EBE Chapter 19: The Call to Counterattack Sounds
Chapter 19: The Call to Counterattack Sounds
Pearl Harbor, shipwreck area.
As the light gradually faded, a rather robust-looking player slowly appeared in front of Lynn.
As a hardcore survival content creator who frequently ventures into extreme environments, Tieguodun Da Ne thought he was immune to the claim of "100% realistic games."
But I was still deeply moved at the moment of his birth.
The salty, damp sea breeze, mixed with the smell of rust and a faint stench of decay, filled my nostrils; the stinging sensation of the cold acid rain hitting my skin, and the dryness and itching caused by the cold air irritating my trachea, all felt so real it was almost unbearable.
"This...this is code that carbon-based life forms can write at this stage?"
The goose squatted down, grabbed a handful of blackened soil with its right hand, and rubbed it while muttering something under its breath.
After a brief moment of shock, the goose took a deep breath, stood up, and looked around.
As far as the eye could see, there were no floating red warnings, only the purest and most brutal physiological feedback of impending death.
Xiaoyu's lips were chapped and bleeding, the little snail's eyes were sunken and its breathing was heavy, and the snail was running away with a bucket because it was experiencing slight spasms due to extreme dehydration.
The DNA deep within them instantly stirred. "Stop lying there like corpses! Anyone who wants to live, get moving!"
The goose clapped its hands loudly, "This is a typical environment with a mixture of heavy metals and unknown toxins. We don't have any magic; we can only rely on our common sense about Earth's chemical industry to solve it!"
He grabbed Xiaoyu and pulled her up: "Go to the beach, but don't touch the seawater! Crush the discarded conches and dead shells, find an iron pot, and calcine them at high temperature. I need quicklime!"
Then, pointing to the bucket he was carrying, he said, "Go dig a pit and smolder the scrap wood. Make sure there's no open flame. I need crude activated charcoal to absorb impurities!"
Finally, looking at the little snail: "Go and find a metal bucket as tall as a person, and punch a few small holes in the bottom to use as a filter!"
The undeniable professionalism of the giant goose forcefully transformed these near-death players into a team of hardworking, subservient laborers.
Behind the abandoned steel plate a few dozen meters away from the camp, several pairs of terrified eyes were staring intently at the open space.
Those were a few laborers lurking in the shipwreck area, waiting for outsiders to die of thirst before stripping them of their clothes.
"These demons in human skin...are they performing a sacrificial ritual?"
A young laborer trembled and said, "They're playing in the Black Sea..."
The old laborer's cloudy eyes were filled with fear. "That sea is viciously cursed. Without a mage's high-level purification magic, even a single drop will cause your intestines to rot. These lunatics are doomed!"
Two hours later, a simple, multi-layered sand filter tower rose from the ground in the center of the camp.
Inside the iron barrel, there were layers of gravel, coarse sand, fine sand, and crushed charcoal.
Lynn, standing in the shadow of the dilapidated wooden hut, silently watched all of this.
He could certainly spend a lot of energy points to directly exchange for a basic magic water purifier from the system shop and give it to them.
But he didn't do that.
Bolton's blockade was not only a crisis, but also a litmus test he deliberately set up to force these players to completely transplant Earth's industrial resources to this alien world.
"Pour some water." The goose wiped away the black ash.
Xiaoyu's hands trembled as she poured the toxic seawater into the iron bucket.
A few minutes later, the first drop of water penetrated through the layers of filters and dripped into the rusty iron bowl. The seawater was no longer frightening, but rather appeared as a murky, slightly yellowish color.
The goose dipped a little in its own food and put it in its mouth.
"Pooh!"
The next second, he abruptly turned his head and vomited into the mud: "No way. It's extremely acidic, and the taste is like swallowing an expired battery raw. It stings my throat and burns my stomach. The charcoal wasn't cleaned properly and still has a tarry taste."
Hearing this, the little snail collapsed to the ground in despair, its voice hoarse: "It's over. The bastard planner is determined to let us die of thirst here. It's too uncomfortable, I even want to quit."
Behind the steel plates in the distance, the old laborer chuckled dryly: "See? How could mortals' scrap metal possibly purify poisonous water? Without magic, they'd all be dead today."
"Shut up! Chemical operations never succeed on the first try!"
