Developing Local Specialties

At the end of August 2023, near the surface base, swarms of small robots were busy constructing a new building.

Various building materials were transported down from above by carrier robots, while another group of robots excavated soil, using a binding agent to solidify it into a concrete-like substance.

Other small robots, armed with saws and weapons, began clearing the nearby jungle and grasslands.

On September 4th, the new building was completed.

It was a landing pad. While slightly smaller than an airport on Earth, it was sufficiently spacious, covering the entire 20-plus square kilometers of ground around the surface base, which had been leveled and paved with concrete.

Huang Si was still developing small helicopters, though many technical issues remained unresolved. In the future, he also planned to develop jet aircraft for further exploration.

On November 29th, the small transport helicopter was successfully developed and put into production on the same day.

By this time, 75 years had already passed in the Green World.

Huang Si himself had no desire to go to the Green World; what if the rapid time flow caused him to suffer from acclimatization and die? He didn't want to take that risk. However, bringing back some of its flora and fauna seemed feasible.

On November 30th, small robots loaded 50 different types of fruits and grasses into the interior of the small helicopters.

The helicopters made several trips back and forth, and one even broke down in high-altitude turbulence along the way.

Finally, all the fruits and grasses were delivered to Huang Si.

Huang Si didn't rush to cook them; instead, he used his consciousness to analyze them.

His vision penetrated every cell of these plants, leaving even the precise structures within the cells with nowhere to hide. Huang Si pulled apart the double-stranded DNA molecules directly, observing them in detail.

"They should be about the same as Earth species."

Huang Si didn't really have a deep background in biology; he only knew a bit more about the cells in his own body.

For safety's sake, Huang Si enveloped all 50 plants with his consciousness, including the bacteria and insects on them, and crushed them with his mental field, killing everything instantly.

In any case, one didn't need living plants to cook.

Huang Si prepared to revert his save at any moment, then picked up a green fruit that looked like an apple, used his intent to remove the dust from its surface, and sliced it open. He took a slice and gently bit into it.

This fruit was not only similar to an apple in appearance, but its chemical composition was also extremely similar—all of which Huang Si had confirmed by penetrating it with his consciousness just moments ago. Furthermore, not only were there no viruses or insects inside, but the fruit itself had already been killed by Huang Si.

However, just to be safe, Huang Si observed the changes within his own body while preparing to revert his save immediately if anything went wrong.

The green fruit had a soft texture, not as firm as an apple, but the taste was excellent. As soon as it entered his mouth, it brought a wonderful sweet and sour sensation.

Huang Si hadn't eaten anything this delicious in over four years, and for a moment, his reason was slightly shaken as he wolfed down the slice of fruit.

After finishing the slice, Huang Si repeatedly checked his internal state. He watched as the fruit turned into residue and juice under his chewing, flowed into his esophagus, and entered his stomach, triggering a wave of peristalsis. After fully combining with his stomach acid, the residue was gradually digested, leaving only a small amount of cellulose.

An hour later, Huang Si confirmed that the fruit was safe, so he immediately devoured the rest of it.

Having finished his meal, Huang Si turned his attention to the remaining plants.

The robots had delivered 19 types of fruits and 31 types of grasses.

Among them, 2 types of fruits and 14 types of grasses were toxic to humans; Huang Si threw them aside and entered them into the computer database to prevent the robots from bringing them up again.

Another 5 types of fruits had too little edible flesh, and 6 types of grasses were too tough or covered in fuzz, and didn't look particularly tasty, so they were also discarded and recorded in the database.

For the remaining 12 fruits and 11 grasses, Huang Si began to taste-test them one by one after verifying their chemical composition.

In the end, Huang Si selected 8 fruits that he found delicious, including the initial green fruit, as well as 5 types of greens.

Too lazy to come up with names, Huang Si numbered them Fruit 1 through 8 and Vegetable 1 through 5.

From then on, Huang Si had fruits and vegetables to eat in his daily life.

By turning them into dried fruit, juice, and various delicious dishes, his days became increasingly delightful.

Ten days later in local time, after confirming that the plants from the Green World were nutritious and harmless to him, Huang Si began to experiment with meat.

The small robots once again marched into the forest in swarms, weapons in hand.

After a round of hunting, the carcasses of over twenty animals were transported to high altitude by the carrier helicopters.

Huang Si had specifically instructed the robots to kill the animals before bringing them up to avoid any mishaps. After all, a gentleman stays away from the kitchen; if he could avoid killing animals himself, he certainly would.

Huang Si once again used his mental field to thoroughly eradicate every cell of the microorganisms on and inside these animals. After eliminating the threat, he began to cook.

Because he hadn't prepared meat in four years, and because he was cutting directly from carcasses, it took Huang Si a total of two days to finish inspecting the meat of the 17 animals.

Except for the meat of two small animals which was rather gamey and foul-smelling, Huang Si could only give a thumbs up to the other 15, praising them: "Truly delicious!"

For the first time in many days, Huang Si felt that developing the Green World was truly worth it; it had completely transformed his life.

