Chapter 273: Sky Barrier, Biological Virus
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
“Blazeland, the land above the wasteland!”
“Their population numbered over one million people, and the country’s landmass covered an area of 1.4 million square kilometers!”
“Human beings are indeed awesome! They even established a political power on a wasteland like this, and it was even a huge country!”
It was all written in black and white with the Huaxian characters printed neatly.
There was no need to doubt. These people were the same as Magoo. They belonged to another Earth in a parallel universe.
Every group of people had a different approach. The expeditionary army chose to struggle against the game and search for the secrets hidden behind it all.
This group of people chose to fight in a different manner. It was a fight for survival.
From these familiar words, Su Mo imagined scenes of these fellow citizens from Blazeland banding together to resist the disaster’s aftermath.
They did not choose to compromise, nor did they choose to search for those secrets. They only wanted to live tenaciously on this wasteland and rebuild mankind’s homeland.
Truthfully, the fact that there was no trace of their survival on the wasteland was evidence of this generation’s failure, but that did not affect…
The precious wealth, knowledge and experience that they left behind for future generations.
The wasteland could not store memories, but words could. Humans may not possess memory inheritance techniques similar to that of the wasteland’s creatures, but they had paper to keep records…
It’s enough!
“Ma Fei’s generation has taken a road that’s completely different from the one the expeditionary army took.”
“They completed the founding of their country by relying on magical and mythical powers and protected millions of Blazelanders!”
“And they even successfully survived the ocean disaster and went to the new world!”
“They traveled even further than Magoo!”
It could be seen from Magoo’s diary that the generation of the expeditionary army actually failed. They had gone down the wrong path from the start. At least for Magoo, he was among the top one percent of the population, but did not make it to the new world. It was outrageous.
Of course, finding out the secrets of this world had been the main goal of the expedition army, but the precondition was that…
They needed to survive!
“So far we know that there have already been two groups of Huaxians who made it here. These records are all priceless treasures.”
“Digest! We must fully digest their weaknesses and shortcomings, only then I can go further and discover the real secret behind this wasteland.”
Su Mo had no fear of death.
What Su Mo was truly afraid of was that, after his death, he would end up like these people who left their wealth behind for future generations, in the hopes of them solving the mystery he couldn’t.
This kind of emptiness would simply be the biggest torment for an intelligent human. It was an even more painful feeling than hopelessness.
Especially after discovering and owning such a magical thing as the system, Su Mo’s previous apathetic mentality had been eliminated little by little and replaced with curiosity about the world and the desire to explore the unknown.
After browsing through some of the remaining legislative rules of Blazeland, Su Mo flipped to the second page with excitement.
On the second page, the printed text disappeared, and was replaced by Liangfang Town’s mayor, Ma Fei’s, handwriting.
…
“Liangfang Town was formally established on Doomsday New Calendar Year 4, Month 5. The character “liang” means good, and “fang” means trade. These two words were combined with the hopes of good trades taking place here. This town is governed by Tianxi Province and funded by Xiang Ping City. I hope to communicate with Shan Bei Province and become a bridge between the two provinces. As the first mayor sent by the organization, I am both honored and terrified…”
…
“Doomsday New Calendar Year 4, Month 3, Day 1. The first trade took place with Hanwu City in Shan Bei Province. The trade route passed through three foreign bases. The toll payment at each base amounted to five percent, and a total of fifteen percent was charged. The trader was Wang Chuan…all went well!”
…
“Doomsday New Calendar Year 4, Month 5, Day 5. It was the fourth trade with Jiang Qian City in Shan Bei Province. This time, the trade route passed through five foreign bases. The toll payment at each base amounted to seven percent, and a total of thirty-five percent was charged. The trader was Meng Kai…all went well! (Measures: Negotiate tolls, reduce transportation costs or change routes)”
…
“Doomsday New Calendar Year 4, Month 6, Day 1. It was National Day. Trade was canceled. There are currently 8,600 citizens in Liangfang Town who are celebrating National Day. The total material consumption was: xxx units of rice, xxx units of flour, xxx units of vegetables (Measures: Develop the immigration department, ensure regular maintenance of the sky barrier to prevent any accidents from happening).”
…
“Doomsday New Calendar Year 5, Month 1, Day 1. It was the ninth trade with Hanwu City in Shan Bei Province. This time, the trade route passed through two foreign bases. The toll payment at each base amounted to thirteen percent, and a total of twenty-six percent was charged. The trader was Wang Chuan, and he unexpectedly died during the expedition… (Measures: Investigate the cause of Wang Chuan’s death, activate the sky barrier protection around the clock, raise the threat level of the Flower Tiger Tribe and Boar Tribe to Level 1).”
…
“Doomsday New Calendar Year 7, Month 3, Day 5. It was the twenty-second trade with Yang Yue City in Shan Bei Province. This time, the trade route passed through one foreign base. The toll payment at each base amounted to fifty percent. The trader was Li Feiyu… (Measures: The payment was too high. The trader Li Feiyu protested, but failed, and was surrounded by the Smanzhu People for two nights. The Smanzhu People’s threat level was raised to Level 1, and the trade route was temporarily sealed off. The unusual event was reported to Hualien County).”
