Julian sat on the large highchair in the Control Room, waiting for Secturus and Intellus to summarize all the information regarding the brief yet blood-boiling skirmish yesterday.
He was in the midst of reading the introduction about the two buildings neighboring the Cargo Building. Constructing that last bit of resource gathering outpost in the northern canyons brought Julian some leisure time to reward himself.
"So I can breed creatures, animals and plants alike, with the Re-Creation and Incubation Building?"
"That would be absolutely fantastic, successor!", Avina-2 cheered from the sides. "If that is successful, I, Avina-2, can make delectable dishes from the native animals of this planet which the successor will surely delight himself into!"
Julian rolled his eyes in contempt, 'Who would taste a damn meat of these ugly creatures?'
Although he collected a lot of carcasses yesterday, he did not want to eat them after that gruelling sight of a beast with spores on its tail.
He ignored the part of using these two structures as a breeding ground for the native animals, especially the ugly ones. What interested him was the availability of biological research on these weird and unknown creatures.
By providing samples into the Re-Creation or Incubation Building in the form of carcasses, Julian could conduct such research to identify these creatures and even incorporate some of their biological characteristics into his own arsenal if needed.
"The Re-Creation needs sample from plants or a viviparous fauna? And oviparous fauna for the Incubation?"
Avina came to his rescue, "Successor, consider viviparous fauna as animals that give birth to their offsprings and oviparous fauna as animals that lays eggs."
Julian gave a thumbs up, "Thanks Avina!"
"Successor, this is Secturus. Reports have been generated. Syncing to the successor's VNI."
The previous battle recorded the death of more than 5,000 hostile creatures while losing a small part of a section wall due to aggravated attacks from beasts that got close.
The reparations used a small amount of ferronium and oxydium, but a staggering amount of resources for replenishing ammunitions. If not for the material fabrication requirement override, he would have lost more than 10,000 units of resources after that battle.
The expense did not worry him, but another matter did.
He still hasn't found a good source for the red sulfur and another important ore resource for the construction of energy weapons and building upgrades, the villium ore.
"Intellus, you have an idea where to get these two materials?", he said while stacking both his crossed legs on the desk like a good-for-nothing and drank the aromatic coffee.
"Successor, these materials may be found on areas with high volcanic activity."
Julian choked and accidentally spewed out the coffee on his mouth, "What did you just say? Volcanoes?!"
Are you kidding me? Who would want to mess with that?
He had a sudden vivid recollection of a planet filled with nothing but toxic ash plumes dominating the skies and hot lava surging like a river on its surface. What red sulfur? What villium ore? The only thing awaited him was death!
"That is correct. Red sulfur can be randomly found on areas near other ore deposits and previous areas with volcanic activity."
"The villium ore is different. It is a highly prismatic mineral that is cooled off either by time or something else, and is used for energy weapons and mecha suit modules like the light refraction stealth module."
"Volcanic regions may pose an extremely risky environment for the successor, but it will also provide not only a reliable source of red sulfur and villium ore, but titanium and possibly geothermal vents as well."
Avina-2 brought out some handkerchief and passed it onto Julian. He wiped off the stains on his body and considered Intellus's words. If he could gather titanium, he could increase the level of his turrets and even build artillery batteries and flamethrower turrets.
There were weapons requiring titanium as well and looking at their firepower, Julian couldn't help but drool in anticipation.
""I can't reject this damn proposal of yours, can I?
The geothermal vent part broke off the last resistance on his mind. Who would reject free energy in this case?
But dreams were only dreams. Julian controlled himself and shook his head, "There's no need to hurry. No need to hurry... I'll consider your proposal later. Not until I can protect myself from those things... For now..."
"The areas on the farther north, west, east, and south remain unexplored. There might be more resources on those areas that we can use as a location for resource gathering outposts."
The northern side of the map was filled with ten resource gathering outposts. Five ferronium deposits, three oxydium deposits, and two luthum deposits.
Each deposit was abundant, carrying somewhere from 5,000 to at least hundreds of thousands of units for him to extract. And that was only on the surface. If he ordered Avina to dig deeper, then there could be more of them underground.
The resource gathering outposts had been working non-stop, providing him with an abundance of resources now and was about to be completely filled.
"Unlock the Engineering Building."
Outside the HQ Building beside the construction yard, a large factory building lit up and was swarmed by the yellow proto insects in no time. The bleak walls became shiny and sturdy and the rusty metallic rooftoop shone with luster once again.
One could even hear tinkling and electric sounds emanating inside the Engineering building. Julian wondered what was so mysterious on it that it had to do this sort of extravagant reparation process.
Due to how long the repairs would take, Julian read a bit more about the remaining buildings on Intellus list and had a general idea of what to do next.
"The Base Network Server Building should be next. 10,000 units for 100 different materials is a bit too low. The consumption of the buildings and reparations will increase in a not so distant future..."
