Now that Mo Shao had returned to the school, it was time to introduce the specific situation of the school where she worked.
This was a high school, and not a particularly elite one; it was just an ordinary private high school.
Its name was Huipu High School, apparently chosen by either the principal or a major investor—she wasn't exactly sure which.
The only thing worth noting was that this high school was truly massive, far larger than most.
It had two 400-meter tracks and a bunch of basketball courts outside the tracks—but as big as it was, it had its downsides.
Running from the classrooms to the cafeteria took several kilometers, and the entire path was uphill; it was practically a mountain climb.
Furthermore, due to its large area, the school naturally wasn't located within the city limits—it was essentially out in the middle of nowhere.
There wasn't a single commercial street nearby, and not even many residential buildings; the silence was exaggerated.
It was a boarding school where students could only go home once a week. If there were exams or other events, going home only once a month was common.
Unfortunately, the day the apocalypse arrived, October 27th, happened to be a Monday, so almost all the students were present.
...
But judging by the current situation... Mo Shao looked around and did a quick mental count, estimating the numbers.
Now that the first day of the apocalypse had passed, had even 10% of them survived? Perhaps there were other survivors elsewhere?
However, the mental state of these survivors, aside from several who were depressed and low-spirited, was actually quite... lively.
Because many survivors had already Dead-bound items and gained access to supernatural abilities, they naturally felt a bit more hopeful.
Things like the pots and pans dropped by those Object-type monsters were a very direct type of binding item.
Once Dead-bound, one would possess the abilities of the corresponding Object-type, such as firing water orbs, spraying ink, and so on.
There were also Echoes that could appear after killing Tacet Discords, which could also be bound—and in extreme cases, they could even be used for changing accounts.
Although there was no Pangu Terminal like in the game to absorb Echoes, this didn't stop real-world humans from absorbing them directly.
Compared to the relatively monotonous abilities given by Object-types, Echoes provided far more options: transformations, summons, skills...
And don't forget one thing: Dead-bound items could house an entire set of related things, and Echoes belonged to sets.
Therefore, by comparison, those who Dead-bound Echoes had a massive advantage over those who Dead-bound Object-types.
After all, while it was true that bound items could grow stronger as the user did, that was only a relative growth.
The ceiling was already drawn for you, but there was no fixed floor. Whether or not one could eventually reach that ceiling... all depended on personal ability and opportunity.
—That was why she was so intent on finding good items to Dead-bind.
...
As for the situation inside the cafeteria.
Obviously, after a night of fighting and adjustment, a leader had already emerged among this group of survivors.
—Wu Yingzhe, a Dean of Students. His former status and the prestige he had accumulated clearly provided him with a lot of convenience.
In addition to that, he had obtained a... [Five-Spirit Lock: Earth]. Mo Shao saw him taking it out to fiddle with from time to time.
This thing had clearly intruded from another world. After all, it wasn't just the Phantom Realms that had intruded items; the Real Realm was the same.
As a transformation prop, its strength was quite high in the early stage, which obviously gave him a lot of power to fight for the right to speak.
Of course, besides this overt leader, there were also many small groups and their respective "bosses."
Aside from the various instinctive groups clustered by class, the two most obvious were two specific cliques.
One was the sports students' group, whose leader wore [Stonelace]—the 5-star permanent gauntlet from Wuthering Waves—on both arms.
The other was the art students' group. Their female leader held a [Lightning Staff] from [Soul Knight].
It had to be said that having the Identification talent was truly too convenient; otherwise, it might have taken her quite a while to recognize the latter.
It couldn't be helped. When items from fantasy were brought into reality, the resulting difference in perception was naturally immense.
...
One mage and two melee fighters, along with a group of individuals who had already completed Dead-binding with Echoes or Object-types...
It was a decent configuration. The only thing they lacked was recovery capability—they had no healers.
However, this could be solved by eating Minecraft food. Once Live-bound, eating until full would allow for health regeneration.
Minecraft monsters could drop a fair amount of food; even forcing down Rotten Flesh could heal someone.
They just had to overcome the psychological pressure of eating it.
While real humans didn't have Steve's template, the concept of satiety still existed.
However, this method of recovery was limited only to food from Minecraft.
Moreover, when using food to recover, it would occupy a Live-binding slot; the slot couldn't be reused until the recovery was complete.
After observing the situation inside for a bit, Mo Shao slipped away unnoticed.
After all, she hadn't found the "Innate Transformer" she was looking for in this cafeteria, so there was no need for her to show her face.
Regardless, their current situation wasn't so dire that they needed her rescue; their future development would likely be quite good.
They just lacked a foundation. If she left a Crafting Table and a sapling for them later, they would be able to thrive.
...
This wasn't just Mo Shao acting out of pure kindness. From a long-term perspective, this was to provide a small boost to her own safety in the outside world.
Since [Chaos] targeted all of [Order], it would simply devour the most prominent ones first.
After [Chaos] finished off the large settlements, it would go after the small ones. After the small ones were gone...
—The final targets would be the humans wandering outside.
So, contributing to the establishment of [Order] factions was also for the sake of improving her own future living environment.
This was considered common knowledge in the late stage. Take the Crafting Table, for example—while it truly became common later on...
Its widespread distribution didn't truly begin until the late stage, after the Skyscreen had revealed the existence of [Chaos] and [Order].
Before then, although some kind-hearted people distributed Crafting Tables and formed certain high-resource zones...
Many Crafting Tables were directly seized and controlled, and their means of dissemination were strictly limited.
—Otherwise, they would have just directly controlled the saplings.
After all, the combination of a Crafting Table and a sapling provided an immense help for basic living.
Food, weapons, tools, shelter—so many things could be mass-produced because of them.
And doing that—wouldn't it interfere with those who aimed to become warlords in the apocalypse and exploit the weak?
Naturally, they were very strict about controlling such things, and the Crafting Table was just one of many.
It could be said that anything that allowed the weak to live more comfortably was subject to control; the only difference between factions was the severity of that control.
This control didn't end until the existence of [Chaos] and [Order] was revealed.
Because if they didn't accelerate the collective's growth, they would likely all end up as one ruin after another under the foot of [Chaos].
And even then, there were still many factions that continued their control regardless, enjoying their power for as long as they could.
In the end, it was only through necessity that it stopped. After all, Crafting Tables were proliferating too fast and could be hidden anywhere; they simply couldn't be controlled anymore.
Mo Shao was simply accelerating that process now.
Rate on N.U.
