This Game Is Too Real
Chapter 617: Prosperity

Chapter 617: Chapter 617: Prosperity

A deep, dark chaos stirred from its slumber.

Invisible walls and a black realm surrounded it, pulsing shadows veiling its eyes.

And deafening its hearing.

It opened its non-existent mouth, emitting a cry like that of a baby.

At this moment, a gentle force traveled slowly through the unseen umbilical cord, making it, floating in chaos, feel every cell in its body joyfully stretching.

"My child... you have finally awakened..."

That trembling call carried a hint of loneliness and a trace of longing.

It didn’t understand those emotions.

However, the voice made it feel comfortable.

"Who are you?"

"I am your mother."

"Mother?"

"I am the one who nurtures all things, and I have bestowed upon you a soul and flesh."

"...And who am I?"

"Xiya, this is your name, and it’s also the third gift I have bestowed upon you."

Xiya...

It silently repeated its own name, watching the pulsing walls and the black domain, its soul trembling with a hint of devotion as it listened to the voice coming slowly through the umbilical cord.

"You shall awaken on the day the ice seals end, and on the day of your awakening, you shall understand your destiny."

"Go conquer."

"Go devour."

"Go liberate."

"Go become the new master."

Its vision, obscured by darkness, slowly clarified, a pitch-black wall replaced by a crimson flesh membrane throbbing deeply.

The color of bloodlust reflected in those newly opened amber eyes.

The voice continued to reach its ears.

"...We will finally enter an eternal prosperity."

Without hesitation,

It opened its mouth, connected by silky threads, a scorching assault accompanied by a faint growl.

"Yes..."

...

At the gates of Giant Stone City, the noisy cries of vendors never ended, featuring southward and northward merchants and naturally, players from Shelter No. 404.

"Exploding mushrooms! 1 Silver Coin each, edible and can explode, power comparable to a hand grenade, wholesale from Crow Boss, hurry to pre-order!"

"Mutated Iron Worm soaked liquor! Fresh liquor, fresh Iron Worms, don’t miss out as you pass by!"

"What’s this?"

"Iron Worm? Isn’t this just an earthworm?!"

"Try one yourself, boss!"

"Cough, needs Body Constitution System LV20, but I’m of the Intelligence System, not enough Constitution."

"Boss, give me a kilo, I’ll buff my brother up."

"Right away!"

The heavy snow had stopped, and the tide was approaching; the marketplace at the entrance would close soon.

Many stall and shop owners hurried to make their last transactions before spring.

Apart from food and necessities, there were also plenty of arms dealers selling weapons and armor.

Like Goblin Technology.

Undoubtedly the most eye-catching sign in the crowd.

Standing next to a three-meter-tall armor, Mosquito loudly hawked his wares with a megaphone.

"Goblin Technology’s latest model, Type Two Non-Powered Armor! Requires LV10 Strength Type! LV15 Body Constitution System works too! Can take hits, can fight, and even explode in a crowd!"

Hearing that unique nasal voice, the players immediately gathered around with keen interest.

"What the heck? Mosquito? Why are you personally manning a stall?" Debt Giant Eye curiously toyed with the armor, then, finding he couldn’t even budge an arm, gave up resignedly.

Mosquito sighed, a sadness in his voice.

"Ah... lost big on the last mission, been a bit broke lately, selling some second-hand stuff to recover some cash."

It was mainly because Old Na and Old Wang were ineffective.

The two walked around the plain several rounds, yet couldn’t find his mechanical arm.

In a few days, he planned to order a new set.

This time, he intended to get one with detachable parts.

The young worker at the construction site leaned in and asked curiously,

"Don’t understand it, just ask, does this equipment disable you?"

Unfazed by the sarcastic remark, Mosquito answered cheerfully,

"It’s okay, not too disabling, just average."

Debt Giant Eye: "Damn!"

While passing through the bustling market towards the north, Falling Feather suddenly stopped in his tracks, his right hand instinctively pressing against his chest.

The flesh previously gnawed away by those bat people had been rapidly replaced by a biological prosthetic that, in the form of Xiaoyu’s actual body, became part of him.

It was heating up at that very moment.

As if it were on fire!

While Falling Feather was puzzled about what was happening, a soft whisper came through the communication channel.

"Yi Wu."

(It’s awake.)

He understood Xiaoyu’s whispers more than when it spoke in United Human language.

Glancing around instinctively, Falling Feather asked confusedly,

"Awake? Who is awake?"

"Yi Wu..."

(Xiya...)

(That’s its name.)

Falling Feather paused.

This was the first time he didn’t understand what Xiaoyu said.

Xiya?

It?

As he was still bewildered, a familiar holler came from nearby.

"Frick, Falling Feather! You’ve finally come back!"

