There are many things to keep in mind after the instructions were given.
After Norman read them, he was baffled.
It took him a while to digest this information before he finally fully understood.
Sitting in front of the central control display, Norman closed his eyes and pondered the information provided.
Based on what has been given so far, this survival game—if that's what this info packet is calling it—seems to involve diving deep into the abyss, which sounds horrifying.
It's far from those apocalyptic or wilderness survival documentaries, where being on land sounds wonderful. Diving deeper into the abyss seems like a free ticket to the afterlife.
Then there's the issue of food, oxygen, water pressure, and aquatic creatures…
All kinds of potential threats go hand in hand, constantly threatening the safety of every pioneer.
Additionally, collecting resources can also bring its own perils!
The sonar detector can only scan the HV points near the submarine; it cannot distinguish what those HV points are.
It's fine if they're resource materials, but if you encounter some terrifying abyss creatures, death might be your only outcome.
In fact, it's similar to opening a box blindfolded—it depends on luck.
The key is that, in such a dark environment, the searchlights on the submarine only have a range of 20 to 30 meters.
It is impossible to search for materials lurking on the seabed with the naked eye.
In this case, he can only rely on the sonar detection system, despite its drawbacks.
However, Norman, who has little experience with submarines despite researching them while watching documentaries on the subject, knows that the being or system providing information isn't doing so out of sympathy for the pioneers. If it were, it wouldn't have teleported them and then told them to survive, knowing full well that many don't know how to operate a submarine.
But he still wouldn't underestimate the difficulty of this survival game.
At the same time, at the end of the system announcement, a countdown appeared.
It brought a strange sense of urgency to Norman; watching the numbers go down and seeing how long he has left to live is quite a motivator. Although he does not know what the consequences of the so-called ice layer collapsing will be.
The first goal given by the system is to reach the first gathering outpost before the ice layer collapses.
Just thinking about not reaching that supposed goal sends a shiver down his spine. "My life is on the line!... Damn it!"
The countdown has a seven-day limit, probably a protection period for all pioneers to get to the gathering outpost.
After contemplating all of this, Norman took a deep breath.
It's not his character to sit still.
Now that he has been teleported into this planet's depths and is in a submarine 2,000 meters below the ocean's surface, no matter how difficult it is, he will definitely do his utmost to survive!
However, since this is a submarine, there should be other settings or functions displayed.
Before leaving his position to start his journey into the abyss, Norman felt he needed to gain a deeper understanding first.
With the seven-day limit just starting, he still has time to familiarize himself with the submarine's systems and controls.
Fully understanding the functions and settings will definitely aid in his survival.
Just as he began touching the display, the interface on the central control display suddenly started to change.
The previous system instructions gradually disappeared, replaced by the submarine's data and control interface.
[Tartarus No. (Exploration Type Submarine)]
[Specification: 10108m]
[Oxygen content: normal]
[Shell damage: 0%; Hardness: low]
[Submarine Weapons: None]
[Hull structure: simple]
[Pressure resistance: low (only safe navigation in waters above 2500 meters)]
[Overall evaluation: H]
(System Info Drop: Don't try to take the submarine to deeper waters. Rather than exploring, focus on surviving the deep-sea environment and the dangerous marine cave systems until you reach the gathering outpost!)
The text on the submarine's information is in normal bold font and is displayed on the central control panel.
The system info drop at the bottom is in golden font and is slightly distorted, which is a bit out of sync with the information introduction.
However, this line of text seems to appear in front of Norman out of thin air, not from the display itself.
Since he had just come to terms with being teleported en masse along with everyone else, Norman didn't think there was anything wrong with this. It seemed to be a normal occurrence for him and should be happening to everyone else as well.
After reading the basic information about his submarine Tartarus, he couldn't help but feel frustrated with the information given to him.
Although he is not clear about the rank of other people's submarines, the H-rank evaluation of Tartarus is quite low compared to the usual ranking system he knows, where H is the lowest and A is the highest.
Moreover, there isn't a single weapon attached to the submarine.
If he encounters any deep-sea creatures, there is no chance of fighting back.
"This submarine is nothing more than barebones. Taking control of such a submarine and trying to survive in the depths of this planet's abyss is nothing more than gambling with my life... Damn it!"
As Norman yelled out his frustration for a moment, he sighed deeply.
However, once he calmed down, he came to terms with his situation. Norman's mentality was strong; it had to be, or he would die at the bottom of the abyss and no one would hear him scream.
All the people who were teleported, some must have gone through the same situation and come to terms with it, but he didn't know about the rest.
Even if there is a difference in how people are coming to terms with this situation, it shouldn't be too much of a difference; otherwise, this mass teleportation would have been meaningless if everyone went crazy and refused to play the game.
Looking away from the submarine's information page, the line of faint golden text disappeared.
Then, Norman turned to look at the other lists displayed on the central control display.
