If one were accustomed to “rewards” on Earth, one would find the “rewards” offered by the system rip-offs instead. Despite this, Su Mo happily tapped on the system’s rewards screen when it appeared.
Dong!
A dull noise sounded. Unlike the piercing bright light that burst out when he switched scenarios in the Divulgence of Heaven’s Secret talisman, the system’s location change was clearly of a much higher class.
In Su Mo’s vision, the bedroom gradually vanished, replaced by the exact same scene as the previous creation prize-drawing opportunity.
Except that, as cards danced in the air, right above it at the center, Su Mo saw…
Hope One!
There was a small replica model of Hope One shining with a reddish-gold light, looking extremely vivid and life-like.
Moreover, as the light above Hope One glimmered, the cards below also seemed to be undergoing some sort of rapid screening process. All the cards that shone with light remained while all the cards that did not were removed.
In just a few seconds, only cards that lit up with colors were left in his field of vision.
“Let me see. What kind of rewards related to Hope One can I draw?”
Before he opened the prize draw function, Su Mo could randomly draw any of the cards and flip them over to see their properties.
Thinking that he would leave it up to fate, Su Mo arbitrarily chose a card and examined it casually.
“This model is just this? It’s still a wooden ship. Making it look so mysterious, isn’t this just… F*ck me!”
“This is… the Flying Dutchman?”
A blueprint of an 18th-century wooden ship was printed on the unremarkable card. Looking at it for the first time, it seemed like nothing special.
However, once he read the description underneath, anyone who had seen the Pirates of the Caribbean films would have received quite a shock.
Although the ship in the movie looked weak, its ability to sail underwater and ferry dead souls was simply incomprehensible.
And what this card corresponded to was the Dutchman’s sea-diving ability.
“As long as I use the card on Hope One, Hope One can move around freely a hundred meters or more under the surface of the water?”
“The people inside wouldn’t be affected in any way? It would be akin to sailing on calm waters?”
“There’s even this kind of abnormal ability?”
Releasing it in shock, as he watched it return to the pile of cards and disappear with a spin, Su Mo once again drew out a card, not giving up.
“Moby Dick? What a familiar name. What’s this now?”
Staring at the large ship on the card that looked a little like an anime drawing, Su Mo lowered his gaze toward the card’s description.
“Enlarging ability. It can magnify the proportions of my Hope One by ten times?”
“F*ck, ten times? Wouldn’t Hope One become an 800-meter ship in that case?”
Seeing that the source cited at the bottom of the card was from a certain One Piece anime, Su Mo silently released it and watched it return to the pile.
“If this lucky draw has this rule this time, wouldn’t that mean…”
Drawing a few cards in one go, not looking at the pictures, Su Mo’s gaze went straight to their descriptions at the bottom.
“Triangle—the ability to go back in time. I can turn back time every three natural days to restore supplies to the quantity it was a day ago.”
“Noah’s Ark—the ability to never sink. Even if the ship is broken into pieces, it will float on the ocean’s surface forever.”
“The Black Pearl—portability. After going onshore, I can store the ship in a bottle and bring it with me.”
“Land of the Rising Sun’s Yamato Battleship—after use, I can obtain an 18.1-inch (460mm) cannon that matches perfectly with the Hope One.”
“Luxury cruise—after use, the entire ship can be refurbished, greatly improving the quality of the ship.”
After drawing five consecutive cards, there were both fantasy-based cards and technological-based cards.
Some were more combat-oriented, some increased the ships’ maneuverability, while others were more for comfort.
In order to determine these were not big prizes that the system purposely put out, after choosing to return these cards, Su Mo drew out ten cards and started evaluating them in detail.
For every card, Su Mo did not observe the source or picture, only choosing to examine and deduce the properties that brought benefits to Hope One.
At this time, as the cardinal number became larger, the enthusiasm in Su Mo’s eyes gradually receded.
What replaced it was brimming “interest”!
“So the related creation prize draw function the system was talking about was this.”
“I can draw various kinds of ships using this prize draw and take their best ability and attach it to Hope One.”
“The more amazing the ship drawn is, the more amazing the ability I can add onto Hope One.”
“Moreover, I only need 1000 points to draw another one again until I’m satisfied!”
