My Post-Apocalyptic Shelter Levels Up Infinitely!

"But my memory clearly recalls it was delicious, so why..."

"Why can I only recall what I ate but not the taste?"

After consuming psychic energy water for an extended period of time and becoming more intelligent, Moore could sense something wrong.

It was obviously a really precious memory for him, and yet he could not recall how he had felt when eating it, no matter how hard he tried.

The gap in his memories terrified the bear. Su Mo himself would find himself scared witless if he were the one experiencing it.

While Su Mo was curious about the phenomenon, he knew he would not be able to glean any clues from Moore about it for the time being.

"It doesn't matter if you can't recall the memory. I'll take you to eat all these good things later on, and then we'll taste them together!"

Moore thought hard, munching on the apples loudly. When he noticed that Moore could not recall what this so-called good food was, no matter how hard he tried, Su Mo shook his head, reached out his hand, and patted Moore's shoulder, reassuring him.

"Hey, hey, hey, you're definitely going to be the strongest food warrior in the lightning bear clan!"

After being comforted, the happy-go-lucky Moore immediately forgot about his predicament and continued to work diligently.

A lightning bear would be satisfied as long as it was fed and housed. He would just leave the task of solving the mystery to his wise master.

This was the secret to the makings of a happy bear!

It was just as Moore thought; Su Mo did have some guesses regarding this strange world and the reason why the game had transported everyone here as he gathered more and more information tidbits from news and gossip inadvertently.

"If all the food from wherever Moore lives is delicious, but the people there also lose the ability to experience exactly how delicious they are..."

"Then what is the purpose of the game that moved all of humanity here? To collect despair?"

The more speculations he had, the more evidence he would need to corroborate and validate his hypothesis.

Otherwise those speculations would not point him in the direction, but rather cloud his judgment and hinder his progress.

This was verified again and again by the development of technology on Earth.

"I'll jot this down in the diary for now. This will all have to wait until I explore the lost satellite base, or until I can uncover more relics and clues during the trip."

"If I can get enough information and verify the true purpose of the game, I'll be a step ahead of the others."

Su Mo was of the opinion that everything was quite simple.

Should he resist and challenge the game that transported everyone here?

No, no, no, thatmwas something only a stupid protagonist would do.

Before the game was proved to be malicious, these magical technological wonders, as well as the game features, were needed to ensure that most of humanity would survive.

There would only be hope for the future if they survived!

They could survive day-to-day until the human race finally became strong enough to not fear a disaster of any kind. It was only once that day arrived that they could consider fighting back against the game and completely sever their ties with it.

Until then, holding back and then putting all their strength and focus into development and growth was the right thing to do.

"I'm still too reckless. If the game has a monitoring function and ends up classifying me as a rebel, then I'll be busted!"

Su Mo was reminded that he could draw upon the information and experiences left behind by his predecessors. In the end, the happy-go-lucky attitude Moore had started to affect him too, so Su Mo gradually put aside the worries in his heart and smiled.

The source of his sense of security was quite straightforward.

The game was awesome, but his system was more awesome.

As long as he didn't overstep or misjudge the boundaries of the game and the system, he would not need to worry about these problems for a long time.

Now, all he needed to do was to pioneer the way forward for all humans and strive to become the leader of the human race. For now, that would suffice.

It was sweltering hot inside the garage, which was filled with the fragrant aroma of fruit.

Outside the garage, it was drizzling. Melted snow rushed toward blocks of snow that refused to melt, and the residual heat slowly warmed them up.

Time passed from noon till late afternoon. After dinner, Su Mo worked till late into night.

He was very patient when it came to working on the "good stuff" that would prove to be a vital source of vitamins in the future.

The garage floor was already covered with layers of steamed dried fruit, and the shelves used for odds and ends in the garage were filled with the harvest of the day's hard work.

Beside him, Moore was dozing off, tired from all the work. After he woke up, he ate some fruit, then continued to work.

By half past eleven, the work had finally been completed. Except for some fruits that were intact, all the other fruits that were more or less scarred or damaged had now been turned into dried fruit that lay on the ground.

"Phew, I'm finally finished with it. This rain will stop soon too. It looks like we'll have some good weather tomorrow!"

Su Mo walked out of the shelter. He looked at the dark clouds that had begun to disperse in the sky, as well as the crescent moon that was shining brightly.

