Chapter 552: Big Surprise, the Mysterious Adventurer!

“Next, I will have to send someone here, but as the person in charge, there is one thing you have to remember at all times.

“No one is allowed to touch these heads without wearing complete protective gear!

“If someone touches them without authorization, no matter if they got bitten or not, then this iron door must be shut until I return to check the situation. Remember, there won’t be any exceptions!

Su Mo repeatedly warned Li Li as they walked out of the room with the zombies and closed the protective door outside, leaving only a small window to observe the inside.

“Don’t worry, shelter lord! I’ve been managing the place well. There won’t be any accidents!”

Feeling Su Mo’s solemnity, Li Li did not dare to take it lightly and repeatedly nodded to show that he would remember it clearly.

The other foreigners who stayed here and guarded the heads may be a little unfamiliar with the owners of these heads, but he knew them very well as the former vice-captain.

These were once comrades that boarded the ship together.

However, now they could only be locked up. They were neither living beings nor dead, which made it a terrifying sight.

“Okay, seeing how scared they make you… these heads don’t have bodies and won’t be able to escape his place even if they break free from the chains.

“In case one of them tries to escape from this place, just shut the door and come to the shelter to look for me!”

Su Mo glanced at Li Li, who was trembling in fear, and shook his head as they returned to the second floor.

He warned the same things repeatedly to the other foreigners as he did to Li Li, then waved his hands toward the void, and the spicy fish stew immediately appeared on the ground.

“This is a reward for you guys! Keep up the good work, and I’ll definitely reward you all accordingly!”

The spicy aroma combined with the freshness of the fish from the pot immediately attracted the foreigners’ attention.

Su Mo poured the fish stew into the bowls where the foreigners usually ate, and he put away the pot.

He stayed for a while before leaving the secret base and returning to the path he had traveled.

The heavy wooden door was pushed open, and the air outside was chilly.

He returned the wooden door in place, covered it with the turf, and piled the snow back on top. Everything returned to how it would be in the untouched wilderness.

Even if someone noticed the shallow footprints on the ground, it would be difficult to associate it with an underground base.

Unlike his light-hearted mindset when he came, Su Mo’s heart was much heavier on the way back to the shelter while driving Earth Tiger.

The discovery of the current zombie mutation situation was unexpected bad news.

Although discovering the news early was good for the basin, the thought of life being ruined made Su Mo tremble, and a chilly feeling ran down his spine.

‘The only good news now is that most human beings have already departed to the deep sea, so they don’t have to face this terrifying disaster for the time being.

‘It seems that my previous plan must be changed, and the alliance with the ents has to be put on the agenda.’

It was much easier for him to return to the village than when he was blindly driving to travel here.

Su Mo spaced out, and only one-third of his attention was on controlling the Earth Tiger, whereas his thoughts came to life.

Before this, after seeing the battle between the Light Empire and the Demon clan, he had planned to keep a neutral relationship with the ents, and it would be best to be able to maintain it until the basin had overwhelming power.

Even if he attacked Black Stone Base Camp, he never thought of joining forces with the ents to invade and form an alliance.

However, knowing of the looming zombie disaster…

The ents were not afraid of being bitten and would be good brothers who could act as “meat shields”. Their value had suddenly increased!

As long as the basin could establish a good relationship with them, they would have at least 180 rough-skinned ents shielding them.

Then, they could rely on their densely intertwined firepower network that was not only capable of destroying thousands of zombie, but even if the wave consisted of ten thousand zombies, Su Mo was also confident that they would be able to survive without injury.

However, this was all wishful thinking. The establishment of the alliance with the ents and a few more minor details had to be pushed forward.

The previous performance he put on in front of the ent, Zhu Chuan was extreme.

When they form an alliance and find out the basin’s strength was not what they had imagined, there might be a dispute due to the deception.

‘Black Rock Base Camp is a difficult problem but also a turning point for us

‘It has to go well!’

Su Mo thought about the specific methods and details throughout the whole journey. When he recollected himself, he had already arrived at the village.

In winter, at around four o’clock in the afternoon, the sun was already setting, and the warmth had significantly decreased.

The villagers, who had nothing to do for more than a day, were completely unaware of the drop in temperature, and they picked up tasks in groups of three or five and rushed out to complete them before sunset.

The monument was being built in the backside of the village and had now reached the most critical moment.

Considering the size of the statue and the precision requirements, and judging from the outer frame, it could be assumed that the first statue built in the basin was not of their mighty lord Su Mo nor was it a human-shaped monument.

