Chapter 6

Chu Jun returned to the survival pod, which was not far away, and quickly arrived at its side. He opened the cover inside the survival pod, pulled down the emergency breathing mask, and began to inhale oxygen. After a few minutes, he put down the breathing mask, coughed hard, and finally spat out a puddle of yellow-green liquid.

Clearing harmful substances from the lungs is a skill that anyone who has completed basic survival training can possess, but the extent of the clearance varies.

Of course, the ability to clear all sulfur-containing harmful substances in one breath, like Chu Jun, is not something that basic survival training can achieve, nor can advanced survival training.

After cleaning his body, Chu Jun thought for a moment and found a breathing mask, but only removed the oxygen supply part and wore it on his face. Although the mask could not supply oxygen, it had a filtering function that could filter out most harmful substances in the air. This way, Chu Jun could stay outside the survival pod for a longer time, at least for half a day, before needing to return to replace the filter.

However, he only had two spare filters left, and then they would run out.

Chu Jun started the printer again, placed the remaining metal rods and carbon rods inside, and selected the blueprint for a basic refining machine. However, the screen showed that the materials were insufficient to print the entire refining machine.

But this did not stump Chu Jun. With a complete set of basic survival skills, he was well-versed in the structure of the refining machine. He activated the advanced editing function of the printer, modified the blueprint of the refining machine, and removed the funnel and crushing device at the feed port, as well as the forming part at the discharge port.

This left only the core components of the basic refining machine, significantly reducing the amount of material needed.

The printer started again, and a few minutes later, the core part of the refining machine appeared before Chu Jun. It was a machine similar in size to a regular microwave oven, with a core that was a multi-functional material separation furnace. It could switch between several modes based on the material fed into it.

Chu Jun then went to the forest, cut a piece of a tree trunk, and collected some strongly acidic tree sap before returning to the survival pod. He cut several wooden boards from the tree trunk and assembled them as the feed component. He also used a dagger to dig out a few water cups and wooden grooves as the discharge forming part.

As for grinding, he simply did it by hand, using two large stones to crush and grind the pyrrhotite. He then mixed the crushed powder with the tree sap and placed it in the refining machine. Finally, he inserted a polymer battery as the power source.

The refining machine is a major energy consumer, and a high-energy polymer battery can only support continuous operation for about an hour.

Chu Jun started the refining machine, and after a short while, he had collected two large cups of basic industrial acid, primarily sulfuric acid. After extracting the acid from the feed material, he switched the mode and, after a short while, produced several iron-based metal rods.

Although these metal rods were somewhat rough, they could be勉强 used in the printer after being trimmed with a dagger. With the materials, his first task was to print the feed and discharge components of the refining machine, thus creating a complete material refining machine, eliminating the current inconvenience.

With the raw materials, the next step was to solve the power source problem.

Fortunately, Deep Space Energy had thoroughly considered the availability of materials and the difficulty of processing when manufacturing the universal material printer. They provided the blueprint for an ancient lead-acid battery. Chu Jun already had sulfuric acid, so he just needed to find some lead to make the battery.

Although lead-acid batteries are far less efficient than polymer batteries, in a survival situation on an unfamiliar planet, the most important thing is to solve the problem of having a power source.

Since he had found pyrrhotite, there was a possibility of finding lead. Even if he couldn't find lead, he could first create a solar panel and a charger to recharge the two polymer batteries, although it would be more troublesome.

Creating the solar panels was much easier. He simply collected some random stones and threw them into the refining machine to obtain silicon and aluminum. These materials were then fed into the printer, and in a short time, Chu Jun had created four solar panels and a charger. After completing these, the polymer batteries in the refining machine and the printer were left with only half their power.

"Is this the extent of the supplies you expect to survive with?" Chu Jun couldn't help but complain in his mind. However, he knew that every gram of weight in the escape pod was extremely precious, and basic food and water were absolutely essential. With the printer itself, there was no extra weight allowance.

By now, the storm had long passed, and the sun of this unknown planet was high in the sky, raising the temperature to 60 degrees. Fortunately, the travel suit Chu Jun wore also functioned as a spacesuit, keeping the heat at bay.

