My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

AMICITAS Mission Three – Mission Day 440

ARES 3 solar day 432

Starlight Glimmer looked at the lush green alfalfa in the cave. For some reason that she couldn't explain, the smell of alfalfa today was particularly fragrant compared to what she had remembered before.

Starlight was born in a unicorn settlement in a well-off family environment with overly protective (and decisive) parents. The teaching she had received since she was a child had always been that such backward and barbaric behavior as wandering around outdoors eating wild food like homeless paupers was absolutely intolerable. Appropriate use of cutlery and eating hay from dishes, pots and cauldrons are basic upbringings for a pony living in a civilized society. But if she were in the country of horses now and encountered such a piece of grassland that exuded a sweet and rich aroma like the one-third of an acre of land in the cave, she would definitely be tempted to go up and take a few bites.

Of course, the assumption is that she was not trapped in this hellish place and ate almost a whole year of hay, hay, hay, hay, endless hay, potatoes, hay, hay, hay, and so on. Change to potatoes, then back to hay. After enduring such long-term torture, although the aroma in the air today could make her feel a little relieved, it did not have the allure of food at all.

Today's magic field recuperation had to be terminated early - although it was necessary to shorten the time as much as possible to save magic energy, Xingguang still did not dare to neglect Xiao Ting's situation and was still making every effort to ensure that her minimum magic energy needs were met. If a conventional battery is stored alone in a cave, the charging cycle is usually within seventeen days. However, to be on the safe side, she currently uses the estimated charging time of twenty days as the standard - which corresponds to five percent per day. The thirty regular batteries they now hold can theoretically fully recharge three empty batteries every two days. A battery can support the operation of magic field projection for thirty-eight minutes. Based on their previous observations, the magic environment lasting for such a long time seems to be enough to maintain the health of the members of the Malaysian team.

But today, she tried her best to transfer all the magic energy into the fifteen giant batteries with boost enchantment. While filling them all up, the remaining battery energy storage was almost exhausted. At least twenty-one batteries must be fully charged before they officially set off - seven of them are used to drive the sparkling engine, and the other fourteen are used as emergency mana reserves during the journey.

Once they leave the farm, with just the little gossamer-like magic energy generated by their six refugees, the charging rate will drop to less than 2% per day - in fact, it will definitely be much less than 2%, because of this The charging rate was what it was just a few days after they crashed, when Dragonfly still had plenty of magic energy. As for now, although she is no longer at the critical juncture of magic energy exhaustion like before, she will still absorb a lot of magic energy from the weak magic fields generated by others, which is enough to significantly reduce the overall charging efficiency. What they faced became a protracted tug-of-war between charging the small battery and transferring the energy storage of the small battery, and keeping the large battery that could not directly absorb the team members' magic energy always full of energy. Of course, they still have to consume a little mana every day to try to maintain the health of Dragonfly - don't mention health. It's enough for her to survive and be able to afford the mission; she can only wait until they return to Ma Star to regain her health. There is no point in discussing it until later.

It is for this reason that Starlight announced to everyone that from now on, any impromptu use of magic will no longer be allowed. In other words, from now until the final launch, all batteries will be strictly used only for the most urgent emergency needs, and even these survival needs must be restrained to a minimum and used sparingly. In addition, in order to ensure that no matter what kind of accident occurs, there are at least 21 batteries fully charged and ready for use, the duration of magic healing has also been reduced from the original half an hour to only consuming one-fifth of the current daily production capacity of magic energy. Length - ten minutes a day. If there is an unfortunate situation that requires urgent magic call-in that day, this pitiful time will be further reduced to just five minutes.

Fortunately, everyone maintained an understanding attitude. Not only did they not complain, they even passed the proposal without saying a word. It’s not that the logic behind this difficult decision wasn’t obvious enough to everyone present; it’s not like they hadn’t personally experienced this kind of hardship three months ago, so much so that the magic energy they scraped together and collected every day was barely enough to experience five times. Minutes of magic field days. But the many efforts she had made in arranging extra batteries during the last period of their stay here did make it possible for them to get used to a full half hour, or at least ten minutes of bathing, no matter how difficult it was. Return to the luxurious life of horse country with concentrated magic energy. Even if they only experience such comfort for a short time, now they have to return to their daily routine of only ten minutes of ordinary magic fields, which will inevitably seem like asceticism in comparison.

