Chapter 497 Change of Weather, A Daring Proposition to Deceive! (Two In One)
With the level up, 12 new resources were found, along with a 14:42 rise in basin’s potential value had been reflected in the daily system announcements.
For a 0.3 territory point to rise to 1.1, it meant that within the next year, basin would provide more than three hundred territory points.
If the level kept rising in the middle, the point would increase exponentially, the number could even exceed five hundred. There’s not a shred of doubt that those points would be thrown into the weather section as soon as possible.
Seeing that the moderate rain had displayed a progress bar that showed the weather going back to sunny, Su Mo exhaled a huge breath of relief.
“Looks like the system’s encouraging me to steal other people’s resources and territory, the more I s.n.a.t.c.h, the faster basin levels up.
“We must acc.u.mulate more territory points, only this will give basin’s development the foundation it needs!”
Amidst his pondering, Su Mo clicked successively to return to the frontmost page of the interface and started reading from top to bottom.
[Doomsday Calendar April Fourth-Monday]
(Territory Lord]: Su Mo (host) (Territory State): A more exceptional resource-oriented territory, containing many rare and normal resources or materials, but because resources for survival are scarce in nature, it is not suited for living beings’ long-term residence.
(Territory Area]: 150 square kilometers (Not big or small, your living s.p.a.ce suffices, but with no strategic depth) [Resources in Territory): high-quality tungsten, heatstone, petroleum, high-temperature steam, fruit tree mountain… (Containing very little quant.i.ties of rare material and low quant.i.ties of normal resources, enough to sustain life within the territory for the short term, but still lacking important resources for survival in the long term)
[Territory Potential]: 14.69 (Current average value over the continent is 10.48, the highest value is 1502.12)
(Weather Forecast]: For tomorrow’s weather within the territory, the rainy weather will switch to cloudy weather at a temperature of 19-33 degrees, and wind will come from the east at a strength of level two. (High-temperature weather, any work done under the sun should be done without direct exposure, be careful to protect yourself against heat strokes)
(Territory Members): 1405 people (Extended+)
(Territory Member Loyalty]: 100% (A measure of stable loyalty means political policies receive no resistance whatsoever)
(Territory Member Att.i.tude]: Satisfactory (Your territory’s members have felt satisfaction from the conditions inside versus the weather outside, they look forward to a brighter future.) [Territory Member Health]: Very poor (72% of members aged 40-50 are healthy, 14% of members aged 50-60 are healthy, 11% of members aged 60-70 are healthy, 3% > 70) [Territory Member Work Efficiency): 19% (Most people are obstructed by the weather and slow physical recuperation speed, making daily work efficiency decrease, it is hard to give their all into their jobs right now.) [Territory Member Needs): Shelter (Urgent), Healthcare (Urgent), Warm baths, meat (Territory Member Reminders]: The weather factor has severely influenced work efficiency, please take note to evade extreme weather in time.
[Economy]: Very poor (Your territory has added a normal ally, but before trading can happen, the territory has no standardized product or goods for trading on the inside) [Technology]: In development (Current advancement in technology: Simple solar energy transfer technique) (Healthcare): Zero (No related medical setup or professional doctors, all members’ ailments are left to their own devices)
[Code of Law]: Very poor (Generalized rulemaking that cannot fully constrain anyone)
(Architecture]: Close to none (One building with extremely simple functions, but currently without use, production value zero) [Degree of Civilization]: Primitive Era (Condition for upgrade: Unfulfilled) [Voices From the Wind):
“It is unthinkable that human king Su Mo’s territory would burst forth with such incredible vital power within a day. Looks like the previous probing is unnecessary, we must ally with them before both Light Empire and Demon Race notice. However, what could possibly be traded to get some of this vital power?”
“Black Stone base camp’s defense level is already at a maximum. On the other end I’ve arranged a secret army underground. If Su Mo dares to pull a sneak attack, he’d have no way to go back to where he came from!”
“These d.a.m.ned demons are sly monkeys. If our modified sections could achieve a cooling effect, they would not deploy these kite tricks in war. Pa.s.s my order, no matter at what cost, you must find something or some way to increase the speed of heat dissipation as quickly as possible. We must get rid of these disgusting poisonous tumors within the shortest amount of time!”
