Chapter 462 Ready to Go, Ambitions for the New World
As Su Mo sat inside the re-entry capsule to return to the wasteland, unlike his previous busy self, he had quite a bit of free time on hand now.
On Iron Rock Mountain, there were over two hundred villagers waiting for him, helping him to safeguard the base and ensuring that it was not invaded by outsiders.
On Hope One, there were more than a thousand talented people helping him to design a plan for the basin area and its future development pathway. Even inside the re-entry capsule, Lu Kuan was busy analyzing the properties of the collected materials with the few remaining instruments.
As time passed, Su Mo was no longer alone.
Under him, there were more than a thousand mouths waiting to be fed and more than a thousand pairs of “creative” hands.
There were many tasks that could be delegated to these people.
However, the only thing that these people could not do for him was… planning the big picture!
He had put some consideration into the fact that, not long after arriving at the New World, they would be faced with a complicated situation.
Taking advantage of this time, Su Mo took out a pen and a piece of paper. He leaned against the wall and started to think carefully.
“After this battle, the number of humans on the wasteland has been halved, which can be considered a huge loss. However, the foreign races aren’t much better off. They’ve been contaminated by the Superpower Suppressant, so in three months they’re basically all going to be dead.”
“Such a situation was not anticipated by the game, but it was precisely this drastic loss, which crossed the its bottom line in the rules, that resulted in the game having to immediately initiate proliferation measures, in order to ensure that the number of creatures rises steadily and doesn’t continue to decline, instead of continuing with more disasters to increase the pressure and reduce numbers.” “Will the game initiate proliferation measures?”
On the paper, Su Mo listed down three options.
First, proliferation measures.
Second, reduction measures.
Third, dragging it out.
These were the only three paths that the game could take. There were no other options it could choose from under the framework of the rules.
“As for the rewards, that’s a completely separate matter. The rewards for humans are what should be rightfully given after surviving the disaster, so it isn’t considered as part of the game’s proliferation measures.”
“Thus its chosen path should be… to drag it out!”
“What is it dragging things out for?”
It was like pulling silk from a cocoon.
As he developed and progressed to this point, Su Mo’s mindset and perspective also gradually formed and solidified, and he had his own ways of considering and dealing with problems.
He integrated what he learned from the various people around him, while also making full use of the attribute bonus that boosted his mental capacity, clarity and physical fitness.
Very soon, Su Mo had some guesses regarding the purpose of the game.
“The game probably wants to give all living creatures a buffer period, which would allow those who have not reached the New World to arrive quickly, while also allowing those who don’t want to go to the New World to evacuate elsewhere. This will completely divide the wasteland into two warzones. From there, the game can regulate the next disaster and ensure that the magnitude of the disaster won’t be too overbearing.”
“Still, since the game still wants to reduce the effect of the disasters on the wasteland, it’s bound to make some adjustments to the game’s rules to increase the number of living creatures on the wasteland.” This theory was very easy to understand.
For example, if one took the current number of living creatures in the wasteland as 10 then, when the number of living creatures dropped to 4, according to the rules, the game could no longer implement reduction measures and would have to initiate proliferation measures.
Only when the number of creatures increased from 4 to 7, or even 8, would the constraint of the rules be released.
At this point, the game could once again use its own authority to carry out reduction measures.
By repeating this cycle, the number of living creatures on the wasteland would always be kept within a certain range.
It was an almost flawless setup.
However, it was still, as the saying went, too difficult to create a set of rules without loopholes.
Even though the higher dimensions of the gamemaster and administrator might have exceeded the limits of human imagination, there was still no qualitative difference in terms of their ability to think and strategize.
For example, it would be very simple to take advantage of the current rule.
It just needed to…
Summon more!
“In order to continue carrying out reduction measures, or possibly trigger more powerful reduction measures, the game must restore the number of living creatures to 13, or even 15.” “Other than by initiating proliferation measures, this goal can also be achieved as long as enough foreign races enter the wasteland to make the numbers!”