The rain brought with it incomparably fresh air and turned the ground slightly muddy.

However, Su Mo's attention was on something else.

In his line of sight, the ten source energy fruit trees that had been set aside earlier were all bearing red fruits.

Under the moonlight, all the source energy fruits were akin to the ginseng fruits in Journey to the West. They swallowed the moonlight and emitted a glittering jade-colored light.

Su Mo pushed his face mask up. Joyous, he quickly walked over to the trees and started to examine them closely.

Among the ten fruit trees, the two fruit trees that only received a fraction of the psychic energy water compared to the others had smaller fruits than the others.

The eight fruit trees, which he had exhausted his supply of psychic energy water on every day, had also lived up to Su Mo's expectations.

Each tree had at least 40 fruits, and the tree that bore the most fruits had 65 fruits!

The eight fruit trees alone bore close to 400 fruits!

After conversion, these were equivalent to almost 400 damaged shelter cores. They were sufficient to increase the area of his shelter by 4,000 cubic meters.

"If there was no welfare disaster, these fruits would have taken a full nine years to mature. Plus they needed so much psychic energy water in the process too."

"No one would be able to handle that!"

Only half an hour remained until the fruits would finally ripen. They could be harvested right after the end of the welfare disaster.

Su Mo kept an eye out, in case there were some unwanted mutated creatures around that would be attracted by the source energy fruits. He had Moore and Oreo stand guard around the orchard together with him.

Fortunately, the basin area had been thoroughly cleaned up previously. Under Oreo's watch, those who accidentally entered the area were quickly driven away.

Su Mo stood in front of the orchard, occasionally glancing at his watch. He looked up at the sky, and then at the condition of the fruits.

Once the clock struck twelve, just as Su Mo was about to start harvesting the fruits, an abrupt orange light instantly covered...

The entire sky of the wasteland!

"This... This is!"

Raising his head and looking at the golden light that filled the sky, a bad feeling slowly rose up from the bottom of Su Mo's heart.

At the same time, the memory of the grandness of the game's upgrade after the Novice stage ended resurfaced in Su Mo's mind suddenly.

"Is the game getting a large update?"

The sky was still overcast with golden light. There were no notification sounds from the system yet. 

The light seemed to be checking for something. It appeared over the horizon, slowly sweeping across the land.

All the objects that were swept through first took on a hint of gold before gradually returning to their original colors.

In the game panel, the chat interface, creation interface, and even the trading market were all forcibly shut down.

A big lock icon hovered above all the functions and, at the same time, a five-minute update countdown began. 

"This is bad. The golden light is looking for something. It's not looking for me, is it?"

Judging from what was written in Magoo's diary, all the refugees who participated in the game this time around were drastically stronger compared to Magoo's time.

Everyone had at least saved enough food to survive half a year!

With so much food stored, they could tide themselves through many disasters.

Obviously, the golden light was angry, and it was looking for the "variable" that caused these changes!

"Damn, the golden light and the game don't seem to be on the same side. This is a problem!"

Feeling the threat from the bottom of his heart, Su Mo almost could not resist the urge to run away in his Earth Tiger to escape the golden light's pursuit.

However, before he could make a move, the system popped out first and started blasting out a warning!

[Warning!]

[Warning!]

[Warning!]

[An unknown superpower is scanning the wasteland. An unknown anomaly has been detected and is being searched for!]

[The risk of the currently-bound host "Su Mo" being detected is high. There is a high possibility that all information will be detected and revealed.]

[Do you want to pay 500 survival points to falsify the information about you?]

[Please confirm as soon as possible... 15... 14...]

The system lurking within Su Mo bombarded his eardrums with a round of urgent warnings.

After hearing the words "falsify information", Su Mo instantly chose to pay 500 points without even thinking.

He must not be found. He could not bet on what would happen if he ended up being detected. He had to be 100% certain of his safety.

Su Mo's choice proved to be the right one.

The system's green light covered Su Mo and his surroundings before retracting. Shortly after, the golden light also arrived above the Underground Shelter.

Unlike its previous speed of traveling about ten meters a second, the golden light slowed down after detecting the Underground Shelter, slowing to a snail's pace.

Many parts of the Underground Shelter took on other colors that were not gold.

Among these colors, there were the green of the walls, the black of Earth Tiger, the purple of the psychic energy water, and even some miscellaneous mixed up colors. They looked out of place alongside the gold light. 

