Apocalypse Survival: Starting with a Shelter

Suppressing his unease, Su Wu turned his attention to the second announcement.

It was less of an announcement and more of a task bounty.

The Jianghe City official shelter had allocated resources worth 15 million units as rewards, offering tasks to all corporate and private shelters. These tasks included clearing surface roads, assisting in the construction of underground farms and livestock facilities, and trading specific items.

Among these, road clearing was the most significant, with dozens of routes marked for clearance and rewards calculated down to the meter.

"They're in such a hurry?" Su Wu thought, slightly surprised. But he quickly grasped the urgency.

Although the Jianghe City official shelters were interconnected via underground passageways, most of these were narrow emergency tunnels hastily constructed, barely a meter wide—suitable only for foot traffic or small toy trains salvaged from amusement parks.

The efficiency of material transportation through these tunnels was negligible compared to the needs of millions of residents.

In emergencies, surface roads were still essential for coordination and resource distribution.

In essence, the surface transportation network remained the lifeline of the official shelters. Ensuring its functionality, even at great cost, was non-negotiable.

Understanding this, Su Wu felt less urgency to act.

He casually accepted a road-clearing task and decided to send only the cargo truck, the specialized transport vehicle, and two construction robots, excluding the engineering team.

Traveling outside remained highly risky, and the engineering team was Su Wu's only cohesive construction unit and the backbone of his shelter's expansion efforts. Risking them for potentially lucrative rewards was out of the question.

---

"Next steps," Su Wu mused aloud.

"The engineering team will resume excavating the fourth underground level of the shelter."

"The reconnaissance drones will scout routes and provide aerial warnings for the road-clearing team."

"The construction robots will continue building the surface bunker."

With his tasks organized, Su Wu acutely felt the shelter's labor shortage.

Out of seven construction robots, two were dispatched with the road-clearing team, and two were returned to the engineering team to maintain full efficiency. This left only three robots for bunker construction—a situation that could take an eternity to resolve.

"I need to expand the team," Su Wu concluded, checking his survival points.

Despite no significant income in recent days, the constant demands of shelter management had drained his reserves. He had only 25 survival points remaining.

Initially, he had planned to keep these as emergency funds, to be used only in life-or-death situations.

But now, his perspective shifted.

Survival points were a trump card, but so was a well-built shelter. The sooner it was fortified, the safer it would be.

"If I'm going to spend them, I might as well spend them all."

"Twenty-five survival points to manufacture five more construction robots."

Having made his decision, Su Wu didn't hesitate. He allocated all his points to producing additional robots.

---

In the manufacturing center, two engineering robots immediately began working on the orders.

They retrieved materials from the warehouse, cutting and melting them before welding the components together to create the frames of the construction robots.

Thanks to pre-sorted and prepared raw materials, the process moved quickly. On average, it took just an hour to assemble a single construction robot.

Su Wu monitored the progress closely.

Each time a robot was completed, he personally visited the manufacturing center to activate it using survival points. The new robot was then sent directly to the surface to join the bunker construction team without wasting a moment.

Within a few hours, the once-desolate surface of the farmhouse was bustling with activity again.

With eight construction robots now in operation, aided occasionally by the engineering team's concrete mixers, mini excavators, and transport vehicles, the first layer of the bunker began taking shape at a visibly rapid pace.

"At this rate, the first layer will be finished in two hours," Su Wu estimated with satisfaction, seeing the clear results of his investment.

Unlike the shelter's underground concrete walls, which were a meter thick, the surface bunker's walls were only 20 centimeters thick and not filled with construction debris. This reduced the need for survival points for reinforcement, significantly lowering costs. However, after completing each layer, the concrete had to cure for 8 to 12 hours before further construction could continue.

---

Yet another issue loomed—the dwindling supply of sand and gravel.

The shelter's fourth underground level still had a small emergency reserve, but the majority of materials had been lost in the storm. Without replenishment, both the bunker construction and shelter expansion would have to halt.

Fortunately, solving this problem wasn't difficult.

Just two to three kilometers from the farmhouse lay a dry riverbed. Excavators and transport vehicles could easily fill truckloads of sand and gravel from there. The only costs were vehicle electricity, mechanical wear, and the slight risk of venturing farther from the shelter.

However, two to three kilometers was not a trivial distance in the unpredictable post-apocalyptic climate. No one could guarantee a safe return after such a trip.

To prepare, Su Wu reviewed recent drone photos of the area.

The riverbed appeared mostly unchanged, and the route overlapped significantly with the one recently scouted by the road-clearing team. Most obstacles had been cleared, except for the last few hundred meters, which crossed rugged wilderness and a steep slope riddled with potential pitfalls.

"This should work,

" Su Wu decided after careful evaluation, confident the trip was worth the calculated risks.

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