NOVEL NEXT Chapter 156: Broken Beyond Repair
"The nearby gold mines are about to be completely extracted."
Inside the base, Zhou Yingting glanced at the pitch-black night sky, then noticed the resource depletion warning on the screen in the command room.
Looking to the side, other resources also showed resource warning signals one after another.
This was telling Zhou Yingting that the resources he had detected nearby were about to be exhausted.
The reason resources were consumed so quickly was mainly because Zhou Yingting had already completed the construction of various basic industries here.
Tens of thousands of basic industries had been built, and the daily consumption of various resources was incredibly high.
This led to the nearby resources being completely mined within a few days.
Additionally, some industries were not operational because of the lack of raw materials, so there were only factories built without any activity.
"Resources in these nearby areas are still abundant, so there's no need to worry too much."
Zhou Yingting opened his resource distribution map for a closer look, and after expanding it, he found areas with multiple colors nearby.
This colorful area was the most resource-rich area.
This was an advantage for Zhou Yingting. Anyone else would find it impossible to locate so many resource distribution areas at once.
Even if they produced resource exploration vehicles, it would still take time to locate these resources in such a large area.
These exploration vehicles might search back and forth in a blank area, yielding little to no results for a long time.
It's different for Zhou Yingting, as he already knew where the resources were. He could simply direct the exploration vehicles to scan and then proceed to extract the discovered resources.
If it weren't for needing this step, Zhou Yingting could even skip dispatching exploration vehicles altogether.
"I've got to locate a uranium mine; electricity is about to be insufficient. We must transition to nuclear power generation."
Regarding hydropower, there is indeed a large river nearby that meets the requirements of a hydroelectric project.
In fact, given the width of that river and the water flow, once the dam is constructed, the generated power could exceed that of a nuclear power plant.
The problem, however, is that the river is too wide.
Once this hydroelectric plant begins operation, Zhou Yingting would face the threat of location exposure.
Such a large dam, once other civilizations with detection means notice, would reveal traces of civilization along this river.
At that time, the dam and the surrounding area would be subjected to missile sweeps.
In this regard, Zhou Yingting dared not take the risk.
Even with methods to conceal the dam, the diversion of the river would reduce downstream water levels.
If they carefully analyze these details, they can still find issues with this river section.
Concealing a hydroelectric plant is too challenging.
Therefore, Zhou Yingting planned to directly skip hydropower and shift to nuclear power generation.
Moreover, he needed to unlock this part of the Technology Tree in order to continue unlocking other technologies.
Zhou Yingting had already established Level 1 industrial foundations, and a minority had been upgraded to Level 2.
Currently, the problem is that Zhou Yingting still lacks a uranium mine.
Without a uranium mine, he cannot unlock nuclear technology.
Zhou Yingting examined his resource distribution map to identify which element most likely represented a uranium mine.
At that moment, his gaze paused slightly on one particular color.
Not far from his location, a site was covered in an immense golden yellow.
"Gold mine? It feels even larger than the large gold mine discovered earlier."
Zhou Yingting's gaze lingered on the color, then he dispatched a gold mine exploration vehicle to investigate.
Then, he continued searching for other colors.
Uranium can appear in different colors depending on what it's combined with.
Zhou Yingting still wasn't sure which color represented uranium mine.
Moreover, some colors may appear similar, but upon resource assessment, it turns out they're different resources.
It's not actually that the colors are identical; when you merge them and compare side by side, subtle differences can be discerned.
Therefore, when there's a slight color difference, it usually denotes different resources.
"This dark brown seems not yet explored. Let the resource exploration vehicles examine it and determine what resource it is."
After searching for a moment, Zhou Yingting finally spotted a color different from before.
Dark brown, if Zhou Yingting remembered correctly, some uranium-bearing minerals included dark brown.
Unsure if this color indicates a uranium mine.
As another exploration vehicle set out, the nearby screen began to flash.
The vehicle sent to explore the gold mine had returned with a report.
Zhou Yingting opened the screen, and upon seeing the message reported from the exploration vehicle, he was momentarily stunned.
The vehicle presented a detailed report, stating that this newly explored gold mine was an ultra-large gold mine, capable of yielding five million units of gold.
An ultra-large gold mine, incomparable to a large gold mine, the scale far surpasses a large gold mine by a considerable margin.