The last time Su Mo entered the simulation world, he was knocked out cold. It was also in that exact state that he had come back to the real world.
After he muttered “exit” internally, Su Mo opened his eyes in an attempt to observe what kind of method would be used to transport his body between the dimensions of both worlds.
However, the miraculous talisman disappointed him this time around.
After he chose to exit, a golden light appeared in the sky and crashed down onto the ground.
The light was blinding, causing Su Mo to shut his eyes. He reopened them when the light dissipated, but he was utterly shocked to find himself back on Hope One!
It was a familiar place with a familiar view.
This time, however…
The destroyed fire-control radar, the crushed captain’s quarters, the main deck that had been riddled with holes, and the damaged wires…
Everything that was damaged had been restored to their original state!
Everything was so peaceful in the main world, so peaceful that it left Su Mo in somewhat of a daze.
“I used to think that the Divulgence of Heaven’s Secret talisman was just some really good technology, but it seems that this thing must also be related to the miraculous authority somehow.”
“I am very sure that this talisman has some huge secret hidden behind it.”
After returning to the main world, Su Mo’s body was no longer crippled.
He felt an unlimited amount of energy pouring through his body, so Su Mo straightened himself, stood up, and caught the Divulgence of Heaven’s Secret talisman that was still dancing in the air, examining it closely.
It could replicate what would happen during a disaster so realistically. Besides, all the damage, even death, could be nullified with just a thought.
This amazing feature was beyond Su Mo’s current level of comprehension.
With the information he had at hand, only the miraculous authority could explain everything that was going on.
After some thought, Su Mo realized that he had a chance at exploiting a bug!
“If the talisman resets every single living thing within a 100-kilometer radius of me, then I just have to ask a villager to wait outside that radius.”
“And after I enter the talisman’s simulation world, I’ll just use a walkie talkie and I will find out if this is part of the real world or just a simulated one.”
“Besides, I can ask the villagers what events transpired before any disaster strikes. This would mean that I can predict the future!”
“In that case, if I tell Chen Shen to go explore the canyon and contact him after I enter the talisman’s simulation world, I can find out beforehand the results of his exploration.”
“But won’t that create a paradox?”
Su Mo leaned against the guardrails as he stared at the 7 bars of energy on the talisman. After thinking twice, he decided against the idea of exploiting this bug.
He had no other choice!
He was too weak right now. He had to put his life on the line for just one voyage. Even if he could figure out what the talisman really was, or exploit the bug, that would not make any significant difference anyway.
Besides, if he violated any rules in the process, the talisman’s energy might be reset to zero. If that happened, Su Mo would not be able to conduct any more tests, and that would be disastrous.
“I’ll make note of this and leave it alone for now. I can save this for later!”
For security reasons, Su Mo chose to only make a mental note of his thoughts regarding the talisman. He then put away the talisman itself into his storage space. At the same time, he searched his memories for information on how to modify and improve Hope One’s design.
“First, I’ll have to create a protective cover so that Hope One doesn’t crumble under the torrential rain.”
“Second, the OS still needs some improvement. The logic algorithm it’s using is impractical. It will go crazy if there is a problem with the raw data, so it has limited functionality. I’ll just have to use survival points to improve it if I really have to.”
“Third, I’ll have to build a ditch for the ship to reverse into. With the simulation’s data, I have to make sure that Hope One gets out into the sea undamaged.”
“Fourth, I need to add more structures to strengthen the hull so that the steel plates can be used to their full potential. I can’t let the same thing that happened in the simulation happen again. The steel plates were not destroyed, but they were broken at the joints.”
“Fifth, I have to make another fire-control radar. If the current one goes out of commission, it’s akin to Hope One being blinded in one eye, crippling the OS!”
“Sixth, I need to find the factors that caused the errors at the beginning of the simulation, archive them and repair them to prevent those errors from happening again.”
Discovering six ways to improve Hope One from just the first test was an amazing outcome.
Thinking of those six ways, Su Mo stared at the bright lights on Iron Rock Mountain just two kilometers away.
There was a distant look in Su Mo’s eyes. A seventh idea had popped into his mind.
“Even though Hope Village sits on top of Iron Rock Mountain, it’s not at risk of landslides.”
“However, the villagers dug through most of the mountain so that they could live inside, so they need a protective cover built as soon as possible.”
“They only have a gazebo right now, and that alone would be destroyed after 13 minutes of rain, much less the total 15 minutes of torrential rain. When the water starts surging into the cave after two minutes, it will kill everyone inside…”
“As for the other humans…”
Su Mo had a headache thinking about the upcoming natural disaster and the current plight of these mortal, ignorant human beings.
Even though he had the legendary Hope One by his side, Su Mo was still quite cautious and reverent toward the ocean and the incoming disaster. He simply wanted to be as careful as he could.
However, among the humans, at least 30% of them did not fear disasters any longer since obtaining a bountiful harvest from the welfare disaster previously.
If one opened up the chatroom at any time of day, all they could see inside were words of hubris and ignorance.
The people were talking about annihilating the d*mned foreign races and how the new world belonged to the humans.
They also talked about gathering together in the billions and suppressing other beings so that they could get rich afterwards.
