The Heavens: A Qing, the Yue Girl at the beginning

Chapter 497 Misdirection, Magma Mining (4K)

"That's why we must consider Ronald Tang as a potential major threat."

World Tree No. 01 said slowly, the light in his badge becoming more solid: "Moreover, we cannot just limit ourselves to monitoring and testing Ronald Tang, but also have to consider all the back-up plans that Norton may have set up through him."

"Don't forget, Norton is not only the best among the first generation, but also a master of alchemy. If the Fire King's alchemy is combined with the most advanced science of mankind, it will be disastrous. The consequences are unimaginable and may destroy the long-term layout of the Medical Association for thousands of years."

"We must prevent such a combination from happening, wherever possible. We must find a way to both verify Ronald Tang's true identity and to either bind him again or completely erase him before he regains his full power."

"But the problem is," World Tree No. 02 interrupted, with a hint of worry in his tone, "With Norton's ability, unless he is facing an unsolvable crisis, it is almost impossible for him to reveal a flaw. Conventional bloodline sensing is meaningless to him."

"No. 05, you mentioned that Ronald Tang's behavior is becoming increasingly elusive. This may be a breakthrough." No. 03 World Tree's voice was gentle but firm. "We need to analyze his behavior patterns more deeply and look for clues that may reveal the truth."

"I agree." World Tree No. 05 added, "Also, we need to consider a more direct method - probing. But probing must be done with caution, so as not to alert the enemy."

"Probe?" World Tree No. 06 seemed a little confused. "How to test? Fight him directly? That's too risky."

"No, not a direct confrontation." World Tree No. 05 explained, "We can use the upcoming 'Pacific Rim Volcano Exploration Competition' as a stage to design an exquisite trap, so that he will step into our layout unknowingly and make Kassel Academy our pawn and shield."

"Chess pieces and shields..." World Tree No. 04 pondered for a moment. "Indeed, making Cassel College our pawn can not only test Norton's reaction, but also transfer the risk. But how can we ensure that they act according to our script?"

"This is where our 'guides' come into play." World Tree No. 01 smiled slightly, as if everything was under control. "We have planted enough hidden agents inside the academy. They will add fuel to the flames at the critical moment and guide the situation in a direction that is beneficial to us."

"In addition, we can also try to make use of Norton's emotional bond," World Tree No. 03 added, "Start with his younger brother Constantine, and let him abandon all disguises under strong mental stimulation, or fully awaken under instinct..."

"The risk is a bit too high... This may make us face two hostile Dragon Kings at the same time." World Tree No. 01 interrupted him: "Why not sort out all the clues we have about Ronald Tang and analyze his behavior patterns, social relationships, and possible psychological weaknesses."

"Then, formulate a detailed plan, including the arrangement of traps, the deployment of personnel, and emergency plans. Gather the numerous cannon fodders of the secret party and attack together with our elite team, just like the ambush at the Sino-Russian border thirteen years ago..."

As World Tree No. 01 finished speaking, an extremely sophisticated-looking alchemical computer slowly rose from the center of the conference hall. Its surface was inlaid with complex runes and gears, emitting a faint metallic luster, and projected a holographic light curtain through the interlaced holes.

After this special computer, which was obviously designed to prevent any intrusion and was immune to electromagnetic pulses and elemental turbulence, was turned on, photos and video footage of Ronald Tang from childhood to adulthood began to flash on the screen, with each frame recording his growth trajectory and changes.

"The time when we captured Dragon King Ze? But now we still have a few hybrids with Word Spirit Rhine in reserve? Do we need to open the Hall of Heroes?" World Tree No. 04 asked: "This kind of 'strategic weapon' is not like a tactical nuclear bomb. If you use one, you have one less."

As a god-level word spirit, Rhine naturally involves a power that is almost like a rule, and its release cannot be described by a simple explosion.

In addition to high temperatures and pressures comparable to those of a star's core, it will also rapidly consume all elements within the field through a flash-melt reaction, including the target's spiritual defenses and elements used to strengthen the body, making the enemy extremely vulnerable, and the elemental black hole formed has multiple confinement effects.

Another advantage is that there will be no residual radiation after the Rhine explosion, and it will not be regarded as a nuclear bomb, but a strange natural phenomenon of unknown cause, similar to the Tunguska explosion.

"There are only two of them at the moment. The success rate of producing hybrids of this level is still too low. Even out of 100,000 clones there may not be one qualified product. We have to invest a huge amount of resources to keep their bloodline stable."

World Tree No. 03 responded: "And even if they temporarily strengthen their bloodline, it is estimated that they will only have a power of 50 tons. With the imitation of the Holy Lance, they are not sure enough to wipe out Norton... My suggestion is to give them the authority to call on the 'Star Matrix' for support depending on the situation."

"Wait a moment……"

At this moment, the badge of World Tree No. 01 flashed a few times, as if it had received some urgent message. It suddenly dimmed for a few seconds, then came back online, its brightness increased several times, and said in a heavy voice:
"Just now, our means of monitoring Ronald Tang has failed."

