Chapter 182: The Sorrow of a Weak Civilization
Shen Hao swiftly checked the Level 23 White Mall, but he felt somewhat disappointed.
It was all just routine upgrades, nothing special.
Although the previous two VIP Store refreshes had both produced the least likely items, which were Level 20 Purple Epic goods, both were types of equipment. Shen Hao took one for himself that could enhance spiritual power and extraordinary power, and placed the other defensive piece in the warehouse for the Chosen Ones to exchange.
Such Purple Epic equipment was a huge help on a personal strength level, but didn't offer much assistance on the current level of civilization.
Just like before, it wouldn't be easy to have a Purple Epic interstellar battleship appear right when an interstellar war was needed.
However, it was time for the next VIP Store refresh.
Shen Hao waited quietly.
Ever since the VIP goods cheat had been activated, the VIP goods refresh occurring every three days had become an event that Shen Hao looked forward to.
This time especially.
After all, having just been updated, theoretically, a Level 21 Purple Epic item should appear this time!
The true third stage.
As the time arrived, he opened the new store for the first time.
Surprisingly, what appeared was not a Purple Epic item, but rather a Blue Masterpiece Level 21 item.
——Mixed Cloud Pill.
A masterpiece elixir reaching the third stage, primarily composed of three spiritual medicines with the character "霞" in their names, gentle in nature, able to last for a long time within the body. Even Cultivators at the first stage or even the second stage could consume it. It was an elixir used for rapid Foundation Establishment and swift enhancement of strength.
Clearly, this was not a one-time purchase, but rather an item that, once bought, would unlock the purchase right permanently.
"One-time Purple Epic items and permanently-unlockable Blue Masterpiece goods both have the smallest probability?"
Shen Hao easily guessed the reason behind this, purchased one for himself, and swallowed it, closing his eyes slightly.
Indeed, a huge and gentle spiritual power surged within his body, and with his strength, it would only take a moment to assimilate completely.
However, using such an elixir was of limited use to him.
After all, although Shen Hao was now only at Level 20, his strength had far surpassed what was typical of the second stage. Fully equipped, an ordinary third-stage Transcendent posed absolutely no threat to him.
"It's not bad. Purchase more to be used by the Cultivators within the civilization," thought Shen Hao.
Due to the influence of the Sky Spirit Civilization, the development of the Magic Road had overtaken the Immortal Dao.
However, this situation wouldn't last for long.
Because these days, the scouts dispatched by Human Civilization were also closely monitoring the two planets behind the back of the sun; of these, "Planet No.8" was only slightly smaller than the planet of the Sky Spirit Civilization. Preliminary observations suggested that it might primarily follow the Cultivation Path! Experience tales at My Virtual Library Empire
This was because the planet was filled with Spiritual Energy.
This sparked some ideas in Shen Hao.
Nonetheless, the most important task at hand was to evacuate as many Senya, Mongolian, and Wing Sky people as possible.
Especially the Mongolians and Wing Sky people, whose situation was worsening. If delayed any longer, there probably wouldn't be many left.
"It seems I'll have to make a few more trips myself," Shen Hao said as he took out the Scepter once again.
When it came to immigration, there were shortcuts to be taken.
With Shen Hao's current strength, if he was to teleport himself plus a few others—a handful, say four or five people—he could cover a range spanning half the orbit around the Sun.
All he had to do was bring some people and personally visit the Mongolian Planet and Wing Sky Human Planet, where he could then purchase some Level 23 transport spaceships, hand them over to the Chosen Ones to control, and transport survivors away, saving half the travel time!
Moreover, this process could incidentally assert some authority and deepen the influence over these two civilizations.
However, when Shen Hao actually arrived at the Mongolian Planet, he found the situation more severe than he had expected.
As soon as he had arrived, he could feel the entire planet was being ravaged by the Undead; a chilly energy had already started to spread from the Undead World toward the surface world, with casualties occurring nearly every moment!
Looking at the group of Mongolian leaders who had received the news beforehand and were now prostrating before him to welcome his arrival.
"What's your conversion rate to Undead?" Shen Hao didn't bother with pleasantries and directly inquired.
"Great President," the most powerful among the Mongolian leaders maintained his bow, his voice also containing an irrepressible sadness, "our conversion rate to Undead is two-to-one."
Two-to-one, for every two deaths, one would become an Undead.
This rate was obviously lower than that of the Human Mother Planet.
Furthermore, Shen Hao perceived that the concentration of yin energy within this planet's Undead World was only about half that of the Mother Planet, meaning the strength of the Undead would increase much more slowly.
Even so, for Mongolian Civilization, it was still a disaster!
Five days ago when they had proactively contacted him, they reported that the number of survivors was around 1.1 billion.
They had suffered heavy losses during the last Trial, and by the start of this Trial, they had only about 1.4 billion people left.
