449 Higher tiers and doubts

After climbing up the stairs all the way to the top of my tower, I finally reached the roof from which I could see the barren lands of my island… Or rather, I could see it if not for the ongoing storm that turned my eyes almost useless. At this point, I also realised that having this entire tower somehow insulated from both the cold, rain and the sound of the storm itself as well, was good only as far as I didn't enter the roof, considering how just a few seconds outside managed to get me all wet!

With no other choice, I climbed down to the uppermost, roofed floor, from where I simply used my construction tool to access the building mode of my pseudo-factory.

Just like expected, all the warehouses were already filled to the brim with the stuff, with the energy plant going on a hollow step, producing only as much electricity as it was necessary to keep all the lighting inside my compound on. With nothing else to do and no wish to descend to my small world right away, I took my sweet time improving the productivity of this place.

While most of the resources was already occupied with excavators and miners, I had no way of increasing the output of my machines, but I could still develop the quality and tier of the resources produced!

Instead of developing the buildings even higher, which would make them all the more visible from an even greater distance, putting the peace of my island at risk, despite the illusory barrier shielding it from the prying eyes of the random ships that might or might not pass by this barren place, I decided to create yet another compound, this time focused solely on reconfiguring the stuff that my factory was already producing, into even higher-tiered goods.

But that was where I hit the wall. 

While everything that I have done in the factory before was rather easy, with the most challenging part being splitting one conveyor belt into two or three at once, when I came to the fourth tier items, strange ratios for optimal production introduced themselves to my mind, instantly turning all the fun of constructing something new, into the menacing task of calculating the optimal amount of constructors, reconfigurators, smelters, refineries and all the other machinery necessary to complete the tier four and five items.

What I thought to be an easy part, focused fully on tier one, iron ingots, turned into a mammoth task, when I realised that instead of turning them into plates, I was actually required to first smelt them into the liquid metal, before I could even add coal to make an efficient steel production line!

But the increased difficulty of higher tiers didn't discourage me from playing around them, but instead, reinforced my resolve to solve all the problems that were appearing since it allowed me to push all the true problems away from my mind!

Turning the iron into liquid form, then transfering it through heat-insulated pipes to the next refinery, where the solid coal was added with just a minimal amount of solid copper, then transfering it all into smelters when the liquid form of the newly made steel would be turned up a notch during the process of purification, only to enter yet another assembly line in the building to the side on which I already lacked the concrete to wall it completely off. 

While the looks of this new compound quickly deteriorated due to the lack of materials to completely finish it off, with the new complexity in form of the need to cool the stuff down before it could be poured into forms and exit the machinery as the purified steel ingots, leaving the walls open actually allowed me to ignore this problem, simply using the outside influence to coll the liquid purified steel down a bit.

With how the stock of my concrete already dried off before I could even finish the second building in the new compound, I had no way to even start with the third building, that would finally turn the purified steel into actually usefull products like plates or pipes, forcing me to simply place some storages haphazardly in all the free spots of the already existing buildings, while turning my attention to the problem of supply.

Right now, if I left the factory for long enough, as soon as all the warehousing buildings aimed for steel products would fill out, the first compound on the factory would be free to produce the more basic items, required to create the most basic buildings back in my small world.

And I couldn't allow my factory to be so inefficient!

While I had to accept the fact that instead of making it look all nice and modern, I would turn large swats of my island into a land of spaghettified conveyors, with the ultimate end-goal of splitting the production to keep some of the basic items rather than funnelling them all into higher tiered items in my mind, I simply disregarded the current look of my factory, and accepted all the changes, instantly purifying most of my warehouses out of the items stored within them.

Just like with every system tool of mine, using my building mode considerably slowed the flow of the time for my mind, by the time my consciousness returned to my body, I could already tell that the storm was long over, with the sands of my island already dried up!

Not even daring to estimate how long did I spend inside this tool, figuring out the proper ratios, formulas and layout of my factory, I stepped back a bit out of the window, and looked down, at the floors leading towards my small world.

It seemed like no matter what I would do, I still had to see how the things were going there, even if it meant being to face all the girls that wanted my sperm at once while being unable to provide them with what they wanted the most!

Considering the restrictions that Eve's embryo inhabiting my body put on my sexual activities, I wouldn't dare to put my little brother in a wet hole, unless I was perfectly sure about what I was doing, and what I wanted to achieve with it. 

With the Eve's influence on my emotions already in effect, I didn't even feel any pressure to have my stress released, making it even harder for me to descend down to this place!

But no matter what I would say or think, the time was ticking. I never had the chance to check up how the refugees were doing, and considering the slow change in the time flow between the real world and my separate dimension, with my three days of absence, only about six days should pass for them all!

With that in mind, I realised I would've to figure out the means of food production for about three thousand people, the social structure that would hold them in reins and stop the chaos from spreading, find a way to build more housing for all of them despite all of my concrete and most of the other low tier materials running out during the process of expanding the factory…

No matter where I went or what I wanted to do, the problems continued to pile up, just like the questions whenever I found an answer to a single one I had before! 

Was this a sign of growth in power, or just the negative aftereffect of starting a bit too many projects at once? 

Unable to answer this question, I resolved myself to just deal with whatever would come my way in the small world and descended down to the entry-level before pushing the doors leading to my small world open.