Steel torrents pioneering a different world.

Chapter 309 Sacred Free Trade Federation Gold Coins Mixed with Energy Storage Magic (Bonus Chapter)

Buzzing sound —

Above the Time-Space Gate base, leaden-gray clouds hung low, and wind and snow swirled with ice shards, striking the iron roofs of the bunkers with monotonous sounds.

A dull rumble grew louder as it approached, tearing through the wind and snow.

Several Kunpeng heavy transport planes, like giant beasts awakened from ancient times, cast huge shadows over the ground before landing precisely on the cleared runway.

"Wow, that's awesome! Since we got this giant Kunpeng, our transportation problems have been completely solved."

Professor Wen Min, holding a steaming cup of strong Americano, watched the spectacular scene with amusement as he spoke.

Li Donglai, an agricultural expert standing next to him, adjusted his glasses, but his gaze fell on the obvious vortex under the transport plane's wing.

"Unfortunately, the restrictions in the other world are too great, and it can't be released casually in the modern world either." His tone was calm, but his words hit the nail on the head. "This thing is a gas guzzler and can't even fly ten thousand meters high."

The area above 5,000 meters in the far north of this other world is an absolute forbidden zone.

Any aircraft that intrudes will encounter inexplicable physical law disorder, resulting in anything from loss of control to disintegration.

For a behemoth like the Kunpeng, the optimal cruising altitude is around 10,000 meters, where the air is thin and fuel efficiency is highest.

Now forced to fly at low altitudes below 5,000 meters, air resistance increases significantly, and fuel consumption nearly doubles.

Professor Wen Min smiled, took a sip of warm coffee, and felt the warmth mixed with bitterness slide down her throat, warming her body and dispelling the chill.

"Professor Li, you're still stuck in your old-fashioned mindset. Do we really need to worry about that little bit of fuel?"

She pointed to another brightly lit area in the distance, where several inconspicuous metal tanks stood.

"Over at our oil field, monthly production has skyrocketed from 40,000 tons to 150,000 tons! Our own small-scale oil refinery in this other world has also started production, generating over 10,000 tons of various oils a month—enough to keep the frontline soldiers fully fueled!"

Wen Min's tone revealed a sense of triumphant excitement.

"You wouldn't believe it, I heard from the logistics guys that now we don't need to submit reports or get approvals for gas anymore. We can just get the gas directly from the dispenser and use it as much as we want! Let's go for a drive sometime and relax."

Professor Li Donglai seemed hesitant to speak.

Who would have thought that Professor Wen Min, a highly respected scholar with numerous scientific achievements, was once a passionate motorcycle enthusiast in her youth?

Far away.

For the pioneering team, a stable oil production in another world is the most important part of their super strategic development plan.

It's important to know that during the most difficult period more than 80 years ago, their annual oil production was only a few tens of thousands of tons.

Now, a single interdimensional advance base has already established an energy system that is self-sufficient and can even support the Earth.

This is an industrial miracle that created something from nothing!

By the way, in recent months, Dongda has discovered several oil fields of different sizes in a 500-kilometer radius area in the far north.

Reserves range from 100 million tons to over 10 billion tons.

Most importantly, 40% of it is in shallow layers around 200 meters deep.

Even the deeper layers don't exceed 2000 meters.

Many more areas have not yet been explored, but the pioneering teams have already discovered a considerable amount of shale oil.

In any case, as long as the oil discovered in the far north of the other world is properly extracted, hundreds of billions of tons of oil will be enough for the East to run rampant for a hundred years.

Some low-yield oil fields in Dongda have now been placed on hold as strategic reserves. They have begun to adjust their oil supply and aim to build a production capacity of at least 150 million barrels of oil and 2 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year within two years.

Oil production accounts for about one-tenth of the modern world's total oil refining output, and natural gas production is about one-twenty-fifth. Yet, it's all produced domestically!

While these quantities may not seem large in terms of global oil production, they are enough to directly impact the Earth's oil industry on a larger scale.

In recent months, with the discovery of large oil fields, the Earth has directly reduced its oil purchases in some areas.

One is to make an example of someone to intimidate others, and the other is to kill someone to scare others.

Some companies that rely on oil resources are now unable to sell their oil due to some rather glaring problems.

