Preparation with the Largest Margin

Chapter 23: 1.23 Chapter Preparations with Maximum Margin

Facing the list of supplies, Wei Keng suddenly felt that his previous plans could be torn up and redone.

For example, in terms of weapons and equipment, Wei Keng originally wanted to completely re-equip, but after seeing the supplies on the list, Wei Keng realized that after choosing to exchange with a price of 300 days, the threat from Jian City would no longer be a single choice of "launching a high-intensity blocking battle in a short period of time." Instead, it would be possible to engage in a long-term attrition warfare to counter the enemy's invasion.

If the goal was purely to defend the base area, rather than annihilate the enemy's effective strength, adopting guerrilla warfare could reduce casualties.

Therefore, the weapons and equipment needed to be re-selected.

First, heavy firepower was necessary. Eight 60mm mortar tubes were needed—this requirement remained unchanged, as it was what Wei Keng wanted from the beginning. Without this, Wei Keng would have to resort to "conscienceless cannons." For light machine guns, three were to be equipped. Due to the difficulty of replenishing ammunition, more would be useless, only solving the problem of having them or not.

But what about next? The plan for hundreds of assault rifles was directly scrapped, replaced by fewer but more refined equipment.

The guerrilla warfare environment required night operations. Fifty sets of infrared night vision devices were to be acquired, along with a set of solar charging panels. Oh, and a small boiler generator set weighing one ton, and a series of variable equipment.

As for the main weapons, forty high-precision sniper rifles were to be acquired, along with forty thousand rounds of specialized ammunition and spare barrels. The barrel life of this sniper rifle was recorded as two thousand rounds according to factory standards.

It seemed that this would be enough.

As for the remaining carrying capacity, it was actually prepared to further insure survival.

The chemical equipment had to be replaced. The chemical reactor that Wei Keng assembled himself could only produce more than twenty kilograms of nitric acid per day, and the smell was too strong. Some of the combined gaps, which he could only seal with clay gum for a short while.

Now, a set of standardized small equipment, namely the primitive equipment of modern craftsmanship, was to be imported, complete with thermometers and pressure gauges.

In addition, continuously extracting alkali from plant ash was too labor-intensive. A set of ammonia production equipment and a set of simple Hou's alkali production facility were also ordered.

Furthermore, a gas generator, a small steel refining furnace, a better bullet mold, and steel rolling equipment were to be acquired.

Wei Keng was still thinking about the steel on the railway tracks outside. Although in guerrilla warfare, the focus was on those forty high-precision sniper rifles, which would be rotated and used by the front lines, it was still necessary for everyone to be equipped with a gun. What if large-scale combat occurred? Having a gun in hand would prevent panic. The current living quarters were all earthen walls and fortifications. Hearing the commotion outside, the difference in mindset between having a gun and not having one was something Wei Keng, as part of the production team, understood best.

As for the remaining cargo space, Wei Keng requested a full four thousand bearing rings, as well as various steam engine core components.

Production equipment, personnel, and basic transportation construction, when combined, constituted production.

Wei Keng knew of the small mines in the vicinity, so the lack was in transportation capacity. In this plane, Wei Keng tried to carry goods with shoulder poles. He could carry about fifty kilograms of cargo for about a kilometer before his shoulders felt like they were grinding to dust. Later, using a wheelbarrow, he could transport two hundred kilograms of cargo five kilometers away. The wheelbarrow did not have bearing rings, and the friction between the wheel and the front axle made a very loud creaking sound when rotating. Pushing this thing, Wei Keng began to miss the construction site wheelbarrows he used to disdain.

Wheels represented transportation power, and the components that could withstand the friction of the wheels rotating were strategic components of the transportation industry. But those two concave steel rings and steel balls, though simple in appearance, could only be made by modern industry.

With transportation power, the excavated soil blocks could be easily moved, and the brine production along the coast would no longer require crude iron pots to boil. The efficiency would increase a hundredfold.

With transportation power, tens of tons of bricks could be transported from the city ruins to the vicinity of the river near the living area. Together with the logs from the jungle water transport, they could form charcoal kilns and lime kilns.

With transportation capabilities, hunting animals in the jungle no longer requires immediate dismemberment and carrying back down the mountain in a basket. Instead, they can be directly transported down the mountain. The fur can be cleaned and soaked in acid, the meat salted and air-dried, and the viscera boiled, with scraps used for compost. This allows for cleaner processing.

After Wei Keng selected the items.

Once the system confirmed, it immediately initiated the teleportation.

In the central clearing, as Wei Keng piled a large amount of wood in the center, atmospheric charges in the sky began to condense around a single point, quickly forming ball lightning. Immediately after, smoke appeared on the wood, and then blazing flames erupted. However, the heat energy from the flames did not rise into the air but instead focused on the ball lightning.

As the energy within the ball lightning grew, space began to warp, as if constantly absorbing everything around it. Wei Keng also felt a pulling force, but something flashed in his consciousness, and he no longer felt it. During this process, it was as if his body, originally a magnet feeling magnetic force, suddenly became a copper block, no longer feeling the magnetism.

