Ultimate Gamer System: Factory Must Grow!

Chapter 59 New blueprints!

[Construct a constructor: 1/1]

[Construct a constructor: Completed!]

Pretty much as soon as the crafting finished, Theo dropped the constructor right next to the smelter.

With just a bit of his remaining belts, he connected the two before adding up another belt leading to two bins' worth of storage units chained in series.

And a lone thought later, Theo assigned all of his available workpoints, fulfilling the next part of the quest.

[Assign the workpoints to each of the proto-industry machines: 3/3]

[Assign the workpoints to each of the proto-industry machines: Completed!]

[Assign workpoints to the logistic lines connecting each of the machines: 2/2]

[Assign workpoints to the logistic lines connecting each of the machines: Completed!]

And then, at long last...

[Automate the production of at least 10 iron plates/minute: Completed!]

[Proto-Industry - Tutorial!: Completed!]

Theo took a deep breath.

[Received rewards: Initial Tier blueprints]

[+10 workpoints]

Even though Theo wasn't looking, he could tell something had happened to his system.

It was as if a flash of energy struck him down, reaching deep into some very precise part of his brain.

Before Theo could even wink, his crafting window opened all on its own... only for new icons to start cluttering the list as they popped into existence one by one in a small burst of golden sparks.

'Oh damn...'

Theo blinked his eyes, overwhelmed by the sight before his eyes. Or rather... all the meaning behind it.

The new list of buildings and tools Theo could craft now came with buildings he could somewhat recognize. And while there were some minor changes, the gameplay loop this subsystem followed... Theo could now recognize it!

But what was even more important, this subsystem wasn't perfectly consistent with one franchise, to a lesser degree including clearly foreign elements and mechanics.

Theo's eyes widened as he quickly combined the belts between the two... before repeating the whole process two more times before finally leading the outputs of four different miners to a total of two smelters.

Once smelted down, the ingots would go down one of three possible paths.

The main half would go to craft the iron plates, while the other half would feed into iron rods. Whatever backlog of iron ingots would remain would then overflow to the last place, where a single storage bin stored a handful of them.

'For now, that will have to suffice...'

With the combination of the items he could craft now, increased with Theo getting access to the combiner, the next-tier crafting machine...

Theo shook his head before taking a deep breath.

'Focus up, man. For now, automate everything at the copper's place. Then, get the richstone vein so that I won't have to dig it up manually all the time. And then...'

Theo gulped his saliva as he suddenly realized the reality of the mess he had just thrown himself into.

"Getting power sounds all nice and dandy, but how could I forget this...!" Scratching the skin behind his ear, Theo planted his hand against his face. 'Aren't those like... the first skill-check in most of those games?'

One memory flashed in Theo's mind.

Some years back, when he was building the overengineered fuel plant that was supposed to last him until the very late game. A plant that ultimately fulfilled its job... but one that also used every possible means to push the efficiency of several local patches of oil into a borderline crazy amount of fuel.

A project that Theo could still recall finding quite annoyingly surprising when he found out not just how insane the amount of power that overdesigned landmass of concrete and metal would provide... but when he realized just how many massive fuel-powered generators he would have to place down!

It wouldn't be until reaching the stage that gulped energy like nothing before the game's full release that he would have to look toward the end-game sources of energy.

And now, rather than in a game... he had to set up a plant that would produce condensed biomass as fast as it could, to bring the limits of how much Theo could scale up to an absolutely ridiculous range!

'I might still rely on getting the biomass by hand, but if I find a way to get a single automated turret and the ability to provide it with ammo...'

Theo's eyes suddenly clouded as he looked at the timer in the corner of his vision with a rather fresh expression.

All of a sudden, the lethal fauna of this whole place turned from a source of danger... to walking treasures worth scores and scores of biomass and research material!

"Well, there will come a time for everything. For now, though," Theo muttered as he turned to the other tunnel leading out of the iron-works cavern. He then shook his head and looked back at his current area.

He still needed more crafters to get the production of all the simple iron parts going. Only then could he afford to move over to the copper area to automate all the related parts. Then, by bringing those two outputs together in yet another place to centralize the logistics...

Only then could Theo even begin to think about getting some rest.

"This is all too good to waste time resting rather than working..." Theo grinned, taken aback by just how eager he was to go and get more stuff done.

For this stuff was what brought him closer to the abolishment of the very thing that plagued him right this very moment, as he looked down into his crafting queue.

'Those damned, pesky delays!'