It was a blessing in disguise.

Previously, due to minor negligence by Su Mo and the urgency of time, the civilization upgrade reward that was issued to him was not given to the villagers.

The news about the reward gradually intensified in the village until it swept through every corner like a hurricane.

The teams in the village gradually expanded to three from the third day of the heavy snowfall.

The first team was naturally the previous disaster resistance team, which had 600 people under its jurisdiction. According to the points and performance during the disaster resistance period, a total of ten awards were established.

Not counting the last few material rewards, all eyes were on the top three.

First place would get ten years of pottery firing experience and become a pottery master in a few moments.

Second place would receive eight years of wilderness hunting experience and would become a seasoned hunter with experience in the wild in a short time.

Third place was entitled to ten years of experience in crafting stone tools, mastering a series of stone tool production methods.

When Su Mo first saw the rewards given by the civilization upgrades, he thought they were three very ordinary rewards, since he looked at the development of the entire territory from a macro perspective.

Whether it was pottery or stoneware, it would eventually be eliminated by the technological development in the territory.

Moreover, the time would come soon, likely in half a year to a year.

The eight years of hunting experience would be the best among them and the most sought after if not for pottery still prevailing in the territory at the current stage.

However…

‘Was it always this popular?’

Seeing Chen Shen, who came in a hurry with sweat on his head, Su Mo, still sitting in the studio discussing with Ai Jianfeng stood up in surprise.

He went out the door and glanced toward the distant village.

Sure enough, it was clearly a cold night, around ten at night, but the top of the village was filled with white steam.

The hot air was the condensation and sublimation phenomenon caused by the contact between human breathing and the cold air outside.

The scenario was breathtaking as the warm light radiated in the village.

The sight of densely packed heads could be seen under the street lights everywhere, and Su Mo roughly counted and estimated no less than 500 people gathered.

“Are they waiting to go out to fight the disaster?”

Chen Shen, who chased out after him, nodded.

“Yes, usually at eleven-forty at night, everyone would put on their equipment and come out. I didn’t expect that after the reward announcement was released, these people would request to go out to the front line just after ten-thirty!”

Anyone who had gone skiing before knew that sliding on the snow seemed very easy and not exhausting, but in reality, it only took an hour or two to exhaust those who did not exercise regularly.

Similarly, the low temperature brought by the ice and snow and extended period in the wilderness during the continuous disaster resistance consumed a lot of physical strength and energy.

Even a man of steel would be exhausted after an eight-hour shift, and he would fall asleep after having a meal.

They would likely be unaware of their surroundings even if drums and gongs were beating outside unless someone were to wake them.

However, tonight, everyone woke up spontaneously and prepared tools in advance, waiting to go to work to fight the disaster.

‘Is there any other mystery to this reward?’

Su Mo realized that he looked past the temptation the reward would bring to the village and thoughtfully returned to the workshop.

The door was closed.

Chen Shen also sat down, picked up the thermos at the corner of the table, and poured a glass for himself while refilling the water for the two inside the room.

“Which reward is everyone aiming for?”

Chen Shen thought about it and answered honestly, “The three most discussed rewards are the third-place reward of the disaster resistance team, the second-place reward of the adventure team, and the first-place reward of the expedition team.”

The adventure team was the second team formed in the village today.

They were mainly responsible for taking advantage of the concealment and fast movement of the snow to explore and find places with ruin entrances.

The points rewarded were determined by the expedition mileage, the number of ruins found, or the number of rare relics found. There were also ten rewards available to the adventure team.

Of course, only the top three were able to receive experience-based rewards.

The first-place reward was ten years of experience in the wilderness, the skill to identify the attributes of plants, and could deal with threats from unfamiliar environments.

The second-place reward was eight years of basic boxing experience, which enhanced physical fitness and allowed ordinary people to have the consciousness of fighting against ordinary prey.

The third-place reward was five years of terrain exploration experience and could roughly determine dangerous places according to the terrain and avoid risks in advance.

These three rewards were all related to expeditions.

There was no distinction between superior and inferior rewards, and in Su Mo’s eyes, the first reward of ten years of wilderness survival experience was the only one that was slightly useful.

The third team was the people who were about to follow him to travel thousands of miles into the mountains. This team was called the expedition team.

The people in the expedition team were selected strictly from the militiamen, who were all trained elites!

The territory lord naturally determined the reward, and the ten rewards were determined.

Likewise, the top three prizes were also different.

