The stars, but they become the gray wind

Carlisle picked up the HK416D on the table, pulled out the magazine to check the remaining ammunition, then inserted the magazine back, turned on the safety, pulled the bolt in front of the buttstock, loaded the bullet, put the buttstock against her shoulder, pointed the muzzle at the sea in the distance, and pulled the trigger with her right index finger.

"Bang bang bang bang" With a few crisp gunshots and flashes of fire from the muzzle, four 5.56mm bullets hit the sea not far away, splashing four small water droplets.

"Excited!!! Aze, since it's made for everyone, I'll take this HK416D! I've always loved this gun, and today I finally got the chance to touch it."

Carlisle, who finally touched the real thing, showed a happy expression.

Chapter 7: Drilling and Mining

While the silvery-white metallic slime miner, composed of nanomachines, continued its search for minerals on the seafloor, the group also utilized the available resources to further develop infrastructure on the island. Although the uninhabited island only covered 27 square kilometers, the limited available land area clearly wasn't enough to deter the group from demonstrating their skills.

"Since the land area is too small and the reserves of nanomaterials are not yet sufficient for land reclamation, the worst that can happen is that we can just dig deeper!"

Renlong, who was once a veteran Minecraft hamster player, shouted.

"Furthermore, the sand and rock produced during the process of digging down to create sufficient underground space can also be used as raw materials to supplement our current nanomaterial reserves."

Carissa and Yuuki on the side thought about Renlong's suggestion and nodded in agreement.

"I'll build a few larger versions of the slime automatic miners I made earlier and send them to the center of the island. While surveying the terrain along the way, I'll also conduct underground engineering work in the center of the island to dig out a large enough underground space for us to use."

"Also, you'd better dig deeper. While the surface area of ​​this island has few usable minerals, deeper down, that's not always the case. We also have to consider long-term development; this underground space needs to have sufficient expansion capacity."

Yuuki made further additions and reminders to Carissa's plans and actions.

"I understand, but first, how big of an underground space do you want?"

"Um... let me think about it... First of all, we need to consider that we may have to build a complete industrial system close to the level of interstellar civilization on this small island in the future. It definitely cannot be placed on the ground..." Renlong thought carefully with his chin supported by his hand.

"...In other words... such an industrial system and its supporting infrastructure and equipment would likely need to be mostly underground... And then... there would also be supporting fully automated hydroponic farms for food production, universal food synthesis factories, environmental control devices to maintain a stable artificial ecosystem, and so on and so forth."

"Don't miss one thing." Aze reminded.

"Ah? What?"

"There are recreational facilities like playgrounds, holographic game rooms, cafeterias, and gyms. Although we are no longer biologically human, it doesn't mean we don't need proper entertainment and relaxation."

"That makes sense. Let's add the entertainment facilities as well."

"Adding in the nanomachine factories used to produce military supplies and various types of weaponry, the facilities for producing civilian multi-purpose robots, and the power transmission equipment that provides energy to these factories and infrastructure... let me calculate the total..."

Yuki calculated the space required for this series of infrastructure and finally came to a conclusion.

"Kalici, we need to have the mining machine dig a hole underground with a diameter of at least 80 kilometers and a height of no less than 10 kilometers."

"So big? Are you planning to build a giant underground city? Isn't this project a bit too big?" Carlisle rubbed her temples and complained after hearing the string of numbers reported by Yuki.

"This size is actually calculated based on the minimum requirements for accommodating a complete interstellar civilization's industrial system. Any smaller and we'd have to cut out facilities like food production facilities that aren't currently important to us."

"Okay, I'll get the mining rigs up and running as soon as possible. Looks like we'll be busy soon."

As Kalisi once again used her own nanomaterials to create dozens of silver-white slime mining machines that were almost the same size as her, and ordered them all to dig holes in the center of the deserted island, more than a dozen "mining machines" rolled their bodies at a rapid speed and rushed into the dense forest, gnawing on the trees and plants along the way, and even some insects were decomposed and devoured. Dozens of silver-white slimes forcibly opened a clean and flat road in the dense jungle. At the end of this road, several "mining machines" were moving rapidly towards the center of the deserted island.

Looking at the yellow dots representing the real-time location of the slime mining machine in her sight, and the blue dots representing her fellow sand sculpture group members, as well as the physical condition information of everyone on the left side of her field of vision and all the surrounding environmental information including temperature and humidity, Calisi temporarily closed it after confirming the status of others.

