Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
“Previously I’d already guessed that because of my influence, 001 channel ought to have people who relied on these earlier advantages to slowly build up and get into the rankings.
“I never expected that this day would come so fast, however…
“Furthermore, the most outrageous thing is that the first person to get on the rankings is actually this clown Sun Xian!”
Right after clicking into the live broadcast stream, Sun Xian’s name popped up along with a profile picture of his unruly, unshaven countenance.
With a scrutiny that was completely different from how he watched the foreign race live broadcast streams, Su Mo waited for the image to change, looking as if he did not know whether to laugh or to cry.
At present, everyone in the wasteland was rushing to build large ships to set sail right after they finished.
Before, Sun Xian had urged everyone on the channel not to blindly follow the trend and had made a speech about how using a wooden raft ought to be sufficient.
Initially, practically everyone rebuked him, and even the lurkers secretly felt disdain in their hearts.
It was not until the final three days when Su Mo announced there would be a terrifying, torrential storm, that Sun Xian’s speech had garnered a considerable amount of support.
When the storm arrived, to protect their own ships, even someone like Liang Jian had to expend a large number of resources to purchase a safe house and absorbent gum to protect his sand ship, despite previously having an obvious advantage.
At this time, Sun Xian’s advantage in choosing a wooden raft had actually already been revealed in advance.
Being able to get into the rankings list based solely on a wooden raft was something that everyone did not even dare to dream about. At the same time, it was the main reason that Sun Xian’s live broadcast stream had become the most popular one at the moment.
Between thoughts, the game panel had currently also loaded up, and the perspective returned once again to a high vantage point.
Unlike the expanse of deep sea where the Thunder Monkey King was, Sun Xian’s current location was a standard shallow sea. Based on visual inspection, the water level certainly would not exceed 20 meters.
This was also the biggest reason why Sun Xian had dared to choose a wooden raft!
Su Mo did not hurry to check the imposing view below first. Once the view switched over to the explanation of the rankings, he quickly began browsing.
Mankind’s first disaster, the acid rain, was to test the durability and sturdiness of everyone’s shelters. Furthermore, getting into the rankings was based on the disaster recovery success rate.
When the second disaster—the blizzard—came along, it became a test for the heating in every shelter. Whoever had the warmest shelter would be ahead in the rankings.
This time, omitting the big and small disasters in between, sure enough, the game’s evaluation rules had undergone a drastic change.
Spearheading this change was the introduction of two new evaluation criteria…
Potential value.
Degree of completion.
“The game encourages every player to build an escape conveyance of their own volition and leave for the New World, so this time the evaluation criteria will not have any added properties requirements that are related to the shelters.
“Once each player boards their escape conveyance—including their shelters and the subordinate members—the game will automatically calculate the conveyance’s highest potential value as well as the current degree of completion.
“The degree of completion will become the main attribute in deciding the value of the conveyance’s hull, while the potential value will become a weighting factor that will be multiplied and added to the degree of completion. Taken together, they will constitute the rankings of each player.
“If the degree of completion is below 50%, the hull’s value will default to 0. No matter how high the weighting factor is, the player will not be listed in the rankings.”
…
“All players are requested to please do their best in the disaster to increase the degree of completion of their escape conveyances???
“Shit, they’re actually instituting such ridiculous rules???”
After reading the first few sentences, even without looking at the explanations that followed, a million expletives rapidly went through Su Mo’s mind.
The mystery was solved!
No wonder this time was still like the last—many of the ships built by the large shelters were not able to get into the rankings. The reason was very simple!
A raft built by someone had very low potential value, perhaps only 5.
However, looking at the degree of completion—if the raft’s degree of completion was 95% and it obtained 95 points, the two numbers multiplied together would become 475 points!
As for the large shelters, they had all chosen to build ships of the line. In appearance, a vessel like this was impressive, and the properties of the entire ship completely outclassed those of a small wooden raft.
However, the key factor was that the game did not acknowledge this!
What was required of a ship of the line?
Apart from a sturdy hull, it also needed to have clearly demarcated watertight compartments, and even the most important weapons and cannons could not be lacking.
If by some ridiculous chance, the game acknowledged one’s ship of the line—which was considered to be a product of the late 18th century—one would still have to install a steam engine to power it. Only then could it be guaranteed that one’s degree of completion would go up.
Currently, however, if a ship of the line only possessed basic functions, there was no need to talk about a 50% degree of completion—whether it would even be 30% was debatable.
In the same manner, if this rule was used on Hope One, it would only get even more outrageous!
