"Prefabricating resource harvester. ETA: T-minus 10 minutes."

Julian calmly watched the construction yard buzzing with yellow proto insects as they hurried to construct the last few batches of resource harvesters. Most of the areas in the northern direction of the Base Complex Facility had already been constructed with resource gathering outposts.

Completing it would give Julian the initiative to roll out in either the east, west, or south, and he was waiting for Avina's preliminary investigation to return. 

"Successor, this is Avina. I have patrolled the areas the successor has designated. Sending the data now."

The digital map on his VNI enlarged. On the top was a fan-shaped bird's eye view of everything in the north. The outer outposts were fitted with a lot of defensive structures while those in between had a lot less. The rest of the areas were darker than usual, though many points of interest appeared. The most eye-catching thing for Julian were the resource deposits.

On the west of the digital map was a mountainous area with a small white cover on the top of the mountains. There were several mountain ranges extending out far and Julian couldn't measure how long it was.

"There should be a lot of resources here, but the climate is not ideal right now. If we explore further there, it should lead me straight to a cold area..."

Heating up the structures would require an immense amount of energy and Julian did not want to waste the remaining two hundred thousand energy units from the advanced cold fusion reactor core.

That would have been his decision if not for the three small villium ore deposits located deep underground.

"Jackpot. Avina, are there any threats near this area?"

"Avina did not manage to sense nearby threats, successor. However, Avina advises extreme caution."

Julian smiled as this girl was finally able to pick things up. There was this special learning program from these AI constructs that mused him. He vaguely remembered it as 'machine learning' of some sort.

"You still can't control two mecha suits at once?"

"Avina should be able to once the Base Network Server Building is upgraded. Us, AI constructs can then move our cores from the HQ Building into the Base Network Server Building and proliferate."

"Then I will accompany you with the MD-102.", Julian rubbed his jaw in contemplation. 'How the hell does an AI proliferate?!'

He slapped himself and got rid of obscene details plaguing his innocent mind, turning to look back at the digital map.

"The south continues to be a dense patch of jungle. I don't want to go there without some good vision and aerial support."

Jungle was one of his worst nightmares when it came to planetary explorations. Not only could the beasts mask their presence in all aspects, soil that deep would be extremely soft and the mecha suits might drown itself under mud. As far as he was concerned, the area around the base complex facility wasn't that bad enough as even a ten-storey building with a lot of weight could proudly stand without a budge.

"Avina found two geothermal vents on the east, but one is at the edge of the 5km radius of the zoning barrier while the other lies beyond it... Intellus, is there no way we can increase the radius of the zoning barrier at all?"

Intellus had always been connected to his VNI which made communication easier.

"We currently lack the materials to upgrade nor construct additional zoning barriers. The successor seems to be hesitant in exploring the areas outside the zoning barrier's range. Is there an unaccounted factor on my side that the successor has included?"

Julian's brows furrowed, "You don't know it, but the Federation may have already sent another patrol here. They might be stationed around in planet orbit. Any careless actions from us and they might conduct a more thorough investigation down low..."

"That would be strange, successor. Does this Federation do not concern themselves of the successor's safety?"

Julian shook his head and chuckled, "The only thing those fools are concerned about is the Hive and some Survivalist civilization in their backyard."

He could not blame Intellus though as its programming was still naive at this point. But he knew that once he said those words, a new understanding would form on this AI construct's digital mind.

Intellus remained static before replying shortly. "I understand."

Julian waved his hand in dismissal, "Enough about that. It's time that we changed the landscape around here. Time to make use of these extra resources for additional power. Any ideas?"

Intellus seemed to have taken control of the map and used it according to his explanations.

"We can start constructing the assembly factories coupled by fabrication buildings while we flatten the valley up north. This will be the foundation of our economic and militaristic development. This will include a network relay hub to handle the extreme traffic that may occur when materials are transferred into this area to produce the automatons that the successor may require."

"A nearby network material storage building is also required to store excess materials or products that the assembly factories produce."

Julian could feel his head throbbing in pain. "What about energy production? Won't we run out of energy at that point?"

"The geothermal vent that Avina has located in the eastern direction should be able to supply enough energy for these factories to work."