This is an ability that she and everyone else have, because now as a nanomachine, she is collecting all the information around her at all times. As long as Calisi wants, everything within her field of vision and perception can be digitized. For example, the current ambient temperature is 37 degrees Celsius, the surface temperature is 46 degrees Celsius, the humidity is 66 percent, the current time is 9:33:06 a.m. local time, her body temperature is 36.523 degrees Celsius, the total area of ​​the island she is on is 27.012 square kilometers, etc.

Whenever she needed, she could directly use her naked eyes to turn on thermal imaging and infrared vision for observation. When she was trying out Aze's gun before, she even found that she could now do it just like in an FPS game, creating a cross-shaped aiming symbol in her field of vision that would move with the direction and position of the gun muzzle.

"It'll probably take me quite a while to get used to having my vision filled with all sorts of data and symbols... Although this holographic vision of being able to see digital information about my surroundings is convenient, it's still a bit difficult to adjust to!"

Carlisle showed a somewhat awkward expression.

"I don't know what other people think about this kind of holographic AR vision. I'll ask them when I have a chance."

Just as Kalisi was a little uncomfortable and upset with her holographic vision, the slime mining machine that had been sent to the seabed by everyone to search for manganese nodule minerals was also faithfully performing its work.

Unlike the chubby silver-white slime on the shore, in order to adapt to the high-pressure environment of the deep sea, the slime nanominer transformed itself into a net composed of millions of high-strength filaments with a diameter of less than 0.5 mm, and spread it out in the form of a grid on the vast Pacific Ocean floor. It searches for the "food" it needs - seabed manganese nodules - by emitting high-frequency pulses for detection.

Soon, it found its target, a large area of ​​more than hundreds of square kilometers, less than 1,500 meters away from it, which was rich in brown-black manganese nodules.

The "mining machine" quickly retracted the nanofilaments from other areas, changed their direction, and extended them toward the manganese nodule mining area 1,500 meters away, and began to rapidly devour and mine this metal deposit.

Chapter 8 Are you two so obsessed with building wonders?

With the continuous digging of more than ten nano-mining machines, in just less than two days, a giant artificial sinkhole with a diameter of more than 200 meters and a depth of more than 3 kilometers appeared in the center of the island, which was originally covered with dense forests. The excavated rocks, soil and other materials all became raw materials for nano-machines to increase their own reserves.

"But, an uninhabited island in the middle of the ocean, with a massive sinkhole in the center, and a massive, secret infrastructure at the bottom. Why does this script give me such a strange sense of déjà vu?"

"Besides, we should be considered aliens to this planet now, right? Even the mysterious alien civilization equipment at the bottom of the sinkhole is exactly the same."

"So, are we playing in a real-life forest?"

"No, no, no, to be more precise, this should be considered a prequel to the forest. We are the aliens who left a mysterious alien device on the deserted island."

"Are we getting the alien-perspective script with the mysterious Qi Er Shan Lin Shi Jiu Qi San Shi device left in the forest?"

“It seems so…”

"So now all that's missing is a story about a plane that accidentally crashes on this island, and a father who survives on the island and searches for clues to find his missing son, and in the process, discovers secrets about alien ruins and a huge conspiracy?"

"Then shouldn't we build more wooden roller coasters and statues on the island to better suit the script and atmosphere?"

"What a great idea! How about using nanomachines to simulate some scary-looking monsters and placing them around the island?"

"That's a great idea! We could even use nanomachines to simulate a bunch of cannibal camps on the island!"

Yuuki listened to the increasingly off-track discussion and bizarre ideas of Kalisi and Aze in front of him, and his eyes twitched. He couldn't help but step forward, raised his fist and gave each of them a slap.

"You two guys, stop it!"

"Ouch! It hurts!"

"You two, stop thinking about doing weird things all the time. Even if you want to do something, you have to wait until the infrastructure on the island is built, right?"

Yuki scolded the two people in front of him who had big bumps on their heads, pointed their fingers at him and looked at him with a wronged look on their faces.

"But something like a wooden roller coaster that's hundreds of meters high and goes around an island is really cool."

Aze muttered softly.

"And if we have nanomachines, then things like roller coasters hundreds of meters high are also possible, right?"

Carlisle added aggrievedly, glancing at Yuki guiltily, and then was glared at angrily by Yuki. She quickly lowered her gaze to her feet, not daring to look at him again.

"You two can be creative, but could you please focus on your current work? At least solve the island's infrastructure problems first, okay?"

"Um... isn't this... there are slime miners automatically digging in the underground space precisely designated for the industrial facility? Didn't the miner Lingbawu O Jiushan threw into the sea earlier also find the first batch of manganese nodules? So, we're planning on creating some cool-looking wonders."

