide.

Xia Yan had told him of that before.

"You guys just... Left the hive there?"

"Don’t worry about that." Luo Hua waved his hand. "You underestimate the power of nature. Everything on this planet can only expand to a certain limit. After that, they will all fall into decline quickly. The same goes for those slime molds. In rare cases, they will mutate and run rampant, no longer fear the sun, devour the living creatures around them frantically, and use their flesh to multiply rapidly. It sounds scary, but when they expand to a certain size, their number will soon begin to decrease... We call this the self-limiting expansion of the mutant slime mold."

Hearing that, Chu Guang’s expression relaxed slightly.

What Luo Hua said made sense.

If it could expand endlessly, the planet would have been occupied by them long ago.

And from the perspective of balance, probably there was no ecosystem that could accommodate such terrifying creatures.

After a pause, Luo Hua continued chattering while burping, "These mutant slime molds are just one of the troubles. You also know that there are more monsters than just Crunchers in this world. Even mutant cockroaches that have nothing to do with slime molds are already annoying enough. Oh right, there are also mutant humans, I don’t know. Have you ever seen a hypermutation as tall as a three-story building? I suspect that the whole thing is a lump of humanoid tumor. To completely get rid of that thing, we used two tactical nukes... So you are really lucky that your dozens of mutant humans can be solved by just five marines with exoframes."

Chu Guang’s Adam’s apple bobbed slightly.

He originally wanted to ask where those things came from, but when the question was about to come out of his mouth, he suddenly changed his mind and asked the question he had been thinking about all the time.

"Who is our enemy?"

Luo Hua smiled when he heard his question. "Us? Enemy? You mean... The war that ended humanity? Haha, who knows what happened two centuries ago? I’ve seen a lot of people from the 22nd century who had been frozen and hibernated. Some of them used the hibernate chambers really for refuge, but some purely thought it was fun to go to the future. Haha, anyway, they also couldn’t tell exactly what happened, and they thought they were in some kind of a variety show. They even clamored to sue us."

As Luo Hua spoke, his eyes became a little blurry, his hand holding the wine glass was also shaking.

Chu Guang felt that he was drunk, so he poured him another glass... Anyway, they were exchanging information and there was not much left of the bottle.

"That group of poor guys...

hiccup

, all we could do was hand them over to the nearby survivors, maybe their knowledge can come in handy, but I feel that’s a bit tough."

Luo Hua didn’t refuse Chu Guang’s gesture to pour him another drink. He started to take another sip before his words slurred.

"It is said that the answer lies in Shelter 0. But not only us who are looking for it, the Academy, the Army... Many people are looking for it, but we have not heard anything for so many years. Maybe it is not in the west at all, or as you said, maybe it doesn’t exist at all. But who knows? Someone has to try it.” After Luo Hua spoke, he suddenly fell forward.

Seeing that he was about to fall into the brazier next to him, Chu Guang hurriedly reached out to help him and moved his head to the other side.

But Luo Hua was still shouting, "I’m going to write a biography, and if we’re successful, it’ll be the best-selling book in Ideal City."

"I’m afraid that will be a little difficult, your names are too hard to pass on by word of mouth. If you can change First Pioneering Corps to Knights Templar, the Pioneer to the Zheng He’s ship, and then give your captain a more kick-ass name… Like Lubyanka, and change your story name to Journey To The West, then I bet this is book is sure to become the best-selling adult fairy tale on the East Coast."

Originally, Chu Guang was talking nonsense, but Luo Hua’s eyes lit up after listening to it.

"Great idea…"

Before he could finish speaking, he passed out completely. And the wine glass in his hand fell beside the brazier with a bang.

Chu Guang stopped caring about the drunkard, but stared at the VM.

Looking at the last line of information recorded on the screen, he raised his eyebrows slightly.

"Army and Academy..."

The world seemed to be more complicated than what he had imagined.

Very nice.

I can update the website to fool my cute little minions again.

...

The next morning.

As soon as it struck 6:00 in the morning, the hard-working players went online on time and trotted all the way to the pool of the public toilet in the center of the camp.

After a brief wash, they continued to run to the open space in the center of the camp in groups of three or five with their lunch boxes.

However, as soon as they reached the open space, they were dumbfounded.

Twenty or so NPCs in gray coats with bowls in their hands already stood in line in front of the cauldron.

Seeing those blue coats looking over, the crew of the Pioneer were somewhat embarrassed. They smiled at their allies, waved their hands congenially, and pointed to the bowl in their hands.

"Brothers, don’t panic, we will leave very soon after we get the food."

Seemed to be what they were gesturing about.

The players who were also carrying bowls were stunned.

"Damn! These NPCs are getting more and more brazen!"

"Huh? Where’s Tomato Eggs? I saw him by the faucet just now. Why is he gone?"

Not far away, Tomato Eggs was following Luca, walking over with a big basket of noodles in his hand. When he got to the cauldron, he placed the basket heavily on the table.

There were other ingredients and condiments on the table.

Raising his arm and wiping the sweat on his forehead, Tomato Eggs put on his apron, then tapped the edge of the cauldron with a ladle.

"Plant-based meat, synthetic starch noodles, and chicken-oil mushrooms... Let’s try some high-tech ingredients today. But let me state it in advance, I have never cooked with this kind of ingredient before. I’ll try my best. But if it still doesn’t taste good, don’t curse. I’ll try to improve it next time."

Tomato Eggs was originally going to simply cook a pot of porridge in the morning to save some time. After all, the mornings were not as leisurely as the evenings, and they also had to collect metal scraps later.

But at that moment, his VM suddenly received a mission to let him cook a pot of delicious food that would make people feel happy.

What kind of food will make people happy?

Tomato Eggs looked bewildered, but the three question marks in the mission reward section, and the expansion exclusive label on the mission header aroused his desire to complete the mission.

Hearing that Tomato Eggs was about to cook something special, the players in the queue cheered excitedly.

"Big brother is awesome!"

"Can I have one more egg?!"

"Hey, guys, hurry up!"

"Tomato Eggs is going to cook something special for us today!"

Although the Pioneer crew members who were also in the queue could not understand it, they also began to look forward to the food after seeing how excited those blue coats were.

Tomato Eggs ignored everyone’s reaction and began to focus on cooking.

After putting some wild boar fat in the bottom of the cauldron and getting the aroma of the oil out, he skillfully poured the vegetable meat that had been marinated in some sort of secret cooking wine into the cauldron.

Sizzle

!

The meat aroma wafted out of the cauldron.

Stir frying quickly while adding the soy sauce and sprinkling some salt and pepper to enhance the fragrance, Tomato Eggs waited until the minced meat bubbled before he skillfully picked up a pot of boiling water and poured it into the iron cauldron. He then shook the pot a few times before covering it with a lid.

The bubbling sound was sealed along with the scent.

Before this was ready, the stewed chicken-oil mushroom soup over the other side also began to give out fragrant aroma.

Everyone’s nose was constantly being teased, and the NPCs lining up were salivating.

Finally, after opening the cauldron, Tomato Eggs took out the noodles using a strainer, shook it twice, then put it into the bowl that was handed over. Then he poured a spoonful of mushroom soup and a spoonful of meat evenly over it.

"4CR per portion! There’s enough for everyone, so don’t worry."

Luca took the money and handed the bowl full of noodles to the truck driver who was smiling and thanking him continuously. Then he continued to shout to the other people who were wearing the gray coats in the queue.

"Next!"