157: Chapter 157 Five Hundred Robots Moving Bricks: Global Netizens Stunned!

Alien civilization navigation timer, Day 7.

6:40 AM.

Three-ring siheyuan, main bedroom.

Su Che was woken up by his phone vibrating.

He felt for the phone by the pillow and swiped the screen open with one hand.

Lieutenant General Peng Zhenbang had sent an encrypted message regarding the construction progress of the near-orbit space base.

Su Che took a glance, tossed the phone back by the pillow, and turned over.

Lin Waner's spot was already empty, the quilt folded neatly.

Sounds of a spatula hitting an iron wok came from the direction of the kitchen.

Su Che sat up, put on his slippers, and walked to the bathroom.

Splashing cold water on his face and putting a toothbrush in his mouth, he brushed his teeth while using his free hand to scroll through data on his terminal.

Mirror World global scan progress: 80%.

The computing power allocation of the Yiren AI Core had not changed; Liu Huaqiang's team had stayed up all night.

Virtual eco-independent point pool: 48,000.

Su Che spat the toothpaste foam into the sink.

After deducting the consumption for exchanges, forty-eight thousand remained.

Fifty million pairs of Star Sea Glasses were distributed globally, with users wearing them to work, go shopping, and film videos for social media platforms every day.

Even though only single-body space AR overlays were open, this experience of "holographic panels growing out of thin air in reality" was enough to get everyone addicted.

Points were rising, but very slowly.

Once the global launch happened and fifty million people flooded into a virtual world identical to Earth simultaneously, that would be the real flood.

6:55 AM.

Su Che walked to the dining room and sat down.

On the table were two bowls of white porridge, a plate of peanuts, a plate of smashed cucumber, and two boiled eggs.

Lin Waner handed over the chopsticks.

As Su Che was peeling an egg, his phone rang again.

A message from Jiang Yingxue.

"Over 130 million new posts related to Star Sea Glasses on global social media platforms within twenty-four hours. A tech blogger from Sakura Country made a video dismantling the Star Sea Glasses, and the view count broke 80 million. The title, translated, is '1.29 Dollar Miracle, Silicon Valley Should Collectively Commit Seppuku'."

Su Che stuffed the egg into his mouth, chewed twice, and replied with one word.

"Mm."

Lin Waner sat opposite him, holding a spoon and stirring the porridge, but put it down after a few stirs.

"You were talking in your sleep last night."

Su Che looked up.

"What did I say?"

"Not enough computing power." Lin Waner took a sip of porridge. "You repeated those four words over and over."

Su Che peeled the second egg.

8:10 AM.

Pangu Laboratory, B2 level.

When Su Che walked into the hall, Liu Huaqiang was slumped over the main console, asleep with his face pressed against the keyboard.

The code on the screen was still lit, the cursor frozen on a certain line.

Three researchers nearby were also slumped over their workstations, one of them using a mousepad as a pillow.

Su Che did not wake them up.

He walked to the secondary screen and called up the real-time construction footage of the space Dry Dock.

The footage came from the wide-angle camera on the outer wall of the luan bird verification ship.

Four hundred kilometers above.

The azure arc of Earth occupied the bottom third of the screen.

In the pitch-black background above, a massive metal ring structure was taking shape.

Five hundred silver-gray infrastructure robots were distributed across the nodes of the ring frame, their robotic arms moving in succession.

The white light of plasma welding torches flickered in the vacuum.

There was no sound.

There is no sound in space.

But the visual impact was stronger than any sound effect.

Su Che pulled over an empty chair, sat down in front of the secondary screen, and crossed his hands on his knees.

The assembly rate of the ring base had advanced from yesterday's 47% to 63%.

At this speed, in a few more days, the base would be closed.

After the base closed, the real highlight would begin: erecting the main keel truss above the ring base and building the enclosed final assembly module.

Once the entire Dry Dock was built, the internal net space would need to accommodate the 100,000-ton-class luan bird, which was 1,100 meters long and 360 meters wide.

Su Che pulled up the 3D diagram of the infrastructure assembly plan in his mind, comparing it with the real-time footage, checking the docking precision of key nodes one by one.

9:30 AM.

Liu Huaqiang was woken up by his own snoring.

He suddenly lifted his head, the keyboard leaving a row of red imprints on his face.

"What time is it?" Liu Huaqiang felt for his glasses, only to find they were crooked from being pressed by him.

"9:30." Su Che didn't turn his head.

Liu Huaqiang straightened his glasses, put them on, and scanned the scan progress on the main screen.

83%.

"The scanning speed is 3% faster than estimated." Liu Huaqiang rubbed his neck. "I optimized a version of the concurrent thread scheduling strategy last night, breaking down the city modeling tasks for North America and Europe into finer sub-blocks. The processing efficiency of the Yiren AI has improved."

Su Che turned around.

"How much earlier can we go online?"

Liu Huaqiang stretched. "Half a day."

Su Che didn't speak; half a day was still half a day.

In his mind, a mechanical voice cut in on time.

"Ding! Mirror World underlying engine global scan progress detected to be over 70%, civil scenario adaptation requirements triggered!"

"Task Name: Install a dummy switch for the Mirror World!"

"Task Content: The underlying engine is too hardcore; ordinary users can't play with it! Please develop a simplified plugin for Mirror World civil scenarios, so that even elementary school students can build houses, open shops, and plant flowers and raise fish in the virtual Earth!"

