Cave Refuge

"I suppose that's all the stuff you wanted to tell me now?"

Seeing that the other party hadn't left yet, Dong Tianyu instantly understood their thoughts. As the saying goes, cigarettes and alcohol are commonly exchanged between friends. Since he had already offered alcohol, Dong Tianyu casually took out a cigarette from the Storage Space and tossed it to the other party.

Initially, the person didn't pay much attention when Dong Tianyu handed him something else, but upon seeing clearly what was thrown, he immediately perked up.

After receiving the item from Dong Tianyu, he didn't stay much longer. Carefully hiding the item in his bosom, he briefly explained some of the formal regulations at the Magic Capital Base. Then he bid farewell to Dong Tianyu and decisively left the place.

Following the reminder, Dong Tianyu didn't head to the peripheral registration desk to take a boat into the Magic Capital Base like last time. Instead, he directly went to the internal wharf of Magic City and entered the base through it.

Compared to his last visit, the layout of the Magic Capital Base had not changed much, but there was a significant change in the dress of the people inside.

During his last visit, most people in the base were dressed in ordinary materials. Only a handful wore peculiar items, though most of these items didn't look very different from regular items, so most people didn't realize some were wearing expensively strange items.

But now, as Dong Tianyu walked down the streets, there was a clear distinction in the clothing of the crowd. Most ordinary people and non-combat civil servants continued to wear the usual ordinary clothes.

However, many who often engaged in front-line combat now uniformly wore the kind of airy armor similar to those in video games. Not to mention the protective qualities of these armors, just from appearances alone, these armors were far more attractive than ordinary clothes.

Such a scenario would have been impossible before the apocalypse, as ordinary fabric was much easier to manufacture into various styles of clothing than steel.

However, post-apocalypse, the difficulty of procuring fabric skyrocketed, and most people could only use recycled old fabric from before the disaster to make new clothes. Because of this, you can imagine the appearance of the clothes most ordinary people wore.

The metal armors that looked more decorative than practical, remarkably similar to those in past video games, were primarily worn by front-line fighters.

There was certainly a situation here that Dong Tianyu was unaware of, or else those front-line fighters would not choose such garments, knowing that an inappropriate choice in attire could cost them their lives.

To understand the changes at the Magic Capital Base, the Trade Market was actually the most suitable place. If deceit were possible elsewhere, the difference in the price of goods in the market could best represent the current state within the base.

Normally, if there were stable food vendors in the market, it indicated that the base had been relatively stable recently. Conversely, if there were few food sellers and the prices were high, it would suggest recent turmoil at the base.

Using this method, by observing the market situation of other types of goods for sale, gathering and summarizing the collected information, one could get a clear picture of the base's recent conditions.

Upon entering the market, seeing the Dark Green Trick Nucleus, once highly sought after, now openly displayed at various merchants' counters, Dong Tianyu knew that it, like the Black Devil Core, was no longer unattainably exclusive.

However, the price of the Blood-Colored Mysterious Core remained as firm as before, making one wonder if a method to obtain it in large quantities would ever be discovered.

After spending two days in the market, Dong Tianyu had a pretty good understanding of the current market situation. Although the prices of goods were a bit higher in the Magic Capital Base than in other places,

all goods' prices were very stable. He asked around, and although there had been some fluctuations in the prices of all commodities for a long time, they were not significant, and the prices were relatively stable.

However, recently, the prices of various long-term survival materials had risen slightly. Although the increase was not significant, Dong Tianyu sharply sensed an underlying issue.

If it were just a slight increase in food prices, Zachary wouldn't have cared too much after all—people need to eat, and it's normal to buy good things to eat when you have the money.

However, the living supplies Zachary was talking about were not just food; besides food, this included everyday items, and most importantly, the price of consumable materials for water filters had also risen.

With the floods inundating the land, one would think there wouldn't be a shortage of water, as water resources should be abundant.

But everyone overlooked one issue: even though it seemed like there was no shortage of water for use, the water from outside couldn't be used indiscriminately.

Not to mention anything else, the daily production of domestic wastewater, as well as industrial wastewater produced by labs and factories, though somewhat purified, would still end up being discharged into the water.

Although in theory, the base was always floating and would definitely stay away from the original wastewater discharge areas, it wasn't only the Magic Capital Base that discharged wastewater.

Other bases also discharged wastewater, and before doing so, those directly under the Imperial Court would specially treat and filter it; however, private boats wouldn't bother with such things when discharging waste into the water.

So normally, whether it was survivors going out hunting or even those living in the base, if possible, they would have a water quality filter installed at home.

It's said that one won't get sick even if something is not completely clean, but thinking about the excrement discharged into the water, it's hard for a normal person to stomach it without filtering it first.

Although the materials for the water filter cartridges seem very simple—charcoal, fine sand, coarse cloth—they are actually luxurious materials now, given the widespread flooding making it very difficult to grow trees and even more difficult to breed silkworms.

The only relatively easy-to-obtain fine sand also required specialized people to dive to the seabed to collect, which was fraught with danger due to complex underwater conditions.

However, under normal circumstances, water filters are not disposable items; when it feels like the filtering effect is diminishing, rinsing it repeatedly can allow it to be reused, although the effect diminishes significantly, it is economical.

Though water filters seem like daily necessities and are not cheap, under normal circumstances, their prices are very steady, hardly fluctuating at all.

But now, even their prices have started to rise, indicating that something must be happening soon.

Considering the secret news revealed by the inspector on the way here, it seems someone is coveting the bead in the heart of the merfolk.

After all, in an era surrounded by water, although swallowing the bead won't grant immortality, having the ability to breathe underwater like fish is certainly enviable.

Given the recent subtle rise in material prices, it looks like the Officials might have obtained information on the location of the Fishmen, and if I'm not mistaken, it won't be long before the Officials issue a notice and organize Martial Artists to go and explore together.

Besides this matter, Zachary also figured out why the frontline personnel wore decorative armor similar to those found in games.

Though wearing such armor might seem superfluous, it actually offers all-around protection, automatically intercepting any enemy sneak attacks.