Chapter 292: Big Changes, The Rules Of The Wasteland
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
“Oh? There’s good stuff? What’s the grade, and why are you so surprised? ”
Su Mo chuckled when he saw the gleam in Chen Shen’s eyes. He strode forward and patted Chen Shen’s shoulder.
Even if Zeus Shelter had previously been the No. 2 shelter in a whole world of billions of people, this only indicated that they had better luck during the first seven days in the wasteland.
It did not mean that their development could be the same as Su Mo’s after a month—ahead of everyone else.
A month after the three disasters, without exception, all the shelters that were ranked top ten after the first disaster had vanished without a trace, other than Su Mo, who was still very active in the public eye.
Even an official organization like Tundra Shelter was no exception.
Of course, this was an inevitable development.
In the wasteland, something like luck was very important on occasion, and sometimes not that important at all.
Given the combat abilities of the land-based foreign races, most of the creatures had probably already encountered special forces armed with basic weapons.
If the foreign races did not possess any strong special abilities, there was only one outcome…
Total annihilation without casualties!
As for the hidden official underground shelter, before the war on the ocean kicked off, they would still be an unknown factor in terms of how powerful they were.
However, if one wanted to talk about shelters that were previously on the ranking list, Zeus Shelter’s development potential would most probably not make even the top ten thousand in the world.
Otherwise, they would not have gotten mixed up with Hope Village, which had only three guns. They would also not have been in a confrontation with the villagers that lasted several hours because Zeus Shelter was too afraid to make a move.
Chen Shen was not anxious when he heard Su Mo’s random question. He moved closer and spoke into Su Mo’s ear, his voice low.
“Brother Su, don’t look down on this bunch of villains. These days, they’ve been using trucks to steal and plunder on the go. They’ve migrated more than 3,000 kilometers this way.
“They’ve got one epic-quality and two rare-quality items, as well as six excellent-quality ones from plundering other people.
“If they hadn’t encountered us, they’d probably have kept on robbing and plundering all the way to the new world, then they could make a fortune out of all these supplies again!”
Su Mo sucked in his breath…
After hearing that there were epic and rare items…
At this point, Su Mo, who had been nonchalant earlier, could no longer suppress his excitement.
Epic-quality?
Good gracious, after all this time, it was only because he had entered the ruins of time and returned to the past, secretly plotting against the Abyssal Dragon Zeta, that he had obtained an epic-quality item there and only one at that.
Otherwise, the only other item that he had now was the epic-quality design blueprint that he had been traded the last time he had entered the trading ruins.
He did not expect that Zeus Shelter, in its current wretched state, would have one as well!
When did epic-quality items become so common?!
Chen Shen rubbed his head when he finally saw deep interest on Su Mo’s face. He did not waste time in idle chatter and led him up right away.
According to the rules of the village, confiscating captives’ trophies had to be witnessed by the management. After these had been inventoried, they would be put in the warehouse.
Items that had no grades, like food supplies or base materials, could be submitted in a report first and reported to the supplies supervisor.
After the supplies supervisor had written in comments, the report would then be passed to Chen Shen for perusal. A copy would be made of the report, which would be signed and issued.
Every cycle, all bound copies of base material inventories on file would be summarized by the supplies supervisor and handed to Su Mo for review.
These rules could fully guarantee that no corruption would occur in Hope Village, and would also make sure that during times of emergency, there was no need for too many formalities in issuing the supplies catalog.
However, these were only for base materials. For graded items, the procedures were more troublesome.
When making an inventory of these things, graded items would need to be stamped with seals from every member of the management team, and securely stored on the supply shelves in the warehouse.
If anyone’s seal was broken, that person would have to take responsibility.
With all the management keeping tabs on each other, it could be considered a means of entirely eliminating the possibility of internal corruption.
If the people of Hope Village wanted to take these graded items out, apart from needing to obtain approval from all the other members of management, including Chen Shen, they would have to hand the proof to Chen Shen and wait for him to review it, and approve.
This would then be handed to Su Mo for a final review. Only then could the item be taken out.