[Point Collection Rating]: Pa.s.sed (Extended+) “Hmm, territory potential has risen a bit without adding points. It was 14.42 yesterday, but now it’s 14.69.
“Even so, the average value has also increased to 10.48, it looks like all beings in New World are growing exponentially!” He looked at the content from up to down. Su Mo immediately noticed the discrepancy between todays and yesterday’s territory potential value.
After a whole night of rainstorm, basin’s soil had its salt content washed out, giving the alkaline soil a much-needed substantial symptomatic relief.
In the first moment, the potential value had changed.
What was tricky was that as basin was changing for the better, other places did not stall their feet at developing either.
Even in the beginning, Su Mo knew clearly that these numbers would vary intensely from day to day.
However, when he saw the average value raise by 0.79, while the highest value leaped by 12.45, his heart still became frantic.
Wherever potential value was at its highest, would be where the people could depend on a huge tree to supply many good things, for them to occupy the best territory possible. This territory’s spike in potential value, would not influence the larger scheme of things normally.
As long as the average value was the one to spike, it would reflect every species on this continent’s increase in average combat power.
If ever basin’s value was lower than average, it would mean they were walking behind everyone, naturally putting them at a disadvantage!
“This cannot do. I mustn’t be anxious, these people got to increase their potential value by calling upon their subordinates to crazily go out and occupy others’ territories and embezzle even more resources. “I cannot do so; basin’s population isn’t very high in the first place. If I extend the battlefront too far, when enemies are met, it’d be hard to take care of everything!” When moving basin around, Su Mo clearly recalled in a quick glance that New World still had up to 60% of its surface as no man’s land that belonged to no one. If he could occupy more land, it would mean the territory’s influence of power would be enlarged by another landma.s.s. Accordingly, potential value would increase by what that piece of land was worth. This kind of advancement would be very different from increasing basin’s quality. When it came to war, it would mean that in just a few days, basin would lose too much of its territory, which would cut its potential value in half!
It was just not worth the loss! After thinking through this point, Su Mo’s restlessness slowed down a few. He proceeded to keep scrolling down and reading. Under the storm’s effect, work efficiency had decreased by another margin. What was unexpected to him was everyone’s desire for shelter and healthcare. The three voices blown here by the wind did change a bit from yesterday. For the first one, as predicted it came from ancient Ent Zhuling’s voice.
No one knew how the system actually transmitted these messages disguised as voices from the wind, but outside of Zhuling’s voiceover, Su Mo could even hear the other ents gossiping in their whispers. “Annex Su Mo’s territory, take his secret!”
“Kill him, take over his land, might belong to us ancient ents!”
“No can do. This Su Mo had fought with real G.o.ds’ incarnations and held the upper hand. Once we offend him, we definitely can’t repel their retaliation in our current form!”
“Using this alliance, we can trade to obtain their power in a scenario where both of us win. The dwarfs’ expansion is too great, if we don’t find a way to sanction them now, what happens later on would be hard to deal with!”
“We can continuously produce labor ents as long as he agrees to exchange it for vital power, we would not have the short end of the stick!”
More than ten voices in disarray mixed together and only after hearing it seven to eight times did Su Mo understand what everything they said meant. Just as he thought during the morning when they established the alliance, these ents were expectedly not easy to deal with. Within their conversation, one of the ents called for a start to territorial war, for them to force themselves over to attack basin.
The good thing was that most ents still had some basic ability for judgment and did not dare to act rashly, knowing about his previous war effort with the five deities’ doppelgangers. Eventually, they settled on the path of an alliance. Su Mo closed the first voice, then clicked on the second, which was the dwarf’s voice he heard yesterday.
Listening to the dwarf’s arrogant tone in the voice for Black Stone base camp to increase its defensive strength, Su Mo smiled without remembering it to heart.
From the front to the back, he did not plan to have a conflict with any outer power before basin could recover its weapon production. The current hiding strategy would give his enemies no way to properly estimate his strength, which was the best course of action for now.
Or else, once he crossed fists with the enemy, it would be best to defeat them on all fronts but if they lost—the situation would get infinitely more complicated. “Hmm, for the last voice-It couldn’t be someone from Light Empire?” Compared to the standard dwarvish translation tone, the last voice had a distinct sense of emotion and an accent to it.
