Chapter 431: Athena and the Wangri Bridge
"This is a miracle in the history of human engineering!"
A year and a half after the Big Four Mystical Realms were incorporated into the Land of White, Ji Er Ke Fu stood on the nearly completed Wangri Bridge, which would soon connect to the Yamato mainland, and couldn't help but exclaim with heartfelt admiration.
More than three years ago, Ji Er Ke Fu and Ji Moyiwa were casually captured by Bai Mo from a Russian military base.
He, who had believed escape from death was impossible, was transformed into a crucial member of the mountain-moving and sea-filling project, responsible for using his abilities to massively disintegrate various barren mountains.
Initially, he had only reluctantly joined the engineering team, coerced by force, and was likewise a member of the passive resistance group.
But eventually, he was gradually subdued by the System's madness and began to actively and enthusiastically participate.
At heart, Ji Er Ke Fu was also someone who firmly believed that man could conquer nature; after adjusting his mindset, he quickly settled into his true role.
As a high-level staff member of the project, Ji Er Ke Fu also spent a full two years before he finally grasped the full scope of the mountain-moving and sea-filling project—the System's ultimate goal was actually to flatten the Earth into a perfect sphere!
All plateaus and mountain ranges across the world, with the exception of a very few deemed worth preserving, would be flattened into plains.
According to his calculations, plains with suitable climates and abundant water could maximize population density, while the original mountainous regions, which hindered productive development, should be leveled.
He estimated that when the plan was finally completed, the ratio of sea to land on Earth would transform from three-to-seven to five-to-five.
And a dense network of artificial rivers would completely transform the vast desert terrain of Xijiang.
Bringing seawater from the Bohai Sea, all the way to Xijiang, even if less than thirty percent of the water remained, it was expected to answer Bai Mo's question within ten years—how much water would be needed to turn all the deserts of Xijiang into oases.
The Disciple of the Crimson World was right; Bai Mo indeed regarded Earth as a single-player management simulation game, and the challenge goal he set for himself was to enable this planet to sustain the normal lives of fifty billion humans through material self-sufficiency.
In other words, on the existing foundation, the sustainable population needed to increase sevenfold.
To achieve this plan, which he named "Earth Online," Bai Mo needed to mobilize everyone for an earth-shattering transformation of the entire planet.
Applied to the details of the first phase, it involved mountain-moving and sea-filling within the original Huaxia Federation's territory, with the Wangri Bridge land reclamation project being a crucial part of it.
Gazing at this land bridge, which he had also helped construct and which had been forcibly created through land reclamation, Ji Er Ke Fu was suddenly filled with a heroic spirit and let out a long howl to the sky.
"Ura!!!"
The unbridled, arbitrary howl of a Five-tier powerhouse even whipped up a small storm on the sea, subtly unsettling the grassroots guard forces on the Yamato side.
Though referred to as a bridge, the Wangri Bridge was in reality an extended peninsula, created by land reclamation, stretching out from the Qilu Peninsula.
Walking to the end of the bridge, even an ordinary person could clearly see the endless coastlines of the Yamato mainland on both ends; the distance between the two sides was now less than five nautical miles.
The stationed troops picked up their military binoculars and could clearly see the equally tense and busy soldiers on the opposite shore, separated by only a stretch of water.
At this moment, looking at the 'monster' not far away, people on both sides, whether their own or the other, instinctively tightened their grip on their guns.
It had nothing to do with faction or ally-or-foe; it was purely the deepest level of vigilance that life held for a monster capable of crushing them with a casual flick of the hand.
And just as the naval defense soldiers trembled, a new round of discussions had coincidentally begun in the Yamato Grand Marshal's Palace.
For the past three years, internal disputes within Yamato regarding the Wangri Bridge had never ceased.
A portion of the compromise faction advocated for relocating crucial domestic resources, abandoning the Yamato homeland, and rebuilding their power abroad to avoid directly confronting the flourishing Land of White.
Another faction vehemently denounced them as traitors, advocating for a decisive battle to the death, leading the people in a total gyokusai against the formidable enemy.
Both sides held firm to their arguments, evenly matched, which greatly troubled Yamamoto, who was the head of the three magnates.
As for the surrender faction... it simply didn't exist. The internal situation of the Land of White was evident to all; those accustomed to living as elites, with other options still available, none could humble themselves to become commoners.
They had less than a month left, yet no unified opinion had been reached internally. Their few attempts at probing were also blocked by the nanite swarm, which covered the skies above the Land of White like an invisible shield.
The invisible nanites were entirely the outermost transparent skin of the Land of White, this super-organism, constantly extending outward as it expanded.
Whether it was the original Huaxia Federation territory, referred to by outsiders as the homeland, or the several Great Mystical Realms, jokingly called savage colonies, all had been surrounded by the invisible nanite swarm layer.
It obscured any prying from space, rendering spy satellite vision completely black. Simultaneously, it made all map navigation functions on GPS systems concerning the Land of White unusable.
But its functions extended far beyond these. Scientists from the United States surmised that this layer of protection, named the nanite swarm, was likely a considerably important component of the Land of White's space colonization plan.
For they discovered, through samples expensively acquired from Yamato, that by completely covering an entire planet with a layer of the nanite swarm and then regulating it via a central system, it could mimic over ninety percent of the effects of an atmosphere.
Moreover, on the Huaxia Federation's Moon base, similar protective membranes for artificial ecological zones were found, clearly originating from Bai Mo's work, but in a noticeably more primitive version.
The inner surface of the swarm could also be attached with various regulating devices, allowing the enveloped planet to gradually develop a climate similar to Earth's.
Provided there was sufficient energy, with current technology, it would only take ten years to completely transform the Moon into a habitable planet suitable for ordinary human life.
As for energy... even if the received solar energy was less than Earth's, the Moon's abundant Helium-3 meant energy was no problem at all, capable of supplying the needs of billions of people.
To such an extent that military researchers from the United States even dared to boast: as long as there was enough transport capacity for people and resources, they could move their entire nation into space within ten years.
These words greatly excited many high-ranking officials within the United States who were uneasy about the Land of White. It was clear that the opponent's goal was the entire planet, and their excessively powerful individual combat strength was irresistible, so space naturally became the best way out.
Thus, after a period of strategizing, the "Athena Project," aimed at replicating similar materials, dramatically emerged, instantly becoming a super scientific research project within the United States, with a priority second only to the "Worm Project."
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