Ember Space Station, Core Control Room.
“This batch of players is no good. Too slow.”
Yao Qian slid his finger across the background economic model, his gaze pausing on the originally planned energy point allocation ratio.
His initial plan was to give thirty percent of the earnings to the players.
Of course, upon distribution, he would rename the energy points to “contribution points” before depositing them into the players’ accounts.
But now?
Yao Qian clicked his tongue and shook his head.
His previous draft was practically charity.
In the capitalist world, he would be hung from a lamppost as a textbook failure.
“System, change it. Just ten percent is enough for them.”
He tapped on the virtual keyboard a few times, completing this shameless harvest without the slightest psychological burden.
Seeing the prompt that the modification had taken effect, Yao Qian leaned back in his chair with a clear conscience.
This wasn’t exploitation; it was macro-control to prevent currency depreciation.
As long as he gave them a steadily increasing number, these guys would grind themselves to the bone for him.
This was the joy of a monopoly—simple, unadorned, and dry.
***
The planet’s surface.
The twin stars had just peeked over the horizon as the first light of dawn broke.
The wind on the Gobi desert was still like a barbed whip, stinging any exposed skin.
Yet, the scene here was buzzing with activity.
Fifty bare-chested men wearing nothing but grass skirts were putting on a performance art piece of “primitive men versus the industrial age.”
*Clang!
Clang!
Clang!*
Steam rose from Construction Site Palu’s bare upper body, sweat sliding down his well-defined lats and into his grass skirt.
Every time his heavy industrial pickaxe struck down, a tingling vibration pulsed through his palms and up his forearms.
This exact physical feedback with every muscle contraction made this civil engineering guy—who had long since gone numb in reality—feel an unprecedented sense of clarity.
There were no fake HP bars, and no non-existent critical hit numbers.
There was only the crisp sound of rock shattering under heavy blows, and the real physical sensation of venting his strength.
“Awesome!” Construction Site Palu wiped the grime off his face, showing off a mouthful of white teeth.
“Is this carrying bricks? This is a massage for the soul! A hundred times more therapeutic than lifting weights at the gym!”
Just then, an exclamation of surprise came from nearby.
“Holy crap! We hit the jackpot! A big one! Rich iron ore again!”
A player named Playing with Mud in the Northeast excitedly picked up a piece of dark red ore the size of a watermelon.
The heavy weight strained his arms, making his veins bulge, but his face was filled with the ecstasy of finding treasure.
“This piece is worth at least… Eh? Where’s my inventory?”
Playing with Mud in the Northeast habitually tried to stuff the ore behind his back while looking around at the empty air, trying to summon the familiar grid inventory interface.
However, besides the cold prompt of [Distance to lander: 350 meters], there was absolutely nothing.
He stood frozen, holding the tens-of-pounds rock like a monkey holding a hot potato.
Reality slapped him hard in the face—there were no pocket dimensions here, and no “one-click pickup.”
“Are you kidding me, officer? I really have to carry it back by hand?”
Refusing to accept this, Playing with Mud in the Northeast looked at the other two nice-looking ores at his feet, trying to stack them.
“This is nothing. Back in the day, when I helped your sister-in-law move…”
Just as he stacked the third rock, his center of gravity shifted.
His foot slipped on the gravel, and he lost his balance completely.
He fell flat on his face, and the heaviest piece of rich iron ore landed squarely on his bare toe.
“Awoooo—!!!”
A wretched shriek, like a cat having its tail stepped on, startled a few scavenging flying insects in the distance.
“This is too hardcore! Is this weight-carrying system based on actual biomechanics?” He rolled on the ground holding his foot, tears streaming down from the pain.
“Does this physics engine discriminate against weaklings? This game is too real—so real I want to call the cops!”
The surrounding players showed no sympathy; instead, they burst into schadenfreude-filled laughter.
Everyone quickly realized a cruel fact: wanting to be a “lone wolf” player in this godforsaken place?
Just carrying ore back to the lander would tire you out like a dead dog.
The efficiency was just too low.
Mounds of ore piled up at the bottom of the pit, while the lander was hundreds of meters away.
At this rate, let alone building a Gundam, they would be lucky to fill a single compartment before dark.
“Everyone stop! Don’t run around blindly!”
A roar drowned out the noise.
Li Lei stood on a towering rock, holding his Defender pistol.
His gaze swept the field like a hawk, exuding a powerful presence.
“Stop running around individually! It’s a waste of stamina! Aside from exhausting yourselves, it does absolutely nothing!”
He pointed toward the lander, then to the bottom of the pit, quickly calculating the optimal solution.
“Everyone, listen to my commands! Stand in a line, five meters apart from each other! Pass them down like a chain!”
The retired scout’s authority, coupled with the lesson of real-world physics just now, made these rebellious players quickly choose to obey.
After all, nobody wanted to run back and forth on the gravel beach carrying tens of pounds of rocks.
Soon, a human conveyor belt consisting of fifty bare-chested men in grass skirts formed on this desolate alien wasteland.
The sight was bizarre, but strangely hot-blooded.
