Do you want nuclear fuel?

The secret base's makeshift dock.

"Boss, don't you think this speedboat looks familiar?" The third-in-command stared at the transport Nie Yun had prepared for them, looking puzzled.

"You have that feeling too, Third? I thought it was just my imagination. It does look familiar, but where have we seen it before?" The boss rubbed his chin.

The two men lowered their heads in deep thought for a moment, then almost simultaneously jerked their heads up, pointed at the speedboat, and shouted in unison with wide eyes: "Isn't this the exact speedboat we lost!"

The two stared blankly at the craft, completely bewildered by the scene.

"Boss, do you think it just looks similar? This model of speedboat is pretty common."

"Bullshit! See that patch of missing paint over there? Have you forgotten how that happened?" The boss's observation skills were indeed sharp.

"Right! That was from the first time I drove a speedboat; I was so excited I crashed it. Even the position is identical! What is going on here?" The third-in-command looked astonished.

Could a speedboat replicated by Mechanical Spider using ordinary materials be anything but identical? Even if you put it under a microscope, I guarantee every paint wrinkle would be oriented in the same direction!

"Could it be that the boss stole... ouch!" Before the third-in-command could finish his sentence, the boss interrupted him with a sharp rap on the head.

"What are you saying! This is definitely a test from the boss!" The boss glared fiercely at the third-in-command and gave him a secret wink.

Have you forgotten condition three? What do you mean, "stole"?! If you displease the boss, you'll still get a "snap," and blood will splatter five paces away!

The third-in-command thought of the Blood Dropper around his neck. Though his eyes still held doubt, he quickly nodded repeatedly. "Yes, yes, that must be it!"

Then he rubbed his head. "Boss, why do you think the boss wants to test us?"

"Are you stupid? That guy, Sun Wukong, didn't he have to travel across thousands of mountains and rivers, crossing the ocean, just to learn the seventy-two transformations?

Every badass big shot, before taking on underlings, has to test their character and perseverance. With the boss's status, is he the kind of person who just takes on anyone?

So! This must be a test from the boss for us!"

The third-in-command had a sudden realization. So that was it! The boss was worthy of being the boss; what he said made so much sense!

The two bowed in unison toward the direction of Nie Yun: "Thank you for the cultivation, Boss!"

After a long while, seeing no movement around them, the two wiped the sweat from their brows and stood up.

Once they boarded the speedboat, they saw that besides two backpacks, a Xiaolang Robot was standing on the control console.

"Greetings, Boss!" The two bowed to the Xiaolang Robot again.

They had stayed on the island for a while and now vaguely understood that these Xiaolang Robots were completely controlled by the boss—they could be considered his avatars—so they dared not be the least bit negligent.

The Xiaolang Robot's eyes flickered, and it suddenly emitted an electronic voice.

Beep! Mission system initialized.

Main Quest 1: Arrive at Xia City within 24 hours!

Mission Success Reward: Wanted notice cancelled! 300,000 RMB!

Mission Failure Penalty: You know what!

Main Quest 2: Automatically issued after completing Main Quest 1!

Warning: Do not lose this mission transmitter, or suffer the consequences!

The two brothers exchanged glances for a moment, then quickly straightened their backs. "Yes, Boss! We guarantee we will complete the mission!"

After the Xiaolang Robot's eyes dimmed once more, the two brothers began to whisper to each other.

"Boss, I don't know if it's just my imagination, but I feel like this mission setup is somewhat familiar!"

"Don't worry about that. Didn't you hear the mission instructions? We need to get to Xia City as soon as possible. Hurry up, let's take turns driving the boat and get moving!"

"Oh, right, Boss. But do you think the boss really has a way to get the police to cancel the wanted notice?"

"If the boss can't do it, can you? Do you understand alien technology or not? You don't? If you don't understand, why the hell are you asking? Go drive the boat!"

"Oh, right, Boss!"

On the other side, Nie Yun wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. "The internet is truly terrifying! Cherish life, stay away from the internet!"

After a heart-pounding moment, Nie Yun hesitated for three seconds, but in the end, unable to resist the temptation of becoming a nuclear-armed fisherman, he began his experiment.

First, a safe distance was mandatory!

Under Nie Yun's mental control, the Mechanical Spider swarms that were mining several kilometers away under the sea suddenly paused. They immediately dropped all their work and began to converge toward the center, quickly merging into a silver-white sphere before rapidly expanding and deforming like a balloon.

Before long, a piston-like cylinder with a diameter of about twenty meters appeared in the center of the area.

At the bottom of the cylinder, three openings were set: two were larger, while the third was tiny and connected to a transparent retort.

Then, this strangely shaped object began a reciprocating piston motion (ahem).

When the piston rose, seawater entered the piston through one opening; when the piston descended, the seawater was expelled through another. After the piston had moved back and forth dozens of times, a small drop of gray, metallic-lustered liquid substance suddenly emerged from the slender neck of the third opening.

Nie Yun carefully compared it to the descriptions of liquid uranium on the internet and finally confirmed that he had just easily walked the path that countless small nations dreamed of: he had purified highly enriched uranium. Now, only an ignition procedure remained before a nuclear test...

"Uh, it seems I accidentally made things a bit too big..." Nie Yun rubbed his head, speechless.

Typically, the enrichment level of uranium used for civilian nuclear fuel is around 3%, while weapons-grade nuclear fuel requires an enrichment level of over 93%.