Putting the final card with a picture of an origami boat on its back, Su Mo waved his hand and chose not to draw a prize just yet, and closed the prize draw page.
He got out of bed, washed up, and ate the breakfast the Hope Village cook sent over.
Sitting at the table, seeing Su Mo mechanically eating as he was deep in thought, the four little ones and Connie also noticed Su Mo’s abnormal state.
Still, under Oreo’s leadership, nobody made any sounds to interrupt Su Mo’s thoughts.
After more than ten minutes of eating, aside from chewing noises as well as Moore’s occasional snores, the shelter was unusually quiet.
After eating, he passed the food basket over to the newly-joined Connie to tidy up.
Returning to the workbench, Su Mo’s mood returned to its usual calm state.
Taking out a notebook and pen, Su Mo flipped over to a new page and started carefully evaluating the three choices’ pros and cons.
“Firstly, the all-category creation chance that depends on luck can be eliminated immediately. For the current me, 50 thousand survival points are too precious. If I gamble and end up with a terrible result, it would mean that I would’ve lost an opportunity to increase my strength.”
“Among the remaining choices, both the 50 thousand points and the prize draw related to Hope One are viable.”
After eliminating the all-category creation chance, Su Mo’s spirits lifted, and he started to calculate just what sort of boost 50 thousand points could provide.
If he used them to upgrade things…
50 thousand points could upgrade the autopilot system once.
The fire-control radar on Hope One could be completely replaced as well with a model that was not too far off from Earth’s current standard.
It could even be used to upgrade and seal all the outer welds and joints of Hope One and transform them into a completely integrated design that would strengthen the level of the ship’s defense.
If he was talking about upgrading specific technological pathways…
He could push the weapon technology pathway into the era of small- and medium-caliber machine guns or derive small-caliber main guns for the ship.
“Taking all these options into account, 50 thousand points would probably give me a 30% increase in strength. If the points don’t reach that percentage, then I will have to be more cost-effective in choosing upgrades!”
As he was about to go out to sea, the only things that would increase his strength would be weapons and other derivatives that could be attached or added onto the ship.
The third option not only represented a tasty “delicacy”, but also the key to opening “Pandora’s Box”.
Nobody could overcome the temptation of possibly winning big a second time, and Su Mo was no exception!
It was very possible that, in a moment of irrationality, setting aside whether or not he could draw something good, that he would put all his survival points into it.
However, correspondingly, there were exceptions to this as well.
“There’s no rush. I can wait until tomorrow, after I finish the second round of testing tonight, to use the prize draw chance.”
“If I sail into the Great Canyon and am not able to deal with the foreign races’ tactics, then I’ll take a gamble and draw a prize.”
“If I can deal with it, then after five draws, if I don’t obtain enough to increase my strength by more than 30%, then I’ll stop there!”
Getting up, after keeping the book full of calculation formulas and words in the storage space, Su Mo strode out.
It was early morning in the basin area, and with five days to the arrival of the disaster, there was a trace of urgency in the air.
After studying the area and depth to be excavated last night, and handing over the plan to Chen Shen, Hope Village’s old master then started work with the excavator early today.
Seeing the large ditch being dug under the stern of the Hope One, Su Mo was quite satisfied.
In the doomsday wasteland, having a few capable subordinates to help would always be better than doing everything personally.
Before he completely grasped the energy technique and created a fully-automated production line, people would be the greatest resource when it came to productivity.
The reason he did not choose to use 50 thousand points to ascend the technological pathway previously was also because of this.
Going out to sea this time, Su Mo planned to collect a few defeated foreign race creatures and take them in as “lab rats” to study. In terms of collecting talent, Su Mo did not want to be left behind either!
Using survival points to advance the level of technology he had access to would still be alright if it was an unknown field of science.
However, it was not worth it to use it to push forward technology that already existed on Earth that would fall behind in comparison to the “black technology” of the wasteland.
Thus, Su Mo would rather save the survival points he currently had rather than waste them here.
Standing on high ground, after directing the villagers conducting the excavation work for a while, Su Mo walked toward the ship’s bow. He observed Oreo’s gang as the newly-appointed Connie performed the first large-scale blessing.
After being kicked out of the lion clan, Connie joining Oreo’s family did not cause much of a stir at all.
This was not just because Oreo was a god without any trace of god-like abilities, but also because Connie’s power was weak. The addition of a newbie to the group would not garner any attention.
