"After finally obtaining so many resources."
"It would be a great pity to waste them just like that."
80 million cubic meters of fuel oil, conservatively estimated, could generate approximately 272 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity.
This is almost enough to keep the rural courtyard, currently housing 70 million people, running smoothly for nearly twenty years.
Such a massive amount of resources.
From Su Wu's perspective, no one would be willing to give it up.
After much deliberation.
Su Wu gradually turned his attention to the wireless charging system.
Simply transporting the fuel oil was too difficult.
But if it could be converted into electricity on-site and then transmitted back remotely via wireless charging technology.
Perhaps it would be more convenient.
April 6th.
15 kilometers southwest of Zhenhai City.
Under the heavy and low-hanging clouds.
Even at noon, the area remained as dim as dusk.
Amid the howling wind.
A kilometer-long train of steel machinery silently advanced against the wind.
Slowly approaching.
It arrived at a patch of ice that looked no different from any other.
"Coordinates confirmed."
"Commencing construction."
Two lines of cold text slowly appeared on the main control computer log of the lead Icebound-class Land Battleship.
Then.
Two snow transport vehicles behind it quietly detached from the rest of the convoy.
They drove to the designated coordinates.
One of them extended its body, transforming into a large drilling platform filled with mechanical elegance.
It began drilling into the ice on-site.
The other vehicle, once the ice was drilled open, opened the rear hatch and deployed a capsule-shaped submersible, about seven to eight meters in length, into the seawater beneath the ice.
While the two snow transport vehicles were breaking the ice and deploying the submersible.
The front third of the train, parked under the gloomy sky, emitted a soft glow from its windows.
Bringing a touch of warmth to this cold and wind-ravaged world.
These were the carriages housing survivors rescued by the merchant convoy from other places.
Since the convoy had to traverse multiple dangerous areas far more perilous than normal regions.
The treatment of these rescued survivors in the carriages was much better than those being sent to the rural courtyard in Jianghe City.
On average, each carriage housed only about 80 people.
They were provided with playing cards, chess sets, hot water kettles, food cabinets, toilets, showers, beds, and more.
Additionally, large-screen TVs were installed, allowing them to watch programs from Jianghe City's television station.
The TV showed bustling crowds within the rural courtyard, parks filled with vitality and fertile soil, and amusement parks adorned with countless colorful lights, creating a dreamlike atmosphere.
This greatly alleviated the anxiety and fear of the survivors inside the carriages.
Allowing them to face the silent and icy world outside with a relatively calm mindset.
However, given the choice.
These survivors would undoubtedly prefer to squeeze into the crowded carriages heading to Jianghe City.
Rather than enjoy the small spatial privileges here.
Adventure is a gamble where one stakes their life.
Before the apocalypse, there might have been people who found life too mundane and sought the thrill it brought.
But after the apocalypse, survivors who had endured too much suffering longed only for the once-overlooked simplicity and stability of life.
Beneath the ice layer, a seamlessly integrated submarine turned on its external xenon lights.
The bright, near-natural light instantly dispelled the darkness in the seawater, illuminating the pre-apocalyptic architectural ruins on the seabed in intricate detail.
Based on visual and radar scan results, the submarine finally determined that the destination was directly below it, 5 meters to the east underground.
Starting the engine, the submarine slowly approached.
Since the target this time was a small private shelter housing only one person, the submarine did not make a big fuss.
It simply landed at the shelter's exit, docking its watertight compartment with the submarine.
At this moment, an earthquake of at least magnitude 5 struck.
The seabed shook, ejecting countless turbid sand particles into the seawater, completely blocking the submarine's lights.
The Artificial Intelligence-controlled submarine ignored this, merely fine-tuning some connections that had shifted due to the vibration, and continued to execute the original program.
A few minutes later, using a laser, it cut a passage from the exit leading inside.
A humanoid robot from the submarine swiftly entered, meeting a young man anxiously waiting in the shelter's hall.
"Liu Xing, male, 23 years old."
"Analyzed and approved through the Dongzhou database, moral score above 60, deemed worthy of rescue."
"Current identity confirmed successfully."
"Switching to guidance mode."
A series of data flashed through the AI core program responsible for operating the humanoid robot.
Then, it began to simulate human behavior patterns, communicating with the man, guiding him into the submarine, and incidentally dismantling and packing all valuable rare resources in the shelter, including gold and silver, to take away.
These resources would be confiscated as rescue fees and would not be returned.
Even the portion of rare resources the man carried himself would eventually be confiscated, allowing him to keep only some ordinary personal items like clothes and a phone.
After a total of 4 minutes, the submarine, having completed all tasks, began to slowly disengage from the shelter.
As seawater poured into the shelter through the cut opening, the submarine gradually ascended and returned.
On the ice surface, under gloomy skies, the submarine, aided by a winch, returned to the snow transport vehicle amidst the howling wind.
The external storm seemed to have intensified slightly, striking the snow transport vehicle, which was larger than a double-decker bus, causing a perceptible slight tremor.
In the unknown internal logs of the Artificial Intelligence, the environmental rating for this area quietly shifted from a light red, indicating high danger, to a deeper red, signifying even worse conditions.
In Jianghe City, at the underground control center of a farmhouse, Su Wu received the AI's report on the dangerous environmental changes and casually opened it to view.
It was discovered that a merchant convoy he had sent to the shallow sea area had been caught in the range of an earthquake that could cause large-scale ice cracking at any moment.
However, since the affected area was not deep, it was unlikely to result in any severe accidents. At most, the passengers inside would be frightened.
"There are also three designated shelters that we didn't have time to rescue."
"We can only abandon them." Those three shelters housed about twenty to thirty people in total.
Su Wu could almost imagine the despair they would feel upon learning that rescue would not come.
