Chapter 475 Award, The Cruelty of the Real Version
Doomsday Calendar Month 4, Day 1, 8.40 am.
Dong dong dong! “Come in!’
There was a squeaking noise as the door of Hope One’s captain quarters swung inward.
Inside, Su Mo was sitting by his desk exuding a rather bookish atmosphere.
Su Mo was flipping through and reading a book.
As he continued to read, there seemed to be an air of wisdom around him.
Even from an inadvertent gaze, one could see that his eyes s.h.i.+ned with boundless sagacity.
Unlike scholars, Su Mo flipped through the book at much greater speed. Even if the pages were crammed with words, he only needed tens of seconds before digesting it and moving on to the next page.
This display of his talent ill.u.s.trated one thing -Su Mo was a prodigy; one that could not be found even among millions. As long as he traveled on the correct path, he would definitely be etched into human history as one of its great figures.
Standing at the door was Su Deben, who was staring at Su Mo. He shook his head; his heart full of emotions.
Freak!
No.
Monster!
“Hmm? Uncle Su. Have all our men been gathered?”
Turning around, Su Mo set his book down. The light of wisdom in his eyes faded as he returned to normal once again.
At least from his appearance, he now only seemed to be just a little different compared to a normal person.
“Ah, oh!”
“Su Mo, everyone has gathered and lined up. Shall we go out now?”
“Yes!”
Su Mo stood up and stored away the book on expert-level biological knowledge inside the desk. Tucked inside the book was a piece of white paper filled with scribbled notes. He took it out and pocketed it.
He then pushed his chair into the desk and nodded in response, as he followed behind the robot, taking large strides as he marched outside.
After a while, the man and the robot took their places in front of the main deck.
There was no need to stand on higher ground. From the front, they could easily observe all of the over one thousand villagers that had gathered; all their faces were clear and discernible.
Unlike seven days ago, the villagers now seemed to have undergone a huge s.h.i.+ft in their spirits and demeanor.
Seeing this, Su Mo smiled and nodded his head.
“At ease, attention, eyes right, ready front, at ease!”
“Reporting to the chief instructor, Hope Village has completely a.s.sembled. 1405 should be present, and 1405 are present! What are your orders?”
After his training, Chen Shen now resembled an iron-blooded military soldier.
In response to Chen Shen’s sonorous report, Su Deben maneuvered the robot and slowly stepped forward. He turned up the volume of his robot body as his rumbling voice echoed.
“I hereby announce that Hope Village’s seven-day training plan has now… been officially completed!”
“The results of our training plan this time significantly exceeded our expectations by 50%, reaching an unprecedented result of 320%!”
“Within these seven days, every villager here has achieved transformational results. Within these seven days, the seed of iron will has taken root in every individual unit here.”
“As your chief instructor, I feel very accomplished to witness your transformation.”
His robotic voice was like a m.u.f.fled rumbling thunder.
With the robot as his vessel, Su Deben did not need a microphone. His voice could project and reverberate in the ears of all the villagers.
Hearing his praise, the villagers all smiled.
Some growth needed to be affirmed and acknowledged by others, and some growth needed to be experienced and endured first-hand. Only then could one reap the incredible harvest after going through the experience of being torn apart and reviving multiple times.
During these seven days…
From the first day, where they challenged the snowy mountain…
Their journey continued.
On the second day, they traversed through a sea of fire.
On the third day, they trekked through thousands of miles in the wilderness.
On the fourth day, they had a battle in an arena.
On the fifth day, they had to build a house.
On the sixth day, they had to raid an enemy camp.
On the final day, they had a small-scale skirmish.
Within the virtual simulation, the villagers had, in total, spent two hundred and sixty hours in training.
Throughout such a prolonged period of training, everyone’s body and mind had been baptized and transformed from head to toe.
Previously, they had only undergone a baptism by the Doomsday wasteland, which merely raised their self-awareness in learning to struggle and survive.
However, they were now like soldiers who had been trained and armed with an iron will to fight.
All of the villagers were now combat-ready soldiers!