Therefore, after an inventory had been made, even Chen Shen as the head of the village had no jurisdiction over the supplies. It was all up to Su Mo’s discretion.
As one of the people who set up this rule, Su Mo was fairly satisfied with it and made no objections to the cumbersome procedures.
He went up the mountain one step at a time; the path was not “smooth” at all.
The mountain trail was currently full of captives from the Zeus Shelter. Most of the captives were tied up at the edge of the cliff and had all been collectively bound together.
As he passed by, Su Mo personally witnessed the strange phenomena that Chen Shen had mentioned.
During the process of interrogation yesterday, when these ruffians saw him, they had displayed a spurious sort of fear.
It was not the kind of fear that came from their hearts; it was because their lives were in Su Mo’s hands.
Today, however, when Su Mo walked around the corner, the first captive saw him and shrieked…
This time, the situation had totally changed!
Without exception, it was as if everyone had seen a monster. Their faces first displayed inconceivable expressions, then desperation to stay alive.
Su Mo was no stranger to these expressions.
It was the same when he had destroyed the saltpeter camp and rescued Chen Shen and the others—they had looked at him like he was their savior.
However, as if they knew that they were currently only lowly prisoners, these men did not make a fuss. They merely stepped aside to give way to Su Mo, watching with a mixture of fear and respect as he left.
After passing through the most crowded part of the trail, the “road conditions” became much better as he was nearing the platform on top of the mountain.
Su Mo had seen the engineering blueprints drawn up by the construction team that Hope Village had contracted for such a high price. A system appraisal revealed that there were no issues with them at all.
Therefore, after the blueprints had been passed down, work on the shelter’s platform began progressing rapidly.
With the magical tools and creation panels that mankind possessed, even ordinary people were on par with professional construction workers. They worked surprisingly fast.
The last time when he interrogated the lioness, Su Mo had been too anxious, so he had not looked carefully at the platform.
This time, now that construction was slowly getting underway, Su Mo could clearly see what was going on and approved of it mentally.
In just a few days, Hope Village’s construction on top of the mountain had already gotten off to a flying start.
The top of the mountain was no longer a large, bare platform—it had been turned into a tiered structure!
There were four pillars positioned on all four sides of the platform. On top of the pillars were downward-curved eaves modeled after those of pavilions.
This design ensured that rain could flow down along the curved eaves during rainy days without affecting the pit in the center that Hope Village had been digging.
It would also ensure that they would have sufficient light on ordinary days, so they would not need to live in darkness.
As for the caves with the hollow depression in the middle—the areas where all the villagers would live—a large pit three meters deep had been excavated.
Around the hole were iron plates for further security, to make that nothing would fall or collapse.
Walking down the steps that had been cut into the stone was like entering another mini-world. When coming into the brightly lit caves especially, this feeling became even stronger.
“Well done, Chen Shen. With your capabilities, keeping you on as the village chief is really a waste!”
Su Mo then saw the walls of the cave were inscribed with the names of every villager and their role in the construction process.
There were no fawning words or pretentious motivational slogans.
Su Mo stepped forward. As he touched the rough words on the wall, he complimented Chen Shen, feeling emotional.
No matter where it was—on the doomsday wasteland or in large companies or corporations on Earth—as soon as profits and benefits were involved, inspirational slogans and mottos could only motivate new recruits into giving their best. It was a load of rubbish to expect that these would be able to continuously motivate everyone.
In a big corporation, for everyone to be motivated, cohesive as a team, and to work hard to achieve their goals, there was no need for any ritualistic team-building activities or nonsensical motivational slogans.
If a company could give its workers two days off every week, no overtime during weekdays, and permission to leave half an hour earlier on Fridays—even if the pay was average in the industry, any employee of that company would certainly remember how kind the boss was.
Likewise, this was more obvious in the wasteland.
As long as fairness, justice, and transparency were achieved, there would be no need to worry that someone would slack off or that the shelter could not develop.
These things were Papa Su’s most heartfelt sentiments after his demobilization and going to sea.
There were times when Papa Su would involuntarily reveal some knowledge of management over dinner, initiating a discussion with the whole family.
