Chapter 49 - Start of the Third Beta Testing Without File Deletion

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation  Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

In the City of Despair.

By the time the morning sun fell on the survivors’ camp, the older people, women, and children in the entire camp were already busy.

Most of the people received work arranged by the leader rebuilding houses, renovating shops, and cleaning the grounds. Others started to process various materials, which kept them very busy.

Many of the elderly and women among them had stayed up all night, such that their eyes were full of silky red lines. Even so, every one of them still looked energetic. Even the yellow-faced and thin children no longer looked so timid. Now, they stared curiously at the two low-rise buildings that did not appear much better than ordinary dilapidated wooden houses.

“A mission hall and a prestige mall, what strange things.”

Amongst the bustling crowd, a little boy bit into a piece of jerky as he looked curiously at the text on a magic crystal slab at the entrance of the building. The blue text was powered by a small magic crystal piece, making the magic crystal panel look like a signboard.

Before the fall of the City of Despair, everyone would often see some merchants using these plaques at their store’s entrance. However, after the fall of the City of Despair, the magic crystals were in short supply, and such magic crystal slabs rarely appeared.

“Rian, you stole food again,” A childish voice sounded beside the little boy.

After hearing the voice beside him, the little boy hurriedly hid the small jerky piece behind his back and replied unconvincingly. “I… I didn’t steal it. Aunt Freya gave it to me.”

“Hmph, you obviously stole it.” Lil Angie said with a smile, seemingly angry. She looked at the boy and suddenly asked again, “Is it yummy?”

The little boy named Rian nodded repeatedly. He looked at the little girl’s gaze and took out the jerky in dismay before handing it to Lil Angie.

Lil Angie took the jerky and stuffed it into her mouth as she bit into it. A smile spread across her face.

This was the meat of the saw-toothed tiger hunted by the outsiders yesterday. The tiger was big and, other than some particular parts that were taken by Lady Hera, the leftover meat of the beast had been harvested. Thus, almost everyone in the camp was able to enjoy meat after a long period without it.

Of course, this was only a part of it. Some parts were collected by the camp and would be sold as commodities or future rewards.

The reason why the saw-toothed tiger was made into supplements while the gnolls and jackals were not was mostly because the gnolls were humanoids. On the other hand, their meat also contained mild toxins and was not ideal for ordinary humans’ consumption.

“The jerky is delicious, but sweet berries are better. I haven’t eaten those in a long time now.” Lil Angie chewed the jerky voraciously and muttered in dissatisfaction.

“Sweet berries are hard to find now,” Rian shook his head and watched Lil Angie bite into the small meat pieces. He swallowed his saliva slightly and turned his eyes to the weird building ahead. He then asked softly, “Angie, do you know where those aliens have gone to?”

“Big Sis Phoenix said that they’ve been sent back by the leader,” Lil Angie replied, somewhat muffled as she chewed. “But, they’ll come back again.”

The little boy named Rian pursed his lips. “That person’s a stranger, he’s not our leader.”

A soft ‘pa’ was heard as Rian felt himself get softly smacked on the back of his head as soon as he finished uttering this sentence. “What nonsense are you spurting out now, Rian? His Excellency, Meng Yang, is our leader.”

“Aunty Freya—” Rian turned around and saw the sturdy middle-aged woman who had smacked him and felt slightly wronged.

The robust middle-aged woman stretched out her hand to touch the boy’s slightly curly brown hair and said in a warm tone. “Rian, it hasn’t been easy for us to survive. Meng Yang was able to lead us to defeat the gnolls. Hence, he is our leader.”

Afterward, the sturdy-looking middle-aged woman gently drove the children away, “Go back now, child, you guys still have work to do today. You guys need to dig out a hundred potatoes.”

“A hundred… Aunty Freya, that’s impossible. We can’t do it, and there have been big bugs on the ground where the potatoes grow,” Rian gestured with both his hands. “They’re huge bugs, and we’re too scared to get close to it.”

“Then, you guys can go to the mission center and post a mission. Someone will come and help you out.”

“But, I don’t have anything for them.” Rian felt slightly distressed. He had heard the leader and other people talked about this matter before. They could ask for the outsider to help them out, but he needed to provide them with some compensation.

“Silly child. Your roasted potatoes are delicious; you can give some to them.”

