2024-08-23 20:34:12There are plenty of solar panels among the scraps. On top of them, he is going to buy new ones along with an inverter to power his grandfather’s house. From what he remembered, it is a very remote island. So much so, even these days, they had to live like primitive people.
His grandmother and grandfather have electricity allowance. Getting an electricity station to their island is too expensive, so they were given an electricity subsidy by the government. Ofcourse, it is barely enough to buy and maintain a solar panel to keep a light bulb on. With what Eric had on his hand, he could probably light up their island like a christmas tree.
Behind his grandmother’s back, his grandfather sent him his wishlist, along with cash.
Eric noticed the machines his grandfather asked for all had something to do with his complaints last time he went. A mud crawler, so that they could drive on the mud flats easily. Iron mesh to keep out mosquitoes, and few odds and ends which are needed to repair the machines, and a boat with an engine.
The rest are fine, but the boat is quite fancy. His grandfather should not have had the cash or connections to buy such a good boat !
Eric mused for a moment there, but there is no problem with storing the boat, so its ownership should not have any problems either.
His mother, listening to him, listed up all the items she really wanted to take with her.
Water buckets, cooling boxes, plastic boxes, barrels of gasoline, gigantic industrial canners and racks for making dried fish, a home sized desalination plant. No wonder his mother had to tone it down.
At the end of the day, the most important among these was the desalination plant. Technically speaking, the weight of these items is small. All of these could be carried on the train save for the gasoline barrels, but he had a feeling his mother added it just for the laughs.
“ Mom ! Can I really buy them all ? “ he asked, looking at the list surprised.
“ Sure, if you can carry, buy them all. “ she told him.
Eric checked the solar distillers online. The one he liked most was the one which worked as a rain catcher as well as sea water distiller. The rain is aplenty on the island. It’s just that they have to be able to store it well. Except for gasoline, he really bought them all. Then, to his surprise, his mother helped him buy the barrels of gasoline.
“ I will have my friend transport them all. He’s doing me a favor. He already has a big customer in the area, we just need to transport manually for the last leg of the journey. “ Eric told her.
His mother believed him.
Now, his general shopping is all done, he focused on the very last item. A composite bow that could kill wild boars. What is the point of being a player if he is not hunting and fighting ? Moreover, wild boars can be hunted any time.
Now came the testing of the second part of his legendary digitization skill.
First, he opened the disassembly game. Every last machine he cleared up as trash could be disassembled in this game. He continued to disassemble the pieces, piling them up in piles of plastic, iron and chemical piles roughly.
Once he collected enough trash, he moved to another game, recycling the items. In the end, he had enough iron and titanium to make a compound bow with a hundred pounds of draw. He dedicatedly banged away at the iron in his shop, till he made the perfect bow. Once he’s done, he’s ready for the real world test.
His heart beating like a drum, his eyes full of anticipation, he opened the item box.
He put his hand in, held the compound bow, then drew it out.
‘ Yes ! Yesssssssss! Oh, Yeah ! ‘
He screamed internally like a fan girl as he held the glistening black bow, which he named Malor. Malor also comes with tungsten alloy arrows, which can penetrate a rhinoceros, much less a wild boar.
Now, he is all ready.
The next day, they set off to the island, with high speed rail, and five different ferry stops. No wonder mother tones down the items she brings every time, Eric thought as he boarded the last boat, which felt too small to be sailing on open sea.
Their family owns more than two thousand acres of tidal flats, along with a volcanic island. The entire island has five acres of tilling land, just enough to produce food for three to two families. The volcano rumbles all the time, but there is nary a hot spring in sight.
It is only after getting down at the island Eric realized his grandfather had agreed to film a documentary about the never ending poverty of islanders. It can not be said to be wrong. Despite owning thousands of acres of land, at least technically, his grandfather was dirt poor. He is too poor to hire labor, he is too poor to ship the goods … even getting basic necessities had to be budgeted carefully.
It is for this reason his grandfather transferred his entire filming f*e to buy the boat. Even that boat was sold to him a bit like charity, for a rich second generation knew about this documentary, so he sold his out of style fishing boat cheaply.
They got down at the small pier in the morning. After two hours of walking, they reached his grandfather’s house. It was barely a shack. The filming crew asked permission to film.
