The fifth ring in the northern suburb of Clearspring City.

On the twentieth floor of an office building on the edge of the elevated ring road, the crooked corridors were covered with dark green slime mold and corroded moss.

The orange-yellow tracer bullets wove a net in the corridor, the scorching airflow almost set the air on fire, and the center of the fire was a three-meter-tall humanoid beast.

Its skin had been completely keratinized, and its muscles were pitch black. With its arms protecting its head, it was actually pushing forward two steps against the electromagnetically accelerated bullets.

But two steps was all it could do.

"Roar!"

After letting out an unwilling roar, the three-meter-high tyrant finally fell heavily under the concentrated fire of Gauss rifles.

With five exoframes, there was absolutely no reason to lose on this terrain.

After Lu Yang gestured, the exoframe-clad team members pushed forward and continued to advance along the corridor full of slime mold until they came to the edge of a heavy alloy door.

One of the team members walked to the door, took out a thumb-width thread from their forearm armor, and connected it to the touch screen on the right side of the door.

"The key has been obtained... Successfully entered safe mode."

"Open the door."

"Copy."

The door panel trembled and slowly opened to both sides.

A burst of stale air brushed against them.

Looking at the ash on the ground, Lu Yang felt a burst of joy in his heart.

Leaving two team members at the door, he walked in with the other two. Looking around, the excited expression on his face became more and more obvious.

"The comparison results are consistent..."

"We found it!"

CO2 traps!

One of the indispensable basic public facilities for high-density urban agglomerations.

In the Prosperity Era, carbon emissions in areas with high concentration of population and industries were terrifyingly high. Relying on traditional green plants to absorb excess carbon dioxide was obviously not enough. Even if the entire city was filled with green plants, it was impossible to absorb so much greenhouse gas. Oxygen deficiency would become another major development problem after the urban heat island effect.

After the Federation of People entered the mid-Prosperity Era, a widely adopted solution was to apply the carbon self-sustaining technology that had been used in activities in outer space.

That was to install a carbon dioxide treatment device on a specific floor of a high-rise building to convert carbon dioxide into other carbon-containing compounds through multiple complex chemical processes so that the air level in the area could reach a livable level while producing some industrial raw materials simultaneously.

It was said that with a mere half-floor space, the carbon dioxide processed every year was comparable to an entire forest or seaweed in a sea area.

The group searched carefully in the facility and soon found a backup thermonuclear fusion power generation machine that had been shut down.

After entering the Wasteland Era, carbon emissions in the Federation of People had dropped sharply, even to the level before the Industrial Revolution. Naturally, those carbon traps stopped working, as well as the thermonuclear fusion reactors that powered them.

It was for this reason carbon dioxide traps became one of the few facilities that could be stably recycled into thermonuclear fusion fuel rods after the war.

With his own Marines, Lu Yang carefully removed the fuel rods holding the liquid helium-3.

"Done!"

"How much energy is left?"

"93%"

"Enough for us for a long time!"

Helium-3 was a stable isotope that has a negligible half-life. Although thermonuclear fusion cannot be activated at any time like cold fusion, the advantage is that there is almost no need to worry about the loss of fuel when the reactor is shut down.

That is completely incomparable to cold fusion batteries.

The fuel rods were carefully kept in the metal cylinder. The Marine Corps soldiers who completed the operation glanced at the large and small boxes and storage tanks around and asked, "Sir, what should we do with the stuff here?"

Lu Yang glanced around and mumbled. "Just leave them here. Our allies should be able to use them."

...

Meanwhile, in the office of the Pioneer’s logistics department, more than 20 kilometers away.

Li De, sitting in an office chair, looked at the spreadsheet displayed on the flexible screen with surprise written all over his face.

This was the production status report for the previous week.

One of the most eye-catching data was that they recovered 1872 tons of garbage last week, reaching 255% of the expected efficiency!

Those blue coats were not ordinarily hardworking. The average daily recycling volume reached an astonishing 267.4 tons, and the average per capita collection was 1.3 tons per day, which was even more shocking than before the battle! If these tasks were handed over to other natives, they would even be able to laugh out loud if one-third of this efficiency could be achieved.

And what they spent was just an additional 9360CR.

Li De could hardly believe his eyes. If the report hadn’t been handed to him by his secretary, he would even wonder if something went wrong.

Are they all robots?!

No, they are even better than machines!

A week had passed since the battle with the Army. There was still a sad atmosphere on the Pioneer. Many people were indulging in the grief of losing their comrades in arms, with low morale and low work efficiency.

But those blue coats were different.

