Chapter 32: Innate Talent
In the construction site of the old nursing home…
Dust was rolling, and the noise coming from the site was constant. It was a bustling scene.
Those players seemed to have endless energy and enthusiasm, energetically pushing carts picked up from the abandoned construction site, and transporting stones one after another. They broke them with a hammer before transporting them to the cement kiln and pouring them in as raw material to make cement.
There were players squatting by the fire as they billowed endlessly to make the fire stronger. Not too far away, the charcoal kiln was working non-stop, and even further away were the earthen kilns for smoking meat. Fish racks were also seen not too far away. The rising smoke and noise even drove away the birds on nearby trees.
The players worked together to mix the cement with sand and water, turning it into a viscous slurry, and soon the foundation of the first section of the wall was built.
The outpost was like a newborn tribe, young and full of vitality.
The construction site was handed over to Hold_the_sword_execution, Sword Execution, who used to study civil engineering. Old White and Ample Time had already begun to research the blast furnace.
Gale also improved the fishing traps. Using mutant leech larvae as bait, getting more than a dozen fish a day was no problem at all. If they couldn’t finish cooking all the fish, the rest of them would be handed over to Tomato Eggs to make dried fish.
The aquatic resources in the lake were more abundant than he imagined.
The only thing to pay attention to was to not put too much bait in the trap and he shouldn’t submerge it too deeply. Otherwise, big fishes that were attracted could easily damage the trap. Whatever it was, those were minor issues.
As long as he mastered the know-how, everything would slowly become more efficient, and the process itself was full of fun.
The same went for new players.
They didn't even need to look for anything new as everything there was so novel to them, it was almost impossible to experience anything like it in modern society.
Many people sat in offices for a whole day, repeating tasks that anyone could do day after day, losing themselves in those mundane activities.
However, it was different on the wasteland.
This difference not only stemmed from the fact that it was novel but also came from a sense of satisfaction in the realization of self-worth.
As a civil engineer who had been working on the construction site for five or six years but still wasn’t able to get into the management level, as long as he shouted "I'm a civil engineer" on the wasteland, he would immediately be praised by other players as a big boss and entrusted with important tasks.
The same went for other workers on the construction site.
The vast majority of players were ordinary people, and the work they were engaged with in reality may not be so compelling. However, as long as they had a skill, they didn’t even need to be good at it. They would still be able to receive affirmation where they were.
The shelter’s outpost was upgraded at a speed visible to the naked eye because of their efforts.
In Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, self-actualization was the highest need. It was separated from other low-level satisfaction, and the spiritual pleasure it brought was unmatched by any other satisfaction.
The most important thing was that they did not have to pay a huge price to get it. Even if they were tired, only their characters would get tired in the game. Their real lives wouldn’t be affected.
On the contrary, because they were sleeping early, they would be a lot more energetic the next day.
All of the above were just guesses made by Chu Guang, who returned to the outpost with triumphant news when he saw the players busy repairing the outpost.
Of course he wouldn't know what the players thought.
For an administrator, what they thought wasn’t important, and neither did he care.
As long as there were more applicants than players in the game, he wouldn’t need to worry about not having free laborers!
Quit? AFK?
Then they could give their helmet and account to those who needed it, and go back to playing their primitive games.
Anyway, back to business. The harvest was quite gratifying.
He obtained two 5mm iron-barreled rifles, 62 rounds of 5mm ammunition, and three backpacks that they hadn't had time to check.
They found those on the marauders and the hapless man who was killed.
Chu Guang wasn’t a person who liked waste and he even brought back the mutant hyena he shot in the body.
Domestication would not affect its taste anyway, as it was just a mutant to Chu Guang.
Throwing the mutant hyena to Tomato Eggs, Chu Guang and the two players, Night Ten and Garbage, began to check the backpacks they picked up.
"A match, a compass, a map, and... a few pieces of dried meat? And some plastic pieces? What is written on this thing?!"
Hearing Night Ten's muttering, Garbage also leaned over. He picked up one with interest and took a closer look.
"It's kind of like a casino chip."
"Give me the plastic pieces, I need them." Chu Guang confiscated the twenty or so white plastic pieces with a calm expression. Those things were useless to players anyway.
The next moment, he looked at the jerky in Night Ten's hand.
"... Forget about them. I don't recommend you eat it," Chu Guang muttered.
Night Ten was stunned. He was just about to take a bite. "Why?"
Chu Guang thought for a while and replied indirectly. "There aren’t many things Marauders wouldn't eat. You can't tell what kind of meat it is."
Before Garbage reacted, Night Ten next to him had already thrown away the jerky and started retching.
Even in-game, he still couldn’t accept certain settings.
Seeing Night Ten's reaction, Chu Guang was suddenly curious about what these players thought, so he looked at Garbage and asked, "How does it feel to kill someone?"