Su Mo could hear obvious rage in the first half of the sentence, yet helplessness and desperation in the other half. “I really didn’t think that—Light Empire’s modifications would have problems with heat dissipation. When I think about it though, human activity would always release heat and that’d be even more apparent and worthy of caution when modified into machinery.
“As for that item they needed for cooling…” After browsing through all the messages and seeing that survival points had risen by 1105 points to a total of 45561 points, Su Mo closed the system panel while being deep in thought.
With a flick of the wrist, a black stone from near his chest appeared in Su Mo’s hand.
In contrast with yesterday, the current color from the stone had faded by a bit, but still retained a much purer color than many other shades of black.
Based on the attribute, this mysterious heat stone had absorbed the heat from his palm, leaving an icy cold feeling in his hands.
Although he did not know the upper limit of how much this stuff could absorb, by the looks of it now, it would be a useful heat cooling item.
“If we could up the production of heat stone, plus adding some processing of its limits. “If we sell it to these cyborgs for heat cooling before recharge, it could then be sold back at a lower price after recharging to dissipate heat.”
Coming up with an impractical idea, Su Mo laughed out loud. Afterward, seeing the few people turn around in surprise to look at him from the dining table, Su Mo waved his hand before getting up and walking out. The system showed its weather progress bar as only having reached 23% by now. According to this efficiency, in just a little bit, the rain would become lighter very quickly, basically akin to yesterday afternoon’s standard.
“This rain stops so weirdly, based on my scanner’s hypothesis, it should still last about another day at least. “Nonetheless, the rain stopping would be a good thing. If things were to drag on any further, our foundation building would be hard to expand.”
Same as he was doing before, Lu Kuan controlling a robot curiously looked outwards while standing at the entrance.
With both of them standing and how the rain became lighter so fast, this unusual change had evidently surpa.s.sed the boundaries of his cognition.
Neither spoke, they just stood at the gate silently. Lu Kuan’s mathematical ability kept improving via calculating the changes in the rain, while Su Mo was both happy and leisurely sitting on the recliner, waiting for the rain to stop quietly. Half an hour pa.s.sed by. When the dark clouds in the sky went away, what followed was the first sign of sunlight. No matter how far, Su Mo could still hear the ecstatic cheering coming from the gardening tools center.
The rain had stopped.
Through the system’s prowess, the rainstorm that covered the skies and ground had now been replaced by the marination of water vapor, after just forty minutes.
“This little bit of spending sure was worth it!
“Looks like I have to save up on these territory points in the future, just in case something happens.”
Seeing sunlight after its absence for more than a day, Su Mo’s heart started flowing with joy. Those villagers in the center on the other side had already prepared themselves at record speed to have their tools in hand and form twenty groups of fifty people, where they then hurried out in different directions based on Chen Shen’s previous orders.
They set out to the low-lying areas where pits filled with salt.w.a.ter had those in charge of digging dug, while those in charge of setting things up did just that. Everyone was working at lightning speed so much so that even before the temperature had risen back to normal, fifty kilometers of land had their salt filtered out after having finished its processing. For the rest of them, they came together to huddle in front of the underground shelter where they started to follow orders and smoothen the terrain, taking advantage of the soil’s moisture. “Chief! Our initial idea is to have the newly built villagers surround the underground shelter in the middle, then follow a 3*3-kilometer area basis where two main roads would then extend out to four branches with the perimeter being protected by an enclosure.
“The facilities for water drainage would use gutter drains as a temporary solution!” Taking hold of a previously drawn territorial structure map, Zhang Long and Liu Neng struck a conversation together.
“Based on the building requirements for prefabricated homes, our first rule of thumb is to make the house a size of eighty square meters, split into four compartments of twenty square meters where eight people would live in each compartment. With these calculations, we’d need a total of 44 houses in total.
“Each house would need 4X6 of square steel for the frame, colored steel would be needed at a length of 7.5 cm for the exterior, and 5cm for the dividing wall between compartments respectively. An estimated 15 tons of matching still would be needed then.” All the expenditures had basically been measured accurately to a precise number. After Su Mo voiced his needs yesterday, those in charge of architecture had made out a basic sketch and framework within one night.
