Chapter 365 - Three Thousand Kilometers, A Difficult Matter Becomes Extremely Simple!
In the absence of disasters or any special conditions, the wasteland sky was always so clear it was startling.
The temperature of the entire ocean region would be set when the sun rose on the horizon and began s.h.i.+ning brightly from 6 o"clock in the morning.
This would continue for six hours until noon, where the temperature of the sea would also rise as time pa.s.sed by until it reached a terrifying 36 degrees.
Other than a small cloud that would drift through the sky every now and then to give some shade to those below, there was no other place on the ocean where one could find shelter from this kind of temperature.
Even migrating birds that usually traveled dozens of kilometers squawked in protest under the intense heat, but it was still hard for them to find a place to rest along the way.
However, this flock of birds was in luck today!
A ma.s.sive object appeared on the edge of the horizon within their narrow field of vision—not only could they get enough rest on it, but they could hitch a ride as well.
As the sun shone down, the ocean looked brilliantly blue and grand, its ripples dazzling.
However, roughly one-third of the huge object in the distance was pitch-black as if all light resented it and wanted to chase it away.
Such an odd sight did not frighten the birds—instead, it made them flap their wings even faster.
They could not wait to rest.
Yet…
The speed at which the ma.s.sive object was moving was faster than the birds had expected. In less than three minutes, it had arrived in front of them, fast as lightning.
A s.h.i.+p?
Without giving the birds time to think much more, a large net swept down from the sky the minute they perched on the s.h.i.+p"s bow, capturing all of them.
"Captain, Captain, Moore caught a flock of pa.s.sing birds, there are… seven of them!"
Trapped within the net, the birds could not help but squawk and try to resist while staring at their captor…
A bear?
A bear whose entire being radiated joyful delight!
"Oh no, Moore, how many times do I have to tell you? These birds aren"t good to eat; didn"t I roast one for you yesterday? You even gave that one to Li Li.
"Didn"t I tell you that I"m going to catch a huge fish for you today so you can eat to your heart"s content? Let them go, quickly now!"
Seeing that Moore was beaming with joy and causing a ruckus on the main deck, Su Mo had no choice but to poke his head out of the captain"s quarters and admonish him.
After hearing Su Mo"s orders, Moore chuckled and loosened the net.
The birds inside the net hurriedly flew out and perched on a pole in the distance, cautiously keeping an eye on Moore.
Moore, on the other hand, merely scratched his head and chuckled while mimicking the migratory birds" squawking, continuing to tease them.
Standing in the captain"s quarters on the third floor, Su Mo knew that Moore had not intended to capture the birds.
It was just that his life as Chief Mate was far too boring!
Currently, when all was said and done, this was the fourth day of Hope One"s voyage; two and a half days had pa.s.sed since the battle with the 20 thousand foreign races.
In these two and a half days, Hope One had already covered more than 3000 kilometers in long-distance travel mode.
Hope Village and the core of the basin had now been left far behind them, so much so that when they contacted Chen Shen in the morning, there had been static on the line when the call connected.
Su Mo could not believe that the expected b.u.mpy voyage on the wasteland ocean had turned into smooth sailing in just two days or so.
He had been worried about running into many un.o.bservant foreign races along the way or encountering some other unexpected circ.u.mstances, resulting in time delays for nothing and causing accidents.
After all, even though he had the aid of the OS, after Su Mo transmigrated to the wasteland, the process of transforming himself from just a normal human being into what he was now had taken only two months minus a day!
Neither the movies on Earth nor the stories in novels had led him to even imagine how to pilot a s.h.i.+p and smoothly traverse more than 10 thousand kilometers to pick up his sister.
This proved that difficulties and obstacles in life were often caused by ignorance, by the fear that humans harbored toward the unknown.
Once the unknown had been identified, even the most difficult matter would become simple!
If they continued at this speed, there was no need for ten days or half a month—they would only need nine days to meet up with Tundra One on battlefield area 3.
"Captain, Captain, please give Moore some work to do. Moore wants to fight, Moore… wants! to! Fire! Cannon!"
After teasing the migratory birds for a while, Moore watched Su Mo, who was still leaning against the window and staring at the sea churning behind the rapidly traveling s.h.i.+p.
Moore then began his comical belly dance, making Oreo chuckle a little as she sprawled on the floor of the conference room on the second level.