“Go!” Li Lei ordered.
The first rock was chipped off the cliff by Construction Site Palu and tossed to the person behind him.
The person caught it steadily, turned, and tossed it to the next.
Heavy ores were passed along these calloused hands, extending all the way from the bottom of the pit to the recovery port of the lander.
At first, it was a bit clumsy; some couldn’t catch them, and some smashed their feet.
But after just ten minutes, a strange sense of rhythm emerged.
“One, two! Pass!”
“Heave-ho! Pass!”
Someone started a chant, and loud work songs began to echo across the Gobi.
This primitive, rough, yet powerful sense of cooperation allowed these modern people—who were used to flaming each other online and being cold to one another in reality—to feel the weight of the word “collective” for the first time in a long while.
Whenever a rock was delivered into the recovery port, the pleasant chime of contribution points entering their accounts was the most beautiful symphony in the world.
Efficiency multiplied.
Looking at the steadily rising contribution points, everyone’s eyes turned red with excitement.
Fatigue seemed non-existent; all that remained was a mechanical frenzy.
Until three hours later.
The high-intensity labor finally pushed some players’ bodily functions to their limits.
Although these were cloned bodies, the mental fatigue was very real.
Standing in the middle of the line, a player with the ID Wellness Punk had trembling hands.
By now, it was already 3:30 AM in the real world.
“I can’t do it anymore, brothers, I’m at my limit. I have to commute during rush hour tomorrow morning, I gotta log off first.”
He shouted breathlessly in the public chat, then clicked the [Disconnect] button on his system interface. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
Everyone waited for him to turn into white light and disappear, as was customary.
However…
*Thud.*
Like a puppet with its strings cut, Wellness Punk’s body went limp without warning, collapsing straight into the pile of rocks.
The rock he was about to pass rolled aside.
Keyboard Warrior No. 1 behind him jumped back in fright, the rock in his hands almost crushing his own foot.
“Holy crap! He… he’s dead?!”
Wellness Punk lay face down on the ground, motionless, his posture distorted like a broken doll.
A few brave players gathered around.
Keyboard Warrior No. 1 hesitantly reached out his finger to check his breath, then peeled back his eyelid.
“He’s breathing! Still warm! His pupils haven’t dilated!”
He flipped Wellness Punk over and found that the man’s eyes were tightly shut, his chest still rising and falling slightly with his breath.
But no matter how they patted his face, pinched his philtrum, or even tickled him, the body showed no reaction.
“Is this… a vegetative state?”
They looked at each other, a chill rising from the soles of their feet straight to their heads.
In this game, after logging off, the body actually stayed in place!
“What kind of twisted setting is this?” Breaking Bad stared at the “corpse” on the ground, his face pale.
“If we log off in the wild, wouldn’t that be like delivering takeout to wild beasts? An all-you-can-eat buffet!”
“The game developers want us dead.”
“Don’t worry about him, drag him behind that big rock so he’s not in the way.” Li Lei walked over, kicked the body on the ground, and after confirming there was no danger, immediately regained his composure.
“The rest of you, fill the gap and keep working! If you want to survive, save up more points!”
Although he told them to keep going, a seed of worry had been planted in everyone’s hearts: here, logging off did not mean safety.
There was no absolute safe zone.
***
Earth, China Region.
The official forum of the Fourth Cataclysm was in an absolute uproar.
Just now, the newly logged-off Wellness Punk had posted a thread titled: *This game is insane!
I carried bricks in another world for three hours, and it actually cured my insomnia!
High-definition ore textures attached.*
The content of the post was very simple, with only a few screenshots and a short paragraph, dripping with humblebrag.
The first image was a close-up of a hand.
The palm lines were clearly visible, the skin between the thumb and index finger worn raw from swinging the pickaxe for so long, oozing blood mixed with black dirt wedged in the fingernails.
The texture of the skin and the details of the wound were flawless even under a microscope; even the dust in the pores was clearly visible.
The second image was that spectacular “grass-skirt human conveyor belt.”
The background was the desolate alien Gobi desert and the giant twin stars.
Dozens of bare-chested men were lined up in a long queue, each wearing a strained yet fanatical expression, looking almost like a cult ritual.
Wellness Punk wrote in his post:
“Brothers, I can still feel the burning lactic acid buildup in my arms right now. But my mind is incredibly clear. The satisfaction of completing a massive project makes a severe insomniac like me just want to crash and sleep right now. This isn’t playing a game; this is living. Say no more, I’m off to sleep. You guys go ahead and be jealous.”
Within ten minutes of posting, the replies exceeded three thousand.
“This lighting? This material? OP, are you sure you didn’t take these photos working illegal construction in Africa? I want to carry bricks too!”
“What’s up with the grass skirts? Are modern sci-fi games this wild now? This raw, savage aesthetic… absolutely incredible!”
“I want to play! Please! Who has an activation key? I’m willing to sell my soul! Even if it means carrying bricks!”
The spectators who were still on the fence looked at the screen’s epoch-making visual fidelity, feeling their scalps go numb.
A wave of envy began to sweep across the entire internet.