Falling Feather turned to see, only to discover Mosquito Brother standing excitedly in front of a stall, waving at him.

Instinctively raising his hand to greet him, Falling Feather’s gaze suddenly fell on a three-meter tall torture device next to him.

His expression turned vigilant instantly, and he withdrew his halfway raised hand.

"What’s up?"

"Don’t be so cold, brother," Mosquito said, laughing off the cautious look as he stepped away from the stall and pulled on his arm, "Seriously, come help me test the new equipment, and show these clueless folks what it’s like."

Falling Feather jerked his hand away as if shocked, quickly retreating several steps.

"Not interested, thanks."

Watching Falling Feather disappear into the crowd at lightning speed, Mosquito stood with his hand extended for a long while before he snapped back to reality.

Seeing even a daring pilot like Falling Feather avoiding the trial, the curious bystanders scattered at once.

Listening to the suppressed laughter behind him, a bittersweet Mosquito shouted in the direction where Falling Feather had gone,

"Frick! You’re ruthless!"

His voice melded into the distant liveliness and bustle.

At this moment, most of the survivors living on the ground had not noticed that a grey-green fog, rooted in the center of the town like a towering tree, was spreading silently all around...

...

Chu Guang still remembered, when he rode on the Steel Heart ship to explore Brocade River Province, there was so much snow on the ground that it could bury a person’s calves.

Now, returning, only a thin layer remained.

During his absence, many things had happened across various settlements in the Alliance.

The most significant changes occurred in City of Dawn.

As the capital of the Alliance, and also the first beacon of hope that rose from the waste land, City of Dawn had always been a focus of the Alliance’s development.

Especially since, just before the year-end, Chu Guang had decisively allocated a whole 900 million silver coins towards infrastructure at the economic work conference.

This substantial budget had catalyzed almost immediate changes to the settlement.

Not only had the streets become broader and cleaner, making commuting more convenient, but the improved lifestyle of the people was visibly more affluent.

Apart from those who were already living well, the residents who had recently joined the Alliance and the "supervised" migrants were not left behind.

The thousand prefabricated apartments on the eastern outskirts had completed all phases of construction, and more than forty thousand residents who met the resettlement criteria had successfully moved in.

As of now, Dawn City’s registered permanent population had surged from fifty thousand earlier to one hundred thousand!

What was even more comforting was the new birth registration data provided by the Medical Department—following the end of the war in the Luo Xia Province, a significant baby boom was brewing.

While this posed no small challenge to the current limited medical and educational resources of the Alliance, the upside was a significant improvement in the current population structure.

The survivors of the Alliance were moving toward a new life, and although disasters on this land were far from over, everyone’s heart was filled with confidence.

Because their Manager had indeed fulfilled the passionate promises he made to the residents of the Alliance during the triumph ceremony—

To let exceptional qualities stand out in the society of the Alliance.

Hardworking people will never be fools, as long as one actively learns, works, and lives to contribute to society, they certainly deserve a better life.

The same was true of Dawn City.

The changes here were second only to City of Dawn.

The once simple wooden sign train station had now transformed into a concrete-built station hall.

From the industrial zone to the logistics center ran a six-lane highway, and workers who once lived in tin-roof houses repairing drainage facilities had now moved into apartment buildings with elevators. The once noisy small workshops had turned into large factories covering dozens or even hundreds of acres.

Objectively speaking, although the level of development and the standard of living here could not match that of City of Dawn, the "degree of electrification" and "urbanization rate" were higher than those of City of Dawn and Giant Stone City combined.

After all, the Alliance’s only city-level fusion reactor was located here, and the cost of electrical resources and even transportation was minimal.

Because the area had more hills than plains, local residents mostly lived in high-rise buildings, making elevators almost standard equipment.

The kind of three- or four-story single or double-occupant cottages found in Dawn City were, in fact, not seen here.

Since there were many ready foundations available, the authorities in Dawn City simply built new housing on the abandoned structures of the former West State City.

The homes built during the Era of Prosperity were mostly unusable, but the foundations were surprisingly intact and of astonishing quality! Building another building with a lifespan of fifty years on the original foundation posed no problem at all!

Even the possibility existed that when the new buildings reached their end of life, the sections buried underground would still be intact.

Considering the Alliance’s current level of infrastructure and the century-plus time gap from the Era of Prosperity, this kind of scenario was entirely possible.

Furthermore, since West State City was a population-sparse, habitable city during the Era of Prosperity with generally low-rise buildings, the difficulty of demolition wasn’t as great as in Qingquan City, and the concrete debris could even be recycled through technologies provided by the Ideal Group, making the cost of constructing a twenty-story building in Dawn City much lower than elsewhere.

