Chapter 733: Preparing to Return

A month of time can change many things.

Sun Cheng stood above a cliff several thousand meters high on one side of Valles Marineris; with the super vision of a Decepticon, even though the canyon below him was over five thousand meters deep, Sun Cheng could still clearly see everything within it.

Hundreds of robots of various types were busy in the canyon, with several Workers standing to the side directing them.

Looking closely, it was not hard to notice that in the canyon, which was as wide as a great plain, there were already two strange structures with a radius of over a hundred meters, shaped like yurts.

And more than ten kilometers away from the two already completed giant yurt structures, a third giant yurt was under construction.

"The storms have been getting more frequent lately. The Smart Brain predicts that the upcoming Mars wind season is about to arrive. I hope we can finish building the third factory before the storm hits!"

A month ago, Sun Cheng had just arrived on Mars.

At that time, because the weather was favorable, they had not directly experienced the legendary, terrifying Martian storms.

However, the good days did not last long.

Heaven clearly would not bless one person forever; the good weather did not last long.

Starting from about the fourth day after Sun Cheng and his group landed on Mars, storms began to blow continuously.

The first few days were relatively small, and the duration was only one or two hours.

Subsequently, the storms began to escalate bit by bit, and finally, on one day, it felt like the end of the world, lasting a full day and a half before ending.

Because the gale raged so fiercely and the Mars Base was temporarily unprepared, more than a dozen robots working outside were blown away by the sudden storm.

Although the Workers later found and repaired most of the lost robots based on locators, four were still missing.

Today was a rare clear day, with no storm attacking, but the two Mars exploration satellites had transmitted some very ominous intelligence.

According to current data on temperature differences, air pressure, and so on on Mars, a Pseudo-AI that Sun Cheng had brought from Earth and installed in the base determined that a terrifying, massive Martian storm, which might last from a week to over half a month, was about to arrive.

During the storm, it was clearly impossible for robots to work outdoors, but fortunately, during the previous storms, Adam and Prometheus had already thought of many countermeasures.

Drawing on some architectural knowledge from Earth, they designed the hemispherical structures in the canyon that looked exactly like yurts.

This type of structure was an underground metal mining and smelting factory; the two giant yurts already built were both located near a mineral vein, at distances of 17 kilometers and 39 kilometers respectively from the Underground Karst Cave that had been transformed into the Mars Base.

This was a type of building specifically designed for Martian storms; although it occupied a vast area, its height was less than ten meters.

It was difficult for the gale to pose a substantial threat to such relatively low buildings, and the interiors of the two giant yurts adopted an all-metal structure.

In addition to the top layer, the surroundings of the giant yurts were also piled with waste soil and rock excavated during the construction process to form a shell nearly two meters thick, which could withstand the impact of stones kicked up by most storms, ensuring the safety of the Workers and robots inside.

Inside the two giant yurts, there was an extraction tunnel leading to the underground mineral vein, and a transport tunnel that also connected to the base underground.

Of course, the above was all still limited to the design phase for the time being.

Over the past month, although more than ninety percent of the Workers and various types of robots in the entire Mars Base had been invested in the construction of the three giant yurts.

But because the workload was truly too massive, so far, only the ground facilities for two of the giant yurts had been completed.

Regarding the underground transport tunnels that were ten to several tens of kilometers long, the first giant yurt had only just begun construction, and the second had not even started.

However, after the storm arrived, the Workers and robots would not be able to perform outdoor work.

At that time, the Mars Base would concentrate all its robots to carry out the excavation of the underground transport tunnels.

It was believed that it would not take long for the underground tunnels to be successfully built.

The most scarce resource for the construction and development of the Mars Base was not various rare metals or rare earths, but water.

Water was a strategic resource essential for industry; this point was not only very important for humans, but it was the same for the Cybertronians.

Up to now, Sun Cheng and his group had not found underground water resources on Mars, but they had discovered glacier regions and small amounts of solid ice.

Regrettably, the nearest area where they found solid ice was over seven hundred and eighty kilometers away from the Mars Base, and before building large transport vehicles, it could not be utilized at all.

However, this did not affect the Mars Base gradually getting on the right track, because the planet Cybertron was a metal planet; although there were rivers, lakes, and oceans on the planet in the initial period, with the civil war that lasted for millions of years, coupled with the destructive mining of resources in occupied areas by the Decepticon Legion, water resources could no longer be obtained from nature as early as the early stages of the second civil war.

For this reason, both Autobot and Decepticon Scientists had each researched a series of methods for artificially synthesizing and generating water resources to maintain industrial use.

For example, the current Mars Base, because it had not yet stepped onto the right track and various machinery and equipment were also insufficient, could temporarily only use chemical synthesis and temperature difference methods to artificially synthesize water resources.

Although the water resources artificially synthesized by the Mars Base could not yet meet industrial needs for the time being.

But because Decepticons and robots were not carbon-based life forms that could not survive without water, they could still endure it.

Anyway, with the continuous development of the Mars Base, the snowball effect would be able to get rolling before long.

Although the natural environment here was not as good as Earth's, and the initial development speed of the Mars Base certainly could not be compared to when Base No. 2 was first established in South America.

But after all, this was a planet that had not been visited by outsiders, and currently only Sun Cheng and his group had their eyes on it and were developing it.

It was believed that as more and more Decepticon Engineers and Workers were cultivated, and more robots were manufactured, the development speed here on Mars would only get faster and faster, and sooner or later, it would leave Earth, which had already begun to be constrained by various factors, far behind.

"So, in the blink of an eye, more than a month has passed. I wonder how things are over on Earth now? Should I go back?"

Looking up at the sky, Sun Cheng began to worry about Earth again in his heart.

Before participating in the first flight test of the Hope experimental spacecraft, he had already notified his subordinates, such as Tianwo, to notify him immediately if any uncontrollable danger appeared on Earth.

Judging from the fact that Tianwo and the others had not sent him any interstellar communications over the past month, Earth should still be safe.

However, to say he was not worried would naturally be impossible.

After thinking for a short time, Sun Cheng finally made a decision.

"It is time to go back!"

But before that, he was prepared to do one more small experiment.

……

PS:

Something came up temporarily again, and I only got home just before five o'clock. Today I will try to see if I can manage three updates.

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