Chapter 55: 1.1 Million
’Unfortunately, after this last boost, I’ve pretty much exhausted the potential of the strange bird’s fluid. If I want to cultivate more high-quality Clones in the future, I’ll have to do the hard work of researching biotechnology myself.’
Li Qingsong felt a brief pang of regret, but his spirits lifted in the next moment.
’Once this latest batch of Clones is cultivated, my consciousness link capacity will exceed one million, and I’ll be able to start several major projects simultaneously!’
Half a year quietly slipped by as Li Qingsong juggled his priorities, focusing all his efforts on upgrading the production lines for various Warship components and expanding capacity at his mining and purification facilities.
During those six months, the factory producing the newly formulated culture medium finally manufactured enough for a single cultivation cycle—a batch sufficient for 150,000 individuals. The comprehensive upgrade and renovation of the Clone cultivation facilities were also completed.
Cultivation had begun on a new batch of 150,000 Clones. Meanwhile, the small, previously cultivated test batch of 100 high-quality Clones was now ready.
The moment they were "born," Li Qingsong immediately extended his consciousness link over to them.
As he briefly assessed one, Li Qingsong was shocked to discover that the maximum consciousness link capacity of this newest Clone had broken the one million mark, reaching 1.07 million!
But that wasn’t even the highest. Switching from body to body, Li Qingsong tested the entire batch of 100 Clones. He discovered one whose link capacity was an incredible 1,095,500!
Almost 1.1 million!
’Excellent. Just excellent.’
Li Qingsong immediately transferred his consciousness into this body and began using it to connect to the remaining Clones.
In an instant, the roughly 400,000 Clones that had previously been unlinked were brought into the network.
Although these were all previous-generation "low-quality Clones" with far less average brainpower than the ones he was currently using, quantity has a quality all its own.
A torrent of mental energy surged through him. Li Qingsong once again felt that familiar sensation of his cognitive abilities skyrocketing in an instant.
’With these additional 400,000 Clones, I can finally start all the projects I had to put on hold.’
Before, the production lines for the various Warship components had already been upgraded, but a lack of manpower meant they could only operate at a low output.
The various new mines for Oxygen Ore, Tolin, methane, ethane, and formaldehyde had all been constructed but were sitting idle, also for lack of personnel.
Furthermore, the blueprints for a large, multi-purpose space station had been finished for some time, but so far, only the initial transport of construction materials had begun; actual construction was yet to start.
But now, with the addition of these 400,000 Clones, everything was about to change.
The once-empty production lines were instantly filled with highly trained workers, more proficient than even veteran technicians and possessing a comprehensive, system-wide knowledge base.
On Earth, workers of this caliber were hot commodities, with major corporations fighting to hire them for million-dollar annual salaries. Here, under Li Qingsong, even the janitors cleaning the toilets were at this level.
The vacant mines, refineries, smelters, and foundries were all instantly brought to full staff.
Development of the Deep Space communications network, which had previously been crawling along, began to accelerate rapidly with the assignment of ten thousand new Clones.
The only area now facing pressure was the agricultural, livestock, and aquaculture bases.
Clearly, as Li Qingsong’s maximum consciousness link capacity continued to increase, the total population under his command was set to skyrocket.
At Li Qingsong’s current cultivation rate, 300,000 new Clones would be "born" each year. In just a few short years, the total population would surge to over five million.
Five million Clones would consume 150,000 tons of meat, 100,000 tons of eggs, 100,000 tons of milk, 1.2 million tons of vegetables, and 600,000 tons of grain annually!
For salt alone, the annual consumption would be 15,000 tons!
Factoring in miscellaneous items like fruit and sugar, the total annual consumption was approaching three million tons.
’But it doesn’t matter.’
Li Qingsong thought, ’High food consumption means a large population. A large population means high productivity. If we don’t have enough food, we just build more food bases.’
And so, alongside the construction of more than a dozen gargantuan food production bases, numerous freighters and combat ships were also being produced.
Vast quantities of construction materials began their journey into orbit. Tens of thousands of Clones in Space Suits worked around the clock, wielding vacuum welding torches and piloting various industrial construction craft to build the space station, piece by piece, in the silent void.
Simultaneously, the production of all kinds of war materiel began in earnest.
On the ammunition production lines, steel, copper, tin, and aluminum from the various mining bases were processed by massive machinery, flowing off conveyor belts like a river of metal. A single production line could produce 1,000 bullets per minute, totaling 1.44 million per day.
And Li Qingsong currently had a full 100 of these production lines!
That meant a daily output of 144 million rounds!
On the standard-issue artillery shell production lines, 15-kilogram shells were also produced in a continuous stream, with a single line yielding 2,000 shells per day.
Li Qingsong had 100 of these lines as well, resulting in a daily output of 200,000 shells.
Interstellar Missiles were more complex and technologically demanding, so they couldn’t be manufactured as quickly. Even so, for Interstellar Missiles weighing 600 kilograms each, Li Qingsong still achieved a daily production rate of 2,000 units!
Furthermore, in addition to the standard model, Li Qingsong had also developed other types of Interstellar Missiles: high-yield Missiles with double the explosive payload; high-speed Missiles with half the payload but double the propellant; and cluster Missiles that carried the standard payload but also dispersed a large number of pellets, to name a few.
Based on a 0.5-gram charge per bullet, a total of 8 kilograms of explosives and propellant per artillery shell, and an average of 150 kilograms of payload per Interstellar Missile, Li Qingsong’s daily requirement for explosives massed around 2,000 tons. This amounted to 730,000 tons per year.
To meet this demand, it would take three or four dedicated explosives factories, each with an annual production capacity of 200,000 tons, running at full load.
And that was just for the payloads. There were also the bullet casings, the shell casings, the components for the Interstellar Missiles, and, most importantly, the hulls and parts for spacecraft, the construction materials for the space station, the fuel for the freighters...
All told, the 1.1 million Clones working around the clock produced a total mass of various materials and equipment reaching into the hundreds of millions of tons annually.
And so, with freighters constantly ferrying materials into space, with tens of thousands of Clones toiling day and night in the void, and with over a million more working tirelessly in the ground bases—in just under two years, the first two of the three major goals Li Qingsong had set for himself were already complete.