Chapter 27: Winter Is Coming!

"The leaves are withering yellow, the temperature is dropping, an unprecedented crisis is approaching."

"This year's winter will be harsher than in previous years and will come earlier… There's not much time left for us to prepare."

"From now on, we must seize every minute, even every second! We need to get ready for the cold snap before the situation completely deteriorates!"

"The mission panel has been updated with a list of necessities, facilities that need to be completed, and corresponding rewards."

"Remember, only through unity can we overcome the difficulties together!"

"Winter is coming."

"This is a test of fate for all of us!"

In the resident hall of Shelter No. 404, a heartening voice reverberated.

Facing the spirited gazes of the players, Chu Guang delivered a stirring speech, officially launching the first expansion pack since the Game's closed beta—"Winter is Coming."

And as the new chapter began, the atmosphere at the Outpost Base of Shelter No. 404 started to change, just like the Game's official website, becoming different from before.

Not just the players.

Even Chu Guang himself could feel that sense of urgency from the gradually cooling air.

The resources stored at the Outpost were already meager to begin with, and the population had skyrocketed from 6 to 30 people—a fivefold increase!

The surging population brought more manpower, but it also exponentially increased the supply pressure on the Outpost.

To feed the thirty mouths that would soon arrive, Chu Guang had been working his heart out these past two days, keeping busy from dawn to dusk. He took Night Ten, who had a Perception gene sequence, hunting everywhere just to stockpile a bit more food.

For a while, they stirred up chaos throughout Linghu Wetland Park.

But correspondingly, the results were quite gratifying.

In just three days, Chu Guang alone had killed over a dozen mutated hyenas, and caught innumerable wild rabbits and squirrels using traps.

Although they were mutants, they were edible.

Besides, Night Ten, responsible for alert and enemy search, had also successfully advanced from LV0 to LV1, and Chu Guang also faintly felt he was on the verge of a breakthrough.

However, the Manager gene sequence was truly too special.

Chu Guang had yet to grasp the trick to upgrade and could only confirm through the physical examination device that there was indeed a very slight increase in the development of his gene sequence.

On the other side, the performances of the other players were also quite outstanding and could even be described as each showing their unique abilities.

Old White and Fang Chang used charcoal as a reducing agent and, through the calcination process, recovered a small amount of iron slag from rusty steel bars, car parts, and other iron-containing scrap, adding the slag to the cement kiln to calcine with crushed limestone and clay, producing more reliable cement clinker.

This was a physically demanding job.

Whether it was manually operating a blower or using a repaired twin-wheel barrow to transport stones, it took a lot of effort.

But it was precisely because of this that Old White, who was a Strength Type, advanced again with his gene sequence level moving from LV1 to LV2, and his Strength attribute increased by one point.

As for Fang Chang, who took turns with him, he finally broke through the limit and advanced from LV0 to LV1.

But the attribute he gained was not Strength; it was Agility.

It appeared that while the development of gene sequences complied with the principle of "use it or lose it," the increase in attributes was a different matter.

Moreover, speaking of upgrades, perhaps the most unfortunate was Wild Wind.

Up to now, among the four beta players, the only one who still had a gene sequence level of 0 was probably him.

These days, he had caught quite a few fish using improved traps, but he was always just a bit of "experience" short of reaching LV1.

The "experience" gained through trapping and killing Variants didn't seem to be as much as what was gained in direct combat against Variants.

Wild Wind was puzzled by this as well.

But unfortunately, there didn't seem to be any good solution at present.

Apart from the four pioneering Dog Management players, the two newbies who joined were also brimming with energy and hardly idle for even a moment these past few days.

Take "Brother Mosquito," for example.

He wasn't in a rush to upgrade and continued to do woodworking work, occasionally helping Old White and Fang Chang or repairing Wild Wind's damaged traps.

And besides these tasks, he was busy with his own stuff.

According to Brother Mosquito himself, he was planning to use wood to build a simple wooden hut to serve as his chemical laboratory and storage room.

These days, while helping to transport stones from the construction site, he had collected quite a few bottles and jars to place alongside the little hut.

