abcnovels
Chapter 399 - 399: Three Basic Resources Buildings
Chapter 399 - 399: Three Basic Resources Buildings
Chapter 399: Three Basic Resources Buildings
Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation
“Zhao Yu is a good person…”
Inside the SUV, Xiao Liu gently caressed the back of the seat with both hands, as tenderly as one would treat a lover.
This SUV was almost brand new. Since the apocalypse, he had dreamt of owning such a vehicle.
Now, their Meng House Village had ten of them, all given by Zhao Yu!
There were five others in the seven-seater SUV: Meng Xian, Eagle, and three other first-level enhancers.
Their mission was to collect gasoline from the old city.
The others had long since familiarized themselves with the vehicle, and they burst into laughter seeing Xiao Liu’s behavior.
“Xiao Liu, you might as well marry this car…”
“Haha, what a lack of ambition…”
Xiao Liu, a bit disgruntled upon hearing this, retorted, “Don’t think I don’t know. When you guys got the car, your behavior was even worse than mine. I heard you’ve been sleeping in it these past few days?!”
Meng Xian, sitting in the passenger seat, looked worried and did not join in the discussion.
Eagle was driving and noticed her concern, “Sister Meng, is something bothering you?”
Meng Xian turned to look at him and the others in the back seat.
She shook her head and said, “Don’t you think there’s something off about Zhao Yu keeping a million to himself?”
“What’s wrong with that?” Eagle was confused.
“That’s a million. If both our families shared the cost, they could save at least five hundred thousand resources…”
“Five hundred thousand… if you count it in rifles, that’s more than a hundred…”
More than a hundred rifles?
Everyone slowly was coming to a realization.
About the five hundred thousand or a million seemed fine, but when converted to guns, a common equivalent in their transactions, it seemed rather expensive.
Their trips to the old city usually yielded an average of just three to five rifles each time.
Distributed among individuals, or even across Meng House Village, there wasn’t much money for anyone.
“Sister Meng, what do you think?” Eagle also sensed something was amiss and quickly asked.
“I don’t know…”
Meng Xian shook her head. “I don’t know what he’s thinking, it just doesn’t feel right…”
“Could it be that Zhao Yu plans to annihilate us and take everything by force?”
A chill flashed in Xiao Liu’s eyes. He had some reservations about Zhao Yu, especially when he saw Meng Xian acting cautiously around him, which made him quite displeased.
After all, in his heart, Meng Xian was his ‘white moonlight’ – an extraordinary, unapproachable goddess, revered and untouchable.
As a second-level expert, it was extremely hard for him to watch his goddess acting so cautiously around Zhao Yu.
“It’s not very likely…”
Eagle immediately refuted: “If he wanted to wipe us out, he would have done it directly. With his strength, he is capable of that…”
Although enhancers were powerful individually, they would still fall against a numerically superior regular army.
No enhancer could face an army head-on, even if the army wasn’t large.
“Besides, what does Meng House Village have in terms of resources that he would want to rob us?!”
Eagle scratched his head. He had seen Zhao Yu’s wealth and power – lacking neither rifles nor cars, each of considerable value.
And their Meng House Village, having sold the last batch of valuable gasoline to Black Rock City, only had a modest amount of grain, which wasn’t much to feed everyone for a long period.
“Let it be, let’s not think too much. Anyway, the decision has been made, and he indeed didn’t ask us for money…”
“As long as he doesn’t goes against the Han family, we should continue to rely on him…”
Upon hearing this, Xiao Liu was dissatisfied and voiced his opinion, “What’s so great about Zhao Yu?”
“Haha, Xiao Liu is getting agitated…”
Hearing the teasing from those around, Meng Xian couldn’t bring herself to feel happy.
She had a lingering suspicion that Zhao Yu wasn’t giving money that easily.
She suspected he might be placating the Han family of Black Rock City and ultimately planning to attack Wild Wolf Town.
Even if Zhao Yu planned to attack Wild Wolf Town, he would likely continue to bide his time until his power was sufficient.
He probably wouldn’t act in the short term.
“It seems, when we return, I need to have a serious talk with Zhao Yu…”
“At the very least, I need to persuade him to abandon the idea of offending the Han family…”
Meng Xian decided to use various means to make Zhao Yu realize the strength of the Han family in Black Rock City and thus give up on confrontation.
“Second brother…”
Black Rock City, Han family. As soon as the effeminate man returned, he cried with a sorrowful face, “You have to stand up for me…”
” That Zhao Yu is so ungrateful, he doesn’t want to make peace?”
“It’s not just that Zhao Yu is ungrateful…”
The effeminate man exaggerated his encounter at the Han family.
“Big brother, he wasn’t just hitting my butt, he was actually disrespected you…”
After listening for a while, Han Yong Le understood the situation well, “Is Zhao Yu really so defiant?”
“Even more than you can imagine…”
“Hmph!”
A murderous intent appeared in Han Yong Le’s eyes, he restrained himself slightly and said indifferently, “Since he has agreed to pay the 500,000 in compensation, this matter will considered settled for now…”
The effeminate man became anxious, “Big brother, we can’t just let it go like this…”
“Shut up!”
