Time flies swiftly, and several hours passed in the blink of an eye, reaching the daytime on the alien planet.

During this time, Wang Zhifan spent most of his time patrolling the mine tunnels, sometimes even checking the northern area where other teams were digging, to understand the overall situation of the mine.

At this moment, he arrived at the mine exit to count the fruits of his subordinates’ labor and made an initial estimation.

"According to the current mining data statistics, if things go smoothly, we’ll barely reach the 80% threshold of the total target by the end of the month. The company really knows how to set those targets precisely."

After a rough calculation, he discovered that his mining team, at this rate, would likely achieve 80% of the mining target, but he couldn’t guarantee it completely, as any unforeseen event could cause failure at the last minute.

"To be safe, it seems I’ll need to use some off-the-books tactics."

After thinking it over, Wang Zhifan felt he should prepare early; otherwise, losing the battle at the last stage of the mission would surely be unsatisfying.

But just as he was contemplating, a security team member driving a three-meter-high combat mecha approached him to report:

"Captain, the nutritional paste issued by the base has arrived. Please instruct everyone on when to dine."

"Distribute it now... No, let me personally distribute it."

Upon hearing this, Wang Zhifan immediately responded; he wasn’t the type to hinder his subordinates’ meal times.

Shortly thereafter, he opened his five-meter-high combat mecha for the first time, stepped out of the mecha warehouse guarded by robots, then brought the large box containing the nutritional paste and drinking water supplies into the mecha’s cockpit, personally going into the mine to deliver meals to his subordinates.

Of course, the team members guarding outside the mine received their nutritional paste first and had already begun eating.

Wang Zhifan saw the team members eating a yellow cube of nutritional paste wrapped in green paper; watching them eat it was like they were nibbling on a cake, their expressions fairly normal, suggesting it wasn’t very unpleasant.

Meanwhile, the miners’ nutrition was different; it was a white tube-shaped nutritional paste. When he entered the mine and tossed one of these tubes to the elite miner, an elderly Black man, his face instantly displayed an expression as if he had just picked up poop, but was unwilling to discard his only nutritional ration, forcing him to frown as he prepared to stuff the paste into his mouth entirely.

"Old man! Try this!"

Sensing how unpalatable the white tube-shaped nutritional paste must be, as even the veteran who had worked there for over a decade hadn’t adapted to it, Wang Zhifan raised his hand and took out a cube-shaped nutritional paste meant for the security team from the large meal box and threw it into the old man’s advanced mining mecha cockpit.

"Thank you, Captain!"

The elderly Black man, being an experienced miner, immediately recognized what Wang Zhifan had tossed to him, promptly grabbed the cube-shaped paste, which was far more delicious, and began stuffing it aggressively into his mouth, while the tube-shaped paste was directly thrown to the floor of the cockpit.

"Galka, you have fifteen minutes to eat, enjoy it."

Wang Zhifan then reminded him, allowing the elite miner generous time for his meal, essentially giving him a small break, a special reward for hard-working miners.

Leaving Galka’s position, Wang Zhifan proceeded to pilot the combat mecha to the nearest next location.

Originally, two young Caucasian miners worked here, but ever since Wang Zhifan came by to check the arrangements, they were forcibly separated, leaving only one of them mining alone here.

When the young miner heard the heavy footsteps of Wang Zhifan’s approaching combat mecha, his somewhat lazy mining pace suddenly picked up speed, trying to give a good impression to the newcomer.

"Stop it, Joseph! It’s time for you to eat! Also, don’t just work hard when I show up; the total amount you mine can’t fool anyone!"

Seeing this, Wang Zhifan tossed the unproductive miner a tube of the unpalatable white nutritional paste and two bottles of drinking water, reminded him, then hurried to the next location.

He personally handled these minor tasks for reasons: to forge a closer relationship with his subordinates and to further assess their work state, allowing him to make the necessary adjustments.

Not long after, he arrived at the depths of the southern area of the mine and found three miners arguing, with two security team members also trying to mediate, but without much success.

The core of the three miners’ argument was the quantity of minerals they mined; two felt they had been taken advantage of, believing their mined ores had been stolen, but the accused miner completely denied it.

"Jerry! Which eye saw me steal your ore! My mining position is over twenty meters away from you! If I came to steal, how could you not have noticed!"

"Damn Thomson! Don’t think I don’t know you’re a heavy theft offender! I really don’t know when you stole it, but you are closest to my position! It had to be you who stole it!"

"Yes! He even stole the ores from my cart! Otherwise, the weight wouldn’t suddenly drop so much!"

"I’m furious! You’re wrongfully accusing a reformed person! You can check my cart; there’s absolutely none of your ores inside!"

"Ha ha! Ores aren’t labeled with names! Once it’s over at your side, who can tell whose it is! You relied on this and resorted to your filthy theft!"

"You three stop arguing! If mining gets delayed, we all get punished!"