Chapter 33: First blood!

Die...Someone just died?!

White's face was bewildered, and for a moment, he couldn't react.

But when he finally came to his senses, his first reaction was, "Can people actually die in this game?"

In all honesty, it was quite difficult to die in this game unless someone actively sought death or it was given for free.

Not only White couldn't understand it, but Light Chu was also extremely puzzled.

He didn't expect that right after the third batch of gamers came online, they would encounter accidental casualties that were unrelated to combat. This happened at least half a month earlier than he expected...

The gamer who died had the ID [Raven_raven] and belonged to the "Perception profession" genetic sequence. Her talent was poison intuition.

Light Chu remembered that he had sent her out in the morning to collect berries and edible mushrooms. Somehow, she ended up going to the mutated leech nest.

Using the gamer list, Light Chu could roughly determine the gamer's location. As he explored his way there, he discovered that her last known activity area was beyond the leech nest. He immediately gave up on the idea of retrieving dead body.

It was relatively easy to deal with the offspring of the mutated leeches. Their mouthparts were molted, making it difficult for them to suck blood. They could at most eat some rotten food and occasionally be gnawed on by cockroaches and rats on the wasteland, or be captured by diligent players to use as nesting material.

However, adult leeches were a different story.

When they encountered prey, they swallowed it whole. The digestive fluid with an anesthetic effect would relax the muscles of the prey within a minute, causing them to lose consciousness within a few minutes.

Without a doubt, it was unlikely that even bones could be found now.

In any case, it was time to log out.

Light Chu divided the players into batches and brought them back to the shelter, settling them down to log out in their hibernation pods. Then, he returned to the surface alone and arrived at the extractor next to the active substance.

A layer of dust had settled on the cylindrical extractor. Since acquiring this device, Light Chu had never used it because there was no power source.

What was particularly frustrating was that even though the cultivation chambers had wireless charging interfaces compatible with the sanctuary, this device, which was a reward for completing the mission, did not have one. It only had a plug with positive and negative terminals.

Clearly, the designer of this set of equipment didn't intend for him to steal electricity from the shelter.

"Qi."

"What's the matter, Master?"

"How should the synthesized substance generated by this device be injected into the cultivation chamber?" Light Chu asked, rubbing his chin, lost in thought.

"It's simple, Master. The active substance storage tank of the cultivation chamber can be detached. You can directly pour the active substance into it," Qi replied.

Light Chu nodded thoughtfully. Then, he suddenly changed the topic.

"Which means... it's also possible to detach the storage tanks from other cultivation chambers?"

Qi paused for a moment.

"Um, I'm not sure, Master. Are you thinking of... stealing...?"

"It's borrowing."

Light Chu interrupted Qi, stating unequivocally, "I won't wait until the end of the month to get my hands on the generator. I can't let the deceased gamer wait until the end of the month to be revived."

"Besides, there are still 70 unopened cans. They're just sitting there, so why not make use of the active substance inside them?"

Qi whispered.

"But... what will you do if it runs out?"

Light Chu said without hesitation.

"We'll figure it out when the time comes. Let's solve the immediate problem first."

There were always more solutions than problems.

By increasing the penalty for death or adding additional penalties for consecutive deaths, these gamers could be made to be more cautious.

In the future, when there were more gamers, it would be best to establish a "starter's village" and prevent them from leaving until they reached level five. There were many ways to avoid wastefulness.

Light Chu still couldn't figure out what this gamer named Raven_raven was thinking. It didn't matter to others, but she was a Perception profession gamer after all.

After returning to the sanctuary for a while, he planned to chat with her in his role as the game planner.

However, the key issue right now wasn't how the person died, but rather that the gamer who died was a newbie who hadn't contributed anything.

In other words, she couldn't afford the death penalty at all.

That was a bit uncomfortable.

He couldn't just say to let it slide.

What would the other gamers think? Wouldn't they just go wild?

"...It seems that we need to set mandatory labor or punitive tasks as an alternative to death penalties when gamers cannot afford them."

"Yes, and also decrease favorability points and increase the cooldown for resurrection after consecutive deaths."

There are always more solutions than difficulties.

Returning to the sanctuary with Qi, Light Chu first summarized today's work results in a computer document. It had become his recent habit.

