Chapter 97, Third Update
"Quite a bit of update content!"
Ding Zai knew that with this update, the star sea would evolve into a relatively complete MMORPG. What needed to be added later were large battlefield and social modes outside of role-playing, such as guilds and fleet battles, as well as constantly updated new maps, new factions, and new Bosses.
"Speaking of which, since there's an economic system now, the weapon shops should be open too, right? I wonder when the beta players will log in so I can ask them for video footage!"
Just as Ding Zai was feeling impatient, he noticed his private message notification lit up.
"Private message from—Navigator!"
At this moment, Ding Ran clearly heard the sudden acceleration of his heartbeat.
He read this sentence five times, repeatedly confirming that the private message was from official customer service and not a prank from other players. Finally, he let out a cheer that drew strange looks from his colleagues around him.
This, this, this!
Although there were 60 players in the new batch of beta testers, the community users now numbered at least 100,000, if not 200,000. Being selected meant his luck was invincible!
Ding Zai naturally accepted the invitation without hesitation and completed character creation. He learned that the clone would be ready in 36 hours, at which point he could step into the post-apocalyptic wasteland universe.
The reply he received was no longer from Lu Yuan himself, but from the Butler AI. At this moment, in the game, Ye Xing and Caoyuan, two full-time players who didn't need to work, were ready to infiltrate the Apollo landing field.
Based on Caoyuan's observations from the previous day, the landing field had defensive weaknesses.
Specifically, the weakness lay in its proximity to the water.
It primarily needed to guard against Oasis City citizens, so the three landward sides had dense sentry posts, while the side facing the water only had two power-assisted patrols moving back and forth, plus a few cameras.
The reason the water-side defense was so weak was mainly due to the City Lord and nobles monopolizing the reservoir for years, preventing citizens from entering the water and learning to swim.
When the lords made the decision to prohibit commoners from approaching the reservoir back then, they probably didn't expect it would one day become such a boomerang, right?
In short, after observing this weakness, at 4 AM Li Star time, Caoyuan and Ye Xing put on their power armor, quietly entered the water near Cheng Lei's home, and after more than half an hour of walking underwater, they lay in ambush beneath the water outside the landing field.
Caoyuan's choice of this time was deliberate.
Sentry alertness late at night is generally decent, provided they aren't exceptionally poor in discipline, but this alertness drops rapidly as dawn approaches.
Because by this time, the long night has passed, and it can basically be confirmed that nothing happened during the night and it was passed safely. Additionally, people are usually most fatigued at this time. Therefore, as long as it's not a true frontline, it's normal for sentries to zone out or doze off before sunrise.
As for Apollo's security, judging by their frequent visits to bars for entertainment, their discipline is likely hard to describe.
Caoyuan estimated that they might even abandon their posts early without authorization.
I, Caoyuan, also stood guard during my time as a recruit!
At sunrise, the two figures underwater slowly approached the shore.
The heartbeat detector showed no reaction, but this didn't necessarily mean no one was around. It was just that the water affected the normal functioning of the heartbeat detector because there was a temperature difference between the reservoir and the surrounding Desert, causing wind, which in turn caused continuous natural waves on the water surface, severely interfering with the rhythmic vibrations produced by the heart.
Perception is two-way. Since they couldn't detect the enemy, the enemy couldn't detect them either. Caoyuan leaped upward, quickly surfaced, and saw that there were no sentries by the water.
Did they really abandon their posts early?
You guys are really something.
He called Ye Xing, and without hesitation, they went ashore!
The enemies weren't fools; the surveillance by the water didn't have blind spots like in most games. However, both their power armor and weapons were identical to those of the Apollo sentries, and the power armor was even equipped with the original friend-or-foe identification system.
If the surveillance was controlled by a program, there was a 99% chance it wouldn't trigger an alarm.
If, unfortunately, it was monitored manually... pray that the person monitoring was also slacking off.
Without a moment's delay, after confirming no one was around, the two leaped over the wire mesh fence and entered the landing field.
The alarm did not sound.
Their luck seemed decent. Caoyuan then remembered something Ye Xing had said before: there's an element of gambling on luck in doing anything.
Especially when doing something big!
I have to say, although this brother is sometimes overly confident, he can articulate many truths.
If you don't dare to take a gamble, many things will remain stagnant, and no turning point will automatically appear.
Just then, the door of a barracks opposite opened, and two security personnel wearing power armor walked out.
Caoyuan and Ye Xing did not panic. They maintained a normal pace and strode forward.
Because the other party didn't immediately raise the "Madman" automatic rifles in their hands, it was clear they were there for a shift change and had mistaken them for the previous shift's sentries who had presumably gone off somewhere to secretly nap.
One of them raised a hand and spoke a greeting.
Naturally, it was no longer Li Star language. Caoyuan could hear English and Chinese words with very strange accents mixed in.
Ye Xing reacted extremely quickly and calmly waved back, replying with a heavily accented "zao".
It seems that in the setting of the star sea, the evolutionary trend of human languages over the past 1000-plus years has been a mix of various mainstream languages + infectious spread of various accents + evolution of a few words.
Just like how some people might pronounce "dragon" as "dora ze" or "ball" as "bao lu," or how "your" completely replaced Old English "thy" in English, it's not hard to understand or learn once you find the pattern.
The other party mumbled a few more sentences. Caoyuan picked out "wet," "shui," and "yu," which roughly meant: "Why are you wet? Did you go fishing in the water?"
Ye Xing bent down and slyly made a shushing gesture. The other side understood, chuckled twice, and didn't continue talking.
The hangar was right before their eyes.
The two went around to the back of the hangar. Caoyuan opened the storage compartment on the outside of his power armor's thigh, took out a scanner, and started scanning.
The scanner had a range of 30 meters. After moving around the hangar slightly, they obtained the blueprint of the space fighter inside.
Caoyuan wasn't a professional like Jubian, but his understanding of military matters was much deeper than that of an average person. He could tell that this was indeed a space fighter, but the technological level was very uneven.
It had no liquid oxygen oxidizer and no bell-shaped engine nozzle. The tail end of the engine looked like a ring-shaped LED strip.
It was full of technological flair, presumably a high-power Hall effect thruster powered by a cold fusion battery.
These two technologies were far more advanced than the Cangyuan aerospace plane developed in the 1980s of the 21st century.
In contrast, the weapons and radar were quite poor.
The main weapon was a missile using a chemical energy engine, the secondary weapon was surprisingly a 37mm rotary autocannon, and the radar was also a nondescript PESA passive electronically scanned array. These things were 20th-century technology, yet they were being used for space combat now.
It seems that human technology in the post-apocalyptic era is completely unsystematic. Some blueprints and process equipment luckily survived, allowing corresponding products to be made.
As for the completely lost technology tree, it seems they can only climb it again starting from the Industrial Revolution era.
"Done!"
The two swaggered out through the main gate of the landing field, not forgetting to greet the guards at the gate. Afterward, they entered the water at a hidden spot and walked back to the safe house underwater.