Ultimate Gamer System: Factory Must Grow!-Chapter 66: Sneaky little culprit

’This is starting to get really annoying…’

Gritting his teeth through wave upon wave of exhaustion, Theo refused to buckle.

His hunger meter was filled up nearly to the brim, same for the thirst bar. And, when counting everything together, he worked for three hours at most since waking up!

And yet, with just ten generators left to fill up the hole, he felt as if every slightest move he had to make to climb just a little bit higher up was enough to tear his body apart.

’Am I cursed or something?’ Gritting his teeth to the point his gums started to bleed, Theo pulled himself up just one more platform, only to then collapse down on its empty surface, his chest moving as rapidly as did his heart.

Up and down, it visualized the rapid pace of his breath as his heart struggled to provide enough oxygen to his tired muscles.

’This isn’t just exhaustion, it can’t be…’ Closing his eyes for but a moment, Theo drifted off to a weird, vague state between dreams and reality. Stuck in this limbo, he expected to recover at least a tiny bit of his strength, yet…

Yet, by the time he woke up, he felt even more drained than before!

"I’m clearly using more energy than I can handle. The question is, why is that?"

Looking at his own situation through his own pair of eyes already failed to provide him with any potential explanation. That’s why, rather than getting stubbornly stuck in the box of his own circumstances, Theo took a deep breath before mentally distancing himself from… his very own self.

Gone were his plans for future expansion, the desire to finish up the power plant, or even the worry for what he would do if those guns he acquired the blueprints for from his ability shop proved to be useless against the invading beasts.

And for but a single moment, Theo positioned himself as an independent observer, searching for anything that could’ve changed, anything that could clue him in on where his exhaustion just came from!

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’Physical exhaustion sure is a factor. I did climb more than a hundred meters by now.’

Theo noted, saving the first potential source of the problem in his mental vault before erasing it from his awareness and searching for other clues.

There was the lack of diet variety, a culprit most likely to be the reason once he looked at things from a strictly health-related viewpoint.

Then, there was some sort of strange mismatch in his system, where his current powers actually went above what he could properly handle at his current level, putting a constant drain on his life force to compensate for whatever those levels were that he lacked.

Obviously, the one possibility that Theo wanted to avoid at any cost was also there—a gas poisoning, from all the time he spent underground where those gases…

’Even with all the vents in place, without proper turbines to move the air around, how am I to ensure the air gets properly vented?’

Any of the reasons he thought could be the potential source of his current problems. Yet… Theo only had solutions for a select few of them.

’If it’s about mounting exhaustion and not getting enough rest, a good night’s worth of sleep would do the trick. If it’s about physical exhaustion, then it would be only temporary, and there’s nothing that can be done about the muscle pain. But if it’s diet or the gases?’

Theo snapped back to reality, only to then resist the desire to spit out in frustration.

"Then, there’s still the possibility that the system drains me more than it should…"

Squinting his eyes, Theo looked down at a spiral of generators, each of which a normal person with proper tools and education would take weeks, if not months, to construct. He then moved his thoughts back to his manufacturing center, a massive cave that an entire company’s worth of miners would take literal years to clear out. And then…

’Oh right…’

Struck by enlightenment, Theo quickly summoned his system, searching through the tabs…

Only to find the sneaky little culprit that had hidden from his attention ever since he, in his exhaustion yesterday, had just rushed through the motions to get the biofuel processing plant done before going to sleep.

[Workpoints: 27/20]

[Warning! Exceeding the allotted workpoints! Host may face increased mana drain!]

And just below, there was an even more worrying system note!

[Warning! Mana levels critically low! Time until forced shutdown: 13:28]

[13:27]

[13:26]

’Shit…’

With a thought, Theo went ahead and… removed all of the workpoints from all the machines they were assigned to. And like a weight lifting off from his shoulders, he took a deep breath, feeling his body freed from the massive shackles that had apparently kept draining his energy ever since he went to sleep!

’It’s a miracle I didn’t just go and die as I slept,’ Theo thought, a grim possibility appearing in his thoughts, only for the young man to shake his head and then take another deep breath.

Contrary to how fast his energy levels dropped, their recovery… didn’t seem like a process he could rush. And while he was so tired he could keel over at any time…

Just as it was his habit by now, Theo gritted his teeth before building another platform, climbing it up, and then turning, only to slap another, ninety-first generator on the platform he was just resting on before changing to the belts and adding another copy of the layout he had used ever since he placed the very first one at the very bottom of his hole.

’Just nine more to go,’ Theo gritted his teeth before repeating the whole process… with proper, two-minute-long breaks between placing each generator.

Now that he had removed his workpoints from the machines, all of his machines, be it ore mining, smelting, processing, or combining… all of them went offline. And with just how much of the precious resources Theo had used for this power plant project…

"Factory… Must… Grow…"

Climbing up to another platform he had just constructed, Theo repeated the motions, putting up the ninety-second generator before hooking it up to the overflow-type network of belts.

"And for it to grow, it needs to keep operating," whispering to himself as to spare as much energy as he could, Theo took another short break before gritting his teeth and then climbing yet another meter up.

Yet, as he just… flattened on the platform’s surface and looked up towards the now-near exit out of his hole, he couldn’t help but reach out towards the light with his open hand before suddenly closing it into a fist.

’And for it to work,’ a small grin appeared on his lips, ’the juice must flow! So, stop slacking like an employee and do it like all the self-employed contractors do,’ forcing his body up, Theo sat down on the platform’s edge. And after a short consideration of the quick relief he could get by just throwing himself down the belt hole left in the middle of the whole construction, he pushed those stupid thoughts aside as he stood up and got back to work.

’Just eight more. Then, a metal grate to close it all off, and I can take my sweet time resting as I go back to the manufacturing center to hook everything up and get it all started!’