The drop of uranium Nie Yun had purified naturally wasn't 100% pure; he had intentionally mixed in some other elemental impurities, bringing the purity to around 90%.

The conditions required for a nuclear fission explosion are critical pressure, critical mass, and critical temperature.

The higher the purity of the enriched uranium, the lower the critical conditions required.

In other words, if it were truly 100% pure uranium, perhaps a few dozen grams would trigger a fission reaction and a nuclear explosion under normal temperature and pressure!

Nie Yun naturally didn't dare to actually court death; getting the concentration to 90% was already daring enough to defy the heavens.

Although the purification process went very smoothly, because the uranium content in seawater is so low, even though Nie Yun added ten more sets of piston-style extractors to work in tandem, it still took a full three hours and exhausted the base's energy reserves to extract one kilogram of 90% concentration uranium.

Looking at the high-strength alloy thermos cup in his hand, Nie Yun broke into a cold sweat. Had he really created it?

He felt as if he were dreaming.

Because the half-life of uranium is extremely long, its radiation under natural conditions is extremely weak; it only emits a large amount of lethal high-energy radiation rays when it is in a state of fission.

Therefore, even with highly enriched uranium, the impact on the human body is minimal, so even if Nie Yun only used a thick alloy thermos cup as a container, he didn't need to worry about radiation damage.

As for why he used a thermos... could you really expect a half-baked amateur like Nie Yun to have professional nuclear fuel containers? He just had to make do!

Although the nuclear fuel had been extracted, he felt a bit lost as he looked at the thermos in his hand.

His goal was to build a nuclear-powered Sea Wolf, but having only nuclear fuel was useless.

He could easily build an atomic bomb now, but knowing how to build an atomic bomb didn't mean he knew how to build a nuclear power generator.

To make a violent fission reaction continue steadily to provide a constant stream of energy requires a much higher level of technical expertise than simply detonating an atomic bomb.

Only a handful of countries in the world have mastered nuclear power plant technology, let alone miniaturized nuclear-powered vessels. But this stuff is an absolute state secret, and there was no way Nie Yun could download the data from the internet!

Now Nie Yun was in an awkward spot.

Although he could be called the most bizarre person in history to possess nuclear weapons as an individual, and in another sense, he would be defined by every country in the world as the most dangerous terrorist, the key was... that wasn't his goal!

"Beep-beep!" Just then, Nie Yun's satellite phone rang.

He had streamlined the structure of this phone, making it look more compact, and he had even removed the battery components that took up a lot of volume, because the Mechanical Insect itself could charge and discharge, making it unnecessary to keep the ugly, oversized battery.

Without considering the other capabilities of the Mechanical Insect, as a material alone, it already blew away all known special alloys on Earth, and it even came with its own energy source.

"Hello, Xiaoxiao!" Nie Yun didn't even look at the caller ID; no one else knew this number except Chu Xiaoxiao.

"Nie Yun, I haven't properly thanked you for saving me again. Sister Ye Min also asked me to convey her thanks to you!"

"Hey, it's no big deal! Don't be so polite. If someone kidnaps you again, just call me directly!"

Chu Xiaoxiao: "..."

"Where are you now? What are you doing?" Chu Xiaoxiao wisely didn't take the bait.

"What else could I be doing? Fishing!"

"...You bought such a large cargo ship just to go fishing?!"

The Chengjiang? You don't know, it has long since turned into the dust of history, I will mourn it...

"Uh, actually, I don't know what else to use it for. I only know how to fish!" Nie Yun said dismissively.

"Have you never thought about doing some cargo shipping? The profits in this area are huge, and our group has a lot of business. If you agree, we can cooperate. Of course, don't misunderstand, I'm definitely not doing this just to help you!

Our group is currently working on ocean trade, and we do need some professional and trustworthy transport companies to help with logistics.

Also, those gold coins of yours, each one sold for about 3 million. You're a multi-millionaire now, you could consider starting a transport company! It doesn't matter if you don't understand the process; our group has relevant departments, and I can help you get it sorted!"

Nie Yun scratched his head. How could he not understand the good intentions of Eldest Miss Chu? Hitching a ride with the Chu Group meant success was just around the corner.

But doing logistics? He really had no interest in that.

Brother is making hundreds of millions every minute now! I can't even be bothered to bend down to pick up the gold coins scattered all over the ground!

A multi-millionaire? To a nuclear fisherman, heh...

However, his heart stirred, and he suddenly thought of a business he could do.

"I actually do have an idea. Does your group handle imports?"

"We do, we handle both imports and exports, and our business has been leaning in that direction recently! There's a group of bad guys who do this too, and we're currently competing with them. Hmph! I must let them know that the Chu Group is not to be trifled with!"

Nie Yun vaguely guessed who the bad guys she mentioned were, but he didn't expose them, instead smiling sneakily.

"That's great. I have some goods on hand, imported from another country, and I want to import them into the country."

"Hmm? What kind of goods?" Chu Xiaoxiao asked suspiciously. How did you start doing international trade after not seeing you for two or three days?

"But don't worry, our business covers all aspects. As long as your items have a market, we guarantee we can import them for domestic sales!" Chu Xiaoxiao was full of confidence in her family's marketing capabilities.

"Market? Uh, there should be... that, ahem! Do you want nuclear fuel?"

Chu Xiaoxiao: "..."