“ If you are paying the same amount of compensation, I will allow you to film, otherwise no. “ Eric told them bluntly.
“ Eric Song ! “ his mother chided him for his rudeness, but she did not change his words.
The film crew muttered among themselves.
While they were doing that, Eric decided to choose a campsite and set up tents for them to live in temporarily rather than occupy the bed in his grandfather’s house.
The first thing he did was bring out all his cosmetic creams. First, he applied moisturizer all over his body, then, he applied sunscreen to his face, neck and ears. Everywhere else, he applied insect repellant, making sure not to miss an inch of his body. Once he was done, he repeated the process for his sister.
His grandmother watched him intently.
“ Grandma ! Come here. Apply moisturizer. “ he called her.
Looking at his slick operation, the film crew started puffing like a steam train. They must get it ! the contrast between the grandson from S-city, and the poor conditions of the grandma are in such contrast, they must get it !
“ Grand pa ! Apply sunscreen. “ Eric called after his grandfather.
“ What sun shade and water cream ?! I am a man, the sun won’t kill me ! The water cream is for girls. “ his grandfather denied outright.
Eric looked at his little sister and winked. There’s not a soul in their family that’s not a sucker for his little sister.
“ Grampa ! Grampa ! Mimi has too much moisturizer. Can you help ? “ Mimi wiggled in front of his grandfather.
As expected, his grandfather kneeled down. Mimi put moisturizer on his face and hands with her little hands.
Eric followed behind her, and sprayed his grandfather with sunscreen.
The filming crew could not bear it any more. The grandfather is having trouble buying rice, while the grandson splurges on imported sunscreen. How could they miss such a good frame ?
Eric only started his work after all the documents were signed and payment was put in his account.
First, he went to the beach. The house is near the beach, but this beach is not appropriate for the boats to come through. Their entire island is like a gigantic oval pie chart, with 0.1 % of it being above sea level. The five acres of the farmland, and the jutting out volcano form this little piece of land. The pier is inside a sea cave which forms a slight crack on the right side of the volcanic mountain. The deep water bay allows even docking of a full blown steamer cargo ship, but … you have to walk from there to the house of his grandfather, which is on the open beach.
This time around, Eric walked straight to the open beach with three gigantic buckets and three umbrella-like things in his hand. He set up the rain catcher plus desalination umbrella, setting up a bucket in the bottom. Then, pretending to be filling sea water in the can, he let it into his item box, released the sea water into the undercarriage bag. By the time night is through, they should have plenty of water.
The film crew, who thought and planned a series of unfilial, prodigal and incompetent looked on with open mouths.
“ Grand son ! What is this ? “ one of the directors asked curiously, filming all angles of this water maker.
“ It’s the latest water maker which is being tried out in Africa. The sea water is filled in the undercarriage bag. When it evaporates, it catches on the transparent film here. If there’s rain, it’s even better. The rain gathers in the transparent bag, going down to the water buckets underneath. It’s easy to clean even for an old person. “ he explained to the shocked crew.
He smiled inside looking at their betrayed expressions.
