Chapter 189: Seventy Thousand Tons of Transport Capacity

The next day.

Su Wu, who had barely slept through the night, returned to his bedroom to catch up on rest. 

The difficulty of researching the **Energy Equation** exceeded his expectations. After putting in more spirituality, Su Wu had only managed to advance the research by 16% after an entire night's effort. 

This experience revealed a key insight: it wasn't simply a matter of pouring more spirituality into the research within the same 10-minute window to see proportional progress. Beyond a certain threshold, there was a diminishing return effect.

For the **Energy Equation** — a basic theoretical technology — the most efficient way to use spirituality was to stack it three times over. In other words, consuming three points of spirituality every 10 minutes offered the highest return on progress. More or less than that was less effective.

Additionally, Su Wu realized that as his mental fatigue increased, the effects of spirituality also declined rapidly. This meant that there was a limit to how much spirituality could be used within a single day.

"All because of a lack of resources," Su Wu thought. "If only I had more spirituality, this wouldn't be such a problem."

He lamented the feeling, which was somewhat like the difference between using a monthly card to collect in-game currency versus spending real money in a game. The latter has no time limits but comes at a huge cost. In contrast, the monthly card might take longer, but it's more efficient.

Despite these setbacks, Su Wu was still encouraged by the visible 16% research progress shown on the system's interface. This meant his previous investment hadn't been in vain. It was now just a matter of continuing to put in effort.

"Slow and steady," Su Wu decided. "I don't need to rush."

Over the next few days, whenever he had free time, Su Wu would activate **spirituality enhancement** to further study the **Energy Equation**. He even had the **Chen Xin sisters** try it out, but their results were much worse than his. 

Su Wu spent some time investigating the reason and discovered a hidden rule about spirituality. While it had no restrictions on him, its effectiveness when applied to others depended on the person's relevant talent. For example, **Chen Xin**, who had a high talent in chemistry, could fully benefit from spirituality when studying related technologies. However, if the research had little to do with chemistry, the effect would be significantly reduced — sometimes as low as 50% efficiency.

Such inefficiency was unacceptable for Su Wu, especially since spirituality was already in limited supply. After one test, Su Wu decided to stick with doing the research himself. After all, the final result wouldn't be off by just a few days, and there was no need to waste resources.

Meanwhile, the **Manufacturing Center** completed the production of 3,000 spider robots. After being handed over to the **Remote Control Center**, Su Wu's transport capacity reached a peak. 

Now, every day, he could move over **70,000 tons** of resources from the abandoned underwater shelters. The nearly **200 million tons** of resources he had gained were no longer just abstract numbers. They were now materializing at a visible speed in the warehouses of various subsidiary shelters.

---

**September 9th.**

The **Professional Thermal Power Station** located on the **9th underground level of the Farmhouse Shelter** was officially completed. From now on, all other power generators were retired and sealed.

All subsidiary shelters began to activate their electrical transport network, powered by the electricity from the new power station. With an ample supply of power, the **vegetable plantations** and **forage fields** in the shelter saw an impressive increase in growth speed—around **30%** faster.

The shelter's residents no longer had to endure strict power usage restrictions. They could now enjoy limited lighting in their rooms at night, watch television, and the costs of using washing machines in public areas dropped as well. Overall, their living experience significantly improved.

At the same time, the engineering team completed the expansion of the **9th underground level**. The area surrounding the original 9th level had been expanded by **4,850 square meters**.

Su Wu used this newly added space to build more warehouses. He now had a **20,000 cubic meter** water reservoir, a **30,000 cubic meter** metal storage warehouse, and an **8,200 cubic meter** coal storage warehouse.

With this expansion, the shelter's daily and industrial water needs would no longer depend on external sources. The shelter would also now be able to store over **200,000 tons** of metal raw materials and **10,000 tons** of coal for fuel.

---

**September 10th.**

After spending **10 points of spirituality** and activating a **10x efficiency mode** for **10 minutes**, Su Wu made a significant breakthrough in the **Energy Equation** research. He fully unlocked the technology on the tech tree.

Within the next half-hour, Su Wu used just **6 points of spirituality** to redesign the **solid-state battery**, increasing its energy storage capacity by **ten times** per unit volume.

This new battery meant that all of Su Wu's mechanical units could now operate independently in the field for longer periods, without the need for power transport vehicles. In terms of combat ability, this translated to at least a **10% increase** in overall effectiveness.

However, the solid-state battery's technological iteration also had its downsides. The old **power transport vehicles**, now obsolete, would need to be phased out. Even with similar sizes and costs, a new power transport vehicle using the solid-state batteries could store **100,000 kWh** of power — the equivalent of **10 old-model transport vehicles**. Unfortunately, due to current technological limitations, the recovery rate from decommissioned vehicles was extremely low, with around **90% of materials lost**.

This invisible loss was hard for Su Wu to accept, even with his abundant resources.

"The cost is just too high," Su Wu remarked. It was hard to accept that the power transport vehicles, which had just been put to use, were already on the verge of becoming obsolete.

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