Chapter 249.1: Prototype of the Chamber of Commerce, Red River Town!

"When did a survivor colony suddenly appear in the northern suburbs?"

"I don't know. I haven't heard The Voice of Boulder Town mention anything about this place for a month, so I thought those hillbillies in the northern suburbs didn't make it through the winter."

"I remember it was a forest here last year, and there was a marauder stronghold to the north and mutant humans tribe to the east."

"You came here before?"

"Only once."

At the south gate of the outpost, several mercenaries with rifles on their backs looked curiously at this small town hidden in the woods, and passed the time by guessing how many people lived there.

Some said 100, others said 1,000; no one agreed with each other.

Not far from them, stood two men in formal clothes. Although they didn't make a fuss like these mercenaries, they still had some surprises on their faces.

Of course, this surprise could not completely cover up the pride in their eyes.

Even though their formal clothes had lost their shades after many washes and their buttons had been mended many times, they were still nobler than these fur-wearing wastelanders.

But blue coats were different. Those shelter residents born with silver spoons were an exception.

Even the people living within the great wall had to admit that the blue coats who lived in iron cages were the superior people who could be on an equal footing with them.

"Have you ever seen blue coats build houses on the surface?"

"I haven't seen it before, but they actually allow wastelanders to live on top of their heads, which is very rare."

The two engineers whispered a few words to each other.

For the sake of 1,200 chips a month and food, they lowered their voices and communicated in a low voice that only they could hear.

Those people were going to be their future employers. They couldn't afford to offend them at all.

On the other side, Qian Lai walked up to Liszt and said respectfully, "Boss, I have brought what you asked for."

Two engineers and the complete set of equipment needed to produce solid-state hydrogen batteries had all been transported to the south gate of the outpost by 10 two-headed oxen.

Although the transportation method was a bit simple and crude, it was already the best choice. The situation in the city was much worse than that in the suburbs. The uplifted road and the deep pits caused by collapsed ground could often form an abrupt cliff in some areas. Plus some collapsed viaducts and building ruins, and most of the roads marked on the map were no longer passable.

𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

And those roads that were in slightly better conditions were less easy to traverse by a four-wheeled vehicle than by a mutated ox that only needed some grass to travel 10 kilometers.

But despite the difficulties on the road, they were quite lucky on their way back.

Apart from encountering a Cave Beast and a few birds of unknown species on the road, they did not encounter any other situations, nor did they encounter any marauders.

But even so, the round trip, counting the three days in between, still took a whole week.

Not far away, the workers in the warehouse had already gone to unload the goods.

"Good job." Liszt patted Qian Lai on the shoulder, gave him an encouraging look, and continued, "Now I need you to go back and deliver a ton of psychoid leaves to our warehouse in Boulder Town, then go to the Pirate's Bay Tavern to find the bartender there. You can negotiate with him according to the base price of 60 chips per kilogram. Of course, the higher the better, and there’s no need to make any concessions. He will definitely be interested in this batch of goods. If he is not interested, leave it for me to handle it personally when I go back."

"Also, I need 10 ‘Iron Horse 60’ portable steam engines. Remember to go to my old friend to order those goods. We have a large order volume, and their stock is high, so you should know how to bargain with him. Try to get these orders and send them here within a week. Don't make our friends wait for too long."

A ton of psychoid leaves?! During the winter?

Qian Lai's face was full of surprise, but he didn't ask any more questions; he just nodded seriously. "Okay boss, do you have any other instructions?"

"Yes," Liszt nodded, looked at the young man next to him, patted his shoulder, and said with a smile, "This guy, and some shelter residents, will go with you."

"My name is Shu Yu." The expression on the young man's face looked a little tense. But it was not because he was afraid of strangers, but more like he was trying very hard to hold back his excitement.

Qian Lai looked him up and down.

The first impression he got was that the man was young, and the second impression was that the man's family should be well off. Although it could be seen that he had been through the trials of wasteland, his temperament was obviously different from that of other wastelanders.

