Chapter 368: Encouragement, The Game’s Little Plan
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
“Oh? His first mission was to flip over Moore’s barrel, and the second was to defeat Moore?”
“Is Moore enemies with the God of the Ocean?!”
Su Mo smiled and breathed a sigh of relief as soon as he saw the game notification appear.
His hunch had been correct this time!
Ever since the game started its “service” two months ago, there were a few bugs and loopholes that could be exploited.
This time, Su Mo simply went around the rules of the game, so it was not really a big deal.
In fact, Su Mo had to rescue around 1500 fish the second time in order to meet the title promotion conditions, which was more than ten times the number of fish compared to the first time.
The third promotion might very well require tens of thousands of fish, and the fourth promotion, hundreds of thousands…
The fifth promotion could even require millions!
Besides, he also had to take into consideration the random missions that had to be completed in order to promote the title.
What if the random mission was a ridiculous one, or something that involved a time limit? Now that would have been troublesome indeed.
After he thought things over, Su Mo was not in a hurry to call Moore over, who was “playing” with the shoals of fish. Instead, he swam toward a coral mound and sat on it.
The current description of the title “Friend of the Ocean” did not seem particularly unusual to ordinary players.
However, from a glance, Su Mo managed to catch on to an important hint.
Humans were able to obtain the title of “Friend of the Ocean” because their acts of kindness were acknowledged by the God of the Ocean.
If one took that statement at face value, there were no problems to be seen on the surface. However, if one considered the fact that the game was still searching for the God of the Ocean, or that the God of the Ocean was still slumbering, then a major issue would reveal itself.
How could a sleeping person, or a person in hiding, even have the ability or time to monitor living creatures on the wasteland and give them blessings? That would be quite ridiculous.
Su Mo focused his thoughts and opened up the storage space. After that, he searched through the section where he kept his books and information notes.
After a while, he finally found the piece of white paper that contained a preview of the God of the Ocean disaster.
Su Mo ignored his previous assumptions and, relying on his memory, soon located the important message at the bottom of the paper!
[The God of the Ocean is the first god to be awakened. All living creatures that persist in surviving on the wasteland will receive a reward from the God of the Ocean].
[When conditions of the mission are fulfilled, there is a chance for the player to become the oracle of the God of the Ocean]
“If I’m not mistaken, if I continue grinding this title to its maximum level, then I will be able to become that so-called oracle.”
“This game is really something else. It actually hid a trap inside of a reward!”
After Su Mo broke down the situation and analyzed it, working backwards, arriving at an accurate conclusion was not something that was impossible to achieve.
In addition, Su Mo also thought about another piece of information that he had received from Connie.
During ancient times, before the wasteland was decimated by the great war, every single living creature wanted to ascend no matter what weird or wonderful methods they used.
According to Connie’s information, there was one thing that Su Mo remembered very clearly…
That was that the wasteland’s gods were hidden from sight!
Currently, the game was granting everyone these titles and allowing everyone to perform acts of kindness, so its ultimate goal suddenly became clear.
“If the game mimicked the structure of the heavens, then the God of the Ocean would be similar to the dragon king of the world below.”
“Initially, any contributions made by the humans would have to be approved by the dragon king. Only then would they receive the dragon king’s honor.”
“However, while the dragon king’s authority and power might still exist, it was likely that he was unable to intervene due to the heavens hunting him down.”
“As for the heavens’ intentions, they would have to follow the rules of the game as well, so it is likely that they are trying to see if they can groom someone who will be able to get close to the dragon king and find him.”
“Not bad, not bad at all! This plan was very well thought out!”
After putting the paper away, Su Mo clapped his hands and sighed. There was an indescribable sense of relief on his face.
Since the game did not help the humans of the wasteland increase the rate of leveling up this title at all.
That signified that the rules could be exploited. However, the humans would still have to play by the God of the Ocean’s rules.
Thus, to the extent that the rules of this event still applied…
A hidden battle to grind points for this title was about to begin in the domain of the marine creatures!
“I’m sorry, but I’m not afraid at all when it comes to grinding points!”
“If you’re going to try to find the God of the Ocean through this method…”
“Then get on your knees, game! I’m going to make you help me in my journey!”
Su Mo stared at Moore who was having fun in the distance. His gaze narrowed as a grin appeared on his face. He then hollered loudly.
After a moment.
