The first time he designed a plan on how to maximize production, as well as make full use of the land, Su Mo had not been worried.
Upon going into the ruins of time and experiencing “difficulties”, he had not been worried either.
When he encountered various obstacles during the planting process, making it difficult to advance, Su Mo still had not been worried.
However, now that he had brought the harvest back to the warehouse and had begun looking at the shelter base’s properties on the game panel, Su Mo was worried!
“I still have eight complete shelter cores on hand at the moment. I don’t have to consider the number of floors for the time being, and I can harvest the energy fruit tomorrow. I’ll be able to replace the broken cores then, and I can expand the area of the shelter right away.
“It’s better not to put the cold storage room on the bottom or top floor of the shelter. Opening one up nearby might be the best option!”
At present, the shelter level was lv2, but the conditions for upgrading to lv3 had already been fulfilled much earlier. All he had to do was pay 1000 points to upgrade.
After this welfare disaster, he would even be able to fulfill the basic requirements for lv4 and directly be upgraded to that level.
The new function for lv3 was sanctuary. As for lv4’s new function, Su Mo was rather excited about it and had some new ideas for it as well.
Lv2’s binding function guaranteed that the shelter could share blessings within a certain range.
At present, of the two magical blessings that the Underground Shelter already possessed, the wind of the lion tribe had undergone reversion before, and the water of the mermaids had been shelved all this time.
Maybe he could perform a reversion on the water of the mermaids and use it for control?
Thinking about this, he went to his workbench and spread out the design sketches depicting the general structure of the shelter. In the space on the side, Su Mo began doodling.
“For the new food warehouse, the 880 cubic meters on the first floor can be used to store flour. I’ll have to make sure it’s damp-proof, insulated, and routinely ventilated.
“The vegetable warehouse has to be cold and insulated, but most of these vegetables need to be pickled as well, so I don’t have to worry about storage issues.
“As for the remaining fruits and such, I’ll make all of them into fruit preserves and keep them chilled. That will extend their shelf life for as long as possible.”
Design-wise, what the blueprint depicted was a two-story structure.
To the right of the Underground Shelter, Su Mo put down a core, which grew into a complete underground shelter. He used an excavator to bury all the doors above ground as well as the passageways going downward to ensure that they could not be accessed from above.
Through the binding function, he made the newly-built shelter’s materials exactly the same as the main shelter and connected the two, integrating the new structure into the whole unit.
After seeing to this, he opened a passageway on the second floor of the Underground Shelter to connect with the food warehouse.
On ordinary days, unless he had to take something out, this passageway would remain sealed to keep things chilled.
Only when the first round of supplies was about to be depleted would he enter to retrieve more.
After having drafted several designs in the past, plus the system’s “personal improvements”, Su Mo could be said to have at least picked up some basic drafting skills.
A round of drafting later, the design for the new food warehouse was now on paper.
However, whether this design blueprint was alright or not depended on if the system would recognize it.
Su Mo tried out the system’s scanning function. When the green light turned off, the familiar data panel automatically popped out without him having to think about it.
[Food warehouse design blueprint (normal)]
[Description]: A food warehouse design blueprint designed by semi entry-level architect “Su Mo”. Although there are no errors in the composition, there is nothing innovative about it. In terms of design, a drastic approach has been adopted, missing out on aesthetic appeal. It is worth mentioning that the design blueprint has thoroughly taken into consideration an excessive level of “safety” to the point of mania, giving the blueprint some sparkle.
[Upgrade direction 1]: Natural granary: A redrafted food warehouse design that imitates a natural granary’s storage conditions. Significantly increases the food warehouse’s insulation capacity, minimally increases the food warehouse’s ventilation capacity. Slight changes have been made to the spatial structure, incorporating natural shelves and increasing food shelf life. Requires survival points (380).
[Upgrade direction 2]: Frozen granary: Improves upon the food warehouse design. Retains the design concept but significantly increases the granary’s capacity for low temperatures, minimally increases storage capacities, and significantly increases drying capacity. Incorporates reserved storage slots, a reserved natural fridge, reserved drainage channel, and minimally increases food shelf life. Requires survival points (420).
[Upgrade direction 3]: Psychic energy granary: A redrafted food warehouse design that incorporates a psychic energy design concept. When any food enters the granary, the default decay period is halved, default chilled freshness is doubled, and the granary can simulate different ecological environments for each different type of food. Has maximum food shelf life and the best quality. Requires survival points (19800)
[Comment]: Young Su, the architectural design industry is too complex. You can’t master it, let someone else do it!
“Amazing. Modifying my design blueprint is actually more expensive than redrafting. Who is this system turning up its nose at!”
Even as he complained and saw the choices the system presented, Su Mo was unable to suppress a smile.
The design blueprints he had drafted in the past needed to be considered for a long time before being recognized by the system. Now, its properties showed up immediately.
From this, it could be seen that his current level of formulation and design had made a qualitative leap.
Considering there was no systematic method of learning, if he had the time and energy someday to go down this path in earnest, the shelter could even be the base of what might be a constructed city in the future.
He would not need to let anyone else draft those future design blueprints!
“Hmm, I can eliminate the psychic energy direction right away. Spending 20 thousand on a design is far too expensive when I don’t even know how much upgrading the basement will cost later on.
