Chapter 22: Capture mutated leech spawning

10% increase in strength.

What kind of black technology is this again?

But speaking of which, is this thing considered candy or a stimulant?

Light Chu was unclear about its composition, and the packaging didn't have a production date or ingredient list.

"It lasts for 10 hours."

A 10% enhancement effect seems quite good. Even a 10% increase in strength during a critical moment is enough to turn the tide of battle.

But eating a lollipop right before going into battle...

It doesn't quite match the image of himself as a tough guy like Daniel Wu.

Moreover, the timing of its effect is also an unknown.

After much thought, Light Chu decided to keep it for now.

Having an extra ace up his sleeve is never a bad thing.

...

The next morning.

The gamers logged in as scheduled.

Although their real-life jobs exhausted them during the day, once they logged in, they were full of energy, vigorous and lively.

White's cement kiln had completely dried.

He and Hurricane went to the construction site on the map, used a cart to bring back several kilograms of limestone, then went to the riverside to gather several large buckets of clay and sand. They started the first round of firing for the silicate cement, huffing and puffing.

In fact, the formula for ordinary silicate cement can be found openly on the internet.

In simple terms, it involves crushing limestone and mixing it with clay and iron filings in specific proportions, then heating it in a specially designed kiln to 1450 degrees Celsius to calcine it.

With this method, the cement clinker can be prepared, and by adding sand and water, it can form cement mortar for construction purposes.

By consulting professional websites, one can even find the specific material ratios for different types of cement based on construction requirements.

As long as you did your homework before starting the game, it was much easier than starting from scratch in ancient times.

Considering that this was his first time dealing with this stuff, White chose the simplest formula. It didn't demand overly strict requirements for the materials, which allowed him to complete it with the current conditions of the outpost.

With the help of his "divine strength," he wielded a hammer, smashing the stones he picked up at the construction site as small as possible. Then, he mixed them with clay and iron filings obtained through charcoal reduction and put them into the just-completed kiln.

The charcoal was ignited.

Thin smoke rose.

Tomorrow, full of enthusiasm, stood aside, rubbing a branch tied to a mud plate—a crude bellows made of a water pipe, tree bark, and cotton thread. It could supply a large amount of air to the kiln, making the charcoal burn more fiercely.

"How do we determine the temperature inside the kiln?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know???"

"What else can we do? Do you have an industrial thermometer? Anyway, stop talking nonsense, rub the bellows harder and blow air into it! Ah... If only we could get a generator."

"..."

White sighed as he stroked his chin, while Tomorrow felt somewhat speechless.

This guy.

Ever since becoming the "construction team leader," he's been more and more like a contractor.

Rubbing the branch, he was absent-minded, thinking to himself, wondering where those two brutes, Hurricane and Nighten, had run off to...

In fact, not only did they not know, but Light Chu, as the governor, also had no idea.

Although he could confirm the gamer's online or offline status and get a general sense of their direction and distance through the system, he couldn't pinpoint their exact coordinates.

At least not yet.

However, just as Light Chu was pondering about what the two gamers had been up to, he saw them approaching him with buckets in hand.

"Where did you guys go?"

Facing the administrator's inquiry, Hurricane answered truthfully.

"Near the nest of mutated leeches."

Light Chu furrowed his brows.

"Didn't I tell you not to go there?"

"We didn't go inside. We just set up traps near the nest... Take a look, these are mutated leech larvae."

Before Hurricane could speak, Nighten, standing beside him, saw that the governor's expression was displeased. Afraid of losing favorability, he quickly explained as he placed the plastic bucket he was holding on the ground.

Light Chu glanced into the bucket and found glass bottles containing palm-sized larvae. They twisted their bodies and extended their deformed mouthparts, wriggling and intertwining with each other, resembling the tentacles from eroge manga.

"It's quite interesting... How did you manage to do this?"

When he was in Bette Street, he had never heard of anyone capturing these creatures.

Although mutated insects were rich in protein, they also had a high parasite content. It wasn't something that could be killed by boiling it in a pot for a while.

Moreover, these creatures had a unique living environment, rarely acting alone, and their combat capabilities were difficult to evaluate. There were very few survivors interested in them.

"Blood! We used animal blood to lure them into the glass bottles baited with food. The larger leeches couldn't squeeze in, but the smaller ones could get in but couldn't come out!"

Nighten excitedly explained while Hurricane added a few words.

"These mutated leeches should forage at night and retreat to their nest during the day. Except for a few bottles being crushed, these little guys are all still inside the bottles. I just wanted to give it a try, but the effect turned out to be surprisingly good."

Light Chu nodded as he rubbed his chin.

"I see... That's indeed a good idea."

No wonder Hurricane asked him for some meat from the game yesterday. He intended to use it as bait to catch the mutated leech spawning?

However...

"...What do you plan to do with these creatures?"

Light Chu continued to ask Hurricane.

"I'm not sure about regular leeches, but we definitely can't eat the mutated ones."

"I didn't plan on figuring out how to eat them. I intend to use them for fishing."

"Fishing?"

"Yeah," Hurricane nodded, his expression slightly excited. "When I was exploring the lakeshore before, I saw some black birds catching fish on the lake! Since there are fish in the lake, we can completely obtain food by fishing!"

What a brilliant idea!

After hearing Hurricane's words, Light Chu's eyes lit up.

In fact, he had tried fishing before. Compared to hunting, fishing had much less risk involved.

However, his fishing skills were quite embarrassing. Even with professional fishing gear and bait, it was rare for him to catch anything, let alone having access to such things here.

In fact, it wasn't entirely his fault. If fish were so easy to catch, why wouldn't survivors settle by the lake?

The lake fish were also mutated, known as a type of mutants by the wasteland survivors.

After a few unsuccessful attempts, and even losing the fishing gear he painstakingly made, Light Chu gave up.

"Do you know how to fish?"

Facing the governor's question, Hurricane paused and replied, "I don't... but I looked it up online. There are fishing traps available, and I plan to try making a few."

Although he wasn't sure if the NPCs understood the meaning of "looking it up online," since they showed no reaction when discussing real-life matters previously, he assumed that the program automatically ignored such content. Thus, Hurricane straightforwardly explained it.

Light Chu was delighted in his heart but remained expressionless as he nodded.

"Alright, since you know how to catch fish, I'll leave this task to you!"

After receiving the command, Hurricane and Nighten immediately went to set up the traps.

Fishing was much more interesting than doing manual labor or chopping trees!

Light Chu watched them gather some branches and plastic ropes they found somewhere, squatting near the corner of the wall to work on it.

Without bothering them, Light Chu's current focus was on how to smoke the meat he bought with tobacco leaves.

Yesterday, following the method of the survivors in Bette Street, he crushed the tobacco leaves and wrapped them around the meat. Then, he slowly roasted it over firewood, allowing the tar rich in ketones to penetrate the fatty layer of the meat, killing parasites and microorganisms...

But somehow, he felt that something was off. Was it his imagination?

"It shouldn't be like this..."

Picking up a piece of ham meat and sniffing it closely, Light Chu furrowed his brows.

Normally, meat smoked using this method should have a scent of nicotine, with a glossy yellow-brown appearance on the surface due to the oil.

However, the piece of hind leg meat he held was obviously dark red in color, overcooked on the outside yet raw on the inside, and faintly emitting a smell of decay.

"Could it be that the method was wrong?"