Matrix Survival: One random treasure chest per day

Chapter 580 Li Zheng's Evaluation of the Main Body
"Screw you!"

Zhan Zhouzhou rolled her eyes at him, put down her bowl, and said, "Open the door for me, I'm going out to do a mission."

"Do a mission?" Li Zheng paused. "Go to the wilderness?"

"Yes, the rewards for missions in the wilderness are usually quite generous." Before coming here, Zhan Zhouzhou went to the mission hall and found that there were several collection missions that were very similar to the 'Pureblood Red-skinned Boar Tusk' mission from yesterday.

Today she was mentally prepared. At worst, she would wipe out the entire area as soon as she arrived, collecting all the bloodlines, regardless of their purity, and bring them back to complete the mission as quickly as possible.

This time, Zhan Zhouzhou accepted five similar tasks in total, and planned to finish them all in one day. Once they were all completed, he would receive a reward of 500,000 white crystal coins.

"Have you forgotten what happened yesterday? Why are you still running into the wilderness?" Li Zheng advised, "Can't you just take on some errand jobs that can be done in the outer city?"

"Errand quests?" Zhan Zhouzhou said, "An errand quest only gives you three or four hundred white crystal coins at most, and you don't know how much time it will take. It's nothing compared to those quests you do in the outer city."

The rewards for tasks that can only be done in the outer city, whether they are collection tasks or not, are quite good, as long as they are not the few tasks issued by the terminal.

The lowest possible value is a four-digit number starting with five.

“It’s a bit less, but those missions are more stable… Oh, I forgot, with your personality, if you were looking for comfort and stability, you wouldn’t be Zhan Zhouzhou.” Li Zheng realized his mistake halfway through his sentence, stopped trying to persuade him, got up and went to the portal to ask, “Number?”

Zhan Zhouzhou followed behind, announcing all the area numbers she needed to go to. This way, once she completed the task in a certain area, she could directly use the ring to go to the next place without having to return to the outer city to transfer.

"So long... How many missions have you taken on?" Li Zheng complained as he entered the numbers. After all the numbers were entered and the portal gave a stable response, he instructed, "Be careful in the wilderness. If you encounter any danger, be sure to find a safe place to return to the outer city!"

Not only does the loop require a ten-second buffer when returning, but the same applies to transitions between the pre-defined areas. This is why most people in the outer city are unwilling to go to the wilderness; there are simply no loopholes to be found, and their personal safety is not guaranteed.

Fear of death is a common trait among all the survivors of the outer city. Those who were not afraid of death would have perished on the battlefield against the mental storm long ago, and would not have been reduced to hiding in the outer city to eke out a living.

Therefore, it was reasonable for Li Zheng to think that the portal receptionist, which should have been the busiest job in the outer city, had become a cushy job.

"Don't worry, I'm not stupid. I'll act within my capabilities." Zhan Zhouzhou saw the portal light up. She didn't have any physical weapons stored in the equipment storage area, so she could just go in.

Li Zheng sighed as he watched Zhan Zhouzhou's figure disappear into the depths of the teleportation portal.

Now he's the only new player left in the entire outer city...

If there is a book, it will be long; if there is no book, it will be short.

In the Matrix, Li Zheng had endless things to do every day, and his days were quite fulfilling.

After becoming a temporary receptionist, I was incredibly bored, and the whole day slowly passed by in a state of utter boredom.

During this time, Li Zheng was really bored, so he would try to make some things that might come in handy.

For example: culture medium.

He had run out of white crystal coins, so he made some culture medium so that he could immediately go to a botanical garden to trade with after his temporary receptionist job ended.

Fortunately, the medicine-making table, like a stove, can be placed inside a capsule and still function, which saves Li Zheng some trouble.

"Hmm... I remember I had a USB drive with 'The Furnace' on it before?" Li Zheng rummaged through the capsule and found a USB drive.

Holding it in his hand, he stared blankly: "This thing... could it be the equipment used to make weapons in the outer city? Like the stove, medicine table, and mechanical mantis production line?"

Previously, because weapons could be crafted by hand, Li Zheng hadn't rushed to create a furnace. Now, remembering he possessed such a blueprint, he suddenly regretted it...

We didn't build the furnace back then to save time and materials, but who would have thought it would be useful now?
When he finally needed it, it was too late. The blueprint would remain just a blueprint unless he could find another way to get the furnace from the blueprint in the outer city.

"I'll take another look when I get back to the Matrix." Li Zheng put away the USB drive. He felt that one furnace wasn't enough, and planned to look for the corresponding equipment blueprints when he returned to the Matrix. For the rest of the time, until dinner time, Li Zheng remained glued to the table, staring at the portal.

In the afternoon, a few out-of-town residents did use the portal, but they all used it to teleport to the city blocks; none of them went to places like the wilderness.

After seeing them off one by one, Li Zheng returned to the table and sat down, shaking his head speechlessly: "What's the point of keeping these cowards around? It's a waste of resources..."

Halfway through his muttering, Li Zheng realized that he had also been thinking of playing it safe when he sent Zhan Zhouzhou to the wilderness, and chuckled self-deprecatingly.

In the evening, Miriel returned from shopping.

Although they were penniless, that didn't stop Miriel from going out to look around without buying anything.

In her words, even if I don't buy anything, I'd be happy just to try things out in those stores...

Li Zheng thought it made a lot of sense. This logic seemed to be what most women thought, something he, as a straight man, would never think that way.

Miriel asked Li Zheng for some ingredients and went to the stove to prepare dinner, while Li Zheng continued to stare at the portal and complained about how boring it was.

Since joining the Matrix, these past two days have been the time when Li Zheng misses the internet, mobile phones, computers, and other electronic entertainment devices the most...

If he had a phone to play some games, he wouldn't be complaining about being bored.

"Speaking of which, among all the generations of players in the outer city, has no one managed to create a network?" Li Zheng squinted and complained. Blacksmiths can make communication devices like PHS phones, so creating something like a network shouldn't be difficult, right?

unless……

Li Zheng looked up at the sky.

Unless someone doesn't want the 'network' to appear in the outer city.

[Friendly reminder: There is network access outside the city, but it is generally unavailable to the general public without authorization.]

Old Pu gave a hint, and Li Zheng remained unmoved after reading it: "I already guessed it."

The entity that controls the outer city network undoubtedly resides within the terminal.

Don't forget, Li Zheng's main body is currently living in a device similar to a supercomputer. If a network appears in the outer city, the terminal will definitely be unable to resist connecting to it.

He'll be overwhelmed dealing with hackers who try to infiltrate his terminals every day.

So it's not that there's no internet in the outer city, but rather that not everyone has access to the internet.

In the outer city, the terminal holds absolute authority. Once anyone can access the network, its authoritative position will inevitably be constantly challenged and shaken.

In this way, his status as the absolute controller in the eyes of the outer city residents lost its deterrent effect.

Only by stopping all of this at its source and preventing others from having the opportunity to offend him can his position be secure.

"The reason why those emperors in ancient times were overthrown was because as long as they broke through the imperial guards' defenses, the rebels could put their swords to the emperor's neck, right?" Li Zheng concluded in his terminal's mind: "So my main body's approach is to eliminate all possibilities of putting a sword to his neck... no, it should be to eliminate all beings who want to put a sword to his neck!"

Li Zheng sighed inwardly at the way the entity had done this:

Seriously, as steady as an old dog...

At that moment, the portal flashed with light, and someone arrived.

(End of this chapter)