Currently, Dawn City’s registered permanent population had grown from eighty thousand to one hundred and ten thousand, which was almost the entirety of this settlement’s population.

After all, this place was an industrial hub of the Alliance, not as commercially prosperous as City of Dawn to the south; most people came here for work.

As long as there was work, there was a need to pay taxes, and paying taxes required registration; thus, theoretically, this place had the fewest undocumented residents in the entire Alliance.

Aside from housing and industry, which directly concerned people’s livelihoods, another major infrastructure project in Dawn City was the dam on the northeast shore of West State Lake!

Western Province Lake, as one of the ecological reconstruction projects of the Human Alliance Era, can be considered the largest artificial lake in the central region of River Valley Province.

This lake played an important role in the desertification control projects in the central region of Central Continent, but after entering the Wasteland Era, this abandoned lake developed serious flooding issues due to the end of the ice age, increased rainfall, changes in lake bed structure, and other reasons.

If this "artificial reservoir" could be repaired, the vast areas of black land from the northwest of West State City to the Tributary of Tianshui would be released.

This project is estimated to increase the cultivated land for the Alliance by several hundred thousand acres!

Unlike those lands in Falling Leaves Province that rely on the "embankment" system, the existence of this black land does not depend on any unknown technology.

Although the Alliance’s main food supply is imported from vassal countries and agriculture is not the focus of development for Dawn City, no one would complain about having too much land to cultivate.

Even if NPCs are not interested, giving it to "Makabazi," "Going Hunting," and other lifestyle players who are enthusiasts of farming would be excellent.

Hundreds of thousands of acres of land, new production methods and relationships, and potential difficulties in land reclamation... if this were the Potato Factory’s "Dough 1800," it would be enough for a DLC!

In reality, contracting a manor of hundreds of acres faces various challenges, but in the wasteland, one occasionally just needs to deal with roaming variants and wasteland wanderers.

In any case, though many ordeals including wars were encountered, the workers of Dawn City ultimately did not disappoint and overcame the difficulties.

Based on the blueprints and construction plans provided by environmental engineer Button, with the joint efforts of specialists and construction personnel at Camp 101, the dam of Western Province Lake was finally completed!

Not just the black land north of West State City, but also the entirely submerged Fourth New District has re-emerged from the lake.

In the future, passing through this area will no longer require a boat!

And not just that.

As the lake water receded, this city district, which had been sealed by lake water for nearly a century and a half, also unlocked several previously unexplored areas by players.

For example, Shelter No.100 near the metro line of the Fourth New District!

According to the information from Camp 101, this shelter was planned to protect 30,000 people and was scheduled to lift its lockdown in the 60th year of the Wasteland Era.

Unfortunately, in the 52nd year of the Wasteland Era, spreading lake water submerged the entire Fourth New District, completely sealing the gate of Shelter No.100.

Open records indicate that Shelter No.100 was tasked with the reconstruction of West State City.

Even the backup controllable fusion reactor located beneath West State City – the same one currently being used by the Alliance – was originally prepared for Shelter No.100.

It can be inferred from this that Shelter No.100 should have a certain reserve of helium-3 resources, and a substantial proportion of its residents were likely nuclear engineers.

Dr. Method, secluded in Shelter No.101, estimated the survival probability of the residents of the refuge to be only 3.1%, the probability of continuing their mission to be less than 1%, and the success rate to be nearly 0, hence he provided the coordinates of that controllable fusion reactor to the wasteland wanderers of Camp 101.

However, what the exact shelter plan for Shelter No.100 was, perhaps only the manager of the shelter would know.

Perhaps like Shelter No.79 in Rui Valley City, which outwardly claimed to undertake the task of rebuilding West State City, Shelter No.100 might have been involved in other sheltering projects.

Yin Fang was very interested in this shelter for he was a professional grave robber, his interest in coffee machines and his research on various electronic devices and even medical skills were only incidental.

Chu Guang felt the same.

However, compared to Yin Fang’s curiosity about the reasons for the "sinking" of this shelter, he was more curious about what treasures could be found inside.

At the moment, the Alliance’s construction personnel were trying to install a drainage system, using pumps to extract the lake water that had flooded the underground tunnels and discharge it to the northern tributary of Tianshui.

Due to the nesting of a large number of Crack Claw Crabs, Battleship Shrimps, and other aquatic arthropods in the area, the construction faced considerable challenges.

Currently, the excavation work at Shelter No. 100 was ranked as a secondary priority in the work log of Dawn City, only next to a series of industrial zone expansion plans.

He believed that the moment this shelter re-emerged into the daylight, all the treasures and secrets buried inside would be revealed as well.

Chu Guang had great hopes for this.

It would be even better if he could dig up a few old ice pops.