"Task Reward: 12,000 skill points, unlock exchange permissions for civil scenario modeling simplification technology, AI adaptation plugin technology, and software integration technology. Requires consumption of virtual eco-independent points: 5,000 points."

"Current virtual eco-independent point balance is sufficient for the exchange, proceed with exchange?"

Su Che glanced at the reward number.

Twelve thousand.

For the Mirror World tasks, only this last plugin remained.

"Exchange."

"Ding! 5,000 independent points consumed, core technology unlocked."

"System Prompt: Supporting auxiliary technology/blueprints/plans have not yet been exchanged. Includes: Simplified plugin blueprints (300 exchange points), civil scenario algorithm library (200 exchange points), integration plan (200 exchange points). Total exchange points: 700."

"Exchange all."

"Ding! 700 independent points consumed."

Data flooded into his consciousness space.

Su Che stood up, walked to the main console, and patted Liu Huaqiang on the shoulder.

"Add a job."

Liu Huaqiang turned his head.

"Civil scenario simplification plugin."

Su Che organized the technical framework from his consciousness space into a document and pushed it to Liu Huaqiang's screen.

"The underlying engine is the bones; this plugin is the flesh and skin. When users enter the Mirror World, they must be able to interact using the simplest gestures and voice commands. Drag a finger to build a building, say a sentence to change the weather."

Liu Huaqiang scanned the document structure.

"The workload isn't big." Liu Huaqiang pushed up his glasses. "The algorithm library and integration plan are ready-made. The main workload is in the front-end interaction logic and scenario templates. Two days is enough."

"Two days." Su Che confirmed. "That means it can go online together with the global Mirror World."

He returned to the secondary screen.

The real-time footage of the space Dry Dock continued to update.

Batches of prefabricated components were being released from the cargo hold of the luan bird verification ship. The silver-gray construction material blocks drifted slowly in the microgravity environment, precisely intercepted, positioned, and welded by robots.

Lin Waner pushed a dining cart in from the side door.

On the cart was only a thermos of hot water and a few paper cups.

She walked to Liu Huaqiang's workstation, placed a cup of hot water by the keyboard, and then went to the other researchers' workstations to place them one by one.

When she walked to Su Che's side, she didn't put down a paper cup; she stuffed a thermos directly into Su Che's hand.

Su Che unscrewed the lid; inside was red date and goji berry water.

"When did you start brewing health tea?" Su Che asked.

"Brewed for you." Lin Waner collected the empty paper cups from the cart. "You've been staying up for almost a month; if you don't nourish yourself, your hair will be whiter than your grandfather's."

Su Che took a sip.

He smacked his lips and said nothing.

...

2:00 PM.

Su Che sat in front of the main console. On his right was the construction progress data of the space Dry Dock, and on his left was the global scan progress of the Mirror World.

One growing in the sky, one running underground.

He took the tablet and opened the public opinion monitoring panel for global social media.

The topic of Star Sea Glasses was still rising in popularity.

Content from a short video platform in the Dragon Country caught Su Che's attention.

A rural aunt in her sixties, wearing Star Sea Glasses, stood in her vegetable field and shouted excitedly at the camera.

"Look! Look! There is a line of text floating on this eggplant, saying 'Water content 82%'! I've been farming all my life, and this is the first time I've let an eggplant report its own stats!"

The comment section under the video exploded.

"This is the ultimate form of technology and ruthless work by the aunt."

"Glasses bought for nine point nine can measure soil moisture, what can a three hundred dollar Oasis headset do? Play VR ping pong?"

"Silicon Valley: We have nowhere to retreat (Indeed, because the road was blocked by nine point nine)."

Su Che put the tablet back on the table.

He picked up the thermos and took another sip of the red date and goji berry water.

Too sweet.

But it worked.

When the sky outside darkened, Su Che stood up and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window.

He couldn't see the starry sky outside the window; Pangu Laboratory was underground.

But he knew that in an orbit four hundred kilometers high, five hundred robots were still tirelessly welding, assembling, and transporting.

In a few more days, the ring base of the Dry Dock would be closed.

After it closed, the skeleton of the 100,000-ton-class luan bird would have a place to be born.

Su Che turned and walked out.

"Dean Liu, keep a close eye on the plugin. I'm going to Jiuquan tomorrow afternoon to supervise the loading of construction materials for the near-orbit space base on-site."

"Don't worry." Liu Huaqiang didn't even look up.

Su Che walked out of the B2 level.

In the corridor, Qin Lan approached him.

"Consultant Su, a message came from Jiuquan."

Su Che stopped.

"When the luan bird verification ship was returning today, the external sensors captured a set of abnormal signals."

Qin Lan handed over the tactical terminal. "The signal source was located at 1,200 kilometers above the near-Earth orbit. It lasted for 0.3 seconds and then disappeared."

Su Che took the terminal and looked at the lonely signal waveform on the screen.

The frequency band was very strange.

It was not any known communication protocol on Earth.

"Have the Yiren AI Core do a full-spectrum comparison." Su Che returned the terminal to Qin Lan. "Don't report it until the results are out."

Qin Lan put away the terminal and followed Su Che toward the surface exit.

Su Che had his hands in his pockets.

1,200 kilometers.

Eight hundred kilometers higher than the Dry Dock's orbit.

0.3 seconds.

Took a look and left.

The guests in the sky were not just passing through.

They had already started eyeing their doorstep.