met free Chapter 47 Foundation
Chapter 47 Foundation
Enpu stood once again before the adamantite door on the third underground level. The door slid open silently, revealing the intact rock strata behind it. The light from the floodlights shone on the rough rock face; there was no shaft, nothing at all.
The field unfolded. The atoms of the rock strata spread out in his consciousness. The decomposition command was issued. The rock strata transformed into an atomic cloud at the boundary of perception, surging into the warehouse. At the same time, a vertical shaft grew out of the decomposed space—a fine gold lining extended downwards from the shaft opening, its surface segmented and ring-shaped, with circumferential welds spaced at regular intervals. Lights were embedded in the lining, one every fifty meters. The shaft was over twenty meters in diameter, just enough to accommodate a small freight elevator, but for now, it was only for his own use and that of his accompanying servant. The hundred-meter-class freight elevator wasn't here; that was for future ground logistics.
He activated his anti-gravity backpack, his boots lifted off the ground, and his body hovered half a meter in the air. Without pausing, he continued vertically downwards. One by one, lights flickered on above him, then dimmed behind him.
A kilometer deep. The elevator shaft ends here. The rock strata are neatly cut open, revealing the initial shape of the first underground space.
The field continued to unfold. Atoms condensed, and a metallic skeleton grew from the void, ribs taking shape one by one on the dome's arc, filled with terracotta steel lining. The dome had a flat bottom. This was the structure Enpu had pre-planned deep underground—a semi-circular dome, five kilometers in diameter at its base and two and a half kilometers high. Such underground spaces would be densely distributed across rock strata spanning thousands of kilometers, clustered together, each responsible for a different industrial function. The current excavation was only the first phase, far from the scale envisioned in his blueprint.
The first underground space: within a dome five kilometers in diameter, dozens of rows of Thinker mainframes are arranged on the ground. Each mainframe's core processor, logic circuits, and data bus underlying lattice—a monolithic single-crystal structure. On the surface, the casing is assembled, with side panels secured by bolts. Data cables converge from the top of the cabinets into pre-buried conduits, running along the corridor walls.
This is the brain of the entire underground industrial system. All instructions for scheduling production lines, managing warehouse inventory, and allocating energy are issued from here. The standby indicator lights of the main units form a faint network of light in the darkness of the dome.
Starting from the first underground space, a horizontal passageway extends deep into the rock strata. The passageway is over twenty meters in diameter, lined with refined gold, and illuminated by lights embedded in the dome. The floor is paved with double tracks, spaced precisely, allowing for the rapid movement of trolleys and cargo containers. The anti-gravity backpack carries him horizontally, the tracks flashing past under the lights.
The second underground space: a semi-circular dome, also five kilometers in diameter. A giant plasma reactor occupies the center of the space, with an output power hundreds of times that of surface reactors. Its sole purpose is to supply all industrial facilities deep underground.
The reactor's cavity, confinement coils, and core layer of energy conduits—all parts invisible to the naked eye—are integrally molded at the atomic level. The outer shell, however, is welded in sections, with clearly visible weld seams, and the flange interfaces of the cooling pipes are neatly arranged. A dense network of pipes and cables extends from the reactor shell. Coolant pipes, data fiber optic cables, and power cables crawl along the walls of the space, converging into cable trays at the top of the passageway and extending backward.
From the second underground space to the third, another several tens of kilometers stretched out. The horizontal passageway continued to extend, the tracks reflecting the light. Sufficient space was reserved here for future expansion.
The third underground space: a production line cluster. It comprises thirteen smaller underground spaces, each a semi-circular dome three kilometers in diameter. Each space contains a complete machine tool production line. The spaces are connected by passageways several hundred meters long, also equipped with double tracks that extend to each buffer zone and raw material warehouse.
Each production line originates from the Voss Core Pulsating Production Line Blueprint within the Marcus Ambrose Data Core. Marcus, a fourth-order Tech Priest, collected a vast amount of technical data from the Voss Foundry world, including the complete design of this fully automated servo production line. It is not a fragment, not an incomplete copy, but an extremely detailed technological legacy—from the genetic cultivation of organic carriers to the neural interface molding of wet parts cores, from the precision casting parameters of metal parts to the welding sequence of assembly robotic arms, every step is meticulously documented.