Moore, who was sitting on a rock, touched his head after watching Su Mo put on the merman costume and dive into the ocean once more.
“Master… so you’re the same as Moore… you like…”
“Getting up close and personal too?”
…
[Guardian of the Ocean]
[Description: The upgraded title of the “Friend of the Ocean”. You are one of the lucky people in the Lawful Good faction. Your acts of kindness have been acknowledged by the God of the Ocean, resulting in even stronger powers on the ocean.]
[First title function: The ocean is your second “mother”. When you’re out on the ocean, you will gain the following enhancements:
All physical fitness properties +1.5, swimming speed in the ocean +2, energy recovery speed on the ocean +60%, injury recovery speed on the ocean +20%.
Vertigo resistance +1.5, hunger resistance +1.5, disease resistance +1.5.]
…
[Fourth title function: You are a child of the ocean, all marine creatures will befriend you. Your ship will also not be attacked by marine creatures.]
The Guardian was the upgraded version of the Friend indeed.
Other than an increase in basic properties, becoming a Guardian also brought with it a new property, which was the protection from being attacked by marine creatures.
After defeating Moore, Su Mo remained calm as he turned around and continued swimming. In fact, he then proceeded to flip over all of the fish barrels that had been filled up by the foreign races as he swam by.
Since he could not visibly see any progress, after flipping over the barrels, Su Mo stopped everyone from fishing. Instead, he instructed them to get on the ship and prepare to depart.
Each sea creature could only count once toward the progress of the title promotion.
Even if they caught and released the fishes a second time, the mission would not progress in the slightest.
In fact, this method was too cost ineffective, especially considering that they had to rescue over a million fishes in the future.
Thus, if Su Mo wanted to promote the title to its maximum level and stay ahead of everyone else, he had to use the power of technology!
The departure was delayed by several minutes because Moore and Li Li greedily brought up two barrels of treasure fishes.
The emergency passageway to the ocean was then shut, and Hope One continued on its journey once more.
After taking off the merman costume, Su Mo strode into the captain’s quarters and began planning his next move.
There was one condition, however, which was that their meeting with Tundra One at Area 3 could not be delayed simply because he wanted to level up his title.
Saving millions of fishes and completing five to six title promotion missions would not be an easy feat, even for the wasteland elites.
In his plan, Su Mo first gave himself a timeframe.
Fifteen days!
He gave himself the target of catching more than a hundred thousand fish each day; this goal was neither too easy, nor too hard.
“Thankfully I brought the fishing net that was used to catch the carps previously. I’ll just have to upgrade the net, pair it with the sonar system, and modify it accordingly, after which I might just be able to design and construct an automatic fishing mechanism.”
“With the OS controlling it, I will only have to press a button and the released fishes would count toward the acts of kindness!”
“Besides, Hope One’s speed would not be slowed down by this mission’s progress. I’ll just have to take care of the title promotion mission when they pop up!”
Using manual labor to catch and release fish was an inferior and ineffective method.
Human intelligence gave them the ability to utilize machinery and power sources to replace the hassles of manual labor in performing tasks that seemed almost impossible.
Su Mo was not in a hurry to level up his title, so he sat in the captain’s quarters and switched on another computer that he had obtained from the ruins. He then quickly wrote the code for the fishing program on the machine.
As Su Mo wanted to avoid any possibility of harming the marine creatures, he worked on every single detail of the code thoroughly.
After half an hour of coding, when there were still two lines left, Su Mo called Connie over, instructing her on how to complete the writing of the code.
Encapsulation, zipping, creating small code, and then incorporating it into the system program, turning it into an auxiliary function.
Su Mo watched as Connie struggled and slowly completed the coding process. He noticed that the game did not issue any notifications once she was done with the work, so he slowly nodded his head as joy appeared on his face.
As expected, the line between enemies and allies was a blurry one.
Take this situation for example. Su Mo wanted to look for the God of the Ocean, and the game was also looking for him as well. As such, to a certain extent, the game was Su Mo’s ally.
Even if the game knew that Su Mo was blatantly cheating like this, it would try to cover up whatever he was doing. Now that was amazing!
“Captain, was it successful?”
It was the first time Connie operated the computer, which was the crystallization of human intelligence.
Even though she seemed a little clumsy operating it, there was a sense of curiosity on top of the primal look on her face.
“It was successful. Thank you!”