Even if she was considered weak…
She was still technically ranked just below Oreo in the clan…
Before she had enough Disaster Points to increase her own strength and develop even more abilities…
The current her today and the her from yesterday were no different.
After watching her sing and dance around the ship for a while to cast the blessing, realizing that there was nothing that he could learn from the process, Su Mo shook his head and walked over to the top of the Iron Rock Mountain again to observe the development progress of Hope Village’s “impact-absorbing facility”.
The pavilion on Iron Rock Mountain’s platform had been quickly demolished last night.
On the mountain, the villagers had already started their second round of work.
The steel plates left behind from the previous shipbuilding process were also approved for use by Chen Shen and taken out from the supplies warehouse. They were fixed to a few of the weaker spots to strengthen its defense.
They had also constructed three drains overnight, which had been put on hold previously, which connected directly to the bottom of the mountain.
All the villagers were busying themselves. Under the leadership of their leaders, they quickly completed all the assignments given.
Nobody would have thought that, in just half a month, this Iron Rock Mountain that they settled in arbitrarily would have transformed like this.
Although he had to keep suffering the villagers’ “attention”, Su Mo was not troubled.
He very much enjoyed this subtle change in his own territory.
From the development of the Underground Shelter, to the gradual construction of Hope One, and to Iron Rock Mountain gradually becoming a fortress…
Su Mo could sense that this basin area was once again bursting with “vitality”!
Compared to the dead silence before the previous disaster arrived…
This atmosphere made Su Mo feel like he was not the only one “fighting”.
After walking down to the end of the mountain road that had been cast in cement, in the village’s main meeting room, Su Mo saw more than 10 people in a heated discussion.
These people were the elite members of the shelter; people who had completed their tertiary education.
Even if they did not fully understand the technology, they knew how to examine things scientifically and adhered to the principle that three average minds put together could outsmart Zhuge Liang, and they looked the part too.
After watching for a while and noticing the few already completed items on the table, Su Mo did not enter to disrupt their discussion. Instead, he silently walked in the other direction down Iron Rock Mountain.
This was Su Mo’s first time being a “leader”.
However, based on Papa Su’s business undertakings overseas, passing on a little knowledge from his several decades of experience in the business world, Su Mo was not entirely helpless when it came to village management either.
Of course, the type of management method he was using was one that could not be copied back on Earth.
“Second test—I hope that it will go a little better. At least let me see a bit of hope of capturing a foreign race!”
Everyone was working hard. Su Mo also returned to Hope One and switched on the electrical power, continuing to fix the issues onboard the ship.
After spending half a day, Su Mo chose to personally fix the errors discovered through the first test previously.
Of course, this much time was not wasted for nothing. After successfully identifying the crux of the problem, in just twenty minutes, Su Mo fixed it successfully.
As the saying went, a little bit of hard work could prevent lots of trouble in the future!
In the remaining half a day’s time, aside from going down to guide the workers’ excavation duties once, in the remaining time, Su Mo put all his thoughts into improving the OS.
The current OS logic was still too rigid. When multiple requirements conflicted with each other, it easily reached its max processing capacity and froze up.
Moreover, aside from the fully-automated autopilot system, the OS did not have a semi-automated mode that would allow it to be used as an auxiliary system to aid Su Mo when he took manual control of the ship.
These problems needed to be solved urgently.
Fortunately, once the main structure was completed, adding new functions would not be too difficult. Upon receiving the news that Connie’s blessing was done, Su Mo also just so happened to have just completed the semi-automatic auxiliary system design.
Walking out of the bridge, he saw the sun that had hung at the horizon the whole day had once again gone down, and the night was falling over the wasteland yet again.
After sending the exhausted Connie back to the shelter to rest after the blessing was completed, Su Mo picked up the food bowl that was still a little warm and quickly dealt with dinner.
It was the usual few pieces of beef, a couple of steamed buns, and a small side dish.
Chewing on the last few pieces of beef, he finished the Malanshan Erguotou that Chen Shen sent over last time.
Feeling his energy recover, Su Mo did not choose to rest. Instead, he walked straight out of the shelter gate.
The beginning of a new world—this solo battle—was once again, on this cool windy night in the wasteland, going to…
Start!
