Chapter 620: If It's You, You'll Surely Use This Legacy Well

Chapter 620: If It Were You, You Would Surely Put This Legacy to Good Use

The audience of the "PVP Arena" did not consist only of Chu Guang, Xia Yan, and the experts from Boulder Military Industries; there were also many "unrelated persons."

In addition to the observation area, which was filled with various professional testing equipment, an "audience seating" area open to the public was set up outside the military exclusion zone for other players and technicians studying here to visit and draw new design inspiration.

The footage carried a half-minute delay, and the broadcast would be cut off under rare circumstances, but in most cases, it could be watched at will.

In any case, these armors would eventually be sold to the players anyway, so whether secrets were kept made little difference. It was better to display them openly for these experts to observe.

If anyone had a good idea, there was no need to hold it back; anything could be discussed.

Players and cloud players did exactly this on the forums every day, ranging from exchanging baiting and casting techniques to discussing legion combat tactics, covering almost every aspect of the Alliance's daily routine.

Camp 101 was currently the largest institution of higher learning in the Alliance, where the experts possessed technology far beyond the reach of the players on Earth.

Naturally, they should discuss and exchange ideas even more, researching how to improve the Alliance's productivity and production methods, and exploring how to make the Alliance stronger.

Of course—

Aside from proper technical discussions, a few less-than-proper ones were inevitable.

"Damn it! I was responsible for dying first, and I really freaking died first!"

"That deadweight Outlaw actually won!"

"Even a Dove-style missile popped out, this is just too absurd!"

"Plus one, this balance is unreasonable. It would be much more reasonable if it were replaced with an RPG or a Panzerfaust."

"Haha! What do you know! Is there any such thing as balance on a real battlefield? A bet is a bet, pay up quickly!"

"Son of a bitch! Give me a refund!"

A crowd of newbies who had bet on the wrong side cursed under their breaths, while a few lucky ones holding a stack of silver coins and popcorn beamed with joy.

At this moment, neither Outlaw nor Responsible For Dying First knew that they were being used for betting by a bunch of guys who had nothing better to do.

It was a good thing the amounts involved were small.

Otherwise, they would have definitely received a yellow card from that dog of a designer.

In a corner of the viewing area.

Looking at the image on the screen, Alisa, whose heart was pounding, finally breathed a sigh of relief and looked worriedly at Xiao Yu, who was sitting beside her.

"Are they... using real stuff?"

Ever myself since the Boulder City Crisis Office completed its transition to the new authority, she had resigned from all her positions, including head of asset liquidation, and followed Xiao Yu and Pai to Camp 101 for advanced studies, learning economics and management, which interested her.

Out of gratitude for her work during the recent period, the new authority of Boulder City covered her tuition and living expenses.

In fact, she was not the only beneficiary of this policy, and she herself did not wish to be treated exceptionally.

Later, under Pai's persistent persuasion, Mayor Lovitt, representing the Workers' Union, consulted Chu Guang's opinion. With the support of the Alliance, twenty million silver coins were allocated from the municipal government's local fiscal budget to establish an education fund, helping young people in the settlement who had reached the age for higher education and had received basic education to travel to Camp 101 to learn more advanced knowledge.

Currently, nearly 300 young people from Boulder City were studying at Camp 101. Among them were apprentices who used to be engineers at Boulder Military Industries, assistants who worked as cybernetic doctors in black clinics, child laborers from canneries or textile factories, and even children of inner city residents.

The Workers' Union fulfilled its original promise, achieving equal treatment at least in education, rather than replacing the old aristocrats to become new aristocrats.

Today just happened to coincide with the field test of the "DLZJ-1." The viewing area of the Weapon Testing Center offered unlimited free coffee and tea, with charges only applying to melon seeds, biscuits, and desserts.

Many engineers and researchers at Camp 101 were full of interest in this new equipment, and since it was Sister Xia's masterpiece, Xiao Yu and Pai dragged Alisa, who had only recently arrived here to study, to join the excitement.

However, perhaps because she had lived in a greenhouse carefully constructed by her father since childhood, Alisa was not nearly as calm as Xiao Yu, who grew up on the wasteland, when seeing the crossfire of bullets. Her two small fists remained tightly clenched the entire time.

"Yeah!"

Xiao Yu nodded vigorously, looking strangely at Alisa, whose face was full of worry.

"Wouldn't testing with fakes make it meaningless?"

There was indeed nothing wrong with that statement.

Yet Alisa still felt that something was not quite right, and she said softly in concern.

"But... what if someone gets hurt?"

Xiao Yu tilted her head.

"The residents of Vault 404 don't get hurt."

"Don't get hurt..." Alisa stared at her blankly, speaking in total incomprehension, "How is that possible?"

