The Lord Demon King is Unfathomable!

Deep in the North Peak Mine, near the resurrection point at Moral Square, a few newly online skeleton soldiers are hoisting weapons, ready to head down to the Maze to farm adventurers.

Lately, the adventurers in the Maze have been noticeably more active than before, and each one has a ransom hanging over their head. Randomly knocking one out not only results in a pile of equipment, but also gives you Joss Paper, so many players leveling up on Kao Planet have returned.

Although farming Mushroom People at the Outpost Fortress on Kao Planet is fun, the lack of Joss Paper income is a significant downside.

While passing the Audience Hall, one of the skeleton soldiers secretly took a peek, and the Soul Fire burning in its skull instantly flickered with surprise.

The skeleton soldier pulled its head back and looked at its companion curiously.

Melancholic Fries: "Speaking of which, where has Lord Demon King gone recently? Haven't seen him at all."

Passerby No. 1: "Don't know, maybe he's gone back to Demon City for another briefing."

Arctic Panda: "That's too much work, isn't it?"

Apple-flavored Apple: "Indeed, other NPCs stay in one place, but he's busy running around everywhere."

Thinking of this, the skeleton soldiers' admiration for Lord Demon King only grew stronger.

Of course, not all the Undead are loyal.

There are also those who want to eat Purple Eggs.

Pig-headed Knight: "Damn it! Where's my cat girl? She's not here either! Must've been taken by that evil guy to do weird things!"

Minotaur Warrior: "Enough with your nonsense."

Hu Wan: "..."

Yiye Zhiqu: "..."

Watching the noisy skeleton soldiers, Alakdo, who was guarding the Demon King Palace, sneered without saying a word.

A bunch of idiots.

What's so good about cat girls, they're not even one ten-thousandth as good as Lady Alachinos. Really don't understand why that guy is so popular.

But speaking of it, he's also curious about where Lord Demon King has gone, and this time, the esteemed lord didn't bring him along.

Thinking of this, the already unbalanced Alakdo felt depressed once again.

...

Whether or not it's due to the operations team upgrading the server, although no new updates have been announced lately, a lot of test codes have been issued.

As a result, the number of players on the server has noticeably increased.

And due to the increase in players and the newbies' desire to become stronger, "RMT" activities have gradually been on the rise.

Instead of spending an entire day in the nightmare-level Maze, better to spend the price of a cup of milk tea to buy discarded equipment from the veterans.

After all, the equipment in this game doesn't have level restrictions.

And it seems that the operators of "Catastrophe OL" are also open to transactions between players, even setting up an official market on the website for players to freely buy and sell.

Of course.

Everyone is an adult, and must be responsible for their own actions. The official forum only guarantees transactions, but not anything else.

Especially for those merchants trading Joss Paper like electronic currency, if they lose money, they shouldn't expect to complain to the operators.

Currently, the exchange rate between Joss Paper and RMB fluctuates significantly between 0.01:1~100:1. Instead, an "Enchantment Stone" made from Demon Crystals, which can enchant weapons, has become a stable currency, with each stone's price stabilizing around fifty bucks.

However, having said that, since "Catastrophe OL" is in closed beta, gold farmers are in the minority, and most players' motivation to earn Joss Paper isn't to exchange it for real money, but to enjoy another life in the virtual world.

Although the developers occasionally harvest new players like cutting chives, compared to other MMORPG games today, it's still quite merciful.

And sometimes, they even give benefits to players.

Just like now.

In the furniture factory of Beifeng City's industrial area, the dinging and clanking sounds from morning till night, buzzing machines running non-stop.

On a giant steam-driven machine, custom steel wires are stretched and twisted into cylindrical contours as thick as little legs, then transmitted through reciprocating mechanical grids to cotton fabric tubes, and sealed individually with a hot roller, forming pocketed coil springs.

These pocketed springs, after the conveyor belt, are counted and cut by a worker to ensure each spring group has at least sixteen pocketed springs, then transported by the belt to the next station, where they are individually glued onto base fabric.

The entire process cycles in this way, forming sheets of base fabric with fixed springs, and two stacked spring mats turn into the hot-selling spring mattresses of Thunder City.

The cost of each mattress is less than 1000 Joss Paper, rounding off to 10 silver coins, with more than half being labor costs, followed by cotton.

As for steel and coal, due to subsidies from Lord Demon King, the price is so cheap it's almost negligible.

Currently, the mechanization level of the entire production process is not high, with much of the process needing manual participation, but its production concept is far ahead of the average level of this world, even hinting at an assembly line, a concept born in the early twentieth century.

The craftsmen of Thunder City would never imagine that the cleverly intricate mechanical structure in their eyes is operated by only about thirty refugees who just completed their safety training.

Many of these people were previously farmers, never having touched such machines before their first entry into the factory.

Once proficient, their efficiency might be even higher!

At the factory entrance, several zombie managers are gathered, whispering about something.

Without bringing a Translation Crystal, the workers nearby have no idea what they're discussing.