"Damn it!" Liu Hai stood shakily atop a pile of metal scrap, surveying his surroundings before blurting out another curse.
"Civilization Inheritance Core, you really know how to pick a location!" Liu Hai glanced at the scavengers and mutated creatures lurking near the garbage piles in the distance, then looked down at his own scrawny arms and legs. If not for the core optimizing his genetic structure, even breathing would have been a struggle.
He raised his head toward the ash-gray sky, eager to find a spot to deploy the Inheritance Core before the mutated rats nearby decided he'd make a great snack.
Carefully climbing down the trash mountain, Liu Hai reached the small clearing he had scouted earlier and mentally commanded the core to manifest there.
The Civilization Core materialized in the open space, taking the form of a pyramid—though it stood no taller than twenty meters, with each side measuring just over thirty meters. Covering exactly a thousand square meters, it filled the entire clearing at the center of the scrap heap.
With a soft hiss, a doorway opened at the base of the pyramid, and a mechanical voice announced, "Inheritor, please enter the control room to activate the core."
Embracing the "since I'm already here" mentality, Liu Hai dashed inside in his slippers—the outside was far too terrifying, especially with mutated rats peeking at him from behind the garbage piles.
Though the pyramid's exterior seemed compact, Liu Hai walked along the metallic corridor for two full minutes without reaching the control room. The mirror-like walls and eerie silence, broken only by his own footsteps, made his skin crawl. It was so quiet that a horror movie wouldn't even need added sound effects.
Finally, after five minutes, Liu Hai stepped into the control room. The space was barren except for a command chair that rose fluidly from the liquid-like metal floor, surrounded by blank white walls.
"Am I supposed to sit there?" Before his brain could fully process the thought, his body had already settled into the seat.
"Inheritor in position. Confirming Inheritance Core."
"Neural wave authentication complete."
"Genetic code authentication complete."
"Cultural ideology compatibility confirmed."
"Does the Inheritor wish to activate the core?"
"Activate."
The moment Liu Hai spoke, the empty control room transformed into a dazzling starscape. A holographic projection displayed the pyramid core's current status before him.
"Inheritance Core: No. 1024
Control Core: Quantum Neural Intelligence Hub
Energy Source: Fusion Reactor (Fuel reserves: 3 hours remaining at full capacity.)
Production Center: Atomic-Level Mechanical Fabrication Line (No raw materials available)
Technology Archive: Primary Interstellar Civilization Database
Core Upgrade Progress: 0%"
Liu Hai wiped his face. "So... I have to go find materials for production and fusion fuel first?"
He was about to complain, but after glancing at the technology archive, he sighed. At least he had access to an entire interstellar civilization's worth of knowledge.
"But how the hell am I supposed to gather materials right now? I can't even fight off those mutated rats outside!" He pulled up an external projection, watching the cautious rodents circling the pyramid, and his face twisted into a grimace.
The fusion reactor had three hours of fuel left—but that was under full production load. With no active manufacturing, it could last much longer. Still, he couldn't just sit around waiting.
While Liu Hai was still worrying about the mutated rats outside, a garbage transport ship was heading straight for the junk planet beyond its atmosphere.
Upon reaching the planet's low orbit, the transport ship opened its cargo bay doors, releasing tens of thousands of tons of mixed metal and organic waste in a torrential downpour toward the surface.
The massive deluge of garbage, plunging through the planet's thin atmosphere, ignited into roaring flames from atmospheric friction, creating a spectacle akin to a meteor shower. Yet for the scavengers below, it was nothing short of a nightmare.
Spotting the incoming "meteors," the scavengers scrambled in all directions, using whatever means they could to escape the impact zone. Countless mutated creatures fled alongside them in a frenzied stampede.
By the time Liu Hai noticed something amiss through the external projection, the garbage meteors were already less than three kilometers from the ground. Even if he had realized sooner, he had no means of escaping the impact radius. All he could do was pray that the pyramid core was sturdy enough to withstand the bombardment.
One after another, flaming metal debris crashed down, obliterating entire garbage mountains with explosive force comparable to high-yield ordnance, leaving devastation in their wake.
As the first garbage meteor struck, the onslaught followed like relentless rain. Within a hundred-mile radius centered on Liu Hai, the landscape was carpet-bombed as if by a barrage of artillery shells. Countless scavengers and mutated creatures, too slow to escape, were obliterated without a trace.
Liu Hai's pyramid core, too, was buried under the avalanche of debris flung by the impacts. Whether by sheer luck or divine intervention, not a single garbage meteor struck the core directly.
"Damn it!" Liu Hai watched in terror as his pyramid core was swallowed by the debris, dreading the possibility of a direct hit. He wasn't about to gamble on the core's structural integrity.
Minutes later, the storm subsided, and the last of the garbage meteors had crashed into the ground. The fleeing scavengers now rushed back even faster, eager to scavenge anything of value before others could.
Meanwhile, Liu Hai stared at his buried pyramid core in frustration. Earlier, he hadn't dared to go outside—now, he couldn't even if he wanted to!
Just as he was racking his brain for a way out to gather materials, inspiration struck. He ordered the control hub to open the pyramid's intake chute.
The moment the side hatch opened, the piled-up garbage began tumbling inside. The control panel's material count steadily climbed, and Liu Hai activated the reactor to power the processing plant.
The pyramid core roared to life. Organic waste suitable for fusion was fed into the reactor, while metal scraps were smelted in the vacuum furnace.
After some deliberation, Liu Hai followed the AI's recommendation and prioritized manufacturing ten engineering robots to gather materials. Clearing the surrounding debris was the first step—without space, no other facilities could be built.
Ten minutes later, the first tracked engineering robot rolled off the assembly line—only to get stuck at the exit. Liu Hai facepalmed before redirecting it to the intake chute to dig through the blockage.
Half an hour later, after completely clearing the garbage at the feed inlet, Liu Hai deployed all ten engineering robots from this location. Since they were currently collecting scrap materials anyway, it was the perfect opportunity to excavate the pyramid first.
With ten engineering robots working, their sorting capabilities allowed usable scrap materials to be prioritized and sent directly into the feed inlet. This steadily increased the material reserves in the pyramid's core, and Liu Hai was already contemplating what to produce next.