Ever since Oreo had become a Dog G.o.d, her interests had also become somewhat peculiar, unlike other huskies.
During Hope One"s rest time, her daily routine was now going for a swim in the ocean, and a non-negotiable fixed session of basking in the daytime sun for three hours.
Thankfully, the mixed group of foreign races who were being rigorously trained by Connie in the back area of the deck did not know that the actual G.o.d of the O Clan was actually Oreo.
If not, their faith would be shattered and their belief destroyed.
"Wait for a little. We have an hour and a half left, then Hope One will stop for an hour. I"ll bring you down to the sea to have a look then.
"Perhaps some sea creatures have already shown up here!"
After opening the porthole and tossing a cold bottle of cola down to Moore, Su Mo felt thirsty too. He picked up half a chilled watermelon and leaped down from the porthole, landing securely on the main deck.
If an ordinary person wanted to attempt a mind-blowing landing like that, they would have to learn parkour and how to offload force.
However, now that Su Mo had achieved a terrifying 51 points in physical const.i.tution, this impact was nothing. His legs did not feel even the slightest bit numb.
He dug out two scoops of watermelon and put them where the migrating birds could feed.
Carrying the remaining watermelon, Su Mo headed toward the bow of the s.h.i.+p where the flag had been erected and lay down on a deck chair that had been set up beforehand.
From here, even if he was lying down, he still had a panoramic view of the entire ocean in front of him.
Besides, the deck chair"s temperature could be adjusted—a special feature that simulated the most comfortable and appropriate conditions.
Therefore, the s.h.i.+p"s bow was unquestionably Su Mo"s favorite spot on the entire vessel and was also where he spent most of his time!
"OS, remotely control the Defense Master to scan within 200 meters of the nearby surroundings and check for any abnormalities in energy points!"
Su Mo touched his Bluetooth earphone as he scooped out the sweetest middle part of the watermelon, bit into its juicy flesh, and gave his orders indistinctly.
Out of all Hope One"s components, the Defense Master was the first one that Su Mo had modified the moment he saved up 50 thousand survival points.
Su Mo realized that there were many weaknesses with the previous fire control radar after the battle with the foreign races.
First of all, it could only detect objects on the surface of the sea within 50 kilometers. Furthermore, when it tried to mark and track a moving target, it would rapidly consume the OS"s computing power, which meant that its capabilities left much to be desired.
Secondly, seawater was an electrolysis medium and contained a considerable volume of ions such as pota.s.sium ions, sodium ions, chloride ions, and so on. These ions could absorb large quant.i.ties of electromagnetic waves, thus drastically weakening the distance of the transmitted electromagnetic waves.
Not only that, but the water could also absorb, refract and reflect a significant quant.i.ty of the radar waves as they were being transmitted, which made it increasingly difficult for the electromagnetic waves to detect anything at the bottom of the sea.
Before the Defense Master was upgraded, three to five meters below the ocean"s surface was the limit for radar from the "70s. It would also frequently report wrong data out of the blue, so it was very difficult to fully utilize during actual combat.
The third thing was the distance measurement range!
To ensure Hope One"s concealment and safety during its voyage on the sea, Su Mo had already set things up so that the s.h.i.+p would avoid living creatures.
However, anything within fifty kilometers of the fire control radar would be scanned and fed back into the OS. At Hope One"s speed, the s.h.i.+p would be less than forty kilometers away from its objective by the time the OS had finished rerouting the s.h.i.+p"s course.
At this point, the OS had to take control of Hope One and decide whether to take another route or slow down, but this was extremely troublesome.
For these three issues, after looking at the OS"s daily operations log, Su Mo made a grand gesture with his hand. Using 28000 points plus a little of the materials he had brought from Hope Village, as well as a lot more materials he had obtained from the treasure chests, he initiated an upgrade.
The upgrade this time elevated Hope One"s overall degree of completion by 5%, which made the degree of completion jump to 38% straight away.
Furthermore, it increased the Defense Master"s surveillance range from 50 kilometers to 200 kilometers. The upgrade also constructed a complete set of easily-operated sonar detection equipment for Hope One.
This sonar equipment looked deceptively simple, but it could detect living creatures at a maximum distance of 45 meters and a maximum depth of 600 meters.
