Chapter 107: T-minus Seven Days and a Visit from the Deliverymen!
After Oreo heard what Su Mo said, she shook her head and proceeded to make a very humanlike difficult expression.
When Su Mo saw how she was acting, he could not figure out what was wrong.
As he looked toward the distance covered by the boundless snow, there were no signs of any living creatures that could be seen.
Su Mo did not choose to hide. After closing the main door and pus.h.i.+ng in the hinge plate, he strode vigorously onto the Deep-sea Shelter’s hill.
As he stood there, his field of vision became wider.
Since he was wearing his combat uniform, Su Mo did not feel the cold when he was lying on the ground. On the contrary, it felt as if he was in an air-conditioned room.
After taking out the binoculars from the storage s.p.a.ce, the first direction Su Mo looked toward was the Underground Shelter.
“Hmm… I don’t seem to see anything out of the ordinary.”
As for his tire tracks leading toward the Deep-sea Shelter, it had all already been covered by a layer of snow.
Anyone who did not know what was going on would not recognize the imprints made by the tires as tire marks from one to two hundred meters away.
Farther away, one could only see a vast expanse of whiteness because of the limited amount of light. Except for the howling wind, there was only dead silence between the sky and the ground.
After he turned around, Su Mo opened up Oreo’s status panel while looking at her.
[Pet name: Oreo]
[Status: Growth stage (Personality has been fixed)]
[Creature Description: A gentle creature of the wasteland. As a mutant husky originating from many different bloodlines, it will become stronger as it grows.]
[Ability 1: High-speed movement. Its muscle structure ensures a certain explosive ability. Once the ability is activated, its speed is doubled for 30 seconds with a cooldown time of 5 minutes.]
[Ability 2: Sixth sense. Its biological structure makes its perception extremely powerful. Once the ability is activated, it can predict incoming danger within a short period of time with a cooldown time of 1 day.]
[Ability 3: ???]
In the skill column at the bottom of the panel, its sixth sense ability was cooling down.
However, Su Mo was not focused on the sixth sense ability at that moment.
As Su Mo had not opened Oreo’s status panel for a long time, he was surprised to find that, not only had Oreo’s status changed from the juvenile stage to the growth stage, but there was also a new skill under the two initial basic skills.
“What do the three question marks mean? Do I need to try it or do I need to unlock it?”
After Su Mo patted the majestic-looking Oreo, who was standing amidst the wind and snow, a trace of joy appeared in his heart.
As Su Mo’s strength improved, Oreo had also gradually transitioned to the role of a scout and translator from being his combat partner.
Su Mo could always feel that Oreo always wanted to help out every time he found himself in danger, but that she was helpless to do so.
At that moment, seeing the additional skills in Oreo’s status panel gave Su Mo more hope for Oreo’s future combat effectiveness.
After Su Mo turned around to make sure and realized that there was nothing unusual, he decided to just lay down in the snow.
The snowflakes falling from the sky naturally fell on his mask as well, but the temperature of the mask quickly melted it into water and it slowly dripped down both sides of the mask.
“It’s probably been more than ten years since I’ve seen a snowy scene such as this.”
Su Mo carefully recalled the days when he lived in Mystic City. It seemed that after the snowy season in 2008, there were hardly any carefree snowflakes anymore in the hustling and bustling city.
At that moment, he lay on the ground with no one around to disturb him, while Oreo stood on high ground and looked out carefully.
Su Mo suddenly felt that, for some reason, on such a simple day like this, things looked quite beautiful!
Since there was nothing going on, Su Mo decided to open up his diary private message channel and started to calculate and compare his consumption over the past few days with the latest record of his inventory, before examining the remaining resources he had in his base.
“First of all, my iron blocks. I go through them quite quickly and now there’s only 22 units left. If I continue using them at this rate, I’ll need to refill them soon…
“For wood… I still have 15 units. I don’t have to worry about wood for now. If I can trade some, I will, but if I can’t, I can still drive out to chop them down myself. Since I still have five cubic meters in my storage s.p.a.ce and Earth Tiger, I can chop down a dozen units and bring them all back in one go…
“For food, I have an unopened can of yellow peaches, a half-eaten can of yellow peaches, 11kg of rice, and a lot of flour. Currently, I have 150 catties which are unopened, and 11 catties which are opened, which adds up to about 80kg of flour.
“I still have one 250g pack of Fuling brand hot mustard, 400g of beef jerky, 5 cartons of UHT milk, a box of pickled vegetable flavored instant noodles, a bottle of Pepsi, a bottle of Fanta soda, two packs of Lay’s potato chips, one box of red apples, and one pack of drunken peanuts…
“For my seasonings, I have more than enough. I have a little more than one kilogram of salt, which is the most important out of them all. Additionally, I have several bags of chili oil, oyster sauce, soy sauce, and light soy sauce…
“For my treasure chests, I currently have 45 bronze treasure chests, 64 iron treasure chests, and 41 wooden treasure chests, which totals up to 150 treasure chests.
“For my other materials, I have 6 units of plant fibers, 2 units of copper blocks, 80kg of sulfur ore, and I’ve used up my saltpeter ore…
“For my design blueprints, so far, I still have the blueprint for the energy-powered bicycle.”