They obviously suffered more casualties, but they weren’t wallowing in pain. Instead, they turned their grief and anger into motivation and lived their daily lives with positive views.

What a powerful belief they have!

In short, thanks to the hard work of those blue coats, they almost emptied the entire underground parking lot, plus two abandoned factories that stored industrial waste containing cobalt and nickel.

From this total weight of 1872 tons of garbage, they successfully recovered 941.4 tons of metal and successfully processed it into the required parts.

There were even leftovers.

Just when Li De couldn’t help sighing, Wang Jie, the secretary standing in front of the desk, suddenly said, "By the way, there’s one more thing."

After closing the tablet in his hand and turning it into a pen-like stick, Li De threw it in the drawer. He looked up at the secretary in a good mood, and said amiably, "What’s the matter?"

Wang Jie’s expression was one of slight embarrassment, but he still spoke, "It’s about the demands of the front-line engineers... They asked to increase the attendance allowance from 10CR per hour to 15CR per hour."

"...?"

Li De looked confused.

What the hell??

A few months ago, those lazy dogs were still complaining that there was so much money in their pockets that there was nowhere to spend them, and they despised his stack of waste paper for tricking them into going out to work.

But why don’t they have enough now?

Wang Jie’s expression remained embarrassed, and he spoke quickly, "Maybe... The survivor settlements we encountered before were really poor, and the benefits of the Pioneer were too good, so they really didn’t have anywhere to spend their money. I don’t know what to say, but recently our employees have been really reckless when it comes to spending money… I think we should limit it a bit."

Li De tapped the table with his hands, his face was red with anger.

"The question is where did they spend their money?! Did they use it to wipe their butts? How much can it cost to buy a few buns?!"

Wang Jie explained, "But it’s not just buns… There are also dumplings with various fillings, glutinous rice balls, soymilk, fried dough sticks, and...

Ahem

. I think we need to upgrade our mobile kitchens. Those blue coats simply processed our raw materials a little bit and sold them to us. Because of this, they made a lot of money from us."

"..."

Wang Jie swallowed and continued, "And then besides food, they’ve recently started selling clothes, scarves, and small items, especially a kind of silk, very popular with female crew members. They call it devil silk, which seems to be a specialty of the continent’s central region. Surprisingly, the toughness of this kind of thread is very high, almost the same as the fireproof fiber we use in body armor... The power of nature, to be honest, is amazing, even I was surprised. Our technicians have studied it for a while. They have figured out what was used to make it, but they still couldn’t understand its industrial synthesis method."

Li De pressed his fingers against his eyebrows and mumbled, "Is that all?"

He didn’t care about Devil Moth silk, or what clothes and gadgets the female crew members bought.

He just wanted to know how much CR they were wasting on the blue coats.

They weren’t opening a tab in a restaurant.

They needed to settle the bill before they left!

"Uh, there are also some special ingredients, such as black truffle... They are very cheap, only 1CR per gram."

Li De raised his head sharply. "1 gram is only sold for 1CR?! Is there any more?"

Wang Jie looked at the Division Chief in surprise and nodded.

"There should be, the mushroom seller sets up a stall at the operation camp every night at around six o’clock… Chief?"

Immediately aware of his gaffe, Li De quickly recovered. After coughing lightly, he continued with a serious expression, "I’m just a little surprised. I didn’t expect them to know how to enjoy it... By the way, has the Magnetic Confinement Plasma CNC Machining Machine been repaired?"

Wang Jie nodded and said, "It’s fixed, our warehouse management staff just delivered it to them, and it will be delivered to their outpost on the surface in a while."

Thinking of the machine, Li De felt that it was a shame.

At that time, he was overwhelmed by emotions and made such a decision hastily. Otherwise, the machine tool could help them recover 100,000 CR.

It shouldn’t have been free!

Those blue coats did them a big favor, though. They didn’t ask the blue coats to support their war, but they did, and when the battle was at its most critical moment, they rushed up with their guns without hesitation.

Honestly, it was hard to say what the final casualty situation would have been without them. Maybe they had to drop a second tactical nuke, maybe more than three people would have died that day...

Li De thought about it and then felt that if he could make the choice again, he might still choose the same.

With a slight sigh, he said, "Mhm, just deliver it, we should leave in a few days." After all, they shouldn’t waste more time staying there.

The longer they dragged on, the harder the road ahead would be. If Pioneer didn’t suddenly break down, they wouldn’t have to fight the Army.

Wang Jie probed suddenly, "Then about the salary increase..."

