Su Mo looked at the card and its properties. He then waved his arm and exited the prize draw page.
Even though the entire process proceeded somewhat disastrously, after he got what he came for, he was left with a very satisfying feeling.
From the start, many weird images of different destroyers kept flashing in Su Mo’s mind ever since Hope One called out to him.
Su Mo saw magic ships like those from the movies, warships from World War II, ships that weighed tens of thousands of tons, and even spaceships flying through space. Su Mo had imagined everything there was possible.
Hope One actually needed… some very powerful weapons right now!
Hope One managed to get its legendary status due to various contributing factors during its construction process. However, its firepower was lacking, given that it had nothing but its ramming capabilities and a few small-caliber guns mounted on it.
It seemed that Hope One knew this and recognized its lack of firepower, which was why it summoned forth this destroyer.
Since they were the same kind of warship, any kind of weapon could be chosen from the first-class destroyer. As such, Su Mo did not hesitate and chose…
The main cannon!
The cannons of first-class destroyers were 130mm cannons, just like the 055 battlecruiser and 1144’s Peter the Great.
However, the difference was, since the weapon had additional properties, this main cannon had a firing rate of…
140 rounds per minute!
As for its other stats, this cannon lived up to its name of “The Annihilator”.
[Total weight: 41 tonnes (excluding ammo), barrel length: 70 caliber, ammo weight: 32 kilograms.]
[Highest firing angle: -20°/+85°, tilting rate: 20°/s, rotating angle: 360°.]
[Muzzle Velocity: 1250m/sec, effective range: 34.5 km.]
[Furthest range: 41.5 km.]
Its -20° firing angle ensured that the enemy would still be within firing range even if they tried to hide underwater.
With an effective range of almost 35 km, it meant that even a speedboat would not be able to escape its sights.
This cannon made up for the firepower that Hope One would lack prior the addition of the vertical missile launching system. It did not matter that the ammunition…
Was super expensive!
“Using the system to produce its ammunition would require 800 points per round.”
“And even if I wanted to produce it manually, I would have to upgrade the laser manufacturing machine first.”
“But that’s not a huge problem. I can cast the exterior of the shells in the furnace, and mix RDX and TNT to create the gunpowder!”
“After deciding on the cannon, Su Mo did not spend too much time worrying about the ammunition.”
TNT was a very stable explosive that would not explode within the shell even if something went wrong.
Its manufacturing process was quite simple even. Anyone could make TNT using the facilities of a high school lab as long as they knew the entire process and the precise methodology.
Besides, with Tundra Shelter’s technical support, it would not be a problem at all.
It was getting late, and after that grueling ordeal, Su Mo was exhausted even if he had obtained the reward he desired.
There might be hundreds of his enemies plotting against him right now. Perhaps a few shelters banding together even.
Su Mo had to go up against so many enemies, and he wanted to score a beautiful victory, so one could imagine the amount of pressure weighing on Su Mo’s shoulders.
Su Mo looked at the paper in front of him, drew something on it, and excitedly jotted down the final point.
Three: To discover the true identities of his enemies!
Since Su Mo had the locations of the foreign races and his newfound weapons on hand, destroying their army was no longer just a pipe dream.
However, destroying these people and ruining their plans to attack him would only lower the foreign races’ morale and make the Five Royal Clans a temporary laughing stock.
Doing so would not affect the masterminds behind this grand scheme very much. Instead, it would increase their wariness and encourage them to devise a more cunning plan to deal with him.
As for this matter, since Su Mo’s enemies were already making their move, he decided to have no further, as he wrote:
“The spies who are working with the foreign races have a clear intention. They know that killing me will be very tough, which is why they are using these twenty thousand foreign race creatures to attack me and prevent me from developing.”
“However, they never imagined that I would be able to find a way out of this situation, and a brilliant way out at that.”
“Besides, since these human spies can work with the foreign races, surely they are aware of each others’ identities, otherwise, they would not dare risk an attack like this with twenty thousand troops on the line.”
“That’s why I have to throw out some red herrings into the mix during the mission this time. It’s likely that Clark will lead this group of foreign races. I have to capture every single one of these bastards and find out who these good-for-nothings behind the scenes are!”