“The first redrafting simulates natural conditions, whereas the second one retains my concept for refrigeration.
“If I had to specifically choose…”
After repeatedly reading through the benefits provided by both the system’s upgrade directions and thinking about it a little, Su Mo slowly said, “I choose…
“Upgrade direction two!”
As soon as he uttered these words, 420 survival points were deleted, and a green light landed directly on the design blueprint. The initially shaky straight lines underwent a definite change.
Under the system’s upgrading, Su Mo’s non-standard marks and measurements were turned into standard measurements used in the design industry. Furthermore, they were even the type that could be imported straight into the game panel for redrafting, which was extremely convenient.
Including some of the modifications that Su Mo described at the side of the draft, the system did its best to change them into design language and mark them on the blueprint.
This did not consume very many points, and the modification did not take long either. After about 20 seconds, once the green light turned off, the new design blueprint was fresh out of the oven.
“The natural concept the system suggested wasn’t bad—but considering my current circumstances, using a blessing to simulate refrigeration is more reliable.
“With refrigeration, it doesn’t matter if it’s flour or vegetables—there won’t be any big issues for at least two or three years. As for later on…
“Perhaps by then, I’ll have already discovered a new method of replacing it, and I won’t have to worry about storage issues at all.”
With the high capacity signal tower’s mysterious technology, Su Mo was not at all worried about what the shelter’s technology level would be in a few years. In fact, he was full of confidence.
After all, over the next two years, there were still two Chinese New Year’s Eves to draw prizes. If he managed to draw something good, perhaps the technology tree might suddenly advance in leaps and bounds!
For the time being, however, these things were still too unrealistic.
Shaking his head, Su Mo dispersed the flights of fancy that had started popping up in his mind again. He took the design blueprint and put it away in his storage space before he went to the first floor that was now filled with piles of fruit.
Altogether, roughly estimated, all the fruits he had harvested were around four or five catties in total.
Even Moore, who was lying on the ground and eating away heartily, could not get through that many fruits. Most of what had been harvested still needed to be made into fruit preserves.
Su Mo started by picking out some bruised fruits. Since he could not go out for now, he quickly got started on the fruit preserving process.
Making fruit preserves was not difficult. For something like an apple, one would only have to peel off the skin, then get rid of the seeds inside and steam the fruit on a rack before putting it out to dry under the sun.
At present, judging by the dark clouds that were already starting to disperse—barring anything unforeseen—it would be another sunny day.
Therefore, Su Mo used the storage space to move the stove to the first floor, then simply flung open the doors to start burning wood and steaming the fruit.
Baskets of different fruits were set on the cookware. As the wind of the lion tribe blew on the fire below, the steam quickly drew out most of the moisture in the fruits.
He did not have to be worried about the steamed fruit either and spread them out over the ground. He did not have to sun-dry them yet. Drying them indoors for a while would heighten the taste somewhat.
He ate as he worked.
When the first pot came out, half its contents could be dried within one to four hours, but with the second pot, only a third of the fruit could be dried.
With the third pot, even Oreo—who particularly loved eating dried apples—looked fearful. Afraid that Su Mo would persistently force her to do so, she fled back to the shelter’s second floor, temporarily leaving this “place of misery”.
The two chickens followed suit, clucking wildly as they fled with Oreo.
Only Moore was left, and he scorned nothing raw or cooked. He helped Su Mo peel the fruits, tossing ones that “looked good” to him into his mouth at the same time. He chewed on them happily; everything looked sweet and fragrant to him.
After having used psychic energy water for a while, Moore seemed to have unlocked even more of his intelligence. As rain pattered outside, he began rambling about the Lightning Bear tribe.
“Master Su Mo, I seem to be able to recall even more things now. In our Lightning Bear tribe, the cooks also made something like these fru… fruit preserves!”
“Oh? Moore, you can even remember that your family was on this wasteland?”
The origins of all the foreign races in the wasteland were a huge mystery, including the already extinct kobolds. There were still countless doubts that had not yet been cleared up.
Upon hearing what Su Mo said, Moore’s words slowed down as he started to recall in detail.
A moment later, as if he had identified some detail, Moore hastily shook his head and muttered, “Moore’s family isn’t here. They’re not on this land. We have three moons where we’re from. Moore’s family is in a huge forest!
“There were pretty sprites in the forest who would give us nice drinks, and goblins would often bring tasty fruits to trade for materials.
“There was a strange person who would send us recipes regularly. The food made from the recipes was delicious too.
“The fruits from the goblins were so good—even sweeter than our apples!”
As he said this, Moore could not help salivating, and he hurriedly swallowed two apples as large as his fists.
“Oh? Can you still recall exactly what kind of fruit it was and how it tasted?”
Seeing that Moore seemed “moved”, Su Mo thought about it and asked a question that seemed random but was actually intentionally leading.
Moore’s reaction was not unexpected on Su Mo’s part either.
When he heard this, Moore immediately ceased all activity.
A familiar confusion appeared on his ursine face as if something were missing from his memories or someone had forcefully taken that part of it away.
“That’s right. Why can’t Moore remember what that thing tasted like?
“It didn’t have juice like an apple or the spiciness of oil-sprinkled noodles—why did Moore think those things were tasty?”