“My Hope One is a Level 3 destroyer. If it were currently rare-quality, then as far as my degree of completion goes, let’s not even talk about 50%. Based on the Annihilator I outfitted, the excess radars, and the other miscellaneous items, the degree of completion ought to be at least 120% and above.
“Now though, Hope One is sub-legendary quality, so it’s likely that the game will think I’m going in the direction of a legendary-quality ship. I fear even a Level 1 destroyer won’t satisfy me.
“Let me see what Hope One’s current degree of completion is…”
With a heart full of apprehension, Su Mo clicked on the “I have finished reading all the rules” button, and the rankings’ help interface slowly disappeared.
The actual properties panel came up. As he glanced in passing at the very bottom, Su Mo saw Hope One’s current score tally.
[Potential Value]: XX (activated at 50% degree of completion.)
[Degree of Completion]: 33%
“Hey, it’s actually at 33%. That’s only 17% away from the 50% required by the rankings!”
This was completely different from the 10% and 15% of his imaginings. Hope One had actually achieved a 33% degree of completion, which entirely exceeded Su Mo’s expectations before clicking.
Furthermore, when he clicked on the degree of completion and checked on all the reasons that he had been able to obtain such a high score, Su Mo’s unhappy expression immediately dissipated. In its place was a trace of excitement.
Since, currently, Hope One was not truly legendary-quality, the game had not been overly severe when it had set the degree of completion.
Just the Annihilator alone had added fully 6%.
Furthermore, at present, the heart of the entire ship was situated in the All Substance Conversion Engine on the lowest deck. What was even more astonishing was that it directly added 15%, which was practically half of the degree of completion.
These two items aside, the components of the entire ship, the armor fittings, the cabin design, the autopilot system… these auxiliary items had contributed 9%!
Of course, these things were not the main reason for Su Mo’s surprise and delight.
It was because behind all these additions, he had noticed a particular item that possessed unlimited possibilities, despite having added only 3%!
Connie’s wind of blessing!
After joining the Oreo clan, Connie’s position had already been elevated to that of a Saintess. When she became an addition to the ship, this had accounted for a full 3% of the degree of completion.
Although he did not know how much more would be added to the percentage after this blessing was upgraded later on, Su Mo had at least discovered a way out. This could save him a great deal of effort in case he was unable to fulfill the 50% degree of completion required, but still wanted to get airdrop rewards.
“Not bad, not bad at all. So blessings can add to the degree of completion. Even if I’m lacking points at the very end, I can already use survival points to try upgrading and forcibly increase my degree of completion!
“Furthermore, the disaster this time still has at least 30 days to go. During this period, I can also continue to use survival points to upgrade the ship’s components as well as add on new equipment, so there’s no need to be in a hurry to fight for live broadcast stream rankings with these people!”
It went without saying that if Hope One’s potential value reached a 50% degree of completion, Su Mo was certain that the ship would immediately be in first place.
Therefore, after adjusting his mindset and looking below at the ocean waves that now rippled over the water’s surface, Su Mo turned his gaze to the angle of the live broadcast stream.
Before he could even react to anything in the current scenario, the live broadcast stream immediately started going wild!
[Congratulations to player Sun Xian, your live broadcast stream is being watched by the No. 1 double titleholder!]
[Please welcome the respected “King of the Acid Rain”, the “Emperor of the Blizzard” … Su Mo to the live broadcast stream]
[A player with a powerful strength rating has been detected joining the live broadcast stream, this has automatically triggered the entrance special effect (cooldown period: 10 days)]
[Congratulations to all players present at the live broadcast stream, you have automatically gained disaster points +100!]
Four banners that were even more eye-catching than a king entering the live broadcast stream of a certain streaming platform on Earth immediately appeared on the bullet screen the minute the main live broadcast viewpoint switched to Su Mo.
“Shit, the Almighty Su’s showed up. It’s already 3.30, even the Almighty Su has come to see this old fox Sun Xian paddling his raft!”
“Almighty Su, I’m here in the front row hugging you, I’m a Su Mo fan, look at me, Almighty Su!”
“King of the Acid Rain, Emperor of the Blizzard, how cool is that—these titles were actually given by the game!”
“I propose we give Almighty Su a sea title in advance, this time I’m betting 500 catties of supplies that Almighty Su’s still going to be first!”
“When will Almighty Su’s ship get on the rankings, petition（1/100000000）to have a look!”
“Shit, there’s 100 points to be had just from watching a live broadcast stream—something good like this has actually happened to me, so this night hasn’t been in vain!”