With every line he wrote, Su Mo used his logic to create a hypothesis, and devised a plan that was very easy for him, but hopeless for others, to execute.
Su Mo folded up his notes and placed them in the deepest corner of the storage space. He then stood up and walked back over to the bedroom.
He lay on the bed and opened up the world channel. After looking at the sparse and detached conversations on screen, he then drifted off to sleep.
Everything Su Mo needed to prepare for the upcoming disaster was within his grasp.
Compared to the previous disasters, Su Mo was sufficiently prepared for this one. He had prepared for this event more than anyone else would or could.
The only thing left to do was to wait for the disaster to strike and, after ten days, meet up with his sister. Su Mo had the confidence and ability to turn this entire stupid situation on its head!
WIth that in mind. Su Mo woke up the next day at 8 o’clock in the morning. He received the daily announcement prompts, looked at his remaining fifteen thousand survival points, and sat up.
He carried out his morning routine, washed up, and ate the breakfast the cooks prepared.
Su Mo then walked outside and examined the new cannon, “The Annihilator”, and then quickly walked over to the shelter with the ammunition blueprint in hand.
It was not hard to create the ammunition of the cannon manually.
Making the shell casings for the cannon did not require any specific technology either; as long as they were within the measurement parameters provided, they would work just fine.
Su Mo switched on the generator and fired up the furnace that had not been used in the past two days. He then activated the creation interface.
After three minutes, and using up 40 units of raw materials, the first cannon shell casing was created.
Su Mo opened up the system and made sure that the ammunition he created fulfilled the specifications on the blueprint design. He then walked over to the workstation to work on the most important component of the ammunition.
TNT and RDX!
Regarding these infamous explosive substances, trinitrotoluene and C4, Su Mo had struck a deal with the Tundra Shelter last night.
For something like this that did not require much technical skill, Su Mo obtained a complete manual of how to make these two substances, plus two samples of the substances.
The technology of humans was slowly returning. Other than the lone wolves and ordinary people, manufacturing substances like these posed no challenge for most organizations!
Thus, Su Mo was not surprised to receive the samples. Instead, he immediately got straight down to figuring out how to mass-produce these substances.
With the help of the LCD TV’s error correction function, the first batch of TNT in the Underground Shelter was created at 2 o’clock in the afternoon!
At 3.20 pm, the first batch of RDX was also produced, stored perfectly in a container.
At 4.00 pm, based on the specifications provided on the ammunition blueprint, the first cannon shell for “The Annihilator” was born!
On this momentous moment, Su Mo simply smiled. After etching the “01” serial number on the casing, he then began to teach the robot workers the production process.
There were only three days remaining until the disaster. Since he was unsure about how intense the battle would be, given the firing rate of the main cannon, it would need over 1500 rounds stockpiled for sustained usage.
Su Mo might not be able to produce that many rounds himself even if he worked day and night at it.
However, with the robot workers’ help, things became so much easier.
After going over the process with the robot workers three times, the robot workers that had already been upgraded twice had already figured out how to produce the gunpowder.
The other robot workers that were upgraded once had also learnt to produce the ammunition as well.
Were it not for the furnace’s limitations, which meant that it could only produce 20 rounds per hour, which amounted to 500 rounds per day…
The robot workers might have been able to produce 1000 rounds every day!
Meanwhile, Pei Shao came over and drove Earth Tiger away and modified its chassis to make it more suited for off-road driving.
To traverse 1500 kilometers in that kind of terrain would pose a challenge for both the driver and the vehicle alike.
To prevent any accidents from happening, Su Mo also helped as well and made some adjustments to Earth Tiger while the ammunition was loaded onto the ship.
In the meantime, Chen Shen came over to see what was going on and gave his report on Hope Village’s progress on their construction of defensive structures to resist the disaster.
So far, the village managed to develop a type of rubber-like substance, which they temporarily named absorbent gum.
When the substance endured forceful impact, it would be damaged. However, any object protected by it would be completely unharmed.
The most important thing was that this substance was very easy to create.
To produce it, one would only need to add some solvent to the sap of the white sap tree, which was a tree native to the wasteland, and mix them together.
