Chapter 726: Production Begins

The large screen in the audience waiting room showed partial footage from inside the Production Rooms.

The main area of each room consisted of the production equipment linked together by conveyor belts, with each room's setup slightly different from the others.

Each room had a coin-insert console, positioned in the upper right corner where it fell outside the audience's line of sight. But transparent glass panels separated adjacent rooms, exactly as the rules had described: while the audience couldn't see a player inserting a coin at the console, the player in the next room could clearly see whether a real coin or a fake one had been used.

This created the same kind of circular oversight structure as the crime number system.

In Room 1, Zeng Yiming stepped up to the console and completed a simple operation. A moment later, everyone heard a clear metallic clink, the distinctive sound of a coin dropping into a machine.

The room lit up immediately, all its indicator lights activating at once, and the equipment inside began to run.

At the far left of the conveyor belt sat several stacked large boxes, presumably filled with raw medication ingredients.

The central piece of equipment was a vat roughly half a metre square, filled with a deep green solution bubbling steadily with some kind of reaction.

Zeng Yiming walked to the raw materials, drew a steady breath, and reached both hands into the box, scooping up a large handful of round tablets.

A few slipped through the gaps between his fingers, but he retained a reasonable amount.

There were no other containers in the room, and the rules required the player to use their bare hands to keep the ingredients submerged. No shortcuts were permitted.

Zeng Yiming steeled himself, carried the tablets over to the vat, gritted his teeth, and plunged both hands into the solution, holding the tablets fully immersed.

A sharp, sustained hissing filled the room.

Every sound from inside the game floor was carried through to the audience via the large screen, and everyone could hear clearly the harsh chemical reaction between the solution and the tablets.

Zeng Yiming's body shook almost immediately from the pain. A few more tablets slipped from between his fingers, but he forced himself to hold still.

The vat had no base to rest the tablets on, so there was no option to drop them in and retrieve them later. The player had to hold them with their bare hands, and the length of time the hands remained submerged was the length of time the tablets were soaked.

Above the equipment, a progress bar counted down from 30 seconds. Only by keeping the tablets submerged for the full 30 seconds could maximum potency be achieved.

Insufficient soaking would reduce potency, and that deficiency couldn't be corrected later. None of the subsequent stages could raise potency. They could only affect other properties of the medication.

Any medication produced with insufficient soaking would come out as Type I or Type C, not Type M, Type O, or Type F.

The first 30 seconds ended.

Zeng Yiming withdrew his trembling hands from the solution, a few more tablets dropping in the process, but he managed to set most of them down on the conveyor belt beside him.

He then walked quickly back to the box, scooped up another handful of tablets, and repeated the process.

Each Production Room operated for a fixed 2 minutes per round. With some time inevitably lost to movement, Zeng Yiming managed to complete the soaking process for three separate batches of tablets by the time it was over.

As the lighting in the room dimmed and most of the indicator lights switched off, Zeng Yiming recognised that this production stage had concluded. He let out a long breath and moved quickly to the sink nearby to wash the residual toxic solution from his hands.

Even though the rules stated that all damage from the solution would be cleared when he left the game, toxin accumulation at high enough levels could still cause death within the game, so caution still made sense.

The conveyor belt began to move, carrying the soaked and potency-enhanced tablets toward Room 2.

Liang Guicheng had already inserted his coin. Room 2 also came to life, lights brightening and machinery starting up.

Unlike the other rooms, this one required the player to spend their own visa time purchasing the cleaning solution.

Liang Guicheng must have paid for this at the same time as inserting his coin, because the cleaning tank was soon filled with a clear liquid, slightly more viscous than water, and visibly different from the toxic solution in Room 1.

He reached out and tentatively touched one of the tablets still coated with the residue from Room 1. His hand recoiled as though he had touched something electrically charged.

Even so, he pressed on, cupping both hands together to gather a small pile of tablets, then lowering both hands and the tablets into the cleaning solution.

Liang Guicheng's method was essentially the same as Zeng Yiming's, holding tablets submerged in a solution, though the solution itself was different.

Another 30 seconds of soaking removed the toxic residue from the tablets' surfaces, minimising their addictive properties and side effects as thoroughly as possible.

Without sufficient cleaning, the final product would most likely come out as Type O or Type F.

Liang Guicheng placed each cleaned batch onto the conveyor belt and went back for another.

He worked through the tablets steadily, leaving only a small number uncleaned at the end. That degree of loss was an unavoidable consequence of the process.

One by one, Rooms 3 and 4 activated in sequence.

The tablets were not routed through Room 3 Temperature Control directly. They travelled straight to Room 4 Processing on the conveyor belt. Room 3's output determined how much operating time Room 4 would have.

In Room 3, He Qing didn't need to handle any tablets directly. After inserting his coin, all he had to do was choose between Extreme Cold and Extreme Heat.

He Qing chose Extreme Cold.

The room changed immediately. It was as though an industrial freezer had been switched to full power. The space sealed shut. White vapour began spraying from the vents in thick clouds, and frost visibly crystallised across the glass panels.

He Qing was wearing a long-sleeved leather jacket. That was probably part of why he had chosen Extreme Cold over Extreme Heat.

Even so, he began shaking violently within moments, crossed his arms over his chest, and retreated to a corner of the room, pulling himself into a tight crouch.

The white mist continued to pour in steadily. He Qing stayed huddled in the corner, shaking in the cold.

There was a Stop button near the mechanism. Pressing it would halt the cold air, but the operating time available in Room 4 Processing would decrease proportionally.

He Qing came close to standing up more than once, looking as though he might reach his limit, but each time he sank back down into his crouch.

Whether he had been stiffened by the cold, worn down physically, or simply changed his mind each time, it was impossible to say.

Regardless, when the 2-minute progress bar reached its end, the maximum had been achieved.

The cold air dispersed automatically. He Qing remained motionless in his corner. Only the faint, irregular trembling still visible in his body confirmed he was, for the most part, still in one piece.

The tablets moved along the conveyor belt into Room 4 Processing.