Su Wu reduced the base vehicle's speed to 10 kilometers per hour, cautiously navigating the salt flats while maxing out the power of his reconnaissance equipment to monitor for any anomalies.
At this point, he spared no expense, conducting an emergency upgrade to his reconnaissance drones. The new generation of drones, equipped with improved environmental adaptability and enhanced scanning capabilities, scouted ahead in the hellish terrain.
Soon, the drones transmitted images of depressions in the salt flats. These depressions, colored in shades of green and yellow, emitted visible plumes of gas.
"Corrosive gases... and magma," Su Wu muttered, his scalp tingling.
He felt as though he had entered the edge of an active volcano. According to the drones' data, magma churned just half a meter below the surface in some depressions. A person stepping onto these areas might collapse the ground and fall directly into the molten rock below.
This realization made Su Wu even more cautious.
The base vehicle's progress slowed to a crawl, barely matching walking speed. He meticulously avoided areas where magma was visible or where the ground appeared weak.
"Disaster index: 0.7."
Carefully maneuvering around a magma-filled crevice, Su Wu noted the system's disaster index had risen again. This index, designed to calculate additional survival point rewards, now served as an accurate measure of environmental danger.
The higher the index, the closer he was to potential catastrophe.
In this treacherous environment, even a moment of relaxation could spell doom.
After an hour of tense navigation, the base vehicle finally reached the mission's marked location: a kilometer-wide impact crater.
At the crater's center was a molten lava lake, its surface bubbling and glowing ominously. On the lake's edge sat a heavily armored white vehicle.
"Someone's already here," Su Wu thought, his heart skipping a beat before he calmed himself.
Observing through his drones, he realized the vehicle was likely a scientific research vehicle equipped to study the lava.
"They must have been sent by the authorities to investigate the meteorite impact."
This didn't conflict with Su Wu's mission. After watching for a while, he decided to ignore them for now.
Using his vehicle's terrain radar and drones, Su Wu confirmed the geological stability of the surrounding area. He then activated the base vehicle's station mode, transforming the crater's edge into a temporary metal base.
In the expanded second compartment, engineering and construction robots began assembling a large electronic laboratory using stored equipment and materials.
The border exploration mission required Su Wu to gather data and fragments from the asteroid's landing site. Collecting data involved detailed scans, which necessitated a fully operational electronic laboratory.
While the robots built the lab, Su Wu kept himself busy.
He directed another engineering robot to start modifying his land combat units from tracked vehicles into quadrupedal robot dogs.
Given the limited resources and the robot's slow pace, only one robot dog was completed by the time the electronic lab became operational.
"Well, it'll have to do for now. No rush."
Su Wu glanced at the lab's progress. Scanning the designated area for data would take 28 hours—plenty of time to work on other objectives.
Unlike data collection, gathering fragments required active exploration. Su Wu needed to find and collect meteorite fragments scattered across the area. The mission had no specific requirements for the fragments' size or shape, only a total mass of 10 kilograms.
This meant sending robots out into the field. While Su Wu initially planned to use construction robots for this task, the newly created robot dog was far better suited for the job.
Using survival points, Su Wu upgraded the robot dog with heat-resistant components, enabling it to operate freely outside the base vehicle.
He immediately deployed it on its first mission, observing through its remote camera feed to search for meteorite fragments.
Finding the first fragment proved challenging.
With no reference point, the robot dog had to collect random rocks and return them to the base vehicle for sorting. Su Wu determined whether a rock was a meteorite fragment simply by attempting to submit it to the mission system, which indicated how much mass was still needed.
After hours of painstaking trial and error, Su Wu finally found the first fragment—a tiny sliver weighing only 0.02 grams.
Armed with this sample, progress accelerated dramatically.
Using the lab to analyze the fragment's composition, Su Wu programmed his reconnaissance drones to search for similar materials over a wider area.
Within three hours, the six deployed robot dogs collected nearly 5 kilograms of fragments.
However, as the nearby fragments were exhausted, the task grew more difficult. The robot dogs had to venture increasingly far from the base to find new pieces.
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