"And what if it doesn't?"

"...", Intellus remained silent, "I am calculating these factors now. We currently do not have villium ores to construct the energy storage to store the excess energy in the energy grid..."

Intellus continued his blabber for a very long time. Julian could barely contain the sleepiness from the prolonged lecture. Thankfully, the classrooms of the Star Sol Imperial University had harnessed his mind to handle this situation many times...

Seeing that Intellus was done, Julian stood up and stretched. "Is that everything?"

"No, but I am still in the process of analyzing. I will report once I am done."

Intellus disconnected and Julian lazily rubbed his drowsy eyes. "Avina-2, where's my damn coffee?!"

"Already here, successor!", Avina-2 excitedly waved its left hand while carrying a tray on the right. Julian grabbed the cup and drowned himself in ecstasy. "Your coffee making skills are improving..."

He patted Avina-2's round metallic head to which the little robot reacted in joy.

"Avina-2 will improve to satisfy the successor's tastes!"

Julian nodded instinctively. The most important thing he would want while being stuck down here was some goddamn delicacy. His golden eyes stared at Avina-2 and curled his lips.

"Are you still going about making a dish out of those carcasses?"

"Oh, Avina-2 is waiting for Hesab to find the best carcasses! Avina-2 last heard of Hesab a few days ago..."

Coincidentally, or not, Hesab connected into his VNI at that point.

"Successor, this is Hesab speaking. I have done a preliminary simulation and investigation of the local fauna in this area. The results are very fascinating, it should relieve you of boredom from Intellus' extended symposium. There are catalogs that I have created in a comprehensible structure for the successor to easily follow. I will be synchronizing these sets of data into your VNI anytime now..."

Julian massaged his temples. "Did you send some data to Avina-2 as well?"

"I did as the little robot was very enthusiastic, successor. I suggest that you consider Avina-2's actions and make a comment on its results."

Julian rolled his eyes and closed the connection. He opened up Hesab's catalog and viewed the characteristics that he had found about each beast.

The first thing he looked at was that beast with a huge, spiked carapace on its back. It was a four-legged beast with wild muscular strength in its feet that could accumulate energy the more it was running in a linear direction. 

The carapace on its back was special as well. These beasts could chew on mineral ores and use it as a nutrient to flourish their carapaces into steel-like. A very mature one would have no problem being used as a substitute for some of the material requirements.

There was note down below that Hesab left for him.

"The properties of the carapace to absorb mineral nutrients to strengthen itself can be adapted into structures, mecha suits, automatons, etc., allowing material regeneration in objects that will work similarly to cell regeneration of organic beings."

"In a more highly magical notion, we can even make use of this characteristic to let our structures, mecha suits, automatons, etc., absorb inorganic or metallic compounds and hopefully absorb the practical characteristics that each compound holds. This will require additional simulations from yours truly and research from Intellus."

Julian repeatedly nodded his head while imagining his army of robots continuously improving themselves both physically and mentally in an almost never-ending fashion. 'Maybe I can make them as powerful as those heavenly beings?'

The next interesting catalog was about an upright serpentine-looking beast that could excrete highly corrosive acid. The acidity was so high that it would melt most objects it could touch. The worst part was that their elongated necks allowed them to gather enough force to spew out acidic shots in long distances, up to a hundred meters for the mature ones.

"These acidic shots can be blocked by kinetic or psionic barriers. These disadvantages can become non-existent should we be able to reproduce and integrate acidic shots into our arsenal. Yours truly can guess what the successor is thinking right now."

'Research and simulation?'

Unfortunately, Hesab could not read Julian's thoughts. As to whether he was wrong or not, he could not ascertain the case.

"How about stealth... Give me something..."

Hesab's catalog was long, but it was fraught with information that Julian did not want to know. No masking or stealth techniques could be found, rendering him hopeless about the situation with the Federation patrol.

"Should I instigate another attack again?"

Even if doing so would not yield the results he wanted, Hesab explained on the rest of the notes that these carcasses could provide the elementary materials the base needed. Essenctial materials like fiber, adhesives, and the like were present from these creatures. 

"Crazy, what am I thinking about?"

Julian shook his head and continued sipping the coffee Avina-2 made.