Revisit Azur Lane

Setting up three large buildings at once will surely surprise everyone else when they return home.

……

While Zhou He was pondering how to develop the port area, Hu De's team had already crossed the border and reached the third expansion zone to the north.

Although the sea area illuminated with Zhouhe Port as the standard has a diameter of 60 nautical miles to the north and south, the area of ​​individual sections in the outer circle is much larger than that in the inner circle because the outer circle is larger.

The large area within a plate means that exploration will take a long time and the possibility of encountering enemies is higher.

"We've spotted a Siren squad ahead. They're not many, and their formation is quite loose."

Upon entering the new area, Zuikaku spotted the Sirens' fleet. After confirming its size and formation, he began scouting further out, his brow furrowing slightly: "There are two other fleets further away. What's going on with these guys? They're moving as slowly as turtles. Are they slacking off and sunbathing?"

Is there a scheduled flight?

Ignoring Zuikaku's complaints, Hood sensed her own search radar but received no response. She felt that if this continued, she would develop a dependency on the superiority of aircraft carrier reconnaissance capabilities, as having an aircraft carrier and not having one would be as different as having eyes and not having eyes.

According to the memories she retrieved, the Royal Navy had already begun developing aircraft carriers before the war, but she didn't know how that development went.

"There is one, which is far away from us. The destroyers and light cruisers are operating close to us, while the heavy cruisers and battleships are escorting that aircraft carrier. It is not suitable for combat."

After careful observation, Zuikaku made the judgment for the first time that Zuikaku was not suitable for combat.

Although she was belligerent, she wasn't stupid. At this moment, they were separated from the main Siren fleet by several Siren light cruiser and destroyer fleets. If war broke out, her aircraft would probably have difficulty breaking through the air defense blockade in large numbers to attack the Siren carriers. As a result, she would be unable to put pressure on the Siren carriers, and the Siren carriers would turn around and put pressure on her.

If Bismarck and her allies were here, they could easily sweep through; with only seven of them, they couldn't win.

"Then let's avoid this area and look ahead."

Hood's delicate eyebrows furrowed slightly. She had just come out and encountered a large Siren fleet. If she explored any further into this area, she would probably encounter even more Sirens.

Based on the climate of the port area and the islands, they should be in the Northern Hemisphere now. If the north is the deep sea area, then the south must also be the deep sea area. In that case, as long as they are not in the exact center of the Pacific Ocean, when they explore in the east and west directions, one side will always be closer to the land.

'Perhaps we could discuss it with the commander.'

Hood was quite confident in her judgment. As long as they could find land, even if the coastal countries had been conquered by the Sirens, they would be spared the current situation where they could be surrounded by the Sirens at any time.

Just as she was thinking this, Hu De suddenly noticed something happening to her left. She glanced to the side and saw that Zhou He had made a video call. She smiled naturally and asked, "Does the Commander have any additional instructions?"

"Well, how should I put it, it seems like the sirens over there are trying to salvage something."

Zhou He glanced at the document marker on the map and said.

"Retrieving something?"

Hood's gaze sharpened slightly, recalling Zuikaku's earlier comment: the Siren fleet was sailing at a low speed with its capital ships on board, so it wasn't malfunctioning or sunbathing, but rather searching for something to salvage!

"Okay, you guys should avoid that area for now, be careful not to get caught up in other worlds' testing grounds."

Zhou He gave the instructions.

"clear."

Hu De collected his thoughts.

It seems that the area they are in is not as simple as they imagined.

Chapter 58 Construction of the Port Area

"This world is a bit strange."

Before brushing past Tirpitz in the testing grounds, Zhou He hadn't paid much attention to the world he was in, because he didn't even have the ability to protect himself, so thinking about other things was pointless.

However, after encountering the Sirens' abandoned base, the Mirror Sea, and the Sirens' mysterious salvage operation, he had to confront the problem of this legacy.

"...Let's check if there's anything happening in the other two blocks first."

Looking at the file icons that were almost completely overwhelmed by the Sirens' icons, Zhou He shifted his gaze—this block was the one to the due north, the one that Hood would pass through and light up on his way to the northwest, and the one between the two blocks that Hood and Bismarck were exploring.

If there are no particular problems with the other two blocks, he can consider whether to take over the document salvaged by the Sirens. In the meantime, if the document is retrieved by the Sirens, it means that there are intelligent observers or other experimental Sirens nearby, or that a large human fleet has passed by. Conversely, if the document is not retrieved after several days, it is obviously a trap to attract passing ship girls to take it over and then lead them to strange places to do strange things.

"Whether or not the sirens are setting a trap, this area will be cleaned up; it's just a matter of time."

