What did it feel like to be stared at by over a hundred pairs of glowing green, ravenous wolf eyes?
Yao Qian felt like a dog owner who had accidentally wandered into a house being demolished by Huskies—while holding a piping-hot bowl of braised pork belly.
Even through the thick visor of his power armor, he could feel the scorching gazes threatening to skin him alive, dismantle him bone by bone, and lick every last screw clean.
These damn people were bandits staring at a walking, talking loot box!
“Ahem.”
The dry cough echoed through the armor’s loudspeaker.
Yao Qian wisely abandoned the cool pose of pointing a scepter to command the land, swallowing the three-thousand-word impassioned speech he had prepared.
Not daring to turn his back on this gang of lawless thugs, he backed up step by step toward the control console of the workshop module.
A second before stepping inside the airtight door, his fingers tapped rapidly across the control panel—activating high-voltage electric shock self-defense mode at maximum power.
*Sizz…*
As the heavy airtight door sealed shut, the prickling sensation of danger on his back finally faded.
“Those bastards… that look in their eyes just now, they definitely wanted to beat the loot out of me, didn’t they?” Yao Qian flopped into his leather command chair and wiped away non-existent cold sweat from his forehead.
“System, get to work! Bring up the Modular Vehicle Assembly System! Let them vent their excess hormones on vehicle building so they stop drooling over my power armor!”
[Command confirmed. Vehicle Factory backend activated.]
[Insufficient raw materials detected. Recommended mode: Full Payment + OEM Manufacturing.]
Yao Qian glanced at the pricing for complete vehicles provided by the system, and the corners of his mouth twitched.
If he sold vehicles at these prices, these dirt-poor players would tear down the base and sell it for scrap metal.
After some thought, Yao Qian decided to pay out of his own pocket to unlock the [Basic Refinery].
Otherwise, those players outside wouldn’t have raw materials even ten years from now.
Pain!
Pure agony!
Every single coin they were spending came out of his own pocket!
…
Outside the workshop, players were still circling the industrial fortress, a spectacle of brutalist aesthetics.
Giant cooling fans whirred, and the rhythmic pumping of hydraulic pistons sounded like the most hardcore industrial metal music.
To these players who had been living like cavemen on the Gobi Desert for two days, this thing represented civilization, prestige, and above all, the hope of finally saying goodbye to walking on foot.
“Lao Wang, look at this craft, these rivets! Absolute perfection!” Construction Site Palu stroked the outer wall’s armor plating, his affectionate expression gentler than if he were holding his own wife’s hand.
“Now *this* is a man’s romance!”
“Stop stroking it and look! The main screen lit up!”
The holographic projection screen on the side of the workshop, as massive as a movie theater screen, lit up instantly.
A line of bold text blinded everyone’s eyes—
[Buzhou Outpost · Vehicle Supply Center (V1.0 Trial Run)]
“It’s open! Charge, brothers!”
The catalog expanded, and the entire crowd fell dead silent.
First row: [G-1 “Bison” All-Terrain Assault Vehicle]
Price: 5,800 Contribution Points (If sufficient metal materials are provided, price is 800).
Second row: [M-200 “Mountain Mover” Heavy Troop Carrier Truck]
Price: 8,500 Contribution Points (If raw materials are sufficient, price is 2,000).
Li Lei froze in front of the screen, his finger hovering over the “Buy” button, trembling like he had Parkinson’s.
He looked down at the line of numbers on his wrist terminal—[Balance: 214 Points].
This was his entire net worth after two days of non-stop monster hunting, hauling bricks, and managing team dividends.
At this stage of the game, he was easily a top-ten mogul on the player Forbes list.
Yet standing in front of this price list, he felt like a beggar.
“Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands…” Li Lei counted the zeros twice, his face shifting from flushed red to liver-purple, before finally turning as black as the bottom of a wok.
“This is what you call player perks?!”
“5,800? And we have to supply our own steel?! Even robbers aren’t this shameless! How many contribution points do I get for killing a damn Zergling? Does this dog dev have no heart?!”
“Refund! Fraud!”
“Come out and take your beatings, dev! Let’s see if the gun in my hand agrees with you!”
Tempers flared, and the scene nearly devolved into chaos.
It was like saving up diligently for a down payment, only for the developer to tell you that was just the viewing fee, and you still needed to shell out several million more for the actual house.
Who could stomach that?
In the control room, Yao Qian listened to the tsunami of curses outside, rubbing his temples in frustration.
“I want to sell cheap too, but even the landlord doesn’t have surplus grain.”
Every complete vehicle generated by the system required massive amounts of energy points for molecular-level reorganization.
Of the 5,800-point price, 5,000 went straight to energy conversion fees; Yao Qian was barely making a modest profit.
If he didn’t charge this much, he’d have to subsidize it out of his own pocket.
Subsidize out of pocket?
Never in this lifetime.
“Time to show them real skill.” Yao Qian snapped his fingers.
“System, launch the [DIY Assembly Module]. Tell them we are ushering in the era of ‘Industrial Democracy.'”
…
Outside the workshop, Li Lei was rallying people to find a big rock to smash the useless screen just to make some noise, when the display suddenly flickered.
[Universal V6 Multi-Fuel Internal Combustion Engine (Refurbished)] — Price: 100 Contribution Points.
[Heavy Duty Off-Road Explosion-Proof Tire (Single)] — Price: 10 Contribution Points.
[Mechanical Transmission Bearing Set] — Price: 45 Contribution Points.
[High-Strength Vehicle Chassis Beam (Steel Self-Provided)] — Processing Fee: 5 Contribution Points.
…
At the very bottom was an eye-catching notice:
[System Notification: DIY Design Module unlocked. Players can freely assemble part blueprints via the holographic control console. Once confirmed, the industrial master machine will perform automated assembly. Pay only a small processing fee to bring your dream vehicle to life!]
