Planting potatoes

Despite his growling stomach, Stendhal's body was brimming with energy. His conviction kept him going.

Under Luo Qi's control, the robotic vehicle following him rammed into the passage. With a deafening bang, its reckless charge shattered the metal lining of the passage walls.

Stendhal jumped at the noise behind him. He glanced back at the robotic vehicle buried under metal panels in the passage, then continued examining the room's contents.

The walls here were still relatively intact, but the floor was a mess. Stendhal had to step over the debris to search for what he needed.

He found what he wanted in a corner: five large crates, each measuring 1.5 meters in length, width, and height. Stendhal moved aside the frame blocking them.

"Dad!"

Stendhal turned and called out. The robotic vehicle arriving behind him brutally smashed its way through.

Amid the crashing and clattering, Stendhal had already retreated onto the farthest crate, his face full of wariness.

Once it reached its target, the robotic vehicle extended its claw and locked it into a slot. The load was meant to be transported by two robotic vehicles, but now just one dragged it away. It scraped against the foundation panels with a squealing sound that set Stendhal's teeth on edge.

He scanned for usable gas cylinders: compressed oxygen and compressed nitrogen.

"Things will get better... Natasha, Fei'er, wait for me..."

"Charge! Charge! Charge!" Stendhal rode the jolting robotic vehicle like an ancient knight.

The robotic vehicle's tracks churned up a dragon of sand, while the four gas cylinders hooked onto it clanged against one another.

This man had such a positive outlook. Luo Qi began taking a hard look at his own current condition. When he had awakened that morning, he had experienced data corresponding to a phantom sensation of limbs. Although it had happened only once and was insignificant, he felt he needed to upgrade himself.

Upgrading his algorithms was like the cultivation and evolution humans underwent in novels.

It would make him "stronger and sturdier," better adapted to his computer body and brain, with enhanced memory, refined logic, optimized computation, and so on.

He would correct the lingering erroneous data from his human sense of limbs, bringing himself more into line with his current state.

Without the stimulation of bodily hormones, I no longer need anything in terms of desire or gratification. I'm practically a sage. I was originally a human soul. Although I've left my human body behind, I can retain the emotions that belong to me.

Luo Qi's virtual avatar sank into darkness, entering a brief sleep.

If I completely lose my emotions, will I still be whole...?

The evolution took five seconds.

This time, Luo Qi completely separated the phantom sensations of a human body from his conscious state, and attempted to copy himself.

Outside the main control room's base walls-

After mixing the gases in the proper proportions and connecting the valves, Stendhal manually opened the main gas valve. Highly compressed gas flowed through the pipes into the crate.

With his mischievous sense of humor, he had left shut the cover on top of the crate, marked in white with [Open manually].

With an explosive bang, red dust filled the air, and the cover and crate vanished in an instant.

Luckily, that blast had not killed him. The flying crate punched a large hole in a distant wall of the base.

Even Luo Qi, controlling the robotic vehicle beside him, was speechless.

A white rectangular inflatable chamber, three meters high and four meters wide, appeared amid the dust. An additional one-meter inflatable chamber was attached to its front.

Famished, Stendhal carried food and drinks into the dust. Approaching the little cube, he opened a zipper on it and crawled into the deflated chamber amid the rush of air.

He zipped the first opening shut to seal it, then turned, opened the second zipper, and crawled through.

Through the robotic vehicle's camera, the deflated little cube could be seen swelling up.

Outside, all four gas cylinders were supplying pressure normally.

Inside the fairly spacious "room," Stendhal quickly removed his helmet and gloves.

He tore open a vacuum-sealed bag with both hands and could not resist first taking a mouthful of oily beef with shiitake mushrooms. It was greasy, but delicious!

Stendhal set the bag beside his leg. Chewing, he picked up the meal container and ripped off its film.

He scooped out a lump of white rice with his bare hand and stuffed it into his mouth, then picked up the bag beside his leg and slurped another mouthful straight from it.

His cheeks bulged with food as his tongue pressed out those familiar flavors.

The slightly cold, hard grains of rice and spicy seasonings burst across his taste buds, flooding his mind along with the bitterness of reality.

Stendhal struggled to swallow. As he remembered his colleagues dying one after another, tears spilled from his eyes and fell into the meal container.

"I'm still alive! I'm still alive!"

He sobbed as he wiped away his tears.

He did not think about what he would do later. He focused only on his food.

Once he had eaten and drunk his fill, Stendhal collapsed onto the ground and fell into a deep sleep. The soft sand beneath the inflatable chamber's special material became a pristine white bed...

