After communicating with other shelters,
Su Wu made a sales form based on the orders and planned a delivery route according to the distances.
Thanks to the reasonable and low freight costs he offered, all the shelters that submitted transaction applications eventually chose to have Su Wu deliver the goods. In this way, he earned an extra income almost equal to the daily lettuce production of the hydroponic farm.
However, as happy as he was when receiving the orders, he was just as troubled when preparing for delivery.
Su Wu found that some shelters were in very remote locations, and some sections of the road were not even included in the official shelter clearing plan.
This meant that if Su Wu wanted to go there, he would have to bring a special transport vehicle to clear roadblocks and make a path as he went.
If it weren't for the fact that picking up scrap along the way was an additional source of income for Su Wu, the delivery freight alone might have resulted in a loss. After all, even if electricity was free, the risk of large trucks encountering natural disasters at any time was a cost in itself.
"It would be nice to have a drone specifically for transporting goods."
Thinking of the professional express delivery drones he had seen in the news, Su Wu couldn't help but feel envious.
The K2 series agricultural drone in his possession had a decent carrying capacity. However, with a maximum flight speed of only three meters per second, long-distance transportation posed too many risks, making it unsuitable for regular transactions.
Apart from the K2 series agricultural drone, the largest drone he had obtained from the official shelter could carry only five kilograms of cargo. As a result, it was rarely used.
"Take your time. Use a large truck for now."
"When I have more survival points in the future, I'll consider upgrading or researching and manufacturing a few transport drones."
For now, conditions were limited, and there wasn't much he could do.
But in the near future, it might be possible.
According to Su Wu's original plan, his next batch of survival points would be invested in the manufacturing center on the second underground floor.
He planned to add a CNC machine tool and a 3D printer.
The CNC machine tool would allow for the quick production of conventional parts, while the 3D printer could be used to create fine components and special molds.
Together, they would take over most of the tasks performed by engineering robots, increasing the overall manufacturing speed by three to five times.
Additionally, core motor parts that had previously been considered unfeasible to produce—due to the engineering robots' lengthy manufacturing cycles—could now be printed using the 3D printer.
The motor was one of the most important components in all electrically powered mechanical equipment, such as construction robots, micro excavators, and transport vehicles.
Achieving self-sufficiency in motor production would significantly reduce manufacturing costs. With the same number of survival points, Su Wu would be able to create more robots and vehicles.
The comprehensive strength of the shelter would take a huge leap forward.
At that point, acquiring a few express-level drones would no longer be as difficult as it was now.
He glanced at the time.
It was already three o'clock in the morning.
Even in the chat channel, only a few people were still active.
Feeling idle, Su Wu couldn't help but feel a bit lonely.
After all, only a limited number of people had access to the official network and could enter the chat channel. Even if he wanted to, it was never particularly lively.
"The old internet was better."
"No matter when, I could always find a group of people to chat with."
"And I could play online games and watch dance livestreams..."
Su Wu sighed. Though it hadn't been long, he already missed the vibrant internet of the past.
At that moment, his gaze happened to pass over the screen in front of the console and land on the monitoring wall behind it.
The winding roads and rolling hills in the footage stirred something inside him.
The so-called internet, at its core, was just a collection of servers and signal towers.
He could replace a server with an upgraded super notebook, and for the signal tower, he could modify and repurpose the abandoned communication base stations scattered in the wild.
Additionally, with the assistance of artificial intelligence, there would be virtually no issues on the software side.
With all the basic conditions in place, it seemed feasible to build his own network, install commonly used software and games, and create a private internet for people in nearby shelters to connect to.
"Maybe I can try it."
Su Wu muttered to himself.
Once the idea of building his own network took root, he couldn't suppress it.
However, it was too late at night, and the risks of going out to explore were too great.
Since he couldn't take any major action, he decided to make some preliminary preparations first.
He started by creating a new local area network within the shelter and setting up a simple search page.
Now, whenever a new device connected to the local network, the search page would automatically pop up.
Then, he searched the internet for commonly used social software, including communication apps, video platforms, microblogs, and forums. In addition, he found several open-source online games.
With the help of artificial intelligence, everything was deployed in under three minutes—a terrifying level of efficiency.
"WeChat, Weibo, P Station..."
Su Wu downloaded all the applications onto his phone. The familiar icons made him feel momentarily dazed.
He casually opened WeChat—its contact list was empty.
Then he checked Weibo and P Station—both were the same. The layouts of each section were almost identical to those from before the apocalypse, but they were devoid of content.
No matter how familiar they looked,
these programs were still just imitations created by artificial intelligence. They lacked the most crucial element—users.
After some thought,
Su Wu dragged out a song sung by Chen Xin and had the artificial intelligence automatically generate a video based on it. Then, he uploaded it to all the social platforms, becoming their first user.
"This looks much better now."
At five o'clock in the morning,
a large truck carried away the last batch of steel raw materials from the official shelter's warehouse.
Along with it departed the eight construction robots that had been working through the night at the official shelter.
At this moment,
faint rays of light pierced through the gray clouds, bringing the first greetings of daylight to the dark city.
On the streets, the number of construction vehicles had noticeably decreased compared to the previous day.
As the cleanup tasks neared completion, the rankings of various shelters had largely been determined. Most shelters no longer had a reason to continue high-intensity operations and had begun deliberately scaling down their dispatches.
This was to prevent excessive wear and tear on their specially modified construction vehicles, which were designed to function in extreme heat.