Everything in the world follows the same principle: if you don't move forward, you fall behind. Zhou He made a plan in a very short time. He glanced at Akashi, who was focused on steering the ship, found a place to sit down, took out a notepad and pen from his pocket, and drew a simple quadruple circle. The innermost and smallest circle was the port area, and the three outermost circles were the sea areas that he had already lit up and those that were about to be lit up.

He divided the outer three circles into four parts with two lines. The outer circle to the due north is the area where the Sirens salvaged the documents. He drew a blackened pentagram here, meaning that the danger level is high and it needs to be conquered last.

As for the two adjacent areas, Zhou He patiently waited for Hood and Bismarck to explore them. During this time, he asked Akashi about the possibility of developing an inter-island teleportation portal, but was stared at by the cat with a strange "What are you talking about?" expression for a while, and reluctantly gave up on this high-tech project.

Since a teleportation portal is not an option, the only solution is to build a high-speed, surface transport ship that is convenient for long-range sorties, so that his ship girls can use it when they return from sorties.

The wait was short. After bypassing the Sirens fleet, Hood entered the western outer third ring of the region. The moment the lights came on, Zuikaku's reconnaissance planes dispelled the fog and continued to penetrate deeper.

The aircraft carrier's reconnaissance speed was really fast. In just over ten minutes, most of the western plate was explored, while Hood and his team had only moved a small square on the map.

"There aren't many sirens, so it's normal in the west."

Seeing that Ruihe had finished exploring the western area, Zhou He breathed a slight sigh of relief. He was quite afraid that the east, west, south, and north were all Siren traps. After thinking for a moment, he gave Hud a new order: head south and clear out any Siren squads they encountered.

Shortly after the order was given, Hood changed course and did not ask Hermione to send smoke signals to make contact, but instead carried out the order unconditionally.

Having figured out the situation on Hood's side, Zhou He shifted his attention to Bismarck's side—this side was relatively far from the target location, and there were still quite a few Siren fleets passing by along the way. Some of the Sirens came from the northern block, and the reconnaissance planes from Long Island also helped to dispel some of the fog in the northern block while they were scouting there. They confirmed that only the area where the documents were being salvaged had a large number of active fleets in the north, while other areas only had small fleets.

After the valiant Bismarck squad sank every Siren fleet they encountered, they successfully lit up the third block in the east. Then, Zhou He saw the edge of the black vortex that was spinning in the depths of the block and the Siren icon that was not in the form of a warship.

Within the experimental apparatus, the Sirens are divided into three parts: the mass-produced type, the executor, and the experimenter.

The mass-produced type is the warship-shaped Siren that Zhou He had been beating up. The Executor refers to the Siren model with a humanoid appearance. The Experimenter belongs to the command level, such as the Purifier, Observer, Tester, etc.

The sirens that appear on Zhou He's map at this time are the executors.

"There's a big problem here."

Zhou He immediately issued new instructions to Bismarck: adjust the direction of travel and tell the reconnaissance planes on Long Island not to fly around randomly, but to stay above the squadron and keep watch.

Bismarck also obeyed the order unconditionally. The squad adjusted and bypassed the black vortex area where the Executors were located according to the direction given by Zhou He. They carefully and cautiously dispelled the fog in the eastern half of the area. However, since this area was full of Executor Sirens, it was impossible to explore further. Zhou He could only let them leave this area and go south to deal with the small Siren fleet that had sneaked in over the past two days.

He himself, on the other hand, blacked out the entire eastern side of his notebook, indicating that this was an area that could not be approached in the short term, as it was more dangerous than the northern side.

This exploration was very fruitful, making Zhou He realize that he still couldn't relax.

However, the external enemies are still very strong, but he is not discouraged at all. It is no longer the time when he first transmigrated. Now he has a wealth of talents under his command. Avoiding the Sirens' main force is not because he cannot defeat them, but because he does not have enough people and does not want to take the risk.

He'll go back and check if the restaurant in the furniture box includes Manju. If it does, he'll pick an auspicious day to turn the remaining four cubes into ship girls as well, and then he'll gather them all together for both the northeast and north sides!

……

With a mix of excited and subtle emotions, Zhou He switched between looking at the sea and observing the status of his ship girls. More than two hours passed in the blink of an eye, and the patrol boat, moving at full speed, had already returned to the area covered by the command center. The familiar island appeared before his eyes.

"Meow, is this our port area? What a nice place, meow."

Every ship girl who joins the port is amazed by the location of her own port. Akashi is no exception. After running into the bay, she looked at the command center and the hot spring pool and didn't know what to say. Zhou He naturally noticed her little expression, chuckled twice without explaining, turned around and walked out of the control room and living room. He went to the aft deck, glanced at the coastline more than ten meters away, and silently switched the system interface, staring at the 'dock' function. Soon, the option 'Condition the dock to reality' popped up.

He chose yes.