And in fact, Starlight is facing at least one troublemaker who doesn't listen to discipline - and unfortunately, the other person is still under her control. Cherry Berry insisted on taking advantage of the magic field time to play with the twig she and Mark were holding in a handheld watering can. So Starlight was awkwardly sandwiched between Dragonfly and Berry, and even the fur on her body was swaying in the tug-of-war between Dragonfly's body struggling to absorb magic energy and Berry's earth pony magic on the other side not to be outdone and constantly demanding. .

"Mark?" Just as Xingguang was silently pondering what to do in the face of this dilemma, Berry said, "Come over and see if these root systems are long enough?"

Mark glanced at it and said, "Absolutely, if only you could use this skill when dealing with those failed alfalfa cuttings."

"I tried it," Berry muttered, "I just didn't have much thought at the time."

"Anyway, you are definitely thinking now." The human took a closer look at the slightly turbid liquid level in the water storage bottle. "I hope to make them longer. We need to pot Groot as soon as possible, so The roots will have time to sink into the soil and start growing before we move him to the mobile home."

"Groot?" Starlight was puzzled.

Berry raised her head, "Hasn't Mark told you that story before?" she asked, "Then you can ask him to tell it again while I'm taking care of Groot."

Fireball cleared his throat and asked boldly, "You should know that we shouldn't add weight to the MAV, right?"

When Berry was angry, she didn't have the intimidation of a changeling's scream, nor the momentum of a dragon's roar, but just the angry look she threw at the fireball was enough to make him shut his mouth immediately. After making it clear that she did not want to hear similar questions again, she walked away contentedly holding the spout of the water bottle in her mouth, the lush branches and leaves caressing the tip of her nose.

"Okay..." Mark saw the two sides calm down and said softly, "Okay, now please listen to the story of the Guardians of the Galaxy, a group of aliens who gathered together in the name of adventure. One of them is some kind of human being. An outcast among the tree aliens. Although he is wise and patient, he faces a language barrier, so when he speaks the only words that others understand are, 'I am Groot. .'"

Then Mark briefly described the noble sacrifice made by Groot and the offspring/seedlings he gave birth to, relying on his memory of watching the movie in the theater during college.

After the story was told, Dragonfly asked, "So what you're trying to say is that the reason you named that thing Groot is because he's a sapling?"

"Is such that."

"Pony's idea is stupid," Fireball couldn't help complaining, "Do you think that cherry tree branch can save our lives during the flight?"

"No," Mark deliberately slowed down his speech to hint, "it will definitely not do any heroic actions such as flying grenades. But considering that it and its brothers are trying to maintain the spirit of our spaceship pilot, Outstanding contributions made by normal..."

Only then did the other five people react, and turned to look at Berry, who was talking to the saplings on his own, and was walking around with him around other tall trees of the same species as if he was chatting with them.

"That's a smart pony idea," Fireball said cautiously, "a very smart pony idea. So smart. Can we help?"

"Wait a minute," Feihuo pointed at the sapling and said, "Shall we take it to the MAV? How much does it weigh?"

Mark thought for a while, "Saplings, plus the soil and water in the pot? It's at most ten kilograms, but it should be less than that."

"We also all need to bring ten kilograms," Feihuo insisted. "Things that can be remembered. Scientific samples. All kinds of things. Ten kilograms each."

"Okay, I have no objection." Mark shrugged.

Starlight said nothing the entire time. She just stared silently at the timer on her space suit, waiting for the scheduled ten minutes to arrive. But at the same time, she also considered whether to extend the magic field time for another minute for the sake of Cherry Berry's current mental state... In addition, she also secretly wondered if there was anything about twenty pounds in this universe that was important enough to be worthy of her. Take it with you on your way home.

Of course, the premise is that NASA can allow them to add an additional 60 kilograms of load to the spacecraft.