CH 001

"Where am I?" Mark asked.

The cell or room, was shaking violently like a there was an earthquake. There were all sorts of lights surrounding me, I tried to move but there were straps and belts that held me in place. I was panicking and thrashing around to free myself but it was of no use. It was only after a few minutes of dread that the light filled the room or the cell or whatever place I was in. It was a fucking star that was rising over a planet that was not Earth.

How did I know this?

Simple, The landmass was a shade of red, blue, and brown, and the continent was not the same shape. Soon, the window was blindingly bright as my ship or spacecraft made entry into the atmosphere. I screamed like a little bitch as the shaking turned more violent and some part of this ship exploded. The landing, if you could call slamming straight into a sea of trees a landing, was like getting T-Boned by a semi. I was disoriented and my ears were ringing. There were all sorts of alarms and red lights. The door of the ship opened and the strap holding me in place opened. Out of nowhere, a helmet was strapped on my head and the chair I was sitting on pushed me to my feet. Then I ran not looking back, what was surprising was that I was not feeling any strain on my feet and lungs, but I also that the intimate information that I could not maintain this palace for longer than exactly 456 seconds. I stopped in front of a huge tree and took cover behind it. In a mere moment, my entire surroundings were rocked by a huge shock wave.

"What in the . . . ." I stopped as I finally realized that my voice was different, I stared at my armored hand and fell to my knees, "Hello, hello, My name is Mark Wattson, 21 years old. La la la la la la la." I tried saying words just to get familiar with the sound of my voice.

'Reincarnation, Transmigration, ROBed. The only thing remaining is my gift.' I thought, expecting to hear the fabled DING of a system that will inevitably drive me to do bullshit for untold rewards. I was disappointed at the lack of response and stood up and looked at my surroundings.

'Mmmm, almost 30 units of wood, enough to make 60 light poles but Copper wire is missing.' I thought and instinctively pulled out my pick axe.

I dropped the pick axe out of fright and looked at it as it lay on the ground. I slowly picked it up and looked at it closely. It was a foldable Iron pickaxe with a razor-sharp edge and looked well-maintained. I recognized it from a game I used to play, Factorio. A game about sending a rocket into space while protecting your factory from the local fauna. The protagonist was an Engineer, no one knew what the Engineer was but it was relentless, untiring, and absolutely a menace to the ecosystem. Once the factory reached a certain growth, it was unstoppable.

I began to understand what I was but I still had questions, the Factorio game was limited in the sense that the Engineer could progress beyond the rocket. The was no official space expansion. Perhaps, it would be different for me.

'Now, I need to go back to the wreck and extract all the necessary metals.' I walked back at a brisk pace and arrived at the burning wreckage. The metal part that was basted out was embedded in the soil and the surrounding trees. I picked up a thumb-sized piece of metal and watched it vanish in my hand. It was surprising, to say the least, and I could see where it had gone. It was dematerialized into energy and stored in the material bank of the Engineer's backpack. It was registered as 0.09 Iron ore.

'So that is how the Inventory works.' I thought and began to gather all the material in the surroundings. Soon, the Fires were mere embers which I extinguished with some soil and stomps. I interior of the Ship was destroyed and was a molten mess. I was unsure if this thing could even be harvested. I hesitantly held my pick axe and struck what were the molten remains of the door to the ship. The axe sunk into the material like it was wood. I smiled and got to work. By half a day, the entire ship was broken down and stored away. What was amazing was that my hand and shoulder were not sore or ached from the activity.

With the Ship stored away, I began to work my way out of the forest. I encountered a single animal that looked like a cross between an octopus and a dog. It scurried away as soon as it spotted me. I was soon out of the forest and into a prairie, filled with grass and flowers. It was the first time I had seen such beautiful scenery. Bluish Green Trees, patches of green grass, and flowers of all colors. It was breathtaking. I continued my expedition to find some water and lo and behold, a lake that was just sitting at the edge of the forest over some hills.

I began to look around for some deposits of metals and coals to start my factory and I was surprised to find that the red soil was considered as Irom Ore. The bluish and black soil was rich in copper and other material. The was no Coal deposit around me but there was a literal sea of trees.

'Ah, the delicate touch of humanity.' I thought as I chopped down a good amount of trees for wood.

Soon, I had delicately carved stone bricks that I was putting down at a frightening pace in a weird manner to make my first furnace. I threw in the materials and ignited the wood. The metals and the ore were soon liquid which was held in a lower container of sorts. I hovered my hand near it and my suit absorbed all the metal from the slag as the formed sheets of Iron and Copper. I held my hand out and pulled out a single sheet, It was beautifully constructed out of iron, pure iron.

