Chapter 330: b.u.t.terfly Effect, Intrepid Channel 001!
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
During the thunderstorm, Su Mo stood in position for more than ten minutes.
Halfway through, Su Mo even climbed to the top of the hill of the Underground Shelter and looked into the distance.
However, it was a pity that the thunderstorm still showed no signs of stopping throughout those ten minutes. Lightning flashed through the sky, disappearing in an instant over the horizon.
“There was no water on the ground in the talisman simulation world. This means that this rain won’t last longer than a day…”
“…but Pei Shao’s departure time can’t be postponed. Otherwise, the expedition team wouldn’t be able to cover the 1500 kilometers distance before the disaster strikes.”
Su Mo felt a little worried as he stared at the torrential rain falling from the sky and the puddles of water that were acc.u.mulating on the ground.
To find these foreign races lurking around in the basin area, the four-step plan made the night before was very clear and concise.
First, direct Pei Shao to set off toward the twelve o’clock direction from the basin area.
Second, enter the talisman simulation world and communicate with Pei Shao on the radio station three days later and receive all the location data of these foreign races and record them in the form of a map.
Third, return to the main world and inform Pei Shao, who may have only been traveling for five minutes, to change direction and continue investigating along the one o’clock direction instead.
Step four, repeat the previous steps until Pei Shao finishes exploring the 1500 kilometers surrounding the basin area in every direction.
At that time, after completing these four steps and drawing up a map, Su Mo could easily sail Hope One to these locations when the ocean disaster struck and give these foreign races, that had ill intentions for the basin area, a big surprise.
However, this method was not one which allowed them to just sit back and relax. Instead, there was a fatal problem that had to be addressed.
Although Pei Shao might have only set off for five minutes, Su Mo would already be able to enter the talisman’s simulation and receive all the information regarding this particular direction in the future.
However, the entire premise for this hinged on the fact that Pei Shao had to arrive within those three days without any accidents!
If Pei Shao encountered a fatal accident along the way, or stumbled upon any problems in the process of collecting information…
Su Mo would not be able to receive any information at all in the talisman simulation world three days later.
“Fortunately, Earth Tiger’s cha.s.sis was upgraded yesterday…”
“…I only need to spend some survival points to fix the minor bugs we encountered previously and, in pa.s.sing, upgrade the wheelbase to ensure the stability of the vehicle…”
“…as for further upgrades…we’ll save that for later!”
Currently, the rate of Earth Tiger’s upgrades had completely failed to keep up with the rate that natural disasters were developing.
Perhaps after heading to the New World, Earth Tiger could receive a new lease on life but, at this point, Su Mo decided to acc.u.mulate more survival points as an emergency measure.
From the 2000 points that were gained today, 1200 points were spent, and some existing materials were added into the mix.
Earth Tiger became a little wider; its originally narrow body became thicker and had its tire grip increased.
Such an upgrade was completely sufficient for a “cla.s.sic” car like this.
It also came as somewhat of a big surprise to the intelligence team!
The garage gate was raised to its highest angle and the upgraded Earth Tiger was parked inside. He closed the garage gate again, opened his friends’ list, and sent a message to Pei Shao asking him to pick up the car and prepare for departure.
After all this was done, he instructed the four little ones not to disturb him at all costs and, walking briskly, Su Mo then returned to the third floor of the shelter.
The huge clock hanging in the living room of the gym indicated that the time in the wasteland was 8:35 in the morning.
It was the final twenty-five minutes before he was set to announce the disaster information at nine o’clock.
As he arrived on the third floor, the feeling of his blood rus.h.i.+ng and heart rapidly beating, that had disappeared for many days, came back again and Su Mo could not help but grin.
Su Mo took out a new rag, wet it, slowly walked toward the workbench, and started cleaning.
Su Mo had created hundreds of tools on this workbench, not only in exchange for countless resources in the shelter, but also for the most important blueprint design of Hope One.
It was also on this workbench that Su Mo created all kinds of explosives, which resulted in the acquisition of hundreds of treasure chests that helped him during the most difficult stages of the shelter’s development!
It was this workbench that witnessed the vigorous development of the Underground Shelter, along with the countless beats of sweat rolling down from Su Mo’s head.
This workbench was also the one that witnessed Su Mo tireless efforts and his sleepless nights!
This small table carried too many of Su Mo’s memories and had been with him for over half a month!