In short, they have more cards to play.

As for other resources, we will leave them aside for now.

Anyway, I started to feel stuffed from eating so much.

The current concern for Earth is not whether the production volume is sufficient, but rather how to use a denser transshipment network to safely and reliably transport all of this to designated areas.

They hid themselves, secretly developed their resources, and improved their strategic reserves while preparing for a series of countermeasures should the spacetime portal be exposed.

"By the way, I remember Lao Zhao saying you were a motorcycle enthusiast decades ago. Don't you ever want to go for a spin during your vacations?"

Upon hearing this, Li Donglai's perpetually serious expression softened slightly. He adjusted his glasses and muttered, "I'm way past that age! I think I should save money; who knows how big things will get in the future?"

"Isn't bigger a good thing?" Professor Wenmin slammed down her coffee cup, her eyes gleaming. "By the way, the precious items we brought back from Tranquil Harbor this time—just the packed supply crates alone—pile up like a mountain! I heard that the mysterious dwarf, Mr. Gaizul, single-handedly moved something incredibly important to the research area. I wonder what it is!"

"One person carrying it?" Li Donglai paused for a moment, then shook his head. "Is it being carried out by some mysterious force? Too bad I'm just a farmer; I don't understand those things!"

Wen Min shrugged noncommittally, her smile widening.

Li Dongzi claims to be a farmer and grow vegetables, while she works in chemistry and materials, mainly explosives and various chemical materials, not in engineering machinery or energy science. Due to classification and confidentiality mechanisms, she doesn't know much about those fields either.

"Anyway, everything has arrived. The information on the dwarves' rune technology and warrior potions is amazing. If we can master it in the future, everyone's lifespan may be extended by several decades."

Her gaze returned to the window, where the massive Kunpeng transport plane had opened its cargo hold, and engineers were using forklifts to unload huge containers.

"Feeling bored? Shall we go check out that area?"

"Isn't that enough?"

"Staying inside an insulated house all the time isn't a good idea."

"Okay! Let's go take a look." Li Donglai immediately wrapped himself up tightly.

Although Wen Min is a woman, she also wrapped herself up like a zongzi (rice dumpling).

They were all non-combatants. Although they had been training for a long time for scientific research, they were over fifty years old and their bodies were not able to withstand the cold environment of the other world.

Everyone set off with smiles, with several PhDs following behind, worried that something might happen to the professors.

Whether it was a coincidence or not, just as they arrived, a piercing metallic scraping sound came from the transport plane, followed by a loud crash as wooden crates shattered.

bang-

Splash!

A forklift operating in the snowstorm suddenly veered to one side, whether due to tire slippage or operator error. The huge cargo box tumbled off the forks and crashed to the ground, shattering into pieces.

When the contents were revealed, everyone present stopped what they were doing, and their breath seemed to freeze.

A golden torrent surged out of the broken container, spreading a dazzling golden carpet across the snow under the beams of searchlights.

Those weren't gold bars, but rather uniformly shaped round gold coins, so numerous they formed a small golden stream.

"My goodness!" A young engineering soldier's eyes widened in surprise.

Even though he had seen a lot of gold, he always felt that these things were beautiful when he saw them.

"This—this entire box—is filled with gold coins?"

"Wow, we've captured a lot of loot from the rear! How many tons is that?"

After a brief silence, the soldiers erupted in barely suppressed gasps and discussions.

"Stop looking! Use the shovel to help, damn it! Everyone here will have to be taken inventory later!"

Don't worry!

Looking at the many busy soldiers, Professor Wen Min's smile was brighter than the gold coins. She nudged Li Donglai beside her with her elbow: "Old Li, did you see that? I told you, our spoils have made the reclamation team rolling in money! In the very sense!"

Li Donglai pushed up his glasses, his gaze behind the lenses revealing a complex mix of emotions. He clicked his tongue and muttered under his breath, "So careless, what a spendthrift!"

"Your agricultural thinking!" Wen Min laughed heartily. "These things aren't delicate flowers and seeds."

Gold is a precious metal and an excellent industrial raw material, with superb electrical conductivity, corrosion resistance, and ductility.

With so much loot seized this time, the pioneering team's scientific designs could probably yield even more gold for research.

