P-314 Shelter

P-314 Shelter

He Lei was somewhat of a gossip. After speaking, he even told Su Shijie the general contents of the suicide note.

"Let me tell you, I heard that the whole note was cursing your family. It said your family hogged everyone's resources, that your father abused his authority to take Gene Potions for himself, and that you cheated and altered the grades..."

Hearing He Lei's words, Su Shijie felt even more speechless.

The shelter had high-powered equipment capable of overcoming psionic interference and connecting directly to satellites. The Advanced Class's final exam results and selection process were even submitted to the Dawn Goddess.

In terms of fairness and impartiality, the Advanced Class was absolutely an important path for breaking through class barriers.

If his dad had that kind of ability, would he still need to scrape by here?

As for him obtaining an Awakening Potion, that was hardly a secret. Su Shijie had even shown off about it himself. But he had earned it by grinding his ass off in online games. Who the hell did that hurt?

Even if an Awakening Potion was no longer that big a deal to him now, and he planned to break through through his own efforts.

Being falsely accused like this still left a knot in his chest.

Really, considering Aunt Lin's level of understanding and the things she had access to, it was not impossible to understand why she kept obsessing over and imagining all sorts of things.

Su Shijie occasionally heard others making up nonsense too, along with all kinds of conspiracy theories. People liked to let their imaginations run wild once they had full stomachs.

But when something like this happened to him, when he himself was the person involved, he still found it hard to accept.

"Ah, I just hope Liu Bo hasn't gotten himself into trouble."

Aunt Lin was already dead. Even her soul had turned into an evil spirit and been eaten by him, so there was nothing left to dwell on. But he and Liu Bo had known each other, after all. Su Shijie still did not want anything to happen to him.

As an Advanced Class student, Liu Bo could not possibly think like his mother, could he?

"I don't know. But since Aunt Lin suddenly became like this, maybe something happened to Liu Bo too.

"I heard that during the period after he was expelled, he spoke with the Employment Planning Office several times. Maybe they know what he was doing."

He Lei wore a wistful expression as well. The three of them used to play together often. Seeing things turn out like this naturally stirred up some feelings.

"The Employment Planning Office, huh? We can go ask later."

In the shelter, every adult was assigned work compulsorily.

Most of it involved repairs, cleaning, breeding livestock, and the like. Everyone had work to do, but it was not overly tiring. They worked at most six hours a day, and taking leave when something came up was easy.

Su Shijie even suspected that some jobs were assigned simply because the shelter did not want people sitting around idle.

Even Advanced Class students, though assigned far less work, were still given tasks regularly.

It could serve as practical experience while also urging Advanced Class students onward, letting them understand the value of studying and work even harder at it.

The Employment Planning Office was the department that assigned all kinds of jobs.

1.2 kilometers was not far. Even walking the entire way did not take much time.

Moreover, the subway exit was even closer to the gates of P-314 Shelter than Residential Zone 2 was. The moment they left the subway station, they could see several armed guards ahead, as well as the shelter gates behind them, covered in green vines.

Through the gaps between the vines, they could vaguely see the silvery coating beneath, full of metallic texture.

There were also two rotating automatic electromagnetic machine guns above the gates.

The machine guns could be operated manually by people in the control room or controlled automatically.

Although psionic interference prevented them from automatically locking onto Spiritual Creatures, the area in front of the shelter gates was only so large. Their firepower was enough to cover it without any blind spots.

Even low-level Transformation Tier Spirit Beasts would be torn to pieces if they tried to force their way in.

"Instructor Su is here."

"Hello, Instructor Su."

Su Ren still had some clout. People greeted him wherever he went.

After casually nodding in return, Su Ren signaled for the students to hand over their guns.

The shelter had only issued them to the students temporarily for self-defense. Although a brand-new Electromagnetic Handgun cost around 5,000 Credit Points, an ordinary family could afford one if they gritted their teeth and saved up.

But buying one required authorization, and each authorization only allowed the purchase of a single gun.

In Su Shijie's judgment, this threshold was mainly due to limited production capacity, because homemade pipe guns, hunting rifles, crossbows, and the like were not regulated.

P-314 Shelter already had a history of more than a hundred years. It had been expanded multiple times, to the point that solar panels had to be installed during later expansions to make up for energy shortfalls. Because the trees were too tall, the panels had been set up atop the treetops more than a hundred meters aboveground, requiring regular trimming of branches and leaves.

Aside from solar power, which served as a supplement, the shelter mainly relied on a Cold Fusion Battery that powered its communications equipment, intelligent computer components, and basic infrastructure, including defensive modules.

Su Shijie had always felt that there was something strange and contradictory about it. The technological gaps between different fields were simply too vast. But after hearing some of his father's explanations recently, he could better understand why this phenomenon had arisen.

Besides the Cold Fusion Battery at the base, the Power Armor of the base commander, Sergei Brin, also contained a simple fusion battery.

Though the names sounded similar, their value and difficulty of acquisition were worlds apart.

