[Feng Mengyue: Since there's no specific tool to measure time, I guess I entered the ruin at about eight o'clock in the morning according to the angle of the sun.]

[Feng Mengyue: The outside of the ruin was shrouded by a layer of fog, but when I got closer to it, I could sort of make out what was inside.]

When Su Mo looked at Feng Mengyue's first two private messages, he nodded.

In terms of the ruin's appearance time and the shape of the ruin, it sounded like everyone's. Su Mo pushed his wandering thoughts down and continued to read what Feng Mengyue had to say.

[Feng Mengyue: After entering the ruins, I found myself standing inside a building when I found my bearings. It was surrounded by the same type of blast-resistant glass that I traded with you. I tried to look through the window to the outside, but it was blocked by the fog. After that, I didn't dare to go outside. I just took a few pieces of blast-resistant glasses and, two hours later, I exited the ruins on my own accord.]

[Feng Mengyue: When I left the ruin, the time seemed to be around two hours after I entered. Time passed for the same duration I was inside.]

[Feng Mengyue: Although there was no way to reach the outside of the ruin, I was sure that the ruin was definitely not Earth.]

After Su Mo saw Feng Mengyue's private message, his face sank and he felt that something was wrong.

The first two messages about the time the ruin appeared and how the ruin looked still matched his description.

However, the last three messages sounded completely different. Feng Mengyue was not the only one who said that, but everyone in the chat log who claimed they entered the ruins before also described themselves appearing inside a building.

Su Mo was the only one who emerged in the middle of a wasteland and had to break through a farmhouse wall to get into the courtyard.

In addition to that, Su Mo was 99% sure that the place he entered definitely had something to do with Earth.

[Su Mo: What makes you so sure?]

He felt driven to ask and after sending that message. Su Mo's thoughts flowed in his mind as he held the white porcelain teacup in his hand, pondering secretly.

…

On the other side, in a slightly damp underground base, a woman leaning against the wall smiled as she read the message on the screen.

Underneath the firelight, the woman had a set of bright white teeth. She had a clever and charming smile and did not look like the typical miserable survivor players.

If Su Mo could see her right then, he would have recognized the woman in front of him as Feng Mengyue.

Feng Mengyue did not reply at first, but instead sent a message to the others in the private message interface.

Before long, four people walked into the underground base.

Three men and one woman, each with a straight body and a determined face. They did not look like ordinary people.

"So how is it going, Yue Yue? What did Su Mo say?"

The woman who came in immediately asked anxiously and the three other men also looked expectantly after they heard Su Mo's name.

"I can't say... Su Mo seems like a very cautious person. I can tell he's very strong and has gone out of his safe house to explore." Feng Mengyue shook her head slightly.

Everyone was silent.

Feng Mengyue continued, "He bought glass from me last time to strengthen his shelter and he has a constant source of water. Reasonably, an average person would just let their gold mine slowly grow, but Su Mo did not do that. Instead, he still risked his life going into a ruin, which proves he's not an ordinary person."

"So what do you think? Can we get him into our team?" A man with a scar on the left side of his face could not keep his cool and spoke with some urgency.

"Let's see how it goes. We don't have transport yet, so moving around is unlikely. The only reason we managed to band together was because we were close by…"

...

[Feng Mengyue: Why not? You saw the property of the glass. We don't have such technology on Earth. This is something closer to magic. And in my team, one of us said that they went outside their building to see what lay outside. Perhaps if you consider joining our team, we can share our information.]

When Su Mo looked at Feng Mengyue's reply, he shook his head and broke into laughter.

It was not because he did not want company, and neither did he think those people were going to harm him, but at this stage, forming a team would require the teammates to at least be near each other. If that was not the case, it was virtually impossible.

In addition to that, if he joined their team, the only thing he could provide which was of value was his psychic energy water.

It would be more worthwhile if he kept using that to trade instead.

After sending Feng Mengyue 100ml of psychic energy water for her information privately, Su Mo closed the private message.

"If the next ruin I explore still looks different from what everyone's saying, I'll try and buy information from others. For the time being, I'm in no rush."

Currently, the biggest threat was not knowing the refresh period of the disasters. Before exploring the ruins, he had to ensure the safety of his shelter first. 

If one attended to the trivialities and neglected the fundamentals, a bout of carelessness might cost one's shelter to be destroyed by the disaster. Then, they would lose everything.

After thinking for a while, Su Mo gathered his thoughts and continued reinforcing his shelter.

Currently, he had traded enough iron for his needs, but he could not make his initial shelter fully made out of iron.

