Chapter 765: Chapter 481: Gathering Intelligence (Part 2)

Through a conversation with Qian Yaron, Wang Zhifan had indirectly grasped most of the details about his job, realizing how unusual it was to let his mining team rest in the dormitory just now.

"So, where exactly does the difficulty of this dungeon lie? Forcing the miners to dig desperately? That shouldn’t be too big a problem for me... I suspect it might eventually involve combat...

Qian Yaron just mentioned as well that there are quite a few ferocious alien creatures on this Prison Star, often treating many miners and security guards as their meals...

And the miners are not easy to deal with either, occasionally inciting riots, causing some security guards to end up either dead or severely injured, yet they couldn’t just kill all the troublemakers as the upper management wouldn’t accept massive losses of their human resources."

While walking towards the captain’s office, Wang Zhifan pondered, making some basic conclusions about the dungeon’s situation to understand potential challenges he might face.

He initially guessed that the difficulty of this dungeon shouldn’t be very high, likely just child’s play compared to the Calamity Realm dungeons he had experienced before.

After all, how dangerous can a Prison Star with no permanent residents and only prisoners forced to mine be? Can the monsters on this planet be so strong that they wield the Space-Time Law?

As for the prisoner miners, apart from players who mixed in with them, Wang Zhifan felt that their physical fitness wasn’t much different from average laborers on Earth, and without firearms, it would be hard to say they have significant combat strength.

"It seems the extraordinary game has accepted my existence as a bug, giving up on fully targeting me... Hopefully, I’m not being naive with this thought."

With some scattered thoughts, Wang Zhifan spent the next hour in his captain’s office, specifically using the time to access the computer’s public files in the office.

This greatly enhanced his understanding of his environment, as well as his responsibilities and powers.

For instance, through public files, he learned that the current K54 Prison Star is a planet exclusively owned by Kai Bo Interstellar Group.

Legally, unauthorized landing by any other organization’s spacecraft is prohibited, and even approaching for investigation would be considered offensive, subjecting them to eviction or even attacks by the orbital guard fleet of K54 Prison Star.

In terms of K54 Prison Star’s natural conditions, Wang Zhifan found quite detailed information, which somewhat surprised him, revealing that the planet is not particularly harsh in terms of various metrics and could even be considered habitable.

Its global average temperature is close to 30 degrees Celsius, water resources are slightly scarce but not hard to acquire, the atmosphere has an oxygen content of about 20%, no excessive toxic gases, and the gravity is only 1.1g. Except for the fierce creatures on the planet, there are not many survival difficulties.

Yet, Kai Bo Interstellar Group designated it as a Prison Star, allowing only interstellar criminals to come here to suffer through mining, aiming to achieve labor reform while creating some profits.

Instead of purely focusing on generating profits by employing large-scale mining robots, it can be said they are underutilizing the planet.

The mining base they are currently at is identified in the computer files as the only mining base on K54 Prison Star. Although it seems sizable, it holds negligible industrial value for a giant interstellar corporation like Kai Bo.

However, the upper management of Kai Bo has a significant interest in this place, closely monitoring the performance indicators of every base employee, with no one able to slack off.

Once a base employee is warned for being lazy and fails to change, soldiers from the orbital stationed fleet would come down to take them away, exposing them to the renowned humanitarian practices of Kai Bo Interstellar Group.

Besides this high-level information, Wang Zhifan also learned about the various configurations within the base.

He discovered that, apart from miners and security team members, most other workers are biochemicals, i.e., non-natural humans with control chips in their bodies.

These biochemicals are entirely controlled by the corporate AI system and, together with some robots, maintain the basic operations of the base.

This explains why Wang Zhifan found that the majority of this group didn’t attend the meeting before; they didn’t need to, as the so-called base officials had no control over these biochemicals.

Regarding basic living conditions, to match the function of prisoner reform, the base only provides the essentials for survival.

For instance, prisoners are given free quota food, which is merely the lowest level of nutrition paste. Nutritional but disgusting in taste.

If prisoners wish to improve their quality of life, they have to spend their meager salary in the base store to purchase food that better suits human taste.

Excluding food, prisoners are only allowed, in most cases, to wear the standard issue black and white striped prison uniforms.

Clothes must be washed in their spare time, and bathing is something to be done whenever possible.

They live in dormitories with multi-layer bunk beds, equipped with unobstructed surveillance and harsh robotic guards.

Causing trouble in the dorms is generally unwise, as it would result in being electrocuted by the robot guards until smoke was coming out from all over.

In contrast, the treatement of security team members, those managing prisoners, is slightly better.

First, the nutritional paste for security team members is more humane, being more nutrient-rich and palatable, offering several flavors to choose from; if used to it, they can endure it for a long time.

Moreover, the dormitory bunks for the security team are more comfortable, devoid of all-angle surveillance and robot guards, allowing for a freer and more comfortable rest.

As for captains like Wang Zhifan, they even have private rooms with independent showers, offering maximum personal privacy.

Beyond basic survival conditions, the team members also have a dedicated training room where they can practice shooting and operate Mecha during their free time or simulate battles with certain indigenous fierce creatures, provided they have spare time and the drive to train.

As for other facilities such as ore exit transporters and medical staff, the base doesn’t lack them either.

However, these related personnel are biochemicals or robots and generally don’t need the security team to worry about them; calling them when needed suffices.

"The planning of this mining base is somewhat peculiar. Though the technology is advanced enough to allow global automated mining, they insist on half-heartedly tormenting people. Do they really hope to reform prisoners in this way? It’s really hard to understand their thought process."

After digesting the public information on the captain’s office computer, Wang Zhifan had lots to comment on but no one to talk to.

Seeing the time was close to midnight, he left the office, checking key locations within the base.

Walking around himself, he found the base more extensive and complex than it seemed on the map, and without the ubiquitous route guidance, one could easily get lost.

Some time later, seeing that it was nearly midnight, he headed towards the large dormitory housing his 100 miners, while notifying his 20 team members via his communication watch to gather and prepare.

This communication watch was something he found on his office desk, along with a captain’s uniform, personal nameplate, Mecha control panel, captain’s whip, captain’s pistol, and captain’s rifle in the office cabinet. He’s no longer in a disguised state with Invisible Deceitful Clothing but fully equipped, resembling a legitimate captain, able to withstand any inspection.

But just as he was about to reach his destination, a female figure suddenly appeared out of nowhere in a corridor sealed by a metal isolation door, blocking his path.

The person, about twenty-five years old, was an above-average-looking Asian woman in a black and white striped prison uniform, with a calm expression. Wang Zhifan recognized her as a player miner from another team.

"Sir, I believe you are a player... I would like to cooperate with you."

The person seemed to have seen through Wang Zhifan’s identity, speaking directly and forthrightly upon appearance.