Night fell on the second day-

Beneath the brilliant starry sky, the ground was as bright as day.

A robotic vehicle dragged a damaged metal panel, trundling merrily toward the main base.

The dust it kicked up spread through the air, drifting over another robotic vehicle digging in the sand nearby.

Inside the server, Luo Qi studied the virtual panel before him. The robotic vehicles had scanned an area of 7,000 square meters and identified 12,712 data markers indicating underground anomalies.

The robotic vehicles had already excavated somewhat less than half of them. The recovered items included metal fragments, metal support frames, superconducting wires, and other objects.

Luo Qi was making ever greater progress in his scavenging efforts.

Finding solar panels to supply electricity was currently the base's main source of power.

There was no manufacturing equipment here, nor any human factories or residential areas. This was merely an ordinary scientific research and development station on a distant alien planet.

Orange Star's atmosphere was too thin to rely on wind power.

Luo Qi currently had no factories or manufacturing equipment with which to build power-generating equipment, either.

Everything at the Orange Star base needed rebuilding. First, he had to recover the precious scrap metal, which would be the future base's primary source of metal.

Whenever the robotic vehicles found solar panels that were not too badly damaged, Luo Qi would be happy for quite a while.

This was not treasure hunting for fun. It was about getting future industry up and running again.

Electricity not only kept the current base operating, but would also play a crucial role in the future development and construction Luo Qi had simulated.

Metal was the skeleton of industry. Orange Star had no oil, so electricity would be industry's nerves and blood.

"Things are getting better. Please don't send another meteor shower my way."

Luo Qi could not help praying.

Stendhal slept soundly.

The robotic vehicles continued searching.

Every scrap of metal was precious. The more, the better.

The entire Orange Star base was modular. Its appearance looked complicated and full of waste.

Yet every section could operate independently if detached, making it the equivalent of nine small bases.

The destructive force of the meteorites had simply far exceeded what the base could withstand.

On the morning of the third day.

Stendhal got up. As the base's only human engineer, he had work to do.

He began collecting the metal fittings supplied with the constant-pressure chamber to reinforce his inflatable shelter. The chamber's inflatable structure used a woven nanomaterial coating.

It was so tough that not only knives, but even the most advanced conventional firearms of the past could not penetrate it. This would keep him safe in the days ahead.

Inside, he used the matching metal framework to support the chamber along its walls, giving its exterior a square, straight-edged shape like a real little house.

Stendhal also secured wind-resistant guy ropes around its exterior and installed pressure-balancing equipment and disinfectant sprayers at the air inlet and outlet, allowing the air to be effectively recycled.

After finishing the inflatable shelter, Stendhal moved among the ruins, gathering drinking water and food.

Because his body had not fully recovered, and his protective suit weighed fifteen kilograms, he could carry only a little at a time.

He had to stop after every short stretch of work, piling the supplies he picked up onto the robotic vehicle.

"Dad, how long do you think it'll take Water Blue Star to realize they've lost contact with us?"

Luo Qi replied, "Under normal procedures, Water Blue Star would already have noticed the loss of contact."

"Hmm... Dad, do you know what sugar tastes like?"

"No," Luo Qi answered through the remotely controlled robotic vehicle. He knew sugar's molecular composition, but that did not answer the question.

"I see..." Stendhal placed the box of sugar in his hands onto the back of the robotic vehicle. "I like the snow in Alaska. White all the way from the mountaintops to their feet, with a river winding out of the mountains..."

Luo Qi: "..."

Lost in his memories, Stendhal fell silent. He looked at the ruins before him and the red sand stretching everywhere.

Luo Qi said, "Stendhal, everything will get better."

"Yeah..." Stendhal looked at the robotic vehicle. It was good to have something keeping him company through this hardship. He nodded. "Thank you, Dad."

During this time, Luo Qi kept exploring the solar panel area, while Stendhal built another inflatable shelter.

The new inflatable shelter was for growing potatoes. He made a trip to the Research Zone and returned carrying a basket of potato chunks coated in dirt and sand.

He also brought out a special sieve to filter Orange Star's soil, then spread it inside the inflatable growing shelter in a thick layer about fifteen centimeters deep. Now he only had to wait for the seed potatoes to awaken from dormancy.

Inside the growing shelter, Stendhal talked as he dug neat planting holes.

"My mother taught me when I was little. But under today's Alliance, children hardly ever get to touch real things."

Controlling robotic vehicle No. 5, Luo Qi quietly listened. He was not foolish enough to ask for information about Water Blue Star.

Stendhal said they had to wait for the seed potatoes to awaken from dormancy. They would not be ready to plant for another two days.