He had expected a preview project similar to the furniture, but in reality, the moment he made his selection, a vast expanse of blue light appeared on the bay and the sea surface where he was standing. Like 3D printing, it solidified from bottom to top, forming a super-large work platform that occupied half of the bay area, including the foundation roads, shipbuilding workshops, shipyard berths, numerous warehouses, lifting equipment, and other facilities, covering tens of thousands of square meters.

The patrol boat beneath his feet was precisely positioned in the innermost berth, next to the long breakwater pier that extended horizontally from the aft deck.

"???"

Zhou He and Ming Shi, who came out with him, were dumbfounded. The entire dock was decorated in white, gray and blue tones, with roads and warehouses arranged neatly and grandly, clearly a solid engineering project.

"Did the commander make this, meow?"

After a moment of stunned silence, Akashi blinked. Only she and Zhou He were present. She didn't have the ability; it could only be Zhou He.

"right?"

Looking at the outrageous scene before him, Zhou He was somewhat uncertain in his answer. He thought the dock was just a place to moor ships, how could it be so exaggerated? Even so, with such a platform, his port area finally felt like a real port area.

But this is really outrageous!

After finishing, he glanced at his dock interface and found that he could still perform maintenance, check the status of ship girls, and other operations through the system interface.

He was wrong. His own system wasn't some stubborn old thing; it was just that his vision was too narrow, which was why he thought the system was inflexible.

"Anyway, this is our own port area, not bad, right?"

Zhou He suppressed the shock in his heart, jumped from the deck to the dock and walked towards the shore. His gaze lingered on the warehouse on the system interface for a few seconds, and when asked whether to make it visible, he chose yes.

This time, the light wasn't as exaggerated as at the shipyard. Instead, a rectangular warehouse, three stories high, rose from the empty space near the lawn on the shipyard platform, with its doors tightly shut.

"A very typical port area cat."

Akashi followed closely beside Zhou He, expressing his strong approval of his own port: "It's more beautiful than most of Sakura Empire's naval ports."

"Hehe, isn't that obvious?"

Zhou He smiled. The dock platform was formed on the left side of the bay. Its massive size filled the open space at the foot of the mountain on the left side of the bay, but it did not obstruct the area of ​​the command post at all, and it was an independent industrial area.

The platform has its own foundation, which is higher than the lawn. However, the area next to the lawn is a long strip of open space with a downward staircase that connects to the lawn, which looks a bit out of place, but not too much. After observing it, Zhou He felt that it could be paved with cement sold in the store, connecting to the road extending from the command post, and then a row of trees could be planted along the roadside.

As for how to develop the vacant land on this platform, he still needs to think about it.

Now, he has one more thing to deal with.

Descending the stairs, Zhou He strode to the familiar command post. He walked to the right after exiting, selecting furniture from the warehouse and choosing the luxurious black and red-toned dining room. He then browsed through the selection.

This restaurant is quite large, with a front and back courtyard of about 500 square meters. It is square in shape and its style is more like a miniature manor than a restaurant.

Zhou He estimated that the restaurant was about ten meters away from the command post, so he walked more than twenty meters to ensure that the restaurant and the command post maintained a certain distance.

"What's wrong with this system? Everyone else is eager to show off all its advantages, but this one is all about conservative presentation."

After aligning the restaurant's front entrance with the command center, Zhou He finalized the placement.

The blue light reappeared, moving upwards and solidifying everything from the ethereal to the tangible, including the courtyard, houses, and decorations. Even Zhou He, who had seen it many times before, couldn't help but marvel at its wonder. Such a large building would take a construction team a year or six months to build, but the system completed it in ten seconds.

If this world is a 'testing ground', then the highest authority in this testing ground must be his system, not the Sirens.

"what!"

After his initial surprise, Zhou He suddenly seemed to remember something and quickly approached the restaurant's main entrance, grabbing the doorknob with both hands and pushing it inside.

The doors swung open smoothly without making a sound, revealing a luxurious hall with patterned carpets and elaborate neon lights. Even the dining tables were made of fine wood, and the wall decorations, paintings, and vases were exquisite. Zhou He immediately called out, "Are there any staff members inside?"

No one spoke, which made Zhou He's heart sink. However, Ming Shi, who had followed him, sensed something and tugged at Zhou He's sleeve, pointing to the corner of the hall. Zhou He turned his head and saw a group of yellow creatures, about the size of basketballs, dressed in blue waiter uniforms and white chef uniforms, running out from that direction.

Chapter 59 Facing Enemies on Three Sides

"What an adorable creature, meow."

Manju is a very magical creature. Although it looks like a chick, it doesn't feel like a living creature at all. It has no body odor. It feels like a cat to touch, even though it's called a doll. Zhou He and Ming Shi each picked up a Manju, touched and squeezed it, and were amazed.