Su Mo had not expected that Chen Shen had been able to figure this out too. If the boy had been given the opportunity on Earth, he would have gone far in his workplace.
“Brother Su, you honor me far too highly!
“These are all just little motivational ploys. If we want the villagers to have a good life, we’d still have to rely on you to support us. Without the security of your capabilities, if we want to live a good life…”
“Stop, stop. Little rascal, there you go again after I praise you!”
When Chen Shen was about to start flattering him with the same old story, even though Su Mo knew he really meant it, he still could not help but feel a headache coming on since he had heard so much of it. Therefore, he hurriedly stopped Chen Shen from continuing.
Chen Shen, who was behind him, saw him behaving this way and could only shake his head. There was a trace of a different sort of admiration on his face, and he quickly hurried to catch up with Su Mo.
Having a good leader was important for the management.
A man of action like Su Mo was a subordinate’s dream.
He did not need flattery; he only needed one to do their job. This was such a luxury in the wasteland!
Su Mo walked ahead, commiserating with the villagers who were still working while drawing the attention of the villagers in the distance.
Only after he had followed the twisting, turning path into the deepest part of the cave did Su Mo realize that the storage room was a completely different world altogether.
It had been excavated a level lower than the villagers’ living quarters.
The entrance to this level was not obvious; the doors were only visible after Chen Shen pulled aside the wooden boards on top of them.
A narrow passage with stairs led downward, wide enough for only one person to go down at a time. The passage itself was covered with three sets of anti-theft doors that resembled manhole covers, and each door was about 10 centimeters thick.
Furthermore, after Su Mo subtly studied them, he was stunned to discover that the materials of these anti-theft doors were not ordinary iron but alloy materials that were very similar to the shelter doors.
With materials like this, even if someone carried an excellent quality level iron pickaxe, there was no way they could break in.
Of course, there were still vulnerabilities.
If the thief knew that this was the passage to the storage room, they would not need to break through the entrance—they could just chisel a way in from somewhere next to it.
However, considering that this was the heart of Hope Village, even if one were standing on the mountainside, they would still be able to clearly hear the sound of chiseling activity, so this vulnerability was not something that needed to be taken into consideration for now.
Once the iron door opened, they walked down along the stairs. When they had gone three meters below, they came to solid ground and arrived at the storage room, which took up around fifty square meters.
There were already shelves attached to the walls.
There were not many items on the shelves for the time being. Looking up from below, there were around fourteen to fifteen of them, all covered with seals.
However, these things glowed with ordinary light green, indicating they were only good-quality items. There was nothing like the good stuff Chen Shen had mentioned.
“Brother Su, wait, we have a more secure design here!”
When he saw Su Mo looking over, Chen Shen smiled and took out his flashlight. Aiming the beam of light at the wall, he felt along it.
“Huh? There’s a mechanism?”
Watching Chen Shen searching for the switch to activate the mechanism like in a tv series, Su Mo’s curiosity was piqued.
There was a mechanism in the Underground Shelter too, located in the bedroom’s secret door. Pushing on it gently would allow the door to pivot into the armory so one could retrieve the weapons stored inside.
He had never expected Hope Village’s storage room to actually implement such construction techniques.
However, the method of activating the wall mechanism was not that hard. As he watched, Chen Shen located three points and gently pressed down on them. A small hinge plate popped out.
Chen Shen pressed down on the plate with all his might, and the wall began to swivel slowly.
Faint rays of light began growing brighter with the angle of the wall’s rotation until they illuminated the shelter vividly.
The light blue glow of excellent quality items, the bright purple glow of epic-quality items, and the orange-yellow glow of legendary-quality items—when the three colors mingled together, it was like opening a treasure chest. Just a glance, and it was hard for people to tear their gazes away.
The epic item that belonged to Zeus Shelter met Su Mo’s gaze as the wall swiveled.
“Huh… This epic item looks a little odd!”
“Is this an… iron pot?”
After seeing the flashy, high-class pretentiousness of the Mind Ring, and the elegance of the epic-quality design blueprint, when he suddenly caught sight of the black iron pot in front of him…
Su Mo was startled!
