Chapter 6

Due to the sublimation caused by the sunlight, the meteorite's mass had decreased by several percentage points during these few days of transportation. Xiao Yu was heartbroken, and after reaching the destination, he immediately prepared to start eating.

After blocking the sunlight with his body, Xiao Yu controlled the winch on the spaceship, continuously turning it to pull the target meteorite toward him at a speed of about one centimeter per second.

Or, it could be said that Xiao Yu was being pulled toward the meteorite. In space, any statement about who is approaching whom is meaningless. Whether Xiao Yu was flying toward the stationary sun at a speed of twenty kilometers per second, or the sun was flying toward the stationary Xiao Yu at the same speed, both statements are the same.

It took more than half an hour for Xiao Yu to reduce the distance between himself and the target meteorite to one meter. Then, after connecting a cable to the robot and his ship, Xiao Yu controlled the robot to transport the already fixed machinery to the target meteorite.

It was necessary to secure these machines. Due to the meteorite's small mass, its escape velocity was almost negligible, meaning that even a slight force could cause the machinery to escape. Such a loss was unacceptable to Xiao Yu.

The robot skillfully operated the machinery, setting up a collection net on the side of the meteorite facing away from the sun. After the collection net was set up, Xiao Yu retracted all the machinery back into the spaceship, then slowly moved away from the meteorite and carefully adjusted his position to allow the sunlight to directly shine on the meteorite.

Immediately, the solid water, hydrogen, and oxygen on the meteorite began to vaporize, turning into white mist and drifting backward, but they were blocked by the collection net Xiao Yu had set up and stored in the storage equipment behind the net.

Seeing everything proceed smoothly, Xiao Yu's eyes almost sparkled with excitement.

"Water, hydrogen, oxygen, come to me," Xiao Yu muttered, extremely excited.

When the storage equipment was full, Xiao Yu immediately moved to block the sunlight again, then closed the distance and controlled the robot to transfer the collected materials to the ship.

Looking at the fruits of his labor, Xiao Yu's indicator lights flashed wildly.

"A full one hundred kilograms of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen! A full three tons of water!" This harvest made Xiao Yu very satisfied. He immediately processed the collected liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, separating the impurities, and then, after meeting the requirements, injected the energy into the engine.

"Feeling the abundance of energy is truly great," Xiao Yu sighed, full of enthusiasm.

After several days of continuous work, Xiao Yu finally collected all the water, hydrogen, and oxygen from the target meteorite. Looking at the meteorite, which was now reduced to metal and some debris, its volume and mass both halved, Xiao Yu began to think about how to make full use of the remaining materials.

Xiao Yu's current metal processing capabilities were not very strong. To reduce mass and save space, he had not brought large-scale metal processing equipment, only some essential, small-scale tools. His original plan was to land on Europa and gradually develop after the environment stabilized. However, now, the original plan had to be changed.

Xiao Yu had already measured that the remaining material of the meteorite was mostly high-quality steel, suitable for constructing spacecraft. Although the quality of the steel had been affected by the Earth's explosion, it could be restored with a little processing.

Such steel was difficult to process even with Xiao Yu's technology, so he was reluctant to give it up.

"This must be the remains of a steel factory on Earth," Xiao Yu thought. "Well, if it takes time, so be it. At least now the energy has been replenished a bit, allowing me to last a little longer."

After making up his mind, Xiao Yu brought out his most protected metal processing equipment and started working on two fronts: building on-site and cutting the meteorite into pieces, then transporting them into the spaceship.

Xiao Yu had already realized his development bottleneck: the number of robots was too small, only one. If this robot were to break down, Xiao Yu would lose most of his operational capabilities. Although the other equipment could still be controlled by Xiao Yu, they were not as flexible as the robot and could not handle many tasks. In such a situation, Xiao Yu would be in real trouble. Even with the most advanced technology and the most ingenious methods of manufacturing machinery in his mind, without the ability to act, who would execute them?

So, using the special steel, Xiao Yu dismantled some of the less important machinery to gather materials and immediately began building the second robot.

