Chapter 16: How to play sandbox games

Chapter 16: How to play sandbox games

In Linghu Wetland Park, outside the deserted nursing home, lay wooden piles of various sizes.

“I heard that recently cut wood will crack and deform if it is not processed." Looking at the logs piled up on the wall, Old White frowned and said while holding the axe.

Ample Time asked, "How do you usually process it?"

Old White replied, "Dry the moisture in the wood, or paint the wood on both ends and let the wood dry naturally. We can also throw them into the water, but it will be more difficult to take them out of the water... I hope it will not rain in the next few days."

Old White made a rough estimate. Combined with the results of yesterday's work, if they cut all these logs into 3~4 meters long logs, sharpened the two ends and installed them on the ground, it should be enough to repair the north and west walls of the nursing home.

It was just that these logs were unprocessed logs, and it was hard to guarantee their sturdiness. They might rot after a few rainy days.

So, he had discussed with Ample Time and decided to change the method and use cement as a building material.

There was a lot of concrete waste on the wasteland, even in the nursing home.

After some years of weathering, thermal expansion and contraction, wind and rain, most of these concrete blocks had peeled off from the steel bars and turned into slag.

There was no need to count on how reliable these materials were.

But if these materials were mixed with cement and then fixed with steel bars removed from the ruins, it would not be a problem to build simple concrete fortifications.

Although it was a tofu-dreg project, it was much better than wood.

Anyway, they had no plans of building a skyscraper.

However, if they wanted to use these concrete waste materials, they must first have cement.

To make cement, they first needed enough coal and a kiln that could withstand the high temperature of 1450 degrees.

At this moment, Gale and Night Ten came back.

Ample Time noticed that the plastic bucket that Gale was carrying was full of uniformly-textured mud.

"There is a river to the east of Linghu Lake. There is no river on the map. It should have been formed in the last two hundred years. We have explored the entire lake shoreline from the east to the south and marked the areas where mutants are active and the locations of suspected nests."

With that said, Gale asked Night Ten to take out the map, which was marked with charcoal.

With this map, it would be much safer for them to go to the lake to fetch water.

But Ample Time's attention was on the barrel in his hand.

"What's in this bucket..."

"I found it by the river," Gale continued, placing the bucket on the ground, "I suddenly thought that we could use this thing as a building material, so I brought it back."

"This thing can't be used as a building material. It can be washed away by water easily." Crouching on the ground, Old White stretched out his hand to pick up some mud, rubbed it with his thumb and forefinger, and an expression of excitement suddenly appeared on his face. "But this is a good thing, we have material to build our kiln now."

"Kiln?" Night Ten was dazed.

"I’ve discussed with Old White and plan to make cement." Ample Time said.

Gale looked at him in surprise. "Are you sure that you can do this in the game?"

"What's wrong? Isn't this a sandbox game?" Old White stood up and said excitedly. "Pour the mud here, and you two can get some more buckets of it back. Ample Time will help me pick up some branches. Let’s move."

"Okay." Ample Time went eagerly.

Gale and Night Ten glanced at each other and left with a dazed expression.

...

The river was not deep, but there was a lot of silt next to it, and it was not far from the nursing home. It didn't take much effort for them to get a bunch of it back.

Old White made a circle with the silt, dug two holes next to it as an air inlet, put the charcoal and dead leaves from the previous cooking in the silt circle, and lit it with the match left by the administrator.

The fire rose quickly.

The surrounding silt was slowly dried.

Old White dug into the new mud with his hands and pasted it on the wall of the kiln as he dried it. When the kiln reached his thigh, he began to push a stick as thick as his thumb into it.

"What is this?" Ample Time looked curious. Although he had played survival games before, he had never done such meticulous work in a game.

"Charcoal burning! Without coal, we can only use charcoal instead. If we want to make cement, we can't burn wood. We have to start with the most basic."

"How do you know this?"

"I played with it in my hometown when I was young."

"..."

Who would play this when they were young?