The first-place reward was five years’ experience in archery. This skill would allow a novice who had never touched a bow and arrow to be able to shoot anywhere within 30 meters they pointed at and never miss a target within 50 meters.

The second-place reward was five years of melee spear fighting skills. The spear was a medium and long weapon. After learning the ability, it could also be applied to weapons similar to spears.

The third-place reward was five years of trap-setting skills. This allowed setting up traps to hunt large animals easily.

…

“So, I guessed only the archery reward correctly among all of them?”

The first primitive civilization upgrade did not reward many ability items.

There were only nine in total.

According to the principle that three people could be rewarded each month, the number of rewards could be superimposed.

Su Mo had directly arranged one of each reward to test the waters and see how it worked for the first batch of rewards.

However, the results were far beyond his previous judgment.

In most film and television dramas and games, the image of the archer had gradually been fixed as a character with high attack, low vitality, and brittle armor. It was a job that would die in seconds if an enemy were to be in close range.

In reality, however, during the era of cold weapon combat, those who could become archers were the elites of each unit, with physical qualities far exceeding those of average soldiers.

According to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Lord Guan the Second who killed Hua Xiong with warm wine was a horseback archer and subordinate of Liu Bei. He was the fierce, domineering third brother who took the head of an admiral who led a million troops. He was a master archer.

Acquiring the archery skill was equal to obtaining the potential to become an elite in the army.

‘This reward is, without doubt, the best among all the rewards.

‘The other two…

‘Wait a minute.’

Su Mo suddenly thought of a possibility and recollected himself. He lowered his head and summoned the civilization upgrade panel.

It was as he predicted.

He clicked on the experience that was behind the displayed reward claim.

Sure enough, a line of small words popped up!

“After acquiring the experience, the creature will automatically undergo a certain degree of transformation according to its potential and suitability to achieve ability optimization.”

A seemingly confusing explanation.

It was a notification that Su Mo had previously ignored.

After reading it three times, Su Mo raised his head and looked at Ai Jianfeng, who was sitting at the table tinkering with the climbing car.

“Jianfeng, when mechanical apprentices first start out, do you directly learn about the mobile phone bed?”

“Huh? Why are you asking this?”

Lifting it up, Ai Jianfeng smiled, with a hint of reminiscence in his eyes, and then said, ” Of course not. It didn’t matter whether you were agraduate student or a doctor, if you really planned to do research, rather than come over to get a certificate and earn some money in the future, then you would have to walk the most pious and simple road for a very long time.

“Back then, when my teacher was still alive, he dragged me to a blacksmith and asked me to smelt iron with the master there for three months. It’s a very nostalgic memory, but at that time, after returning to the dormitory every night, I wanted to run away.

“You can’t imagine how many blisters I had on my hands after a day of smelting iron and how many wounds I goton my body from being scalded by the sputtered sparks!”

Immediately, Ai Jianfeng opened his waist and wanted to show the two “medals” he obtained from his experience.

The next second, looking at the waist that was as clean as jade and realizing that this body was no longer the one it used to be, Ai Jianfeng smiled awkwardly again and hurriedly continued to speak to cover up his embarrassment.

“Three months of experience, following the old master to smelt and forge iron. It was a challenge to my willpower. After all, the machinery discipline looks very interesting, but it’s a very comprehensive subject.

“Mechanical fundamentals, process knowledge, manufacturing, and quality control were the basics. Automation, electrification, intelligence, and so on, were the advanced parts of it.

“The deeper you go, the more complicated it becomes. It is difficult for people without great perseverance to persist in this field for a long time.

“Additionally, it allowed me to gradually realize a skill that would last a lifetime through the experience of blacksmithing!”

After he finished speaking, Ai Jianfeng brought an ordinary chisel from the side and brought out a cobblestone that was so unremarkable that no one would glance at it.

A stone in his left hand and a chisel in his right hand.

After a crackling gouge, the stone skin on the outside of the palm-sized pebbles began to gradually fall off, and the shape gradually formed due to the different points of the gouge.

It only took less than two minutes for a seemingly alive duck-shaped stone to appear in Ai Jianfeng’s palm.

“Look! How is it? Not bad, right?”

Chen Shen took the duck, looked at it over and over, and exclaimed from the bottom of his heart, “He surely is an expert in his field! Uncle Ai’s craft would definitely occupy a place among skilled craftsmen if he went to the prosperous city of ancient times!”

