Chapter 55: 1.1 Million
"It’s a shame, though, that after this upgrade, the potential of the Monster Birds’ bodily fluids has been completely drained by me.
In the future, if I want to cultivate high-quality Clones, I’ll have to genuinely research biotechnology myself," Tom thought with a slight hint of regret, but then immediately brightened.
"Once this latest batch of Clones is cultivated, my consciousness connection count will be able to increase to over a million, and several major projects can begin simultaneously!"
Half a year quietly passed as Tom worked tirelessly, fully ensuring the upgrade and renovation of the battleship’s component production lines, as well as the expansion of production capacity at the mining and refining ends.
During this half-year, the cultivation fluid production factory, using the new formula, finally produced enough fluid for one cycle of cultivation, which is 150,000 person-servings, and the complete upgrade and renovation of the Clone cultivation factory were also completed.
A new batch of 150,000 Clones had already begun cultivation, and the 100 high-quality Clones cultivated in small batches earlier were now ready to be born.
As soon as they were born, Tom immediately extended his consciousness connection to them.
After a brief sensing, Tom was surprised to find that the maximum consciousness connection count of this latest Clone had actually broken through 1 million, reaching 1.07 million!
But he was not the one with the highest consciousness connection count.
Switching bodies again and sensing all 100 Clones in this batch, Tom discovered that one Clone’s connection count was as high as 1.0955 million!
It was close to 1.1 million!
"Good, very good."
Tom immediately transferred into this body, simultaneously controlling his consciousness to connect with the other Clones.
In an instant, approximately 400,000 Clones, who had not been connected before, were brought into the connection range.
Although they were all the "low-quality Clones" from the previous generation, with an average brainpower much lower than the Clones currently in use, the accumulation of numbers could also lead to qualitative change.
A surge of brainpower came rushing in, and Tom once again felt a significant instantaneous increase in his brainpower.
"With these 400,000 additional Clones, all the work that couldn’t be done before can now begin."
Previously, the production lines for various battleship components had been upgraded and renovated, but due to insufficient manpower, they could only maintain a low production level.
Various new oxygen ore mines, thorin ore mines, methane mines, ethane mines, formaldehyde mines, etc., likewise remained idle after construction due to insufficient manpower.
The large-scale comprehensive space base had long completed its blueprint planning, but currently, only some initial construction materials had been transported, and formal construction had not yet begun.
But now, with the addition of these 400,000 Clones, everything was different.
The originally empty production lines were instantly filled with highly skilled workers who were well-trained, more proficient than old technical workers, and possessed a comprehensive knowledge base.
Such high-level, high-caliber skilled workers on Earth would be highly sought after by major factories, offering annual salaries in the millions.
But here, even someone sweeping toilets was one of them.
The various idle mines, refining plants, metallurgical plants, and foundries were also instantly fully staffed.
The technical breakthrough for the Deep Space communication network, which had been progressing with difficulty, also began to advance rapidly after the addition of 10,000 Clones.
The only slight pressure was on the planting, breeding, and aquaculture bases.
Evidently, with the further increase in Tom’s maximum consciousness connection count, the total population under his command would also surge.
At Tom’s current cultivation speed, 300,000 new Clones would be born each year, and in just a few years, the total population would skyrocket to over 5 million.
5 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 per year!
Just table salt alone would consume 15,000 tons per year!
Adding in some miscellaneous items, such as fruits and sugar, the total annual consumption would go straight to 3 million tons.
"But it doesn’t matter," Tom thought.
"The more grain consumed, the more people there are.
The more people there are, the higher the productivity.
If grain is not enough, just build more grain bases."
Thus, with the construction of over a dozen super-large grain production bases, numerous cargo and combat spacecraft were also produced.
Massive amounts of construction materials began to be transported into space, and tens of thousands of Clones, wearing spacesuits, worked day and night, using vacuum welding guns, operating various industrial construction spacecraft, etc., slowly building this space base in the vast and empty expanse of space.
At the same time, various strategic materials also began to be produced at full capacity.
On the bullet production lines, steel, copper, tin, aluminum, etc., from various mining bases, flowed like water from the conveyor belts under the processing of large equipment.
One production line could produce 1,000 bullets per minute, which meant 1.44 million per day.
And Tom currently had a full 100 such production lines!
The daily output was 144 million bullets!
On the standard artillery shell production lines, standard shells weighing 15KG were also continuously produced, with one production line yielding 2,000 shells per day.
Tom also had 100 such production lines, meaning a daily output of 200,000 shells.
interstellar missiles were more complex and technologically advanced, making them impossible to produce too quickly.
But even for interstellar missiles with a single-unit mass of 600KG, Tom still achieved a daily output of 2,000 units!
Furthermore, in addition to standard interstellar missiles, Tom also developed more types of interstellar missiles, such as high-power missiles with double warhead explosive charge, high-speed missiles with half warhead explosive charge but double propellant, shotgun missiles with unchanged warhead explosive charge but additional large quantities of projectiles, and so on.
Calculating with an explosive charge of 0.5 grams per bullet, a total of 8KG of explosive and propellant per artillery shell, and an average of 150KG of explosive per interstellar missile, Tom’s daily gunpowder requirement averaged around 2,000 tons, which meant 730,000 tons per year.
This would require three or four factories, each with an annual output of 200,000 tons of explosives, to operate at full capacity to meet the demand.
And this was just the explosive charge.
The rest included bullet casings, artillery shell casings, interstellar missile components, and most importantly, spacecraft hulls and components, as well as construction materials needed for the space base, and fuel for cargo spacecraft transporting supplies...
In total, the 1.1 million Clones currently working produced a total mass of hundreds of millions of tons of various materials and equipment per year.
While cargo spacecraft continuously transported construction materials and supplies into space, and tens of thousands of Clones worked day and night in space, and millions of Clones toiled tirelessly in ground bases, in just under two years, the first two of the three goals set by Tom had already been completed.