Chapter 136: Cangyuan's Cosmic Back Garden!?
After waking up, Lu Yuan received good news.
The industrial ship could land today and immediately operate at 100% production capacity.
"Sir, do you want to carefully select the landing site?"
The butler handed over a pad.
Of course, he had to choose. Lu Yuan looked at the map on the pad.
Compared to the area around the camp, it would be best for the industrial ship to land near Red Iron Town, which would allow for convenient transportation of various materials and save on logistics costs.
Currently, nearly 3,000 tons of scrap metal had accumulated there, with even more scattered in the previously conquered Stormwind Gang camps, awaiting transport back.
If the unused power towers from Oasis City were also included, the total amount of metal would likely be over ten thousand tons.
Ninety percent of this metal was steel, which, while unsuitable for building air forces, could be immediately converted into civilian projects. The most urgent of these was agricultural production units, and once the industrial ship was deployed, it could produce at least one daily.
The food crisis would thus be smoothly resolved.
"What is the minimum safe distance between the industrial ship's engine exhaust during landing and the town?"
Lu Yuan asked the butler.
"If you are referring to the residential area of Red Iron Town, it is recommended to maintain a distance of at least 4 kilometers during takeoff and landing, as it is a nuclear engine after all."
Hmm, that's a bit far.
He looked towards the mining and industrial areas of the town and found a relatively flat piece of land.
"This spot is good. It's two kilometers from the industrial area, which can minimize the transport distance for ores."
Butler: "Understood. I will send the selected site to Jubian immediately and have him start calculating the flight path."
"Everyone, speed up!"
On the industrial ship, under Black Smoke's command, everyone was busy retracting various production equipment and stowing away all the previously produced items, securely fastening them to the deck to prevent damage from collisions during the subsequent "transformation" process.
This step had to be completed before landing; otherwise, once it entered a planetary gravity well, the difficulty of moving heavy objects would increase many times over.
"Let's lend a hand too."
The rescued Lao Yu led his subordinates to help.
Although Lu Yuan had not yet assigned them any work, Lao Yu felt that they couldn't just eat and live for free, as it would seem ill-mannered.
"Good! Then let's work together!"
Black Smoke readily agreed.
It had to be admitted that Lao Yu's group were seasoned veterans and more adapted to zero-gravity environments than the players. Their movements were very skilled, and their work efficiency was high.
Soon, all preparations were complete.
In the afternoon, Caoyuan, with the blueprints of Oasis City's audio-visual playback equipment, prepared to "smuggle" them out of the city in a secret compartment of a large truck.
He returned to Devil Mountain Camp.
Before leaving, Cheng Yun, somewhat mysteriously, quietly called Caoyuan alone into his study.
He opened the safe under his desk and took out a small device, as well as a seemingly very old, yellowed, and brittle paper document, handing them both to Caoyuan.
"Please take these back and make sure to hand them to your Executive Officer in person!"
"This is—"
"The small one is a high-tech data storage device. Of course, we haven't had the corresponding equipment to open it for three hundred years, but you certainly can.
"As for these documents, they are partial data printed out as backups when the device could still be read."
Caoyuan took the documents and flipped through them, discovering that they all bore the Chinese company logo of "Cangyuan Future Technology" and contained log records of interstellar scientific expeditions into the Li Star System.
What surprised him was that the time signature at the bottom of the documents was not from the 23rd or 24th century, when Li Star was being developed and contested, but from A.D. 2883.
The end of the golden age!
By then, the apocalyptic disaster had already begun.
Humanity, if not already showing signs of defeat, was at least in great cosmic trouble.
The most important page in the document was a star map.
Based on this map, Caoyuan realized Apollo had made a mistake, a big one.
They had always believed that the Li Star System was located at the end of a wormhole route, a remote dead-end system with only one wormhole Jump Point connecting to the outside world.
Such a structure was easy to defend but also very easy for mature forces to block off.
However, in reality, with the arrival of the apocalyptic disaster, the "great enemy" invading humanity used some technology to create a large number of new wormholes, causing the Li Star System to become a dual-wormhole system with a new route leading to the outside world.
At that time, humanity was busy with war and only dispatched a very small number of scientific research vessels to explore these new routes. The depth and breadth of this new route to Li Star were not fully explored.
At the time of A.D. 2883, Cangyuan only knew that this route connected to some existing star systems within human territory, as well as some wormhole-less star systems previously marked as "deep space," which only main naval warships had visited.
This discovery was crucial.
Because, obviously, the Star Alliance forces after the apocalyptic disaster had not inherited or mastered the new routes.
Those newly appeared wormholes were likely in the star systems they controlled, but they were only relatively close to their settled planets or space stations. On an astronomical scale, it was harder than finding a transparent glass ball in the ocean.
Moreover, if there was a mental imprint in their minds that "wormholes can only form naturally in the early universe," they wouldn't actively search for them at all.
To be honest, if not for receiving this star map today, Caoyuan guessed that at most two or three out of 1,000 players would, in the future, dedicate valuable leveling time to finding the second wormhole in the Li Star System.
In short, this treasure map would absolutely completely change the Executive Officer's understanding.
He had thought that every step of outward expansion would involve a fierce battle, and even outward scientific expeditions and explorations might require paying huge tolls to other forces.
But now, it seemed Cangyuan had an extremely vast strategic hinterland.
There were at least 100 planets worth developing on the hidden route, one-fifth of which were colonies of the previous human civilization. Their resources, ruins, and technological products now lay quietly there. It was even possible that there were a few temporarily unexplored routes leading directly into the core star regions of the Star Alliance, allowing Cangyuan's fleet to suddenly appear at the portholes of the "New Hope" or "Bliss Island" space stations. Anything was possible. The imaginative space was too vast, giving a feeling of the world suddenly widening.
It was no exaggeration to say this was the most important discovery to date!
"Mr. Cheng, where did you—get these?"
Despite his surprise, Caoyuan still wanted to confirm the authenticity of the documents as much as possible before reporting to the Executive Officer, to avoid any misunderstanding.
Cheng Yun smiled slightly.
"Could it be—"
"You guessed it. The first time I heard the name 'Cangyuan' in rumors, I immediately had Cheng Lei try to contact you and cooperate. This was not an impulsive act. In fact, my ancestors were among those sent by Cangyuan to scientifically explore the new wormholes!
"Unfortunately, not long after they achieved initial results, this planet was scorched by plasma heavenly fire, and their incoming spaceship was destroyed, so they had no choice but to settle here.
"Later, Oasis City voluntarily degenerated, and my family also went into hiding, trying to keep a low profile and avoid trouble. But before each patriarch died, they would secretly pass on these documents and some basic scientific knowledge to the next heir.
"It is precisely because I understand the great achievements humanity could accomplish during the golden age that I so detest the poisons of civilization like Kohl and Apollo. My family has always preserved this valuable data until the day it returns to the hands of civilization.
"So, please be sure to accept and make good use of them!"
"Sir, the industrial ship will land at the designated location at 18:53 today."
In the camp, the butler updated Lu Yuan on the intelligence.
"Additionally, I have once again received a communication from Minister Omar. He hopes to meet with you in person to negotiate."
Oh?
Lu Yuan, who was slacking off, calmly cut the game screen off and looked up at the butler.
Hmph—it seems the communication system has been repaired. This Minister is quite adaptable.
"Good, let's talk."
"You're not really going in person, are you?"
"Guess?"
