When the brand-new Colossus "Heavenly Crystal" gradually took shape, the evacuation of the workers and their families of the Great Iron Plants came to an end.
Based on the brand-new Nepenthe whose ideology had been changed, countless "seeds" had been sown to dozens if not hundreds of underground towns. In the near future, they would certainly drift further and further away like burning dandelions, illuminating more dark places.
New magical equipment, new ideology, new hope … Perhaps, they would arrive at the sunless world earlier than expected.
When Li Yao and the rest of them were about to leave …
They discussed the ways of communication with Xu Zhicheng and further discussed the countermeasures should the Immortal Cultivators launch a siege.
However, Li Yao estimated that it was not very likely that the Immortal Cultivators would attack the underground towns.
It was still the same problem that he mentioned at the beginning — cost.
Right now, the reformists and the four Kurfürst families were fighting fiercely on the surface of the planet. Both parties were trying their best to prove that they were the rightful rulers of the Imperium and to destroy the other party.
However, the reformists had Blackstar the Great behind them, and the four Kurfürst families had dominated the Imperium for five hundred years. It seemed impossible for either of them to swallow the other party in one go.
Apart from the few special existences, the riot of the ordinary people below the ground was truly a minor problem that was not worth mentioning at all. It was hard to imagine that Blackstar the Great could mobilize tremendous elites to crawl through the tunnels one tunnel after another and do all the dirty work just to capture a few unattractive ordinary people when he was faced with the pressure of the four Kurfürst families' army.
"I hope that you can persist below the ground and remember our promise. In a year and a half at most, a world-shaking war will certainly break out in the Empyreal Terminus Sector. The Immortal Cultivators of the two sects will fight each other to the death. By then, we will be back, too, with a real fleet.
"That will be the time when the underground people see the light of day again!"
Li Yao promised Xu Zhicheng, all the Nepenthe believers, and the ordinary people below the ground.
They had planned to return to the surface of the planet and search for the last few spaceports that were occupied by the four Kurfürst families.
After all, the situation in the capital was getting more and more intense. The reformists were about to take control of the entire Empyreal Terminus Sector. By then, it would be very difficult to find a suitable starship for a space jump.
He had to sneak in while the four Kurfürst families were still retreating for the last time. Only then would he have a slim chance of escaping, contacting the righteous men everywhere in the universe, and accumulating his own strength.
However, Xiaoming and Wenwen had taken away the mainframe crystal processors of the Great Iron Plants when they evacuated and studied them as toys. As a result, they found something wrong with them.
"Dad, Dad, look at the design of this component. It seems to be very big!"
Just as Li Yao and the others were about to leave the underground, the two little guys came to Li Yao with a design.
The design was found in an order after they cracked a secret firewall of the mainframe crystal processor of the Great Iron Plants and parsed a well-hidden database.
Because the structure of the firewall and the hiding mode of the database were quite sophisticated and complicated, it took the two little guys a long time to break the defense line. They couldn't help but become interested in the things in the order.
"Isn't this the tray of a shield tunneling machine?"
Li Yao recognized it after a casual glance.
A shield tunneling machine was a piece of large magical equipment that was specifically designed to open up tunnels and expand the underground space. In the underground world that was impenetrable, it was naturally an indispensable daily consumable.
In order to expand the living space underground, human beings would craft and manipulate countless shield tunneling machines every minute and every second. They kept digging downward, digging, digging, digging, and digging new factories, towns, and tunnels that connected those places.
According to different working mechanisms, shield tunneling machines could be classified into mechanical, hydraulic, hybrid, and very advanced mystic ray shattering. Generally speaking, their front end was like a giant millstone that had been installed with abundant drills and teeth. When they were functioning at a high speed, not only would the independent drills be revolving at a high speed, the teeth would also be vibrating thousands of times per second. Even the millstone would be revolving at a high speed. Only when all the factors were working at the same time could the hard rocks be broken.
In such a head-on competition, the drill, the teeth, and the millstone would naturally be worn out at an astonishing rate. The relevant components had to be replaced frequently.
Therefore, the magical equipment factories in the underground world mostly boasted a complete assembly line for the backup components of the shield tunneling machine. It was the same for the Great Iron Plants. Not only could they produce the backup components, they could even produce a complete shield tunneling machine. It was one of the best products.
It was not strange to find a batch of designs of shield tunneling machines in the order of the Great Iron Plants.
However, Li Yao glanced at the size of the components and realized why the two little guys were asking him about the designs.
The teeth of the shield tunneling machine were more than five meters long and wide!
Although Li Yao was not familiar with the large-scale civil magical equipment such as shield tunneling machines, he still had the basic knowledge. He recalled a few classic shield tunneling machine models of the Federation and the Imperium and discovered that if the vibration teeth were both five meters long and wide, the entire working surface of the shield tunneling machine, namely the millstone at the front, would be at least a hundred meters in diameter!
