Will the kemonomimi encounter Alien Ranch Story?

"It's mainly long-term demand; it consumes more than fifty tons every day." The output of the electronic furnace is fifty tons, but that doesn't mean fifty tons of ore are thrown in.

In reality, the daily full-load consumption is over 200 tons, but Xia Lin doesn't need that much metal.

The manager's expression improved slightly. If it's more than fifty tons a day, that's fifteen hundred tons a month, which barely qualifies as an order, and we won't lose money on tea and snacks.

"So, is it a batch delivered every day or all at once?" The other party forced a smile; after all, it was an order, and every little bit helps.

"We'll deliver one batch first, then send another batch every month. Our address hasn't changed much..."

“Uh…” A few minutes later, “So, Xia Lin, in the end, nothing was agreed upon?” White Rabbit looked at him in confusion.

"Hmm, it seems we didn't get enough at once. Ore is hard to come by..." But Bull's carrying capacity is limited. Xia Lin can't exactly build a railway for him, and besides, his furnace is only so big.

"Forget it, let's go back and ask Ivan and the others who's the best person to contact if we only need a few dozen tons of ore." The main problem is there's no star sector network market here.

Otherwise, Xia Lin wouldn't need to worry about fifty tons; even fifty kilograms would be readily available from suppliers. The warehousing and logistics efficiency of the interstellar era is clearly far behind that of Terra.

Of course, another reason is that mineral products have been in a state of surplus for a long time. Mining groups generally won't let go of even the smallest orders. This can only be achieved with the development of online trade and giant space logistics stations, as well as a dense global unmanned delivery network.

"But at least we got the metal and mineral samples..." This time, Xia Lin didn't make any purchase requests, but only asked the other party to provide some metal and mineral samples. After confirming that he did have the intention to purchase, the other party readily provided them at cost price.

Let's go back and analyze what these strange irons are. One of the finds from the Windrunner's cargo hold was an industrial-grade mineral comprehensive analysis chamber and mineral testing and separation station.

After all, the Windrunners had originally planned to supply a planetary fracture mine, and these things were essential equipment. Unfortunately, they couldn't find the smelting matrix, and even if they had, they probably wouldn't have been able to move it. The smallest module of that thing was as big as the mobile city module of Springvale.

If so, Armstrong would indeed receive an unimaginable order requiring them to supply millions of tons of ore daily, as gravity forging furnaces and extreme ion furnaces consume minerals at an extremely rapid rate.

Because there is almost no need to consider complex heat treatment processes, it is basically about melting or even ionizing impurities and then entering a gravity forging furnace to be forcibly shaped under super gravity in an environment of at least 6000 times gravity. The most common alloy material is high-density titanium-aluminum alloy, which is used in various construction industries, space station plates, and primary armor shells for drones, etc.

Unless you're processing some particularly complex alloys and materials, you might need to consider other complex processing methods, such as the outer shell of a warp drive or the materials for a graviton reaction chamber.

However, even if it did, Xia Lin couldn't manage it. This thing consumes antimatter fuel and nuclear fuel almost as quickly as it consumes ore. To save on fuel costs, such smelting matrices are usually set up near the corona of stars in the star system where the mine is located, directly drawing energy from the stars as their own energy supply.

Each smelting facility is equipped with a massive stellar energy harvesting array for power, so that, except for some special processes, there is almost no need to transport tons of antimatter fuel.

Therefore, Xia Lin's biggest hope now is to find other Windrunner cargo boxes and see if they contain the kind of equipment used in small smelters that are used for self-sufficiency in remote colonies.

It doesn't need to be too big; a standard one with a daily output of around 2000 tons will suffice. A fully automated metal processing production line attached would be even better.

If he had the ability, he could rapidly bring the area around the snowfield farm into the interstellar age within five years—at least in terms of infrastructure.

The most crucial point is that only with such proper smelting equipment can he manufacture complex metal parts such as room-temperature superconducting cables and magnetic acceleration tracks when raw materials are available. This means that he can manufacture lightweight electromagnetic guns or "mass projectors".

Normally it can be used to deliver goods to orbit, when necessary it can be used to shatter meteors and meteorites, and when even more necessary it can be used to blow up the Zerg hatchery (farm) with long-range warheads.

"Well, at least we've achieved part of our goal. Let's talk about large-scale purchases after the next harvest from the farm. These samples aren't enough, but considering we can buy a large portion of the metal-based products... Ugh... still a hassle..."

