The secret base's makeshift dock.
"Boss, don't you think this speedboat looks familiar?" Lao San asked, eyeing the vehicle Nie Yun had prepared for them.
"You think so too, Lao San? I thought it was just me. It does look familiar. Where have we seen it?" Lao Da stroked his chin.
The two stared down at it, lost in thought for a moment. Then they suddenly looked up at almost the same time, pointed at the speedboat, and exclaimed in unison, "Isn't this the speedboat we lost?!"
They stood there staring at it, dumbfounded.
"Boss, could it just be that it looks similar? Speedboats of this model are pretty common."
"Bullshit! See that chipped paint over there? You forgot how that happened?" Lao Da had a remarkably sharp eye.
"Right! That was from the first time I drove a speedboat. I got so excited I crashed it, and the mark's in the same place! What's going on?" Lao San looked astonished.
Could a speedboat copied by Mechanical Insects from ordinary materials be anything but identical? Even under a microscope, every wrinkle in the paint would be pointing in the same direction!
"Could it be that the boss stole—ow!" Lao San didn't get to finish before Lao Da whacked him on the head.
"What are you talking about? This has to be the boss testing us!" Lao Da glared at Lao San and secretly gave him a meaningful look.
Had he forgotten condition three? What did he mean, "stole"?! If they made the boss unhappy, he could still make them go "snip" and spill their blood all over the place!
Lao San thought of the Blood Dropper around his neck. He still looked confused, but hurriedly nodded. "Yes, yes, exactly!"
Then he rubbed his head. "Boss, why do you think he's testing us?"
"You idiot! Who was it—Sun Wukong, right? Didn't he cross mountains and seas before he learned the seventy-two transformations?
"Every big shot tests a man's character and resolve before taking him on as a subordinate. With the boss's status, do you think he takes on just anyone?
"So this has to be the boss testing us!"
Lao San looked enlightened. So that was it! No wonder Lao Da was the boss—he made so much sense!
The two bowed in Nie Yun's direction. "Thank you for your guidance, boss!"
After a long while, when nothing happened around them, they finally wiped their brows and straightened up.
Once they boarded the speedboat, they saw two backpacks on board and a Xiaolang Robot standing on the control console.
"Hello, boss!" They bowed to the Xiaolang Robot again.
They'd been on the island for a while, and had more or less figured out that the Xiaolang Robots were completely under the boss's control. You could say they were his other selves, so they didn't dare treat them carelessly.
The Xiaolang Robot's eyes flickered, and it suddenly emitted a series of electronic beeps.
"Beep! Task system activated.
"Main Task One: Reach Xiacheng City within 24 hours!
"Successful completion reward: Warrant canceled! 300,000 yuan!
"Failure penalty: You know what!
"Main Task Two will be issued automatically after Main Task One is completed!
"Warning: Do not lose this Task Dispatcher, or you will be responsible for the consequences!"
The two brothers exchanged confused looks, then quickly stood up straight. "Yes, boss! We'll make sure the task is completed!"
Once the Xiaolang Robot's eyes dimmed again, the brothers began whispering to each other.
"Boss, maybe it's just me, but this task setup feels kind of familiar!"
"Don't worry about that. Didn't you hear the instructions? We have to get to Xiacheng City as soon as possible. Come on, we'll take turns driving. Let's get moving!"
"Oh, right, boss. But do you really think the boss can get the police to cancel our warrants?"
"If the boss can't do it, can you? Ever heard of alien technology? No? Then why the hell are you asking? Get us moving!"
"Oh, right, boss!"
Elsewhere, Nie Yun wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. "The internet's terrifying! For the sake of your life, stay away from it!"
After his heart stopped pounding, Nie Yun hesitated for three seconds. In the end, he still couldn't resist the temptation of becoming a nuclear-powered fisherman, and began his experiment.
First of all, he needed to keep a safe distance!
At Nie Yun's command, the Mechanical Spiders harvesting beneath the sea several kilometers from the island abruptly stopped. They put down their work and began converging at a central point within the area, which covered several thousand square meters. Soon, they fused into a silvery-white sphere, then rapidly expanded and changed shape like a balloon being inflated.
Before long, a piston-shaped cylinder about twenty meters in diameter had appeared at the center of the area.
At its base were three openings. Two were fairly large, while the third was tiny and connected to a transparent, long-necked flask.
The oddly shaped object then began moving back and forth like a piston (cough).
As the piston rose, seawater entered through one opening. When it descended, the water was expelled through another. After the piston had moved back and forth dozens of times, a small drop of gray, metallic-looking liquid suddenly appeared in the narrow neck of the third opening.
Nie Yun carefully compared it with the descriptions of liquid uranium he'd found online. At last, he was convinced that he'd just breezed along a path countless small nations dreamed of taking and refined highly enriched uranium. He was now just one ignition sequence away from a nuclear test...
"Uh, looks like I might've gone a little too far..." Nie Yun scratched his head, speechless.
Civilian nuclear fuel was usually enriched to around 3%, while weapons-grade fuel needed to be enriched to over 93%.