The other rays of light that were still hanging high in the sky also seemed to sense the anomaly below. They immediately turned in that direction.

The light was about to solidify, like water, trying to detect what was wrong with the shelter.

After three or five seconds, the golden light found Su Mo standing under the tree!

Obviously, the connection between the Underground Shelter and Su Mo was obvious to the golden light.

The system's power was utilized to develop the shelter. That would be considered to be within the scope of abnormality.

As long as Su Mo was also detected to be an anomaly, he would certainly be arrested on the spot, and his possessions would be confiscated as well!

With trepidation, Su Mo took a big deep breath and forced his heart to calm down before the golden light hit him.

Phew, phew...

The dull sounds of breathing made the air vibrate slightly. Noticing that the golden light was about to shine on his face, Su Mo simply took a few steps forward, calmed himself down, and stepped into the light.

One step inside, and the world seemed to shift.

Within this magical light, anything and everything seemed to lose their meaning.

Mysterious echoes began to vibrate back and forth, as if they were trying to get something out of Su Mo.

At the same time, the green light of the system seeped out of Su Mo's body and wrapped around him, covering even his eardrums.

This green light isolated all the sounds of the outside world. After he was covered by it, Su Mo also calmed down significantly.

Standing in the golden light was not painful, as he had envisioned it to be; it felt soothing, as if he was soaking in warm water.

If he was not so nervous, the comfort and relaxation he felt would have probably caused him to moan in pleasure.

Su Mo was forced to withstand the tingling sensations he was feeling. Before his eyes, his bare skin seemed to take on a hue similar to that of the 18 Bronze Men in Shaolin Temple. His whole body was shining extravagantly. 

Under the pure golden light, there were no other colors present; he was completely pure gold.

It seemed that the system was winning against the golden light!

One minute...

Two minutes…

The golden light failed. It could not detect any problems with Su Mo after repeated attempts. Although it seemed to be a bit reluctant, it could only abandon the Underground Shelter that was an anomaly and continue advancing forward.

The countdown in the game panel, incidentally, was also coming to an end.

"Phew... So close! Maybe this was the real reason why the punishment disaster happened!"

In just five minutes, Su Mo had almost got himself caught. His back was completely drenched with sweat.

This phenomenon seemed to answer the question of why the punishment disaster had occurred; something he could not figure out previously.

If the game was the ruling party, all the humans transported, including the foreign mythical races and mutant creatures, were its people.

The game would regularly follow its set procedure and trigger certain disasters which would test all creatures and urge them to survive and progress.

Those who deserved to be rewarded would be rewarded, and those who deserved to be punished would be punished. As the ruling party, they would not investigate the people just because there was an anomaly among them.

As long as it did a good job, those were its results. How those results were achieved was not any of the game's business. 

On the other hand, this golden light that filled the sky seemed to be the armed imperial guard in charge of evaluating the people.

Su Mo's batch progressed terrifyingly quickly compared to Magoo's batch.

In the eyes of the golden light, there had to be a big problem somewhere that allowed Su Mo's batch to perform well where others had performed badly.

Therefore, as the evaluator, the golden light started looking for that problematic anomaly.

Once found, not only would this anomaly be captured, but this world would also be found responsible. That was why the punishment disaster had happened.

"But does this mean that the punishment disaster will no longer occur, and the game will move forward with its regular updates?"

The golden light had disappeared and the time used to maintain the update had finally run out. Engrossed in deep thought, Su Mo reopened the game panel.

Sure enough, new notifications began to pop up in a flurry.

Ten messages...

Fifteen messages...

The number of messages only stopped increasing after twenty-three messages had popped up.

At the same time, a pleasant voice spoke into everyone's minds through the game panel.

[Record]: The current game completion level is detected to be much higher than its predicted value. The game will be automatically adjusted and a version update will be released soon.

[Record]: The second version update will be automatically installed in the current world after 20 natural days.

[Record]: A preview of the second version—Ocean—will arrive soon!

[Record]: The progress and development of the human race is exceptionally excellent. Compared to the second race in the rankings, the human race has successfully surpassed their level of completion in the game by 685%. All humans will be given a special right after the second version. You will be able to view the upcoming disasters three times. Please view the specific entry for relevant information!

[Record]: Congratulations to human player "Su Mo". You have 21 days till the next disaster.. You can view it in the Notifications section. We wish you a happy playing experience!