Because of the transportation capacity, Xia Lin had to find a way to assemble a batch of new chassis and vehicles. Since Originium Technology is different from Star Alliance technology, the entire chassis had to be redesigned, and if he weren't the son of a ship repair shop owner, the difficulty would have been doubled.

If it weren't for the continued lack of alloy materials and processing equipment, he would have preferred to forgo making any cars altogether and instead make what he was most familiar with—large shuttles, without warp engines, only considering orbital flight!

Chapter Fifty This is not farming, this is slaughtering.

Chapter 50

On the way back to the farm, there were hardly any people out in the wild in the northern Ursus winter. Apart from the hunters trained by the White Rabbit who would occasionally go out to look for snow rats, rabbits and the like, even the guerrillas and garrison would hardly leave their barracks and towns.

The bulls returned much lighter than when they set out, and their agricultural products, even in winter, were barely fetching any price.

Xia Lin had seen that a local food factory that produced military ration bread for the Ursus military was buying wheat for less than 400 Ursus silver coins per ton, which was equivalent to a little over 2000 Lungmen dollars, the internationally accepted settlement currency.

Unless he actually recreates the large-scale planting areas with square kilometers of land in the northern snowfields of Ursus, like the Covenant colonies.

Otherwise, it would be wishful thinking to think that one can make a lot of money from primary agricultural products like wheat to purchase large quantities of machinery or even mobile platform equipment.

The only option is to rely on cash crops and high-value-added crops, and then a certain degree of industrial processing is required. Xia Lin is currently investigating three major categories and more than ten subcategories of processing targets.

The three main categories are alcoholic beverages, canned goods, and condiments. Among them, condiments have only one subcategory: candy.

Xia Lin discovered that, whether it was due to Terra's lack of sufficient water and fertilizer for growing crops or something else, sugar was extremely expensive, and most people consumed industrially manufactured sweeteners, a substance called "sugar substitutes."

After buying some to try, I found that it was mainly made of xylitol, with other chemical sweeteners added. It basically did not have any energy-supplementing effect of sugar; it was just a simple sweetener.

At the same time, artificial sweeteners are also the main raw materials for manufacturing some chemical products. In comparison, real sugar is quite expensive, costing about 100 LMD per kilogram. Not to mention that machine-made sugar blocks made by re-dissolving and crystallizing inferior sugar are even more expensive. Xia Lin didn't even understand why it was so expensive.

Could they be mixing sugar and nitrates to use as some kind of fuel? It's rather strange that Xia Lin found the highly refined, high-purity, high-energy sugar blocks in industrial raw materials, and they weren't even sold as food.

In reality, the sugar cubes were not used as fuel for sugar rockets in Terra, but rather as materials for several important chemical products and pharmaceutical raw materials.

The local animals lack mitochondria and instead have another type of organelle that uses Originium as a catalyst to rapidly convert chemical energy. Their bodies have a very high intake and consumption of sugar, and the manufacturing process of most drugs also requires the help of similar microorganisms that metabolize Originium, which also requires a large amount of sugar.

Terra's agricultural technology is clearly not very advanced. After all, they live like nomads, constantly moving between mobile cities. It would be difficult for them to develop any level of settled agriculture. Land is something that cannot be cultivated for a long time, and even with the help of fertilizers and seeds, it is difficult to achieve high yields.

As for canned goods, there are canned meat and fruit products that can be mass-produced by farms and workshops. I believe the Ursus military would be happy to purchase them, and even if they are not, other countries would certainly be happy to purchase this high-quality stuff with lots of added sugar.

Regarding the origin of the meat, Xia Lin plans to learn the Star Alliance emergency canned food manufacturing formula, rather than the military canned food manufacturing formula, which is chicken, pork, and vegetable oil accounting for about 20%, with the remaining 80% consisting of starch and insect protein.

Moreover, the earthworms being raised can accelerate the production of humus in the soil. The only problem is that the local infected people who are responsible for digging up and raising earthworms may experience a crazy drop in SAN.

It has a meaty flavor, is rich in both animal and plant protein, and is extremely high in fat and calories. Most importantly, it is 80% starch and insect protein, ensuring comprehensive and healthy nutrition while keeping the price and cost to a minimum.

The only adjustment needed is to add more food additives and seasonings than emergency canned goods to ensure the flavor remains delicious.