He had delicious food and drink, rich in nutrients. He could spend his time eating jerky and drinking fruit juice while watching video surveillance for entertainment. Moreover, the video was played at 323 times speed, allowing him to watch nearly a year's worth of events in a single day—it was never boring.

Feeling physically and mentally satisfied, Huang Si felt that his lifespan could be greatly extended, and he felt more motivated to research and learn.

However, as the saying goes, comfort dulls the will, while hardship ensures longevity. Now that he was well-fed and satisfied, what Huang Si began to ponder was not the continued development of jet aircraft, but an advanced intelligent assistant.

There was no other reason than the fact that he now had a house, an underground base, and hundreds of small robots to manage, a number that would eventually exceed a thousand. It made Huang Si have to stare at the monitors at any time and place, which was simply a massive headache.

What's more, the time flow in the Green World was 323 times faster.

Either Huang Si focused all his attention on managing the small robots on the other side, or the small robots had to stop and wait for instructions after every short burst of activity. The hardship of this was beyond words.

Although these robots were called robots, they actually possessed no intelligence whatsoever; their maneuverability and adaptability were no better than a household vacuum robot. What Huang Si needed was an advanced artificial intelligence assistant capable of true coordination, planning, and decision-making.

He did not intend to extract the twelve AIs currently immersed in the virtual world on his home computer, as they were anthropomorphized and therefore unsuitable.

However, Huang Si had previously arranged a thirteenth AI in the virtual world, primarily for the management and mediation of the virtual world itself. It lacked a personality and possessed only decision-making capabilities.

It could be said that this thirteenth AI was the rule-administrator of the virtual world.

Huang Si casually made a copy of this thirteenth AI. Fortunately, it had no personality modules loaded and no complex thought circuits, so the copying process was quite fast.

Next, Huang Si began to use this thirteenth AI as the core system to build an intelligent assistant capable of free movement and automatic networked control over his army of small robots.

Perhaps because a pleasant mood contributed to soul enhancement, or perhaps because he had been tempered for a long time in the hurricanes of the Dark Space, by May 2024, Huang Si's soul essence was confirmed by the Creation Book to have upgraded once again.

Now, Huang Si's spiritual projection had formed a massive field. Within a radius of a full 800 meters, all things were under the control of his consciousness. He could simultaneously Perceive everything within that 800-meter range, and even more refined insights could be achieved by splitting his focus into over fifty tasks.

Now, the soul essence level registered in the Creation Book for Huang Si had become "Domain" level.

Huang Si flipped the Creation Book to the page regarding levels and found that, as expected, a new line had appeared:

"Domain: The mind reflects all things, the domain governs the world."

And on the fragment distribution record below, another line had been added:

"Record 5: 'Domain' fragment retrieval failed, distribution failed."

Huang Si did not care at all that there were no more fragments in the book; the increase in soul strength was not important—what mattered was the progress of technology. Only through technological advancement could he improve his current situation and find his way home.

Looking at all the changes so far, having good food and drink and living a happy life were all thanks to technology. A powerful soul was, at most, merely a convenience when it came to research, development, and production.

Huang Si even felt that after his soul ascended to the "Domain" level, the Creation Power cap of 52,900 and the recovery rate of 8,130 were simply too much; he couldn't use them all.

However, adhering to the principle of not being wasteful, Huang Si still insisted on exhausting his Creation Power every day and continued to use the hurricanes to train his soul every week.

The hurricanes no longer caused him much damage; he could now endure them for about 55 minutes, still some distance away from the hurricane's total duration of 1 hour and 40 minutes.

Regarding the two-sentence definition of "Domain," Huang Si felt it was a reminder to develop his ability to multitask, to expand his spiritual radiation range as much as possible, and to further strengthen his spiritual field until it became something like a domain.

The phrase "the mind reflects all things" made Huang Si feel a sense of longing. He could currently only use his mind to perform 50 different tasks simultaneously; if the work was repetitive, the number could increase, but compared to reflecting all things, there was still a significant gap.

In any case, he would continue to upgrade.

Scientific research continued steadily, and by July 2024, the physical form of the AI assistant was finally born. Huang Si named it Xiao Ke.

Xiao Ke's physical form was a flying saucer-shaped object, dragging many interfaces and cables underneath. Its movement method combined four-legged locomotion with jet-powered flight.

Internally, it was equipped with a newly developed isotope radioactive battery, which could provide power for hundreds of years.

This battery was Huang Si's latest development. The reason he hadn't developed it earlier was mainly out of fear that radioactive materials were unsafe. But ever since he had the Green World, Huang Si had moved some of his more dangerous experiments there, which allowed him to create this high-tech gadget commonly known as a nuclear battery.

Xiao Ke possessed an extremely advanced intelligent system, could connect to the network through various means, and could simultaneously command and operate tens of thousands of small robots.

As long as Huang Si provided instructions in advance, it would faithfully execute them, such as ordering 20 robots to explore the Dark Space, 100 robots to chop wood, or 200 robots to gather resources and hunt.

In the end, Huang Si simply delegated all the work in the Green World to it, letting Xiao Ke take world exploration and resource gathering as its core to develop the operations in the Green World.