It took Xiao Yu five days to build the second robot. When it was finally completed, Xiao Yu looked at the strange-looking creation and could not help but laugh bitterly.

Due to material limitations, the robot in front of Xiao Yu looked more like a monster made of a pile of black scrap metal. For example, the uneven shell, the black color, and the messy exposed wires...

However, although it looked ugly, it was fully functional. In fact, with Xiao Yu's recent experience, this robot was even a bit stronger than the first one.

After the second robot was built, the cutting and transportation work of the meteorite was about halfway done. With the addition of the second robot, Xiao Yu's work efficiency doubled.

Looking at the remaining materials, Xiao Yu thought for a moment and decided to go all out and build another robot.

Thus, Xiao Yu assigned one robot to continue collecting materials from the meteorite, while the other robot began "reproducing."

Seeing large pieces of high-quality steel continuously entering his spaceship, Xiao Yu really wanted to emulate a certain emperor and exclaim, "All the heroes of the world are in my grasp."

When the collection from the meteorite was about two-thirds complete, the third robot was born. Xiao Yu's operational capabilities were further enhanced. He continued to have one robot collect materials, while the other two robots began operating the machinery to process the materials and start repairing the ship.

The damage Xiao Yu suffered during the Europa collision was severe. Now, he finally had a chance to catch his breath.

Xiao Yu reinforced the ship's structure, repaired the damaged equipment and wiring, redesigned the solar panels, and thickened the heat shield. Finally, the small spaceship he was living in, which had been in a refugee state, returned to a civilian class. Although the ship had not yet returned to its original condition, its various functions had recovered to about eighty or ninety percent.

Xiao Yu stayed here for more than two months. After all the preparations were completed, he calculated the optimal orbit to reach Titan and resolutely left this place, heading toward the sun.

After a long flight of more than half a month, an abnormally bright planet entered Xiao Yu's field of view.

It was Venus, the planet of love, the morning star.

Xiao Yu sighed, recalling the good times he had on Earth. For thousands of years, countless poets and scholars had praised and celebrated Venus.

"Since I'm here, I might as well take a look. I'll also assess the impact of the Europa collision on Venus," Xiao Yu decided. Without affecting the overall progress, he slightly adjusted his orbit and flew toward Venus.

In human space history, Venus has not held a significant position due to its extremely harsh environment.

The thick cloud layer, while giving Venus a high albedo and making it the brightest star visible from Earth, also caused severe greenhouse effects. The average surface temperature on Venus is over 400 degrees Celsius, the atmospheric pressure is several times that of Earth, and acid rain and lava flows are rampant, with extremely active geological activity.

Since the beginning of human space history, only a few spacecraft have reached the surface of Venus.

However, the current appearance of Venus surprised Xiao Yu.

The thick cloud layer of Venus had disappeared by more than half, likely due to the Jupiter wind. This meant that the surface temperature of Venus would gradually decrease. Xiao Yu estimated that in tens of thousands of years, the surface temperature of Venus might drop to around 100 degrees Celsius.

Moreover, in the foreseeable future, there would definitely be Earth meteorites impacting Venus, possibly carrying the seeds of life.

The resilience of life has been proven; bacteria can survive in deep-sea volcanoes at high temperatures and pressures. It is likely that some life forms can adapt to the environment on Venus. These life forms would spread and evolve on Venus, and after countless years, they might even evolve into intelligent life.

"If intelligent life evolves on Venus, when they look up at the stars, will they have the same desire to explore the universe as humans? And what will they think when they discover the remains of civilization in the Earth meteorite cluster?" Xiao Yu thought silently.

"The existence of the solar system is a miracle. And life will always find a reason to exist. Venus, good luck."

Xiao Yu passed by Venus at a distance of 3,000 kilometers, watching the gradually receding figure of Venus and sighing.

Storing the data about Venus on the hard drive, Xiao Yu refocused his attention and looked at the distance, where a huge fireball, suspended in the void of the universe, was constantly emitting infinite light and heat. A surge of courage suddenly arose in his heart.

"Head toward the sun!"

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