In addition, Xia Lin also bought some local specialty canned goods and snacks in Meiquan Town and found that the locals did not seem to have the habit of listing ingredients, but only labeled the content and type of various ingredients.

This discovery made him think that local food manufacturers might be thinking the same way he was: natural ingredients are so expensive, so giving you only a third of them is a sign of conscience.

In terms of beverages, the main products are high-proof spirits distilled from potatoes, medium-proof spirits made from grains, and energy drinks. Except for energy drinks, which require Covenant food processing equipment, the others can be made by ordering or building a Terran-style brewery by hand.

In this way, all the primary and secondary products produced by the farm are transformed into highly processed industrial products. Once the precious coffee and cocoa beans in the small greenhouse mature, Xia Lin can make desserts such as liqueur-filled chocolates, which are more profitable.

Incidentally, it also provides something for the growing number of infected people around the farm to do: farming, especially farming with a lot of machinery and well-made tools, can only absorb a very limited number of people.

Conversely, labor-intensive industries, especially the food industry, absorb population very quickly and efficiently.

Especially since Xia Lin doesn't plan to use or manually assemble Star Alliance equipment in non-essential places, it's the most labor-intensive of all.

Putting aside everything else, if you want to produce kimchi industrially but don't want to buy expensive automated equipment costing millions or even tens of millions of dollars, just turning the vegetables in the vat over would require a dozen strong men to take turns.

Of course, Xia Lin plans to use mechanized and automated production for sugar making because the efficiency difference between manual and automated production is too great. A one percent decrease in sugar yield can lead to huge losses, not to mention that he still has a use for the molasses and sugar residue left over from sugar production.

After thinking it through, the first thing Xia Lin did upon returning to the farm was to find Ivan and the village chief to discuss the workshop, as well as organize a dedicated transport team to sell finished products and purchase machinery and raw materials.

Incidentally, it also allows them to purchase some special industrial raw materials that Xia Lin needs and legitimately order some mechanical parts and equipment without attracting attention.

“Is it really necessary? I think your truck is pretty good…” Ivan scratched his head. As for the transport team, Xia Lin’s truck could probably replace many sleds. Besides, he used to haul all the farm’s produce in one trip, after deducting what he used for himself.

“It’s necessary. I can’t possibly run a transport business every day, and this is just the beginning…”

Xia Lin looked at the vast open space outside the settlement that had merged with the land outside the farm. The soybeans and peas that had been planted, as well as the millet and corn near the farm, had not yet sprouted. It was still an open space that looked like it was covered with plastic film.

Do you know how much the final output is here?

Not counting the private plots of the infected individuals and the hillsides where terraces are already being dug, the land already planted with conventional crops is now close to one square kilometer. Due to the movement of bulls and humans between the farms and settlements, a compacted dirt road has even been formed, stretching for almost 3 kilometers with large areas of farmland on both sides.

"For 1,500 mu of land, I'm not even using enough chemical fertilizers right now. I mainly rely on the humus produced by catalysis and the semi-natural fertilizers from the decomposition of recycled biomass."

So, this time I bought over ten tons of phosphate and potash fertilizer from Meiquan Town. Do you know what the quantity will be after they're all fully matured?

"No, isn't that too much?" Ivan, who had never farmed before, scratched his head. He felt that the place was very big, but Xia Lin used an automatic seeding method and finished the farm work in almost two days.

The rest of the time, Yelena would drive her little tractor around the fields every day, directing the infected to build fences around the planting area. If there was enough material, they would later replace them with barbed wire.

In dangerous colonies, farmers would even switch to lightweight titanium-aluminum alloy armor equipped with monitors and laser barrier nets to prevent dangerous local animals from getting in and damaging their crops.

Especially when these "dangerous animals" are also "economic animals," it's a real dilemma. You can't bring yourself to hit them—if you hurt these fur-bearing animals, will you skin them to pay for it? The only option is to build high walls to keep them away.

The village chief, who had farmed extensively and had harvested potatoes once before, turned pale. "That won't do! We don't have enough people here; we need to hire more!" It was indeed necessary to hire people to harvest more than a thousand acres of land manually.

"Harvesting isn't a problem; I have automated combine harvesters. But what do we do with all this crop? Even if we use it all for brewing, we'll need someone to move it into the distillery and someone to transport the liquor out. What else are we going to do? Use it for bathing?"

"Are there really that many?" Ivan was still a little confused. He had seen villages on the wasteland before, villages with land areas not much smaller than this, and they all suffered from hunger.