Some even relished the idea of opening up the wasteland!
If Su Mo had been influenced by some cunning person to keep the news of the upcoming disaster from humans, in six days…
15 minutes would be all it took to send everyone into the afterlife!
The other 70% of humans would be dragged into oblivion as well.
“Forget it, I need to plan this properly. I just have to wait until I get more data from the second test, and only then will I figure out how to tell these people about it!”
He wrote down every single piece of information in his notebook and threw it into the storage space.
The last time he entered the simulation world, he had spent 2 hours’ worth of energy in there but, in the real world, only two minutes had passed.
Since he spent time on his investigation inside the simulation this time, Su Mo took out the old phone and re-checked the total amount of time he spent:
49 minutes!
If Su Mo ignored the time spent inside the simulation, he spent 47 minutes on his investigation and leaving the simulation. Even though he did not take up that much time, it was still a good reminder for him.
The simulation world’s time will always change, so he had to be careful whenever he decided to enter!
Su Mo walked down the stairs while storing that piece of information inside his head. He then descended down the stairs of Hope One to the area below the ship that had been cordoned off.
After almost an hour of waiting, order had been restored to the chaotic mess in front of Hope One.
When Hope One achieved its legendary status, the ship glimmered with light for three minutes, and that was the exact time that Su Mo binded Hope One. Hope One’s light started to coalesce…
Toward the flag at the bow of the ship!
At that moment, everyone was curious, but they soon went back to their posts after Qi Qin returned to his senses and commanded them to do so.
Within a two-kilometer radius, everything had gone back to normal after the cordon was removed.
As Su Mo walked down the ship, the first two people he saw were Chen Shen and Zhong Qingshu. They were walking toward him anxiously.
“Whoa… Big Brother Su is back. How was the test…?”
After the burst of light receded, Hope One remained as dark as night itself, and not even the spotlights were lit up.
Chen Shen stood at the bottom of the stairs, having no idea as to which areas did Su Mo carry out his test, so he paced back and forth anxiously, trying to suppress the anxiety within him.
He lifted his head and suddenly noticed Su Mo walking down toward them, and was surprised.
“It was successful?!”
Zhong Qingshu “knew” more than Chen Shen did.
She guessed the outcome the moment she saw the smile on Su Mo’s face.
As Su Mo looked at the villagers surrounding Hope One, he felt a warmth in his heart as he told them:
“Let’s have a meeting. I want everyone from the leadership team to be at the meeting room in twenty minutes!”
“Alright!”
“I’ll let everyone know right away!”
Su Mo watched Chen Shen rush away while he brought Zhong QIngshu with him as he left for the shipyard.
He had tested many things this time around, and Zhong Qingshu was smart, so she would be able to infer what had happened if he gave her even the slightest clue. Heck, her inference might even be pretty close to the truth.
Since that was the, Su Mo openly described the upcoming disaster to Zhong QIngshu.
He told her everything from the storm that would wipe out 90% of all life, and the land that grew more unstable as it rose with the water levels.
Besides the process of how Hope One managed to endure the disaster, Su Mo described everything he knew.
Zhong Qingshu took a minute to compose herself from the shock, but she was also smart enough not to ask about how Su Mo found out about those natural disasters. Instead, she lowered her head and began to think.
Su Mo noticed the expression on her face and did not rush her. He opened the door to the shipyard, turned the power on, and sat down; waiting for the other managers to arrive.
All in all, humans had only experienced three disasters.
One of them was a disaster that brought them good fortune, so technically that one did not count.
This was in stark contrast to Blazeland, which had encountered tons of disasters, and where it had taken many years for it to progress to the ocean disaster that opened up the New World. Thanks to Su Mo, however, the problem at hand was getting bigger and bigger.
The welfare disaster ensured that humans had sufficient resources, but the important thing was those resources could not easily be turned into combat strength within such a short period of time!
The Underground Shelter and the well-protected Hope Village might barely survive the disaster.
Most of the humans, including the foreign races, would have to succumb to the upcoming disaster!
It seemed that every lone wolf wanted to improvise and modify their shelter into a raft to float across the ocean.
Most of the other shelters would not fare too well either. Steel and wooden boats alike were made very crudely, causing the people a lot of problems every day.
Even the terrestrial foreign races were trying to learn how to swim and thinking of ways to learn from humans to construct their own boats.
Of course, if we fast forward things into the future, with the current amount of resources that humans had at the moment, even lone wolves would be able to develop metallurgy on their own and the bigger shelters would be able to achieve much more.
By that time, everyone would have been confident in getting through such a disaster, however terrifying it may be.
Yet now…
Su Mo watched as the leaders walked into the meeting room with excitement in their eyes. He nodded lightly and the worry in his heart dissipated significantly.
From birth, every living moment felt like a struggle in the dirt or trying to crawl in the dark. They lived on the verge of extinction.
It might be a huge asteroid that would do them in, or perhaps a shockwave from outer space, or even an ancient germ lurking under some glacier.
Any “typical” disaster would wipe out the humans from the face of the Earth.
This upcoming disaster was no exception. If humans could not get through this, they would be doomed to extinction.
However, if they did…
That would be a transformative, life-changing step for humankind!