The great things in life usually began from small beginnings.
Su Mo earnestly cleaned off the oil, floating ash, and debris on the table with each wiping motion.
After repeatedly cleaning it, the workbench began to regain the l.u.s.ter it once had.
As the table slowly revealed its former glory, Su Mo, who seemed unremarkable at first, suddenly burst forth an aura that seemed like a double-edged sword was being unsheathed.
No pain, no gain!
From the end of the welfare disaster to the present dormant state, although the myths about Almighty Su were still being discussed in the chat channels, only Su Mo knew that…
His sword that had been silent for too long was finally about to be unsheathed!
He became focused, opened the game panel, and clicked on the chat function. Before entering the World Channel to announce the serious news, Su Mo first clicked into the Regional Channel that he had not entered for a long time.
When the last welfare disaster ended, Ocean Version 2.0 was updated and the number of people in the Regional Channel were reallocated accordingly. The total number of people inside currently totaled 9235.
In other words, of the current players in the Regional Channel, everyone else except for the first batch of old timers were considered neighbors.
Even the villagers of Hope Village had joined this Regional Channel!
“Huh, there are still 912 of those old timers from the second wave remaining!”
“It seemed that humans’ adaptability rate was very high and, as things progress, more people should be able to survive in the future.”
After two secret trading realm opportunities and the provision of seeds during the welfare disaster allowed even these old timers, even if they did not have extra resource acc.u.mulation to make a fortune, to do better than others.
In the upper right corner of the channel there were some new features, so Su Mo clicked on them with interest.
[Current channel partic.i.p.ants: 9235 people]
[Current channel combat strength: 35814]
[Current channel: 001. Ranking among humankind: 1]
“Dude, there’s even a channel ranking now, and channel 001 turns out to be ranked number one.”
“I contributed 35,000 points alone. If I were to be excluded, the combat strength rating of 814 could still rank within the top 50 in the wasteland!”
Looking at the information behind each person’s name, Su Mo could not help but be happy as he opened the Regional Channel’s chat panel, as he glanced at the first message at the top.
Dude, those acquaintances of his were still there even though he had not seen them for a long time!
[Liang Jian: Where’s the brother from yesterday’s tutorial on making women willingly gift you a large s.h.i.+p? Are you still here? I have my knives sharpened and am ready to serve you some meat if you come over to my shelter!]
[Liang Jian: By the way, I’m making an advertis.e.m.e.nt. The location of the Spark Unicorn Shelter is x.x.xX. There are currently 86 people here, but there are still 40 seats available on our silver sand s.h.i.+p. Each seat is now being sold at a discount. You only need 200kg of supplies to join the shelter and become family. This is definitely a steal! If you want to join, come and chat with me privately. This is on a first-come, first-served basis!]
[Cai Junfeng: F*ck, that idiot in charge of the supplies in our shelter drank some wine and fell asleep too soundly last night, causing all the wood that was dried under the sun to become wet. Freaking unlucky. Is there a brother here who has a lot of wood on hand? We are willing to buy it at a premium of 15% above the market price, as long as it is dried or baked using disaster points!]
[Na Wenxing: Awesome, I thought Lu Bu was already invincible, but I didn’t expect anyone to be braver than him. He totally deserves to be commander-in-chief!]
[Sun Xian: Hey, Feng, you said your shelter already has about 20 people, including kids and adults. Why are you guys still building a large junk? Listen to me, don’t be fooled by those black-hearted people who sell wood on the trading market. You need to sail the boat once it’s built, and you can’t do it with 20 or 30 people. Do you think you’re really playing a game where you could just control it with WASD as soon as you get on? Do you think you could just press “s.h.i.+ft” to drift or press “ctrl” to activate nitro?]
[Sun Xian: I’m showing you a clear path here. Stop making large junks. Take advantage of the fact that the price of tires on the market now is low, buy dozens of them and reformat your core. Turn it into a raft, and then attach the tires to the raft using knots—the raft’s buoyancy will surely be top-notch. I a.s.sure you that even if your raft overturns, you can still smoothly float to the New World using these tires!]
[Gao Wen: Sun Xian, you old dog, stop the bullsh*t. What did you tell us about hiding from the blizzard in a “coffin” last time? If it wasn’t for Almighty Su ending the disaster ahead of time, I would’ve already been killed by your great invention, yet you still want to deceive us and make us surrender to our fate? Could it be because you have a load of old tires in your hands?]
