The high-frequency oscillator, a marvel of construction and resource gathering, held immense significance for Su Wu and the entire Farmhouse Shelter.
Over the following days, Su Wu gradually introduced it across various sectors in Jianghe City. In the sixth underground level of the Farmhouse Shelter, the excavation speed of the engineering team increased by 2.2 times, allowing them to expand the underground space by 2.2 million square meters daily—equivalent to the combined volume of 36 aircraft carriers.
Even according to Su Wu's current plans, constructing a residential area with standard dormitories and activity spaces required building four additional plantations to ensure sufficient food supply. The space equivalent to 36 aircraft carriers could comfortably house 300,000 people long-term, effectively building a small city every day.
The previously underutilized tunnel boring machines, now equipped with specially designed high-frequency oscillators, saw their excavation speed increase by over tenfold. If construction proceeded from both ends simultaneously, they could dig a 10-kilometer passenger tunnel or a 30-kilometer material transport tunnel in a single day.
Simultaneously, more efficient mining vehicles and debris recovery trucks were redesigned and produced. In the mines, the introduction of new mining vehicles increased mining efficiency by over sevenfold. With the urgent deployment of tunnel boring machines, they quickly established underground material transport channels linking the mines to nearby subsidiary shelters, completely resolving the previous issue of insufficient transport capacity to bring mined ores to external subsidiary shelters for smelting into finished materials.
As a result, within just a few days, Su Wu increased the output of finished resources from the mines from 13,000 tons per day to a staggering 245,000 tons, turning it into a significant and stable source of income.
In the ruined towns around Jianghe City, Su Wu deployed over a dozen debris recovery vehicles and nearly a hundred auxiliary transport trucks to dismantle buildings and recover all resources, including concrete. Each debris recovery vehicle could process nearly 3,000 tons of construction waste daily, separating valuable metals and processing the rest into concrete powder. However, due to limited transport capacity, these recovered materials were stored in nearby vacant shelters at a rate of over 30,000 tons per day, waiting for future transport to the Farmhouse Shelter.
In addition to these conventional applications, Su Wu also designed and produced road repair rollers equipped with high-frequency oscillators. These machines could efficiently crush and flatten roads deformed by earthquakes or other accidents, using rapid-setting cement for final repairs. Even hard, icy snow covering the roads could be easily crushed and thrown aside.
With the help of these specialized road repair machines, Su Wu completed the repair of the main road from Yu'an City to Jianghe City in just two to three days, increasing the speed of large-scale transport convoys from around 10 km/h to nearly 30 km/h.
"Although frequent earthquakes and blizzards require constant high-intensity maintenance, most of the time, it can now be considered a reliable transport route," Su Wu remarked.
This powerful and rapid repair capability, even in the pre-apocalyptic world, would have been awe-inspiring. If the surface temperature could be maintained at around -50 to -60 degrees Celsius without further decline, Su Wu was confident he could quickly rebuild cities on the surface and restore the prosperity of humanity.
However, while marveling at the incredible growth speed brought about by the high-frequency oscillator-equipped tools, Su Wu couldn't shake off a lingering concern. The source of his unease was the Underworld Flower, currently being studied by Chen Yue in the fifth underground level of the Farmhouse Shelter's biological laboratory.
According to Chen Yue's preliminary research, the Underworld Flower could rapidly absorb nutrients from the surrounding soil and extract water from snow and even ice. It grew rapidly using any form of light and heat in the environment. However, Chen Yue also discovered that the Underworld Flower's genes bore clear signs of artificial modification. Upon reaching a certain stage of growth, it would produce fruit filled with a thick liquid, which, despite being nutrient-rich, was inedible and indigestible for humans and other mammals. Even when used as fertilizer, the toxins within prevented all plants, including the Underworld Flower itself, from absorbing the nutrients. It seemed as if this fruit was custom-made for a specific race.
"Underground, magma, the seeds of the Underworld Flower," Su Wu mused, connecting these clues and frowning. He couldn't help but recall the purple crystal discovered not far from Chongzhou City, which had wiped out a private shelter by consuming organic matter, evolving from a lifeless core into an embryo with distinct animal characteristics. If it could consume the fruit of the Underworld Flower...
At this thought, Su Wu felt a chill run down his spine.
"With the surface already in such a dire state, other intelligent races might emerge to compete with humans for living space," Su Wu sighed. Then, his eyes hardened as a decision formed in his mind.
"This thing cannot remain."
After a series of operations on the control panel, Su Wu unlocked the military command interface of the Farmhouse Shelter, mobilizing dozens of drone and combat drone clusters to board snow transport vehicles and head to the Qinling Mountains. Simultaneously, a heavy artillery cluster stationed at the Farmhouse Shelter began replenishing ammunition and undergoing maintenance.