""

Although Chu Guang was quite skeptical about the safety of such small cabins, seeing how much this guy enjoyed it, he thought it would be better not to interfere too much with the players' choices.

Compared to Brother Mosquito's leisure, "Tomato and Egg Stir-Fry" probably epitomized the ideal hard worker.

As the cook of the Outpost, he not only had to prepare meals but also had to help the Manager deal with the prey that was brought in.

This included bleeding, skinning, deboning, cutting meat, and most importantly, smoking.

Since the salt at the Outpost wasn't luxurious enough to be used for smoking meat, Tomato and Egg Stir-Fry had adopted the most primitive smoking method.

That is, not adding anything at all.

He directly hung the cut meat on a rebar rack, stuffed it into a kiln built from clay and bricks, smoked it over charcoal, slowly roasted it with a low flame to dry out the moisture, and sealed the opening with pine branches and leaves.

The smoked meat produced by this method was actually more like dried meat, which could last for a while even without adding salt and didn't need anything fancy like wrapping tobacco leaves around the surface.

By next month, either early or mid, it would almost be winter.

At that time, wrapping the dried meat in plastic bags or bark and burying it in the snow, it should be fine to eat until the next spring without any major problems.

However, the texture and flavor of the smoked meat made in this way could only be described as indescribable.

In addition, the skins peeled from the mutated hyenas were not wasted by Tomato and Egg Stir-Fry; he collected them to make leather.

In fact, tanning is a quite complex and tedious craft, much more troublesome than making jerky.

However, what the shelter needed was not the smooth and supple high-grade fur, but merely materials that could keep out the cold. There were no quality requirements.

So, many unnecessary steps could be omitted.

Previously, Old White had kept the lye from the burned vegetation ash he made in collected plastic barrels.

Tomato and Egg Stir-Fry made full use of these lye as tanning liquid to soak the raw hides that had been peeled off the prey and washed.

When the hide and tannin were fully integrated, he hung it up on the hastily-built tanning rack to dry, so that he could get a piece of leather of passable quality.

"…Respected Manager, I must report to you, I really can't handle it all by myself. I desperately need a helper, even one would be good!"

Taking the freshly killed prey from Chu Guang's hands, Tomato and Egg Stir-Fry's gaze couldn't help but drift over to Night Ten.

He always felt as though this guy seemed very idle, aside from helping the Manager carry some prey, he didn't seem to have seen him do anything else.

Perhaps...

He could lend a hand.

Night Eleven saw right through Tomato and Egg Stir-Fry's intentions and hastily waved his hands, saying,

"Don't look at me, I am very busy."

What a joke.

Leveling up with NPCs, where else could one find such good fortune of free experience?

He didn't want to learn cooking with this guy!

Seeing Night Ten's reluctance, Tomato and Egg Stir-Fry couldn't help but roll his eyes inwardly and muttered to himself.

Busy my ass!

Facing the complaint from Tomato and Egg Stir-Fry, Chu Guang spoke to reassure him.

"Night Ten needs to help me search for prey, and his perception of danger is also vital, so I can't ask him to stay and help you. However, I promise you that your problem will soon be resolved. Our reinforcements are already on their way; they will soon arrive on the surface."

"Okay, thank you... If that's really the case, then that's great."

Tomato and Egg Stir-Fry sighed and, after a pause, continued,

"There is another matter, although I have tried my hand at tanning, I can only do some simple treatments. As for how to make them into clothes ... I really can't handle that."

Chu Guang said with a smile,

"Don't worry about that, among the reinforcements that are about to arrive, there are talented individuals skilled in this area. I will delegate the work of tanning and making warm clothes to that person."

Not just tailors.

Among the 24 new players he selected for the closed beta, there were a bit of talents from various industries.

They may not necessarily be experts in their fields, some were even students, but within their capabilities, they could still play a role.

Besides, there was the tool that is the internet.

Chu Guang was full of confidence in these energetic and enthusiastic players. So long as they worked hard enough, one day he would be able to move into a bigger house.

Steady as a rock!