Chapter 79: Oil Resource Spot, Repair!
Su Mo headed out to shelter number two. With the buggy’s capabilities, the distance between the two shelters could basically be ignored.
After a round of checking, Su Mo placed most of the items into the storage s.p.a.ce and brought along some materials that he could use for repair.
“Oreo, I’m going to shelter number two. Do you want to go?”
After Su Mo said this, Oreo—who had been playing with Big Spark and Little Spark—ran over, sitting obediently as her eyeb.a.l.l.s glowing with excitement.
“Don’t worry. I’ll drive!”
“Woof woof aroo—”
Hearing the word ‘drive’, Oreo’s eyes instantly turned starry!
Barking and howling, she was eager to get into the buggy and be taken for a spin.
Su Mo laughed. After checking that his things were all packed up, he picked up Oreo, opened the door, and walked outside.
Seeing Su Mo leave, Big Spark and Little Spark glanced at him resentfully and could only whine as they returned to their territory, waiting quietly for the two of them to return home.
“There’s such a big sandstorm today! It seems that a blizzard really will be coming soon!”
The moment the wind started blowing through the plains, it seemed as if there would be no end to it.
While he had been fixing the door earlier, the wind was a gentle breeze. He did not expect that it would turn into a howling north wind in just less than half an hour.
Waves of sandy dirt clumped together and attacked the armor, making scratching noises as they sc.r.a.ped against the armor.
After placing Oreo down and driving the buggy out from the simple garage, Oreo skillfully jumped into the back of the buggy and used her mouth to securely fasten her safety belt.
“Not bad, very safety-conscious!”
Seeing Oreo’s appearance, Su Mo smiled as he squeezed into the buggy from the side. With a wave of his hand, he put on the helmet that came with the armor and started the buggy, heading out.
A few minutes later, shelter number two had already appeared before him.
Parking the buggy by the hillside, Su Mo turned and got out of the buggy. He brought Oreo out from the buggy, pulled out his weapon, and started patrolling the area.
It was only after Oreo had done a round of patrolling, and signaled that there were no problems nearby, that Su Mo packed up his weapon and pulled out the Hooked Rope, heading for the hole.
Fiddling with the hook, Su Mo acted like an experienced hunter as he stuck the hook firmly into the ground.
After tugging the rope several times and confirming that there were no issues, Su Mo descended down the rope toward the shelter.
The floor of shelter number two was still as messy as it was previously, with broken gla.s.s and pieces of wood littering the ground.
He pa.s.sed by the broken small thermal weapon creation platform, touching it, before moving toward the motor-pumped oil well and beginning his evaluation of the equipment.
Compared to traditional oil mining equipment, this motor-pumped oil well was obviously much more advanced.
At a glance, one could tell that this model was not one that had been created using regular methods. On the contrary, it seemed much more like an oil well that had been created by using the game system’s blueprint.
Pulling the steel cable attached to the oil well a few times, Su Mo gained a preliminary picture of the malfunctioning parts.
When Magoo had halted the operation of the oil well, he had probably used brute strength to damage the gears at the bottom, causing them to malfunction and putting them out of commission.
A repair like this should not be too difficult.
Silently summoning the system for an examination, the properties of the oil well popped out.
[Mini Motor-pumped Oil Well (Good; Broken)]
Description: A scientific motorized pumping well. It has many functional modules such as oil extraction, refinement, purification and separation. Due to the lack of modules loaded during its construction, it currently only has the oil extraction module. Moreover, in the process of forcefully halting it, the motorized pumping well’s diesel engine and a small portion of its internal parts were damaged. The air pressure in the oil well is also abnormal.
Effectiveness: 30L/24h
First upgrade option: Repair the motor-pumped oil well, resume normal operations, and add the pollution removal and storage modules. Survival points required (920).
Second upgrade option: Repair the motor-pumped oil well, resume normal operations, add the refining, purification and separation, pollution removal, and storage modules. Survival points required (1580).
Comment: Oh oh oh oh! I offer oil to the motherland!
“So the motor-pumped oil well Magoo received also did not have all the modules loaded. If it only included the oil extraction module, then perhaps it was probably sold as a resource in the secret trading realm?”
Putting his hands on the side of the well, Su Mo stuck his head into the well to look around. It was so deep that he could not see the bottom!
Like the psychic energy water well at the base, this motor-pumped oil well’s mode of operation was clearly also not based on conventional wisdom.
On the other hand, while the functions of those strange modules were fairly easy to understand, their operations were probably similar to the workbench in the sense that they could not be judged by common sense!