The two of them defended themselves together.

The purple-haired magical girl held her forehead with her hand and said helplessly to the two weirdos in front of her, "Although our total reserves of nanomaterials have been greatly increased due to the soil and rocks excavated from the center of the island and the manganese nodules mined by the underwater nano-mining machines as raw materials, it's not a waste to give them to you!"

"I'm not saying we can't build wonders, but at least don't waste all your nanomaterials on wooden roller coasters that circle the island. They're practically useless to us right now, other than for viewing!"

"Well... since the wooden roller coaster doesn't work, then we can just switch to something else, right? First... don't get angry, it's... a spectacle with practical value!!!"

Seeing Yuuki in front of her crying again and looking like he was about to lose his temper, Carlisle quickly added another sentence.

"Well then... tell me quickly."

"It's this thing. I found it in the database. It's a wonder used for surface energy supply: an offshore deuterium-deuterium fusion hydroelectric power generation platform."

As Carlisle spoke, she sent the relevant information and detailed data of the hydropower platform to everyone through the thought network.

"Oh? Isn't this the offshore hydropower platform in the Forgotten Realm that pumps seawater for nuclear fusion?"

Yuki stroked his chin as he looked at the details of the hydro platform.

"That's right. As our industrial and agricultural facilities gradually improve, our energy needs will undoubtedly increase. It's imperative that we first construct a power generation facility that can meet our future energy needs."

"This type of hydropower generation platform is built on the sea surface. It extracts deuterium from seawater by pumping it out, then fuses it with deuterium in an internal reactor. The power is then supplied to other power-consuming devices within a certain range with receiving devices via microwave wireless transmission."

"The microwave power supply range of a single platform, centered on the platform itself, can reach a radius of 300 kilometers. The hydropower platform itself also has the ability to store tritium and helium-3, the products of deuterium-deuterium nuclear fusion, for a long time. It's truly an ideal ground-based energy facility."

"While the platform will inevitably generate some waste heat during its operation, this can be cooled by evaporating the surrounding seawater. However, this isn't a big problem for us. We're not currently trying to build something like a perpetual motion machine that violates the laws of thermodynamics."

"Such a deuterium-deuterium fusion hydropower platform is sufficient to meet our energy needs for quite a long time."

Calisi gave a fairly comprehensive summary of the performance of each aspect of the hydropower platform and snapped her fingers happily.

"Okay, does anyone have any questions?"

"Yes... there's a long list of notes and warnings on this thing, reminding users not to deploy too many hydropower platforms on an ecological planet with abundant water resources. If special circumstances necessitate deploying too many platforms on an ecological planet, they should not be operated at full power for a long period of time, as this will have a serious negative impact on the planet's ecological environment."

"Specifically, if too many of these devices were deployed on an ecological planet and kept running at full power for a long period of time, it would easily drain the entire planet's water resources in a short period of time, causing the planet's ecological environment to quickly collapse."

Yuki also summarized the warning information in the data.

"Well... after all... this is an interstellar civilization-level resource extraction and energy production facility, so it's understandable that it has a larger impact."

Kalisi replied, rubbing the back of her head with her hand.

"Besides, we only need one right now, and we don't need it to run at full power all the time. It's not to the point of destroying the world yet."

"Okay, I agree that you can use your nanomaterial reserves to build this thing, but remember to be careful not to build too many of these things in the future. We don't want to become the culprit of the destruction of the world."

Looking at the two people in front of him who were extremely determined to build the wonder, Yuki agreed.

"Don't worry, when we have enough nanomaterial reserves, we can build a large cold fusion reactor on the ground, or a solar power station in space, or even a Dyson cloud. The hydropower platform is just a temporary stopgap and won't cause any major problems."

"Also, how do you plan to provide security for such a conspicuous spectacle?"

"what?"

"Oh my god! Don't tell me that besides building wonders, you haven't thought about how to protect this thing?"

Yuki held his forehead again and was completely speechless about the two weirdos in front of him.

Chapter 9 Deuterium-deuterium fusion hydropower platform, the world's first nuclear fire (

Yuki covered his head helplessly when he saw the two guys in front of him, who were so focused on creating a spectacle that they hadn't considered that a facility as massive as a hydroelectric platform couldn't be hidden around an island.

The planet they were currently on had a fairly well-developed and large-scale human civilization, which meant that it was only a matter of time before they came into contact with the human civilization there. It was only a matter of time before the hydroelectric platform and the island's engineering were discovered by the humans there.

