If someone were to take the elevator down into the unfinished Shelter now, they would find themselves in a city built from steel, surrounded by the mingled scents of dust, cement, concrete, and rebar.
The mix of odors was pungent.
Everywhere the eye could see, there were dense forests of steel—rebar of various grades and specifications, along with extra-thick, oversized rebar, woven together so tightly it was impenetrable.
How insane was this?
It looked like a mountain forged entirely from steel.
The sight left even some of the civil engineers on the construction team utterly stunned.
This thing could probably withstand the deepest-penetrating, highest-yield nuclear bunker buster and still remain standing.
Buried a hundred meters underground, the Shelter Base would also undergo multiple layers of reinforcement above it.
Even the most advanced bunker buster missile would be lucky to penetrate forty meters—that would already be pushing the limits of what was possible.
"This is insane. Damn, I wonder what Tiang saw in those future memories to make him go this crazy," Li Dong muttered as he toured the underground Shelter construction site, patting one of the load-bearing pillars.
Staring at the massive load-bearing pillars and the dense thickets of steel rebar, he couldn't help but marvel at the sheer madness of it all.
The diameter of these pillars was so large that it would take at least twenty people linking arms to encircle one.
The roar of heavy machinery filled the air.
A hundred meters below the surface, thousands of workers and engineers were busy with various tasks—surveying, drafting, and construction.
Above ground, tens of thousands more were laboring away.
Thousands of heavy construction machines operated around the clock without pause.
"Chief Engineer Gu, how much longer until the underground construction is complete?" Li Dong asked the middle-aged man beside him, his hard hat secured firmly on his head as he continued his inspection.
This Chief Engineer Gu was one of the key figures responsible for building the underground Shelter Base.
Li Tiang had also debated and argued with him over countless details, big and small.
The chief engineer's full name was Gu Nanxing, a man with an immense reputation in the industry, having overseen numerous large-scale, high-difficulty projects.
He had even participated in the construction of nuclear power plants.
In terms of technical expertise, seniority, and experience, Li Dong would be hard-pressed to find another engineer of his caliber.
"At the current pace, it'll take at least five more months to barely finish," Gu Nanxing replied, having already prepared his answer in advance.
"That's too slow," Li Dong shook his head.
Truthfully, the speed wasn't actually slow.
But time was running out. Five months from now would be around April of next year.
And by May of next year, this construction team would likely be recalled by the Great Xia Construction Bureau First Division—even Chief Engineer Gu and other key personnel would be summoned back.
Because the team would be reassigned to work on government-managed Shelters, underground stations, air-raid shelters, underground shopping malls, and underground garages.
Currently, Li Dong had already expanded the workforce to fifty or sixty thousand people, with nearly nine thousand heavy machines operating in three shifts.
But barely finishing by April of next year was not exactly good news.
"This isn't slow at all. For such a massive project, the normal construction period would typically take seven or eight years. Reducing the timeline to nine months is already incredibly fast," Engineer Gu Nanxing shook his head.
The scale of this undertaking was truly staggering.
Tens of millions of cubic meters of construction work, all while maintaining quality standards—this simply couldn't be rushed.
What they were discussing here was barely meeting completion deadlines.
This meant the underground shelter would be quite rudimentary upon completion and couldn't be put into immediate use, requiring various modifications afterward.
Only then could they install all the technological equipment, allowing the Shelter Base to function properly.
"If I increase the workforce and add more construction machinery, could we reduce the time further?" Li Dong pressed, unwilling to give up.
"No. That would only increase costs without providing any meaningful assistance—completely pointless," Chief Engineer Gu replied calmly, shaking his head.
The construction schedule for the Shelter Base had been calculated by Gu Nanxing through extensive simulations to achieve maximum efficiency within reasonable limits.
More machinery or personnel would only create coordination challenges that might actually hinder progress, especially given the limited space at the Shelter Base.
"Alright then," Li Dong conceded after some thought.
If Chief Engineer Gu Nanxing said it couldn't be done, there was no point being stubborn about it.
Self-awareness was the most important quality a person could have.
"Engineer Lin, how deep have the drilling machines reached so far?"
Li Dong approached some construction equipment and turned to another project leader.
These were professional drilling rigs capable of reaching depths up to ten kilometers underground, though they didn't necessarily need to go that far.
They just needed to reach depths where usable geothermal energy was available.
That's right—this was for installing geothermal generators.
The underground held an endless supply of clean energy (geothermal power).
If utilized properly, the entire underground shelter would never face power shortages in the future.
Electricity had become integral to every aspect of human life—industrial, residential, and commercial uses were all indispensable.
For some people, losing power was practically apocalyptic.
Without electricity, all of humanity's advanced technological equipment would become as useless as bricks.
"Several drill bits have already reached depths beyond two thousand meters. However, according to instrument readings, the current geothermal temperatures are still too low to meet operational standards," Engineer Lin reported.
"Then keep drilling until it's usable," Li Dong instructed.
The geothermal generators: 200MW steam turbines, condensing turbine units.
With an hourly output of 200,000 kilowatt-hours, a single day's generation could power a small county of 100,000-200,000 people.
These were the most advanced geothermal generators Li Dong could currently acquire on the market.
Each unit cost over ten million.
As for more advanced generators, Li Dong was also searching for suppliers—with the right connections and sufficient funds, anything was possible.
Money wasn't omnipotent, but without it, you couldn't accomplish anything.
Li Dong naturally wouldn't install just one geothermal generator. He planned to install multiple units to form a generator set, with a total installed capacity reaching at least one gigawatt, generating one million kilowatt-hours per hour.
There would be numerous areas requiring electricity in the future.
For instance, the control center, thermostatic system, industrial machine tool equipment, AV room, illumination, medical equipment, ventilation system, sewage treatment system, grain storage, aquaculture, crop cultivation—all these would require electricity to operate.
Without power, the entire underground Shelter Base would likely cease functioning.
This was precisely why Li Dong placed such importance on geothermal power generation.
In addition, Li Dong had purchased over a dozen medium and small geothermal generators, some of which were kept as backups.
As for shallow geothermal energy, it would also be utilized for heating, which could save many lives during the Extreme Cold Apocalypse.