“By the way, how’s the training going with the foreign races? I heard Moore mention that some of them are being very stubborn!”
Su Mo sat on the bed cross-legged as he asked with concern.
After Connie had gone through a war that involved tens of thousands of lives and suddenly earned a reputation among the foreign races, she had transformed from being a nameless pawn into an entity that had commanded similar authority to that of the Royal Clans.
In Su Mo’s mind, his initial memories of Connie the lioness were slowly fading away.
At this very moment, there was neither naivety nor frailty present in Connie’s countenance.
Every single thing that she did was imbued with the pride and authority that stemmed from her newfound position of power.
Of course, in front of Su Mo, Connie still had that curious expression on her face and she had complete respect for him.
“We obtained 9 different types of foreign races in this batch. In fact, after I ran an initial background check on them, they took jobs on the wasteland as…”
“Mercenaries?”
“That’s right, that’s right. That’s the term I was looking for.” Connie nodded the moment Su Mo guessed the appropriate term.
“Although certain races don’t possess much power, they are hardworking and are more numerous than the other races, so every time they arrive on the wasteland, they offer their services to other races. They are considered a neutral faction among the foreign races and don’t usually participate in wars. Instead, they will silently search for God-transcending items.
“As for battles between foreign races, they would not help any side, though as long as you pay the corresponding price, you could obtain some manpower from their side. These foreign races that sign the agreement will no longer belong to their original race. Even if they commit a heinous crime, it would have nothing to do with these foreign races who provided the manpower.”
“Take this suicidal assault mission for example. The foreign races could send these types of races to the frontlines. After all, their forces would not be weakened even if they ended up dying.”
Connie explained the situation in detail, after which Su Mo nodded his head, expressing that he understood.
“So those remaining hardheads are the remnants from the other clans?”
“That’s right, even though they have joined the Oreo clan, they have great respect for me, Moore and you.”
“However, when comparing themselves to the other mercenaries, they will always feel a sense of superiority. As such, it’s tough to manage them well. Other than killing them, there is no good way to erase this prejudicial attitude!”
As Su Mo sat on the bed, he could not help but laugh as he saw the frustration on Connie’s face.
If the foreign races were considered to be the low-level grunts of their organization, then Connie would be their supervisor.
Conflicts were common among the lowest levels of an organization, but Connie’s way of thinking right now was similar to that of failed entrepreneurs, turning the situation into a long-term misunderstanding.
She had forgotten about being in a higher position, and was encouraging them to put their egos down in order to make peace.
However, this method would only bring about temporary peace between the groups. In the long run, the main cause of this conflict would still remain unresolved.
As for the solution, many successful entrepreneurs on Earth had already figured out many ways to go about it.
Su Mo beckoned Connie over and whispered something in her ear. When she left, there was a smile on her face that she could not hold back.
Su Mo stretched his body, feeling satisfied. After that, he descended the stairs into the warehouse.
Su Mo had not upgraded the fishing net he brought from the shelter that much. He had simply used 400 points to improve its size and strength to some degree.
To avoid any possible conflicts with the rules, Su Mo even removed the electrical device attached to the net.
Even if the treasure fishes were caught inside the net, other than losing their freedom and mobility, they would remain perfectly unharmed.
After Su Mo put the net back into the storage space, he then followed the path of the deck toward the bottom part of Hope One.and made specific improvements to the sonar.
He spent 650 survival points here. This would allow the sonar to release a sonic wave that would attract any fishes within a 5-kilometer radius.
The treasure fishes that heard the sonic wave would helplessly head in that direction and circle around the bottom of Hope One.
At that point, the Operating System would activate the code for the fishing program, and terrifyingly large numbers of treasure fishes would be caught in the net!
“Everything is set, except for one thing.”
“I just have to figure out a way to install the fishing net and arrange for a mechanical transmission device to be connected to the Operating System!”
Su Mo was not familiar with other technical skills, but now that he understood the basic mechanical concepts surrounding transmission from the destroyer’s blueprint design, he calmly built the external components himself without the assistance of the System.
Finally, he spent another 200 survival points as labor costs to have the System install the net on Hope One’s portside.
Every time the ship would stop, the OS would activate the sonar to attract fishes within a five-kilometer radius, and then release the net.
At that point, a press of a button was all it would take for Su Mo to increase the mission’s progression by rescuing tens of thousands of treasure fishes in one go!