[Rebecca: I can testify that Old Dog Sun does have tires on hand. This is treacherous!]
[Sun Xian: Hey, hey! Don’t slander people’s innocence for no reason! Listen to me, what if Almighty Su ends up ending the ocean disaster in advance for us? Won’t we be spending money on s.h.i.+pbuilding for nothing? We might as well buy some tires!]
[Rong Taotao: True, but then again, ever since I joined in after the last update, I’ve never seen Almighty Su speak!]
[Ren Chong: Young man, you’re still too young and simple. Almighty Su has countless opportunities. He doesn’t have the time to come up here and brag like us every day. However, every time the Almighty Su comes up here to say something, something huge is bound to happen. It’s better that he doesn’t come out, otherwise, you and I should be worried about our lives!]
[Star Palace Flower: What a pity. I’m still waiting for Almighty Su to come out and say something so I can ask him if I can join his shelter~]
…
The discussion topics on the Regional Channel did not even go past five comments before the topic of Su Mo was brought up once again.
This feeling was a familiar one, which made Sumo laugh uncontrollably.
Although the number of people on the Regional Channel was currently surging, this was due to the b.u.t.terfly effect caused by the two previous secret realm trading opportunities, which brought these “old timers” some great early benefits in terms of resources and supplies.
As expected, the development meant that these people were currently in their heyday.
Liang Jian, who had a bright mind, had now become the leader of Spark Unicorn Shelter; with more than 80 people under him and even a large junk that could accommodate more than 100 people.
Cai Junfeng, who was previously still asking if he could recycle his own waste, seemed like he had plenty of resources on hand judging from his offer to purchase resources at a premium price.
Even Sun Xian, that poor halfwit who needed to live in a “coffin”, was now living a life reselling old tires and making a fortune.
Unknowingly, with the early a.s.sistance of Su Mo, these people successfully moved forward and had become leaders in the wasteland.
Seeing others influenced by him and living better, Su Mo could not help but feel some kind of…
Inexplicable happiness!
After he continued observing the conversations for a while, and seeing all the different versions of the legends of Almighty Su, Su Mo held back his smile and started writing down his first message in over a month.
[Su Mo: h.e.l.lo, we’re three days away from the disaster. How’s the preparation going for everyone?]
An ordinary statement, that was just like chatting with an elderly person, appeared. Su Mo commented simply, but for the Regional Channel…
Boom!
It was like dropping a cannonball on the surface of a calm lake.
It exploded!
The Regional Channel that was originally slow-paced and relaxed suddenly erupted with messages after two to three seconds of silence after his message was sent.
Whether it was the lurkers or those who were actively chatting, everyone was blown away by this short sentence, despite the fact that its number of words could be read in a single glance!
At this time, for the people who were not scrolling through the Regional Channel, their game panels also exploded as they received many private messages.
What? Almighty Su appeared?
F*ck, and he was on our channel?
Oh, G.o.d, he greeted us?
These three questions caused those who were sleeping and resting, those working in a hurry, those eating, and even those in a meeting, to enter the chat channel.
The message frequency of the Regional Channel of forty or fifty comments per minute suddenly skyrocketed to as many as thousands of comments per minute!
There were no limits on the number of comments and their frequency, as shocked emojis, welcome emojis, and rose emojis littered the screen. It was like a rising tide rus.h.i.+ng into the Regional Channel.
Without the intervention of the game panel to manage the scrolling speed, it was impossible for one to see what was being said every second.
After looking at it for a while and realizing that it was too difficult for him to distinguish everyone’s messages on the screen with his naked eye, Su Mo closed the Regional Channel in tears of laughter.
Yes, although he was not living with them, his legend would still be pa.s.sed on forever, right?
Compared to Su Mo’s prestige in the World Channel, these people were a bit more fanatical.
Su Mo was even sure that if he posted a message about recruiting crew members in the Regional Chat, many of them would start packing up their supplies and immediately start heading over to Hope Village.
This was Almighty Su’s appeal!
It was also the real reason why these trashy fish lurking at the bottom of the well conspired!
They were afraid that Almighty Su’s appeal would become stronger and that everyone would put their faith in him instead of them in the wasteland!
However, after closing the Regional Channel panel, Su Mo was not complacent because of his widespread appeal.
With a touch of seriousness, Su Mo’s facial expression turned calm again as he entered the World Channel!