The simple fusion battery in the Power Armor was incomplete. Its most crucial core component was actually quite rudimentary. Psionic energy had to be injected into it from outside, using the way psionic energy altered the physical laws of the microscopic world to activate its reaction.

At present, only Sergei, a Transformation Tier Level 1 worker, could use it freely.

By comparison, according to the nonsense his father used to brag about—

'If I hadn't failed to undergo Bloodline Transformation because of this injury, even at the Awakened Rank, I could smash Sergei's dog head in.'

After all, his father had fought his way up step by step. Although Sergei had also become a Transformer through psionic guidance and had inherited part of his ancestors' bloodline, his combat experience and every other aspect were certainly not as rich as his father's.

So Su Shijie believed it to some extent.

But if Sergei put on his Power Armor, even if it was only the industrial version, that would be a completely different matter...

After handing over the issued guns and swiping the Personal Terminals on their hands at the entrance, they entered the shelter one after another.

Completely unlike Residential Zone 2, the corridors, walls, and ceilings here all gleamed with metallic luster. The lighting was just right, the air was fresh, and it was even better than the air in the forest outside.

Compared to the outside and Residential Zone 2, it was practically another world.

Well, once they entered the shelter and reached the spacious rest area, seeing the messy external wiring, the various pipes clearly added to the ceiling later on, and the people running street stalls...

That familiar sense of contrast returned.

The stalls sold all sorts of things. Daily necessities such as pots, bowls, basins, and ladles made up the majority, while there was also plenty of preserved food to improve one's meals, such as smoked meat and sausages. There were even handmade pipe hunting rifles, crossbows, alloy knives, and other goods.

Some were handmade from locally sourced materials, while others had been stocked through merchant caravans that traveled to and from the Floating City each month. The goods were dazzlingly varied.

The prices were generally cheap as well. Items costing more than a hundred Credit Points were rare; most cost anywhere from a few to a dozen or so Credit Points.

For example, a handmade pipe hunting rifle that looked about sixty percent new cost only 200 Credit Points. It was far cheaper than an Electromagnetic Handgun, and at close range, it was actually more powerful. It did not require much aiming, either.

A pound of smoked meat cost only 10 Credit Points. The most expensive thing in sight was loose tobacco, at five or six hundred Credit Points per pound. Business was quite lively, much like a rural market in his previous life, full of earthy charm.

And it was precisely because of that earthy charm that it clashed so starkly with the shelter's technological atmosphere.

Su Shijie had even once seen someone carrying in a bag of gunpowder to sell. The guards had cursed him out and driven him away afterward. Generally speaking, they would turn a blind eye to people selling homemade guns and bullets.

But carrying in an entire bag of gunpowder was indeed a bit excessive.

He had heard that P-314 could manufacture two Psionic Chips every month, which were handed over to Prosperous Sky City with the merchant caravans. Sergei's main duty was to handle the manual operations during the final stage of chip production.

Things like that, much like Electromagnetic Handguns, had prices but could not normally be bought. The requirements for purchasing such chips were even much higher than those for Electromagnetic Handguns.

Awakening Potions were much the same. It was somewhat like the planned economy era, when certain supplies required not only money but also ration coupons. Only here, the coupons had been replaced by purchase authorization.

"Classes haven't started yet. Let's go to the Employment Planning Office first."

They came here for classes almost every day, so Su Shijie was already used to this scene. Though he still glanced around to see whether the merchant caravans had brought any fresh new goods, his steps did not slow.

He Lei nodded at that. Back then, Liu Bo had been much like him—both could be considered Su Shijie's friends and followers.

Although the flow of people in the shelter was rather mixed, the roads were laid out in a neat grid, and every intersection had signs. It was very easy to find their way.

"Worthy nephew Shijie, you're about to reach the Awakened Rank. Feeling excited?"

As they walked, a greeting with a Sichuanese lilt came from beside them.

Turning around, they saw a brown-haired Russian in a white research coat, with blue eyes and a small mustache. He had the air of a scholar.

God knew how bizarre it felt to hear a Russian speaking with a Sichuanese accent while calling him "worthy nephew."

But in this Great Convergence Era before them, it was perfectly normal. His younger brother and sister both had Russian blood, and Su Shijie often encountered trends in archaeology, vintage fashions, and renaissances in games.

Most of the things unearthed through archaeology were old internet slang: stuff like "absolutely amazing," "speechless," and "little fairy," as well as even more hair-raising terms Su Shijie had initially seen, like "babe" and "cricket's cricket." Yet they all considered themselves learned and well-versed in ancient and modern times.

He had gotten much more used to it by now.

This man was none other than the highest authority in P-314 Shelter—Commander Sergei Brin.

The shelter's only Transformer, and aside from Su Shijie, the only person to possess a Knight-class Bloodline through inheriting an ancestor's bloodline.

He was also a retainer of Earl of Prosperous, whose line ruled Prosperous Sky City. That was why he had that accent...