Mining

After observing the Insecta Solar System for some time, Xia Jin discovered that the number of small celestial bodies in the area was far beyond her imagination.

Although the star itself accounted for most of the mass, she still found a significant number of planets.

These included four gas giants and three rocky planets.

The three rocky planets were undoubtedly the most useful to the Zerg at the moment, as the creep spread across them served as the primary source of resources.

While the gas giants themselves were temporarily unusable, the newly acquired abilities of mineral compression and mineral absorption made the idea of utilizing their lunar resources a possibility.

Beyond Demon Planet, in the vast region between it and a pale yellow gas giant, lay a dense belt of asteroids. The density of interstellar matter here was notably higher than in other areas.

So far, hundreds of billions of meteoroids and hundreds of asteroids had been observed.

The region contained everything from floating bodies just a few meters wide to celestial objects hundreds of kilometers in diameter.

Most of these bodies were not as close to each other as Xia Jin had imagined, but there were several dense clusters that looked exactly like the asteroid fields depicted in science fiction works.

This place would serve as a prime mineral collection site for the Zerg.

Several Floating Transport Ships took off.

Equipped with curvature flight devices, the Floating Transport Ships reached a speed of 5000 kilometers per second.

This allowed them to reach the currently detected mining areas in a very short amount of time.

Naturally, the acceleration and deceleration phases in the middle were somewhat lengthy, but overall, the wait was not long.

Through the eyes of Xia Jin's projection on Insect Guard 1, she watched a transport ship lift one kilometer off the ground before entering its curvature flight state. In an instant, it became a streak of light and vanished over the horizon.

“That really is fast.”

After two minutes of acceleration and deceleration, the ship had already arrived at Border 80.

The hatch covers opened, and a batch of Balloon Bugs was released. These drop pods began their descent, eventually piercing through the extremely thin atmosphere to land on the planet's surface.

One of the drop pods shattered, and out crawled a queen, over a dozen drones, and a larva.

The larva immediately began to pupate on the spot, gradually transforming into a Level 1 Hive.

“It seems the Hive's adaptability has improved as well. An old Level 1 Hive would have died instantly in this environment.”

Xia Jin was very satisfied to see the organism functioning normally.

She upgraded it to LV6 in one go. This process no longer required gold or mithril, as the necessary energy was supplied directly by the Hive Carrier.

Once the level was reached, the surrounding drones began striking the solid rock on the ground to begin collection, while the Hive itself hatched larvae to produce more drones.

Simultaneously, the other drop pods in the vicinity shattered one after another.

Countless drones and a small number of queens crawled out from within.

The queens' task was simple: to spread creep across the ground.

The creep did not cover the entire surface but instead connected into a single line, spreading out in several directions.

Their mission was to absorb the minerals processed by the drones.

Since the sunlight reaching this far was pitifully scarce, they did not expect the creep to generate much energy.

After ensuring the Hive below had stabilized production, the transport ship landed directly on the surface and opened its side chambers to release all remaining insects.

At this point, more Floating Transport Ships arrived in the vicinity.

Some were even more direct, flying straight into the asteroid clusters to release drones.

These drones drifted slowly toward the asteroids, using their sturdy limbs to cut away chunks of rock. Clinging to the stones, they released a sudden burst of propulsion gas to fly back into the open hatches of the Floating Transport Ships.

With a large number of drones working together, it took very little time to fill the transport ships to capacity.

Once finished, the Floating Transport Ships engaged their engines and flew to the nearest planet with a Hive, Border 80, to unload all the rock.

This was done to accumulate the interstellar minerals required for the next Hive upgrade.

The requirement was a staggering one trillion tons.

Furthermore, the ratio of 10,000 tons of minerals to 1 unit of high energy crystals was actually quite low for Xia Jin, making mining in the asteroid zone somewhat inefficient. In contrast, mining on the planet's surface was better. After all, a single drone mining nearby could move nearly 80 tons of minerals an hour. With just over five drones, they could secure one unit of high energy crystals in a single day.

However, Brain Bug No. 1 eventually proposed an even bolder plan.

“We should drop a Hive capable of withstanding the radiation into the asteroid clusters and then weave a creep line in space. Drones can then drag the asteroids from either side of the line onto the creep, allowing the creep to absorb them slowly.”

“Good idea.”

Xia Jin accepted the suggestion immediately.

However, the specific effectiveness still needed to be tested.