NOVEL NEXT Chapter 8: Chapter 8: Charging Station and Artificial Intelligence
Su Wu raised his head and glanced at the open laptop on his desk.
The screen displayed a live feed of the construction site outside his window.
Despite the torrential rain, the construction crew worked steadily. Digging, reinforcing, and transporting materials—all proceeded in an orderly fashion, gradually shaping the underground shelter.
After watching for a while, a notification popped up on the screen:
The engineering robot has completed manufacturing the large battery pack.
Su Wu stood up, grabbed an umbrella, and stepped into the storm.
In the courtyard, the wind whipped through the rain, sending cold tendrils of moisture down his collar. He hunched his shoulders against the elements and slowly made his way to the makeshift work shed.
Inside, he located the freshly completed battery pack. Placing his hand on it, he silently triggered the upgrade process.
A flash of white light illuminated the space.
When it faded, a suitcase-sized silver metallic cube stood in its place.
[High-Energy Battery Pack]
Maximum Power Storage: 10,000 kWh.
Wireless Charging Module: Capable of wirelessly charging devices within a 100-meter radius.
Notes: A simple, portable mini power station.
The system interface showed that the upgrade had only cost five survival points—less than Su Wu had anticipated.
"I should dismantle a few more batteries in the future," he mused. "The more battery packs I can upgrade, the better."
This upgrade wasn't part of Su Wu's original plan; it had been an impromptu decision. Yet, its necessity was undeniable.
A high-energy battery pack provided a backup for the shelter's power supply. Even if the geothermal generator failed, it would ensure the shelter's operations weren't immediately compromised.
Additionally, it served as a power reservoir, storing excess electricity generated during downtime and preventing waste.
The earlier such batteries were implemented, the greater the benefits.
Su Wu connected the battery pack to the geothermal generator's output terminal, allowing it to charge, then returned indoors.
After a quick shower and a change into dry clothes, he went upstairs to his bedroom.
With a comfortable surplus of survival points, Su Wu turned his attention to his laptop, finally upgrading it—a task he had been postponing.
The upgrade cost a hefty fifteen survival points, and other priorities had always come first. Only now had he barely scraped together enough points.
As the upgrade completed, the once-black laptop transformed into a sleek, silver-white device with a futuristic aesthetic.
Turning it on, Su Wu discovered that the upgraded laptop now boasted a hard drive capacity of 1,000 petabytes—a staggering 100,000 times its previous capacity.
Its computational power rivaled that of a small supercomputer.
Of course, such performance came with a price: the laptop now consumed a staggering 100 kWh of electricity per hour when operating at full capacity. Its internal battery could only sustain it for one hour.
Beyond the hardware upgrade, the laptop also came with a built-in basic artificial intelligence module, capable of handling simple tasks on his behalf.
Su Wu spent some time configuring the AI, eventually naming it Luo Tianyi.
He transferred control of the construction crew to Luo Tianyi, and immediately, the coordination between the various units became more seamless. Movements became fluid, almost as if the machines had been granted life, and efficiency noticeably improved.
"So this is what they mean by 'automated operations,'" Su Wu mused. "The stronger the computing power, the higher the efficiency."
Satisfied with this unexpected boost in productivity, Su Wu observed the construction site for a while longer.
Realizing that commanding the crew required only a fraction of the laptop's computational capacity, he assigned it an additional long-term task:
Collect and download all publicly available text-based data from the internet.
While the task seemed simple, manually gathering data from the web was both time-consuming and labor-intensive, and many resources were hard to locate without precise knowledge of where to look.
For Luo Tianyi, however, this task was straightforward. The only bottleneck was the speed of the network connection.
By afternoon, the rain had subsided.
The two trucks carrying cement finally arrived at Su Wu's doorstep.
He paused the work of the construction robots and mini-transport vehicles, redirecting them to handle unloading.
The drivers, intrigued by the scene, struck up a conversation.
"Brother, this is some serious high-tech you've got here," one said. "These machines work faster than three or four men combined."
"Can't be helped," Su Wu shrugged, feigning helplessness. "It's hard to find reliable workers these days."
In truth, he could have hired temporary labor, but their inefficiency made robots the better choice.
"Same here," the driver replied with a sigh. "All the good workers have been hired by the government for some kind of civil defense project."
"You think the rumors online about the apocalypse are true?"
"Maybe," Su Wu said nonchalantly. "With the way the market's behaving, who knows what might happen."
After unloading was completed and the drivers had left, Su Wu directed the construction robots to cover the cement bags with waterproof tarps.
These materials were becoming increasingly scarce. Even for barter, they would be hard to acquire in the future, so Su Wu handled them with care.
By May 22, after accumulating more survival points, Su Wu expanded his construction crew with another mini-excavator, a mini-transport vehicle, and a construction robot—doubling its size and significantly improving excavation efficiency.
By May 28, the first underground layer, spanning a total of 600 square meters, was preliminarily excavated.
Su Wu spent one survival point to finalize the reinforcement of the layer's structural integrity, merging the construction waste, steel reinforcements, and outer concrete into a cohesive whole.
With the first layer complete, the construction crew began preparations to dig deeper for the second layer.
That same afternoon, Su Wu sat idly in his farmhouse bedroom on the second floor, now with little to occupy his time. He decided to start planning and designing the completed sections of the shelter.
Opening his laptop, he compared the original blueprints with a collection of reference materials he had downloaded.
He sank into de
ep thought, knowing that this decision would define the starting point and initial functionality of his shelter.