Xiao Yu wrinkled her nose.

"It's true, Xiao Yu never lies."

As for why they wouldn't get hurt, she didn't know either, but she had seen with her own eyes people who had already been laid in coffins standing before her again a few days later, alive and kicking.

By the way, it wasn't just ordinary residents; lizards, bears, cats, and pigmen were the same.

The residents of Vault 404 were immortal. Though this was an urban legend in the Alliance, she knew very well that it was true.

Standing next to Xiao Yu, Pai's expression carried a hint of subtlety.

"Well... I know a bit about it. The claim of immortality is actually inaccurate. People die when they are killed, but in terms of results, they really are immortal."

Alisa looked at the two of them blankly, completely unable to understand what they were talking about, but looking at the two power armors on the holographic screen, a trace of admiration couldn't help but rise in her eyes.

In order to let the soldiers of the Alliance use more reliable equipment, and to improve the survival rates of others, they did not hesitate to risk their lives, using their lives to test those dangerous weapons.

What a respectable group of people!

"...If only there were a safer way."

Looking at the overly worried Alisa, Xiao Yu pondered for a moment before speaking.

"A way to have it both ways doesn't exist. And Xiao Yu feels that rather than stopping their well-considered decisions out of kindness, it's better to respect their choices with reverence."

"Big Brother Chu said that everyone, including himself, became a resident of Vault 404 only after being clear about their rights and obligations. If there comes a day when they are tired or regretful, returning to the underground hibernation to wait for the new world to arrive on its own is also an option."

Alisa stared blankly at this girl of a similar age.

After a good while, she squeezed a soft inquiry from her lips.

"Is it the same for the Manager..."

If tired, one could return to a long sleep at any time.

Waiting for the new world when opening one's eyes again...

"Yeah!" Xiao Yu nodded, proudly puffing out her chest, "Xiao Yu remembers every single word Big Brother Chu says!"

Sitting to the side, Pai sighed, resting her chin on both hands as she muttered gloomily.

"I can testify... this girl is almost becoming that guy's repeater."

It wasn't that she couldn't understand Xiao Yu's respect for Chu Guang; that kind of feeling was probably similar to her own reverence for Dr. Fang.

People inevitably develop a sense of reliance on those who have saved them. It was precisely based on such feelings that the residents of Camp 101 referred to the residents of Vault 101 as pioneers.

But she wouldn't hang what Dr. Fang had said on her lips all day long.

Averting her gaze from Xiao Yu's happy face, Alisa clasped the teacup on the table with both hands, looking at her own reflection in the water's surface, her heart suddenly tightening gently for some inexplicable reason.

She thought of the letters from home she had received recently.

According to everyone in the Workers' Union, Lovitt's wife had recently become pregnant again, and that bearded carpenter was grinning from ear to ear all day long, showing off the news to anyone he met.

Captain Joey asked with concern about her recent situation, especially her daily life—whether she was getting used to it, whether Westzhou City was safe, and so on.

Though not stated outright in the letter, it was clear between the lines that he also wished to send his own child to Camp 101 for study, yet still harbored some reservations about the wasteland beyond the Great Wall.

Brother Warfit had also written to her, and at last he had stopped harping on about family and honor, gradually shifting the focus of his life back to his family.

From the letter of her former butler, she learned that after she resigned, Warfit had honestly found a job as an accountant and begun a new life.

As for her father, Melvin, he was currently working at the Boulder City Public Library, responsible for organizing the city's history over the past two centuries.

Her mother, aside from occasionally murmuring Keesh's name and weeping silently, had largely moved on from that tragedy.

Whether in Dawn City or Boulder City, most residents had come to live the lives they dreamed of.

Even if not their ideal lives, most had gained a fresh start, bidding a thorough farewell to the old era.

Including herself.

Yet that one person alone.

It seemed he had never stopped...

...

"I'm surprised."

In the virtual world constructed by Vault 101, a coffee shop with a modest storefront and simple decor sat at the corner of a bustling street.

Watching Chu Guang push open the door and walk in, Dr. Method, seated by the window, set down the newspaper in his hand and let out a soft sigh.

Sitting down across from him, Chu Guang teased.

"Surprised by what?"

"By the changes out there, of course," Method said with a faint smile, continuing, "The seed I planted out of curiosity back then—I never expected it to sprout anew in your hands."

Although Camp 101 did not exist as an independent settlement, but rather as a special strategic administrative zone akin to Bister Town, the changes in this "de facto settlement" over recent times were no less remarkable than those in the five settlements of the Alliance.

As of now, nearly three thousand technicians and quasi-technicians were studying at Camp 101 as full-time or part-time trainees, assisting the scholars and experts there in research across fields like physics, engineering, and sociology.

