Chapter 39: Discrete Integrated Circuits

With the threat of the strange birds completely neutralized, the base circle centered on the main hub once again hummed with the fervor of construction. The ravaged mining facilities were renovated, residential buildings were rebuilt, and the damaged mining equipment was repaired and upgraded, soon roaring back to life to extract vast quantities of minerals.

On the rail lines that had once been destroyed, heavy-duty trains were once again speeding along, transporting thousands of tons of ore that flowed like rivers into the sea, converging at the main base.

At this time, the *Deep Space*, a vessel that Li Qingsong had previously commanded to retreat into deep space for shelter, returned and moored once again in the orbit around the planet Luoshen. Several clones immediately took a landing craft to the *Deep Space*, carrying specimens of the strange birds to conduct genetic analysis.

Following the analysis, the genetic profile of the birds was soon presented before Li Qingsong, leaving him in a state of shock.

"What is this? This creature's genome shares 50 percent similarity with me—with humans?"

This was enough to shatter his worldview. While Li Qingsong knew that even a banana shares 40 to 60 percent of its genes with humans, the situation still left him stunned. After all, humans and bananas are both Earth-based life forms, having evolved from the same species over countless years; in other words, they share a common ancestor. But these strange birds? Did they share a common ancestor with humans, too? Were they once life forms from Earth?

After careful study, relying on genetic analysis technology that was not yet fully comprehensive, Li Qingsong reached a rough, tentative conclusion. According to the analysis, these birds were indeed once an Earth species. Before humanity inexplicably cut off contact, the closest living relative to these birds was a microorganism known as the tardigrade.

Li Qingsong had once read records stating that researchers had discovered microbial life in the upper atmosphere of Earth, at altitudes ranging from tens to hundreds of kilometers. It was possible that in Earth's early history, some extremely hardy species living in the high atmosphere were cast into space through special mechanisms—such as close encounters with asteroids or the influence of solar winds.

Over billions of years of evolution, they adapted to the space environment, evolving into their current form. They had grown accustomed to the darkness and the cold, becoming ill-suited for environments closer to the sun, where temperatures were higher and solar winds and radiation were more intense. Thus, they remained in the vast, deep space far from the sun, constantly migrating and breeding, surviving in that manner.

"No wonder their bodily fluids are so rich in nutrients that human embryos can absorb... It turns out we shared the same ancestor billions of years ago." Li Qingsong was filled with emotion.

The wonders of life were truly unveiled before him in that moment. "If a tiny planet like Earth could give birth to such miraculous life, how many even more marvelous types of life must exist in this vast universe?" Gazing into space, Li Qingsong felt a sense of anticipation.

Once he resolved the mystery of humanity's disappearance, he—now possessing such capabilities—would certainly not be satisfied with just the small solar system. Venturing into the cosmic starscape was the path he would take in the future.

After a moment of contemplation, Li Qingsong reined in his thoughts. Even the tallest buildings must be built from the foundation up. At this stage, he needed to restore his production levels to their former state before he could speak of further development.

Over sixty thousand clones spent more than a month working, fully repairing all facilities destroyed by the war and restoring production to its peak. The plots for the massive clone cultivation factory complex had been planned and leveled in preparation.

However, Li Qingsong did not immediately pour all his available construction force into that project. Instead, he turned his attention to something else: developing microchips.

Now possessing a considerable level of industrial capacity—capable of manufacturing internal combustion engines, various vehicles, artillery, and managing complex factory, rail, and power grids—Li Qingsong deeply felt that his current method of controlling clones to perform tasks was inefficient in terms of labor utilization.

For instance, at the agricultural base, clones had to manually mix nutrient solutions every day, add, dilute, and recycle them, process organic matter, and even harvest wheat by hand. Raising pigs required daily manual feeding, administering medicine, and mixing feed. Not to mention the various factories and mining bases—everything was done by hand.

This tedious, fragmented, and repetitive labor was a massive waste of the clones' physical and mental energy. The solution was simple: automation. Once automation was implemented, at least 70 percent of repetitive labor could be handled by automated systems.

In this way, without increasing the number of clones, Li Qingsong’s productivity could increase several times over. Especially for a project as gargantuan as the massive clone cultivation factory cluster, which covered ten square kilometers—without automation, relying solely on manual labor would likely take over a decade. But with a certain scale of automation, the production efficiency of building materials would skyrocket, construction speeds would increase, and perhaps it could be completed in a year.

But to implement automation, he first needed chip technology.

"Chip technology is the foundation of almost all future technology. I will conquer chip technology first!" Li Qingsong made up his mind.

He immediately diverted ten thousand clones to quickly construct a massive laboratory. Following his prior knowledge and the information learned from his database, he custom-built various pieces of equipment, prepared the necessary materials, and began the experiments immediately.

Attempting to manufacture chips from scratch, it was clearly not feasible to jump straight into high-end planar integrated circuits. However, having mastered the principles and accumulated some technical experience, he did not need to start from the absolute basics as the history of chip development had.

After careful consideration, Li Qingsong finalized his goal: discrete integrated circuits.

By "discrete," he meant manufacturing individual components like resistors, capacitors, and transistors separately, then installing them one by one onto circuit boards and connecting them with thin wires to achieve their functions. Roughly speaking, this level of integrated circuit, by modern standards, would have a manufacturing process measured in millimeters.

One millimeter equals one thousand micrometers, or one million nanometers. Human civilization had long been able to manufacture 2-nanometer chips, and modern technology had even developed quantum chips that moved beyond silicon-based architecture. A millimeter-level chip was so primitive it was practically embarrassing.

But for the initial stage of automation upgrades, millimeter-level chips were enough.