With more and more gamers, the daily fluctuations in inventory were significant. As the manager, he had to plan and coordinate every item.

When there was a shortage of wood, he mobilized the gamers to cut trees. When there was a shortage of food, he organized everyone to go hunting and gathering. This ensured smooth construction and production, preventing any stagnation due to the lack of a particular resource.

"Received 84 logs, 500 kilograms of charcoal, 500 kilograms of calcium carbonate cement, two stacks of adobe bricks, and some hardened cement blocks in the construction materials inventory. As for consumption... 220 logs were used, and the daily production of cement was almost depleted, consuming an additional 200 kilograms."

"Alright."

"In the food inventory, we received 50 kilograms of smoked meat, 10 kilograms of smoked fish, 2 kilograms of edible roots and stems, and a small amount of raspberry juice. The consumption was approximately 10 kilograms of smoked meat. The dinner was pine nut fresh fish soup, so no smoked fish was used from the inventory."

"Maybe I should hire a warehouse manager."

He also needed to find a more accurate scale and measuring tools.

Light Chu spent some time distributing contribution points to each gamer's personal account based on the statistical information provided by Qi. The newly joined gamers mainly gained contribution points by doing labor, with calculations of 10 points per hour. Most of them fell between 90 and 100.

Only VV still had 0 contribution points.

However, making clothes was a technical task, especially using unfamiliar materials. It would take some time for her to adapt and gain contribution points like a snowball rolling downhill.

After allocating the rewards to the gamers, Light Chu opened the system and confirmed the rewards for the daily missions.

[Mission: Chop down ten trees, Reward: 1 reward point]

[Mission: Kill one mutant creature, Reward: 3 reward points]

[Mission: Collect 1 ton of stone, Reward: 1 reward point]

[Mission: Stockpile 10 kilograms of food, Reward: 1 reward point]

A total of 6 reward points.

In reality, the amount of work completed by the gamers far exceeded the requirements of the daily missions. However, the number of reward points that could be easily obtained each day was limited.

Light Chu calculated the reward points he had obtained in the past few days and added today's points, totaling 17 points.

"Let's take a gamble!"

After a little thought, Light Chu opened the "Governor's Allowance" subpage and used 10 points on an intermediate blind box, leaving 7 points to be used on the basic blind boxes.

Soon, the wall shook.

As the alloy door opened, the rewards from the blind boxes rolled out on the conveyor belt.

[Nano Healing Syringe: Mainly used for non-lethal injuries, it can enhance tissue repair ability in a short time, accelerating wound healing.]

"This thing should be from the intermediate blind box."

The specific effect, unknown side effects, active ingredients, and mechanism of action were not indicated. It was a "three-zero" product, similar to the reinforcement syringe from before.

Since Light Chu was not injured at the moment, he temporarily stored the healing syringe in the drawer of his computer desk and looked at the other rewards.

As expected, five out of the seven rewards were lollipops.

Among them, one was orange-flavored, similar to the chocolate-flavored one from before, with a buff that lasted for 10 hours. However, it increased physique instead of strength.

As for the other two rewards, one was a 200g bar of chocolate, and the other was a box of 230g canned beef.

Hmm...

The chocolate should be edible, but what about the canned beef?

If Light Chu remembered correctly, canned food was invented during the 1800 Franco-Prussian War. It was possible that this can of beef was older than the antique displayed in the museum of his original world...

"Forget it... I'll find a gamer to try it later and see if it's edible."

Light Chu hesitated for a long time. Eventually, he decided to invite a gamer with high favorability for a meal tomorrow when they logged in. No one should refuse such a good thing.

After confirming the rewards, Light Chu sat down in front of the computer and instead of immediately opening the group chat, he opened the official forum to find the gamer with the ID [Raven_raven].

He thought it would take some effort, but to his surprise, as soon as he opened the forum, he saw that ID displayed on the homepage with nearly a hundred comments.

"Sob sob sob, it's my fault for being reckless. I didn't mean it, please, Planner, spare me and don't ban my device! QAQ"

Ban the device?

It couldn't be.

Light Chu just finished reading the title and didn't understand what was going on until he read the entire post. Then he realized what had happened.

This gurl...

Truly has an extraordinary talent for seeking death.