However, the flow of ground material continued. Large amounts of fine particles converged towards the center of the ball lightning from hundreds of meters away, and near the ground, a significant amount of vaporized substance rose.

Twenty seconds later, the ball lightning split open, revealing a luminous surface that began printing, surrounding areas of stereoscopic space. Soon, the prototype of the device appeared amidst these energy sweeps.

This was "teleportation."

Wei Keng: "So this is how I teleported back then, huh? Printed?"

In the dimension.

Bai Linglu, after obtaining Wei Keng's required materials list, reported upwards while controlling the "teleportation."

Superior Space Department: "Is he aware of this arrangement?"

Bai Linglu: "Transmigrator Wei Keng is currently engaged in intensive pioneering work. I will report relevant information to him according to regulations."

Observer Bai Hengqian: "You should inform him now."

Bai Linglu: "During this shuttle, he has trust issues with me—he has negative resistance towards my assignments. If I insert my opinions, it will affect his work attitude."

In all aspects, Wei Keng's current work plan is very impressive. He says he will stay here for a while before leaving, but from the Observer's perspective, what Wei Keng is building on the target plane is preparation for a long-term stationing.

This includes accommodation, water supply, food reserves, ammunition production, and road leveling.

By all appearances, it's not a situation of staying for just one year, but rather establishing a sustained intervention force here.

This might stem from Wei Keng's personal thought that there's a one-in-a-million chance his return could be interfered with, so he's planning as far ahead as possible to guard against that worst-case scenario.

And the longer Wei Keng prepares, the more Bai Linglu, within the space bubble, feels compelled to push for the mission's long-term extension. However, some of her ideas still await the Time-Space Administration Bureau's decision.

From the Time-Space Administration Bureau's perspective, the combination of Wei Keng and Bai Linglu is quite peculiar among the plane exploration teams. One is focused on his own work, and his partner doesn't exchange more than three sentences with him. The other is on the sidelines, making plane exploration plans through guesswork, and now, even resorting to some concealment.

To say there's conflict, the two parties have no conflict. There hasn't been a situation where the Transmigrator and Observer in a team are at odds and get replaced. If we talk about pleasant cooperation, many Transmigrators and Observers have friendships that go beyond colleagues. Wei and Bai are like ordinary netizens.

After re-examining the situation on the Pandora Plane, the Superior Space Department, after serious discussion, sent a message to Bai Linglu: "Observe the losses from his combat this time. If the combat losses exceed one-tenth of his total, arrange for his immediate return."

One-tenth is very lenient. For Wei Keng, the process of consciousness increment, a loss of one-third, would be considered damage. The Time-Space Administration Bureau is being very conservative with Wei Keng.

Bai Linglu: "Received, but if his consumption is extremely low? Then can we..."

Superior Space: "Observe first, we will make arrangements for subsequent matters."

As for the conversation between Bai Linglu and Superior Space, there was no mention of delaying the return after transferring materials. Wei Keng could return early in about ten days.

The current delivery facility is not actually cross-plane teleportation. Wei Keng has survived here for more than eighty days, and his consciousness has already calibrated the nature of all material particles here. With these calibrations, the material transfer just now was directly printed using the energy of this plane. It did not consume much Information Enthalpy.

This is equivalent to the initial moon landing, where sending a water bottle required a large amount of fuel and launcher lifespan. However, after landing on the moon and establishing a base, and after thoroughly investigating the properties of the lunar soil, bricks could be directly molded on-site and solidified in a solar furnace, completely eliminating the need for spacecraft transport.

The 120 tons of materials were not a transfer limit, but the scale of Information Enthalpy printing that Bai Linglu could mobilize within his authority.

In some special tasks of the Plane Exploration mission, the Observer could theoretically declare combat mode and assign tasks to the Transmigrator.

On Earth, within the cross-dimensional space opened in a high-energy state within East Asia No. 14 Gravity Well.

Yuan Yue asked another veteran Transmigrator, Luo Hongxing, "What do you think of this situation?" The situation here refers to the "two-headed dragon" tendency in the decision-making of Wei Keng and Bai Linglu's exploration of the Pandora Plane.

Luo Hongxing: "Currently, our side is engaged in war, so the issue of the newcomer combination is not serious. After this conflict, we will try to assign him a different Observer."

Yuan Yue said: "To be honest, Old Wei's child, Wei Qiang, we watched him grow up. As for this Wei Keng, sigh, he was a bit of a quiet one when he was young."

Luo Hongxing pointed to the situation on the Pandora Plane: "Isn't he handling things very smoothly in this Plane Exploration? So, a dragon gives birth to nine sons, and each son is different, but after all, they are born of a dragon, not a litter of mice."

Yuan Yue smiled but stopped discussing the matter with him. Instead, he said, "Be careful when you go down."

Luo Hongxing: "Don't worry, I've been to the Pandora Plane. As long as the life radiation there is suppressed, there's basically no danger." Saying this, he looked again at Wei Keng's current survival status: "I will open a passage to the war zone after I go down."

On the Pandora Plane, at Wei Keng Settlement, which had a bit of a human presence, Wei Keng's representatives from various work teams were communicating information in a large, earth-built house.

