The mysterious ball that had exhausted its energy under the sun showed no signs of recharging and was still cold and lifeless. Although there is no visible difference from the mysterious ball with energy on the outside, the cold feeling when touching it shows that the protagonist's charging plan is not feasible.
Doesn’t the Mystery Ball charge directly with solar energy?
So, how can living things recharge a "battery"?
Solar energy is naturally the first thing that the protagonist thinks of. After all, almost all plants rely on solar energy to survive, and most animals directly or indirectly rely on eating plants to obtain energy.
In other words, except for those poor biological species in seafloor hot springs that rely on geothermal energy or chemical energy to obtain energy, almost all the energy for the survival and activities of organisms on earth cannot be separated from the sun.
Once the sun goes out, 99.99% of all living things will die because they have lost their ultimate source of energy.
Then, as a part of the coexistence of living things, the mysterious ball should also use the energy from the sun directly or indirectly.
If the mysterious ball does not directly convert solar energy into its own energy, then it is likely to obtain energy through indirect means.
For example, the Destroyer eats food and then digests it in the stomach to obtain energy. Then the excess energy is not stored in the form of fat, but in the form of "electricity" in the mysterious ball. This method is used to provide energy to the mysterious ball. Charging, this operating method is theoretically sound.
However, this energy conversion efficiency is too low.
You know, when an animal stores energy by eating, its conversion efficiency is generally only 10%-20%. If a sheep eats grass and a wolf eats the sheep, then the energy converted by the wolf from the grass is only 1%-4%.
The efficiency of plants directly converting solar energy can be as high as 24% for C4 plants.
Although 24% does not seem much higher than 20%, plants can always convert energy as long as there is sunlight and water, but there are very few animals that can continuously eat efficiently for half a day.
Therefore, if the Destroyer relies on traditional animal energy storage methods such as eating to charge the Mysterious Ball, it will not only be inefficient, but also consume a lot of time. It’s not that there is no such possibility, but the economics are too poor, so the protagonist intuitively feels that this is not the case.
So, could it be that the Destroyer can use other organs to convert it into solar energy and then store it in the mysterious ball? After all, the protagonist suspects that the Destroyer is a biochemical creature with a "battery" in his body, so it is normal to have a solar "charger".
Could it be that the little mysterious ball on the Destroyer's head that breaks naturally is the charger? The protagonist has such a suspicion, but there is no way to confirm it.
Although it is impossible to verify the charging method of the mysterious ball, knowing its characteristics, the protagonist immediately thought of a lot of ways to use the mysterious ball.
For example, I thought of being a bomb and a warm baby before.
Especially when used as a heating device such as a baby warmer, it can largely make up for the shortcomings of the Legion of God's Envoy King being unable to go out in winter.
For example, if pavement ants carry a mystery ball, they can be active outdoors for about two days as long as there is no bad weather with wind and snow, which means that they can travel a round trip distance of about a day.
Then not only can [Linshui City] and [Bridgehead] be communicated, but neighboring nests such as [Hunting Ground City] can also be communicated. The protagonist can even organize pavement ants to carry out short-distance transportation in these places, completely overcoming the previous problems with nests in various places in winter. You can only rely on inventory to survive the unfavorable situation of winter.
If they are not transporting supplies, but just communicating news, then the flying knight can carry multiple mysterious balls to heat himself and his mount, and then deliver the news within a flying distance of about a day.
The flying speed of flying knights is sixty times that of ants on the ground, which means that they can go back and forth from [Linshui City] to any nest in the territory of the Angel King’s Legion within one day. In winter, there will no longer be separate nests. A season of complete disconnection.
Even if you think about it, if all the soldiers of the Divine Envoy King's Army are equipped with a mysterious ball, they can march outdoors for a day in winter.
If the Flying Knight is allowed to transport enough mysterious balls to the transfer stations along the way in advance, then theoretically the Angel King's army can march and fight in winter, and the Destroyer's advantage in winter will not be that great.
Of course, now the protagonist can only think about it. If you want a legion of 2,500 ants to move outdoors for 2 days, theoretically, you need 2,500 mysterious balls. Adding the consumption of flying knights during transportation and other uncontrollable factors, it will cost at least 3,000. A mysterious ball is safe.
The total number of mysterious balls seized by the protagonist is only a few hundred, and most of them are still stored in [Bridgehead].
The Destroyer will not attack now, and the protagonist has no choice but to seize more mysterious balls. For a moment, the protagonist actually hoped that the enemy would attack. But reason quickly suppressed this too romantic idea.
Not to mention the dangers of war, once a war breaks out, although the protagonist has confidence in the defense of the [Bridgehead], he will inevitably pay a high price. It is still unknown whether the captured mysterious balls can offset the consumption of the war and achieve profitability.
Moreover, once the enemy besieges the city, it is impossible for the pavement ants to transport the mysterious ball out.
The purpose of using the Mysterious Ball is to gain an advantage in the war. The Mysterious Ball serves the war, not that the purpose of the war is to capture the Mysterious Ball. You cannot put the cart before the horse!
The protagonist simply asked the pavement ants to take advantage of the good weather to transport all the mysterious balls to [Linshui City] and store them for emergency use.
In addition to the above two uses, the protagonist also envisions many new uses.
For example, by using the constant temperature of the mystery ball, the ants can "open" the mealworm farm in winter. Unlike in the past, all the mealworms had to be slaughtered and made into jerky in autumn, and they could not eat fresh meat all winter.
Constant temperature can also be used to process high-quality fermented beverages. The quality of current fermentation is unstable and inferior products often appear.
You can also use the mystery ball as explosives to dig out more ores. At present, there are not many copper ores easily mined on the ground in [Malachite City]. The remaining copper ores are either too large for ants to mine, or they are buried deep underground.
Once you have explosives, it is no longer a problem to dig out more minerals or even change the terrain of the territory on a large scale. After all, if the quantity is not enough, there is no problem that big bombs cannot solve. If it doesn't work, increase the power and fry again.
A small mysterious ball can actually have such a wide range of effects. It simply allows the Divine Envoy King's army to take a shortcut and improve the level of technology by an era!