“No… I’ve got it. No wonder the game had to launch this Real Survival version update. It was to weaken me!”
“The foreign races are too afraid of me now. If I don’t limit my abilities to a certain extent, then even if more foreign races enter the wasteland, they’ll just end up becoming cannon fodder.”
At this point, as long as the game did not continue to set limits, with the medium-sized machine tool in Su Mo’s hands and the foundation of Hope One, he could manufacture ammunition endlessly, which could then be used to bombard his enemies non-stop.
The foreign races had not had much time to develop since they arrived so, if the game brought in some powerful ones and allowed them to carry out a decapitation operation on Hope One, then the balance it wanted to see would be completely broken. However, if it left things as they were, Su Mo himself would become the person who destroyed the balance, and the wasteland would descend into a state of the powerful force bullying the one weak force. In this case, naturally, the game had thought of the best and easiest way to deal with the situation.
Simultaneously weakening and strengthening both sides.
The foreign races lost all that they had previously accumulated, as well as their territory. They had to start from scratch, but they would gain an increase in numbers.
Su Mo would lose Hope One’s technological weapons, which were the biggest threat to the foreign races, but in return he gained thousands of talented people and an initial advantage.
The two parties were balanced as such.
In addition to fixing the loophole in the rules that the foreign races’ gods would break from time to time, this method just happened to miraculously restore the harmony and balance of the wasteland world!
It was a brilliant idea! “If this is the case, Hope One’s legendary upgrade will likely become a major obstacle. The game will definitely implement some terrifying conditions in the Real Survival version update to prevent me from using it to break the balance.”
“This is something I didn’t think of before, but it’s not a big problem!”
“When I arrive at the New World, there wouldn’t be much room to use Hope One’s abilities on land anyway. Other than the weapons, its other attributes would be basically useless anyway.”
He had won the battle on the ocean.
Hope One’s final act would be to transport them to the New World.
As long as everyone could be safely brought to the New World, whether or not the whole ship could continue to be used would not have a great effect on the overall situation as it did currently.
In making a decision, Su Mo did not allow his personal emotions to cloud his judgment.
In a situation where the circumstances were greater than the people, even if he fought it, the game would not change the reality of “confiscating” Hope One.
On the contrary, because he would be weakened by the loss of Hope One, it might be possible to obtain more benefits from the game in return.
Su Mo had clearly thought this through when weighing the pros and cons of the situation.
At the same time, to a certain extent, it meant that he would not suffer too great a loss.
“When the time comes, I have to plan out the location of my territory well. At the very least, I cannot place myself in a situation where I can be attacked by enemies on multiple fronts in the early stages.”
“I’ll have to study the placement of the territory and its subsequent development carefully.”
Time flew by as he sketched and drew.
Throughout the whole process, the conversation he had with Jiang Chu previously quickly transformed from information into knowledge, which he transferred onto the paper.
With this knowledge in hand, Su Mo was confident.
Even if he went to the New World unprepared, he could still walk ahead of everyone.
This was the source of his courage and confidence, given to him by the human technology that had been developed over thousands of years!
At high altitude, the re-entry capsule appeared incomparably dazzling, like a shooting star piercing the sky. However, when it broke through the last 30 kilometers of the atmosphere, the re-entry capsule turned low-profile.
As a faint blue light arose from the capsule’s surface, forming a shield that suppressed the flames outside. Although this would quickly deplete the energy of the re-entry capsule, at this point, what Su Mo wanted more was nothing more than to
keep…
A low profile!
(Warning!)
(Warning!)
(Warning!)
[An unknown presence has been detected. It is examining the host’s information. Do you want to hide your information? Hiding it this time will cost 960 survival points!)
(An unknown presence has been detected. It is examining information on the items the host has brought. Do you want to hide the information? Hiding it this time will cost 6285 survival points!]
