If Sam still had lungs he would be sighing right now. He was aware that slimes were one of the more common monsters in fantasy, and while he was technically not a slime the form his swarm was currently taking was similar to one. He had armored his core with a simple metal box with small holes so he could still connect to the nanobots.

He had been traveling in the same direction for close to a week at this point and he probably covered close to two miles according to his map. He had found another coin and even an old broken knife which he was currently dragging along as he slowly disassembled it adding its metal to his armored cube.

Nothing he’d found so far had been useful and judging by the rising humidity he didn't have much longer before another rainstorm came through. He had climbed a tree a few days ago and spotted an old dead burned out, but massive husk of a tree. If the wood was still in decent enough shape, it would make the perfect place to start setting up a permanent base of operations. Its large limbs reached at least partially above most of the forest canopy making it the perfect spot for the installation of solar panels and signal antennas. It likely had a deep root structure which would be good for reaching deeper underground where he was likely to find more metallic compounds. And a large amount of just empty space inside of it that he could hollow out and make use of. This made it almost ideal for attempting to build larger units. While he had only been able to look at the research screen. He was very aware about the limitations of his nanobots, they were the ultimate multi tool. But they were slow, they had signal reach issues and required near constant recharging. In short, while they were incredibly useful and given enough numbers incredibly powerful it would take an ungodly amount of them to do anything on a particularly large scale. Simple robotics while far beyond his current research capabilities would need to be his next step. Basic drones could be used for everything from construction to resource gathering to exploration and mapping as well as extending his relay capabilities. A simple RC car like drone that could transport the equivalent of a water bottle's worth of nanites to a position could begin construction on just about anything. As he could get basic materials out of the soil and surrounding flora if not fauna. But he currently didn't need to actually start looking for proper locations for facilities such as resource production construction and so on just yet. As he could continue just expanding underground until he found it. True, it was an extremely slow process and not the best use of his resources. But even a simple solar powered aerial drone with a magnet could be extremely useful if he could find some form of civilization to just snatch materials from.

[Warning processor limit reached please reduce stress load or a force restart will be attempted.]

Well, that was a surprise he hadn't seen one of those notifications since he woke up after his last shutdown. He must have really been deep in thought for that to happen, then again he was probably using a lot of his processing power to coordinate the swarm in such an active manner. It took another day for him to reach the tree, and he immediately set to work. While he would have liked to keep his armor it wasn't doing him any good at the moment. Most of his nanobots were put to work freeing his core and digging it down. The thing's roots really did run deep and navigating around them wasn't easy. This was only complicated further by the fact he didn't want to dig through the roots until he had a proper understanding of the current state of the tree. It may have looked rough from the outside but for all he knew it could have been recently struck by lightning and still be alive. He hadn't been in the area long enough to know or not. Better to explore it and the surrounding area than make stupid assumptions that bite him in the butt later and boy did that hold true here. He just barely made it underground before it started raining. What little remained of his armored cube knife and the coin was left abandoned on the surface. As he continued to slowly work his way downward, he discovered something interesting. All the trees in this area of a certain type had interconnected roots. Meaning while the larger tree he had found was extremely badly damaged, it was still very much alive, being kept on life support by the other surrounding trees of the forest. It would probably still die eventually due to its inability to produce its own food. Though he may be able to help with that in time. He’d have to look into doing some research on the subject. But it wasn't uncommon in stories for nanobots to hybridize with organic creatures so why not hear? But that would have to wait till he managed to get somewhere a bit safer and more established.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

Once he was underneath the tree, he started queuing up his research. Advanced circuits, Cabling, Power storage, Basic power generation, Basic transceivers, Basic engineering, Intro to beginner botany, and Floral research we're all queued up. The next step was to begin planning out the basic structure of his new base. A tunnel was to be dug up through the tree. Though he wanted to do as little damage as possible to the tree, he still needed to reach the top. Next was the ever expanding ring like mining system a small area for an assembly bay. And an additional area for storing manufactured nanobots and resources. Since he couldn't currently grow his swarm, he wouldn't put a high priority on making more of them. The last idea to designate was a tunnel heading back towards where his original base had been. It wasn't much more than a narrow pipeline but at the very least it would help him gain access to the cache of nanobots stored there as well as the remaining medals in the lockbox.

With all this done, he began his research. Advanced circuits allowed him to manufacture real solar panels, unlike the crude things he could make previously. Along with it came just the tool he was looking for he could now run a hard line connection. While this did limit him on how far he could expand beyond his limited transmission radius any tunnels he dug could have a wire ran along it. It not only provided power but allowed him to communicate with his bots as well. Though it had to somewhat remain in a direct physical connection with it. Basically, as long as some part of the swarm was touching the line he'd be able to communicate with the rest of them, not perfect but at least it helped him expand underground. He gave his bot some new orders to start building solar panels in the limbs of the tree. He then added Basic computing, Solar panel enhancement, and Advanced circuits II, to the research list. With those in the queue, he allowed his swarm to start producing nanobots again. Though in a very limited capacity. As he was more interested in gathering building materials, as at this point while increasing his swarm size would be useful it would just lead him to another bottleneck down the road. Plus, with the new cables being installed in the pipeline tunnel it wouldn't be long until he was reconnected with the stored nanobots back at the original base. He began the next research cycle and was again knocked out, but when he came to this time not even a full day had passed. He wasn't quite sure what the cabling research was supposed to give him. But apparently, it only unlocked additional research as well as giving him the ability to shield his wires making them less likely to start fires or bleed EMF into the surroundings. But he had to admit the related research was very useful everything from high voltage wires to fiber optic cables. So, he'd have to research it all for the time being though he began working his way towards Ethernet cables. Not a lot happened beyond Sam continuing his research and construction. The only thing of true interest that happened over the next few weeks. Was when he accidentally punched his way into a borough of Rabbits with little horns on their heads. He had hoped to just leave them alone and change paths. Unfortunately, the moment the rabbit spotted the small stream of nanites retreating back towards the pipe they had been constructing. It had decided to dig them out. It had unearthed close to a foot of the pipe before Sam bit the bullet and attacked the thing. Attack might have been a bit of an exaggeration, he just let the nanites pour through the pipe like a fluid flooding the din and there were a lot more rabbits there than he had originally thought. After ceiling off the entryway to the surface he began to explore while consuming the corpse of the rabbit. Surprisingly the rabbit contained a lot of useful materials and for anything he couldn't use, he had plans for. He pushed the remains of the corpse close to the entrance to use as bait as he slowly continued to disassemble the corpse. He hadn’t originally wanted to harm the rabbits, but they had proven to be a valuable source of resources on top of that their tunnels expanded deep underground. Now that he set the trap, he just needed to wait. So, trusting his bots he wants more let himself be taken under only to be awakened a short while later. His research had been paused but not canceled like it would have if the bots ran into something they couldn't handle. He got to watch as his bots latched on to the head of some weird wolf fox hybrid smothering it. Before the slime like form of his nanobots pulled it into the burrow. Where it would take the place of the rabbit’s corpse. Quickly stripping it of its remaining material. What was left was a brownish mush that he didn't know if anything would find appealing. With that done he fell back to sleep only coming to a while later when the nanites finally reached the old base and all the stored nanobots there came back online. With the first solar panels and the added nanobots, he could now stay awake during the day while researching.