This had been something that only existed in their imagination. However, it had now been materialized in such a manner.
“Reporting to the shelter leader. Hope Village’s first phase of survival training is complete. Please inspect the results!”
On the wasteland, everything was kept simple.
Even the summary of this a.s.sembly was kept simple by Su Deben, who concluded his speech within two minutes and pa.s.sed the stage to Su Mo.
Su Mo gently picked up the microphone beside him and turned to the robot, as well as the thousand or so people in front of him.
“Well done! Everyone, thanks for your hard work!”
Wow!
Su Deben had praised them for two minutes straight, but only garnered a pitiful response from the villagers below. This single phrase from Su Mo, however, instantly caused a commotion below.
Ironically, most of them wore a similar facial expression.
Shame.
It was an honor to be acknowledged by the strong
Especially being acknowledged by Su Mo, the mightiest among all humankind; anyone would have leapt with joy.
Still, after recalling Su Mo’s monstrous feats over the past few days, no one could bear to smile. In fact, it was apparent that they felt awkward and shameful at receiving Su Mo’s praise.
On the first day, Su Mo climbed ten thousand meters to the peak of the snowy mountain. The villagers’ best record was 4689 meters.
On the second day, Su Mo traversed a total of ten kilometers through the sea of fire. The villagers’ best record was 5.15 kilometers.
On the third day, Su Mo did not sleep at all, but spent thirty-six hours trekking through a stunning total of 515 kilometers of wilderness. The villagers’ best record was merely 268 kilometers.
On the fourth day, Su Mo relied solely on his combat skills and took on sixty-five opponents in a single arena bout. The strongest among the villagers, Li Hu, only managed to challenge thirteen.
On the fifth day, Su Mo used only eighteen hours to build a house with his bare hands. The house was even equipped with several defensive measures that were capable of fending off multiple enemies, which greatly enhanced its defensive capabilities.
As for the villagers, the first to build a house completed it in twenty-five hours. However, its defensive capabilities were only a third of Su Mo’s.
On the sixth day, Su Mo single-handedly raided an enemy camp that had three hundred enemies. He fought back and forth with the enemies and annihilated them all.
On the seventh day, the enemies were supposed to be on the attacking side. However, using brute force, Su Mo turned the tide and attacked them instead.
During those seven days, Su Mo’s revive count was zero.
On his attempts at any of the challenges, he would only require one life to successfully complete it. He was so successful that the villagers could not believe their eyes.
Upon watching the replay, these villagers could only “kneel” on the ground in wonder.
Wisdom, strength, courage, guts and skill.
If they had not witnessed it with their own eyes, they would not have ever believed that someone could possess and seamlessly blend them all together.
The fact of the matter was that Su Mo did not rely on luck to become humankind’s strongest.
Su Deben only knew that these seven days had rapidly transformed the villagers.
What he did not know was that, during these seven days, Su Mo also went through a process of metamorphosis.
“Do not belittle yourself. You should be comparing yourself against your peers who survived alongside you, and not me.”
“You should be aiming to surpa.s.s yesterday’s you. As long as you can feel yourprogress, then all your work, all your hards.h.i.+ps for the day, is worth it.”
“Think about the time when you fought on the brink of death and when you s.h.i.+vered from the pain that sapped your soul and spirit. Think about the time when you faced the impossible, and yet still strived to surpa.s.s yourself. Think about the hards.h.i.+ps you endured to improve yourselves.”
“The fact that you are standing here only means one thing…” “You need to tell yourself that you have succeeded!”
The thoughts of the villagers were all grasped clearly by Su Mo.
He knew that if he did not encourage these people, he would remain as their biggest nightmare-an insurmountable mountain.
To put it simply, within a short period of time, these people would still be disheartened.
Given some time, they would soon realize and recover back to normal.
This was of course Su Mo’s a.s.sumption. Right now, after Su Mo finished speaking his encouraging words, he was astonished to discover that more than eighty percent of the villagers were responding with cheerful smiles.