After he quickly recorded down his current inventory, Su Mo used his mental focus control to create three blank rows so that all the records were on top. He then began to record down the trades he would need to make after entering the secret realm.
“There is no trace of iron ore near the shelter. Since it’s a necessity, I must purchase large amounts of it when I enter the secret realm this time. It would be best if I could buy hundreds or thousands of units, so that I’ll always have enough.”
“If steel is available, I can also try to gather some of it. When the time comes, I’ll mix it with concrete to make building materials so that I can upgrade my shelter to have the same reinforced concrete structure as the Deep-sea Shelter.”
“For food, I don’t need to worry about it for now. Based on the growth of the culture medium, I should have no worries about eating and drinking for now if I’m to continue living by myself.”
“However, if I do encounter food that can be stored for long periods, I can also trade them for some perishable food items and treat them as part of my food reserves.”
“Salt too! I need to continue storing that up. There’s no salt-producing land near the shelter and there’s no seawater nearby either to get salt by boiling. Since this item is still cheap in the early stages, it would be best to collect enough supply for several years or even up to twenty years. By then, my shelter would’ve been nicely developed!”
“Design blueprints! This will be the main thing that I want to trade for when I enter the secret realm. This type of item is very precious and, as long as I can make the various magical modules to match them, I’ll be able to restore technological productivity and directly create a production line for that item, ensuring that my shelter will continue to be the leading shelter!”
“So, all kinds of advanced modules! I’ll take whatever that can be installed as long as someone sells it, since it’ll be better for future productivity. It will be a good investment.”
It had been a long time since he took stock of his items and requirements. With that in mind, Su Mo felt as if he could almost touch the future development trend of technology.
The technology on Earth relied on large energy power stations, from which the energy was then transmitted to various places, forming the foundation of modern production lines; that was no longer feasible here.
Aside from that, the most important factor in play—time—did not allow for it either!
At the very least, that kind of production line was not resistant enough in the face of the doomsday’s frequent natural disasters. Even an ordinary earthquake would last up to ten days. If it lasted for more than hundreds of days, then all his efforts would have turned into dust.
Therefore, in order to set up a robust production line in a hundred days, he had to rely on the various design blueprints produced by the game.
After using the design blueprints to construct the corresponding factory, he was going to continue to add modules to improve its production efficiency.
Starting from the simplest power generation facility, once humans could survive the worst periods, they would be able to successfully enter the era of electricity.
When that time came, technology would begin to kick off and all kinds of factories would begin to rise up.
In less than a hundred days, the development rate would make it so that the magical beasts, such as kobolds and lion people, would no longer be a threat to humans. In the end, they would slowly be drowned out by artillery and guns.
As for whether humans could survive until then…
“Magoo left too little information. I don’t know if any shelters successfully formed a complete production line that was self-sufficient by their day forty and onwards…”
Su Mo pulled out Magoo’s diary from the corner of his storage s.p.a.ce. Under the snowy sky, he s.h.i.+elded it with one hand and slowly flipped through it with his other hand.
In the era when Magoo came to that world, keeping a diary was a very popular and fas.h.i.+onable habit. Unfortunately, Magoo did not seem to be very literate as he made many corrections and spelling errors.
Every sentence seemed as if it held other meanings, and all Su Mo could do was read the diary over and over again.
Sadly, after reading the diary again, Su Mo could only reach one conclusion.
People with high EQ were straightforward.
People with low EQ talked about all sorts of nonsense.
“After Magoo’s super snowfall was over, there was immediately a flood that flooded his base. At least this point gives me a good reference point, so I should start preparing to waterproof my shelter early on. Otherwise, I would certainly get flooded based on my shelter’s depth!”
After Su Mo put the diary back, he pulled out a simple map that he had drawn by hand based on his exploration of the terrain over the past few days.
The map was much more detailed than the pictographic map drawn by Huang Biao and his group from before.
Not only did Su Mo draw the Underground Shelter as the center, but he also marked out the topography and the large landmark locations within eighty kilometers.
According to the estimation of the current terrain, about ten kilometers east of the Underground Shelter should be the location of his territory’s core.
“If possible, I’d better find something to raise the terrain around my base, so that if a flood were to come, at least I can guarantee my daily travel!”
After taking out a pen, Su Mo neatly and carefully drew a large circle on the map, temporarily figuring out his development plan around the shelter.
However, before Su Mo could draw it out in proper detail, Oreo, who had been vigilant, finally discovered something and barked softly twice.
After putting back everything into the storage s.p.a.ce, Su Mo quickly prepared himself for combat and his binoculars appeared out of thin air in a flash.
As Su Mo held up his binoculars, he looked at the direction where Oreo was facing.
In the snowy scene through his lens, a group of sneaky-looking people suddenly appeared.
“One… Two… Four…”
As Su Mo looked into the horizon through his lens, the small group of people slowly got closer and he could finally faintly see who the intruders were.
“Six of them? They look like humans.”
“Hey, aren’t those people Kento Maeda’s henchmen from before? Why have they come here?”