Li De said without any hesitation, "Tell those slackers... I mean those engineers, the salary increase proposal will be raised at the regular meeting at the end of the month. This is our standard procedure. In addition, I will find a way to let the technicians see if they can add a few more food-processing processes in the mobile kitchen."

Of course, if it was successful, Li De intended to charge them.

What was that word called again?

Yes, additional value-added services!

As soon as he heard that the issue of the salary increase was moved to the end of the month, Wang Jie immediately understood what the Division Chief meant, and couldn’t help but sigh helplessly, "Okay, I’ll tell them."

Wait until the end of the month.

Those people would have nowhere to spend the money in their pockets again.

Naturally, there would be no clamor for a raise by that time.

...

The repaired machine tool was still on its way to be delivered, and it would probably take some time for the delivery to arrive.

Afraid that the players would break it, Chu Guang specially arranged for two light trucks to transport it. One empty truck with a snow shovel on its bumper drove in front, and the one with the machine tool drove behind it.

If a roadblock or underdrain was encountered, the first truck would detect it in time so the second truck could avoid it.

To make sure nothing went wrong, Chu Guang also sent the prudent Luca to follow the truck.

The road conditions on the wasteland were really bad. The section outside the city was only slightly better. There were many roads in the city that even four-legged animals couldn’t pass, let alone wheeled vehicles.

Chu Guang planned to build a road to connect the outpost and the operation camp later.

In the future, Shelter 404 players would build roads to wherever they put their flags.

What was that slogan again?

If you want to get rich, build roads first.

Carrying out this project in the wasteland would not be easy, but it would definitely be worth it.

While waiting for the machine to be delivered, Chu Guang did not sit idly. He sat in the lobby of the shelter and turned on the computer to take a quick look at the official website forum.

After a whole night of venting, the players who were unable to play the game finally calmed down. The atmosphere of communication in the forum finally returned to normal, and the topics changed from "Let’s blackmail Light" to "What has been updated in Alpha 0.8?"

Everything seemed to have never happened.

In general, players who had already experienced the changes in the new version were still very interested in this unique stronghold gameplay and regional prestige system.

Especially when they learned that by donating materials, one can gain regional prestige and when the prosperity of the operation camp reaches 100, it can grow into a survivor stronghold, they worked significantly harder.

In other RPGs, NPC towns are just a bunch of unmoving textures, but in Wasteland Online, the survivors’ strongholds are built by the players, and they will follow the players’ in-game behavior and grow with players.

This update is simply the perfect combination of RPG and SLG. With just one game, players can experience the joy of two games.

It’s simply awesome!

The players were very satisfied, and it didn’t take Chu Guang much effort.

For him, it was just a few simple formulas based on the previous monthly report, and Little Seven would help him create a data card similar to the Attribute Panel.

Regardless of the Alpha 0.8 update, he would do the report every month anyway, but it seemed that it would be open to the players as a progress bar.

As for how useful it would be….

The main purpose was to share with players the joy of growing small saplings into towering trees.

After all, players probably wouldn’t be able to understand it clearly if he just told them how great the shelter was now due to their hard work. But if these efforts were all quantified into a visible progress bar, who would say that the method was useless?

Just think about it, if one knew that they built Xia Yan’s Weapon Shop, wouldn’t they be more motivated?

And no matter how miserable the players who couldn’t be resurrected because of bugs were, those players who were still online and had applied had already praised the update non-stop.

Chu Guang, who was completely relieved, copied a few good ideas and stored them in his notebook. Then he stretched his back and leaned on his chair.

"The courier will take an hour to arrive, what should I do during this period of time?"

That’s right.

It seems I can open another loot box.

Chu Guang’s eyes lit up. He sat up from the computer chair in a hurry, and opened the Administrator Menu.

Recently, the game behavior of players was relatively simple. They were mainly doing resource collection missions in the operation camp. The completion speed of the daily life mission was very normal, and there were a lot of missions left incomplete every day.

Even so, Chu Guang still saved 33 bonus points for the week.

The same as always, he could get 3 intermediate loot boxes, and 3 basic loot boxes.

But just as Chu Guang was about to draw the lottery, his heart trembled.

Wait

.

Since we’re gambling, why not go for bust and try to open 33 basic loot boxes at once?

If I get one intermediate or one advanced loot box reward from the basic loot box, wouldn’t that be a huge profit?

Anyway, it was useless for him to get so many plasters and therapeutic syringes.

With his stroke of genius, Chu Guang no longer hesitated and immediately put all the reward points in his account on the icon on the far left.

"System, give me 33 basic loot boxes!

"Open!"