CHAPTER 209: CHAPTER 207: OVERALL UPGRADE!

Chen Xin ultimately convinced Qin Lan to stay and take care of his shelter, rather than accompany him on a thousand-kilometer journey back to his hometown to pick up people.

As for how Chen Xin convinced Qin Lan, it was naturally by showing her the various weapons and equipment he had prepared on the tracked armored motorhome.

Seeing the radar, drones, and heavy machine guns installed on the vehicle, Qin Lan knew these things were enough for Chen Xin to protect himself on the journey. As long as he didn’t clash with the military, ordinary bandits wouldn’t be able to do anything to his armored vehicle.

The only concern Qin Lan had was that Chen Xin was alone, and if something happened on the way, he might not be able to handle it in time.

However, this point wasn’t much of an issue, and Qin Lan didn’t insist on accompanying Chen Xin on this trip, so after seeing the weapons on the vehicle, she let go of her worries.

Moreover, Chen Xin made a good point—it might take him one or two months, and she needed to help Chen Xin take care of the house.

With Qin Lan’s help in looking after the house and Mo Qingyan and Mo Qingxin taking care of the management, Chen Xin no longer had any worries about his home.

Now, it was just a matter of upgrading the entire shelter and finishing the geothermal heat pump that the city needed before he could set off.

To prepare for the upgrade, Chen Xin took a special bath that night and went to bed early to ensure he was in good condition for the overall upgrade of the shelter the next morning.

Qin Lan had already moved into his room, but tonight neither of them had the idea of doing anything intimate. Chen Xin climbed up to the top bunk and quickly fell asleep.

Meanwhile, Qin Lan lay on the bottom bunk, listening to Chen Xin’s steady breathing above her and soon fell asleep with a contented smile on her face.

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Early the next morning, Chen Xin woke up very early, even earlier than Qin Lan, who was usually an early riser.

After washing up and making breakfast, Chen Xin finally woke Qin Lan.

Ding Ning had left yesterday to report to the city bureau, so she went with Li and the others, leaving Qin Lan behind because she was still on medical leave recovering.

So the breakfast this morning was just the two of them.

After eating the porridge with ham pieces that Chen Xin had specially prepared, Qin Lan asked, "Axin, you mentioned upgrading your home today. How do you plan to start? Is there anything I can help with?"

"Help? There’s really nothing you need to help with. I’ve completed most of the upgrades already. It was just a matter of not having enough materials before," Chen Xin said, considering Qin Lan’s offer to help but declined her kindness. "Now that the city has provided materials, I’m enough on my own, so Alian, you should rest well today."

After speaking, Chen Xin cleaned up the table and went to the storage room alone.

Hearing that Chen Xin didn’t need her help, Qin Lan didn’t insist and instead turned on his gaming console, planning to follow Chen Xin’s advice and take a good rest today.

Chen Xin, meanwhile, entered the storage room, looking at the supplies-filled room, ready to begin the overall upgrade of the shelter.

Opening the system interface, he focused his thoughts on the entire shelter, and the system interface displayed upgrade options for the shelter.

"Simple Shelter"

"Upgrade Plan 1: Upgrade the shelter’s protection level, enhance disaster resistance, improve living comfort, overall shelter technology +1, survival points required 12,000"

"Upgrade Plan 2: Expand the shelter’s living space, accommodate more people, improve resource support, shelter capacity +5, survival points required 15,000"

As with previous upgrade plans, Chen Xin made no adjustments, but he had detailed ideas for some aspects of the overall upgrade of the shelter.

Without much hesitation, he directly invested various materials from the storage room into the upgrade, choosing to simultaneously upgrade both plans, reducing the survival points consumption to one-tenth, which still required nearly 3,000 points, two-thirds of Chen Xin’s remaining survival points. Most of the materials stored in the storage room were consumed in this upgrade, leaving only a few scraps.

It could be said that Chen Xin’s accumulation over the past six months was all consumed in this upgrade.

But as the emerald light spread to every inch of his surroundings, Chen Xin closed his eyes with a smile of joy and anticipation, eager to see a brand-new shelter when he opened them again.

Counting down silently in his heart, three, two, one, when he reopened his eyes, the green light had faded, and the shelter had changed.

He was still standing in the storage room, but this storage room had now turned into a pure food storage room, with shelves neatly categorizing and storing various foods.

Chen Xin looked at the food storage room that was the same size as the original storage room. He also checked the cold storage that was upgraded from the previous food storage room and refrigerators, only then did Chen Xin nod in satisfaction and leave the storage room.

