One night passed, and the smelting furnace in the spacecraft’s work cabin was once again filled to the brim as before.
After Chen Ming checked the harvest through the panel, he found that tonight’s haul roughly met one-fifth of the materials needed for the armor transformation.
If he could maintain this efficiency every day, Chen Ming even considered changing his plan.
Directly spending a day gathering in a high-density area.
However, after careful consideration, Chen Ming decided to abandon the idea.
The main material needed for the transformation is steel, which requires collecting the most abundant and common iron ore from asteroids.
Even in high-density areas, the amount collected each time would not increase, and it might even decrease due to the presence of other minerals.
At most, it would save some time in moving the spacecraft, but this time difference doesn’t justify sacrificing the time spent on farming and hunting.
It’s best to continue following the original plan.
At the moment when dawn just broke at the temporary camp.
The spacecraft once again landed in the camp.
As soon as the spacecraft landed, Chen Ming noticed that the tied-up bovine beast outside the camp seemed to have died during the night.
Only a severely decomposed corpse was left there.
The cause of death didn’t seem to be starvation or severe injuries, but rather sudden death due to intense mental and physical activity over several days.
This is the fate of most animals that fall into madness.
The decayed corpse of the bovine beast was of no value to Chen Ming.
So before starting work, Chen Ming cleared the plants around the bovine beast and burned the corpse thoroughly.
He continued with his daily routine of repetitive and tedious work.
The four days spent gathering materials for the armor transformation passed by quickly.
During these days, Chen Ming noticed many changes around the temporary camp.
It seemed that his previous actions had triggered the Mechanical Race; the Mind Pulse wasn’t targeting him, but its frequency increased.
As a result, the number of animals around was rapidly decreasing, making hunting virtually impossible.
Even if Chen Ming luckily encountered an animal not yet affected by the Mind Pulse.
In the next moment, the Mechanical Race’s Mind Pulse could affect them, rendering all of Chen Ming’s efforts in searching and hours of waiting futile.
Although the spacecraft provided protection, and Chen Ming was generally not in danger when encountering mad animals.
The high-frequency Mind Pulse itself posed a kind of danger.
In recent days, the frequent Mind Pulses made Chen Ming feel uncomfortable. Not to mention Xiaoshi.
If it weren’t for Chen Ming taking the spacecraft into space every night, allowing Xiaoshi and him to rest peacefully at night.
Chen Ming thought Xiaoshi might have gone mad long ago.
Fortunately, last night, the spacecraft collected enough materials around the Space Station.
After eagerly completing the transformation of the spacecraft’s armor, Chen Ming could no longer wait.
He immediately controlled the spacecraft, flying towards the direction of the Mechanical Race’s Mind Pulse Device.
The exhaustion from the large-scale modification of the armor was quickly suppressed with Chen Ming’s rest over the past few days.
Moreover, Chen Ming’s heart rate was gradually increasing as the distance between the spacecraft and Rimu Star shortened. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ ɴovel(ꜰ)ɪre.nᴇt
Just like when he first arrived here, a mix of fear and excitement about the unknown filled him.
Previously it was about Rimu Star, and this time, it’s about the Mechanical Race.
It would still take some time for the spacecraft to reach the target location.
When Chen Ming found it hard to contain his emotions, he suddenly remembered that today seemed to be the day for the third batch of orange fruit harvesting.
To alleviate his emotions, Chen Ming got up and went to the planting cabin.
The agricultural machinery components had already harvested all the fruits, and the extra vines were completely put into the Nutrient Liquid Extraction Device for reuse, with new seeds already planted.
Just like the previous two batches of crops, Chen Ming just needed to take the fruits to the cold storage.
With a few baskets of orange fruit, Chen Ming prepared to leave.
But his steps suddenly halted as he stepped out of the planting cabin’s door.
Because at that moment, Chen Ming realized something.
Concerned that there might be a food crisis on the way, he planned to prepare surplus food before setting out.
But preparing food wasn’t entirely necessary on Rimu Star.
He could easily stay in orbit, cultivating the highly efficient orange fruit in the hydroponic cabin.
If any issue arose with the cultivation of orange fruit, like a variety degradation, Chen Ming could immediately land on Rimu Star to find the next batch of substitute crops.
The efficiency might be a bit low, but the safety factor would be at its highest.
In other words, from the first day of Chen Ming’s landing, after finding the orange fruit seeds.
If Chen Ming wasn’t pursuing efficiency, then safely waiting in space for the crops to grow was actually the most secure approach.
Chen Ming turned to glance at the hydroponic cabin.
As he withdrew his gaze, his eyes were suddenly drawn to the porthole on the other side of the hallway leading out from the captain’s room.
The abandoned Mining Space Station floated outside.
So it might not be right to say it that way.
Even if the space station was infested with bugs, its thirty years of neglect proved there were major issues behind the space station or even the entire Star System.
The longer Chen Ming stayed near the Space Station and Rimu Star, the higher the chance of unexpected incidents.
So gathering the necessary food and leaving sooner had its advantages.
Moreover, Chen Ming didn’t just find food on the planet.
Xiaoshi the hamster was Chen Ming’s biggest gain on the planet besides food.
Furthermore, if Chen Ming could eliminate those Mechanical Race entities, they could also become part of his gains.
Those large Electromagnetic Weapons on the right arms of the two Mechanical Race units, capable of piercing through Chen Ming’s spacecraft armor in a single shot.
Could absolutely be mounted onto the spacecraft’s load-bearing points after some simple modifications.
It’s far more powerful than the civilian 22mm caliber Machine Gun.
Knowing that Chen Ming encountered countless dangers in the seemingly insignificant places of the Space Station and Rimu Star on a cosmic scale.
He couldn’t even imagine the troubles that awaited him on the half-light-year journey ahead.
Therefore, for Chen Ming, strong weapons are the best means to counteract danger.
So he’s willing to take some risk to find a way to obtain the weapons of those two combat Mechanical Race units.
Exchanging the current known dangers for tools to deal with unknown future threats.
Such an exchange was something Chen Ming was eager to make.
As Chen Ming pondered, the heat-resistant armor outside the captain’s room porthole gradually opened, but Chen Ming quickly closed it again.
Because the destination had already appeared in his view.