This meant that over the forty-plus days since the second trial commenced, a total of three hundred million people had perished.
But now, only less than five hundred million remained from what Shen Hao had initially sensed.
Just in the past five days alone, more than six hundred million Mongolian people had died!
This might have been the result of the intelligent Undead King sensing the humans' intention to help the Mongolian Civilization and launching a preemptive strike in order to rapidly increase their numbers.
However, even knowing this beforehand, the previous Shen Hao had to stay at the Desert Tower Planet, and the speed of the transport ships was not fast enough to arrive in a short time.
It could only be said that this was the tragedy of a weak civilization in the Civilization Trial.
The Siti people were like this, the Mongolian Civilization was the same, and so were the Wing Sky people.
Life is like grass, it can perish at any time and anywhere.
Fortunately, there was still time.
Any later, and the entire species might have really been gone.
"I will leave behind fifteen transport ships in outer space," Shen Hao said with a heavy voice, "Since you refer to me as President, then I shall issue my first command to you—take at least three hundred million people with you!"
"Yes!" All the Mongolian people responded in unison, each of them extremely emotional.
Although Shen Hao's tone was serious, the meaning behind his words was clearly to save as many of their people as possible!
The next moment, Shen Hao's presence soared suddenly, and a huge Thunder phantom appeared in the sky, with golden lightning accompanied by roars sweeping across a large area in an instant.
Countless rampaging Undead, under the watchful eyes of the Heavenly Eye, wailed as they dissipated.
At the moment Shen Hao declared his arrival, all the Undead in the world simultaneously sought refuge toward the Undead World.
Clearly, the Ghost King behind them could sense the power of Shen Hao.
From the moment Shen Hao arrived, if they did not wish to die, they had to do their utmost to avoid him!
Still, Shen Hao originally intended only to intimidate them, as he had many matters to deal with now, with the Wing Sky Human Planet still on his schedule. There was no time to stay here to chase down the Undead for them.
In fact, he was already starting to worry about the situation of the Wing Sky people.
He immediately ordered Dong Gong to inquire about the latest status of the Wing Sky Civilization.
"President, the situation of the Wing Sky people is even worse than that of the Mongolians," Dong Gong reported personally, "Their mother planet is a gas giant, with a very large space for activities. Originally, there were Sky Islands as gathering places, but after the blizzard, the Sky Islands became uninhabitable.
Now, all the Wing Sky people are scattered across the vast space on Floating Ships, resisting the severe cold while avoiding the Undead. It is very difficult to gather them on a large scale for migration, and although the conversion rate into Undead is only three to one, the death toll in this trial has already been very large.
Preliminary estimates suggest that it may have reached more than six billion!"
Six billion?
Doesn't that mean there would be two billion Undead?
Shen Hao glanced at the civilization rankings.
The second settlement cycle had passed for nearly twenty days, and from the beginning of this cycle, the scores for the Mongolian Civilization and the Wing Sky Civilization had been continuously dropping.
This also fitted their current situation.
If Human Civilization did not intervene, extinction would be the only outcome.
"How many of them are left?" Shen Hao asked.
"Less than two hundred million that we can still maintain contact with," Dong Gong replied, "If not for the ample space, which makes it hard for the Undead to find survivors, this species would have likely been extinct already."
"Indeed," Shen Hao contemplated the proportion and finally said, "I will return to the Mother Planet for a while. Gather some strong Chosen Ones. The Mongolian side also needs some powerful military support."
"Understood," Dong Gong nodded, his tone also very serious.
How many Wing Sky people and Mongolians could be taken away was not really important; they just needed to do their best.
After all, they only need to bring away the Chosen Ones, and they would have obtained most of the benefits from these two civilizations.
But if such a large number of Undead proved difficult to clean up, allowing them to grow unchecked, it's hard to say what might happen.
Due to the importance placed on the Civilization Trial, they absolutely could not afford to be careless.
The emergence of an interstellar undead army might actually become a possibility.
"There's suddenly so much to do."
After leaving behind the fifteen transport ships, Shen Hao used the Scepter's Teleportation function to accelerate his return to the Human Mother Planet.
Then, he teleported twenty Fifteenth Level Chosen Ones in one breath to the Mongolian Planet.
After the Store Level exploded in the last round, the cost of cultivating high-order Chosen Ones further decreased, and the Chosen Ones of Human Civilization, besides Shen Hao himself, began to accelerate the widening gap with the Civilization Chosen Ones of other civilizations.
There were already hundreds of Chosen Ones above Fifteenth Level, and this number was still rapidly rising.
Shen Hao conferred some of his power to two team leaders, enough to protect the transfer of the survivors on the Mongolian Planet.
Afterward, Shen Hao brought a group of Chosen Ones to Planet One, which was the Wing Sky people's planet.
He had also never seen such a gas giant planet before.