Although farmers don't pay taxes, there's no harassment from the Ursus government, and they have advanced technology, it's normal for them to have surplus food, but surely not to this extent?

"You've never farmed before?" Xia Lin frowned slightly. Most of the Star Alliance members had "farmed" in some sense, and those on the spaceship were even more skilled at farming.

Anyone who doesn't want to eat nutritional paste with organic sauce, and who doesn't have the persuasive tongue to convince their superiors and bosses to provide them with more than the amount required by the Star Alliance Labor Law, must be an expert in farming and fish farming.

Unlike agricultural technicians like Xia Lin, who specialize in dealing with large areas of planetary habitats, they excel at meticulous cultivation, making the most of the limited space on the spaceship for planting.

"Without soil protection, deep plowing, initial fertilization, top dressing, and supplementary fertilization, and even the most basic tasks of cultivating a plot of land and screening seeds are not done, it is equivalent to clearing wasteland from frozen soil and mud every year. The seeds are weak and powerless, the fertilizers are haphazardly gathered, and wild animals and birds graze indiscriminately. In the end, they roam around every year, resulting in a complete lack of familiarity with the climate and soil—is that what you call farming?"

The village chief nodded repeatedly as he listened. Xia Lin's summary was spot on. It wasn't that the Ursus people couldn't farm, but rather that they lacked the necessary conditions, especially the infected.

“Little Ivan, you should know that the farm owner has an excessive amount of resources here. Although the crops may look similar, the actual yields are very different.”

The village chief pointed to the private plots outside the village and said, "That potato field alone can yield at least three or four thousand pounds of potatoes..."

“No, raw rehmannia root won’t reach that level…” Xia Lin glanced at it. “At most two thousand pounds, no more than that. However, if we fertilize it well, we can get a little more, but it won’t exceed three thousand pounds. After a round of soybeans, it should be about that amount next year.”

If the cooking continues well and the breeding quality is maintained, the second batch next year could reach 8000 pounds but less than 10,000 pounds…

"Yes, yes, yes..." Although the old village chief was also an old farmer, the person in front of him did not seem to be an outsider at all, but rather an expert. The old village chief nodded repeatedly in agreement.

"Look, this acre of potatoes weighs nearly two or three pounds. If you dig them up, the pile might be higher than your roof. We now have 1,500 acres."

"While it's not all potatoes, and not all of them are produced in this quantity, do you think we can consume them all ourselves? At least the entire town of Meiquan can handle it."

"Wait a minute, so we need to hire more people?"

"Then open up more land? And you're planning to have me build a dedicated railway line here? Or do you want me to support a whole bunch of freeloaders?"

"Didn't you need security?"

Xia Lin glanced at the infected youths being trained like dogs by the white rabbit outside the farm, as well as the Yeti hunting team, and looked at Ivan with a strange expression: "So you're finally not going to tolerate this anymore and are preparing to rebel? What kind of system do you want for your country and rule? Destruction is easy, but construction is difficult."

"Wait, why is this being brought up as a rebellion?" Ivan and Patriot, and even the local Ursus people, generally believed that the Ursus Emperor was fine, except for some infected people with deep-seated grievances. The problem lay with the nobles and bureaucrats. On the contrary, the emperor would occasionally help them vent their anger and give them some benefits.

"Otherwise what? I have thousands or even tens of thousands of fully armed security guards on my farm. Do you think the Ursus Empire government would believe me if I said I wasn't going to rebel!"

The old village chief thought for a moment and felt that the atmosphere and topic were not suitable for him to say what was on his mind.

That is: if they all have the same equipment as the Yeti Squad, and you actually raise tens of thousands of people, and then weld armor onto your so-called tractor and make a few of them...

Doesn't that mean people just believe whatever you say? Do they dare to question you?

"In short, we need manpower and transportation capacity now, and we may need even more labor to process these products later."

Xia Lin has already achieved her goal of simply surviving on an alien planet, and now she is basically free from worries about food and clothing.

But he merely survived; he was still a far cry from living the "life" of a Covenant citizen.

Xia Lin wasn't some masochist who liked to live in seclusion in the deep mountains and forests. He went to the remote colony for money and a better future, not for ideals, so it was impossible for him to be a self-sufficient hermit for the whole time.

There was no other way before, but now that things are gradually getting on track, it's really not right to be busy like a dog every day. It's okay to be busy like a dog in the early stages, but if you're always busy like a dog, then there must be a problem with the planning.