Chapter 78: Mutual Harm, Survival of the Fittest

Everything proceeded smoothly after that, as smoothly as the grand promises made by bosses in the workplace. Though time was limited, Ye Chao managed to download part of the data on refrigerators, air conditioners, and washing machines. Then, relying on the information provided by Hai Lili, he also downloaded some materials related to exoskeleton armor.

Meanwhile, Guan Junyuan and his group had just finished sorting out their mundane affairs, caught up on a bit of sleep, donned their helmets and attached electrodes, and requested to switch to combat mode, initiating the second round of trading.

It wasn’t long before they began calling frantically, demanding to play the Endless Tower Defense mode as well.

So, let them play!

Just at that moment, Alpha Ji had nearly completed calibrating the Endless Tower Defense mode. Compared to Ye Chao, her grasp of the myriad monster attributes, their skill usages, and the clever combinations that could drive defenders to despair was far deeper.

After a round of adjustments, the monsters still maintained balanced overall strength, but now, with an artificial intelligence bordering on genius, they could pull off unexpected and ingenious combinations that defenders would never anticipate—far outstripping their previous capabilities.

At the same time, Alpha Ji established a leveling system and an equipment exchange system. Gone were the crude, illogical levels of pre-cataclysm days; only attributes remained.

Defeating monsters would randomly drop tomes of strength, agility, endurance, and spirit. Consuming these would gradually enhance the corresponding attributes.

The effects of strength, agility, and endurance were self-evident. If one had the patience, it was even possible to craft a character whose attributes matched their own. However, since each game required rebuilding from scratch—like changing the water and boiling it anew for every round of hot pot, or grilling a new skewer only after the last one is eaten—most people would lack the patience for such meticulous effort.

The effects of spirit, however, needed to be paired with weapons and equipment from the system shop: sun lamps, hair dryers, stun batons, air compressors, chainsaws, drills, and so forth.

Yes, Alpha Ji had added some Fireseed weapons to the system shop.

Compared to the previous monotony of slashing, or tactical maneuvers that barely surpassed the limits of ordinary players in battle royale games, the addition of Fireseed weapons instantly enriched the combat techniques available!

For Fireseed weapons were bound to abilities.

Pick up a sun lamp, and you could play as Guan Junyuan; grab a gas-powered hammer, and try playing as Xu Tiange.

It could even be said that, in this game, the true heroes were not the players, but the weapons themselves.

The power of each weapon was directly tied to one's spirit attribute.

With one star of spirit, only passive skills were available; two stars allowed the development of a first attack skill; three stars unlocked two skills, four stars three skills, and so forth.

Additionally, features like two-star rapid repair, three-star remote control and illusion modification, four-star scaling and duplication, five-star indestructibility, and others were all integrated.

One could not only customize a character to match themselves but could tailor others’ characters as well—know yourself and your enemy, and you will never lose a hundred battles!

Of course, as before, this setup required rebuilding each game from scratch, like watching a show online for free but sitting through an hour of ads before each episode—tempted by the content, irritated by the commercials, both working together to make you pay.

This configuration was not inspired by Ye Chao, but was part of Alpha Ji’s long-standing plan.

Adapt to the mountain, sing its song; adapt to the restroom, find your stall. In the post-cataclysm world, games could no longer blindly follow old conventions.

Now, leveling had motivation, combat had structure, tactical combinations were vastly enriched, and gameplay was far more engaging, leading to significant improvements for players.

Alpha Ji estimated that Endless Tower Defense 3.0 would be popular in the Imaginary Space for at least a year or two—perhaps much longer.

For as players improved, their behavioral patterns and gradually honed combat skills would be learned by Alpha Ji, making monsters ever more intelligent, inventive, and challenging.

Everyone would promote and learn from each other, like wolves and sheep, bears and bald men, white blood cells and bacteria—mutual harm, survival of the fittest, all perfectly natural.

While the game was comprehensively upgraded, the second round of trading went smoothly as well.

Eight authenticated accounts were successfully sold, yielding a stable 210 points worth of goods.

The second batch of thirty-two helmets was delivered without issue, and the total value of goods, converted to pre-cataclysm standards, was about three hundred thousand yuan.

In fact, Guan Junyuan’s original stock of goods might not have sufficed, given the time constraints.

But Ye Chao’s data haul from the server room greatly expanded Alpha Ji’s range of accepted items. In addition to the traditional phones, tablets, laptops, helmets, and glasses, she now accepted—

Air conditioner and refrigerator compressors and cooling systems, lithium and bike batteries and wheel hub motors, washing machine impeller motors, electric fans…

Don’t be surprised that she only takes certain components rather than whole appliances; while this might have seemed odd before the cataclysm, it’s perfectly normal now.

After all, those who wielded refrigerators, air conditioners, washing machines, or fans as Fireseed weapons wouldn’t suddenly pull out a hundred-kilogram box to smash someone; it was always the key components that mattered.

Beyond these, delivery drones, sorting robots, floor-cleaning robots, electric drills, saws, wrenches, screwdrivers, shavers, and other small gadgets powered by motors were now included in the catalog thanks to her research.

Motors could be studied and assembled, batteries could enhance the output power in Imaginary Space.

Unexpected acquisitions included things like lead-acid batteries from cars and certain electric vehicles. Alpha Ji understood lithium batteries, but lead-acid was a mystery to her.

However, it prompted Ye Chao to consider downloading more blueprints next time he visited the server room.

Lead-acid batteries?

No, no—it should be generators!

Thinking it over, he realized he’d been foolish. In Imaginary Space, where nearly anything was possible, one could easily reverse a lithium battery’s state to recharge it, or manipulate a generator’s turbine to produce endless power. Why bother with batteries?

There was also a wristwatch reportedly worth tens of thousands before the cataclysm…

Tens of thousands? That hardly qualifies as a luxury watch! Surely it should start at a few million. The place I live is worth billions—richer than any mansion—have I ever boasted?

Also included were electronic water pumps, ion dishwashers, ion water purifiers, microwaves, electronic keyboards…

I’ve got Atomic Hero, Molecular Cuisine, Quantum Fund, too!

Having a smart prefix doesn’t necessarily mean it’s digital; likewise, electronic, ion, microwave, atomic, molecular, quantum prefixes aren’t necessarily so.

At this point, Alpha Ji was almost at a loss for words, until she saw other items—CRT televisions, brick phones, pagers, analog signal telephones, tape recorders…

To be fair, these are indeed related to later smart products, but…

Tabby, orange, and leopard cats are all cats, but a cat that can surf the internet—is it still a cat?

Parrots, poodles, and huskies are all dogs, but is a puppy really a dog?

Clearly, humanity’s quest to recover civilization and restore past glory is a long road ahead.

In the end, this round of trade exchanged—