“Holy crap!”
Hardcore Lao Wang pressed his whole body against the screen, practically drooling.
“An engine is only 100 points? How the hell is that different from giving it away for free?!”
“But these are just parts. We don’t know how to build a car,” a newbie nearby asked, still bewildered.
“Are you stupid?!” Hardcore Lao Wang slapped the back of the newbie’s head.
“Didn’t you read the description? Holographic blueprint assembly! You don’t need to know how to weld or turn a screw! Just like playing *Crossout* or *Besiege*, all you have to do is snap the model together, and the machine builds it for you!”
“As long as you have a power core, even if you strap it to a toilet, the system will weld it on for you!”
“Chassis? We have rebar! Armor? What about the mountains of bug shells piled outside?!”
In that instant, the look in the players’ eyes changed.
Their eyes shifted from those of “furious consumers” to “maniacal Lego players.” To them, if given a premade vehicle, they might complain the paint job wasn’t cool enough; but if allowed to build their own rides, this game just became insanely fun!
“I’m building a Wuling Hongguang! Don’t nobody stop me!”
“Wuling my ass! I’m making the Batmobile!”
“Palu! Palu, where the hell are you?! Bring that industrial pickaxe of yours! Let me team up with you—I’m gonna strip the legs off those two Zerglings and make an independent suspension!”
The thugs who had been ready to riot and smash the screen a second ago instantly morphed into shopaholics, jostling and shoving before the holographic consoles to place their orders.
[Beep! V6 Engine x1, payment deducted!]
[Beep! Off-Road Tires x4, payment deducted!]
In under ten minutes, the dozens of robotic arms on the industrial master machine began dancing wildly.
*Zzzzt—!*
Deep blue laser welding torches intertwined in the air, sending sparks blooming like festival fireworks.
Piles of scrap material, ore, and alien body parts were grabbed with pinpoint precision by robotic arms, fed into processing bays, and reshaped into all manner of bizarre components.
“Gimme two engines… I’m going twin-engine drive!”
…
Time passed, and the afterglow of the twin suns gradually blanketed the Gobi Desert.
Over these few hours, the outpost turned into a chaotic circus of horrors.
With no safety regulations and relying purely on player imagination, the creations these guys conjured up shattered the bottom limits of human aesthetics.
Breaking Bad dragged models across his console screen, forcing a pile of chemical piping into the vehicle body in an attempt to create a “poison gas spray system.” Even though the system displayed a warning reading [Structure Extremely Unstable], he blissfully hit confirm anyway.
Meanwhile, Hardcore Lao Wang led a few engineering top students, repeatedly adjusting stress-bearing structures in holographic projections to build the sturdiest roll cage with the least amount of steel, spouting high-brow jargon like “force transmission” and “rigid support.”
The one who stole the show, however, was Construction Site Palu.
This guy had abandoned all moral restraint.
In the design interface, he crossed two thick I-beams to serve as a chassis and mounted a huge pair of Zergling scythe forelimbs right on the front, making it look like a giant steel crab.
To save money, he didn’t even buy a seat component, dragging a flat piece of bug shell directly into the driver’s spot.
“Isn’t that way too crude? Can that even pass system validation?” someone questioned.
Construction Site Palu smirked and clicked [Submit for Manufacturing].
The robotic arms of the industrial master machine visibly paused, as if the AI itself was bewildered by the design.
A few seconds later, however, the arms faithfully executed the command, and amid a shower of sparks, a monster was born.
It had only three wheels, its chassis a frankenstein patch of discarded drop-pod sheet metal and alien bones.
The V6 engine sat completely exposed at the rear, exhaust pipes pointing straight at the sky.
“You call that a car?!”
Construction Site Palu could not wait.
He leapt aboard and slammed the accelerator all the way to the floor.
*ROAR—!!!*
Using a V6 engine meant for heavy trucks to power an iron frame weighing under half a ton was like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Under everyone’s watchful eyes, this piece of industrial garbage named “Palu No. 1” yanked its front wheel into the air and tore off like a rabid wild boar, trailing a streak of black smoke and sparks behind it.
“Holy crap! Feel that acceleration! AWESOME—!”
Palu’s ecstatic screeches were torn to shreds by the wind.
“It actually runs?!”
This sight utterly electrified every player still waiting on the sidelines.
Given enough horsepower, even a brick could fly!
“Wake up! Get hype! Drag that steel plate into the scanning zone for me!”
“Where’s my wheel? Who stole my wheel?!”
“Quick, quick, quick! Mount that Zergling head on the roof, I’m making an intimidation livery!”
…
As dawn broke in the sky, Yao Qian walked out of the base once again.
He stood on the high platform, looking down at the plaza below.
Even though he had prepared himself mentally, the sight before him still sent a twitch through the corner of his eye.
Parked across the plaza were dozens of objects that could hardly be called “vehicles.”
There was an elongated troop carrier with two motorcycle engines wired in parallel, rolling on six wheels like a centipede; a heavy pickup truck with an entire hard Zergling carapace strapped over the top, making it look like a mobile tombstone; and even one weirdo who designed a hamster-wheel car, rolling around inside the giant wheel itself.
This was, without a shadow of a doubt, a wasteland scavenger fleet.
With its rough welds, exposed hoses, and decorations draped in alien limbs, even Mad Max himself would bow down in respect.
The kicker was that all of this had been assembled automatically!
“Woohoo—! Lift off!”
Amid a chorus of wild howls and screeches, they thundered across the desert in clouds of dust, charging toward the unknown horizon.
Leaving behind only a few penniless unfortunates choking on exhaust fumes, uttering desolate wails.
“Wait for me! Can I at least hang onto the bumper?!”