It looked like Oreo was looking down in the far distance or Moore was roaring up to the sky.

Su Mo could not identify the monument by its incomplete frame structure.

He sat on Earth Tiger and wandered around the village. Moments later, he got out of the car and returned to the shelter.

The bedsheets placed at the shelter entrance were no longer damp after bathing in the sun for half a day and had a pleasant smell of sunlight.

He collected the quilt, spread it on the bed, and then sat in the sizeable living room on the third floor. He thought for a bit and opened his storage space.

In the next second, the imported goods brought back from Freedom City began to pour out of the hole slowly, and using his mind control, the items flew out into the air.

After emptying the storage space, the third floor that was bare before had finally had a taste of “home”.

“Refrigerator, rice cooker, washing machine, laptop, game console, smartphone…

“An old-fashioned pistol without bullets…

“Hey, isn’t this a high-level forging hammer used by the dwarf tribe to forge equipment?!”

Su Mo sat on the ground and started to take stock of these familiar and unfamiliar items. He could not contain his joy.

The import exchange did not only have technological items from Earth.

Among the collected things, there were also many things belonging to other foreign races.

Moreover, the rarity of these things was as valuable as the technological items, and they could be regarded as quality products with no market price.

The forging hammer that Su Mo was holding in his hand was worth more than 80,00 contribution points, which was enough to show how precious it was.

Su Mo did not hurry to identify the properties of these items and immediately started to categorize them.

More than half an hour passed, and everything was sorted.

A list had also appeared in Su Mo’s hands.

The things listed included smartphones, desk lamps, Bluetooth headsets, smartwatches, mechanical keyboards, and hand-held action cameras. These small technological items could be used with one hand, totaling 51 pieces.

What made Su Mo a little excited was that there were four smartphones in these things, four surveillance cameras that he had been looking for, and 3-gigabit wireless routers.

It would only take a few simple upgrades to meet his need of monitoring a small area, reducing the pressure on those patrolling the basin’s border.

On the other hand, things that required two hands to operate such as washing machines, refrigerators, induction cookers, other appliances, printers, small drones, laptops, and desktop hosts… There were 19 medium-to-large technology items in total.

Although there were not as many as the first batch of small technology items above, they were not helpful to their current situation.

However, in terms of potential, they were definitely winners!

For example, as long as they had these ready-made items on hand, Ai Jianfeng and Su Wei were completely capable of remodeling, deconstructing, and drawing a blueprint.

On top of this, certain optimizations could be made to reduce the difficulty of “duplicating” them.

Then, with a simple assembly line and a few materials, dozens or hundreds of these items could be made freely.

At that time, whether it was for self-use to improve the lives of the villagers or to be sold, it could significantly change the current conditions of the basin.

‘Technological items are not too expensive, and these items are enough to satisfy the basin for a long time.

‘When we can fully understand the technology contained in these things, the strength of the entire territory should already go through massive changes.

‘Self-research is not a problem!’

As a product of human wisdom in the new era, the fact that chips must be manufactured with a lithography machine determines that the production of these things was unattainable in the current territorial science level of the basin.

In the doomsday wasteland, the blueprint of a lithography machine would not be difficult to acquire through the upgrades in the system.

However, their current essential industry was not even close to the basic needs for manufacturing these high-end and sophisticated items.

As long as the current rate of development continues, manufacturing would definitely be achievable.

Without much worry, Su Mo turned the paper and continued the stock count.

Apart from the technological products on earth, the rest were items of other foreign races.

The items that had unknown properties because the system had not identified them were a total of 12.

After keeping track of the number of each item and confirming there were no defects, he opened the system. He prompted the system to conduct a property analysis on the things excitedly.

The green light flashed the old-fashioned smartphone’s properties that cost 4,888 contribution points in Freedom City.

[N35-Adventurer Terminal (Excellent)]

[Description: A high-tech item made by “Sunix Military Industry”. It has a wide range of functions and is mainly used for adventurers to survive in the wild. The survival rate of wielding this item is as high as 9.35%, which is much higher than 0.16% of ordinary adventurers. It is a must-have item for traveling.]

[Current state: The password has been entered incorrectly many times, and the machine has entered a permanent locked state, which needs to be returned to the factory for repair.]

[Current battery level: 0%]

[Charging method: Terminal charging DC link (Solar: Damaged)]

[Available modules: Field Camping Module, Field Small Vehicle Module, Extreme Environment Risk Module, Holographic Decoy Projection Module]

[Method to increase modules: Purchase a new module, arrive at the designated location, and provide service costs for installation.]