Taking a glance, he saw several familiar words:
[Communication Channel], [Exchange Market], [Auction Market], [Ranking List]…
As his gaze moved, Norman suddenly noticed that the pale golden text appeared again below these lists.
[Communication Channel]
(System Info Drop: Players can communicate through the communication channel. At this stage, only the regional channel is open. When 80% of the players pass the shallow area, the world channel will be opened.)
[Exchange Market]
(System Info Drop: Players can buy and sell resources and items through the exchange market without charging any intermediary fees. If used properly, it will help you pass the seven-day period smoothly.)
[Auction Market]
(System Info Drop: The auction market is similar to the exchange market. The time and starting price of the items are set by the pioneer captains themselves, and no intermediary fee is charged.)
Whenever Norman focused his attention on a list, golden text appeared on the corresponding list he glanced at, as if introducing what each one did.
At this point, Norman didn't think the golden font meant anything special; he still believed that everyone had the same golden text explaining the lists.
After all, even the unreasonable act of teleportation had already happened, so even if it was something special, he could accept it calmly.
After briefly browsing these lists, Norman did not find anything particularly special; it was no different from ordinary functions in other games he had played.
After a while of checking the lists and the information they provided, the communication channel began to flicker.
The other lists were all blank. Obviously, at this stage, no one had started selling or auctioning resources.
"It's been a while since I woke up. Have they started chatting in the communication channel so soon?"
As Norman pondered this, he locked his eyes on the communication channel.
Driven by curiosity, he tapped the screen with his finger.
A cold touch came upon pressing the screen display. The list expanded, and a line of green characters appeared in front of Norman.
[Shallow Area: Channel 66671]
Norman was stunned and immediately realized that this should be the regional channel for his area.
In the upper left corner, there was a display of 100000/100000.
Obviously, this indicated the number of active pioneers in the current area.
Additionally, in the upper right corner of the communication channel, there was a number of daily voice/messages that could be used, with the current status at 5/5.
Norman suddenly understood that in the regional channel, the system had placed restrictions to prevent an influx of voice/messages.
At the moment, with the expansion of the communication bar, a large number of voice and text messages slid past like a waterfall.
The number of unread messages in the upper left corner of the screen suddenly increased to 9999+!
[Hercules: Who can tell me what the hell is going on?! Why did I end up in a submarine for no reason?]
[Love: Sob Sob… It's so scary here, so cold, I want to go home, I want my mother...]
[ET: Two thousand meters under the ocean! Could we have been abducted by aliens?! Does anyone know what's going on here?]
[Nautilus: Hahaha... Everyone was teleported, It's finally my time to shine! O Deep Abyss, here I come!]
[Da Clever: I'm a landlubber, I can't swim, let alone drive a submarine! How am I going to survive!]
[Nissan: I will start the great voyage on this planet; I'm destined to become the Pirate King and find the One Piece hahaha!]
[Invincible: The evaluation of my submarine is only H?! What level are you all?]
[Shenlong: In the name of the Chinese Navy of our great nation, I sincerely invite all Chinese compatriots to join our fleet and recreate the glory of China on this planet! My current coordinates are 9178632.56, -2102.3, 7785433; my compatriots nearby, please go as soon as possible!]
With all these voice/messages in the regional channel, it was a mess, as everyone was messaging in full swing.
The channel brought together different cultures and ethnicities, and it seemed that the people of China had already started grouping with each other.
It just shows that when in danger, people group up or in this situation by ethnicity 'haaaaa... no matter what world humanity is in, they will never work with each other.' Norman thought to himself.
Norman continued glancing at the display but found no particularly useful information.
As far as the current situation is concerned, almost everyone is still in a state of confusion and has not set sail immediately.
The only certainty is that everyone started from the same point and all had H-class submarines.
If there is any discovery, it seems that a Chinese official, "Shenlong," has provided coordinates for the first time.
However, from Norman's perspective, the coordinates seem meaningless at this stage.
Most people haven't even figured out the situation yet. At this time, it's very risky to try to form a fleet!
After a while, Norman was thinking of closing the regional channel.
Instead of wasting precious time during the seven-day period building a fleet, it's more important to become acquainted with his submarine as soon as possible.
He knows almost everything on the central control panel, but he is not familiar with the various facilities and functions of the submarine.
But at this moment, several other messages in the regional channel suddenly caught Norman's attention.
[Seagull: This seven-day period towards the gathering outpost doesn't even give any hints or introductions. How do we know what any of the buttons or facilities do?]
[Calm: You are right, Seagull. I have the same question—what are the exchange and auction markets? How are they used?]
[Boogie Island: Same question. I'm also trying to understand; my head hurts from trying to figure out how they work!]
Looking at these conversations, Norman suddenly felt something was wrong.
The golden info drops that appeared in front of him clearly had already introduced the corresponding functions for each market and communication option. Why are these people still wasting precious voice/messages and asking such obvious questions in the regional channel?
"What's going on?"
"Could it be that no one else can see these golden info drops?"