At the far end of the production line are rows of cylindrical glass nutrient tanks, each labeled with a binary code. Suspended inside are genetically engineered organic carriers, retaining only basic neural functions, entirely used as biomass material for the core of the wet components. The temperature control system of the nutrient tanks is independently managed by a built-in "Thinker" module, automatically adjusting the nutrient solution ratio, pH value, and dissolved oxygen concentration. The first batch of embryos requires twelve days to mature. After the first batch is produced, the nutrient tanks enter continuous production mode—mature wet components are removed by robotic arms and temporarily stored in a low-temperature preservation chamber; new organic substrate and culture medium are automatically added to the empty tanks, and the development cycle of the next batch of embryos begins. As long as raw materials are continuously available, the production of wet components will not be interrupted.
Behind the nutrient tank is the mechanical parts casting area. An automated casting unit heats high-purity metal raw materials to a liquid state, precisely pours them into molds, and rapidly cools and solidifies them. The formed parts are conveyed to the grinding station by a conveyor belt to remove parting lines and gate burrs, and then scanned for dimensional tolerances by an optical inspection instrument. Qualified products are released to the assembly area, while unqualified products are directly returned to the furnace for recasting.
The robotic arms in the assembly area are arranged in a ring. First station: Neural interface docking—the brainstem region of the wet component is implanted into a neural interface socket in the head compartment of the metal skeleton, initiating a connection between bioelectrical signals and the electronic system. Second station: Circulatory system grafting—the cooling pipe interfaces are docked with artificial blood vessels surrounding the wet component. Third station: Power component installation—a miniature plasma reactor and backup battery are embedded in the center of the torso. Fourth station: Outer shell armor plate assembly—ceramic steel plates are bolted to the skeleton. Fifth station: Software initialization—basic behavioral logic and tool operation protocols are injected. Sixth station: Functional testing—the six robotic arms sequentially perform actions such as grasping, welding, cutting, and digging, while a sensor array detects various parameters. Once all parameters are qualified, a conveyor belt transports the robot to the finished product buffer area. Each robot that comes off the assembly line automatically connects to the underground network's central computing hub, where tasks are uniformly assigned.
The current product model is a general-purpose large engineering machine. The body is approximately two meters tall, inverted trapezoidal in shape, with six robotic arms extending outwards from the turntable joint at the top of the torso. Each arm is equipped with quick-change interfaces at its end—a welding torch, a quick-release wrench, a plasma cutter, a small loading bucket, a precision drilling rig, and sensor probes. Two robust engineering legs are equipped with electromagnetic grippers.
Twelve days later, the first batch of engineering servitude machines will roll off the production line, numbering in the thousands. The finished product buffer areas of the thirteen production lines will be released simultaneously and taken over by the Thinker Array, which will meticulously divide the workstations for operation.
The production line will then operate continuously, with thousands of metalworkers rolling off the line daily. Following the engineering servitors, other models will be available—general service, combat patrol, administrative/civilian, serpentine servitors specifically for pipeline maintenance, and flight servitors for high-altitude operations. Each production line can switch product models by adjusting blueprint parameters, and the central computing hub will automatically allocate capacity based on demand gaps.
This is just the first step. Enpu has reserved coordinates for thousands of underground spaces of varying sizes within the subsurface rock formations spanning thousands of kilometers. Current production is barely sufficient for the domed city, but Garros needs far more.
The sixteenth to thirtieth underground spaces are a cluster of warehouses. Fourteen five-kilometer-long domes are filled with nutrient solution tanks, metal profiles, and chemical raw materials. Shaping these raw materials is as rapid as decomposition. Tracks connect the warehouses to the production lines, with flatbed carts automatically moving back and forth.
Nearly a month had passed by the time the last underground storage space was completed. Enpu floated in the passageway, the low-frequency pulses from its energy core penetrating the rock layers and reaching this point so faintly as to be almost imperceptible, yet the adamantine skeleton was still trembling slightly.
He turned back, passing through the production line cluster, the energy heart, and the computing hub, before returning to the elevator shaft and ascending vertically.
Every ten hours or so, he would switch his consciousness to Cohen to check on the Black Pearl's navigation status. The Black Pearl was still traveling in subspace, and everything seemed normal.
He stepped onto the ground and sat down on a rock outside the governor's mansion. In the distance, the greyish-yellow wasteland stretched to the horizon. In the direction of the spaceport, the indicator lights of the orbital defense platform could be faintly seen flashing in the darkness. The dome was not yet completed, but the outline of the foundation had already drawn a huge circle on this wasteland.