Since the Underworld Flower was harmful and potentially served as a food source for a race that might prey on humans, it was best to eradicate it entirely, preventing it from growing further.
However, as Su Wu was deploying his forces, the artificial intelligence, while calculating the possible locations of the Underworld Flower, discovered reports of similar sightings in other parts of the Eastern Continent on the now nearly 1 billion-strong active network. It promptly forwarded these as reference materials to Su Wu.
These reports shattered Su Wu's resolve. If the Underworld Flower existed elsewhere in the Eastern Continent, it was likely present in areas beyond the network's reach as well. Attempting to completely eradicate it by cleaning the Qinling Mountains was now almost impossible.
"Let's continue the operation. Clearing one area is better than nothing," Su Wu thought, somewhat disheartened, but he didn't retract his previous orders. However, the previous focus on handling a major issue was gone. Regardless of the outcome in the Qinling Mountains, it no longer mattered. Even the best efforts would hardly prevent the situation from deteriorating.
"Without a doubt, whether it's the purple crystal or some other unknown race, war with humanity in the near future is inevitable," Su Wu concluded.
Above the Farmhouse Shelter, the sky grew increasingly overcast. More and more snowflakes fell from the clouds, carried by the biting wind, burying all storage buildings in a blanket of white. Besides Su Wu, no one yet knew that a more deadly danger was on the horizon.
In the following days, the Farmhouse Shelter and the surface continued to operate as usual. The underground shelter expanded at a rate of 2.2 million square meters daily. The second large-scale migration from around Yu'an City successfully brought over 5 million tons of supplies and nearly 300,000 people to the Farmhouse Shelter. These individuals, the elite from the surrounding areas of Yu'an City and the Kuang River basin, significantly improved the efficiency and quality of Jianghe City's hospitals, schools, and affiliated research institutes.
In the background, Su Wu quietly increased the production quota for military equipment. The Super Factory on the seventh underground level of the Farmhouse Shelter operated day and night, dedicating all spare production capacity to manufacturing weapons, ammunition, and more heavy main battle spider robots and combat drones. Every day, important locations such as the surface of the Farmhouse Shelter, Jianghe City, and the mountain mines saw an increase in defensive facilities like turrets, rocket launchers, and machine gun towers.
All able-bodied workers had most of their rest time canceled, undergoing four hours of military training daily. The goal wasn't to quickly boost their combat effectiveness but to ensure they could run faster in emergencies.
On January 22nd, the third large-scale migration, spanning five days, concluded, adding 8 million tons of supplies and 400,000 people to the Farmhouse Shelter. Most valuable materials scattered around Yu'an City had been scavenged. The fourth migration would primarily focus on transporting people.
On the same day, Su Wu's long-dormant main quest in the apocalypse system finally completed.
[You have completed the main quest: Survive 180 days in the apocalypse.]
[Quest reward: Spherical Lightning Control Chamber.]
After Su Wu confirmed the reward, a mild tremor lasting ten seconds occurred. In the seventh underground level of the Farmhouse Shelter's core area, a previously unplanned space began expanding, squeezing in a standard cylindrical metal structure with a diameter of 500 meters and a thickness of 36 meters.
[Spherical Lightning Control Chamber.]
[Total volume: 7,065,000 cubic meters.]
[Function: Can store 3 Tael units of energy.]
[Note: This is a miraculous structure capable of storing and stably releasing energy by creating artificial spherical lightning. For civilizations just entering the interstellar era, its energy storage capacity is practically infinite.]
Su Wu wasn't sure how to evaluate the value of this massive artificial structure. He turned his gaze to the control console's screen, where the shelter's main interface had added a new operable area. Su Wu could now store the entire shelter's electricity into the Spherical Lightning Control Chamber or extract electricity from it at will. However, since the chamber had just appeared and hadn't been charged, its energy storage was currently zero, allowing only charging operations.
"One Tael unit of energy is equivalent to the total heat a standard star emits in a day. With a total storage of three Tael units, it's roughly one trillion times the annual global electricity generation at the peak of human civilization before the apocalypse. It can indeed be considered nearly infinite. But in terms of practical use, it doesn't seem to bring significant improvements to the current situation."
In essence, the Spherical Lightning Control Chamber was just a large battery. No matter how vast its storage, it couldn't provide Su Wu with any new resources. However, the implicit benefits weren't insignificant. Even now, with the chamber's existence, the nuclear power plant outside the main shelter, which provided the primary electricity, became less critical. Su Wu could expand the nuclear power plant's scale, converting as much fuel into electricity as possible and storing it in the chamber. He could also restart thermal power generators, converting surplus coal and oil into electricity for future use.
In a way, this could be seen as a nearly infinite storage warehouse for fuel.
(End of Chapter)