102: Chapter 102 Three Moons (Part 1)

"To keep the people on Vulcan from fearing me, Helmut suggested I change to this appearance."

Icarus's modulated, electronically synthesized voice drifted over. He did not speak often, and the emphasis in the first half of his sentence was not well-calibrated, but the latter half had been adjusted to perfection.

"However, you are 1.7 kilograms heavier than I predicted."

Elena was taken aback.

"The density of your carbon nanotube skeleton is lower than the template, but the actual space in your Vacuum Zero-Point Energy storage chamber is higher than the template."

Icarus continued, his tone tinged with an engineer's curiosity, "Is this your uniqueness?"

"...You called me here just to weigh me?"

A hint of annoyance crept into Elena's tone.

"Of course not. There is something more important I need to discuss with you."

Elena took a deep breath, suppressing some unpleasant thoughts, and waited quietly for the Light Industrial Mech to make a move.

Icarus turned around, a mechanical arm gripping the holographic projection of the Vulcan system, and with a gentle pull, displayed it before Elena.

The sensor array beneath his hood flickered gently.

"While you were being taken away by the Emperor, I sent the first batch of Construction Drones into orbit."

A subtle sense of pride permeated Icarus's electronically synthesized voice.

If Elena had not undergone Genetic Ascension, she would have barely noticed it.

"The Forge Moon."

It tapped the virtual projection, and Vulcan-III, the satellite to the left of Vulcan, was circled by a blue halo of light.

"Rich in heavy element deposits. Vulcan's natural satellites are rich in these elements, but for the past ten thousand years, the Adeptus Mechanicus has never seriously mined them."

Icarus revealed a hint of indescribable helplessness.

"I spent fourteen days deploying automated mining clusters and another twenty-two days building electromagnetic furnaces."

"Now, the refined metal it outputs every standard day is enough for you to use for a long time.

Besides, it's not that I don't want to give you better facilities; it's just that these are the most suitable for your current level of usage."

A bewildered expression appeared on Elena's face; she really didn't understand the significance of what Icarus was saying.

Icarus paused, his optical sensors flickering incessantly, his logic modules accelerating in an instant, and then he understood where the problem lay.

"Oh, right. Although you have undergone Genetic Ascension, you haven't accessed our tech tree yet."

Icarus transmitted a decrypted tech tree data package to her via the machine spirit network.

Elena did not respond.

The moment she received the data package, her quantum cognition began automatically searching the machine spirit network for the tech tree outline to comprehend it.

Shortly thereafter, she learned how to use these frameworks to analyze production capacity curves, logistics network topologies, energy consumption models, labor replacement plans...

And at this moment, strings of digital data streams emerged from the virtual note box of the Forge Moon.

Until finally, these data points gradually wove into a web in her mind, eventually converging into a concise conclusion:

This moon has already become a self-sustaining Forge World.

Icarus watched Elena until he saw her reveal an expression of understanding, then continued his explanation:

"The Forge Moon's core output is nuclear fusion fuel, deuterium fuel rods. You understand that my civilization does not lack matter, but it does lack energy."

Icarus waved his mechanical arm, and the halo switched to the silvery-white satellite in the middle, Vulcan-II.

"But the truly high-value product comes from here: the Truth Moon."

"Its poles are covered with ray receiving stations used to receive antimatter precursors.

Of course, after the Dyson Sphere is built, it can also receive photons or be used to receive electricity generated by the Dyson Sphere.

Then, I covered its equator with micro-particle colliders; they can use antimatter precursors or photons to produce antimatter.

Of course, if you wish, you can also use them to produce heavy hydrogen, and then transport it to the Forge Moon to produce deuterium fuel rods.

However, the micro-quantum colliders consume too much energy and cannot run at full capacity until the Dyson Sphere is completed."

Icarus waved his main manipulator arm to enlarge the entire Truth Moon, pointing out and introducing several mining sites one by one:

"There are other things here, too. Here is Promethium, here is deuterium, and here, and here, a pile of heavy isotopes that I know are valuable without even looking at their names."

Icarus emphasized his tone and said solemnly:

"Antimatter is currently the most valuable thing in the Vulcan system.

If converted into the Empire's standard units of Promethium fuel, the daily output here is enough for the Empire's second-largest Black Fleet to sail through the universe for three hundred years without stopping."

Elena's pupils contracted slightly.

"I find it strange."

Icarus's voice was tinged with confusion,

"The resources on every satellite here are too abundant.

So abundant that I began to suspect they were pieced together from different condensed-state elements.

It wasn't until I started building the Forge Moon that I began to slightly understand why, here, a single world can have tens of billions of people, and even sustain material circulation for tens of thousands of years.

I can understand entropy increase being discharged into the Warp to prevent that massive amount of waste heat from igniting the entire planet.

But I truly cannot understand how you can just throw things away after using them, leaving broken metal fragments scattered all over the wilderness… How does your material circulation sustain such a population size in the Hive City?"

It shook its head, trying to shake off the irrational parts of its cognition.

"Do you know? I recovered, reduced, and reused all those metal materials in the wilderness of Vulcan-IV that Helmut evaluated as worthless.

Just by doing that, the materials I obtained were enough to build Vulcan's three satellites, and the excess filled up 11 large storage warehouses stacked from the surface to the same height as the Hive City.

These reclaimed metal plates were enough to build 10 Indomitable Truths like the ones during the Ork Wars, and I even used initial technology because of energy shortages."

"I find it even harder to understand! What is going on with your technological system? An interstellar civilization, so much water ice in the void, so much waste heat in the Hive City, you have no problem discharging it into the Warp.

But you cannot even set up a distilled water cycle; that is incomprehensible."

Elena opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.

Because every word of Icarus tore open the festering wounds hidden beneath the Empire's magnificent robes.

Icarus waved his mechanical arms a few times and finally pointed to the satellite on the far right.

"...And then there is the Watch Moon."

"This is Vulcan-I, where you just came from.

It was the first one I modified, and also the one with the most investment, because it is located at the very periphery of the entire planetary system."