[How to use: Only one module can be used at the same time per unit time]

[Power consumption rate: It depends on the expansion degree of the module and the use environment.]

[Evaluation: A functionally disabled version of “Silly Girl”? (if you know her!)]

‘?

‘???’

In all fairness, even if the properties of the phone had incomprehensible abilities like the previous old computers, Su Mo would not have shown such a stunned expression.

His mouth opened in an “O” shape ever since he saw the name of the identified item.

‘What? What is this?

‘Silly Girl?

‘This was the infamous Chinese-branded mobile device from 2060 that was actually a crazy technology that could make people fly and do everything? It even allowed you to travel through time and space?’

When he thought of the classic TV series in his childhood and then looked at the smartphone in his hand, Su Mo suddenly felt a trance.

This so-called adventurer terminal’s functions were not difficult to understand.

Like the previous modular objects, the panel had systematically identified its functions and listed them.

‘The phone can turn into a campsite and even a vehicle?

‘How does this even make sense?’

Su Mo was full of confusion, but after he recollected himself, he opened up the terminal’s upgrade panel.

In the current wasteland, the so-called Sunix Military Industry had long become a thing of the past, and it is unknown whether this factory had ever appeared here.

It was impossible to ask them to repair it.

However, from his previous experience, Su Mo had 100% confidence that the system would be able to repair it.

Sure enough, as the new interface opened, the upgrade route of the adventurer terminal was displayed.

[Upgrade Method 1: Crack and Repair: Repair all damaged parts and “age problems” of the terminal by using brute force to forcibly crack the terminal’s password lock and unlock it. The user is able to use the modules in a limited manner, but no other operations can be performed. After the terminal is lost, if someone else picks it up, the terminal can also be used by them. The upgrade requires survival points (1420).]

[Upgrade Method 2: Verification and repair: Repair the hardware damage to the terminal, and use a gentler method by verifying the correct password. After entering the password, the user can freely change the terminal usage rights, freely configure the module, and restore the factory settings. It will not be limited by the previous user’s operating habits. The upgrade requires survival points (2080).]

[Upgrade Method 3: Open source repair: Repair terminal hardware problems, upgrade terminal software vulnerabilities and reset the terminal’s password. Users can freely use all functions of the terminal without developer restriction, and after possessing the source code, users can swap modules according to their needs, add modules, and configure modules, not subject to internal restrictions. The upgrade requires survival points (4106).]

The system knew Su Mo’s urgent needs.

The three upgrade methods given by the system were not significant upgrades and were basically all related to repair methods.

Taking a look from the bottom to the top, the first option was the same as the upgrade methods provided by the system.

Although it cost the least, it also had the lowest practical value. It looked like the cheapest option but was a waste of contribution points.

Su Mo skipped the option and hesitated for a second, giving the remaining two options a deep consideration.

The next moment, he used his mind to check the other three smartphones’ properties laid beside him.

Unsurprisingly, the four high-priced smartphones brought back from Freedom City were indeed adventurer terminals of the same model.

Even the functions and the available modules were all identical.

This time, Su Mo did not hesitate and immediately clicked on the second upgrade method, which was more economical.

He would only need to figure out the source code and would be able to copy it to the other terminals.

It would not be bad to obtain the source code for one of the remaining three terminals if the functions of the item were really useful.

In the case that it was just a gimmick and not really useful, he could save 2,000 points and it would not be considered too big of a waste.

The green light flashed, the survival points were automatically deducted, and the operation began.

First, the rust on the casing fell off, and then the inside of the terminal vibrated slightly. Along with the renewal both inside and outside of the terminal, a light green flashed across the screen and vanished quickly.

A 2,000 contribution point job was a piece of cake to the system. It only took five seconds and the terminal gently landed on the ground after the upgrade was over.

‘These two thousand points are totally worth it. Although there is no so-called terminal charging line for charging it, there will be a lot of time to recharge after the solar energy is repaired!

Su Mo glanced at the properties of the terminal, which looked almost like a new product, and quickly walked up the stairs.

‘The sun would be up for another two hours.’

Whether it was a mule or a horse, a silly girl or chicken rib, as long as it had two hours of charging, it could at least store enough energy to start up.

When the time came, if the terminal was handy, it would mean that in Su Mo’s hand, he now held another item than was not inferior to the magic carpet…

A new super item!