605: Chapter 60 This is a continent

The ground in the valley was not flat.

Rugged, jagged rocks and invisible ice fissures were everywhere.

The exoskeleton systems provided powerful propulsion.

However, balance still required human control.

One team member's foot slipped.

His body tumbled toward a bottomless ice fissure.

His teammate beside him reacted with lightning speed.

He grabbed the exoskeleton frame on the man's back.

The two of them hung precariously over the edge of the fissure.

Below them lay a deep, eerie blue abyss.

Two other team members immediately stepped forward.

They set up simple rock wall anchors.

Using power ropes, they pulled the two men up.

The entire process took less than thirty seconds.

No one cried out in alarm.

No one showed lingering fear.

They simply brushed the ice chips off each other.

And continued forward.

It took an entire day.

All twelve "Geological Piercers" were deployed into position.

Dr. Li returned to the main console of snow leopard no. 6.

His fingers tapped rapidly across the keyboard.

"Array starting."

Hum—

A low-frequency infrasound wave, almost undetectable by the human ear, was emitted from the twelve points simultaneously.

It penetrated the thick layers of rock.

Probing deep toward the center of the earth.

This wasn't reflection.

It was resonance.

By analyzing the resonance response of different metallic minerals to specific infrasound frequencies,

a map of the underground mineral distribution could be drawn.

On the screen,

countless moving points of light began to appear.

Data streams poured down like a waterfall.

Dr. Li's eyes didn't blink once.

Behind him, "Wrench" and "Suture Needle" also held their breath.

One hour.

Two hours.

Five hours.

The matrix scan continued for thirteen hours.

When the final data packet was transmitted back,

a 3D underground model of the entire valley was generated.

On the screen,

there was a startling expanse of dark red.

That dark red wasn't just a single point.

Nor was it a single block.

It was an entire expanse.

Like a giant dragon coiled beneath the earth.

It stretched from the east side of the valley all the way to the west.

It was over fifteen kilometers long.

Nearly three kilometers at its widest point.

And the average thickness exceeded two hundred meters.

Dr. Li slumped into his chair.

His lips were trembling.

"This isn't a mineral deposit..."

"This is a continent."

"A buried underground continent of copper."

He picked up a water cup.

His hands shook so much he couldn't even take a sip.

"According to the crystal morphology analysis..."

"The purity... averages over ninety-three percent."

"Some areas... even reach ninety-nine percent."

"This is... this is God's treasury."

Shen Yan stood behind him.

He looked at the model on the screen.

His face remained calm.

He bundled all the survey data and uploaded it.

He sent it to the shanhe system.

Phase Two Mission: Design the mining plan.

Traditional open-pit mining or underground shaft mining

would not work here.

An altitude of 4,500 meters.

Year-round low temperatures of minus forty degrees.

A fragile plateau ecosystem.

Any large-scale blasting or excavation

would cause an irreversible ecological disaster.

This was also why the state had designated this a forbidden zone for decades.

Old methods couldn't be used.

New methods were required.

On Shen Yan's tablet,

the shanhe system began calculating frantically.

It retrieved mining data from all large-scale mines globally.

It analyzed over a thousand different mining techniques.

It integrated the extreme environmental parameters of the no-man's land.

A brand-new plan gradually took shape on the screen.

Two hours later,

a three-hundred-page report was generated.

The title was:

[Fully Enclosed Automated Low-Temperature Electrolytic Mining Plan Guided by Strong Artificial Intelligence.]

Dr. Li leaned over.

He looked at the report.

At first, he frowned.

Then came doubt.

Finally, it turned into shock.

"This... this is a madman's idea."

The core of the plan

was not to "dig."

But to "dissolve."

Through drilling, over a hundred graphite electrodes would be inserted into the ore body.

Simultaneously, a specially formulated catalytic solution that remained active even in low temperatures would be injected.

The entire ore body would be transformed into a massive, natural electrolytic cell.

By applying high-voltage electricity,

99% pure copper would automatically precipitate at the cathode.

Then, through intelligent control robots, the precipitated crystalline copper would be collected and packaged.

It would be transported via underground pipelines to a staging point outside the valley.

The entire process

would be completed entirely underground.

There would be almost no damage to the surface.

No noise.

No dust.

No wastewater.

Theoretically perfect.

But the difficulty of implementation was hell-level.

"Where are we going to find intelligent control robots that can work at minus forty degrees?"

"Where are we going to find a portable energy core that can provide such massive power?"

"And this catalytic solution... the formula is practically a fairy tale."

Dr. Li raised three fatal questions.

Shen Yan did not answer.

He simply contacted "Artisan" again.

He sent over a list.

The list was long.

One hundred and twenty "Ice Spider" Type VI multi-functional engineering robots.

Twenty "Earth Dragon" No. 3 pipeline boring machines.

One "Kuafu" class portable nuclear fusion energy core.

Along with over a thousand types of special alloys and chemical raw materials of various specifications.

At the end of the list was a single sentence.

"Deliver to the outskirts of Xilikoko within ten days."

"Artisan's" reply was only one word.

"Okay."

Phase Three Mission: Construction Preparation.

While waiting for the equipment,

the team did not stay idle.

They needed to clear a suitable site for the impending "big guys."

"Detonator" demonstrated his skills for the first time.

He didn't use high-powered explosives.

Instead, he used something called "Rock Cutting Cord."

He wrapped the special cutting cord several times around the boulders that needed clearing.

He applied a weak electric current.

Ten minutes later,

the incredibly hard rock was like tofu,

neatly sliced open.

No explosion.

No flying debris.

The cross-section was as smooth as a mirror.

Boulders weighing thousands of tons were cleared away one by one.

A flat area the size of a standard football field appeared in the center of the valley.

The tenth day.

Dawn.

A massive roar came from the sky.

Everyone stepped out of snow leopard no. 6.

They looked up.

They saw a sight they would never forget for the rest of their lives.

Six massive transport aircraft, the likes of which they had never seen before.

They had no wings.

Their shape resembled a black whale.

They hovered over the valley.

The bellies of the aircraft slowly opened.

Massive metal crates were dropped down.

Each crate came with its own anti-gravity hovering device.

They landed steadily on the cleared flat ground.

"Artisan's" delivery method was always so shocking.

The equipment had arrived.

Phase Four Mission: Equipment Assembly and Calibration.

This was the most dangerous link in the entire plan.

The "Kuafu" class portable nuclear fusion energy core.

A silver sphere five meters in diameter.

A crystallization of human industrial civilization.

Its installation and startup could not afford the slightest error.

"Wrench" took off his heavy combat suit.