“Say, how come there aren’t any young bucks daring to mock Almighty Su this time?”
“Are you touched in your upper story? During the blizzard, those young cubs knew that Almighty Su wasn’t going to cause them trouble, but now the ocean disaster has happened—these people are scared to death Almighty Su’s going to steer his ship right over and hunt them down!”
“True—steering down the connection cables to beat you up!”
“…”
In an instant, the initially legible bullet screen comments immediately went wild at the prompting of the four rotating banners.
At almost four o’clock, all the lurkers had been lured out.
Currently, at this stage, 100 points could not account for anything important. However, to these refugees fleeing from a disaster, 100 points was something only 4 hundred million people had, so in comparison, this was still very good!
Furthermore, because of this sudden bombshell, Sun Xian—who had watched the number of people in the live broadcast stream skyrocket to 800 million in just a few minutes—could not stop smiling from ear to ear!
“Welcoming Su Mo to this live broadcast stream, everyone please give a barrage of welcomes on the bullet screen!
“The Almighty Su is our Regional Channel’s No. 1, if it wasn’t for him leaving some good things for us in the Secret Trading Realm, I myself would never have been able to get to where I am now!”
The raft that Sun Xian was on had been directly created by formatting his own shelter’s core.
Based on this, very likely because the game was lenient toward wooden rafts, Sun Xian had upgraded the raft again to its current state of 5 meters by 5 meters.
Not only that, he had tied a ring of old car tires around the raft and even erected a fence of about half a meter high.
In appearance, the entire vessel did not seem to be much different from a shabby bamboo hut without a roof.
Furthermore, Sun Xian himself was not a lone wolf; his raft was a family vessel.
As for the lavish flattery that inundated the bullet screen, Su Mo skimmed past it after a brief scrutiny and began to take stock of the members that comprised the vessel’s crew.
There were a total of five people onboard—Sun Xian’s brother, his brother’s wife, as well as himself, his wife, and his daughter.
The five people on scene had clear, delineated responsibilities. Sun Xian was responsible for speaking and explaining. His brother, his sister-in-law, and his own wife were responsible for steering the wooden raft, and his daughter assisted from the sidelines.
After listening for a while to Sun Xian taking advantage of his soaring popularity to explain in detail the system’s upgrade of his vessel, Su Mo nodded and left the broadcast stream.
“Not bad; Sun Xian might not have done enough in other areas, but as far as his own affairs are concerned, he’s extremely knowledgeable.
“Since he’s going the route of a family vessel and he’s still in the shallow part of the sea, there’s absolutely no need to board a large ship. This wooden raft definitely can last all the way to the New World!”
Before, nobody had been willing to give an ear to Sun Xian’s ridiculous ideas. Now, however, thanks to the popularity Su Mo had brought him, and seeing that there were over 12 hundred million people watching the live broadcast now, Su Mo began to chuckle.
Formatting a shelter core to follow the upgrade route that the system had provided for wooden rafts was not a hopeless dead-end road either.
As long as one could pay sufficient disaster points and supplies, after the wooden raft had upgraded to the specified 8 meters by 8 meters, a one-time payment of 200 disaster points as well as some supplies would directly allow the wooden raft to evolve.
It would become a wooden fishing boat!
In comparison with a wooden raft, a wooden fishing boat not only already possessed a ship’s hold that could provide shelter from wind and rain, but it was also far better in terms of safety.
Furthermore, a wooden boat was not the end as far as ship upgrades went. If one continued to pay disaster points and materials, the boat could certainly still be upgraded.
Of course, Sun Xian—who had already tied tires to his raft—naturally would not choose this route.
In his explanation, he had decided to stick with the method he had chosen and use the game to upgrade the raft’s surface area. He himself would be responsible for the way the hull of the ship would be constructed, and he would carry out upgrades of another kind.
This way of thinking not only opened the eyes of the live broadcast stream audience but also caused Su Mo to come to some different realizations.
With these realizations in mind, in the following half an hour, Su Mo scrutinized the remaining live broadcast streams one by one.
From the first one and counting down to 30, Su Mo did not leave out a single one of the human live broadcast streams.
Wherever he went with his two game-bestowed titles, Su Mo would always rouse an intense wave of enthusiasm on the bullet screen as well as an effusive welcome from the broadcast stream hosts.
Just after four o’clock, he withdrew from the game panel and closed his eyes to restore his spirit.
However, as far as whether or not mankind could weather this ocean disaster, Su Mo already had…
Utter and absolute confidence!
