The sublimation caused by sunlight had reduced the teoroid’s mass by over 10% during the few days of transport. Xiao Yu felt a deep pang of regret and, upon reaching his destination, imdiately began harvesting resources.
Blocking the sunlight with his spacecraft, Xiao Yu used the winch attached to his cable to reel in the teoroid at a rate of about one deciter per second.
Or, to be precise, the teoroid was reeling him in. In space, the idea of one object approaching another is aningless; Xiao Yu moving toward the Sun at 20 kiloters per second could just as easily be described as the Sun moving toward him at the sa speed.
After more than half an hour, Xiao Yu finally closed the gap to within a ter. Securing the robot to the spacecraft with a tether, Xiao Yu maneuvered it to transport various pre-installed machines onto the teoroid.
Securing these machines was critical. Due to the teoroid’s minimal gravitational pull, even a small force could send the equipnt flying into space. Such a loss was sothing Xiao Yu absolutely could not afford.
Skillfully, the robot set up a collection net on the side of the teoroid facing away from the Sun. Once the net was in place, Xiao Yu retrieved the robot and the remaining machinery, carefully moved the spacecraft slightly away, and then adjusted its position to let sunlight directly strike the teoroid.
Imdiately, solid water, hydrogen, oxygen, and other materials on the teoroid began to sublimate into dense white vapors that drifted backward. These vapors were intercepted by the pre-installed collection net and directed into storage devices positioned behind it.
Watching the system function smoothly, Xiao Yu’s eyes practically sparkled with delight.
“Water, hydrogen, oxygen—co to Papa!” Xiao Yu mumbled absurdly, unable to contain his excitent.
Once the storage devices were full, Xiao Yu repositioned the spacecraft to block the sunlight, moved closer, and directed the robot to transfer the collected materials back aboard.
Seeing the fruits of his labor, Xiao Yu’s indicator lights flickered with excitent.
“A full 100 kilograms of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen! Three tons of water!” The haul left Xiao Yu more than satisfied. He quickly processed the liquid hydrogen and oxygen to remove impurities, ensuring they t the necessary standards, then transferred the fuel into the spacecraft’s engines.
“It feels amazing to have enough energy,” Xiao Yu remarked, reinvigorated by his success.
For several days, Xiao Yu worked tirelessly to extract all the water, hydrogen, and oxygen from the teoroid. By the ti he finished, the teoroid had been reduced to a mass of tal and rubble, its volu halved and its weight almost halved as well.
Now, Xiao Yu pondered how to make full use of the remaining materials.
His current tal processing capabilities were limited. To save weight and space, Xiao Yu hadn’t brought large-scale talworking equipnt, only essential, small-scale tools. His original plan had been to land on Europa, stabilize his surroundings, and gradually expand his capabilities. But now, it seed that plan might have to change.
Xiao Yu had already analyzed the remaining material on the teoroid and determined that most of it consisted of high-quality steel, comparable to the special alloys used to construct spaceplanes. While the steel had been sowhat degraded by Earth’s explosion, minor processing would restore it to its original condition.
Producing such high-grade steel, even with Xiao Yu’s advanced technology, was labor-intensive. He couldn’t bear to waste it.
“This must be the remnants of so steel mill on Earth,” Xiao Yu mused. “No matter, even if it costs ti, so be it. Now that I’ve replenished my energy reserves, I can afford to extend my operational window a bit.”
With his mind made up, Xiao Yu brought out his most well-protected talworking equipnt. He set to work on two fronts—building onsite while simultaneously cutting the teoroid into manageable pieces and transporting them into the spacecraft for storage.
During this process, Xiao Yu beca acutely aware of a critical limitation in his developnt: he only had one robot.
If this robot were damaged, Xiao Yu would lose most of his ability to carry out tasks. While other machinery could still be controlled manually, they lacked the robot’s flexibility and were unsuitable for many tasks. Without the robot, Xiao Yu’s survival would hang by a thread.
No matter how advanced the technology or intricate the thods stored in Xiao Yu’s mind, none of it would matter if he lacked the ans to execute them. After all, soone—or sothing—had to do the work.
Taking advantage of the special steel materials available here, Xiao Yu disassembled so unnecessary and less useful chanical equipnt to gather enough materials. Without delay, he began constructing a second robot.
The construction of the second robot took Xiao Yu five days. When it was finally completed, Xiao Yu looked at the strange creation before him and couldn’t help but smile bitterly.