The man's accent sounded like it was from the north of the River Valley Province, and he should have dealt with merchants before; it was just that he wasn't very skilled.

Probably guessing something, Qian Lai smiled and stretched out his right hand, and shook hands with him. "I'm Qian Lai, nice to meet you."

...

In order to give players a better gaming experience, and to prevent those players who were going to the new map from wandering around in other people's homes like flies and causing trouble, Chu Guang intended to set up an office in Boulder Town, which would provide assistance to the players, and also gather intelligence about Boulder Town at the same time.

Actually, his original idea was to set up an embassy or something like that, but after reading Ample Time's post, he dismissed the idea as it was meaningless.

The mayor there was indifferent to the affairs of the city, and the self-governing city hall did not have much real power. It was far better to bribe a few local powerful natives than to engage in confusing diplomacy.

Their words may be more useful than the people who worked in the city hall, and behind many industries were some big figures in the inner city.

The young man named Shu Yu was selected by Chu Guang from the logistics department.

He was initially responsible for the hygiene of Longevity Town, and then he was sent to take care of the education of refugees. After that, he returned to Longevity Town to assist the warehouse to release Elm District-related missions. He could be considered a rare educated person among the refugees, and he also had some understanding of the language and behavior of players.

After learning from Jiu Li that the young man's family used to run a trading post in the north, Chu Guang decided to take him as the first civil servant of Shelter 404's office in Boulder Town after careful consideration.

Although the young man looked tense and not very skilled in business, Chu Guang believed that he was worth training.

No one was born to be able to do their job. Since his previous job resume was pretty good, it showed that he still had some abilities.

While Luca was skeptical about refugees from the north and felt that they couldn't be trusted, Chu Guang didn't think so.

Standing on the 3rd floor of the nursing home and looking at the south entrance, Chu Guang thought for a while and said in a relaxed tone after listening to old Luca's advice, "They are a group of people without homes. They are more eager to be recognized than anyone else. We need to promote some capable people from them and let them see hope, so that not only can it stimulate their enthusiasm for work, but it also can gain their loyalty."

"I'm not doubting your decision, sir. It's just that he's too young, even without regard to who he is. I'm worried that his mind is not firm and that Boulder Town will corrupt his loyalty," said old Luca cautiously. "Maybe you should choose someone a little more dependable."

It sounded like a good idea.

Stable personality, outstanding ability, well educated, and had a wealth of experience in management.

If there was such a person in his hands, Chu Guang would have entrusted that person with more important tasks.

Like old Charlie on Baker Street.

Even though he only managed a village of 100 households, it was the trial location of the Subdistrict Office; the work there was very important.

That elder not only had to be responsible for the literacy education of local residents but also had to train civil servants for themselves.

As for the inhabitants of the shelter, namely, the players, it was not very realistic to give them such tasks.

There was no way players could be considered reliable and dependable. The nature of being a player was to be chaotic in the first place. They were natural adventurers and inventors. The long-term, repetitive, and stable position was destined to be held by NPCs only. This was Chu Guang's experience gained from practice in earlier versions of the game.

Few players were capable of doing the jobs of guards, warehouse administrators, and other positions that required a day of standing or sitting for a long time. In most cases, frequent job rotations were required to keep the positions always filled.

Not to mention that letting some players issue missions to other players would affect the game experience for either side.

Of course, this was not to say that players were completely unsuitable for management work, it just needed to be done in a different way.

For example, the guild system that exists in most MMORPGs is more flexible in terms of rules and functions. It can not only strengthen social attributes, and improve user stickiness, but also stimulate players to spend money. Moreover, it can also improve "daily activity", which is a good helper for operators. It was quite worthy of reference.

What he wanted wasn't too much.

There was no need to worry about stickiness in an epoch-making game. People who couldn't accept it would not choose to do the job, and those who did meant that they accepted their fate.

It was enough for him to be able to improve daily activity and stimulate consumption.

Looking at the worried Luca, Chu Guang said with a faint smile, "A coin can fall on both heads and tails. There is always a tradeoff and even a master coin tosser can't land heads 10,000 times in a row."