He listened carefully and managed to capture a few keywords from the whispers of the few that stood at the front.
Shelter Leader…strong…under…strong!
Shelter Leader’s too good…I…the whole night…what a relief.
Some people…pursue, some people…d*mn…
Shelter Leader, he’s our G.o.d for eternity!
???
“Cough cough cough!’
He could not hear clearly what they were saying, but he managed to clearly capture that last portion. Hearing this, Su Mo coughed a few times.
Immediately, the chatter stopped and the atmosphere turned silent again.
“There are still eight more hours until we reach the New World. Now I will announce the names of those who qualified as the first batch of S-cla.s.s talents.”
“Those who are qualified are Chen Shen, Peng Wenshan, Xia Nianzhen, Jiang Hou, Li Peng, Li Hu…Chen Kai!”
Every time a name was called, the crowd below would react with exclamations of admiration, accompanied by applause.
For those whose names were called upon, they held their heads high. Their faces seemed to radiate an endless sense of pride and satisfaction.
From the fourth day onward, it had become obvious that these people would qualify for the S-cla.s.s rank.
Their performance in the eyes of others had been impeccably outstanding.
Their willpower, physical capabilities, and intelligence levels were extraordinary.
The others were not jealous, but simply admired them.
“Qualifying for the S-cla.s.s doesn’t mean that you will have relaxing times ahead. Those who rank below S-cla.s.s should also understand that there will always be opportunities to strive for greater heights.”
“This S-cla.s.s evaluation is over. However, the next S-cla.s.s evaluation will begin again in three months’ time.”
“At that time, I will look forward to your performance!”
He placed the microphone down. With no intent to continue with further small talk, he led the crowd in a round of applause for the successful candidates.
1 ro
Instantly, the ocean rumbled with roars of applause.
After a while, once the roars of applause began to subside, Su Mo handed over the announcement of A, B, and C-cla.s.s talents to Chen Shen, and left the a.s.sembly.
He returned to the captain’s quarters and drew the curtains over the porthole window.
Carefully, he took out the piece of paper that he had kept in his chest pocket, grabbed the book from earlier, tucked the paper inside the book, and resumed reading.
The villagers were only concerned with the simple things—what food they were having today; what was the training for tomorrow; and how they would endeavor to improve themselves in future.
Su Mo as their shepherd and leader, however, was burdened with more concerns.
The paper that lay in front of him recorded all of the changes that had occurred ever since the game released the Real Survival version update.
“Doomsday Calendar Month 3, Day 27, the game released the version update. The contents for the Real Survival version have been officially announced.”
“It’s exactly like what was previously announced. Chat channels, the creation function, and the trading market have all been shut down and grayed out. I have no idea when or if these functions will be activated
again.”
“Other functions such as the appraisal function, vehicle function, and detection function, have all been nerfed by various limitations.”
“However, the worst nerf is still… the fee for using the storage s.p.a.ce.”
“Although the storage s.p.a.ce retained all of its functionality, opening it once now would cost 10 Disaster Points.”
The implication of this was that, if they retained their habit of opening the storage s.p.a.ce dozens of times a day, it would cost them hundreds of Disaster Points!
“For the other changes, a fee will not be charged for all items below excellent-quality produced by the game. However, for items that are excellent quality and above…”
“Excellent-quality items cost five hundred Disaster Points per use for three hours.”
“Rare-quality items cost two thousand Disaster Points per use for one hour.”
“Epic-quality items cost fifty thousand Disaster Points per use for thirty minutes.”
“For this version update, everyone received a meager reward of an iron chest.”
He repeatedly browsed through the summarized details as he rapped his knuckles on the surface of the desk.
Su Mo’s gaze was faint as he submerged himself within the torrent of his thoughts.
Currently, Hope One was three hours away from being upgraded to legendary-quality. Once the clock strikes twelve, the entire s.h.i.+p would instantly be upgraded to legendary-quality.
Also, there were only nine hours left until everyone voted for the next disaster.
Once the votes have been cast, after fifteen days, the next disaster would descend!