'Hmm, rods, cogs, pipes, nuts, and bolts. I need enough metal to craft a steam turbine and a boiler. I would need pipes and more wood. Perhaps a coal furnace would make better use of the woods.' But there was no way to make wood into coal in the game. I remember the numerous ways to make coals from the time I wasted on YouTube. With that in mind, I built a 6 feet tall wooden pyramid leaving some space here and there for airflow. Then I covered it with mud. Set the wood inside on fire using a small hole and waited for a good while was the wood was carbonized. I then sealed it off and waited some more until the fires died down and the coals were cooled off. Soon, I had a good amount of coal.

The moment I had extracted the coal from my kiln, I saw a bit of code that was running at the extreme corner of my eyes. It ran for a while as it tried to interact with it to no avail but as soon as it stopped, I had a new blueprint in my mind. A device at would turn wood to coal with the application of heat. The quality of coal could be adjusted to some limit as well.

'Now, this opens some new ideas. Space-faring engineering. What a novel concept! I only need to experiment after setting up a good factory and boom, new tech, new blueprint, and new frontiers.' I chuckled a bit before going back to my stone furnace and removing all the processed metals.

Then began the process of rinse and repeat. Make more material, and make more machines only to make even more materials for more machines.

The laboratory was a confusing mess of computational power and testing center, as it did not create new technologies and I only took an idea as input and devised a way to turn it into operational machinery. I need to outline an idea as a machine and optimized it into a working state. The science packs were not a bunch of beakers filled with fluids but crystallized energy and code. The labs used these to power various processes.

The science packs were the most consumed resource in the Factory as they enable the factory to optimize all the processes and grow. It was a perfect loop. Use the Labs to optimize the factory and use the factory to feed the labs. It took me a bit over a week to Automate the production and make the feeder line to the Labs. Now I needed to unlock the level 2 Science pack, which required me to use belts and arms. The production of the base resources needed to be increased and the processing capabilities also needed to be increased.

I went to the excavator and began to chop down the surrounding vegetation to make room for more Excavators. The wood here was being affected by the Pollution my machines were putting out and it will be a good while before I could do anything about it. At least in the real world, I can use Construction Robotics to plant more trees and Use the Labs to modify them to grow faster and absorb more pollution. I went to work as I installed new Electricity poles and Underground belts to make a streamlined smelting setup. This took me a few days but by then I had enough resources piled up to begin making the fortifications. The Optimized Walls and Turrets were researched and I had enough stone smelted into ceramic brisk to make a 400x400 meters compound. The walls, unlike the game, we're not just sprung into existence. They needed to be hammered down. The outer perimeter was finished in a few days and I had left openings where the Auto-gates would be Installed. My turrets were ready and I had just enough ammo to provide the turrets with 10 clips of ammunition.

The instant I had armed the first turret, I sprung into action and fired a single bullet at something beyond the tree line. The sound was like a Cannon going off. I pulled out my Assault riffle which was one of the first things I had researched and began to tread carefully in the forest. My turret had shot through a tree and into whatever was walking towards the factory. I found a trail of orange goo that led to the corpse of the creature. It looked like a mix between a mini xenomorph from the Alien Franchise and a Cockroach. It was about 2 feet long and half a foot tall at the highest. I did not pick it up as I saw that there were some sort of maggots and worms beginning to devour the corpses.

'Ok, Pushing up the fortification to the top of the list.' I thought to myself.

Using a stick, I rolled over the corpse and saw that the bullet was embedded in the tree that this thing was trying to climb as it bled out. I picked up the bullet and deconstructed it. Surprisingly my material counter grew by just a bit. This meant that used ammunition could be recycled. The corpse of the creature could be used for Nutrients and Fertilizers. I smiled at the new possibilities but in order to employ them I needed to be alive.

I went back to the base and fitted the rest of the turrets before the days ended. The next day, I used assemblers, to make a dedicated Ammunition production line and made a belt system that would feed the turrets as needed. The radar I had Installed was pretty damn good as it detected the leaves that fell in the forest with precision and accuracy. The turrets and radar had some sort of communication relay built in. The sensor on the Turret had a very limited range and most of the computing power was dedicated to pattern recognition and targeting. The turrets were now capable of using the data from the radar to snipe a threat from a kilometer away but for such precision, there was a speed trade-off. It was a very acceptable trade-off.