Garbage was dazed and scratched his head. "I didn't pay attention..."
It was a game, what could he possibly feel? It wasn’t like he hadn’t played even more bloody games before.
On the contrary, the blood effects of the game were not very exaggerated, so he didn't pay much attention at the time.
But...
When he rushed and thrust the javelin into the last marauder's chest, the blood that splashed on him caused him to suddenly have a desire to eat.
It was just like a biological instinct.
Chu Guang glanced at the lizardman with some strange feelings in his heart. He didn't expect the player to have quite a positive mentality.
Did the fact that them being in a game diluted their fear of death?
Or maybe the players were looking at the world using a kind of perspective that he didn’t understand. Chu Guang couldn’t be sure.
After all, he wasn’t the one who designed the device. He never used the helmets, let alone know whether the world in their eyes was exactly the same as the world in his eyes.
It seemed that he would have to use the identity of the game designer to chat with the players more often...
...
As of 5:00 in the afternoon, the wall on the north side of the nursing home had been repaired.
Chu Guang had to admit that those players were simply geniuses. He even felt that his role as an NPC was a bit redundant.
Although some talents were not written on the attribute panel, they were engraved in their bones. As long as they were given a piece of land, they would be able to make something out of it.
Even if the server was reset and the world was destroyed the next day, they could still rebuild it brick by brick.
The treasures on the construction site were not just the blue-gray stones, but also the piles of concrete blocks covered in sacks.
Those things were too heavy for ordinary survivors to take away or use, so they still maintained their original appearance at the beginning of the nuclear war.
Although the cement had long been hardened and could not be mixed with sand to be used to build the foundation, it was better to use them directly as bricks for piling walls.
At least, it was much more reliable than the pile of yellow mud bricks that Old White burned!
Under the leadership of Sword Execution, the players hammered the sawn pine logs that had been cut to four to five meters long into the ground. They then piled the cement blocks transported from the construction site in the middle, inserted the steel bars stolen from the construction site, and finally poured the calcium carbonate cement on it.
When the cement dried up, a simple but reliable concrete fortification was completed.
As for the inner side of the wall, a slope was made with cement blocks and concrete waste.
In the event of an attack, the players within the wall had to crawl up the slope before using their cover to fight off their enemies.
Taking into account that the scale of the outpost would be further expanded in the future, another fortification could be built on the outside of the fort, and it could be used with guard posts and watchtowers for security.
"... The terrain of the entire wetland park is relatively flat, and the nursing home is surrounded by a forest. There is no steep slope to be used as a cover. I can cut down all the trees around here, so we can discover when a target gets close to the outpost earlier!"
"Yo, bro, not bad. What do you do in reality?" Old White looked surprised when he looked at the new player next to him.
He had a vague impression of Sword Execution, remembering that this guy seemed to have joined the group a long time ago.
Who would have thought that there would be such a genius lurking in a small gaming group?
Sword Execution smiled shyly and mumbled in slight embarrassment, "... I'm just a civil engineer, a marginal staff member in the department who drinks tea and reads newspapers all day long."
"No, no, you are actually quite good! To be honest, I never thought that the wall would be completed today."
"You’re flattering me."
It was already evening, and the afterglow of the sun had appeared at the horizon.
Tomato Eggs who served as the cook set up a big pot on the open space in front of the nursing home, threw in the fish Gale caught from the lake, and made a pot of fresh fish soup with pine nuts.
The players all sat on the floor, each with a bowl and a piece of dried smoked meat. Drinking the fish soup and chewing the smoked meat, it wasn’t actually a bad feeling!
Of course, not everyone would enjoy the meal.
For example, Teng Teng, who was sitting on the ground, pinched her nose and looked at the bowl in her hand with a sad expression.
"Uh, it's so fishy..."
Whether in-game or in reality, she was very sensitive to smells and couldn't accept Tomato Egg’s kind of cooking method.
Tomato Eggs not far away heard it and rolled his eyes.
"You think I like it?... There’s no cooking wine here, I’ve tried my best."
His expression made it clear whether she liked it or not, it was all he had.
"Just make do with it. You will be hungry if you don't eat in this game," Night Ten comforted, "Do you want me to pinch your nose so you can drink it? I’m happy to help."
Teng Teng moved to the side with haste.
"It's not necessary..."
Speaking of which, did the NPC also need to eat?
Teng Teng looked around and found that the administrator was also not far away.
However, he didn't dine with the players. He simply stayed for some time before leaving in a hurry.
When he returned, many players who were close to him saw that his expression was dark and he seemed livid. He didn’t look like he was in a good mood.
A commotion broke out among the players.
Noting the situation not far away, Old White was curious, so he put down the bowl in his hand and got up from the ground.
He walked forward quickly and grabbed Gale, who was closer.
"Brother, what happened?"
Gale looked solemn and said in a deep voice. "I heard that… A player just died."
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