In other words, when such a shield tunneling machine was driven over, it would be able to dig a tunnel a hundred meters in diameter in the rocks!
No. Could it still be called a 'tunnel' if it was a hundred meters in diameter?
"That's impossible, isn't it?"
Li Yao mumbled and hurried to read the order that the two little guys found carefully.
He immediately discovered that it was not as simple as an order. It also included a full set of technological processes, the secret formulas of new alloys, and the transfer agreements of advanced military technologies.
For example, the vibration frequency of the normal shield tunneling machine was generally between three thousand and five thousand times per second. If the frequency was higher, the hardness of the materials and the structure of the shield tunneling machine itself would not be able to bear it, and they would soon be worn out and fall apart.
However, the vibration teeth of the super enormous shield tunneling machine required more than twelve thousand vibrations per second!
Naturally, the Great Iron Plants did not boast the production technology of such high-frequency vibrations.
Therefore, the secret database contained a lot of methods of refining and even the files of a few specialists. If Li Yao and the rest of them hadn't caused trouble, those specialists would've come to the Great Iron Plants to improve the technology in person and guide the local refiners and workers in their work.
The harder the materials of the vibration teeth were, the higher the frequency of vibration would be. Naturally, the sturdier the rocks would be shattered or the efficiency of excavation would be significantly improved.
It was a rather complicated technology to increase the vibration frequency of a vibration saber that was one to two meters long to ten thousand times per second, not to mention the vibration teeth that were five to six meters long and worked under the most harsh conditions.
It was the most advanced military technology that was certainly not something that a slave of three surnames such as Li Minghui was qualified to grasp.
Li Yao's hands moved quickly as he opened the technology transfer agreements and the production process diagrams. Other than the vibration teeth, there were also the impact drills and the components of a certain hydraulic system that had to be refined in the Great Iron Plants.
Li Yao was an out-and-out "drill specialist", but he was deeply astounded by the mechanism and the methods of production of such a drill.
Although the secret database only contained the orders and authorizations of a few components such as the tooth and the drill, Li Yao was still able to infer how enormous, magnificent, and terrifying the super enormous shield tunneling machine would be in the end!
It was not a shield tunneling machine but an iron beast that swallowed the core of the planet!
"Look at the time when the secret orders and the production agreements were created. It seems to have been soon after Li Minghui betrayed the Dongfang family and joined the Li family."
Wenwen said, "It was especially so after Yue Wushuang and the other two experts in the Divinity Transformation Stage came to the underground world. A lot of critical data flowed into the secret database. They seemed to be refining a lot of similar components in this place!"
"Exactly."
Li Yao estimated for a moment. If the modification and technology transfer mentioned in the database could be completed, the entire Great Iron Plants would be able to produce tremendous vibration teeth and impact drills incessantly. It wouldn't be a problem for more than ten super enormous shield tunneling machines to work day and night.
More than ten super enormous shield tunneling machines whose working surfaces were almost a hundred meters in diameter were rumbling forward at the same time?
What did the Immortal Cultivators, or more precisely, Wuying Qi, want exactly?
Li Yao immediately discussed it with Long Yangjun and Li Jialing.
"So to speak, Wuying Qi and Li Linghai's men occupied the Great Iron Plants not just to serve as a base to capture us, but because they really needed the Great Iron Plants to help them produce a batch of critical components, right?"
After hearing Li Yao's analysis and reading the files that the two little fellows found for a long time, Long Yangjun concluded.
"Exactly. If they were only here to hunt us and capture Li Jialing, there would be no reason for them to bring so many elites of the Imperial Guards."
Li Yao said, "The tactic of overwhelming people is only meaningful when the frontline can be fully unfolded in a vast battlefield. The Immortal Cultivators couldn't have foreseen that we would attack the Great Iron Plants.
"If the hunting and counterattack were carried out in the zigzagging, narrow, suffocating tunnels and gaps, it would be meaningless however many people there were. Instead, they would only be burdens that would consume assets and block the channels.
"Yue Wushuang's devil huntresses are adept at stealth and assassination. They can be counted as helpers. The elites of the Imperial Guards are best at head-on battles. They didn't need to bring so many people just to hunt us.
"Also, don't you feel that they seem to have stored too many assets in the Great Iron Plants? It doesn't seem to be a temporary hunting mission at all but a long-term garrison here."
"That does seem to be the case."
Long Yangjun nodded her head, deep in thought. "I found it strange too when I attacked the Great Iron Plants. Was' Moon Devil 'Yue Wushuang crazy? Why did she bring so many elites of the Imperial Guards just to hunt us?
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