That was because the strength of an iron shelter was not high and although it could form a Faraday cage that would protect him against lightning, the practicality of it was actually very low. The ideal solution would still be a construction made out of steel and concrete, as it would be the optimal choice.

After Su Mo opened up the material panel, he began to organize his purchased resources.

The first item was iron. Previously, on and off he collected 130 units of it, then he built an iron stove with 6 units, so he was left with 124.

Next was wood. Since he went into the ruin, he did not cut down any trees and there was currently only one unit left in his reserve. 

As for his plant fibers and stones, they were all used up. 

He had 6 units of soil left.

As for his psychic energy water, after cleaning his wok, buying the meat, cooking, and paying Feng Mengyue, he had 1.8L left.

Su Mo did not intend to hold onto that amount. 

Since psychic energy water had a fixed output every day, other materials were required and needed to be collected and sold manually.

Su Mo kept that in mind and noted that the current status of the trading system was really special. Not only were there no restrictions, but things could also be transmitted through space.

The mechanism seemed to be insignificant in the short term, but somewhere down the line in the future, finance professionals would definitely find a way to exploit it. 

With each transaction, the finance experts would definitely be able to lead the ordinary people by their noses with the difference in cost. 

Naturally, the survival game would not sit back and let those people work around the rules that much.

After the novice stage, restrictions would almost certainly be added into the trading system or it could also eventually be banned.

In addition to that, the exchange ratio of essential trading items such as water and food would certainly go back to normal over time.

When that time came, it would be difficult for anyone who tried to take advantage of the inequality of resources to pull ahead with their upgrades.

After Su Mo figured that out, he opened the trading panel and began to look for the good stuff.

For the time being, rare items were still not listed for sale yet.

Then, he looked for the common materials, sorting them by unit price.

Except for wood, dirt, and food fiber, stone was currently the cheapest resource on the market.

It took about 15-20 minutes to mine one unit of stone block on the great plains.

On the other hand, a miner that lived near a mine could get a block in about 5 minutes.

Since the value of resources was calculated based on the amount of work required to get them, a unit of stone block cost around 5ml of water.

When Su Mo thought about that, he could not help but exclaim angrily.

"This is like illegal mining! Even a capitalist would not do such a thing!"

Continuous mining for stones in the sun for an hour could only earn 60ml of water.

That was equivalent to two mouthfuls of water!

That was why many miners rested during the day and came out at night to mine.

The searing heat of the sun during the day made it too physically demanding and 60ml of water would not make up for an hour of work.

Only by working at night would the amount of water be able to maintain the basic life needs of the miners.

The more he analyzed, the more understanding Su Mo gained about the situation of others who were in the doomsday world now.

Su Mo suppressed his irritation and took a deep breath as he spoke aloud.

"This game is playing with human lives!"

Even though essentially it seemed that it was just a gamified world of survival, behind the scenes were pairs of eyes, thirsty to live.

If they continued mining, they would live a very miserable life!

If you did not mine, they would die!

Of course, those miners were still the ones that had better conditions. Others who lived in the great plains like Su Mo did not have any mines to harvest.

They could only cut down trees and exchange for resources that cost even less. It would probably not be enough to maintain a person's daily survival needs.

As he shook his head with a slight sense of loss, he pretended to forget the many images that flashed through his mind just now. Su Mo whispered to himself.

"The poor people can only care for themselves while the rich should do something to help the world. Even if I do a little, I don't think it's enough to count as a contribution."

According to the market price, the exchange ratio of his psychic energy water to ordinary water is 1 to 1.3.

However, Su Mo did not make such a transaction but used his psychic energy water to trade for goods.

The state of monopoly he was in was too lucrative. 1L of psychic energy water got him 200 units of stone.

As for the remaining 800ml of water, Su Mo took out 500ml and used them all to exchange for food he would store.

For Su Mo's choice of food, he went with the principle of food that could be stored easily, kept him full, was salted, and did not spoil easily. So in the end, he just got bread.

Together with the 8 catties of Dalieba bread he had in his panel, he currently had 14 catties.

When he looked at his inventory that was piled with supplies, Su Mo, who had previously been in a depressed mood because of humanity's situation, gradually regained his confidence and spoke more calmly.

"Although relying on the system means that this isn't my true ability, no one knows what the future holds. As long as I'm still alive, humanity will never go extinct.

"One day, I'll become stronger and live longer!

"Maybe... I'll create a super shelter that no natural disaster could touch!"

Su Mo's voice grew even steadier.

On the other side, Oreo, who was lying on the ground guarding the door, also turned around and howled, indicating that it was willing to share his master's burden!