“Would that really be okay?”

“You’ll never know if you don’t try. In any case, you’ll have to be fast, Rian. The leader mentioned that the aliens are coming back real soon.”

……

“It’s really complicated. How are there so many things?”

Meng Yang looked at the list of things in his hand inside the mission hall and suddenly felt a little overwhelmed. At this moment, he deeply regretted not taking some sort of management course in school. Sometimes, the complicated works were easy to draft, but near impossible to execute.

“Phoenix, does this list include everyone in the entire camp?” Meng Yang looked at everyone’s specialties on the list and asked.

Phoenix nodded, her expression still calm as she said indifferently, “We only have a few older people who have experience in forging and repairing. For women, most of them can only do simple tasks. Still, according to your requirements, they can be responsible for replacing the magic crystal of the summoning circle as well as handle the reception work of the mission hall and prestige mall. I have allocated ten people to complete the preparations you requested.”

“Alright, alright.” Meng Yang waved his hand. He was getting impatient with the various minor details now. “Then, what about your training grounds? As well as Hera and Gussa’s sites. Are they ready?”

“Gussa’s injuries are almost fully healed now, but he may not be able to teach combat skills for now. Even so, he could perhaps still do a little weapon enchantment and repairs.” Phoenix replied.

“What about Hera?” Meng Yang continued to ask.

“Hera’s in the process of synthesizing the potion. The saw-toothed tiger will be providing more potions than the gnoll leader. This time it should be possible to synthesize more than ten bottles of potions, but we may be lacking some basic materials.”

“Then ask Hera to list the required materials and post the quests through the mission hall. If the outsiders want to obtain a potion, they can obtain it by providing materials,” Meng Yang said as he looked at Phoenix. “Also, Phoenix, you’ll need to train a lot of the outsiders soon so they’re able to awaken the Extraordinary Seed. It’ll probably be impossible for you to keep up with everything, so you can just list the work that needs to be done in the form of tasks and let the outsiders complete them for you. Hmm, as for the compensation, you can perhaps offer them a chance to learn from you or something of the sort.

“Since the Magic Tide is approaching, we must get stronger as soon as possible.”

Meng Yang’s eyes burned with passion. He had no specific plan to deal with the upcoming crisis. What he could do now was accumulate as much strength as possible before the day of the Magic Tide’s eruption. This included the players and the survivors of the Land of the Forgotten. Additionally, there was also the fortification, and the various weapons and tools to consider.

“I’ll do my job well,” Phoenix did not say much afterward, and she quietly exited the mission hall.

After watching Phoenix leave, Meng Yang let out a sigh of relief. Then, he connected with the Summoning Pixie in his mind and continued to work.

After learning from Gussa that the magic crystal could be turned into a panel after finishing its consumption, Meng Yang had not stopped using it in the mission hall.

He could not connect with other people in the Land of the Forgotten, and a lot of the players’ data that he held could not be transmitted at all, so a proper system could not be formed. However, this was all possible with the help of this panel made of magic crystal.

It was an iPad-sized magic crystal panel; as long as there was a small amount of magic crystal providing energy to it, it would be able to display many things.

In Meng Yang’s opinion, the design of the mission hall was already a very advanced model. It had a screen made from re-injecting a small amount of magic crystal energy into a depleted magic crystal slab to form an LED-like screen. However, it was important to note that the display could only show simple words and symbols and could not be used to display complex pictures.

The most significant use of this invention was that the Summoning Pixie in Meng Yang’s mind could link with these magic crystal panels. Everything that went through the Summoning Pixie would leave a trace that could later be displayed on the screen. This would be extremely useful for the purpose of information sharing.

Now, he had arranged for several of these large magic crystal panels to be set up in the mission hall and had also posted the missions on it. When one looked up, it would feel like they were staring at the information screens on a trading floor or at the station.

Meng Yang posted several missions on it, but his missions were mainly general and open missions. For example, players could do the previous exploration missions or the magic crystal collection missions, as well as some hunting missions. For other small tasks, he had assigned work to the older people, women, and children in the camp, and then asked them to issue requests for help.

Although this was initially quite troublesome, it would slowly form a constant cycle.

After finishing all of this, Meng Yang closed his eyes. Now, it was time to start the third closed beta without the deletion of files.