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74 - the end
The passage of time is a strange thing when the world is no longer counting down to its own destruction.Fifty years had passed since the day the oceans returned. Fifty years since the white light of the Auditors was extinguished by a single, desperate bullet. In the history of the universe, fifty years was a blink, a mere stutter in the data-stream. But for the inhabitants of the Second Earth, it was an eternity of growth, peace, and the quiet labor of forgetting what it felt like to be prey.On Coiling Dragon Island, the morning mist didn't smell of ozone or mana-leakage. It smelled of damp earth, blooming jasmine, and the salt-spray of a healthy, vibrant sea.Eric sat on the porch of his villa, a wooden rocking chair creaking rhythmically beneath him. His hair was a stark, dignified white now, and his hands, once calloused from gripping gravity hammers and kinetic pistols, were now weathered by decades of gardening. He wore a simple linen shirt and trousers—no armor, no enchantment
73 - new dawn
The world had stopped screaming.For the first time in years, the horizon was not a jagged line of red mist or a violet tear in the sky. Instead, it was a soft, undulating curve of sapphire blue. The "Great Drain" that had once turned the Earth into a salt-choked graveyard was now a memory, replaced by a miracle that defied the old laws of geology.When the Abyss Dragon—the transformed Ocean Emperor—had finally exhausted its fury in the Iron Empire, it had not returned as a conqueror. It had returned as a titan seeking rest. Guided by the "Mobius Loop" Eric had woven, the dragon had brought back the water it had stolen, but it was no longer the salt water of the old world. It was "System-Pure" water, enriched by the mana of the Abyss and filtered through the roots of the World Tree.As the oceans refilled, the planet itself had expanded. The "Senior Administrator" authority Eric had briefly held before his abdication had triggered a final, global terraforming event. The Earth’s crust
72 - The Silent Arbiter
The world did not return to normal with a bang, but with a series of rhythmic, mechanical clicks. Across the salt-crusted plains of what were once the great oceans, the World Tree’s roots were no longer just seeking water—they were seeking data. Following the "Great Awakening," the silver threads of the Skye server and the emerald veins of the Terra server began to weave together into a permanent, self-sustaining lattice.Eric stood on the observation deck of the Gaia-Dome, his eyes fixed on the horizon. The black miasma was gone, but the sky remained a deep, bruised violet, a reminder that the atmosphere was now a synthetic construct maintained by the [Celestial Lung]."Status," Eric said, his voice raspy. He hadn't slept since he had sent the Dragon to Uncle Eric’s world.[ Server Progress ]✦ Terra: 100% (Integrated)✦ Skye: 94.2% (Synchronizing)✦ Aqua: 18.1% (Regenerating - Source: Abyss Leak)✦ Cosmos: 32.5% (Expanding)"Master," the AI responded, its voice sounding more human t
71 - The Law of Equivalent Exchange
The sky over Eric’s Earth was no longer gold.The Celestial Lung, which had only just begun to breathe life into the gasping survivors, was struggling. The shimmering white particles that Eric had fought so hard to create were being stained. A thick, oily black smoke was seeping out of the golden veins of the World Tree’s trunk. It wasn't smoke from a fire; it was the [Demonic Miasma]—the concentrated rot of a world that had failed its digitization and turned into a graveyard of data.Inside the Gaia-Dome, the air was growing heavy. It tasted like rusted iron and bitter almonds."Master, the World Tree is undergoing 'Reverse Photosynthesis'," the AI reported, its voice trembling with systemic stress. "The Sapling you exported to the 'Iron Empire' is being force-fed the corruption of that server. Because the Sapling cannot process the volume of miasma in Uncle Eric’s world, it is utilizing the 'Parent-Anchor' protocol."Eric gripped the edge of his command console. "It’s redirecting th
69 - The Multiverse Council
The void of the Universe Server was not a physical place. It was a conceptual space, a dark room filled with floating screens and the quiet hum of infinite data.Eric sat in a high-backed chair made of flickering blue light. He was exhausted. His soul felt thin, like a piece of paper that had been folded and unfolded too many times. The "Great Drain" had cost him more than just mana; it had cost him his sense of morality. He had saved the world by turning it into a desert."System," Eric croaked. "Open the 'Echo Chamber'. Private Channel: The Apostle Network."A screen flickered to life. Two other windows appeared, each showing a face that was remarkably similar to his own, yet fundamentally different.To his left was Nephew Eric. He looked to be in his late teens, wearing shining silver armor that looked like it belonged in a high-fantasy RPG. He had a bright, heroic smile and eyes that hadn't seen enough death yet. Behind him, Eric could see a sky filled with dragons and floating cas
68 - The Blue Void
The victory of the Skye Server had been a brief, shimmering dream. For twelve hours, the world had looked up at the silver threads and felt a sense of cosmic peace. But deep beneath the surface, in the crushing silence of the Mariana Trench, the price of that peace was being tallied.Deep in the "Ocean Hole"—the lightless abyss where the broken body of Ursula’s brother had been discarded like a piece of unwanted data—the water began to vibrate. It wasn't a tremor of the earth, but a tremor of the concept of water.The body, once a seed of the "Dragon Apostle" lineage, had not rotted. In the high-mana environment of the post-digitization era, it had acted as a lightning rod. It had absorbed the "Aqua" server shards that Eric had left unmanaged. It had gorged itself on the salt, the pressure, and the cold.And then, the Eye opened.It was not a human eye. It was a vast, glowing orb of ice-blue light, the size of a cathedral. As the lid peeled back, the temperature of the surrounding ocea
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