Both components would create a strong chemical reaction and expand very quickly, similar to the chemical reaction between cola and mentos. One portion of the materials could produce up to ten to twenty times of the final product; the absorbent gum.
This progress report piqued Su Mo’s interest, so he decided to test out the substance himself.
As it turned out, it was quite effective at doing its job.
One or two layers of the gum would not hold up against the torrent of rain, but twenty to thirty layers of the substance would likely do the trick.
Besides, Chen Shen already had his target market in mind the moment he started developing this substance.
Small and medium-sized shelters!
As for the lone wolves who wanted to reformat their own shelters into raft shelters, they surely would not purchase the gum to defend against the upcoming disaster.
It did not matter to them anyway. All they needed to do was to hide under a rock that was strong enough to withstand the rain. They could also hide underground and prepare measures to survive the fifteen-minute rainstorm.
However, those who lived in small and medium-sized shelters, and had invested many resources into constructing their boats, would find it impossible to build a boathouse that could survive the rainstorm in just three days!
Thus, the affordable absorbent gum would be very tempting to such people.
As long as they could corner this market, Hope Village would be well-fed and would not have to worry about how the market developed subsequently.
“Not bad, a very clear thought process. Since everything has been decided, we can go ahead and purchase the required raw materials.”
With the wave of his hand, Chen Shen bought every single required material available and the entire Hope Village got to work.
At this point in time, there was plenty of the sap available on the trading market.
However, despite purchasing 70% of the available stock on offer, their mass acquisition did not garner much attention. After all, many of Hope One’s villagers’ accounts were used to buy them in piecemeal amounts.
There would be a few people who would mention it on the world channel. Even so, their comments would be quickly drowned out by the other incoming comments.
Hope Village already possessed 70% of the available stock, but they did not plan to give up on the remaining 30% just yet. Under Chen Shen’s command, Hope Village slowly bought up the remaining tree sap.
Even when it was time for dinner, no one left their posts. The villagers kept an eye on the purchasing time limit and continued buying up the tree sap while absent-mindedly eating their dinner.
The purchasing frenzy stopped at around ten o’clock at night, when no more tree sap was available on the trading market.
By then, if anyone noticed, it would have been too late anyway.
Hope Village had already bought enough of the stock that it did not have to worry about anyone else trying to monopolize the market.
“Big Brother Su, let’s mass-produce the gum throughout the night. That way, we can ensure a continuous supply for tomorrow morning’s sales proceedings. I estimate that we will only need half a day to recoup our capital. We have enough materials to produce the gum for three days straight. That means that our profits will be fifteen to twenty times our invested capital.”
Chen Shen’s eyes seemed to glimmer as he described the prospects. Compared to the outrageous prices of other black market traders from before, Hope Village really made out like a bandit this time.
Of course, Chen Shen knew very well that it was 100% because of Su Mo’s information that they were able to pull something like this off!
“Very well. By nine o’clock tomorrow morning, I will announce the details of the disaster as scheduled, and you guys can just keep producing and selling the gum.”
Pei Shao could not help but nod as he saw the “happy” looks on the faces of the leadership team.
Su Mo simply smiled and walked back to the shelter as he thought about how tomorrow’s events would play out.
On the second floor, the four little ones were still studying diligently. Connie did not slack off either as she continued her studies while recovering.
Su Mo decided not to disturb them, so he continued down to the third floor and lay down on his little bed.
Sometimes, time passed ever so slowly in the wasteland. So much could happen in the span of just one day.
Other times, time passed so quickly before anyone could properly prepare anything.
On the top-right corner of the game panel, there were only three days left on the countdown timer for the impending disaster.
Doomsday Calendar Month 2, Day 19.
This was not a very special date to most people.
To Su Mo, however, this day would commemorate the “milestone”!
“Tomorrow. Tomorrow is the day of the main act.”
“I have prepared for so long. It’s time for the seeds that I’ve sown to bloom!”
After half a month of laying low and not typing a word in the world channel; spending each day in isolation like an ascetic monk, Su Mo looked up at the ceiling and felt the damp blanket against his skin, staring at the dusty cup beside his bed.
It was at that moment that Su Mo knew that the tough times were about to come to an end!