"I have called upon multiple satellites from the United States and Russia, and all remote sensors are aimed at the Three Sisters Wilderness in Oregon. However, the overwhelming dust cloud has obscured everything, and the image signal has been severely interfered with... and according to the detection of the far-infrared band, an extremely alarming heat source has appeared in the area..."

"Heat source? Could it be that the volcano there erupted? Did Norton use his authority?" World Tree No. 04 seemed a little surprised: "Can natural factors be ruled out? Where is the nearest drone reconnaissance base?"

"Although there have been frequent earthquakes at the South Sister volcano recently, according to field exploration at the beginning of this month, the magma reservoir is still in a cold gel-solid state with a temperature of less than 900 degrees. It is impossible for it to suddenly erupt without human intervention!"

World Tree No. 02 flashed with light, and quickly interpreted and analyzed the information he had obtained: "Right now, the maximum temperature of the heat source is at least over degrees, and it is even continuing to rise. This is definitely not an extreme condition that a volcano can reach!"

"It seems that the truth is clear. Just as we expected, Norton has indeed awakened..." The tone of World Tree No. 01 exuded a chilling chill: "The elimination plan has officially started, codenamed FB-OR-001, and the execution level is SSS!"

"I hope everything goes well and we can see Norton's Dragon Cross as soon as possible." Hearing this, the other World Tree Badges spoke up one after another: "Let this King of Bronze and Fire become the first sacrifice of the War of the Gods!"

……

At the same time, when the elders of the Holy Palace Medical Society were alarmed by the sudden incident and responded urgently, with instructions transmitted to all parts of the world through encrypted channels, Zhao Qing's battle with the two dragon knights was also coming to an end.

In this volcanic fantasy woven by her sword, the boundary between heaven and earth becomes blurred, the interweaving of light and shadow constructs a battlefield beyond reality, and rivers of lava and oceans of ice crystals intertwine and collide, releasing energy that can destroy the world.

Dust and smoke covered the sky, making the already blurry horizon even more difficult to distinguish, and the whole world seemed to be shrouded in a thick gray veil.

Her figure accelerated again and again, turning into a stream of red-gold light. Wherever the tip of the sword passed, the power of yin and yang intertwined. Every swing was accompanied by thunder and lightning, condensing all the illusions around into substantial attacks, pouring down mercilessly on the enemy. "The shape of the sky, strike from a high place!"

Through the state of unity between man and nature, he continuously drew the fire energy from underground and transported it to high altitudes. When it accumulated to a certain level, Zhao Qing's heart moved slightly, and he suddenly drew his sword and pointed it at the sky. Suddenly, thousands of sword auras gathered together and condensed into a giant flaming sword extending from the stratosphere and slowly pressing down.

Wherever it passed, vital energy flowed out like a tide, and flames, debris and dust entangled in the sky, forming a spectacular dark red fire curtain, emitting suffocating heat and light, illuminating the entire illusion like daylight.

Along with the radiating brilliant sword light, Zhao Qing's surging sword intent collided violently with the illusion of the "Saha World". The originally bizarre scene began to distort and shatter, as if the mirror was hit by a sledgehammer, cracks spread in all directions, presenting a doomsday scene like a mountain collapse and the ground sinking.

"The dragon roars in the sky, why fear such a tiny thing!" The roar of the war knight echoed in the void. He knew that this was a moment of life and death. He tried to use his last courage to motivate himself and his companions. The scepter in his hand also burst out a lightning net shield that soared into the sky.

However, reality is cruel, and when they saw the giant flaming sword approaching, they could no longer conceal the fear and despair in their hearts. The dragon under them also felt an unprecedented threat and flapped its wings desperately, trying to escape from this land of death.

But before they could escape a hundred meters, the entire illusion completely collapsed. The spirits of the two dragon knights suffered unprecedented damage, the power of the Word Spirit dropped significantly, and the molten armor covering the dragon scales began to peel off, revealing the flesh underneath that was charred by the high temperature.

Zhao Qing appeared in the center of the giant flaming sword at some point, with a flash of purple in his eyes. He held the small glass sword with both hands and swung it downward heavily. The true fire of the sun and the true water of the moon that he had stored in advance merged with the sword light to produce a purple-white electric flame.

In the blink of an eye, a rapidly expanding fireball exploded at the foot of the South Sister Volcano, forming a subtle resonance with a local earthquake caused by the pressure of yin and yang energy. The ground collapsed into a deep pit with a diameter of more than 100 meters, and hot magma gushed out of it.

This is real destruction, not an illusion. It means that after the recent series of battles and research, Zhao Qing has a deeper grasp of the power of fire and mountain. He can detonate the potential energy accumulated in the environment to the greatest extent and induce a small-scale eruption by creating cracks in the strata.

When the temporarily condensed giant sword dissipated, two dragon corpses with only dark golden skeletons left fell on the lava pool. Crystalized eyeballs were embedded in the eye sockets of the skeletons. They lost all vitality and gradually sank to the bottom.

