4 Chapter 3

Vlad is currently watching the drones on Alpha side expand the base underground.

Yes, the base in Alpha side currently located in an underground bunker. There's many reasons for this, while defensibility and secrecy is part of the reason (after all he only just began exploring the world) another reason is that anything be build on ground level is quite unstable due to the the less dense nature of the world he's in.

Anything he brought from Earth is much heavier in Alpha side (think of the leaning tower of Pisa that's in danger of collapsing any time.) while the materials the structure is made of is quite durable but the ground it's on is not, so going underground is pretty much a forgone conclusion.

Vlad is currently watching the drones excavate a large area in which he intends to build a large hydroponics lab.

Seeing that the Animals (more like Biological weapons at this point) are total fine, Vlad intends to bring Plants from Earth to Alpha side and see if there's any adverse reaction.

Interestingly enough a lot plant samples did survive the centuries long world war.

Due to the advent of nutrient paste, plants sample are relatively well preserved with more than a dozen dedicated facilities in the storage of plant samples still surviving.

Most of these facilities were built before the Apocalyptic Third World War, back when people are stupid (Vlad looks at 21st century people the same as we view medieval people: ignorant, stupid and in some case... well a lot of cases naive).

'Melting Ice is was their biggest worry' Vlad scoffs at the ridiculousness of the idea and the ridiculous nonsense people at that time are spouting.

In particular 'The Earth is hurt by the pollution and is sending natural disasters to punish humans?' What crazy pseudo religion is this?

The Earth has survived being covered in Oxygen (yes, at one point oxygen was toxic to most life and killed most life on Earth. It is called the Oxygen Holocaust for a reason), Ice (ice ball Earth), hit by gamma rays (Ordovician extinction), hit by asteroids (there was the one that dethroned the mammals which lead to the rise of the dinosaurs and the one that lead to the fall of the dinosaurs, ironic don't you think?) and the recent Holocene Apocalypse (humans).

(Funny enough the Ice Ages the one with the mammoths aren't included in the major mass extinctions and is only considered to be a minor one)

Thing will eventually settle down and life will grow anew at the aftermaths of these mass extinction events.

Anyway so... what is nutrient paste?

It's basically the product of an artificially engineered plant cell, when placed in a tube of mineral rich fluids and exposed to a specific wave of light will rapidly multiply, suffice to say it's engineered so that each cell has all the nutrients the human body needs to function.

Nutrient paste can also be further refined, dried and compressed into Nutrient Blocks which has a shelf life of near an eternity.... well... let's just say for a really long time as an eternity seems a bit of an exaggeration, yet not to far off.

Unless an outside force messes with it NB (Nutrient Blocks) rations can theoretically last forever, well... at least until it's atoms dissipates and the eventual heat death of the universe according to the second law of thermodynamics.

Due to the invention of NB rations, gene sample of plants went relatively untouched. After all there are much more facilities that are more valuable than just a bunch of rotten vegetables.

Like the gene labs of of animals for example as they're used to creating biological weapons that are capable of surviving the hostile radiation hell hole the world has become.

So now he's planning on planting Earth plants in Alpha 1 while also planting Alpha 1 plants on Earth.

Although, he's having a bit of a problem with taking Alpha 1 plants and transplanting them on Earth as most of them couldn't survive the transition.

Even if the room is calibrated into the right Temperature, Gravity and air pressure. Plants from Alpha 1 can't seem to survive on Earth which unnerved Vlad, as recently he has an urge to step through the portal and explore the whole new world in person.

Although on the other hand Earth animals seems just fine despite being on the other side, even it won't hurt to be cautious and conduct a few more experiments before stepping through the portal.

Speaking of plants Vlad has always wondered what fruits and vegetables tasted like.

Vlad has only ever had NB (Nutrient Blocks) rations or the softer NP (Nutrient Paste), the consumption of Natural foods has long since phased out during the early days of the war when food was getting scarce.

This was necessitated why the Earth became fully irradiated and the construction of large hydroponics to feed the starving population became too costly to run and presented a large target for enemies to attack.

Not to mention the fact that nutrient blocks has a shelf life of near forever, the switch to NB is pretty much a forgone conclusion.

Vlad has watched old footage of people eating strange almost disgusting looking red balls (tomatoes).

And the seeds and juices the spills out is just... eughh

The mere thought just irks and disgusts him, like who would want to put that in their mouth?

Although a part of him is still quite curious as to what it taste like as people kept calling it "delicious"

There's also the term "sweet" which is to describe a substance of soluble carbohydrates (sugar) that is commonly extracted from a species of tall perennial grass.

Well... since the war is over and he's the pretty much the only one left...

'I suppose I could give it a try and see what's the hype is all about' Vlad thought