As for things like hoarding or burning, those don't exist in this other world.

Because most people simply don't have access to channels for consuming precious metals.

Furthermore, through the portal, there are several confidentiality and verification mechanisms to ensure that items from the other world are not scattered or lost.

Even if some of it leaks out, it's just strategic camouflage and deterrence on Earth.

Just like when someone tells you you have a weapon of truth, you'd better actually have it.

Sometimes, real objects and samples can generate stronger psychological pressure.

While she was talking to Li Donglai, a logistics officer in charge of on-site dispatch jogged over, saluted the two professors, and then pointed with a distressed expression at the glittering accident scene.

"Professor Wen, Professor Li, please excuse my poor appearance. The roads are slippery in this snowy weather, I'm really sorry."

"It's nothing, just a bit noisy." Li Donglai waved his hand and asked curiously, "But speaking of which, with so much gold and those precious materials, why not just send them directly through a time portal? Why use a Kunpeng to move them like ants, trip after trip?"

The logistics officer sighed, about to explain, when the clerk beside him said directly, "I know that, Professor Li, your main research area is agriculture. Anything from other worlds that contains even a little bit of magical energy particles clashes with the spacetime portal."

"A clash?" Li Donglai suddenly slapped his forehead. "I completely forgot about it—magic particle consumption!"

The logistics officer nodded quickly: "Yes, the runic equipment produced by the dwarves, including these gold coins, are surrounded by a special kind of magical energy particles. Once this stuff enters the portal, the energy field disappears, and the material properties undergo irreversible changes. Good stuff turns into a pile of waste. So we can only use this most rudimentary physical method to transport it back little by little."

"I see, the structural degradation caused by the escape of energy particles is just like the mutation that happens when a seed enters space!" Li Donglai nodded thoughtfully.

As they were talking, a bold soldier picked up a gold coin from the snow, tossed it in his hand, and even blew on it to listen to the sound, just like he had blew on a silver coin before. He was then glared at by his squad leader and sheepishly put it back in the box.

Wen Min also walked over and bent down to pick one up from the snow.

The gold coins feel cool to the touch, yet have a unique, warm texture and a substantial weight.

The patterns on it are intricate and exquisite, a kind of emblem I have never seen before.

"interesting."

Wen Min rubbed the surface of the gold coin with her fingertips, her eyes growing brighter and brighter.

"According to information shared by our dwarf friends, the precious metal currencies in this other world are all smelted using special magic. They can slowly absorb free energy particles from the environment, keeping them shiny and new for hundreds of years. They are also wear-resistant and can be used as materials to absorb magical energy for magicians."

Li Donglai nodded in agreement: "Yes, having so many features incorporated into the gold coin is itself a very sophisticated anti-counterfeiting technology."

.

"However, using such advanced technology to do this, I always feel that the force behind it has some ulterior motives!" Wen Min's tone became more serious.

The casting process itself is simple, but the strength behind mastering this technology is absolutely formidable.

This core minting technology is possessed by only a handful of places on the Sacred Star.

One of the entities that possesses such abilities is called the "Holy Free Federation".

The Holy Free Federation is a commercial city-state alliance located on the Eastern Continent, with numerous civilizations as shareholders.

Their gold coins are the hard currency of the entire continent, with extremely high credit value, and can even exert a devastating economic impact on other kingdoms.

This is data obtained by humans.

Li Donglai also walked over, took the gold coin from Wen Min's hand, and frowned: "What a fine gold coin!"

"Yes, a federation that can monopolize currency minting and whose economic status is recognized by almost all forces must have incredible strength and background! My team's mission, in addition to analyzing and studying the internal structure of the dwarven rune armor, is also to decipher and counterfeit these precious metal currencies that are difficult to imitate."

Wen Min didn't continue, because this thing had a huge impact on subsequent strategic planning.

Humans know very little about other worlds, and have explored even less of them.

To date, humanity has only confirmed that the Sacred Star is a planet with an area at least twice that of Earth, a land area at least 2.5 times that of Earth, and a vast array of races and powerful beings.

Because of the convergence of the heavens, this place is home to numerous races, as well as countless technologies and traditions.

The fusion of countless races, ideas, and forms has shaped the unique cultural history of the Sacred Star.

