"The iron content in Orange Star's soil was absurdly high, giving it an orange-red color."
"This also proved that Orange Star once had abundant liquid water on its surface, which was necessary for hematite to form..."
On day 26, everything in the base had entered normal operation, and its productive capacity was growing steadily.
Inside the virtual world of data-
Wearing a pale blue marshal's uniform trimmed in gold, Luo Qi sat calmly in a golden chair with a red backrest.
A massive virtual screen hovered before him.
Boundless darkness surrounded him.
This data environment was merely a rearrangement of data and consumed no computing power. He watched the video playing before him, a record of humanity's scans of Orange Star's surface.
"It always reminds me of Mars from my previous life, but this enormous crater-"
The image froze on a crater that occupied one percent of the planet's surface.
It looked like a soybean dropped into a basin of yellow sand, barely noticeable unless one looked closely.
But Luo Qi had all its survey data. It lay two thousand kilometers east of the base.
"Linfu Crater. According to the latest survey records, its central depth reached 6.5 kilometers, with a diameter of 25 kilometers. It was over a hundred thousand years old, and time was erasing its traces. Material samples not otherwise found on Orange Star were discovered within it, further proving the existence of alien civilizations..."
"Pretty damn impressive. A war broke out in ancient times, and one side deployed an extermination weapon against the planet from space."
"When that terrifying energy poured down, every intelligent being on the planet was filled with despair... truly terrifying..."
The more he calculated, the more complete the data reconstruction became. That oppressive scene appeared directly behind Luo Qi.
In the dark starry sky, a hazy, elongated warship fired a red beam at a planet teeming with life.
A terrifying shock wave began burning across the entire planet, reducing every trace of civilization and all life to scorched earth.
The image behind him vanished, leaving Luo Qi sitting in his chair with a grave expression.
In a war that decided a civilization's fate, the destructive weapons deployed by the combatants were immensely powerful. How large would the ships carrying those weapons have to be, and how terrifying would their energy cores be?
How much manpower and material would mobilizing for such an interstellar war consume?
"Water Blue Star's civilization must have sent exploratory satellites out into space too... hopefully there aren't that many hunters in that terrifying dark forest..."
"Why worry about all that? The solar panels are almost ready. Hopefully they'll solve the base's energy problem."
Over the past two days, Luo Qi had worked with everything he had, finally completing the manufacture of Orange Star's solar panels late last night.
Only twenty-six days ago, he had been agonizing over his dwindling electricity and the countdown to his death. Now, he already possessed a basic capacity for production.
This was an enormous leap from nothing to something!
On this godforsaken Orange Star, Luo Qi owned a self-built home spanning several hundred square meters and supported a man sustained by his determination to return home.
But given time, Luo Qi would surely leave Orange Star and venture into the stars!
He turned his attention to the interior of the light industrial factory. A camera mounted on a robotic arm faced the end of the assembly line, where a silver-gray panel one meter wide lay.
This was a newly manufactured solar panel from the specially installed Production Line No. 2.
The database contained the knowledge needed to manufacture solar panels, and the materials were sourced locally. Some of the vessels and equipment on the production line had been adapted from equipment salvaged from the Research Zone.
Orange Star had no shortage of sand. What mattered, of course, was the silicon extracted from it.
After a series of processing and purification steps, it could become that most important semiconductor material.
Water Blue Star's use of silicon was no less extensive than that of Earth in his previous life. After all, it was already 2054.
It could be found in all sorts of integrated chip circuits and everyday electronic components, including computer CPUs, displays, glass, and special coating materials.
Inside Factory No. 1, the chaotic, primitive workshop had been transformed into specialized production lines through reorganized workflows and tailored processes.
Luo Qi divided Factory No. 1 as follows.
Production Line No. 1: silicon extraction and production
Production Line No. 2: solar panel assembly
Drive Motor Workshop No. 3 (awaiting construction)
Production Line No. 4: circuits, resistors, and other components (awaiting construction)
Production Line No. 5: high-energy batteries (priority project)
There was also a general-purpose workshop inside, responsible for steel smelting and recycling, as well as producing special substances required for manufacturing.