Hope was given, only to be abruptly extinguished at the last moment.
The sense of falling from heaven into hell would be no less agonizing than any form of torture.
Su Wu sighed silently.
A fleeting look of pity passed through his eyes, leaving no trace in his heart.
As the ruler of over 100 million people in this apocalyptic world, Su Wu had witnessed too many similar incidents during this period.
Not just these twenty or thirty people.
Even if the merchant convoy sent for rescue were swallowed by disaster, resulting in the deaths of thousands of passengers, it would no longer cause him significant emotional turmoil.
Su Wu simply knew too much.
In essence, he was not a truly transcendent deity, nor did he have the ability to save everyone.
Thus, he did not need to bear too much responsibility or negative emotions.
Closing the report, he returned to the previous planning interface.
Su Wu continued to immerse himself in his earlier thoughts.
As the relocation project for Zhenhai City entered its latter stages, Su Wu had also made new arrangements for the merchant convoys gathered there.
Out of a total of 330 merchant convoys, 200 were responsible for transporting the first batch of 4 million people from Zhenhai City to the rural villages.
They had just arrived at their destination and were in the process of transferring the population, preparing to return for the second batch of relocations.
120 merchant convoys had left the coastline and ventured deep into the frozen ocean plains to rescue shelters located outside Zhenhai City, also situated beneath the sea.
Under Su Wu's special directive, these convoys prioritized rescue routes starting from the high-risk areas closest to Zhenhai City, aiming to save as many people as possible before the disaster expanded further.
Thanks to this strategy, over the past two days, at least 200,000 people had been rescued from the brink of death, narrowly escaping the expanding disaster zone.
The remaining 10 merchant convoys, along with 8,000 snow transport vehicles, were tasked with transferring the continuous flow of supplies from the Zhenhai City shelters through seven undersea tunnels to nearby geologically stable valley warehouses.
Over the past two days, more than 30 million tons of supplies had been deposited in these warehouses, awaiting future transport once the main force of the merchant convoys freed up capacity.
Among these arrangements for the merchant convoys, efficiency was prioritized in all aspects except for the part responsible for sea rescues.
This section did not follow the principle of maximizing profit but instead allocated precious transport capacity more heavily toward rescuing people.
They were even willing to directly abandon easily accessible ordinary resources and miss opportunities to take away some rare resources for the sake of saving lives.
This was a small indulgence stemming from Su Wu's ordinary human emotions.
He was willing to pay a price that wouldn't affect the overall interests.
Just to see the heartfelt gratitude on the faces of those rescued from desperate situations.
Apart from the task of adjusting the merchant train queue.
There was another significant matter these past two days.
After investing approximately 12,000 points of Spirituality, Su Wu achieved a breakthrough in his research on wireless power transmission.
He successfully created a fixed-point power transmission device capable of transmitting electricity in a straight line through the air over a distance of more than 1,000 kilometers.
Additionally, he made advanced modifications and optimizations to the existing thermal power generators.
Although there wasn't much improvement in fuel utilization efficiency.
He successfully reduced the manufacturing cost of these generators and made them more compact while maintaining the same power output.
These two technological advancements.
Made Su Wu's original plan of generating electricity at the fuel storage sites and then transmitting the power back to the Farmhouse Shelter.
A realistic possibility.
"Currently, two large power transmission devices have been completed."
"And transported via air."
"One was delivered to a high mountain in the range more than 20 kilometers northwest of the Farmhouse Shelter."
"The other was transported to a peak in the mountainous area near the temporary warehouse of the Coastal Shelter."
"They will serve as the main components of the power transmission project."
Surrounding these two large power transmission devices.
A series of smaller power transmitters of the same model were installed.
On one hand, they are responsible for transmitting the electricity generated by the thermal power stations to the large power transmission device near the Coastal Shelter.
On the other hand, they are responsible for transmitting the electricity received by the large power transmission device in Jianghe City across a distance of more than 20 kilometers, directly into the Farmhouse Shelter.
Completing the final stage of the project.
"Additionally, the thermal power generator group built near the temporary fuel warehouse."
"Due to the significant reduction in cost and footprint."
"Has a total installed capacity of 50 million kilowatts."
"Equivalent to about 50 large thermal power stations."
"It can consume more than 10,000 tons of fuel per hour."
"It is expected to run continuously for 6 to 7 months, using up the 80 million cubic meters of fuel stored here."
Looking at the final calculated figures.
Su Wu couldn't help but frown for a moment.
A power generation cycle of over half a year still seemed a bit too long.
After all.
It has only been about 9 months since the apocalypse began.
And Su Wu has already built a Super Shelter capable of accommodating hundreds of millions of people from scratch.
Now, it would take more than half a year to consume the fuel stored at the Coastal Shelter.
It seemed somewhat disproportionate.
However, building a 50 million kilowatt generator group.
Was already an epic-level project in itself.
In Su Wu's previous life, the largest hydroelectric power station in Asia, the Three Gorges Dam, had an installed capacity of just over 20 million kilowatts.
This 50 million kilowatt generator group set up in the mountainous area of the Coastal Shelter.
Already exceeded that by more than double.
To increase it further.
Would make the risks and construction costs too great.
It felt somewhat like a loss.
"For now, let's leave it at that."
"Six months it is, then."
"If we don't do it this way, we'd have to wait for the merchant convoy trains to free up their transport capacity."
"By then, it might take one or two years."
"In comparison, this is actually quite fast."
After comforting himself with these thoughts, Su Wu ultimately resisted the urge to further expand the power plant's scale.
With the maturation of long-distance wireless power transmission technology, not only was the issue of transporting fuel to the coastal shelter resolved, but it also had a significant impact on Su Wu's subsidiary shelters across Dongzhou and even the future operational patterns of the merchant convoy trains.
(End of Chapter)