Confirming that conflict was inevitable, Wei Keng began to provide supplementary lessons on the various forces in this plane.

In the central open space of the settlement, a sand table made of yellow mud was placed in the center. This was a topographical map centered on Zhushui Jiao, covering a radius of two hundred kilometers. Forty percent of the area had been factually corrected based on actual observations by Wei Keng's team.

The first group, Wei Keng, used the intelligence gathered by reconnaissance personnel around the large sand table to analyze the political situation in the region.

Human forces were currently in continuous decline, with major city-states operating autonomously in various regions, or rather, semi-abandoned to their own fate. A few overlord-level cities still existed in the entire human world. The East Asia Continent seemed to be under a tribute system. Multiple secondary cities guarded the main cities along the major rivers. For example, the Yangtze River and Yellow River basins maintained this form of vassal states.

As for the cities in the Min Yue Zhe region, they also wanted to pay tribute. This was because the core cities in the major river regions were the best preserved in terms of human technology before the Great Cataclysm, possessing many more advanced biological and electronic technologies. Paying tribute could obtain these valuable technical supports. However, the transportation routes on land and sea were blocked by various Gene Colonies, making tribute very difficult for them.

In addition to technical exchanges and communication, in terms of culture, cities like Jian City required their mayors to be enfeoffed, or rather, appointed, by the central government of the vassal states. After all, it had only been 150 years since the Pandora Field completely engulfed East Asia, and everyone still needed a legal system.

Regional powers relied on legal systems to recruit Beast Tamers. Central cities, by granting regional legal systems, tried to compile data on Beast Tamers outside their actual controlled areas as much as possible.

Wei Keng highlighted this piece of information.

First: It is not allowed for the overlord cities behind the scenes to send forces to interfere after Jian City is attacked. There must be an upper limit to one's own military actions.

Second: It is not allowed for some people from Jian City to recruit allied forces from other regions. Therefore, one's own military actions must also have a certain bottom line. At least, the opponent must be fought until they are exhausted and have no intention of military adventure against oneself.

Military preparations are being made, and economic research is also underway.

In a tightly sealed dark room newly built six hundred meters away, grids built of bricks and tiles are stacked, and within the grids are fungal culture mediums made of shredded wood.

Here, Wei Keng's economic research team looks at these clumps of mushrooms and ponders again, can these things be used as staple food?

These small mushrooms are the economic foundation of the current city-state.

Humans are no longer the controllers of the past Earth's ecological communities. Without vast farmlands to supply food, they can only seek other ecological niches.

So, eat wood? Of course, it cannot be eaten directly. In the Pandora Field, mutated fungal organisms can process wood within two to three days, rapidly decomposing it into more easily digestible organic matter. Before the Pandora Era, humans could not digest fungi. Hence the joke about how many golden needle mushrooms can be eaten? But humans have the Life Radiation effect, and under this radiation effect, the bacteria in the human gut and humans are in the same Gene Colony.

In the early stages of the great catastrophe, when starving humans began to dig into termite mounds for food, they gradually discovered that they could fully digest fungi. This was because the gut bacterial community had acquired genes from the termites' symbionts.

Now, these substances have become the main food for humans in the East Asia region south of the Yangtze River.

More importantly, this type of grain is easy to store, and the raw materials are readily available. The city's pulverizers crush the surrounding Big trees, and the wood chips mixed with spores waiting to develop are sealed with quicklime. When needed for consumption, they are taken out and watered to grow mycelium.

These wood chips are also called "Jing Blocks" because "Jing Blocks" grow "Jing Zi".

As for the edible fungal spores mixed in the "Jing Blocks," the people of the Southwest have risked their lives multiple times to test them, a heroic act akin to Shennong. The "Jing" in "Jing Block" is a homophone for 'Jing' (菌, fungus) in the Southwest dialect.

When Wei Keng heard that the mushrooms on the Jing Blocks had multiple amino acids and tasted very good, he couldn't help but salivate.

The system quickly prompted: No matter which type of 'Jing Zi' it is, it cannot be eaten raw.

Of course, Wei Keng knows very well that edible fungi have low energy density, and with the current productivity, table salt is scarce in the city, and there are no onions, ginger, or garlic. The mushrooms eaten by ordinary people are definitely not as delicious as he imagines.

Having grown up in the abundant material environment of food and clothing in the Industrial Age, perhaps people of this era consider certain foods they eat long-term as delicacies, while people of this era might just want to take the fatty meat that a Lady in the 21st Century cafeteria would pick out and discard, render it into lard, and mix it with a bowl of rice.

At noon, the two research groups each submitted a detailed report and plan.

Wei Keng, in the kitchen, procured over twenty Hairy Crabs weighing about half a kilogram each from the river, as well as three Big Black Fish. According to the distribution System within the Wei Keng Collective, these items were currently for himself, who used his brain.

Of course, the two groups only ate One-Third of them. Especially the Hairy Crabs, they only tasted the initial freshness. Eating them as a meal did not fill their stomachs, so they called Wei Keng from the physical labor group and distributed the rest according to the order of work intensity.

Eating mushrooms, cannot be eaten raw, and I don't eat mushrooms.