After stepping out of the storage room, what Chen Xin faced should have been the original public space, but it had now been upgraded to a hall.

This was one of the changes made after the overall upgrade of the shelter, as Chen Xin turned the original shelter into two floors, with the public space serving as a hall connecting the upper and lower levels.

The rooms on the first floor included a storage room, a workshop, and a medical room, as well as a power generation area composed of a ground source heat pump, an algae oxygen machine, and an electrical distribution room, with a passage connecting to the planting greenhouse also arranged on this level.

The second floor primarily consisted of a semi-open living room and kitchen. Since the public space connected the two floors, one side of the living room had a balcony-like structure, allowing a direct view of the first floor.

Surrounding the living room were five double rooms, each with its own bathroom, also featuring bathing facilities. However, Chen Xin still constructed an independent bathroom on the second floor to fulfill his promise to Qin Lan, creating a hot spring bath.

Chen Xin did not go up to the second floor, although now he only needed to look up to see Qin Lan sitting in the living room playing games, seemingly unaware of any changes.

Turning around, he walked through the passage leading to the planting greenhouse, where there had been earth-shaking changes.

The originally square planting greenhouse had transformed into a gigantic cylindrical structure with a diameter of fifteen meters and a height of twenty meters, and the biggest change wasn’t the space of the planting greenhouse, but the planting area inside.

The bottom of the planting greenhouse was turned into a one-meter deep large water pool, with several fish happily swimming around, seemingly finding relief from their cramped conditions in the previous water troughs, finally having enough space to move around.

In addition, the original single-layered hydroponic trays and soil planting areas were also transformed, turning into six layers of one-hectare square hydroponic trays, stacked one above another over the water pool, with irrigation and planting done through the greenhouse’s internal circulation system.

The bottom two layers of planting trays were planted with the previous drought-resistant rice, which seemed not to have changed much, but the base roots were no longer embedded in soil, instead relying on planting trays and nutrient tanks.

The upper four layers consisted of a quarter-layer of carrots, a quarter-layer of cabbage, a quarter-layer of lettuce, and the remaining quarter-layer with strawberries, with the other three layers vacant.

These were the crops Chen Xin had previously planted, clearly indicating that the system upgrade simply changed the greenhouse’s structure without affecting these crops.

The entire planting greenhouse had now entered mechanical automation, with a console at the entrance implementing fully automated planting, maintenance, and harvesting, which, compared to the previous manual work Chen Xin had to do like tilling and harvesting, was undoubtedly much more advanced.

This clearly demonstrated the technological level +1 in the overall upgrade.

After inspecting the planting greenhouse, Chen Xin proceeded to the power generation area, considered the core power supply of the entire shelter, essentially the heart area. Especially after the upgrade, Chen Xin connected the shelter’s ventilation system here, making the power generation area even more crucial.

The power generation area was also a large room with four ground source heat pumps and their associated generators on the floor, while against the wall were four enormous green glass vats, which were the algae oxygen machines.

However, after their upgrade, not only had their volume increased, but they also allowed automatic extraction of the algae sediments for harvest, and even the algae inside had undergone some changes, now capable of producing ethanol.

Although the production wasn’t high, only providing Chen Xin with a hundred liters of ethanol per month, it was still very good news, as it added a new product to the shelter’s production.

The algae oxygen machines were now linked with the ventilation system, with the oxygen they generated being directly delivered through air ducts to every corner of the shelter.

As for the electrical distribution room, it remained a combination of distribution cabinets and batteries, only now with three additional battery installation slots nearby, allowing for the installation of Isotope Thermoelectric Batteries, like the ones Chen Xin used in his armored vehicle.

Although Chen Xin had already manufactured Isotope Thermoelectric Batteries, commonly known as Nuclear Batteries, he didn’t directly convert the shelter to nuclear battery or reactor power supply, instead preparing three Isotope Thermoelectric Batteries in the distribution room as backup power.

"This is really great! This way, there’s no need to worry about power outages or oxygen shortages anymore." Chen Xin nodded in satisfaction, though in reality, he had long ceased to worry about oxygen and power issues.

After checking out the power generation area, Chen Xin took a look at the medical room and the work area; neither had major changes. The work area merely saw the workbench become more advanced, adding various small lathes and equipment, while the medical room was separated into a sterile surgery room and a ward, making it resemble more of a small medical station rather than just a medical room.

These constituted the main parts of the shelter’s overall upgrade, but Chen Xin knew that besides these, there were also transformative changes in the entrance area near the main door, as he moved the supply storage room upstairs, turning it into a supply warehouse.