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Chapter 196 Energy Crisis
Su Wanqing sat quietly in front of the main control screen. The data lines refreshed by the instrument were slanted upwards, and the energy consumption curve was almost vertical.

Lu Zhao carried a thick stack of documents into the room and spread the data sheets on the table.

He said in a low voice, "The energy system won't last much longer. The military's three devices are operating at 40% more capacity than originally estimated, and the barrier's energy consumption has soared to the critical point. At this rate, the system can only last for another eighteen days, not the thirty days originally estimated."

A series of hurried footsteps came from the doorway. Xiao Ran lifted the curtain, his face grim.

Without exchanging pleasantries with Lu Zhao, he went straight to the report: "The backup energy storage has just been tallied, and the reserves are dropping very rapidly. During the inspection, we found some abnormal hot spots on the pipeline, which looks like there's a leak. Our maintenance team only repaired the shallowest layer; we simply don't have enough materials to handle the deeper faults."

Lu Zhao glared: "Yesterday afternoon it was still twenty-one days, how did it become eighteen days overnight?"

Xiao Ran casually replied, "The military changed its attack method within three hours, and the frequency changed from the original staggered to coordinated. The pressure has increased significantly, and the energy tank is being consumed too quickly."

He stretched his neck. "The next step is to reduce reserves, which won't last long."

The energy distribution graph on the main control screen jumped one by one, and the time bar gradually approached the warning red line.

Su Wanqing kept her mouth shut and slowly took off the jade bracelet, placing it on the device's sensor.

The symbols on the inner wall of the jade bracelet twitched for a moment, and a faint light flowed, projecting onto the instrument panel.

After a long pause, she tapped the data interface and whispered, "We can't just guard the energy core anymore; we need to reinforce the barrier immediately. Lu Zhao, how much high-energy material can you mobilize?"

Lu Zhao subconsciously flipped through the forms, rubbing his hands as he counted. He then said in a deep voice after counting to the third page, "There are only three types of high-energy substances left that can be used. The reserves are: 600 grams of No. 1 reactant, less than 20 liters of No. 2 tritium condensate, and less than 800 grams of No. 3 tachyon powder. They were originally intended to be reserved for emergency use in the final stage."

Xiao Ran's face darkened, and he slapped his thigh. "Even if we use all of these, it won't last long. How about we take some of the alternative fuels and experimental samples from the medical silo?"

Su Wanqing shook her head, "We can't just randomly draw medical emergency supplies. If we need them, we should concentrate all of them on the most dangerous side of the barrier to hold out for this wave."

She stroked the jade bracelet, and the halo projected onto the screen grew even heavier.

She said calmly, "If the barrier is breached, the medical area and the self-rescue passage will be lost."

Lu Zhao pressed down on the keyboard and simply pulled up the energy allocation chart: "If we draw all the energy out for use, at the current rate of consumption, we can only hold on for another ten days, which is already our limit."

Su Wanqing silently ran her fingers over the power supply lines section by section, issuing instructions to the control panel: "Reassign the No. 1 reactant and the No. 2 condensate according to their sections, transferring them all to the southeast outer ring and the north corner. High-risk points must be covered, regardless of cost." She opened the map on the table, stared at it for a while, and then said, "For tonight's shift change, see if we can insert a batch of spare azo powder, corresponding to the section with the greatest fluctuations."

Xiao Ran slumped his shoulders and asked, "What about our backup plan? What if the barrier is still torn apart after all the energy and materials are used up?"

Su Wanqing raised an eyebrow and lowered her voice: "We can only find a second energy core. The Eden Barrier is based on a multi-core resonance chain, and we've only activated one so far, barely enough to keep things going."

"Any further and the entire supply will collapse soon." She finished speaking, glancing around at the two of them. "Since the total supply isn't enough, we have no choice but to risk searching."

Lu Zhao paused for a few seconds, tapped the table, and slapped the data aside: "The core is an inanimate object, but the barrier is maintained by superimposed resonance."

There are several suspected core source points on the base map, but apart from the one we just acquired, the coordinates of the rest are blurry, either deeply hidden or lacking detailed paths. "Could we use the jade bracelet to forcefully locate the second one by pointing it at the resonance point?"

Su Wanqing nodded, picked up the jade bracelet, gritted her teeth, took out a small connecting device from her pocket, and fastened the jade bracelet into the instrument interface.