Various rare elements would also be mined and brought back. They were indispensable foundations of industrial production and modern technological civilization.
The experimental solar panel was set up in the sunlight, and Luo Qi soon obtained its performance data.
Its efficiency differed little from that of human-made solar panels, making large-scale production feasible. The light industrial factory immediately increased its refining of silicon and certain metals, focusing on meeting the base's production targets.
In the hours that followed, a steady stream of solar panels rolled off the production line and were mounted on simple silicon supports.
No stars were visible in the black sky, while sunlight shone brightly across the red ground.
The forest of mounted solar panels contained both old panels and new ones.
Stendhal worked with the robotic vehicles to connect the superconducting wires. The vehicles completed the connections, and as the consolidated wiring was connected to the relay, energy began flowing steadily into the base's electrical system.
Electricity from the grid even began feeding back into the battery storage station. This abundance of power meant that Luo Qi's Factory No. 1 could operate at full capacity, bringing its efficiency fully into play.
Luo Qi decided to demonstrate the terrifying productive capacity of a machine civilization.
Day 26: 300 solar panels manufactured
Mining vehicle collection
Various metals: 0.5 tonnes
Daily steel output: 0.4 tonnes (with losses)
Sand: 2.3 tonnes
Day 27: 470 solar panels manufactured
Mining vehicle collection...
Day 28: 465 solar panels manufactured
Mining vehicle collection...
As construction of the base progressed, the stock of metal Luo Qi had inherited from the old base was exhausted.
Construction of the solar power station continued-
Factory No. 1 churned out supplies at a frantic pace, and Luo Qi began acquiring large quantities of equipment. He separated chemical production from the general-purpose workshop, turning it into a dedicated chemical workshop.
Day 29-
A power supply alone was not enough; motors were indispensable for providing motive power. The technical information for producing motors was even simpler.
Through Luo Qi's research, Orange Star's first small motor appeared, its first metal superconducting wire was produced, and its first electrical component was manufactured...
Luo Qi accelerated the integration of everything inside Factory No. 1, installing locally manufactured robotic arms along the assembly lines.
A palm-sized sheet of transparent glass was covered in recessed circuit paths. As a small robotic arm embedded metal wires into them, the glass sheet began turning into a complete circuit board.
Metal rings served as the corresponding soldering points for electronic components.
Factory No. 1, cobbled together entirely from assorted parts, still produced crude electronics that were nowhere near the quality of the circuit boards salvaged from the old base.
A human-made chip the size of a fingernail could contain hundreds of millions of transistors.
But for Luo Qi, independent production capacity mattered most. Upgrades were something to consider only after his productive capacity was sufficient.
Once he had enough power, Luo Qi began calculating the possible applications of Elementary Electromagnetism.
He sought the electromagnetic equipment currently needed for the base's development.
All electromagnetic equipment did was convert electricity into another form of force...
Luo Qi planned the base's expansion three days ahead, trying every means to raise his civilization's level and urging this "seed" to grow.
All it needed was time, enough time to develop...
Day 30-
The light industrial factory's mature Production Line No. 2 reached a daily output of 533 solar panels.
Now that Luo Qi could manufacture his own motors and structural components, large ceiling-mounted robotic arms also became plentiful.
They worked alongside the robotic arms on the ground-level assembly lines to process the products moving down them.
They replaced the robotic vehicles that had been moving along both sides of the production lines.
These homemade motors were not as precise as stepper motors.
But Luo Qi equipped every overhead arm with optical eyes to provide real-time error compensation.
At the same time, he researched stepper motors.
The solar power station's output surpassed the base's maximum total daily electricity consumption.
The completed Production Line No. 5 finished its trial production of a high-energy battery sample: a battery with a black silicon-based casing filled with high-density material.
The established knowledge from the database required no research or validation on his part.
The battery sample underwent testing...
Day 31-
Only after three further rounds of improvements did the new battery reach 75% of the performance of human-made batteries.
Luo Qi's chemical workshop still lacked many of the necessary materials.
The battery model was finalized as Red No. 1, and construction began on the battery storage station project.
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