Tremendous Improvement

Over the past ten years, Li Qingsong had increasingly come to feel the weight of a problem.

This problem severely limited the speed of his development. It prevented him from doing many things he wanted to do and from building many facilities and factories he wanted to construct.

That problem was population.

Even counting everyone, there were only a little over a hundred people. With so few people, even if there was absolutely no internal friction and they could coordinate and cooperate perfectly, how much strength could they really exert?

In fact, a considerable portion of the equipment Li Qingsong had built was not even operating at this stage.

For example, some of the generators in the Energy Industrial Zone had simply been left there unattended after being built.

Of the sixteen tractors he had made, only seven were in daily use.

It was not because there was little demand for transport. On the contrary, the blast furnaces, generators, Planting Base, and more all required large supplies of external ores and resources.

But there was no helping it. There were not enough people to drive them.

Over these ten years, Li Qingsong had suffered greatly because of this.

Fortunately, after placing greater emphasis on chemistry and as the Planting Base's output gradually increased, he had finally managed to prepare Clone Nutrient Solution that barely met the standard.

Inside the cave serving as the Chemical Factory workshop, Li Qingsong looked at the pale blue liquid in the large glass vessel before him, his heart filled with excitement.

There was only enough nutrient solution here for one person. Yet even this small amount had taken two clones an entire week to prepare.

There was no helping it. At this stage, nearly all work had to be done by hand. This sort of laboratory "customization" could not be automated for large-scale production.

But that was fine. If two clones could prepare enough for one person in a week, then if I transferred fifty clones here from elsewhere, wouldn't they be able to prepare twenty-five portions in a week?

Wouldn't that make two hundred portions in two months?

Li Qingsong had set the target for this first batch of "self-produced" clones at two hundred.

It was not that he did not want to produce more. Nutrient solution was only one consideration; the other aspects also required matching power supplies and Culture Pod production. Taking the current level into account, Li Qingsong believed that producing two hundred Culture Pods and portions of Culture Medium for the first batch was optimal.

After all, once the Culture Pods were built, they could be reused. When there were more hands available, he could increase the number later.

Thus, Li Qingsong boldly transferred a total of fifty clones from the already strained factories and facilities elsewhere, throwing them fully into the preparation of Culture Medium and the manufacture of Culture Pods.

On the Deep Space spacecraft, the two bodies left behind began working around the clock on initial cell processing.

As a result, the clones elsewhere had no choice but to devote even more energy and time to their work.

Their daily working hours rose from twelve to sixteen. Only then could they barely keep the rest of the system from falling into disorder.

That was a full sixteen hours of actual work!

The clones' sleeping time was even forcibly reduced to six hours. Everything else—eating, using the toilet, taking temporary breaks, traveling, and so on—had to be squeezed into two hours.

To ensure the clones' mental state and physical strength, Li Qingsong was unusually generous for once.

The vegetables, eggs, meat, and, most importantly, flour and rice produced by the Planting Base began to be supplied without restriction.

Every day, the kitchen would stew a huge pot containing two hundred jin of meat and boil several hundred eggs for the clones. Only then did they barely manage to endure.

Li Qingsong had not wanted to push them this hard, but there was no helping it. He had already waited far too long.

Earth had been out of contact with him for more than a decade. He desperately wanted to develop as quickly as possible.

Even if he could not change the fate of human civilization, he at least had to figure out what had happened.

Even if not for civilization, then for himself alone, Li Qingsong did not dare slack off.

Would the existence or force that had caused human civilization to lose contact... threaten him someday in the future?

This was a question Li Qingsong had no choice but to consider.

Across the entire base, the hundred-plus clones worked nonstop, each of them wound tight like a clockwork mechanism.

Under such circumstances, two months finally passed.

All two hundred Culture Pods were completed and lined up inside the Clone Production Factory.

This was a brand-new factory. For its sake, Li Qingsong had specifically found a cave deep enough, with thick enough rock layers and sufficiently low background radiation.

Clone embryos were different from adults. They could not withstand even the slightest radiation. Otherwise, there was a high chance of developmental failure, or they might simply develop into malformed creatures. They had to be placed somewhere with sufficient radiation shielding.

The temperature inside the factory was not a comfortable twenty-six degrees, but thirty-seven degrees, the same as the human body's temperature.

Only at this temperature could the embryos develop comfortably.

Two hundred portions of Culture Medium were poured into the Culture Pods. After that, two hundred portions of initial cells from the Deep Space spacecraft were placed inside as well.

Like seeds planted in soil, those cells, still invisible to the naked eye, began to grow slowly.

As the fifty clones withdrew from the Nutrient Solution Preparation Room, the clones elsewhere could finally relax a little.

Over the past period, they had been exhausted.

Filled with anticipation and hope, Li Qingsong began a wait that lasted only half a year, yet felt extraordinarily long to him.

"Grow up quickly. There are still so many tractors waiting for you to drive, so many blast furnaces waiting for you to operate, and so many crops waiting for you to tend..."

As time slowly passed, the initial cells inside the Culture Pods developed into lumps and masses of flesh, then gradually took on the shape of human bodies.

But during this process, some embryos did not develop normally and were clearly malformed.

"There's no helping it. The nutrient solution I prepared and the Culture Pods I produced simply can't compare to the originals."

Li Qingsong shook his head and controlled a clone to step forward, destroying those malformed embryos and discarding the Culture Medium.

Although there had been some setbacks, only a small portion had gone wrong overall. In the end, after waiting half a year, a full one hundred and eighty-two clones developed successfully.

After carrying them out and placing them on beds, the one hundred and eighty-two clones slowly opened their eyes following a brief wait.

Li Qingsong's consciousness instantly extended toward them. The next moment, he felt that he had gained one hundred and eighty-two more brains and one hundred and eighty-two more bodies.

Brand-new brains and bodies, untouched by any contamination or damage!

His memory, logical thinking, learning ability, research ability, and all other brain-related capabilities had increased by more than double compared to before!

Not only that, but the number of bodies he could use had also instantly risen from one hundred and thirty-four to three hundred and sixteen!