After retreating a certain distance, the team members dispersed, walking in twos and threes towards the temporary camp set up at the foot of the mountain to rest and wait for the next work shift.
Didak, however, did not leave; instead, he watched as a new team approached.
These people were all clad in sturdy armor, carrying heavy iron shields, akin to moving iron lumps.
The newcomers looked at Didak and inquired about the demolition situation. Upon hearing Didak’s report that all the installed alchemy tools had taken effect, they sighed in relief, yet remained vigilant, pursing their lips as they headed to the demolition site.
Didak watched them, fully aware that these team members had to locate every piece of alchemical tool debris before their job was considered complete and the next team could be notified to enter.
Only by doing this could they avoid any mishap of a delayed alchemical tool’s effect, potentially harming a large group of people.
Expectedly, their job was evidently the most dangerous; even though they were dressed like iron lumps, for the most part, it served as no more than psychological comfort. According to his estimates, double the thickness of this armor would still be of little use against large-scale alchemy tools. Should something indeed go wrong, nothing would remain of them.
But for this reason, they could earn a salary over five times that of ordinary places, and if tragedy struck, there would be substantial compensation.
The Danger Removal Team members, who received super high salaries, took nearly half an hour continuously to complete their work, finally locating all the debris, and after confirming with Didak, they gasped for breath as they left the site.
Following them, the third team arrived.
Each member carried a bucket filled with a pungent, pale blue liquid, spraying it over the ore without any known purpose.
In Didak’s view, the work done by these people was the oddest and most meaningless, its only possible utility being the reduction of some dust; he had repeatedly reported to Captain Shawn that they could be removed or supplemented into his team.
However, Captain Shawn stated that this was a special arrangement by Miner Waltz and could not be altered by anyone.
Once the peculiar third team had worked for several hours, spraying the strange liquid all over the work site, they left, and the fourth team finally made their arrival.
The fourth team was the largest at the mine, having hired over a thousand workers by now, managed jointly by Hua Wen and another captain.
The work performed by these people was straightforward: conducting the basic processing on the ores, loading them onto carts, and transporting them down the mountain.
Below the mountain, a factory was gradually taking form, where the ores would undergo secondary processing carried out by the hired workers—sorted, classified, cut, and then transported afar for sale.
As Didak understood, this essentially was the complete work process at the No. 13 Mine currently.
In a certain sense, this work process was tens of times more efficient than the traditional excavation methods employed at other mines, surprisingly high in efficiency.
Yet, he wasn’t too concerned about this; his primary focus was solely on the first step of the workflow—his supervised demolition work.
Each time he carried out a demolition task, he felt a wondrous power to destroy everything, feeling as if he had reached the peak of his exhilaration. Of course, he kept this secret from everyone, even his friend—now Group Leader Bo Fei.
What worried him a little was that at the current mining speed, flattening the entire mountain didn’t seem to be Miner Waltz’s joke. Given time, it would inevitably be achieved, leading to the question of how much longer he could continue doing the same job.
He really wished he could continue doing it forever.
In the nightfall at the mountain base camp, Didak turned over in his sleep with this thought in mind.
As Didak fell asleep, some more secretive undertakings commenced.
Not far from the mountain, inside the ore processing plant, within a secretive workshop, a few special ores were selected to undergo finer, multiple-stage processing. Ground into granules, they were sealed in lead boxes and quietly transported by carriage to some unknown distant location.
Blue Lake Estate, study.
Richard appeared here but did not linger, swiftly entering Eden.
Upon entering Eden, Richard headed to the hazardous function sector, entering the underground building with the highest security level.
Within the fully isolated laboratory, he took out several heavy lead boxes one by one from the Space Iron Ring. The boxes contained samples of relatively special ore powder brought from Shambhala Town—essentially radioactive ore powder samples.
The reason for bringing these samples into the underground facility was straightforward: to prepare for detecting their composition and determining their content.
This task, initially scheduled to be done over ten days ago, had been forcibly delayed until today. This was not due to procrastination but because only by doing so could he gain a more comprehensive understanding of certain information.
It was indeed true that radioactive ores existed in No.13 Mine’s cave. It was the radioactive substances that gave rise to the Demonized Creatures, attracting Joseph. Thus began a series of events, eventually guiding him step by step to discover this precious resource and recognizing the potential raw material for making nuclear weapons.
But it’s crucial to understand, this is merely a possibility for making nuclear weapons.
Not all radioactive ores can be used to make nuclear weapons; only a portion of radioactive ores containing elements like Uranium 235 and Plutonium 239 qualify.
Such ores with these elements are not rare, for example, Crystal Uranium Ore, Asphalt Uranium Ore, Uranium Black Ore, Titanium Uranium Ore, Silicocalcium Uranium Ore, Copper Uranium Mica Ore, Vanadium Calcium Uranium Ore, Vanadium Potassium Uranium Ore, among others.
However, there exist radioactive ores lacking these elements, such as Niobium-Yttrium Ore, Phosphorus Yttrium Ore, Silicon Beryllium Yttrium Ore, Brown Yttrium Niobium Ore, Niobium Calcium Ore, Rare Gold Ore, Burnt Green Stone Ore, Yijie Stone Ore, Thorium Stone Ore, Brown Curtain Stone Ore, and many others!
Thus, it is essential to ascertain the specific category of radioactive ores within the cave to determine whether or not to proceed to the next steps—researching and manufacturing nuclear weapons.
In reality, even if it is confirmed that the ores contain Uranium 235 and Plutonium 239, it still cannot absolutely guarantee entering the next step.
Because, the research and manufacture of nuclear weapons require a large quantity of ores; a substantial portion of the entire ore vein must be composed of similar qualified ores.
This parallels gambling with stones: slice it and it’s entirely green, seemingly acquiring a large piece of jade. But upon further cutting, discovering only a green corner on the edge with the rest completely void, only leading to empty joy.
Hence, he waited till now, having samples of ores from the shallow parts of the ore vein extracted for testing.
Only this way could the testing results be comprehensive.
What then would comprehensive results be like? Would it indeed contain Uranium 235 and Plutonium 239?
With these thoughts, Richard began to act.
Richard donned the protective suit.
Richard opened the lead box containing the ore powder samples.