Comprehensive network wizard, magic emperor.

Chapter 209 (208): Player Dispute, Submarine Construction

There is still one week until [Giant's Fallen Field] refreshes.

The second raid between players in the dungeon channel has ended, with the Necromancer faction suffering a defeat.

[Cold Rain (Necromancer)]: This is unplayable! There's no way out!

[Tailor (Necromancer)]: My first experience with negative rewards from map exploration; team battles were terrible.
Players who didn't participate in the team battle were curious and asked about the details. However, the group, who had just returned from the dungeon, were sending emotionally charged and incoherent messages, leaving the other players completely confused.

It wasn't until someone briefly recounted the whole story of this team battle that the situation became clear.

[Wind's Nest (Elite)]: Our faction's leader can wipe out the Necromancer Order single-handedly. He single-handedly wiped out the entire undead army of the city several times, and he even fought the final boss monster by himself.
The chat was instantly flooded with simple, unfiltered question marks. A string of dumbfounded emoticons perfectly expressed the other players' bewilderment.

[Jingliu (Elite)]: Oh right, our team leader even enchanted all my gear for free, the effects are top-notch, the craftsmanship is certified by the entire network.
The question marks increased even more. Not only were the other players bewildered, but the players from the other two factions participating in the team battle also showed envious expressions.

[Starry-eyed (elite)]: Brother Mage, you're the best in the world!
[Dragon Demon Madman (Holy War)]: Mage, you're the best in the world!
[Skeleton Farming Expert (Abandoned Darkness for Light)]: Mage, you're the best in the world!
[Tombstone Scratcher (Necromancer)]: Traitor!
[Skull]: The mage can carry us to victory on Inferno difficulty.
[Tombstone Scratching (Abandoning Darkness for Light)]: No need to say more, good brother, I've figured it out.

The detailed process for this raid is being compiled, including the specific effects of the affix [Moon Calamity, Sun Calamity], the changes in the strength of the boss monsters at this difficulty level, how to suppress the curse effect, and other details. All of these will be recorded in the public files for future players to refer to.

However, the guide is still vague on many details. For example, when facing the giant undead, the only advice is: wait for the mage to go up and fight it one-on-one.

Their strategy when faced with the high-ranking members of the Necromancer's Order was simply: ignore them; they'll likely be crushed by the aftershocks of the battle between the mage and the giant.

Other players felt dizzy and disoriented after reading the guide, flipping through it over and over, and finally gleaned two words from between the lines: "I'm done."

A team battle changed the balance of power among the three factions in the channel. The Elf faction, which has the fewest members, is now firmly in first place, followed by the Holy War faction, which originally was the main force against the Necromancers.

The Necromancer faction, which has the strongest power in the story background, split after the war. One side decided to switch factions, while the rest decided that they should never bring [Lighthouse Guest] into their team in future group battles.

It was precisely this statement of rejection from the Necromancer faction that sparked a dispute in the channel.

[Network notification: Player "Lighthouse Guest (Elite)" has entered the current channel]

[Current number of people online in the channel: 206]

The argument ceased in an instant.

[Lighthouse Keeper (Elite)]: Sorry, friends of the Necromancer faction.
[Cold Rain]: It's nothing. We should be apologizing. In order for the team battle to proceed normally, we had to refuse you.
[Starry-eyed]: If the mage isn't going, I'm not going either.

[Planting trees is great!]: That's right.

The smallest group of elite players almost unanimously expressed their support for their leader, even those who hadn't run dungeons or explored the map together.

Then, many people on the Jihadist side also expressed their desire to follow the Lighthouse Keepers and switch sides.

The necromancer faction was already divided on its own.

[Lighthouse Guest]: I don't think team battles are necessary. In the future, dungeons with 20 players each from the Elite and Expeditionary factions will have the same difficulty and rewards.
[Underworld Murderer (Necromancer)]: Actually, it's different. If you did that, neither of your factions' storyline power would be strengthened, and you would quickly be attacked by the stronger faction, almost unable to withstand it.
[Lighthouse Guest]: No problem. [Dragon Demon Madman]: With the mage brother here, victory is inevitable.