This was no longer the scientific outpost hiding in the sewers of yore.

With the Alliance's support in materials, manpower, security, and other resources, Camp 101 had quickly transformed the knowledge received from Vault 101 into tangible results, erecting a series of specialized research facilities on the surface.

These included an electronic analysis lab for recovering technical data from damaged carbon-based circuit boards, and a satellite tracking station that aimed a large dish at outer space to harvest usable data.

The Alliance's scientific expedition team also had a workstation there, where most of the high-tech wreckage collected by Frontier Town was sent for sorting.

Moreover, many local research facilities had extensive technical collaborations with factories in the Dawn City industrial zone. From transformers for ultra-high-voltage power grids to the armor steel of the Type 1 tank, researchers from Camp 101 were involved in it all.

Just like the Production Department, Technical Department, and Defense Department that once united under the banner of the Post-War Reconstruction Committee, everyone was brimming with drive.

And all of this.

Method had witnessed it.

Receiving such affirmation from his predecessor, Chu Guang felt quite pleased, though he merely smiled with equanimity.

Thinking this might be a good opportunity, he felt a stir and spoke in a casual tone.

"I discovered a technology on the Corporate side that transplants consciousness into an AI core—as simple as plugging a USB drive into a computer. We used it to save a little girl named Zhao Yinyin. She's now in Singularity City, helping androids assist the locals in starting new lives."

"If you change your mind, you can come out anytime."

Though Chu Guang hadn't expected much when extending the olive branch, the man's stubbornness in embracing idleness still exceeded his imagination.

There was not a flicker of temptation in those eyes. The man seemed to have already set the day when Vault 101's fusion reactor would be extinguished as the endpoint of his own life.

Yet, to Chu Guang's slight surprise, though the man was unmoved by his offer, his face showed a peculiar emotion at the mention of Singularity City.

It was a recollection of something from long, long ago.

A recollection tinged with a faint, elusive melancholy.

"Singularity City..."

Chewing over the word, he suddenly gripped the armrest of his chair and looked at Chu Guang.

"Have you met a man named Zhao Feiyu there?"

Chu Guang was taken aback, thinking for a while before recalling where he had heard that name. Frowning, he said.

"That man died about a century ago. I saw him in the memories of a researcher named Yuri."

Method was silent for a long time, then suddenly relaxed his grip on the armrest, loosening his shoulders and the smile on his face.

"I see... Sorry, that was a stupid question. Living in peace for too long makes it easy to forget how many years have passed outside."

Chu Guang didn't mind, merely raising an eyebrow with curiosity.

"He was an acquaintance of yours?"

Method didn't hide it, nodding lightly and speaking casually.

"We met once. He made remarkable achievements in the research direction of 'biological pathway solutions for radioactive materials.' Many in the Academy were interested in his work. I myself invited him to the Great Rift twice—once in the early years of the Wasteland Era, and once in the final years when the Post-War Reconstruction Committee was heading toward its end."

By "Academy" here, he meant the loose academic institution of the past, not the organization now led by Dr. Conclusion.

Chu Guang nodded thoughtfully.

"He refused both times."

Method smiled sheepishly.

"Yes, he preferred to help the survivors in Singularity City... I actually knew his choice all along, but out of personal interest, I occasionally do things 'doomed to fail,' including inviting you here to keep me company."

The implication was clear: the invitation from back then still stood.

Even if he held no hope for it.

Looking into those eyes that seemed to have foreseen everything, Chu Guang smiled faintly.

"Including the founding of the 'Academy'?"

Method pondered for a moment, then laughed freely.

"I did do some minor work with my senior colleagues, including establishing the technology recovery system for the Post-War Reconstruction Committee. But you might be mistaken—the 'Academy' wasn't founded by me. Strictly speaking, it was the legacy left by my dear mentor."

Chu Guang felt there was more to his words but didn't dwell on it, as it had nothing to do with their discussion today.

What he wanted to understand was the "Torch" and the "Sanctuary."

Only by knowing the enemy could one better defeat them.

The calamity unfolding in the south—all clues traced back to the very beginning: Vault 117.

That was where the "Torches" had set out.

Seeing that the man before him had yet to bring up the purpose of their meeting, only dragging him into aimless chatter, Chu Guang wasted no more time on pleasantries and posed his question directly.

"What was the mission of Vault 117?"

Seeming surprised that Chu Guang would suddenly bring up something so distant, Dr. Method raised an eyebrow slightly.

"Didn't you retrieve the administrator log of Sevin Virad? Wasn't it written there?"

"What I want to know is what wasn't written in the administrator log."

Staring intently at him, Chu Guang continued.