"What we have to do is not to make sure that it can come up heads every time, but to pick up the coin in time and toss it again when it comes up tails."

"We’ll just try out a little more. It’s better than doing nothing at all."

Meanwhile...

Just when Liszt introduced Qian Lai to the young man full of potential, Ample Time finally met his friends.

As soon as they met, Night Ten grabbed Ample Time's arm and said excitedly, "Good brother, you are finally back!"

Quitting Smoking standing next couldn't help but sigh, "It's too difficult to help a newbies level up!"

"..."

"..."

Both Gale and Old White didn’t know how to respond to him.

"I didn't expect you guys to miss me so much. How embarrassing." Ample Time smiled and suddenly noticed an unfamiliar player next to him. Then a flash of realization appeared on his face. "So you're the..."

"Lone Wolf! I'm Lone Wolf!" Afraid that he would read his full name, Lone Wolf hurriedly opened his mouth and changed the subject, "Boss, I've read your strategy, it's so awesome!"

Ample Time said with a smile. "You're flattering me, brother. You are the true boss. I heard that after using your design, the efficiency of our brick factory has doubled."

Although he had gone to the new map in the game, this did not prevent him from getting information from other players in his chat group.

Before Gale invited this brother into the group, they had known each other on the Internet, but it was the first time they met in the game.

Lone Wolf smiled embarrassedly. "No, I'm not. It's just a little improvement. It's not as exaggerated as doubling, it's about 70% to 80%."

After speaking, he couldn't help but sigh. "Unfortunately, the foundation of our industrial area isn't solid enough, otherwise, with a large rotary kiln, we would be able to produce 20,000 to 30,000 per day with only 2 operators. That kind of efficiency would be much greater than this."

Quit Smoking cried out in shock, "That's awesome!"

It was a pity that his vocabulary was limited and he could only keep yelling the same thing over and over again.

After complimenting each other for a while, Ample Time looked at his friends and started talking about business. "The content of the new map is quite a lot. After 3 days of looking around, the exploration degree had only reached 60%. We need to go there again soon."

"If what I think is right, this time it should be to test the new version's caravan system... By the way, have you received the mission?"

Old White said with a smile, "I received it a while ago, and I have everything ready now."

Night Ten couldn't wait and he urged, "When are we leaving? Hurry up."

Ample Time cast a glance at the door. The warehouse staff were still unloading the precious goods from the backs of the oxen, and then loading the large and small packages from the warehouse.

Those should be psychoid leaves.

The food of Devil Moth and its larvae in the greenhouse ruins was said to contain a certain ingredient that had the effect of reducing pain perception and improving concentration, but it was of little significance to the player.

The pain sensation of this game was already blocked, and it was completely unnecessary to rely on drugs to weaken it again.

"Depends on those NPCs... Speaking of which, what are you all bringing with you? Why are you getting ready so fast? At least let me catch my breath a little."

Night Ten smiled. "Not a lot of things. Just some clothes made by Teng Teng, mushrooms from Boss Ya, Big Bird Vodka made with potatoes from Brother Scrambled Egg, gadgets from Steel Plant 81 and Goblin Technology, and... Some other stuff."

Ample Time was shocked. "Holy shit, why so much stuff?"

Gale quickly explained, "We only brought a little of everything. In the words of the administrator, this time we are going to test the market."

Quit Smoking had an envious look on his face. "Sigh, I'm so envious."

"If you can level up faster, you can go with us." Old White patted Quit Smoking on the shoulder and said with a smile, "Hurry up, brother, you should do your best to level up during this time. Although there are only two levels from LV8 to LV10, it will take some time to get there."

Although he could also go there without receiving the mission, he wouldn't be able to do any mission after he arrived. At most, it would take him a few days to look at what had been done on the CG, and there was no guarantee that he wouldn't encounter a bug... These were the original words of a certain developer.

Even if continuous bugs were the norm in the closed alpha testing stage, players who had experienced bugs in the last expansion really didn't want to experience them again.

Quit Smoking sighed again, "I'm already doing my best."