Huge Construction (23)

Construction on an unprecedented scale finally began.

Li Qingsong committed as many as fifty thousand clones to this construction project. At the same time, he was also carrying out more than a hundred other construction projects.

With the explosive growth in population, industrial capacity, and scientific research capability, the existing hundred-plus Mining Bases were clearly no longer sufficient.

In the next phase, Li Qingsong needed to mine even more mineral resources.

So, from the remaining ten thousand clones, Li Qingsong reassigned five thousand. Riding trains, trucks, excavators, bulldozers, crushers, and more, they formed a mighty Construction Legion and headed for larger sites farther from the Main Base, locations that had already been surveyed in advance, where they would build the mines.

Of course, they only needed to build the mines for now. There was no need to begin extraction yet, since there were not enough hands.

But that was fine. Once the Clone Cultivation Factory Cluster was completed, a steady stream of clones would soon be sent over, putting those idle mines into operation.

At the same time, the Railway Lines connecting the various bases would begin construction. By then, even more mineral resources would be transported smoothly to the Main Base.

That left only the final five thousand clones to maintain the base's daily operations and produce the materials required for this massive construction effort.

In the past, that would definitely not have been enough. Planting, breeding, and the Aquatic Product Base alone would have been enough to keep all five thousand clones busy.

But now, with the completion of the informatization upgrade, the deployment of millions upon millions of Iron Shell Chips, and the establishment of a sprawling communications network connected to every chip, the productivity of each individual clone had undergone a tremendous leap. At this point, just five thousand clones were enough to handle all logistical support and daily maintenance tasks.

Thus began the frantic construction effort involving every clone.

Every day, enormous heavy trucks with load capacities of one hundred tons hauled in construction materials such as steel plates, glass, screws, rebar, and Earthen Cement from the Steel Factory and Foundry. At the construction site, thousands of large machines—excavators, bulldozers, mixers, Road Rollers, and the like—worked day and night without rest.

Massive quantities of methane and oxygen from the Methane Mine and Oxygen Ore Mine were first transported to the Processing Plant for purification, then fed into the fuel tanks of one machine after another, driving them to unleash surging power.

Metals from the various metal mines were smelted and cast by the Smelting Plant and Processing Plant into rebar, steel plates, screws, nuts, Connectors, and more. They were rapidly assembled across the vast leveled construction site, while Earthen Cement was poured alongside them. One factory building after another rose from this once barren, lifeless land like bamboo shoots after rain, following plans prepared in advance.

Once the main structures were completed came interior finishing, wiring, and equipment installation.

Inside the enormous workshops for soilless cultivation, rows upon rows of Planting Shelves stretched out like a forest, boundless as far as the eye could see. Bundles of thick electrical cables ran throughout them, connecting every Sunlight Lamp in a network millions of times more complex than a spiderweb.

Inside the huge Breeding Farms for livestock, countless Automatic Water Feeders, Automatic Feeders, Heating Lamps, Lighting Lamps, and other equipment were orderly installed in individual Isolation Rooms. Water pipes, electrical wires, and network cables formed a dense web everywhere.

Inside the massive Power Plant, the Supercritical Generator Sets newly developed by Li Qingsong had already been installed.

The heat produced by the combustion of Tholin, methane, and other organic matter with oxygen would bring the water inside the boilers into a supercritical state under high temperature and pressure.

When supercritical water drove the turbines, it offered higher efficiency and more stable operation, while also being able to power larger generator sets.

Each generator Li Qingsong had prepared for the Clone Cultivation Factory Cluster had an installed capacity of three hundred thousand kilowatts, meaning it could generate three hundred thousand kilowatt-hours of electricity per hour.

Li Qingsong had installed a full five such generators.

For this Power Plant, Li Qingsong had even specially built a Railway Line to transport preprocessed Tholin, methane, oxygen, and other materials there.

Another enormous factory was the Culture Medium Preparation Factory.

With an annual output of one hundred thousand clones, and each clone requiring three tons of culture medium, this factory would consume three hundred thousand tons of culture medium every year.

That clearly required a dedicated factory employing a certain degree of automation and large-scale production. The previous method, which resembled manual labor, would no longer do.

At the same time, this would make it easier for Li Qingsong to control the quality of the culture medium and keep production more stable.

At this factory, Li Qingsong built an enormous storage tank. The tank stood thirty meters tall and had a diameter of sixty meters—a true behemoth.

The culture medium from the preparation factory would first be stored here, then connected to the Clone Cultivation Factory through pipelines.

Once cultivation season arrived, the used culture medium in the Culture Pods would be drained. After the pods were cleaned, the new culture medium would automatically be pumped into them for another round of cultivation.

At the core of the numerous supporting factories, varied in type and vast in number, stood the core factory Li Qingsong valued most: the Clone Cultivation Factory.

The main building of this Clone Cultivation Factory stood one hundred meters tall and was divided into thirty floors. Each floor covered five thousand square meters and was further divided into two hundred separate cultivation rooms.

Each cultivation room contained ten Culture Pods, allowing one floor to cultivate two thousand clones.

Besides the twenty-five cultivation floors, there were another five floors for equipment rooms, Rest Areas, Inspection Rooms, Exchange Rooms, and the like.

After the clones completed cultivation and were finally born, they would undergo a series of procedures here—physical examinations, intelligence tests, their first meals, and more—before leaving.

Everything was produced in an assembly-line process.

Li Qingsong installed a total of three hundred thousand Iron Shell Chips throughout this building, making it the most automated and informatized structure of all.

Even with Li Qingsong's extraordinary efficiency, the construction of this enormous factory cluster took a full year to complete.

Production of the clone culture medium had been completed. The collected Strange Bird Body Fluid had also been filtered and purified, mixed into the culture medium, and sent into one empty massive Culture Pod after another.

The first batch of fifty thousand sample cells had been collected, and the clones placed them into the Culture Pods one by one.

Amid the roar of those giant generators in the Power Plant, supported by this surging electricity, fifty thousand high-quality clones slowly developed.