After upgrading the Defense Master to excellent-quality, there was one important item appearing among its special properties…
Energy detection!
[Respected Captain Su Mo, the Defense Master has not detected any energy waves for now.]
[Do you wish to activate power-saving mode but continue to monitor energy waves within 200 kilometers?]
"Activate!"
Su Mo heard a response that was all too familiar to him. Even though he was a little anxious, he suppressed this trace of worry and slowly gave his order.
Now that the first ocean disaster had pa.s.sed, the arrival of the sea creatures was imminent.
At this rate, before the third ocean disaster with the tsunami would come, the ruins would open up one after the other and grant access once again.
At present, Su Mo had fulfilled the conditions for upgrading a level 5 shelter, whether it was in survival points or physical const.i.tution. The only thing left to do was to enter one last time, then the upgrading process would be complete.
By then, whether it was machine tool manufacturing or the rockets and guided missiles for the vertical missile launchers, all of those would have been prepared.
Once he had all those things, there was no need to even think about the terrestrial foreign races. Even if they joined forces with the marine foreign races, Su Mo did not fear them at all.
However, now that he was stuck at that one final requirement, Su Mo quickly composed himself after a moment of melancholy. He continued lounging on his chair, munching on his watermelon, and browsing through the World Channel to stave off his loneliness.
From now until nine days after, all the marine foreign races would arrive one after the other.
However, within 72 hours, 575 trillion tons of marine creatures would show up first, creating a legitimate ecological cycle.
From the comments on the World Channel right now, different rules in letting in new creatures meant that many places were experiencing an "explosive abundance of fish". Some places were like the ones that had Su Mo pa.s.sed by…
Apart from aquatic plants, there was nothing else!
After reading through the chats in the World Channel for a while, Su Mo still adhered to the force of habit from the last few days and switched back to the Disaster Resistance Channel.
Compared to the first day"s upsurge in popularity with everyone, three to four days had gone by, but the bigger shelters on the sea had no way to upgrade their degree of completion. As a result, the channel was still dominated by casual players.
However, after last night, the entire atmosphere of the channel suddenly became a little peculiar. Players were not talking about how to resist the ocean disaster, nor were they studying s.h.i.+ps and boats.
Everyone was doing the exact same thing…
Fis.h.i.+ng!
"Those with diabetes, please step back a little. Don"t let the fishes taste that sweetness!"
"There"s the wilderness and the great forests, now let me take you all down to the bottom of the sea for a first-person view."
"Taking on the internet challenge, current status—13 hours, 5 sea ba.s.s, 11 yellow croakers"
"I"ll say yes to whatever you ask! Just stop fis.h.i.+ng, okay? Out, swim out of here!"
"Oh my goodness! Look over here! An old fisherman won"t ever go away empty-handed, I actually managed to fish out three wooden treasure chests in succession!"
"Level two raft, the strongest raft in the wasteland, the valuable live broadcast stream you need to watch every day"
"Come in quick, I"ll teach you step-by-step how to get a permanent t.i.tle of your own and increase your vertigo resistance score by a little! It"s the best weapon to fight motion sickness!"
…
"Hm? Some people actually obtained permanent t.i.tles and also lowered their vertigo score?"
Su Mo had been lounging on his deck chair, browsing through all sorts of strange headings.
However, when his gaze fell on a heading fourth up from the bottom, which was also the 26th live stream in the schedule, he suddenly sat up in shock!
Even until now, Su Mo was not clear about t.i.tles.
Whether it was the "Hardworking Gardener" t.i.tle obtained from possessing high-level gardening skills, or the "G.o.d Slayer" t.i.tle acquired from killing the Heavenly Dog Pseudo G.o.d—in fact, whether or not these two t.i.tles were useful—an ordinary human had no hope of achieving them, based solely on how they needed to be obtained.
However, sure enough, someone had figured out how to obtain permanent t.i.tles and also increase their vertigo resistance properties.
"Currently, after four days of adaptation, even if the whole of mankind already is immune to vertigo, we still have a long way to go in terms of unleas.h.i.+ng our combat power!
"If everyone can get a t.i.tle and it helps with their vertigo score, then this person can literally be called a hero!"
With a joyful heart, after giving instructions to the OS not to disturb him unless it was imperative, Su Mo focused his attention and connected to the live broadcast stream…