Three warnings sounded at the same time.
Two prompts about hiding information popped out at the same moment too.
Seeing the terrifying second prompt that required more than 6,000 survival points, Su Mo was surprised and chose to hide it.
He had made the right bet!
The game had really not given up!
When the psychic energy shuttle rocket took off, the game did not leave, but instead waited patiently here for the re-entry capsule to come down.
If the instruments in the capsule were still present, Su Mo’s balance of 12,000 survival points would not have been enough.
When that time came, in the game, a frightening conflict would definitely break out! Fortunately though, he still had enough survival points for now!
Phew…
He took a few deep breaths!
He watched as a green light floated up from his body, swept over all the items, and then passed through Oreo and Lu Kuan before returning smoothly. Su Mo was relieved.
Then, facing the golden light that was creeping up from below the re-entry capsule, Su Mo waved his hand again lightly, signaling for Lu Kuan to not be afraid.
Calmness and composure were contagious.
His calmness made Lu Kuan relax very quickly. The mechanical arm that was tightly clenched also slowly loosened up. As the golden light examined everything from top to bottom, it did not detect any issues, so it quickly left.
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However, just 20 kilometers away from the capsule, right when Lu Kuan relaxed his mind and wanted to speak, this golden light sneakily came back again, examining the capsule in even greater detail as it attempted to find clues to discover any warning signs. This scene terrified Lu Kuan so much that his brain twitched in his head.
A moment later.
After repeatedly checking three times, the golden light finally returned without success and left for real.
It was only after Su Mo stood up that Lu Kuan belatedly returned to his senses and jumped to his feet.
“That was close! It’s lucky that we threw those instruments away!”
“I don’t know what the golden light was doing either. I tried using the scanner to detect it, but no energy reaction could be found, nor was there any change in the surroundings. If we hadn’t seen it with our own two eyes, it’s almost as if this thing didn’t exist. How f*cking evil.”
He wiped away the non-existent sweat on his forehead.
As he described the golden light’s form, a fear he could not hide remained in his eyes, but there was a hint of excitement in his tone.
Over these two long days, Su Mo had already given him too many surprises, which resulted in his brain secreting far too much dopamine.
This thrill of walking the line between life and death had made Lu Kuan feel completely “young” again.
In other words, before meeting Su Mo, Lu Kuan might have had about 30% of his thoughts revolving around suicide, and about 40% of his thoughts revolving around giving up.
However, after meeting Su Mo and experiencing so many things, his mindset had completely changed.
He wanted to keep living!
Moreover, he wanted to live even longer! He wanted to create even more things of value!
“It’s fine. There will be many more opportunities to come into contact with it in the future, so we have to get used to it quickly!” “Ah? There will be more?”
Seeing the robot’s bitter expression, Su Mo could not hold back his laughter.
He stopped smiling a moment later and returned to his seat, speaking seriously.
“Enough. Prepare to land…!”
“Around 200 kilometers east of the base!”
“After the golden light’s inspection, we have to take all these things back with us. Be careful not to damage the captain’s cabin. The calculation tools in here are precious!”
Lu Kuan nodded excitedly. “Got it. I’m good at this. You can just observe.”
Lu Kuan’s confidence was not baseless.
His astronautics knowledge had reached 11% of the interstellar age, so he was qualified to be “arrogant”.
The next moment, when it was one kilometer from the ground, the re-entry capsule initiated its landing mode, and its wings were retracted.
A recoil force offset the gravitational momentum of the descent adequately, allowing the entire capsule to land smoothly on the surface of the ocean.
Thump!
It was like a pebble falling into a river.
Seeing the re-entry capsule float up once again, as well as the Sun-chaser hurrying over, separated from the outside by the glass porthole window, Su Mo could not help but smile as he raised his head to look at the sky.
He admitted it.
Since crossing over the wasteland, in his eyes, this was the brightest night sky yet!