But before that, several people need to make sufficient preparations and only contact and communicate with the humans in this world when there is sufficient productivity and military support.

A huge and overly conspicuous offshore hydropower platform can easily be discovered by the humans here, causing several people to come into contact with the humans here without being fully prepared, putting them in a passive position in this regard and potentially leading to an unfavorable situation.

Finally, after a detailed discussion on the safety issues after the completion of the fusion hydropower platform, several people decided to use the Lost Battle Realm original spherical air-to-ground dual-use combat drone that is compatible with the hydropower platform's technical system to patrol the airspace and sea areas around the hydropower platform to ensure its continued safe operation.

"This drone... apart from everything else, just looking at its design... it's really quite nice."

Kalisi sighed as she touched the smooth shell of the white spherical drone floating in the air in front of her with her right hand.

Yuki also walked forward and reached out to pat the white shell of the drone.

"The outermost layer of white armor alone is enough to withstand continuous fire from a 14.5mm heavy machine gun. At the same time, the small anti-gravity vector engine powered by a deuterium fuel cell gives this drone extremely strong maneuverability and nearly unlimited endurance."

"The powerful thrust provided by the anti-gravity vector engine allows it to reach a maximum speed of over 7.9 kilometers per second, and it still retains a certain degree of extra-atmospheric flight and combat capabilities."

"It even has the ability to conduct high-intensity asymmetric combat in complex enclosed spaces, such as urban environments and indoors, while maintaining its high-speed maneuverability."

"I think if the army of a certain country that was nearly suffering from PTSD from the security battles before we traveled through time saw this thing, they'd probably cry with envy. If they had this thing, would they still need to send their soldiers out to play indoor CQB with the enemy from house to house during security battles?"

Aze rested his chin on his hand, staring at the drone in front of him and making a comment.

After hearing Aze's assessment, Kalisi carefully considered the drone's various specifications and applicable scenarios. She replied, "You do make sense. If you think about it, this drone is a perfect weapon for both policing and asymmetric warfare."

"Permanent endurance, 24-hour continuous combat capability, firepower that can almost guarantee a single-shot kill of any individual soldier or lightly armored target, supersonic flight and aerial patrol capabilities, superior combat capability regardless of terrain, and extremely strong internal protection. This drone's performance in every aspect can be described as abnormal."

"So it's a miracle that the human resistance in that movie managed to survive against these incredibly powerful drones."

Aze sighed again about this.

"By the way, Aze, Yuki, after the hydropower platform is built, in addition to security patrols, we can also have drones fly to more distant areas to proactively collect intelligence and information about human civilization in this world, just in case."

"It can indeed be used that way. However, as nanomachines, we can actually use our senses to identify electromagnetic waves used for communication within the atmosphere. Although we're not sure whether humans in this world actually use electromagnetic waves for communication, we can try to see if we can monitor the communication waves later."

At this point, Aze also thought of the key, and suggested that everyone try to determine whether the electromagnetic wave frequency band used for communication can be found in the atmosphere here.

"Okay, then let's first find a suitable sea area around the island to deploy the hydropower platform and drones, and then find a way to locate and monitor the communication waves from this world."

"Of course, if we monitor and discover anything threatening us, we'll need to accelerate our current military and force development. If the situation is extreme, we might even have to invest almost all of our resources in military development."

"agree"

"I agree too"

After some investigation and search, several people with a prototype drone found an area of ​​sea most suitable for building a hydropower platform at the southern end of the island. The depth of this sea area is deep enough, nearly 30 meters, and the seabed is lower than the surrounding area. Once the hydropower platform is built and begins to extract a large amount of surrounding seawater, the surrounding seawater will follow the principle of water flowing to lower places and converge towards this lower-lying area of ​​the seabed, providing the hydropower platform with a steady supply of seawater to extract deuterium fuel.

"Wow! 28 meters deep! Isn't this better than most of our artificial deep-water ports? It's truly a rare natural deep-water port!"

Calisi stood on a reef on the southern coast of the island, holding the nano-probe that had just been retrieved to probe the depth of the seabed. Yi Erqian Erling Qi IV (Eight) sighed at this excellent sea area in many ways.

"Even the New York Harbor in our world, after years of artificial excavation and construction, has a maximum depth of only 33 meters."

"And yet here, completely undeveloped, there's a natural deepwater harbor with a depth of 28 meters, almost as good as the best natural deepwater harbor in the world back home. I'm sure people working in related industries back home would be envious if they saw it."