Chu Jun assembled the solar panels, adjusted their angles to maximize sunlight absorption, and connected them to the charger. He placed the two polymer batteries in the charger and then set off to explore the forest again.

This time, Chu Jun ventured deeper, exploring for several kilometers before returning. His backpack was filled with various items: a few barely edible tree fruits, two small animals, a bundle of sodium-rich plants, and a bucket of tree sap.

However, he still hadn't found a water source.

In the forest, Chu Jun used his arm shield as a shovel and dug ten meters underground but found no water, only slightly moist soil. During the digging, he noticed that the roots of many large trees were unexpectedly deep. This suggested that the underground water source was much deeper than expected, so he stopped digging and instead collected a large bucket of tree sap to bring back.

By the time he returned to the survival pod, it was already getting dark.

Chu Jun leaned against the pod's hull and built a fire pit with stones in a sheltered area, starting a campfire.

The climate of this planet was considered extreme among habitable planets. As soon as it got dark, the temperature began to drop rapidly, and a chill soon set in.

However, the campfire provided a sense of security.

The polymer batteries were fully charged, and with power in hand, Chu Jun felt less anxious. He still had a good amount of basic metal left, so he printed a metal grid, set it up over the fire, and used it as a grill. He skinned and cleaned the three small animals he had hunted, skewered them with iron rods, and placed them over the fire to cook.

After a while, the small animals were roasted to a golden brown. However, the smell was not appetizing but rather a pungent, spicy odor.

Chu Jun tried a bite, frowned, and almost spat it out. The meat was sour and astringent, with a burning sensation, making his mouth feel hot and painful.

The sulfur content on this planet was unusually high, and even the trees and grass contained a lot of sulfur. Roasting the small animals over the fire was like smoking them with sulfur, which naturally made the taste unpleasant.

However, despite the bad taste, the meat was still edible. The scan results showed that the fat, water, and protein content were not low. The sulfur from the smoke, in such small amounts, could not harm Chu Jun's digestive system. As an experimental subject, Chu Jun's body structure was similar to that of an ordinary human, but each organ's strength and function far exceeded that of an ordinary human.

He frowned and took large bites of the roasted meat, eventually temporarily shutting off his sense of taste to avoid vomiting.

In the past, as an experimental subject, he would not have vomited due to the bad taste but only because of toxic substances in his stomach. Now, his urge to vomit was mainly due to psychological factors.

Emotions were beginning to affect his body, which seemed to be a new weakness for Chu Jun, a common flaw among all humans.

He didn't know whether this was good or bad, but from the current perspective, it seemed that humans naturally had various flaws, far from being as efficient and perfect as experimental subjects.

He quickly consumed five pounds of roasted meat. His strong and powerful stomach not only crushed the food but also had a basic compression function, so his abdomen remained flat with only a slight bulge.

Chu Jun patted his stomach and felt only marginally full. He needed a large amount of energy to maintain his body's consumption, with a daily minimum of 15,000 calories. Only professional athletes or trained professional warriors could match this level of consumption.

He was somewhat troubled. Compared to the complex and inefficient human digestive process, it seemed better to use external energy sources. For example, creating an interface on his body to plug in a nuclear fusion battery would solve everything.

However, the mechanical structures in his body were minimal. He only had a few data interfaces and some microchips scattered throughout his body as implanted devices.

In this era, various auxiliary chips were widely popular among the upper and middle classes, and many people in the lower classes also had chips implanted. The fields of chip design, manufacturing, and maintenance and updates were dominated by several major companies, whose scale and influence were no less than that of giants like Deep Space Energy.

To some extent, the total number of implants in his body might be less than that of a lower-class worker.

He didn't know what the creators had in mind when they gave him so few implants, instead equipping him with powerful organs and muscles.

With the food problem solved, the next step was water. Chu Jun used half the power of a polymer battery to use the refining machine to decompose a bucket of tree sap into concentrated acid and pure water.

Although the pure water he obtained was only a large cup, it solved the immediate problem. However, the energy consumption was high, and the solar energy he collected in a day could only fully charge the two batteries twice.

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