Chapter 151: Rubbish is a Resource!

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio  Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

After the few days of debauchery in the villa of Junting Grand Court, Chen Jin put on the ordinary clothing that he had originally worn and returned to his home in the Court of Happiness.

…

On Planet of Haierfa, in the central district of the Base of Operations, an office building was located across the garden villa. In the office building, Chen Jin appeared in the hall of the fifteenth story where a holographic sand table stood. In the center of the hall, a sand table that was even greater than a film set was presented to him. A holographic image of a planet floated above the sand table. The planet was a translucent blue orb that was slowly spinning on its axis.

Naturally, this planet was Haierfa. The image of the AI, Nuwa, was reporting on the latest progress on the remodeling of Haierfa. “Master, the first area to be remodeled is the northern Mi continent where our Base is located. It has an area of 2,471 square kilometers. Two-thirds of it are polar climate regions, hence it will be more difficult to remodel those areas. Territories that could potentially undergo remodeling are estimated to be a total area of 1,630 square kilometers. So, out of the 1,630 artificial lakes that I have to start digging, construction has already started on 581. We are mobilizing 3.846 million robots and 112,000 large-sized engineering machines. As the terrain is composed of lowlands, we can start the digging on any location within the lowlands. Realistically, there is not a huge amount of work to be done. One lot can be completed within a year. In addition, we can utilize the air transport carriers in the adjacent port of Wenjing Aerospace. I have also repaired and remodeled a large group of cargo ships into icebreaker transporters. In total, we have 127 icebreaking transporters and 2 nuclear-powered ice diggers. The empty tonnage of the fleet is 2,040,000 tons. The fleet has a full load tonnage of 6,560,000 tons. It can carry 4,520,000 tons of fresh water per trip… Currently, the transport capability of the fleet does not even meet a thousandth of our needs. I am currently carrying out new ideas to increase the ease of supplying fresh water to the lakes.”

Nuwa explained, “For example, by means of rainmaking. Alternatively, they could build some iceberg tugboats and tow the icebergs to the shore, and then further inland. They would wait for the ice to melt into liquid and transport it directly into the artificial lakes via high-pressure pipelines.”

In short, the level of complexity involved in this vast project of environment remodeling was beyond the imagination of the average Joe.

Chen Jin had heard enough. His head felt like it was going to explode. He waved his hand. “Stop detailing the specifics of the remodeling process. I just want a planet with verdant hills, clear waters, and a blue sky with white clouds.”

“Rest assured, master. I will complete the task by the given deadline. The current rate of the remodeling process is not fast. However, it will rapidly accelerate after the initial phase. In addition, I speculate that the task of remodeling the environment of Haierfa may be completed a few years in advance.”

“Completed in advance?” Chen Jin’s eyes brightened. “How can it be completed in advanced?”

“It’s because we have much more resources at our disposal than anticipated.” Nuwa explained that the huge quantities of robots she had sent out would also conduct a thorough search in the nearby villages, towns, and factories in the process of excavating the lake. Even if that equipment was buried under many tons of sand, they would find it. For every village or town that was excavated, it meant a significant “reward” would be uncovered.

Nuwa continued, “Although the mineral resources of this planet are near exhaustion, they have not completely disappeared. They still remain on this planet! For example, steel. After entering the Industrial Age, the total steel production by human societies exceeded 200 billion tons. Steel was used in countless building materials, steel products, and the vast number of everyday consumer products. Such a vast quantity of steel no longer exist as metals in their original form underground. Instead, they are in the forms of various products. They have become something that we can touch and hold. There is no need for mining machines to extract, concentrate, and smelt the metals. Steel is easily obtainable from everywhere. This is a tremendous reserve of resources. There are 200 billion tons of steel products. Even if we collected only 10%, it would be enough for us to abandon the idea of extracting iron. There is no need to extract aluminum, copper, gold, silver, tungsten, iron, etc. We only need to gather 20% more of what we already have in our reserves. That would be sufficient for our uses.”

Nuwa smiled. “Master, actually, even I had made a mistake in judgment. We thought that all the resources on Haierfa had been exhausted and we’d have to start extraction. We only focused on increasing our quantities, and neglected the huge amounts of resources that had entered society, becoming the reserves of the whole civilization. Take the example of a small town with less than a hundred households. The robots had scoured and found thousands of tons of metals. In another abandoned petrol chemical plant, the robots had gathered more than 20,000 tons of scrap steel. When a planet has become so desolate to the point that there is nearly no human left, we will suddenly find that resources have become so abundant, and they are all lying on the surface of the ground. Therefore, master, we do not lack the majority of resources. We only have to increase the intensity and scope of the robots’ search. Resources will not restrain the pace of our development.”

As he listened to Nuwa, Chen Jin nodded repeatedly. He summed up succinctly, “I understand what you mean. It can be concluded in one sentence; ‘Rubbish is a resource!”

Nuwa said, “Yes, master!” Following which, she revealed her plan for “The Ultimate Ransack.” As they were remodeling the environment, millions of robots and engineering machines would dig three feet into the ground. They would excavate all the “rubbish” on the planet, gather them, and categorize them. Then, they would either remelt the “rubbish” and smelt it again, or reuse it directly. This would most fully utilize all the “rubbish” they had found.

“Good. Nuwa, it’s ok to waste a little more time to locate and excavate these resources. Try your best to pick everything clean; no corner is to be missed!” Chen Jin did not want any single darling to remain forever buried under the yellow sand in the process of this Ultimate Ransack.

“Yes, master!”

…

After his talk with Nuwa, Chen Jin took the elevator down to the eighth story. A special device was placed in the center of the hall on the eighth story: a top version of a simulated game compartment. The compartment had a milky white appearance that was smooth and round. With its capsule shape, it looked like an enlarged pigeon’s egg. It was just big enough for a fully grown adult to enter.

In addition, the base of this compartment was composed of a group of thick and solid mechanical limbs. These limbs were able to exercise mobility of up to six degrees (up, down, left, right, front, and back). After the user had entered the simulated environment, they could complement whatever was happening in the simulated environment by moving, accelerating, decelerating, rising, and lowering. It was said that if the user also wore the simulated reality headgear, the environment would become 1% to 2% closer to reality, thus becoming that much closer to a full match with reality. It was a necessity for the rich geek gamers.

There was also a built-in nutrient solution system and a urine collection device in this game compartment. These would ensure that the user could fight in the simulated environment for three days in a row. He would not have to quit halfway to take care of bodily needs. Chen Jin laid down inside the compartment and wore the simulated reality headgear. Quietly, he muttered, “landing.” An infinite white light filled his sight.

After the trembling he experienced in his mind stopped, he was wearing a white astronaut suit and stood on the peripheral platform of a giant spaceport. Raising his head, he saw that beyond the transparent dome of the spaceport was a dark background dotted with countless stars. The scenery felt extremely quiet and profound.

“Liming” Spaceport. Number 001 Novice Base.

Chen Jin embarked on the half-completed simulated reality game “The Interstellar Homeland OL.” He had become the master of this spaceport and the supreme commander of this Novice Base. Beside him, a colorful glow appeared, transforming into the AI, Alice. “Master, I’ve completed the design of the interstellar battleship that you wanted me to develop. Here, it’s this battleship below.”

Chen Jin’s gaze followed the direction that Alice’s finger was pointing at. It finally came to rest on the all-black battleship in the dock.

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