Standing up, Old White clapped his hands and began to cap the kiln before the fire in the kiln had ignited the wood.

This step was critical.

Before the wood was ignited, he needed to leave a hole on the top until the temperature in the kiln was high enough. Then he would seal all the holes with mud and let the wood inside char for a day. After that, he would be able to harvest a full kiln of charcoal.

"If you fill in all the holes, won’t the fire inside go out?"

"It won't go out right away, and this effect is what is needed."

Old White wiped his sweat and patted Ample Time on the shoulder.

"Don't just stand there. Let's build a few more kilns."

"Okay…"

Not only Ample Time joined Old White’s “construction team”, even Gale and Night Ten were called in after they had moved enough mud.

The four players worked together to build four kilns for making charcoal and built a slightly larger one with aluminosilicate clay dug by the river.

In Old White's words, tomorrow they could try to make some cement.

What he intended to make was plant ash cement.

The cement produced by this kind of primitive method had no technological difficulties and was not too reliable, but it was definitely stronger than wood.

And with plant ash cement, they could try to build a cement kiln that could withstand higher temperatures.

Old White had decided that he would look up the information online when he went offline.

"God damn it... I finally understand why the administrator asked us to find a way to build a bathhouse." Smelling the stinky smell of sweat, Night Ten, who had a little mysophobia, felt like he was going to die because of the smell.

This game was too hardcore.

"Why don't we go to the lake and take a bath before going offline?" Old White suggested.

"I agree... But what about the administrator? It's almost time to go offline, why hasn't he returned yet." Gale asked.

"Maybe he has something else to do."

"Then how do we let him know the results of our labor this afternoon?" Night Ten asked quickly.

Ample Time glanced at the nursing home behind him.

"Don't worry about it. I have already talked to the robot named Little Seven. It said that it had recorded our results and would report the situation to the administrator truthfully."

Hearing these words, Night Ten finally felt relieved.

...

Just as the players went offline, took off their helmets and got ready for a new day, Chu Guang, who was still on Bett Street, carefully removed the plastic bucket under the water purifier.

Bett Street had a public water well, every household having its own water tank. Chu Guang was no exception.

Except for the "Glowing Rain" which contained radioactive dust, or when the clouds were obviously abnormal, the rain on the wasteland was normally very safe, even safer than the pre-war era’s.

After all, it had been two hundred years since the decline of civilization. The specialties of the industrial society, such as acid rain and smog, were hard to see here.

Of course, even so, drinking rainwater directly was not a wise thing.

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After cutting the plastic water bottle in the middle, Chu Guang placed a layer of dried pine needles and moss under the mouth of the bottle, and topped it with crushed charcoal ash.

In this way, a simple water filter was completed.

Chu Guang did not know whether graphite could absorb radiation, but in the outer suburbs far away from the nuclear crater, radiation was not the main threat to survival. Diarrhea and dehydration were the only ones.

He still remembered that in the first month he had just lived here, he had had diarrhea every other day. He didn't die in the hands of mutants, but he almost shit himself to death.

"Less than 10L… a drop in the bucket."

Looking at the bottles and cans in the room, Chu Guang sighed.

Players had only been here for a few days, but they had almost used all the supplies he had saved.

Something had to be done.

At this time, there was a knock on the door.

Chu Guang got up and walked up to the door. He pulled out the latch and opened the door.

There, he saw Xiaoyu standing outside with her hands behind her back, staring at him intently with big smoky eyes without speaking.

Chu Guang, who just wanted to say hello, suddenly remembered what the second son of the Yu family said. He couldn't help but feel embarrassed.

Even if there was no Shelter 404, no system, no players, and he was helpless with the only option left being to try and integrate into the society here... He still couldn’t bring himself to do anything to her.

She was too skinny. At least, he had to wait for another two years.

"How can I help?" Chu Guang said calmly.

Yu Xiaoyu stretched out her arms hidden behind her back.

At this time, Chu Guang saw that she was holding a small piece of black cake in her hand. If he was right, it was made from green wheat.

