Chapter 69: Harvest Season


    Trantor: Lonelytree Editor: Lucas


    The operation on the nt was sessful. As a precaution, the scientists didn’t let the nt absorb the crystal naturally but inserted the mechanically-enhanced crystal into the nt’s central sac through old-fashioned surgery.


    Three separate insertions were done on nt samples of varying growth stages, from the budding shoot, to flowering tendrils. Many nt samples, however, were casualties of these three sessful ones.


    Then, the scientists realized that these wilted nt materials were excellent sources of nt fiber. They could be used to create paper, which was especially useful now that the Hope had a news agency.


    The Academy was d that they had stumbled upon such a treasure. They believed that this nt would prove invaluable to their misadventures in space!


    The belief had infected even Yao Yuan, who ordered some nt spores to be kept in quarantine so that when man’s technology caught up, they could be used in more wonderful ways.


    On the other hand, the mining operation had reached its end, which meant that it was time for the alien nt to be used. Of course, they needed to fit the underground hole with surveince devices before they could release the nt to monitor its growth rate. The devices would be corroded in the process, but those were necessary sacrifices.


    Setting up of the surveince devices took up yet another long day. After all, this was the first time man had used space technology; they were using a nt for the purpose of harvesting and excavating, so they had to be incredibly cautious. In fact, some parts of the Academy still rejected using this method. They had appealed to Yao Yuan multiple times to give man a few years before theymit to something mankind couldn’t understand and handle.


    These voices of dissention came from senior scientists, and even though Yao Yuan knew that their points were valid, he believed that man needed to look ahead. For a better chance at survival, they needed a leap in their technological advancement and not a stagnant idling. Yao Yuan felt that using these nts was a step in the right direction.


    However, Yao Yuan still had a needling apprehension about the whole operation. In fact, it was not a feeling that was unique to him. He had consulted Zhang Heng, who expressed the same concern. Nevertheless, because Zhang Heng said that the feeling was more like an annoyance than acute danger, they both decided to keep the matter under wraps.


    What mattered the most at the moment was for the upgrade on the Hope be done expediently. This was because if there was any danger, with the upgrade, they could choose to warp without reservation.


    After the manual excavation waspleted, an acid-covered nt sample was lowered into the hole. Within, four cameras were monitoring it.


    "Releasing energy bait."


    "Surveince system working as normal."


    "Initiating heat detection sensors."


    "Opening radiography system..."


    All of thesemands poured towards Yao Yuan, who sat over the whole operation in centralmand. Finally, every single surveince device at the Hope’s disposal was activated. As an extra safety measure, the Hope even flew 500 meters off the asteroid’s surface.


    "Now, shed the acidic carapace."


    "Captain’s order, shedding the acidic carapace..."


    In the surveince video, one could see the covering surrounding the nt blow up into smithereens. However, it was an incredibly contained st; there was barely any lingering smoke. After that, a ball of green mass slithered to the ground. It then pooled itself in a clump, barely moving.


    Everyone watched the video with bated breath, waiting for the alien nt to respond. Gradually the nt mass started to spread out. Other than the globr sac that remained in the center, the rest of the nt fused into searching tendrils. Theytched onto nearby rocks, and before long, the rocks turned to sand. It was obvious that the nt had awakened from hibernation. With an incredible speed, the tendrils crowded towards a corner of the cave. It was reaching for the previously buried energy bait.


    After ingesting the bait, the initially 30-cubic-centimeter-wide nt’s mass grew to about several hundred cubic centimeters wide. Plus, it showed no signs of slowing down. Almost instantly, it dissolved an amber-colored stctite the size of a grown man’s fist. Before long, it expanded to ten cubic meters in size.


    All this was carefully recorded. Attention was especially paid to the amber-colored rock. After all, its color meant that it probably carried radioactive deposits, and those needed extra analysis.


    Just like that, within only a few hours, the hole that was only about several meters wide grew into a cavern that was a few hundred meters in size.


    During this process, a lot of air was released by the nt. The scientists had found out that the oxides in the rocks were converted by the nt and released into the air as oxygen and other gases. This was the reason behind Sahara’s unique airposition.


    The whole project took about seven hours toplete. By then, the nt had grown to a massive size about one hundred meters big, and the cavern was already one thousand meters wide. The harvest would be allowed to continue if not for the fact that the nt suddenly ate upwards. Therefore, the process had to be halted. With the press of a button, the nt started wilting. In about 10 seconds, all that remained were husks of the nts.


    Everyone on the Hope cheered for the sess of the operation. A digging expedition that would require months of manualbor waspleted within a few hours; it was truly a sight to behold!


    Afternding once more, a special unit made up of soldiers and scientists went into the cavern. They started to survey the situation, especially the nt’s activity. Everything had gone ording to n. All of the nt had died, leaving behind a bunch of fibers, sacs of minerals and alloys, and most surprisingly, an energy nt capsule the size of a ping pong ball!


    This meant that they had another energy crystal in their hands!


    Although it was only the size of ping pong ball, it contained one tenth of the energy supplied by the Hope’s crystal reactors!


    Then there were pure minerals of many kinds, such as copper, zinc, aluminum...


    There was also a great harvest of alloys. Together with the alloys, whose usage was still unknown, they had harvested about one ton of the superconductor alloy!


    The time spent on transporting these materials alone was one full day and one full night.


    However, the cavern was notrge enough to amodate 120000 people. Therefore, the excavation would have to continue. Calctions estimated another ten excavations. This meant that harvests of this size would be repeated another ten times!


    After these ten harvests, the Hope would no longer need to worry about its stock of metals, energy crystals, and nt fibers. Other resources, like fertilizers and chemicals, could be transmuted from these, so that meant that the Hope wouldn’t need to worry about those anymore either.


    The only exception was the radioactive ores and that happened to be the Hope’s most urgent necessity. But in a forming sr system, there was bound to be loads of radioactive substances, so it didn’t pose much of a worry. With time, the Hope would also have more than enough stores of radioactive supplies.


    This had brought a fresh wave of hope to every man on the Hope. Their initial consternation regarding this sr system was immediately wiped out. This system was, in fact, a paradise!


    During the second scheduled harvest, a few specialists were looking through the recentputer records on the system’s new sun. Suddenly, one of them said, "Hey,e over here and look. There was a spike in the sun’s radioactive scale yesterday."


    The other specialist replied, without raising his head, "Was it a short fluctuation before everything returned to normal?"


    "Yes, you’re right," said the surprised specialist.


    "Then it’s probably fine," offered another person at the end of the room, "That has been happening since two months ago. Our observations showed that the sun has remained overall stable. We’ve reported this to the Academy, and their personnel reached the same conclusion after their own analysis. Since every other reading on this sun has remained rtively stable, this was probably a misreading by the device or a result of asteroids colliding with the sun.


    "In any case, record it down and report it to the Academy, but most probably they’ll tell us that it’s nothing again."


    With that dismissal, everyone went back to work...


    Far away from the Hope, the sun burned quietly, spreading its warm embrace throughout the sr system...