Homo Sapiens

February 15, ’22.

Zuyu.

Qilang Town, in the central region.

After more than half a month of training, Lute used channels within the Internal Affairs Division to find his family, who had been relocated to the Zuyu Branch. He then applied for a transfer there himself.

Traveling by night and resting by day through secret channels, Tru and a dozen other new employees assigned to Zuyu finally arrived at Qilang Town.

Viewed from outer space, the small town looked perfectly ordinary.

But in reality, Qilang Town was just a facade. The real city was located within the mountain range to its east. Hidden beneath these mountains, which averaged two to three thousand meters in height, was Qilang Base City.

Qilang Base City was massive. Following recent large-scale expansions, it now comprised eight zones, with a total capacity for 73,000 employees and their families.

The base was planned to expand further in the future, eventually forming a network of underground bases capable of housing 200,000 to 300,000 employees.

Lute’s group, weary from their travels, entered the Qilang Town transport station. After identifying themselves, they were led to a waiting room.

The station manager verified their identities and then led them to an elevator reserved for internal personnel.

The elevator descended for over a hundred meters before arriving at the underground station beneath the transport station.

Twenty minutes later, an electric train slowly pulled into the Qilang Town station, its doors sliding open automatically.

Just then, the station manager’s communicator buzzed. He glanced at it and quickly instructed the train to wait for five minutes.

Another group of people descended in the elevator.

Sitting in his seat, Lute watched the newly arrived group with curiosity. Judging by their uniforms, and with a prompt from his phone’s assistant, he knew they were technical staff.

That group quickly boarded the train as well.

The train started, heading toward Zone 1 of Qilang Base City.

Lute felt a nervous excitement, like a traveler nearing home, and kept looking around restlessly.

Weng Xuehai, sitting opposite him, glanced at Lute before returning to the geological survey data on his tablet. He hadn’t come to Qilang Base City for a casual visit; he was here because of a new discovery.

Lately, their geological survey department had been one of the busiest.

Due to the extensive construction of underground bases, digging tunnels and shafts was a daily routine for the Assam Branch.

This also led to the Assam Branch unintentionally discovering vast mineral resources.

For example, a large bornite deposit in the Manipur Region, the Xilong Lithium Mine and Durra Tungsten Mine in the Meghalaya Region, and gold and lead mines in the Jomongxiong Region.

These minerals all shared a common characteristic: they were typically buried more than 500 meters deep, surrounded by either dense, remote forests or high-altitude snowy plateaus.

Take the mine discovered near Qilang Base City, for instance. It was located beneath a mountain peak with an elevation of 1,736 meters, and the excavation area was about 1,400 meters below the summit.

While Weng Xuehai was engrossed in reviewing the data, the train arrived at the Zone 1 station in Qilang Base City.

Lute and the others went to check in at the local branch of the Foreign Security Division.

Meanwhile, Weng Xuehai’s group met with the head of Qilang Base City’s geology department.

Soon, they boarded another train to Zone 9, a newly developed area where the minerals had been discovered.

Arriving at the excavation site, Weng Xuehai looked at the exposed cross-section of the rock strata and immediately ordered, ”Collect samples at once.”

Several assistants skillfully opened their portable toolkits and began taking targeted samples from the rock strata and the excavated soil.

Deputy Team Leader Ba Kang picked up a palm-sized black rock. ”Typical characteristics of magnetite, and the grade isn’t low.”

”Magmatic-metamorphic magnetite deposits are usually associated with other metals,” Weng Xuehai said as he inserted a test tube of soil into a portable mass spectrometer.

In a moment, the mass spectrometer, which integrated bio-computer technology, finished analyzing the elemental composition of the soil.

”The magnetite grade is indeed good. This sample is at 47%.”

Ba Kang looked at the list of detected elements. ”Huh? The platinum and rhodium content is very high. There’s also a lot of manganese and chromium.”

Weng Xuehai proceeded to test mineral samples from other locations and found that the average grade of the magnetite was around 42% to 48%. This was a classic high-grade deposit.

However, mining an iron deposit with so many associated minerals required specialized separation equipment.

Being underground, they could only conduct secondary drilling in all directions, following the paths of the tunnels and ore veins.

But based on past experience, Weng Xuehai was almost certain that the reserves of this composite magnetite deposit were no less than 120 million tons.

In fact, the mineral resources currently controlled by the Homo Sapiens Company were on a completely different level than before.

Take iron ore, for example. The total reserves of the various iron mines within the Homo Sapiens Company had reached 5.37 billion tons, with an average grade of about 28.4%.

Reserves of other minerals were also continuously increasing.

In truth, as long as they could explore deeper, there was an abundance of mineral resources in the Earth’s crust, so there was no need to worry.

For instance, a major issue had recently arisen in the iron ore trade between Kangaroo Country and the Hongsawaddy Branch. Kangaroo Country’s three largest iron ore suppliers had collectively raised their prices for the Hongsawaddy Branch by 30% to 40%.

In response, the Hongsawaddy Branch had completely halted its iron ore purchases and switched to mining its own reserves.

It was precisely this forward-thinking preparation that not only prevented Kangaroo Country’s three major suppliers from exploiting the steel companies under the Hongsawaddy Branch, but also caused a sharp drop in international iron ore futures prices.

After all, the Hongsawaddy Branch was now a top-ranking global steel producer, capable of an annual output of 47 million tons of steel.

When combined with the Luzon Branch’s 7.3 million tons of steel capacity and the Siam Branch’s 2.1 million tons, the Homo Sapiens Company’s total steel output was substantial.

Kangaroo Country’s three major iron ore suppliers had thought their plan was perfect, but they had underestimated the Homo Sapiens Company’s preparations.

The Homo Sapiens Company had never considered these Kangaroo People a stable factor, but rather an unstable one to be eliminated at any time.

In this iron ore confrontation, the Homo Sapiens Company turned the tables, making a neat profit in the futures market while simultaneously short-selling the stocks of numerous iron ore suppliers.

The outside world had already thought they were overestimating the Hongsawaddy Branch, but it turned out they had still underestimated it.

Being able to rely on its own iron ore reserves and tough it out without purchasing from Kangaroo Country was a testament to the Hongsawaddy Branch’s strength.

At the very least, other steel producers found it difficult to escape the extortion of Kangaroo Country’s iron ore producers. In this regard, Hongsawaddy’s steel enterprises gained a significant advantage.

After witnessing the actions of the Kangaroo People, the Homo Sapiens Company further intensified its internal prospecting efforts, striving to achieve self-sufficiency in all minerals.

This was also why Li Qingye had directly rejected the lithium-ion battery route when the Qingye Group was planning its automotive industry.

If you wanted to get into the game of lithium-ion battery electric vehicles, you first needed sufficient lithium reserves. Otherwise, others could manipulate the lithium market and drive up production costs.

Furthermore, many patents for lithium-ion battery vehicles were held by Huaguo, East Japan, America, and Germany, who all had a first-mover advantage.

Although the Homo Sapiens Company could act unscrupulously on many occasions, products intended for sale on the international market had to comply with international patent law.

Unwilling to do the hard work only for others to reap the benefits, the Homo Sapiens Company abandoned both the lithium-ion and hydrogen fuel cell routes, opting instead for a gas turbine hybrid powertrain.

This was all for the sake of independence and autonomy. It was also because the Homo Sapiens Company had a deep enough technological foundation to be a little willful.