In the past, there were countless people who wanted to become his disciple and he had received countless praises from many people.

It had never affected him emotionally.

However, at this moment, after listening to Chen Shen’s words, he shook his head emotionally, “No way, that’s too high of praise! This is only the basics. I haven’t done much research in this field. My teacher used to be ranked at the top back then. The accuracy and precision of his handcrafts were better than most machine tools.”

The words left his mouth.

Before waiting for Ai Jianfeng to continue telling the story, Su Mo, who was sitting across from him, asked at the right time, “So, these three months of blacksmithing actually allowed you to step into the door of controlling your body?”

Ai Jianfeng stroked his beard and nodded, “Yes, both hands are our best tools. Blacksmithing is the process of gradually letting you understand your hands. This is a journey one must go through to become a professional mechanical engineer.

“The better you can control your hands, the better you will be in your future research and you can develop a vast knowledge about a machine’s structure!”

‘It’s true!’

After listening to Ai Jianfeng’s complete explanation, Su Mo secretly thought, ‘I was careless this time.’

‘How can the rewards brought by the upgrade of civilization be so simple and literal?

‘With the knowledge from these rewards, even ordinary villagers can clearly understand the terrifying gains from it.’

The tens of years of experience in building stone tools gave an individual the familiarity with stone tools and the ability to master the body.

Imagine sitting on the ground, faced with all kinds of ordinary stones, repeatedly forging for ten years.

Using your hands through the entire process was no longer about the familiarity with all kinds of stones!

It was instead the mastery of one’s own body.

An ordinary person that tried to hit an angle of thirty-degree three times with an equal force would realize after doing so that they would either have a skewed angle or hit with too much force. It would require a lot of luck to achieve the same constant conditions a second time, let alone three times.

However, for someone who inherited ten years of stone tool forging experience, they would be able to achieve the correct force and way to hit it according to the momentum calculations in their mind.

This was a miraculous ability that was no longer merely the word, “skilled.”

The same went for eight years of basic boxing experience.

After receiving the experience, although a person’s physical fitness would not be strengthened in any way, they could achieve the most challenging and most straightforward beginning stages of martial arts training.

The soaring combat ability was an added bonus to have as a skill.

In the future, whether it was exploring the wilderness to fight against territories or joining the expedition team, being a captain with high combat was indeed tempting!

‘I see! I underestimated the additional bonus of these rewards!’ After thinking about it, Su Mo was quite excited.

In the future, if he received a reward with experience in making armor, he could award it to someone and allow the person to master the basics of iron armor making, but they could also acquire the fundamentals and use the experience as well as skills to make other similar clothes.

Technological and scientific experience could improve knowledge and cultivate a certain scientific research thinking for the inheritor of the reward. It would allow them to delve deeper into future research.

Farming experience would allow inheritors to learn to plant common crops and quickly learn to cultivate magical plants. They would instantly become agricultural masters.

…

There were multiple mysterious rewards to be inherited.

As time passed, the fundamentals of the territory would increase at a rapid speed!

Civilization upgrades and talent creation complemented each other and worked together!

‘As expected of a function that can only be upgraded with 100 million survival points. This basically equates to a free talent training bank!”

In the current primitive age, 27 talents with the above nine types of experience could be created every month.

It was likely that when the civilization upgraded to the Bronze Age, the rewards would be of similar nature and even more significant in numbers.

Then it would not take long for everyone in the basin to inherit a skill, creating a grand scene of hundreds of talents blooming throughout the territory.

“Chen Shen, since the stone tools reward and boxing reward are the two most sought after,swap them to first place!

“Also, tell everyone that their performance has been very positive, so I’ll double all the experience rewards! Villagers ranked one to six will be entitled to a reward!”

Rewarding the most sought-after stuff to the lower ranks was naturally unfair for the person who came in number one.

Su Mo waved his hand and decided on the spot to change the order of the rewards.

At the same time, the three original rewards were doubled every month, which meant more people could receive the rewards.

The villagers could not be dissatisfied with the decision when they found out. They might even be more motivated to squeeze into the top six.

Of course, Su Mo had naturally left three rewards to himself.

He wanted to keep it for himself or those close to him.

‘I can try to see if I’ll become an all-rounder after I stack up countless years of experiences!

‘Even if it isn’t possible, it will still be a huge gain if I give it to Su Chan, Chen Shen, Ai Jianfeng, Lu Kuan, or the others!’

…