Apocalypse Survival: Starting with a Shelter

"Not bad at all."

After replaying the footage of the earlier incident, Su Wu's perception of Chen Xin shifted.

He hadn't expected this seemingly gentle woman to handle such a situation with such skill and ease. Even if he had personally intervened, he might not have managed it as well. In fact, he might have resorted to force to quell the chaos.

"Maybe I should give her more responsibilities in the future," Su Wu mused.

Having someone so capable manage just a mid-sized shelter of 2,000 survivors seemed like a waste. At the very least, she could oversee five times that number.

While Su Wu often viewed the survivors at the Lime Shelter with disdain, this was largely because he lacked the time and energy to deal with the daily challenges they posed. Without the burden of management, he naturally preferred having more people under his control.

Population was a resource. Even in the apocalypse, with the right tools, people could produce far more than they consumed.

"Once the first group of Lime Shelter survivors stabilizes and starts contributing, it's time to recruit new residents."

Recruiting new residents was both simple and challenging. The biggest obstacles were communication and transportation.

Most underground shelters were isolated information islands. Outside of senior personnel with access to communication channels, the average resident had no way to contact the outside world.

Under such circumstances, convincing them that relocating to Su Wu's shelter would improve their lives was no small task. Even if they wanted to move, the problem of traversing the dangerous surface terrain remained—a challenge they couldn't solve on their own and would require external assistance.

"For communication, I'll rely on my private internet and trade networks."

"For transportation, maybe I should form a dedicated surface transport fleet to shuttle willing migrants."

Advertising through the internet was straightforward. Within the range of the communication network towers, no shelter could block his signal. Su Wu could simply pin recruitment messages on social platforms and configure them as forced pop-up notifications, ensuring that anyone connected to the network would see them.

Trade networks offered another avenue. These exchanges could essentially act as indirect population trades. By negotiating with overpopulated shelters and offering resources, Su Wu could incentivize them to promote relocation internally, rewarding them further based on the number of people who actually moved.

Setting up a surface transport fleet was also feasible. The Lime Shelter still had two fuel-powered modified vehicles Su Wu didn't need. Recruiting drivers and guards to operate those vehicles would allow him to establish regular migration routes at minimal cost.

As Su Wu considered future population expansion, he realized he had overlooked a pressing issue: the computational power of the AI was nearing its limit.

The shelter's AI, being a rudimentary intelligence hosted on a laptop, was inherently limited by its hardware. With the added responsibilities of managing the Lime Shelter and an ever-expanding engineering team, its once-adequate computational power was nearly exhausted.

"It seems I'll need to increase the AI's computational capacity," Su Wu muttered, massaging his temples.

Upgrading the AI from basic to intermediate wasn't an option. Su Wu had considered it before, only to be shocked by the four-digit survival point cost required.

Beyond survival points, he'd also need massive resources to repeatedly upgrade the laptop housing the AI, just to meet the minimum requirements for the upgrade.

It felt less like upgrading an AI and more like turning a stone into a sentient being, a process utterly absurd.

After that revelation, Su Wu had abandoned the idea of upgrading the AI entirely, focusing instead on modestly increasing its computational power.

Even this simpler goal was challenging. Su Wu lacked the survival points to enhance the laptop or produce an additional server. The manufacturing center was already queuing up four geothermal generators, a project that would deplete most of his resources.

"Survival points..." Su Wu sighed, acutely aware of how scarce they were.

Reluctantly, he abandoned the idea of using survival points to boost computational power and turned his attention to the micro-mech.

If anything in his shelter matched the laptop's hardware, it was the tactical computer in the micro-mech. Its performance was roughly twice that of the laptop.

Connecting it to the shelter's AI could likely satisfy the increased computational demands brought on by the growing engineering clusters.

The downside, however, was that the micro-mech's operational range would be limited. It could no longer stray far from the communication tower's coverage area, as losing connection would risk disruptions across the AI-controlled systems.

"When I have enough survival points in the future, upgrading the hardware and increasing computational power will be a priority," Su Wu resolved, noting the need for future improvements.

Shifting his focus, Su Wu turned to the watchtower base.

Following a second cleanup after the rescue team's return, the watchtower base was now functional as a storage hub. Currently, two specialized transport vehicles and four construction robots were transporting hazardous chemicals and low-value materials from the farmhouse ruins to the watchtower base.

This steady operation ensured that less critical resources were safely relocated

, freeing up space at the main base for higher-priority projects.

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