“Which one should I choose?”
From the moment he saw the description of the oil well, Su Mo had already given up on the idea of repairing it by himself.
It contained only petroleum. By itself, it would not be very useful; requiring a large amount of time and energy, and even requiring a supporting factory before it could be refined into something usable.
Liquefied petroleum gas, gasoline, kerosene and diesel could be refined through atmospheric distillation.
Through vacuum distillation, lubricating oil, paraffin wax and alkane pentane with relatively large molecular weights could be refined, as well as aromatic hydrocarbons such as benzene and toluene.
Light oil and gaseous olefins, such as ethylene, propylene, butene, and butadiene, could be refined through catalysis and catalytic cracking.
All of these usually required the corresponding technology tree to be activated before proceeding, but now, all it took was a simple module installation to complete this series of troublesome tasks. It was simply too convenient.
After thinking deeply and performing some rough calculations, Su Mo deducted the survival points he needed to prepare a single module before going straight back to the initial interface.
Su Mo took out all the raw materials he could produce and placed them on the floor, then said softly, “I choose the second upgrade option!”
After some odd material deductions, he only used up 1440 survival points, and a strange sky-blue light enveloped the entire oil well.
Su Mo lowered his head and suddenly noticed that the s.p.a.ce below his feet seemed to have disappeared and that he seemed to be standing within a dark void.
It was as if he had entered a 3D projection of the area and everything within his vision changed.
Within that dark void, the sky-blue light constructed a grid outline of the motor-pumped oil well that seemed to stretch and lead into the depths of the earth.
The speed of the blue grid’s extension was very quick. From Su Mo’s angle, it was difficult to spot the bottom at a glance.
300m?
Or was it 500m?
Under Su Mo’s observant gaze, the transparent blue grid started turning into many different square modules.
On the flat ground, five storage tanks of the same size appeared. Blue cyclones hovered inside the storage tanks before firmly attaching themselves onto the storage tanks with a snap.
The hole, which had only been about 50cm in diameter, began to slowly expand to a length of 1.5 meters under the ray of blue light.
Rays of the snake-like blue light suddenly extended out from the hole, and like snakes, seemingly bit the ends of the storage tanks, forming a link.
In the blink of an eye, the blue grid that was so deep and had no end in sight started climbing up rapidly.
Within the s.p.a.ce of a few breaths, shelter number two was back to how it was originally, as if everything that had taken place just now was an illusion.
“Where exactly did this system come from? This is too…”
“Sci-fi, isn’t it…”
Su Mo wiped off the sweat from his brow. He had only looked into the abyss for less than ten seconds, but it had felt like riding a 100-meter tall roller coaster; his emotions racing back and forth as well.
The previously malfunctioning and broken oil well was now brand new.
The edges of the well that were originally made from stone had now all been replaced with sleek, gray-black, iron edges that gave off a metallic l.u.s.ter.
The well that previously only had one oil collection barrel to pull up and let down had now been replaced with five thick rubber pipes.
Tracing each one-meter-long rubber pipe out, they connected to the ends of five storage tanks of only 50*50*50cm that were placed on the ground.
How much could possibly be stored in such small tanks?”
Lowering himself down, Su Mo prepared to open a storage tank to take a look at its size in detail. Before he could do so, a black s.p.a.ce similar to the storage s.p.a.ce suddenly appeared within his line of sight.
“Huh? The insides of these storage tanks are actually all storage s.p.a.ces?”
Upon seeing 10 cubic meters marked in the upper right corner, Su Mo was stunned.
Could such small tanks actually contain 10 cubic meters of s.p.a.ce? This was even larger than the portable storage s.p.a.ce he brought around with him!
After attempting to move two of the tanks, Su Mo realized that they were firmly fixed in place and could only helplessly give up on the idea of bringing one back as his portable storage.
“Seems these modules are indeed extraordinary.”
He stood up. After examining the data on the motor-pumped oil well again, Su Mo had a satisfied smile on his face!
[Mini Motor-pumped Oil Well (Good)]
Description: A scientific motorized pumping well. It has many functional modules such as oil extraction, refinement, purification and separation. As of this moment, all functions are normal!
Effectiveness: Crude oil: 100L/24h, diesel: 45L/24h, gasoline: 22L/24h, toluene: 1.5kg/24h… (Only two products can be chosen every 24 hours)
“As expected! After adding the modules to the motor-pumped oil well, I can refine toluene and diesel directly!”