The Base Network Server Building could increase the maximum units that Julian could store from 10,000 to 20,000 units for an increased 200 varying materials. Although limited only to one per planet for reasons unknown to him, the benefits it would give him could support the base's expansion in the future.
Not only that, the E-CONN's coverage would increase as well for a maximum of 50km diameter per mass network relay hub constructed. It was a different building from the network relay tower as it could handle a lot more traffic than the latter.
"Successor, the Engineering Building has been fully repaired. Please see the relevant information on your VNI.", Intellus's voice came through.
"Repair the Base Network Server Building while I am at it.", Julian stretched his neck for another round of 'analysis'.
The Engineering Building's importance seemed to have surpassed his expectations. Not only could he create and modify weapons and mecha suits, he could even design the model of an automaton including its settings and purpose!
An AI construct could be integrated into these automatons, providing him a fully functional and emotional robot that could communicate, express, and continually learn by themselves just like any other human he had met; save for the betrayal part.
Fabricating the automatons would require him to finish the Automaton Solider I research project, a lot of ferronium, oxydium, and villium ore as well as assembly factories which would individually cost him a large amount of energy units. Each automaton would feed off the energy grid as well to recharge their energy cells after a while, further increasing the energy costs.
"I may have to follow Intellus's proposal of finding new energy sources..."
It seems like the less than half a million reserves from the base's advanced cold fusion reactor core won't last him long enough.
"Intellus, what about the desert up north? Will a solar panel outpost be enough?"
"The successor's resources will not be enough to cover the cost of this plan. Solar panels requires the villium ore to properly absorb the solar energy radiated by the star."
Julian's face darkened. "What about the west? The mountains there should provide me some source of a villium ore no matter how small?"
"The successor may have to explore that area first before I can formulate a conclusion on this matter with the villium ore source."
Avina-2 noticed that its successor was trembling on the spot as if he was having some sort of altercation within his body. "Successor, are you alright? Avina-2 senses that your-!"
"Bring me some more coffee! Quick, damn it!", Julian lashed out. The poor small robot wheeled out of the top floor and hurried to do its successor's bidding.
"You just said that the villium ore can be found in volcanoes! How can you be so sure of that then?"
"The Ancien Regime's databases has left information about the common and naturally occurring ores. I have analysed and can source at least ten documents supporting this assumption. Does the successor wants to read them?"
"No!" Julian aggresively massaged his face in distress. Why does this guy keep slapping him with facts and well-supported reasons? Intellus even wanted him to read several books for nothing.
"I'll read them later!"
"Then Intellus shall abide. I have also to remind the successor that the Medical Efficiency Upgrade I has been recently completed. The successor may choose another research project for me to complete."
The research tab presented him with various available researches including one that would increase the amount of resources that the resource gatherers could extract at intervals,
Julian contemplated for a while before choosing the Seismic Defense Protocol I upgrade. The shockwave tower under this research did not require villium ore and any other materials that he could not easily obtain at this point. Furthermore, his structures would be highly resistant to seismic activities, increasing their durability by a huge margin.
Knowing how primitive planets like Planet Origin worked, earthquakes from various sources wasn't a rare occurrence. There might even be beasts that specialized in burrowing underneath the earth which may catch him off guard if he did not have any defenses against it.
"Initiating Seismic Defense Protocol I upgrade. Estimated time completion: plus or minus 30 days."
Julian was about to rest when he remembered the biological research matter for those beasts.
"Intellus, is there a way we can start the biological research for the native beasts of this planet?"
"I am unable to process such requests for the time being. However, one of the previously sleeping AIs seemed to have awakened after the successor retrieved thousands of carcasses from the previous conflict. They should be patching into your VNI anytime soon."
A square diagram bordered with an orange color appeared on Julian's VNI. Underneath it was a small caption of the caller's name, Hesab.
"Good day to the successor! This is Hesab, speaking." His voice had the accent of a caucasian coupled with formality and elegance. "I can offer my services to aid you in the interesting biological research at any time."
"Can your settings match up to Intellus?"
Julian could hear Hesab chuckling. "The successor must be joking. Intellus has the best modelling and training than any other AI construct you may encounter in your life. I am simply a downgraded version of Intellus but that does not mean that I do not have my own set of abilities."
"Show it to me then."
"Wonderful! I will be handling the simulation of re-creating or incubating the carcasses that the successor collects in the battlefield. It is not limited to organic creatures, but including robots and the like."
Julian was confused, "Isn't that not the case?"
Hesab chuckled again. "I have to apologize to the successor for my quite ridiculous statement but that is actually possible, just not for now."
He rolled his eyes, wondering if these AIs were making fun of his intelligence.
"Anyway, start with the biological research. Sync information to me once you're done."
"This loyal servant understands."
Under Hesab's charming voice, Julian watched as the base's energy consumption increase by an additional 75,000 units.
"..."