“After leaving the shelter, those rebels uploaded their minds to the ‘Sanctuary,’ using the hands of wastelanders to spread plague in the south, slaughtering without restraint, and calling it ‘Glorious Evolution.’”

“If a single madman appeared, I’d think his head was broken, but when a whole group is so utterly insane, I can only suspect that Vault 117 itself is an asylum—either it housed a bunch of lunatics, or it was systematically breeding them.”

Fang Fa stared at Chu Guang in surprise, frozen for a long moment.

His expression seemed both astonished at the deeds of Vault 117’s descendants on the wasteland and at Chu Guang’s shockingly bold deduction.

But—

That possibility couldn’t be ruled out.

“Years ago, someone reached a conclusion similar to yours. He believed the ‘Vault Project’ actually had two versions.”

Chu Guang said nothing.

He had indeed speculated as much, and had been pondering it since his time in Jinchuan Province.

Seeing that Chu Guang signaled him to continue, Fang Fa spoke unhurriedly.

“Yes, on one hand, vaults with specific numbers carried out predetermined shelter protocols, sending some people from a terrible present into the future. On the other hand, all vaults, as a united whole, fulfilled the duty of sheltering civilization—that was the original intent of the Vault Project.”

“These two duties don’t usually conflict, since people are the vessels of civilization, and sending clever ones to the future does help rebuild the wasteland. But suppose, worst-case scenario… later generations take a wrong turn—say, resort to cannibalism to survive—and we hand them powerful knowledge, then the Vault Project loses its meaning, even backfires.”

“Indeed.” Chu Guang nodded.

Such situations were not rare on the wasteland; in fact, they were quite common.

And it wasn’t just wastelanders who strayed; even the vaults themselves could hardly guarantee a straight path with their eyes closed.

Both the Torch Church and the Enlightenment Society proved this.

He simply felt—

This was a bit too much.

Fang Fa took a sip from his coffee cup.

“But that person’s view differed slightly from what you said today. He believed the Vault Project indeed had two ‘versions,’ but he didn’t think the second version was meant to create trouble—quite the opposite… He thought the ‘second version’ was precisely the ‘correction mechanism’ to solve the problems I mentioned earlier.”

Chu Guang frowned slightly.

“Correction?”

Fang Fa didn’t answer directly. Instead, he turned his gaze to the flower bed outside the window, bordering the concrete path.

The flower bed was lush and green.

Though it was an illusion, it felt as real as if it were alive.

“We scatter a handful of seeds on the soil. In theory, after a rain, one or two seeds will sprout.”

“But that alone doesn’t guarantee a harvest in autumn. What breaks through the soil after rain isn’t always seedlings—it could be weeds, and our seeds might become their fertilizer.”

“So the Vault Project might indeed have a second mechanism, one that roots out decay and savagery, reclaims the nutrients meant for civilization, and ensures the seeds we sow in the field can grow properly.”

Setting down his coffee cup, Fang Fa withdrew his gaze from the window and looked back at Chu Guang, who seemed stunned. He gave a faint smile.

“That person was Dr. Yuanli. You should have met that naive fellow.”

“I didn’t believe his theory before, but in you and your companions, I’ve indeed seen something I’ve never encountered.”

“In any case, our era is over. Perhaps you all will be different.”

To be honest, Chu Guang was stunned.

He had come seeking a solution to his problems, and this man bluntly told him—you are the solution.

But after thinking it over, he held back the urge to curse.

After all, the man before him wasn’t just giving up; he was truly dead.

Vault 101 sheltered no living person; what lingered here was merely a ghost from a century and a half ago.

That this fellow was willing to pry open the welded coffin lid a crack to help was, in fact, quite warm-hearted.

Still, Chu Guang couldn’t resist a sarcastic remark.

“Should I thank you?”

“No need.”

Seeing the displeasure in Chu Guang’s eyes, Dr. Fang Fa laughed heartily.

At that moment, a slip of paper drifted down from the air, light as a feather, landing on the table before Chu Guang.

Chu Guang immediately noticed it and asked instinctively.

“What’s this?”

“The password to Vault 100.”

Watching Chu Guang pick up the paper, Dr. Fang Fa spoke softly.

“Years ago, survivors from Camp 101 tried to enter Vault 100, to fulfill the work of rebuilding Xizhou City for its residents. But unfortunately, their strength was too meager to drain the lake that filled the underground passages or open the doors sealed by water pressure, and I didn’t think they could manage such a colossal project. So I persuaded them to abandon that goal and kept the key to the vault for them.”

“Now the time is ripe. You’ve not only repaired the Xizhou Lake Dam but also established a new order there.”

“I believe that you, of all people, can put this legacy to good use.”