"My second brother asked me to give it to you, and he told me to tell you that I made it for you." She said word by word slowly...

It took Chu Guang a long time before he figured out what she was saying. So Yu Hu asked her to give this cake to him.

"Thanks?"

"None needed."

Putting the cake into Chu Guang's hands, Xiaoyu turned around and ran away, leaving Chu Guang at a loss in the wind.

...

Modern world.

Jinling.

Taking off the helmet, Yan Feng rubbed the bridge of his nose. He reached out his hand, fumbled for a while on the bedside table, and found the glasses to put on.

After sitting on the side of the bed and brewing for a while, he got up and went to the bathroom.

The time now was half past five.

Except for graduate students, few people come to the cafeteria at this point. The whole hall was empty, with only a few windows near the door open.

The aunt of the cafeteria, who was busy behind the window, recognized the regular customer at a glance and greeted him with a big smile.

"Professor Yan, you are so early today."

"Mhm, I went to bed early yesterday… Can I have two buns please."

"The buns have just been steamed, you have to wait a while."

"No rush."

Yan Feng took out the meal card and swiped it on the card reader.

The mist from the steamer was very fragrant.

Yan Feng liked it very much. It made people feel very comfortable, but unfortunately, it was not friendly to him who was wearing glasses.

Taking off his glasses and wiping the mist on them, Yan Feng couldn't help thinking of his role in Wasteland Online.

Although his initial strength in the virtual world was slightly inferior, it was still much stronger than him in the real world.

And the most important thing was that the one in the virtual world was not short-sighted.

At this time, someone patted his shoulder.

Yan Feng put on his glasses and turned back. It was Professor Wang Haiyang.

"You have classes in the morning?"

"No class, I got up early."

"I thought those who study physics would sleep very late at night."

"That’s untrue. I rarely take my work home." Pushing up his glasses, Yan Feng suddenly thought of something. He looked at him and said, "By the way, I want to consult you about something."

Professor Wang Haiyang raised his eyebrows.

"Is it about the topic we had yesterday?"

Yan Feng nodded. "Mhm."

"Wait a minute, let me ask first, the novel you were talking about, is it a novel you are planning to write yourself?" Professor Wang Haiyang said with a smile, "It's good for a novel to be plausible. But it will be very boring if it is exactly the same as in reality."

"Actually, it's not a novel. It's… a game."

"Game?"

"Mhm," Taking the buns from the aunt in the cafeteria, Yan Feng peeled off the plastic bag and took a bite. "A game with a post-apocalyptic theme."

Professor Wang Haiyang became interested and asked.

"Can you be a little bit more specific?"

"I don't know the specifics. The game is currently still in the beta testing stage." Yan Feng paused for a while, "Say, how developed does a society need to be to make cars without power?"

"No power supply?" Professor Wang Haiyang was stunned, and said with a smile, "Do you want to say that they are using remote power supply technology instead of a fixed power supply?"

"Is it difficult?" Yan Feng asked.

"I don’t know if it’s difficult or not, but just from my professional point of view... Wireless power supply technology is not difficult. The difficulty lies in how we obtain clean and cheap energy, even if the energy loss reaches 90% or more, the cost is still acceptable."

Having said this, Professor Wang Haiyang paused, then continued in a joking tone.

"Apart from the kind of controlled nuclear fusion depicted in science fiction, I can't think of a better solution.”

Was it nuclear fusion?

Yan Feng looked thoughtful.

"I see..."

It seemed that the background of the story in the Wasteland Online setting was bigger than he imagined.

There should be many places worth digging deeper into.

"When is your novel going to be published? Can you show it to me?" Professor Wang Haiyang joked, "Maybe I can advise you."

Yan Feng glanced at him.

"I said it's not a novel."

"It's fine, if you say it's not, then it's not."

Taking his breakfast from the aunt in the cafeteria, Wang Haiyang smiled and patted this colleague on the shoulder, "As I still have lessons, I will leave first. Good luck!"

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