…
“Doomsday New Calendar Year 8, Month 3, Day 7. Encountered a sudden disaster: Volcanic eruption (Disaster threat level: 2; sky barrier at level 1 protection enabled; estimated success rate of disaster resistance was 100%). The current population of Liangfang Town numbers 54,355 residents (Measures: Reduce population to 35,000 people).”
…
“Doomsday New Calendar Year 9, Month 6, Day 1. It was National Day. The thirty-first trade with Yangliu City in Shan Bei Province. The trade expedition was lost. (Measures: Provide feedback to Xiang Ping City and Tian Xi Province. Alert increased to special level. The current population of Liangfang Town numbers thirty-two thousand residents. Disperse all foreign races, disperse all foreign creatures, and all those who are not registered residents of Liangfang Town are not allowed to enter. All buildings outside the sky barrier are to be demolished. The mayor Ma Fei went to Hualien County to report on his job).”
…
“Doomsday New Calendar Year 9, Month 7, Day 1. The team that came to hand over supplies lost contact. Currently, the supplies in Liangfang Town are insufficient to maintain the daily activities of 5,000 people, and the sky barrier’s energy reserves are in a critical condition (Measures: Demolish all peripheral buildings. Continue to shrink the effective area. Deport an additional 3,000 people to Hualien County to ensure the daily operations of Liangfang Town).”
…
“Doomsday New Calendar Year 9, Month 9, Day 6. A new disaster emerged. This time, the disaster was a horrible one that humankind had never faced before: a biological virus. Shang Feng could not be reached and Hualien County lost contact. There has been no material support for Liangfang Town in over three months, I must do something (Measures: Deport an additional 1,000 people and maintain the remaining numbers. Reduce the sky barrier’s scope of protection again. The mayor Ma Fei went to Xiang Ping City to ask for help).”
…
A total of 36 pages completely recorded Ma Fei’s thirty-one trades with Shan Bei Province since he became the mayor of Liangfang Town, as well as the five disasters that could have affected the town’s operations. It also included some methods of dealing with them.
The time span covered by these entries was a total of five and a half years, amounting to over two thousand days.
At its peak, Liangfang Town’s resident population numbered more than fifty thousand people and had enough supplies for twenty thousand people to do nothing except eat and sleep for a whole year.
Even when the final trade expedition was lost, the town’s population was still over thirty thousand people.
“Fifty thousand people, Liangfang Town was developed to such terrifying heights by Ma Fei!”
“A single trade expedition carrying almost twenty million pounds of grain… How did they manage that?”
Most of the records in the mayor’s handbook were meant for his superiors, so the wording was also very formal, indicating the quantities of each trade.
The enchantment surrounding Liangfang Town was called the “Sky Barrier” in the manual!
The Sky Barrier was not a patent that belonged to Liangfang Town, but was something issued and set up uniformly throughout Blazeland. Even its maintenance was controlled and conducted by professionals.
As for the barrier’s defensive properties, those were awesome. Even in the face of a volcanic eruption, it had a hundred percent certainty of resisting the disasters; that alone was already shocking enough.
Just like Magoo’s notes, things written on paper could never lie.
At the end, when he saw how hurried Ma Fei’s handwriting looked when he wrote about going to Hualien County, Su Mo could also make some guesses about Liangfang Town’s desolate and desperate condition.
Ma Fei was indeed dead, and he died outside the town.
As for how the situation came to be this way, it could be inferred from the ever increasing toll rates and the constant shortage of traded goods.
The disasters got worse every time.
Aside from that, the types and attributes of the disasters also seemed to have changed far beyond humankind’s previous estimates.
With such a large variety of disasters, from geological disasters to biological viruses, it was too difficult to build an appropriate response mechanism in time.
It was not merely humans that required materials, but also the foreign races. If this balance was lost, both sides had to fight one another to death for survival.
Blazeland’s technology had reached a bottleneck. After the Sky Barrier’s development, there had been no progress for a long time. The country remained stagnant and was clueless on how to develop further.
Facing such a predicament, once the level of a disaster exceeded the tolerance level of Liangfang Town’s sky barrier, and without the leadership and management of the mayor Ma Fei…
A mass migration was a reasonable outcome.
“I thought the biological viruses would only appear in movies. I did not expect it to also appear in this wasteland.”
“The sky barrier can only defend against physical natural disasters, but is hopeless when faced with a transmissible virus like this!”
Su Mo could not help but feel a chill in his heart as he looked carefully at Ma Fei’s description of the biological virus.
The mutant creatures outside the sky barrier were not real and were only external images recorded when the barrier last functioned.
The images were not controlled by the mechanism. Besides, the barrier was losing energy over time, and maintaining the white mist camouflage in the weaker areas consumed too much energy, which was why it started displaying images of the actual situation outside that it had recorded.
“Oh boy! Since all creatures migrated to the new world, there was nowhere to run once a biological virus was released.”
“It turns out that this is the ultimate goal behind the migration this time. How ruthless!”
As he closed the mayor’s handbook and looked at the dark room, Su Mo could not stop trembling.
He was not trembling in fear.
Instead, he was…
Excited!