"I'll try." She gently pressed the instrument, and several faint lights quickly shot out from the jade bracelet, causing the brightness of the energy fluctuations inside the instrument to rise.

She zoomed in on the projection, and rows of blurry coordinates gradually brightened, but only the bottom area on the east side lit up faintly, while the rest were hidden in the structure.

Lu Zhao stared at the projection, a line of letters and numbers flickering repeatedly. "Southeast, the main underground passage? The military is keeping a close watch on that area; it's difficult to even get in, let alone find the core." Su Wanqing didn't rush to speak. She switched the instrument to continuous correlation mode, keeping the jade bracelet in low-frequency resonance.

The energy conduction of the jade bracelet became somewhat disordered. She whispered, "If I use the jade bracelet to create an energy shield and attenuate the energy wave within fifteen minutes, we can sneak in—but this method can only be used once."

Xiao Ran pointed at the form, "Then we need to put all the high-energy materials into the barrier core now, and then reduce the backup time?"

"This is necessary." Su Wanqing's tone was calm, but her movements were even more swift.

She pulled up the energy delivery schedule and allocated all emergency supplies to the main warehouse.

“Also,” she turned her head and said, “only keep the minimum reserves in the medical area as backup, and allocate the rest to the main control barrier—once we get through this, we can slowly replenish them.”

As Lu Zhao typed, he hummed, "With the current reserves, we can only use them for a maximum of eighteen days. After additional allocations, the depletion will be even faster every hour, leaving us with less than ten days—if the military's offensive becomes more violent, even ten days will be in danger."

Xiao Ran looked up and asked, "If we want to pursue the second core, who should we bring? What strategy should we use?"

Su Wanqing packed up her equipment. "Keep this a secret for now. We'll talk about it a few hours after the barrier stabilizes. We'll do a detailed route check and preparation tonight."

The synthesized storage curve on the main control screen flickered twice, and the red line section lit up completely. She clicked to confirm, "All high-energy substances, southeast corner priority, backup energy supply, full power."

Lu Zhao muttered softly, "We're gambling with our lives for time."

Xiao Ran paused slightly, his voice muffled: "We have to gamble, it's better than just waiting to die here."

The commotion of survivors could be heard outside again, occasionally interspersed with questions about supplies and barriers.

Inside the control room, no one paid any attention to what was happening outside. They could only watch the data on the main control screen decrease every second, pondering their next move.

Su Wanqing picked up the jade bracelet and mechanically spun it. If she had hesitated at first, she had completely abandoned any hope of getting away with it.

She whispered orders to Lu Zhao and Xiao Ran: "Guard the southeast corner tightly, and have all the patrols completed tonight. Hold firm on the defenses of the other areas. If there are any abnormalities in the experimental zone, immediately deploy the medical team to cover for them. Don't let the outside world have any opportunity to take advantage of the situation."

Lu Zhao didn't say anything more. He opened all the control channels in the main control room and distributed the energy distribution and monitoring tables to the teams.

Each region responded quickly and decisively, without daring to be negligent.

Su Wanqing leaned back in her chair, clutching the jade bracelet, lost in thought. Just as she was processing data, two urgent alarm messages suddenly popped up on the main control screen: Anomalies in Southeast Energy Distribution, Uncertain Trends in External Attack Frequency.

She quickly adjusted the instrument, allowing the energy inside the jade bracelet to slowly flow into the main control monitoring system. The sensor bar showed that the barrier critical point was oscillating back and forth on the visible curve.

Xiao Ran walked to the side, tapped the corner of the table with his hand, and said in a low voice, "There's no other way. After all the high-energy supplies are patched, we can only rely on finding a way to enter the southeast underground to find the core. That area can only be held off for a few hours by the barrier."

Su Wanqing nodded, put away the jade bracelet and all the equipment, and began to sort out the team composition.

As she wrote it down in her journal, she repeatedly recalled the coordinates and energy fluctuations that the instrument had just captured.

After Lu Zhaogang finished inspecting the energy zones, he turned around and said in a low voice, "I'll keep an eye on the main control tonight. You can go and rest. Just call me anytime. We can talk about other things after the barrier stabilizes."

Su Wanqing neither agreed nor refused. She lowered her head to think, no longer making any further plans.

In the corner of the screen, the remaining energy time was decreasing sharply, like a countdown bomb, and no one dared to utter a word.