Her whole body was enveloped in a hazy firelight, floating lightly above the magma, her eyes piercing through the thick smoke produced by the meltwater from the glaciers flowing into it, looking at the survivors on the hillside - those who came to participate in the preliminaries before the deadline were naturally innocent people who were unaware of the situation.

"The minerals in the magma should indeed be enriched and mined..." Zhao Qing pointed his finger at the lava pool and shot several sword auras filled with tiny bubbles. He was thoughtful and came to a positive conclusion about the series of technologies he had recently envisioned:
"In addition, the mantle region beneath the western part of the United States, the subducted Juan de Fuca Plate and the Yellowstone hotspot, seem to contain a lot of rare metals. No wonder they can invade the surface to form many gold mines... There seems to be some mercury and uranium, which are worth mining and refining."

Gold and mercury both play an important role in alchemy. The value of gold is self-evident. The global annual production of mercury is only a few thousand tons, which is obviously too scarce and requires more supply.

As the state with the most intense volcanic activity on the U.S. mainland, Oregon's strata are mainly igneous rocks. Most of the minerals found there come from the mantle, from which we can get a glimpse of the magma composition of this area over the past 10 to 20 million years.

According to her in-depth investigation and research, in addition to elemental power and alchemical matrix, deep geothermal energy should account for a large proportion of the energy structure of the dragon civilization. The mining and smelting of various minerals by the dragons are also closely related to the underground, and they have not developed many minerals on the surface.

Otherwise, considering that the construction of any dragon city would consume tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of tons of high-quality metals, even if there were hidden forces covering it up, it would be impossible for humans in modern society to fail to detect the traces left here.

A more reasonable inference is that the dragon civilization separated these metals in large quantities from the magma through some unknown advanced alchemical process - the "mantle drilling" technology mentioned in the previous Nibelungen bottom dream is probably the focus of this.

Since the Dragon Civilization has already verified the feasibility of the technology in advance and proved that this method has certain advantages over traditional mining techniques, and from the perspective of the compatibility of alchemy with their own understanding of practice, it can undoubtedly be used as a future direction of technological development.

After a period of deduction, although Zhao Qing did not restore the true appearance of the technology, combining her insights into relevant scientific theories and the use of true qi, she seemed to have initially developed another rather ingenious magma mining process, which theoretically has extremely broad prospects.

That is, according to the principle of natural changes, by simulating the various processes of magma mineralization, after accelerating it, high-grade ore deposits are produced in designated locations, which can then be directly mined and smelted. The key to this series of technologies is actually the seemingly insignificant bubbles.

It is based on a deep understanding of the complex physical and chemical processes in mantle magma and is named "Mantle Magma Micro-Nano Bubble Mineral Extraction Technology" (MMMBMET).

"The core of this technology is to use true qi to control and simulate the formation and movement of bubbles in magma. Through ultra-long and high-strength pipelines deep into the mantle asthenosphere, true qi with special properties is input into it, making it a natural carrier for carrying and enriching various minerals."

"Under natural conditions, low-level true qi will not dissolve after being injected into water. Instead, it will form countless small bubbles ranging from tens of nanometers to hundreds of microns. Because of their extremely small size, they have a very high specific surface area and can greatly increase the contact area with the minerals in the magma."

"During their ascent, the small bubbles of true gas continuously merge to form larger bubbles through the principle of minimizing surface tension, while absorbing the surrounding high-density sulfide melt droplets and using the buoyancy of the bubbles to float upward, accelerating the process of sulfide minerals in the magma being brought to the surface."

"The dissipated cold Qi has the effect of spontaneously forming an aura, and will actively swim to the hot areas they have not passed through. In the complex and changeable turbulent convection environment near the mantle hotspot, through relevant calculations to optimize the path, a small number of bubbles can cover the volume of a large area of ​​magma."

"The immiscible phenomenon of the liquid phase during the evolution of magma caused the gas phase components rich in ore-forming metal elements to separate from the melt phase and be captured by the gas bubbles. The stability of the gas itself under high temperature and high pressure played an irreplaceable and huge role during this period."

“At the same time, the water in the magma and the sulfide droplets will also undergo complex water-rock reactions, leading to the activation and extraction of minerals.”

"Especially in areas of dynamic changes in stress fields, such as the intersection of fractures and fissures, the intense boiling and brecciation of magma accelerates the dissolution and reprecipitation of minerals, further enriching the mineral particles carried by bubbles and forming mineral agglomerates that are easy to extract."

She thought to herself, "As long as we add some alchemical matrices to control the aura, theoretically, the mineral deposits that would have taken millions of years or even longer to form can begin to show results in just a few months or even weeks, and the grade of the mineral can reach an extremely high level."

Perhaps the initial cost of construction is very high, but later on, it will become as convenient as a water plant. As long as bubbles are continuously injected, various designated minerals related to the type of true qi can be obtained at the outlet with almost no unnecessary actions.

In general, it seems that all aspects of "earth, fire, wind, and water" are involved. If the magma mining technology of the Dragon Civilization is similar to it, it can be regarded as a pinnacle alchemical work that integrates the four elements!
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