boyutpedia Chapter 5 Growth
Chapter 5 Growth
After some time, Liu En discovered something extraordinary.
That day, he was dismantling a piece of abandoned industrial equipment—a massive, multi-story-high mineral crusher, stuck at the end of an abandoned transport tunnel in the bottom of the nest. He approached as usual, preparing to touch, analyze, and dismantle it, starting from the very base. But when he stood about three meters in front of the crusher, his consciousness was suddenly pulled into that dimensionless space. Not through touch. Through his gaze.
Information about the material composition of the shredder was flooding into his consciousness, as clear, complete, and precise as if he were touching it with his hand. He paused for a moment, his consciousness withdrawing, only to sink back in. The flow of information was stable and continuous, without any attenuation.
His range of perception expanded. Initially it was one meter, then three meters, and now it was even greater. He stood still, turning his head to look around. The walls on both sides of the transport corridor, the pipes overhead, the grating panels beneath his feet—everything within the three-meter range unfolded in his perception simultaneously. Tens of thousands of pieces of information about matter surged in parallel, and his consciousness was suddenly expanded by a significant margin.
It took him a long time to adapt to this new mode of perception, and then he began to test the boundaries. He took a step forward, and the field moved with him. He took a step back, and the field moved with him as well. The radius of the field had indeed expanded, centered on his body, unaffected by visual obstructions—even with his eyes closed, he could sense the shape, texture, and atomic composition of the surrounding objects.
What surprised him even more was the decomposition speed. He stood in front of the shredder and issued the decomposition command. The material composition information of the entire shredder was archived instantly, and at the same time, the material of the device itself began to transform into an atomic cloud, flowing into the warehouse. From start to finish, the time was very short. The total mass of this shredder was at least twenty tons. Previously, it would have taken him a long time to decompose the wreckage of a Leman Rustank, but now such a behemoth had completely disappeared in a very short time.
Liu En stood in the middle of the empty corridor, looking down at his hands. His abilities were subject to the principle of "use it or lose it"—long, continuous use every day had transformed them from unfamiliar tools that required conscious activation into instincts as natural as breathing. The improvement in range and precision wasn't a sudden change, but rather a critical point reached after quantitative accumulation.
He recalled the limitations he encountered when building the underground bunker. Back then, he salvaged a large amount of terracotta steel from abandoned structures within hundreds of meters of the surrounding area, but the molding process was extremely arduous. He completed the small space of just over ten square meters in several stages—first the base of the walls, then pouring the upper part after the "exhaustion" subsided, followed by the dome, and finally the beds and workbenches inside. It wasn't a lack of materials or information; rather, his consciousness could only support a limited scale of molding at a time. Like muscles, they get sore after prolonged use and need rest.
How large could he mold at once now? He didn't test it immediately, but he knew it was definitely larger than before. The onset of that "conscious fatigue" was noticeably delayed; even after a full day of intense use, he still had the energy to process information and plan his route for the next day after returning to the bunker.
He needed to systematically record these changes. In the corner of the bunker workbench, he crafted a recording board out of plastic steel, etching his daily capability parameters onto it—perception range, decomposition speed, and maximum single-stage shaping volume. The data grew slowly but steadily. Not linearly, but rather with a small jump every few days, followed by a plateau, and then another jump.
The growth rate of material reserves has thus accelerated. Previously, the amount of material he could collect each day was limited, mainly due to the decomposition speed—touch decomposition was too slow; he had to walk up to each item and touch it with his hands. Now, the larger area means that he only needs to walk through the passage, and all the material within the area on both sides will automatically be incorporated into his ability field.
The reserves in the warehouse are increasing.
After some time, his capabilities continued to expand. That morning, he climbed out of the shaft and tested it at the pump station entrance; the radius of the area he could operate in had increased again. The decomposition speed continued to improve; a very heavy piece of equipment could now be completely decomposed in moments. In terms of sculpting, he conducted an experiment—expanding a space of the same size next to the underground bunker, completing it in just two stages. The first stage sculpted the main structure and internal partitions, and the second stage sculpted the surface details and equipment installation. Compared to previously requiring multiple attempts to complete a single space, the progress was remarkable.
One evening, Liu En returned to the bunker from outside, took off his gas mask, and sat down at the worktable. He pulled up the map data of the Mechanicus outpost in the database and began to study the route carefully.
The straight-line distance from his current area of operation to Outpost 86 was considerable, but the base wasn't flat. The map showed multiple possible routes, each traversing layers of tunnels, shafts, and abandoned facilities. Some routes were shorter but passed through gang-controlled territory, while others were longer but relatively safer. He chose the middle one—a journey that would take several days, passing through several abandoned industrial areas and a geothermally active zone, unmarked gang territory, but also passing through areas marked "Beware of Mutants."
At his current pace of movement—carrying his equipment and needing to take cover at any moment—he can conservatively estimate he can cover a considerable distance each day. A one-way trip would take several days, and a round trip would take even longer. He needs to prepare sufficient supplies, stockpile ample resources in the warehouse to deal with emergencies, and thoroughly check his laser gun, bulletproof vest, and gas mask.
Liu En retrieved atoms from the warehouse and began crafting the equipment he would need for the journey. A lightweight backpack, woven from plastic steel fibers. A spare set of filter canisters, sealed in plastic film. A box of energy packs—enough for many laser gun shots. A small bag of jerky and synthetic starch blocks, compressed and packaged. A kettle of water, reconstituted from his purified atoms into pure water, stored in a plastic steel jug.
He also crafted a simple sleeping bag—a roll made of coarse cloth and insulating material. Spending the night in the wild at the bottom nest is dangerous, but not impossible. As long as he finds a sufficiently secluded corner and seals the entrance with a camouflage shell, he can stay safely inside until dawn.
All the equipment combined wasn't heavy. This body, after this period of continuous nutritional supplementation, had become much stronger. Not that he'd become a muscular giant, but at least he was no longer a skeleton that could be blown away by a gust of wind. His weight had increased, muscle definition had appeared, and his endurance had improved.
Everything was ready. Liu En sat at his workbench, watching the numbers steadily increase on the logboard. At the current rate, the supplies in the warehouse were sufficient to support this expedition. His abilities had also entered a relatively stable phase of development.
He turned off the light on his workbench and lay down on his bed. In the darkness, he mentally rehearsed the route to the outpost. Starting from the pumping station, heading southeast, through the abandoned factory area, past the edge of the geothermal active zone, around the area marked "unstable," and finally reaching the flashing dot on the map.
Outpost 86. The Mechanicus. A place untouched for millennia. What's there? Complete equipment? A legacy database? Or just a pile of ruins eroded to dust by time and radiation? He didn't know. But he did know one thing: anything from the Mechanicus, even the most basic maintenance tools, was a level above the junk in the Bottom Nest Junkyard.
Liu En closed his eyes, his consciousness sinking into that dimensionless space. The materials in the warehouse were neatly arranged, and the technical maps in the database were constantly expanding. He retrieved the material composition information of the mineral crusher, and a massive amount of atomic-level information unfolded in his perception. This was not enough, far from enough. The mineral veins of the Bottom Nest were bottomless; he was merely scraping the surface. But his abilities were growing, the warehouse was expanding, and information was accumulating. He was stronger every day than the day before.