“Did you meet the administrator of the New Alliance?”

“I did, but they didn’t seem very enthusiastic toward us.”

The Ideal Grand Hotel.

Inside the guest room where they were staying, Noregg, the Foreign Minister of the Bugra Free State, gave Mayor Odo a detailed report of what he had witnessed at the banquet. To be honest, the New Alliance’s strength had exceeded his expectations.

He had originally thought they were just a settlement cobbled together by a bunch of wastelanders and shit equipment, but to his surprise, they had built a clean and orderly city state atop the ruins at a speed visible to the naked eye.

From nothing to something, that was the most remarkable stage of all.

The Bugra Free State itself had once experienced the journey from having nothing to becoming a land of towering skyscrapers. Noregg knew exactly how difficult that process was.

Therefore, he was not naive enough to measure a settlement’s potential by the number of concrete towers it possessed, nor would he underestimate Dawn City just because it was still developing.

These people had ample technological reserves, the productivity to turn that technology into products, the drive to push society forward, and the cohesion to resolve internal divisions.

While the various social classes of the Bugra Free State were still arguing over whether to side with the Army or the Enterprise, the New Alliance had already committed firmly to its own path.

At the rate they were developing, as long as they continued to grow their population, they could soon rise like an elevator into space and stand shoulder to shoulder with the other great powers.

Especially now that they had mastered the technology to control Mutant Slime Mold!

In fact, the New Alliance’s population growth had already reached an astonishing level. More and more wastelanders, tired of chaos and yearning for order, were joining the New Alliance, assimilated by the social ideals it preached. The scene was eerily familiar.

Something very similar had happened in the early years after the dissolution of the Post-War Reconstruction Committee.

It was precisely because so many wastelanders who had suffered enough under the committee had chosen the Bugra Free State with unwavering faith that the unbelievable miracle in the northern River Valley Province had been born.

Of course, what worried Noregg even more was another matter. Unlike the isolationist Bugra Free State of those days, the New Alliance had taken an active interventionist stance in regional affairs. Through victory after victory, they had not only won the favor of the ancient survivor factions but also accumulated tremendous prestige for themselves.

The events in the Brocade River Province were a clear sign of that.

Even though the farm owners there detested the New Alliance, when forced to choose between the Torch Church and the New Alliance, those cunning men still chose to side with the New Alliance, even when, just moments before, they had been exchanging flirtatious glances with the apostles of the Torch Church.

“Compared to the New Alliance’s displays of power in economics, military strength, and culture, what truly worries me is their rapidly growing prestige.” Noregg spoke in a grave tone. “The banquet was like a gathering of nations. Even survivor settlements as far away as the Among Cloud Province sent emissaries on flights from the Enterprise. Some of the more radical enclaves even volunteered to join the New Alliance outright.”

“If they continue to develop like this, they’ll soon become our greatest competitor, perhaps even the ‘Sixth Power’ after us!”

That was the Bugra Free State’s own customary ranking.

According to the widely accepted consensus among survivors, the Great Rift Valley, heir to the Post-War Reconstruction Committee, was the foremost power on the Central Continent. The Army and the Enterprise ranked second and third, the neutral Academy was fourth, and the Bugra Free State stood in fifth place.

In Noregg’s eyes, the New Alliance already possessed the potential to become the Sixth Power. They had become a force that could no longer be ignored.

While Mayor Odo was troubled about how to conduct diplomacy with the New Alliance, Chu Guang, the New Alliance’s administrator, was facing a headache of his own. To his surprise, he had received an extraordinary gift at the banquet, a free shelter.

And not just any shelter, but a two-digit shelter!

However, what troubled him was that this shelter lay more than 2,000 kilometers away from the New Alliance, behind enemy lines, deep within the territory of their longtime rival.

After meeting with Sun Yuechi, Chu Guang had returned to the level B4 of Shelter 404 and studied the map repeatedly. The shortest route to Shelter 70 would require crossing the Brocade River Province and the Ocean Edge Province before finally reaching the southern seas.

If one compared the Central Continent to Eurasia, the Wandering Swamp to Siberia, and Heavenly Water Tributary to the Yangtze River, then the River Valley Province would roughly correspond to the region between Shanxi, Henan, and northern Hubei.

Shelter 70 and its artificial island, on the other hand, were located near the Philippine Islands. The distance was unimaginably vast.

To avoid areas controlled by the Torch Church, Sun Yuechi had chosen to land on the eastern provinces, traveling through Spur Province, entering from the southeastern corner of the River Valley Province, and proceeding along the southern corridor toward Clearspring City.

The total route exceeded five thousand kilometers, farther even than the distance between the New Alliance and the Enterprise!

Staring at the map for a long time, Chu Guang couldn’t help but frown. “It seems reclaiming Shelter 70 will have to wait until we retake the Ocean Edge Province.”

Just then, Little Seven called softly. “Master.”

Lifting his gaze from the map, Chu Guang instinctively turned toward the tiny creature sitting beside his pen holder. “What is it?”

Resting its chin in her hands, Little Seven swung its legs playfully and asked curiously, “Why not do what you always do, ask your players for help?”

Its suggestion made Chu Guang blink in surprise.

That place was at least 1,000 kilometers away from the nearest save point. Were there even players active in that region?

The moment the thought crossed his mind, an ID immediately popped into his head.

Wait, it might sound unreliable... but there really were people headed down south. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Chu Guang’s eyes lit up instantly. He turned to Little Seven and asked, “Is there a way to authorize the shelter remotely?”

Little Seven thought for a moment, then answered seriously, “Hmm... the administrator’s authentication password and biometric data shouldn’t be transmitted remotely, if it were intercepted, that would be a big problem. But! A short-term dynamic password for temporary authorization is just a string of characters. Little Seven thinks it could work if we send it to the player via an official email. They just have to input it once at a terminal, and it’ll work!”

This kind of offline dynamic password authorization functioned exactly like what it sounded like. Its generation was similar to the “tokens” used in early online games, automatically updating based on special algorithms, dates, and other non-fixed parameters. The authorization period generally lasted between seven and fourteen days, after which it could be renewed by re-entering the updated code.

Hearing that, Chu Guang was overjoyed.

Good heavens.

This kind of morphogenetic field technology was even more advanced than quantum communication! The security of such remote authorization was practically unbreakable, unless someone could intercept electromagnetic signals from another world.

With a plan forming in his mind, Chu Guang immediately gave the order. “Little Seven, help me draft an offline mission. In the email, just mention it’s a new map test.”

Since he wasn’t sure what rewards the mission might yield, or even what valuables he would inherited, it was better to treat it as a test and decide later.

After all, it was a beta test, the point was participation!

Rewards weren’t the most important thing. The experience was what mattered.

Understanding his intentions at once, Little Seven giggled. “Got it!”

“You really do get me,” Chu Guang said with a satisfied nod.

He then set the matter aside and turned his attention to the details of the new cross-regional cooperation organization. The participation of the Academy and the Enterprise was practically certain, and in addition, more than 20 survivor settlements had expressed their willingness to cooperate.

The first batch of regions included in the harmless-processing plan for Mutant Slime Mold comprised Ice Sea City in the far north and Below Cloud City in the far east.

Once Little Feather went there to establish branch bases, the New Alliance’s territory would expand greatly.

Developing these two new maps well would directly affect the gameplay experience of the vast majority of players, and that, at this moment, was Chu Guang’s top priority as the New Alliance’s administrator.

...