Due to material limitations, the robot before him looked more like a monster cobbled together from a heap of black, scrap tal. For instance, its uneven surface, the dark and dull color, and the chaotic wires exposed all over its body gave it a particularly crude appearance.
However, while its appearance was unsightly, its functionality was not lacking at all. In fact, with the experience Xiao Yu had accumulated over the past few days, this robot’s capabilities were slightly superior to those of the first one.
Once the second robot was completed, about half of the work of cutting and transporting the teorite had been finished. With the addition of the second robot, Xiao Yu’s work efficiency imdiately doubled.
Looking at the remaining materials, Xiao Yu contemplated for a mont and made up his mind to go all in and construct a third robot.
Thus, Xiao Yu assigned one robot to continue gathering materials from the teorite, while the other began the “reproduction” process.
Watching large pieces of high-quality steel being steadily transported into his spaceship, Xiao Yu couldn’t help but feel like emulating a certain emperor and proclaiming, “The heroes of the world are all in my grasp!”
By the ti two-thirds of the teorite had been collected, the third robot was born, further enhancing Xiao Yu’s efficiency. He assigned one robot to continue collecting materials, while the other two began processing the materials with machinery to repair the spacecraft.
The collision between the Earth’s moon and Jupiter had caused severe damage to Xiao Yu’s ship. Finally, he now had a chance to catch his breath.
Xiao Yu reinforced the hull of the ship, repaired the damaged equipnt and circuits, redesigned the solar panels, and thickened the insulation layers. At last, the small spaceship that had been reduced to a refugee-like state returned to sothing resembling the level of an ordinary civilian spacecraft. Although it hadn’t fully recovered to its original condition, most of its functions had been restored to about 80-90%.
Xiao Yu stayed in this location for over two months. Once all the preparations were complete, he calculated the optimal trajectory to head toward Titan and decisively left, flying toward the Sun.
After a long journey of over half a month, a brilliantly luminous planet entered Xiao Yu’s field of view.
It was Venus—the Star of Love, the Morning Star.
Xiao Yu sighed, recalling the beautiful monts he had experienced on Earth. Venus, praised and celebrated by countless poets and writers over the millennia, had always held a special place in humanity’s imagination.
“Since I’m here, I might as well take a closer look and evaluate the impact of the recent collision between the Earth’s moon and Jupiter on Venus,” Xiao Yu decided. Without altering his overall plan, he made a slight adjustnt to his course and headed toward Venus.
In humanity’s space exploration history, Venus had not been a major focus due to its harsh environnt.
Its thick cloud layers, while giving Venus a high albedo and making it the brightest star visible from Earth, also created an extre greenhouse effect. The surface temperature averaged over 400 degrees Celsius, the atmospheric pressure was several tis that of Earth, and acid rain was rampant. The surface was rife with magma flows, and geological activity was incredibly intense.
Since the beginning of human space exploration, only a handful of spacecraft had managed to reach Venus’s surface.
But now, Venus’s appearance stunned Xiao Yu.
The thick cloud layers that had long enshrouded Venus had mostly dissipated. It seed likely that the collision with Jupiter and the Earth’s moon had caused this change. This ant that Venus’s surface temperature would gradually decrease. Xiao Yu estimated that in tens of thousands of years, the surface temperature of Venus might drop to around 100 degrees Celsius.
Additionally, it was foreseeable that teorites from Earth would inevitably strike Venus in the near future. These teorites might carry the seeds of life.
Life’s resilience had already been proven; bacteria had been found surviving under extre conditions in deep-sea volcanic vents with high temperature and pressure. It was conceivable that so forms of life could adapt to Venus’s environnt. These organisms might proliferate, evolve, and, over countless eons, even develop into intelligent life.
“If intelligent life evolves on Venus, will they gaze at the starry sky like humans once did, yearning to explore the universe? And when they discover the remnants of Earth’s civilizations within teorite debris, what thoughts will they have?” Xiao Yu pondered silently.
“The existence of the solar system itself is already a miracle. And life always finds its reason for being. Venus, I wish you luck.”
Xiao Yu skimd past Venus at a distance of 3,000 kiloters, watching the planet recede into the distance. He sighed softly.
Storing the data he had gathered about Venus into his hard drive, Xiao Yu refocused his attention. Gazing into the distance at the colossal, fiery sphere radiating infinite light and heat in the void of space, he felt a sudden surge of boldness in his heart.
“Onward to the Sun!”
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