[The Underworld Murderer (Abandoned Darkness for Light)]: You're so heroic, brother! Please take me in!
Lin Bo's suggestion quelled the argument.

The original purpose of the three-way team battle was to ensure that the background forces of each faction received the same boost, making it easier for players to clear levels. However, with Lin Bo now joining the dungeon campaign, background forces have become dispensable, and there is no longer a need to maintain faction balance.

However, since the number of players he can lead is ultimately limited, it does not hinder normal 30-player team battles.

After leaving the [Giant's Wilderness] channel, Lin Bo continued his daily map-running work.

Now that the level has been increased, the rewards are being penalized again. The rewards of disaster coins and experience points for clearing the level have been reduced to one-fifth of what they used to be. It is estimated that it will be two months before I can accumulate enough experience points to level up again, which is close to the New Year.

A howling autumn wind blew, and Tie Weiyi brought out a steaming cup of coffee from the kitchen. Lin Bo thanked him and slowly sipped his coffee.

The elevator leading to the underground workshop was almost complete, and the machine room in the East Cliff Grottoes was all set up. In the following days, he focused his nightly work on building the submarine.

To a mage, a submarine is nothing more than a sealed, large metal container with life-sustaining and lighting functions. The only difficulty lies in building ballast tanks. By filling the tanks with water, the submarine can be controlled to sink, and vice versa. He needs to carefully design the structure and location of the ballast tanks.

Among the technological materials looted from the [Botanical Garden] instance were a large number of submarine design blueprints, which Lin Bo used as a reference and spent half an night drawing.

The small submarine he planned to build was spherical, less than six meters in diameter. Since it didn't need a propulsion system, the interior space was quite spacious. Its main equipment consisted of a nuclear battery generator and six high-powered searchlights. As for survival, he bought some oxygen cylinders from a netizen named [Picking Up Trash Makes Me Happy] and stored them in a time-space cardboard box.

This was Linbo's first time building large-scale equipment.

Construction began in the latter half of the night, using steel as the main material and employing the Art of Life for rapid metal processing. Both cutting and shaping were extremely convenient. When splicing was needed, either the Art of Blaze was used to weld the steel plates together, or rivets were embedded. This ensured the structure's strength could withstand the pressure of deep seawater.

By dawn, Lin Bo had only managed to build a shell; it would still take several days before the ship could leave the factory.

As dawn breaks, the night watchmen head to the beach to perform fire divination, practicing until exhaustion by the campfire, quietly listening to the whispers of the wind and the sea, and speculating on the weather for the next day.

The arrival of the newsboy marks the start of a new day in Shita Town.

The night watchman was reading the Stone Tower News; today's front page headline was the opening of a food factory.

A seagull with a magical eye landed on a park bench, watching a passerby's copy of the Hongdu Daily. Today's front page headline was about the first wireless communication experiment in human history, and the silver plate photograph showed Viscount Viren Pearl standing next to a shortwave radio station with a reserved smile.

For an archipelago nation, the need for cable-based telegraph communication is ultimately less convenient than radio communication. The emergence of this technology has already attracted considerable attention from shipping companies, as the ability to conduct real-time communication at sea is of great significance in mitigating risks along shipping routes.

Even though the production of the Mysterious Machinery Workshop was quite low, it still received many orders from the Imperial Cabinet, the Navy, and the three major shipbuilding companies.

As the president of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Bensoff, continued to produce blueprints for new equipment, these machines, specifically designed for manufacturing vacuum tube radios, were put into production one after another. This would greatly increase production capacity and support the production of more sophisticated equipment, further miniaturizing the size of radios.

Vilen Pearl was restricted by a cabinet decision from disclosing the radio station's technical information, but he was trying to find a way to spread it, ideally giving a copy to everyone in every industrialized country in the world, and also leaking the production equipment design drawings that Bensov had produced.

(End of this chapter)