The uranium Nie Yun had refined wasn't 100% pure, of course. He'd deliberately mixed in some other impurities, bringing its purity to around 90%.
A nuclear fission explosion required critical pressure, critical mass, and critical temperature.
The higher the uranium's enrichment, the lower the critical thresholds.
In other words, if it were 100% pure, perhaps just a few dozen grams would undergo fission at normal temperature and pressure, setting off a nuclear explosion!
Naturally, Nie Yun didn't dare to tempt fate. Getting it to 90% was already insanely reckless.
The refining process had gone very smoothly, but the uranium content in seawater was so low that even after he added ten more sets of piston extraction machines to work alongside the first, it still took three whole hours and used up the base's stored energy to produce one kilogram of uranium enriched to 90%.
Looking at the high-strength alloy thermos in his hand, Nie Yun broke into a cold sweat. He'd really made it?
It felt like a dream.
Uranium had an extremely long half-life, so its radiation was very weak under natural conditions. Only when it was undergoing fission did it emit large amounts of lethal high-energy radiation.
So even highly enriched uranium had little effect on the human body. Nie Yun didn't need to worry about radiation poisoning just because he'd put it in a thick-walled alloy thermos.
As for why he was using a thermos... Did anyone seriously expect an amateur like Nie Yun to have a proper nuclear-fuel container? He could only make do!
He'd managed to extract nuclear fuel, but now he stared at the thermos in his hand, at a loss.
He'd wanted to build a nuclear-powered Sea Wolf, but nuclear fuel alone was useless.
He could easily make an atomic bomb now, but knowing how to make one didn't mean he knew how to build a nuclear power generator.
Keeping an intense fission reaction stable and sustained enough to provide a steady supply of energy took far more technical expertise than simply detonating an atomic bomb.
Only a handful of countries in the world had mastered nuclear power plant technology, let alone the miniaturized nuclear propulsion systems used in ships. And that technology was an absolute state secret. There was no way Nie Yun could just download it online!
Now he was in an awkward spot.
He could probably be called the first person in history to possess nuclear weapons as a private individual. In another sense, every country in the world would label him the most dangerous terrorist on the planet. But the thing was... that wasn't what he wanted!
"Beep beep!" Just then, Nie Yun's satellite phone rang.
He'd simplified the phone's structure, making it even smaller. He'd also removed the bulky battery, since the Mechanical Insects could store and release energy on their own. There was no need to keep an ugly oversized battery.
Even without considering the Mechanical Insects' other abilities, as a material alone, they outclassed every known specialty alloy on Earth—and they came with their own power source.
"Hello, Xiaoxiao!" Nie Yun didn't even look at the caller ID. Besides Chu Xiaoxiao, nobody knew this number.
"Nie Yun, I still haven't properly thanked you for saving me again. Ye Min also asked me to pass along her thanks!"
"Hey, it was nothing! Don't mention it. If someone kidnaps you again, just call me!"
Chu Xiaoxiao: "..."
"Where are you now? What are you doing?" Chu Xiaoxiao wisely didn't respond to that.
"What do you think? Fishing!"
"...You bought a cargo ship that big just to go fishing?!"
The Chengjiang? You don't know, but it's already turned to dust and ashes. I'll remember it...
"Uh, honestly, I don't know what to do with it either. Fishing's all I know," Nie Yun said evasively.
"Have you thought about getting into shipping? There's a lot of money in it, and our group has plenty of business. If you're interested, we could work together. And don't get the wrong idea—I'm definitely not trying to help you!
"Our group has been expanding into overseas trade lately, and we really do need reliable, professional transport companies to handle logistics.
"Also, your gold coins sold for around three million each. You're a billionaire now. You could consider starting a shipping company! If you don't know how, that's fine. Our group handles that kind of business; I can take care of it for you!"
Nie Yun scratched his head. He understood Eldest Miss Chu's good intentions. If he got in with the Chu Group, he'd be on the road to wealth and success.
But logistics? He really wasn't interested.
He was making hundreds of millions every minute now! He couldn't be bothered to bend down and pick up all those gold coins scattered around!
A billionaire? To a nuclear-powered fisherman, that was laughable...
Then an idea struck him. He'd suddenly thought of something he could sell.
"I do have something in mind. Does your group handle imports?"
"We do imports and exports, and we've been shifting more of our business in that direction lately! There's a bunch of crooks doing the same thing, and we're competing with them. Hmph! I'll show them the Chu Corporation isn't to be messed with!"
Nie Yun had a rough idea who she meant by "crooks," but he didn't say anything. He just gave a sly grin.
"That's perfect, then. I've got some goods from overseas that I want to import into the country."
"Huh? What kind of goods?" Chu Xiaoxiao asked, puzzled. What had you been up to these past two or three days? Had you gotten into international trade too?
"But don't worry. Our business covers all sorts of fields. As long as there's a market for it, we can bring it into the country and sell it!" Chu Xiaoxiao was brimming with confidence in her company's marketing skills.
"A market? Uh, probably... Well, ahem! Do you want some nuclear fuel?"
Chu Xiaoxiao: "..."
Before you continue