The human pioneers have already glimpsed only the tip of the iceberg of this new world.

That distant federation, comprised of economics, technology, and rules, may soon be the institution they need to contact.

Other factions on the Sacred Star have also become targets of human research and analysis.

However, humanity still needs to completely resolve the border issue between dwarves and elves, and establish a long-term solution that allows for free trade and mutual exchange, ensuring that the other side doesn't act irrationally.

The dwarves aren't in a big problem right now; their internal situation is unstable.

However, the situation is different for the elves. Humans view the elves as being under divine rule.

The elves were entirely hierarchical, and ruled from the top down.

Their mind and memory magic can maintain a high degree of loyalty to all individual elves, and it is impossible to deal with elves using only the most traditional methods.

Of course, another crucial factor is that elves have an extremely long lifespan.

If humans also have a lifespan of thousands of years, then it's entirely possible to proceed gradually.

But the theoretical lifespan of elves is often over a thousand years. Humans can live with dwarves, but living with elves...

The future is likely to be turbulent.

Unless humanity completely solves the problem of lifespan, people may not engage in strategic and profound spiritual communication for a very long time.

Of course, sometimes the speed at which opportunities and opportunities are delivered to the human pioneering teams far exceeds expectations.

Various spoils of war and materials seized from the dwarves are being transported here using various means.

At the Time-Space Gate Base, in a super-large experimental area specially allocated for researching various dwarven technologies, the lights were on and the place was bustling with activity.

Su Mingjin moved among them, a smile on her face like that of an old farmer seeing a bountiful harvest.

The victors reap the rewards. After conquering two locations, the pioneering team seized so much that they had to transport the thousands of tons of precious supplies in batches.

However, humans did not mistreat the dwarves.

Dozens of heavy transport aircraft flights have been carried out, transporting at least 5,000 tons of grain, medicine, meat, vegetables, clothing and other supplies to places like Ningjing Port.

These supplies may seem insignificant to humans, but to dwarves, they are things that even noble lords cannot enjoy every day.

Su Mingjin was saluted by people along the way, and then arrived at a place not far from her own.

First, there were the heavy armorys that humans had seized from the dwarves, along with their replicas and modified versions.

Because of the unique ankle structure, when a dwarf wears it, his height increases by several thousand centimeters, reaching a height of nearly two meters.

After being expanded to a version that only human warriors who are 1.85 meters tall can wear, the height of human warriors skyrocketed to over 2.3 meters.

It's almost as good as the original Astartes.

However, this thing can only improve individual strength and individual combat ability.

Su Mingjin didn't pay much attention to them.

She looked closely at the dwarven automated repair template in the distance; that large device was completely different from dwarven technology.

The exterior is an almost monolithic structure, and humans are observing the interior through various methods.

Countless engineers proficient in mechanical engineering, as well as special consultants specializing in rune energy restoration, and even some scholars with in-depth research on exotic energy particles, watched with fascination and exchanged hushed conversations.

Su Mingjin stayed there for a while and heard many people exclaim in surprise, as if they had just realized something.

"Those are definitely metal powders, or even 3D printing devices using multiple materials. What our high-latitude microscope sees cannot be wrong—"

"That black box looks exactly like a nanodevice!"

Su Mingjin's eyes flickered when she heard this.

Seeing that they were talking closely, she didn't disturb them and went to check out the nearby dwarven titan machines.

The Titan, which stands thirteen and a third tall, has now arrived.

It was disassembled and carefully placed in the enclosed area next door.

Although this thing hasn't shown any terrifying destructive power, based on the brief combat videos of Butcher and his team, as well as recent analysis, it seems that nuclear weapons would be needed to destroy it.

The dwarves' Titan Machines are their trump card. They are technologically advanced, incorporating runic devices, and are extremely powerful.

At this very moment, scientists, wearing full protective gear, are conducting meticulous examinations and analyses of every component of Titan in a dust-free environment, much like surgeons.

In addition to this, the remains of the deceased Titan pilot, including his blood, life support fluids, and various other liquids whose purpose remains unknown, were collected separately and are awaiting further analysis.

These subtle actions all demonstrate humanity's desire for dwarf technology!

Big baby, big toy!

Real-life Gundam!

A pioneering team—we need them!!!