“Fifteen tons eh? “That’s not a problem! First, level the ground, leave the rest to me!” Su Mo received the blueprint and noted down the steel needed before turning his head and returning to the shelter pondering. Steelmaking was an extremely technical craft.
From the ancient Huaxian’s primitive ways of making steel using a furnace to the Han dynasty’s refined steelmaking, Huaxian always led the pack.
This type of practice, however, was not amiable to basin.
For one, the steel could not be standardized, for another, it wasted time and labor.
If they used the modern ways of steelmaking which were converter steelmaking, basin had the underlying heritage for it, the furnace used for it could be made here.
It would be the spray gun used in the furnace, plus the later rolling that would be the problem.
Without a stepwise process and before restarting machinery production, this method could only be put on hold. “Thirteen tons of square steel, two tons of steel panels, at maximum firepower within the furnace would take about nine hours. “As for spending a thousand five hundred points!”
Furnaces were excellent quality tools where just a short three hours of usage would cost at least 500 disaster points.
Glancing at how he only had thirteen thousand points of allowance left, Su Mo switched on the machinery without hesitating.
The points were meant to be spent when needed.
Instead of stretching out a furnace, thinking of ways to upgrade the spray gun and make the mold, he settled on using a thousand five hundred points, which made things way more convenient and time-saving.
Thanks to the resources saved up, the copper iron ore they had were completely sufficient for the amount of steelmaking they intended.
As the resources got put in the input end, the b.u.t.ton was pushed for the furnace to switch on, where it then started making rumbling noises from the inside.
Once the three-minute wait was up, a new batch of fresh square steel came out of the oven.
“Tch! This really is produced by the furnace; the quality is that good!” Su Mo felt satisfied after knocking it a few times to feel the heavy weight and texture.
However, the steel had not yet been brought out for on-site testing by Su Mo. From afar, small team leader Su Yuan who led some villagers to clean up the salt ran over while screeching out. “Chief! Chief! When we were on the edges of the territory, we ran into a group of…a group of ents!
“They told me that their kind had established an alliance with basin. They asked to be let in, so they’d be able to tour around for educational purposes!”
Su Yuan’s voice was sonorous, it captured everyone’s attention in an instant.
Besides that, he had in his hand, a ma.s.sive leaf half a human’s height that reflected a light green glow under the sunlight. “Wow! So fast!”
Just the day basin’s storm had just pa.s.sed, their exploration team had already set foot on basin’s border.
It was obvious that they noticed basin’s unusual weather pattern. “What’s going on?” Hearing the cheers, Lu Kuan put down the work in his hand and walked out.
“Quick! Help me think, in what way can we fool those people? Sorry, fool those ents.
“Right now there’s a bunch of foreign races that want to come into our territory. We can’t afford to deny them entry, so we must think of a clever way of convincing them to go back willingly.”
Taking over the leaf in Su Yuan’s hand, Su Mo swiftly returned to the shelter to sit down with a calm look on his face.
This move could really be counted as suffering a loss unknowingly.
In his original plan, Su Mo had thought to have basin settle down stably before finding a way to make alliances with others.
He would first send people to visit and observe other territories so that intel could be brought back about those places.
Who would have thought that the ents’ unorthodox move in the morning had short-circuited him from remembering to make a move as important as taking the initiative.
Now, the other party’s people were already waiting at basin’s border. If rejected, it would be a show of weakness on some level, the consequences would be dire!
“They’re already waiting at our side, wanting to come in to learn about us. The time is too short, even if we were to put on a show, it’d be too late.
“Unless…”
“Unless what?”
Hearing the hesitation in Lu Kuan’s words, Su Mo tilted his head up aggressively.
The next second, when Lu Kuan looked like he had a hard time speaking out, Su Mo suddenly came back to reality, just as an epiphany was realized in his mind.
“It’d be too hard, human genetics took us six years of testing to reach its current form.”
Concentrating on the virtual reality machine in the corner, Lu Kuan let out a long sigh.
Applicability would forever be virtual reality setup’s Achilles heel.
It was exactly this point that stranded them in their original tracks, making it hard to develop many multifaceted hand tools. “Even if we have the ents’ genetics, which can be used for immediate testing to find a match, to make something usable, it’d take three to five months at least, it’s fundamentally…” “No, enough! We have the ents’ genes, plus time for testing. “On the machine! I’ll test for the parameters right now!”