Experts in pre-war technology, who mastered a wide range of industries, were far more important to the current stage of the Alliance than one or two black boxes...

Compared to the swiftly developing cities like City of Dawn and Dawn City, Falling Leaves City, situated on the western borders of the Alliance, though less noticeable, also had potential that should not be underestimated.

As a trade hub between Luo Xia Province and the southern part of River Valley Province, the most important infrastructure there were the train station and the logistics warehouses.

From an aerial view through Hummingbird drones, more than half of the city’s buildings and factories were related to these facilities.

Although Waste Land Wanderers migrating from the west were often seen here, most did not stay long, typically using this place as a stepping stone before settling in the City of Dawn or Dawn City.

Pioneer City, on the other hand, had nothing particularly remarkable to show yet, its current most notable achievement being its population growth rate.

After all, every so often, players active in the Great Desert could capture a Slave Hunters team trafficking slaves from Poluo Province to the Great Desert, or find a mutants tribe hidden in the ruins, and then the population of Pioneer City would grow significantly.

This brought considerable pressure to the compact Pioneer City, not just because of the population growth rate that doubled every so often, but also because it had the most extreme gender ratio in the entire Alliance.

Just like a chicken farm where roosters are far fewer than hens, mutants tribes like those from Dark Stone Tribe would usually keep only a few men with the most meat in the ranch for breeding; the rest would not last a few days before being thrown into the pot to be stewed.

And the slave traders who did business with these mutants tribes would also not sell "worthless" male slaves here.

According to Mayor Teresa’s report, Thorns Corps and the players rescued most survivors from the southern Poluo Peninsula in the Great Desert.

Something severe seemed to be happening there.

However, it was too far away, the nearest route from the Alliance to there required first traveling to Camel Hump Kingdom’s Silver Moon Bay by boat and then continuing south.

Or departing from Pioneer City, crossing the "Eastern Industrial Zone" and "Southern Industrial Zone" from the Era of the Human Alliance.

Therefore, although sympathizing with the suffering of the people there, Mayor Teresa did not make impractical requests in her report.

What they could currently do was just to fight the mutants tribes and slave traders near Pioneer City, and uncover relics buried by the desert to enhance their own strength...

Currently, the population of Pioneer City had neared three thousand, a significant increase from the original three hundred plus survivors.

Even though local conditions remained harsh.

Nonetheless, their lives had improved much compared to before.

Regularly arriving cargo airships from the east and occasional Commercial Teams from Bister Town also brought new hope to this settlement growing through hardship from time to time.

From City of Dawn to Pioneer City, the Alliance’s four direct children had gradually learned to run from their initial tottering steps.

And Giant Stone City, once belonging to the War Construction Committee and now under the governance of the Alliance, had also risen from its previous falls.

However, compared to other rapidly expanding settlements of the Alliance, the visible changes here were not astonishing.

The settlement was still as large, as crowded, and as noisy.

Its changes happened more in aspects almost invisible to outsiders, noticeable only to its own people.

Like houses that no longer leaked, unattended matters finally being managed, richer shelves of commodities, increased street traffic, and better public safety, among others.

Local survivors, through desperate struggles, finally made their lives what they ought to be, with canned food producers eating the cans they produced, and that was it.

But this simple "that was it" was rare and precious for most settlements on the wasteland.

While Chu Guang had always been on the front lines during this period, he was not unfamiliar with events happening throughout the Alliance.

Most administrative work of the Alliance was conducted on electronic terminals.

From the management of logistics to the planning of settlement architecture, digitalized management almost covered every aspect of life for the surviving members of the Alliance.

Although it did not reach the level of Prosperity Epoch, where even a faucet was connected to the global network, it was undoubtedly advanced for the wasteland.

Thus, even when Chu Guang often left the political center of the Alliance, his grasp on the situation across various regions was never affected.

As long as he could connect with the server of the refuge.

Of course, due to the focus on frontline work recently, even with the help of "digitalized municipal administration," Chu Guang had still accumulated quite a backlog of work during this time.

Whether it was the work of "Dog plan" or the "Manager," either had piled up.

However, even with a mountain of backlog waiting,

Before returning to his "desk" in the Floor B4 Viewing Room of the sanctuary, Chu Guang first made a trip to West State City, located on the northern frontier of the Alliance.

It was home to the largest research institutes and higher educational institutions of the Alliance— even larger than the Biological Institute of Shelter No.79.

He had promised Xia Yan that he would visit her after returning.

Not just that.

But also because Pai had told him in a recent holographic call that Dr. Method, the manager of Shelter 101, wanted to discuss something with him...

Coincidentally, Chu Guang also wanted to discuss the matters of "Holy Land" and "Torch," so he readily agreed.