Chapter 109: Dreamscape: Frenzied Mining

On the surface of a desolate and silent planet.

A super machine glistening with silver-white metallic luster stands tall on a plain.

Three kilometers away from it, there are still three square-shaped structures, bearing a dark aquamarine metallic luster—the steel jungle!

Haha, the entire production base is still there.

At this moment, Du Qiu finally lets go of his worries; he had been concerned for a full four months!

Then, he notices a problem—the supermagnetic imaging subsystem can’t penetrate the interior of the steel jungle’s three super machines.

Of course, if an alien civilization has such a method of perception and detection, there would certainly be countermeasures; otherwise, wouldn’t all secrets be exposed?

However, if he were to obtain this detection method, there are no countermeasures on Blue Star—wouldn’t many places be transparent to him?

Especially since this detection method can reach as far as 1000 kilometers, even more useful than radar.

With this tool, those so-called stealth fighters and battleships of old America would become a joke.

Du Qiu is getting excited; he must think of a way to replicate this subsystem. If it were used in Tang Country’s military equipment, that would truly be akin to having “eyes everywhere.”

Setting aside this aspect, merely applying this perception function in various production processes of super machines shows its importance to the perception of intelligent machines.

Du Qiu is currently focusing on developing robots and intelligent machines; how could he not replicate such a way of perception?

Composing himself, Du Qiu begins to check the images from afar to a closer range. When the image reaches the default maximum distance of 10 kilometers, Du Qiu is stunned by the steel jungle stretches before him.

Taking the super machine as the center and drawing a 10-kilometer radius circle around it, in the 360-degree direction, there are no less than six steel jungles.

Each steel jungle is composed of four squares, except these steel jungles bear a dark aquamarine metallic luster, not the silver-white of the super machine where Du Qiu descended.

Of course, these six producers are also three kilometers away from the steel jungle where the maintainers are located.

It seems this three-kilometer distance must have some significance; otherwise, it wouldn’t be like this.

Du Qiu doesn’t ponder this problem much; he’s wondering why the super machine he is operating is different from the rest.

He remembers blindly operating the machine once, leading to the maintainer shutting down and restarting it, and at that time the maintainer modified the name and set the level of the super machine.

Now, it seems this super machine originally did not belong to this batch of super intelligent machines belonging to the resource collection and production base.

The last time was brief; when he checked the consciousness upload module of the processor, the feedback he got was, “This function is forbidden; if you need to use it, you must obtain the dominator’s authorization!”

Evidently, these super machines all have consciousness upload modules, meaning they can accept one’s own consciousness.

However, the consciousness upload module is disabled, and this silver-white super machine is different—it’s not disabled.

This means he had really lucked out in being able to connect to the super machine.

Du Qiu is baffled by these mysteries, as he is startled by the activity in the surrounding steel jungle.

Previously, Du Qiu had tried every possible way to witness a busy production base, but every time he descended, the surroundings were very quiet.

He always thought that the processors and maintainers probably operated when he was not present.

Right now, Du Qiu is shocked by the bustling scene before him.

There are at least three steel jungles overhead, each with a not-so-small, boxy aircraft hovering!

These flying vessels are about 500 meters long, 300 meters wide, and 200 meters high.

Just by their size, they easily surpass the largest weapon aircraft carriers on Blue Star.

Even though Du Qiu’s super machine is 10 kilometers away from that place, he still feels a certain sense of oppression.

This resource planet is also a terrestrial planet without an atmosphere, and Du Qiu does not know how large it actually is.

Yet why is this time’s collection and production base so densely distributed? The posture of this frenzied mining seems to be intent on completely depleting the planet in a short time.

Silently, Du Qiu extends the detection range of the supermagnetic imaging subsystem to 200 kilometers.

Immediately, with the super machine as the center, images rush in from a 360-degree range within a 200-kilometer radius sphere.

Startled, Du Qiu quickly controls the direction of the imaging, setting it to focus on the north, the area he had just been viewing.

He quickly discovers from the images that, 100 kilometers away, there are multiple collection and production bases.

He carefully changes directions, and then makes new discoveries in the southwest direction—at 150 kilometers away, there appear huge canyons.

The canyons are clearly not naturally formed; obviously, that area has already been mined.

For a moment, Du Qiu continues to expand the detection range in this direction—200 kilometers, 300 kilometers, even further at 500 kilometers away…

All are huge canyons reaching thousands of kilometers deep; Du Qiu has no way of knowing exactly how deep they are.

Because it has already exceeded the limit of the supermagnetic imaging subsystem, Du Qiu can only vaguely classify it as thousands of kilometers deep.

Afterward, Du Qiu finds that not only in the southwest direction, but actually all over the south, there are no collection and production bases beyond 150 kilometers.

Du Qiu speculates that this side of the resource star’s surface must have formed many valleys that are thousands of kilometers deep.

If observed from space, it would seem as if the resource star has been bitten by something.

In an instant, Du Qiu feels a chill down his spine; he has a feeling of locusts devouring the planet.

Why is this alien civilization mining this resource planet so crazily?

Du Qiu thinks it over, decides not to continue looking, and instead directs the supermagnetic imaging subsystem to focus on the hovering aircraft that resemble transport ships.

Sure enough, the supermagnetic imaging subsystem cannot see through these ships, but Du Qiu still images every part of the entire ship.

He wants to study it thoroughly, such as what the power systems might be like or where the cockpit is.

Perhaps in the future when designing interstellar transport and landing craft, he might refer to and use these designs.

Anyway, the scenes he sees in his dreams, he can remember very clearly.

Due to the positioning of the transport ships above each base, Du Qiu manages to piece together the entire exterior of a transport ship by observing ships from multiple directions.

Just then, Du Qiu suddenly notices from the sensory system’s images that a beam of light projects onto his super machine from the square where the maintainer is located.

The robot he has seen before is now descending instantly into the steel jungle of the super machine, using this bridge of light.

Could this be any more coincidental?

Du Qiu feels somewhat resentful in his heart; he has just connected, and wonders if he has to exit the dream connection proactively like last time?

Because he had just successfully traversed backward in time and was somewhat apprehensive of being discovered by this robot, that’s why he left.

Now, he just arrived, and to leave so soon would be sorrowful after his long four-month wait.

Thinking it over, Du Qiu decides to observe what this robot has come for.

After all, the super machine seems to be in a production state already, just not yet at work.

It’s just that as he was considering this, he instinctively scans the task list and is instantly stunned to find that the task list is empty!

Seeing the robot walking towards the cylindrical object not far from its landing spot, Du Qiu rapidly calls the intelligent core, clears all external image data obtained by the supermagnetic imaging perception subsystem, and resets the perception system to its default position.

Then, Du Qiu quietly waits for the alien robot’s next move.

At this moment, the intelligent core suddenly receives a message.

“Maintainer 8220010126 directive: Preparer 10220028801 to receive the latest production task list and production program and undergo new access settings.”

Du Qiu understands instantly that him connecting tonight was definitely a coincidence.

Perhaps the super machine had just been allocated to the new resource star and had just switched from the transport to the production state, so it had not yet commenced new production activities.

In other words, this resource star was originally the responsibility of other intelligent production machines, and now the production base where his super machine is located has been added as well.

This can only show the determination of the alien civilization to mine this resource star to the end.

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