Han Yong Le scolded, “Right now, I am busy with our family issue. I will deal with Zhao Yu until I’ve free time?”
Seeing the fear on the effeminate man’s face, he sighed and explained in a softer tone, “I won’t let Zhao Yu off the hook…”
“But right now, with our big brother challenging me, I can’t afford any mistakes. Once this is over, I will deal with Zhao Yu slowly…”
To him, Wild Wolf Town and Zhao Yu were insignificant, just rural underlings not worthy of his attention.
What really mattered was the challenge from his own Big Brother, which concerned who would inherit the Han family and become the head of the family.
Each of the direct descendants needed to show their capabilities to the elders in the family, to demonstrate who could lead the Han family forward.
In the base, three to five cars drove out every hour.
“Some vehicles were filled with soldiers, while others had no one else besides the driver.
After the completion of his mission, Zhao Yu spent his time at the base contemplating how to make himself stronger.
The three basic buildings had been completed. The remaining resources was thrown into the resource recycling plant, yielded greater returns. Not only was the purification rate higher, but rare elements could also be extracted.
Before Zhao Yu build the recycling plant, all these rare elements were previously wasted.
Especially when Zhao Yu threw a batch of ammunition into it and found out that the purification rate reached 95%, improving efficiency by more than fourfold.
Of course, the most important thing was that after breaking these materials down to their initial state and transferred them into the chemical plant, a more diverse range of elements could be processed.
‘With the resource recycling plant and chemical plant, making new things won’t be as troublesome anymore…’
Zhao Yu felt very relieved. He went to the mining plant to take a closer look and basically understood the situation there.
He could set the required resources in the mining plant in advance. Then, the mining vehicle would go out to mine according to the resource requirements he had allocated.
Of course, he still needed to exchange for a mining vehicle from the war vehicle factory.
There were many types of mining vehicles, large, medium, and small, but unfortunately, all of them were heavy oil consumers.
Zhao Yu was reluctant but had to choose a model with a simple mechanical arm and lower power.
After some research, he found that even this model would consume a lot of fuel once it started mining upon finding resources.
It wouldn’t matter much in the past, now the resource he lacked the most was oil.
‘What should I do?!’
Looking at the mechanical arm on the mining vehicle in front of him, Zhao Yu’s eyes lit up as he thought of a solution.
T don’t necessarily have to let the mining vehicle do the work…’
‘I can completely utilize the mining vehicle’s ability to recognize resources, let it lead the way, and then send a team to follow it for mining…’
‘I’m so smart!’
Zhao Yu laughed, feeling proud of his ingenuity.
After some consideration, he decided to start with a medium-sized team of twenty people to follow the mining vehicle and see what they could harvest.
If the return was high, he would get more mining vehicles and send more people out.
“But right now, I also need manpower to control the situation in Wild Wolf Town…”
Six hours had passed since he conquered Wild Wolf Town, and only 72 soldiers had emerged from the training camp, far from the 500 he had envisioned.
The only downside of the training camp was time. No matter what type of soldier was trained, it took five minutes.
‘But, it should be about right…’
Zhao Yu had received a message from the centurion commander two hours earlier.
The commander had sent back a detailed account of the siege and the recovery process.
The results were smoother than he had imagined; almost no one died in the entire process.
In Wild Wolf Town, more people surrendered than expected. Only about twenty to thirty were truly loyal, and most of them were killed by drones.
This made Zhao Yu realize that the value of a commander was greater than he had thought.
Especially a centurion commander, whose training cost alone was a high 20 technology points, equivalent to 20 soldiers.
But in practice, he was far stronger than 20 soldiers.
Recalling how he and his sixty men were nearly wiped out in a previous encounter, Zhao Yu was very satisfied with the commander’s performance.
Taking over the Wild Wolf Town was almost effortless, with the original hundred soldiers plus the seventy new ones sent over, totaling over two hundred, which was more than enough.
Of course, Zhao Yu was most interested in the resources of Wild Wolf Town, which were more abundant than he had expected.
After all, the upper echelons of Wild Wolf Town had enforced a brutal exploitation system, squeezing every last drop of value from the residents.
But the first thing the centurion did after taking over was to distribute food.
Of course, the main purpose was to count the number of people and distribute it by name.
The food wasn’t much, only enough for three days per person, but this act caused the entire town’s civilians to cheer.
This made some of the surrendered town guards were fearing that the civilians might revolt and tear them apart.
After all, to be a town guard, they must have oppressed the civilians at some point, and they were extremely guilty.
‘Besides Wild Wolf Town, the shelter can also be reclaimed…’
Although the food in the shelter was moved last time, the indoor cultivation fields were still there, enough to feed a thousand people for a year.
Soon, another day passed.
This time, Zhao Yu divided the newly emerged soldiers into two groups. One group of six took two off-road vehicles and followed the mining vehicle.
The other group of six, along with three engineers, went to the shelter, carrying a large amount of equipment and various wires.
Zhao Yu’s order to them was to repair the electrical equipment in the shelter and then lock the main door, waiting for further instructions.
He wasn’t worried that locking the door would prevent the soldiers from receiving orders. With the centurion commander around, signals could be transmitted within a kilometer range..”