In the camp, the goose let out a loud shout; the failure of his first attempt clearly did not diminish his confidence.
"The formula ratio is wrong! The seawater acidity is too high; physical filtration alone won't cut it!"
The goose roughly dismantled one side of the sand filter tower. "Xiaoyu, get quicklime! Grab a bucket and run! Sweep all the wood ash over here! We need to neutralize the strong alkali!"
The goose quickly mixed quicklime and wood ash, laid a thick new "acid-base neutralization reaction layer", and then compacted the activated carbon again.
"Pour it again!"
Another bucket of toxic seawater was poured in.
Every player held their breath, their chests heaving violently.
This time, when water droplets condensed again from the bottom outlet, everyone's eyes widened in surprise.
Clear. Absolutely clear! Without any turbidity or impurities.
The drop of water, under the gloomy sunlight, refracted a pure, diamond-like luster before falling into the iron bowl with a soft thud.
The goose cautiously took a sip, then let out a long sigh of relief: "Done. It probably doesn't taste great, but it definitely won't kill anyone!"
"Wo~c!" Xiaoyu let out a distorted wolf howl, picked up the iron bowl, and swallowed it in big gulps.
The water flowed down my burning throat, and the heat and thirst quickly subsided.
The shriveled cells frantically absorbed water, and the feeling of weakness, as if the limbs were filled with lead, vanished.
"I'm alive! I'm alive again!" Xiaoyu cried excitedly, hugging the goose's leg, tears streaming down her face. "Brother Goose, I'm your real dad!"
"You fucking..."
A burst of extremely excited cheers erupted in the camp as players scrambled to get water.
After relieving himself of his physical needs, the little snail filled a bowl with water and brought it to Lynn. Lynn took a small sip and then sent the little snail away.
What the players didn't know was that while they were painstakingly filtering the water, Lynn had already secretly exchanged a small bottle of fresh water through the system.
Behind the scrap steel plates in the distance, several laborers stood frozen in place like statues.
Their worldview suffered a devastating blow at that moment.
Without obscure incantations or expensive magic arrays, just a pile of rotten wood and burnt seashells, how did they manage to turn the cursed black seawater into drinkable fresh water?!
"Monsters sent by the gods... They broke the curse!" The laborers scrambled and stumbled, their common sense completely shattered, as they fled into the shadows.
However, the shock brought by the geese went far beyond that.
He walked to another red-hot flat iron plate. Just now, in order to test the quality of the water after secondary filtration, he had poured a ladle of clear, pure water, which had been neutralized by strong alkali and had impurities adsorbed by activated carbon, onto it to boil.
At this moment, the moisture was completely evaporated by the high temperature, and a thick layer of crystals with slightly yellow impurities but crystal clear appearance appeared on the blackened iron plate.
The goose scraped off a bit of the white powder, tasted it, and raised its eyebrows: "The salt content of this seawater is ridiculously high. After these two purification steps, it can be easily boiled into edible coarse salt. As long as there are enough materials, we can boil dozens of kilograms a day."
Upon hearing the word "salt," the little snail and the bucket-carrying runaway, who were celebrating, stood there dumbfounded.
The two men stared intently at the layer of white crystals, and at the same time they recalled the words of the old village chief Lucas: the big shots in Pearl Harbor treat all the laborers at the bottom of society like livestock by strictly controlling clean fresh water and salt.
"Brothers..."
He picked up the bucket and ran off, staring at the white salt, laughing hysterically. "Then why are we going to spend our time and effort fighting monsters in the wild?"
The little snail chuckled, "Exactly! If we turn these dilapidated wooden huts into assembly line workshops, we can mass-produce fresh water and salt..."
"We can completely dismantle the economic system of these monopolistic forces from its very foundation!"
Lynn, standing in the shadows of the cabin, silently watched all of this.
It was the right thing to keep the system out of the way; the current gains are even greater than he had anticipated.
He watched as the energy points in his brain began to rise due to the unlocking of the basic water purification/salt production process, and felt a surge of secret satisfaction.
In this other world filled with swords and magic, the survival barriers that the natives are so proud of are nothing more than an assembly line for endlessly farming gold coins in the eyes of the players.
The call to counterattack has officially sounded at this moment!