The heavy, non-slip work boots sank five centimeters into the remaining snow.
He ripped off his ice-covered goggles and stuffed them into the pocket of his heavy work vest over his flannel plaid shirt.
A layer of white frost covered his thick brown beard, which trembled slightly as he exhaled large puffs of white breath.
The heavy wooden door of the cabin was pushed open.
Su Wei, wearing a black polar cold-weather suit, stepped across the threshold.
The heat inside the house mingled with the sub-zero temperatures outside, creating a cloud of white steam at the door frame.
Su Wei was holding two large enamel thermos cups.
" Su Wei, you've become completely isolated here."
Matt strode over and took one of the cups with his large, calloused hands.
"The 30-kilometer county road leading from Kodiak Town to here is covered with more than half a meter of snow."
"I arranged for three snowplows to take turns clearing the way this morning; they almost crashed in just now."
Matt tilted his head back and took a big gulp of the liquid in his glass.
The scalding black coffee flowed down my throat.
[ Cooking LV3 - Weak Feedback Triggered.]
[ Simple Dietary Supplementation supplements are effective: dispelling cold and dampness.]
Matt's tense shoulders visibly relaxed, and his exhaled breath became longer and more drawn out.
"The snow has stopped, but we must catch up on the construction schedule."
Su Wei put the lid on his cup.
Security measures for his territory are his bottom line.
With over a million US dollars already invested, he wouldn't allow the blizzard to slow down the expansion of this hunter with three million US dollars in savings.
Matt swallowed the last sip of coffee and placed the empty cup on the wooden table by the door.
That's why I rushed in first thing this morning.
"Take your survey maps; we need to go take a look at the firing range site."
"There's been a little trouble."
The two walked side by side toward the foot of the Pillar Mountain behind the wooden house.
Although the snow along the way had been flattened somewhat by the strong winds, it was still extremely difficult to traverse.
The planned 300-meter professional shooting range is now completely buried by pure white snow.
At the end of the target range, the infrastructure pits, clinging to the rock face of the Pillar Mountain, were exposed to the dim light of day.
This is the site selection for future ammunition depots and blast rooms.
The deep trenches that the excavator tracks had pressed into the snow have been half filled in by the fresh snow.
The two stopped at the edge of the tunnel.
At the bottom of the excavation pit, which was two meters deep, a thick layer of snowmelt mixture had accumulated.
To the right of the tunnel is the exposed original rock face of the Pillar Mountain.
Matt extended his fingers, clad in heavy suede gloves, and pointed to the lowest point of the rock wall at the bottom of the pit.
"Do you see that grayish-white rock formation?"
Following the direction of his finger, a huge rock mass, about four meters long and one and a half meters high, protruded from the excavation surface.
The surface has a cold, hard grayish-white tone with a rough, grainy texture.
"My buddy broke two industrial-grade tungsten carbide drill bits there yesterday afternoon, before the blizzard hit."
Matt put his hands on his hips and scratched his stomach through his clothes.
"That's native granite, far harder than any geological survey report for this area."
"Its Mohs hardness is at least 7 or higher; it's unreasonably hard."
Su Wei remained silent.
His gaze swept past the edge of the tunnel and settled on the protruding grayish-white rock layer.
The construction team's progress has stalled on this rock.
Explosives cannot be used due to the combined limitations of extreme cold and the stability of the mountain structure.
Forced blasting would loosen the rock above, directly destroying the physical defense layer of the entire ammunition depot.
This means that the defenses of a million-level fortress will have an irreparable weakness.
"If it were just granite, the brand-new tungsten carbide drill bit shouldn't have broken."
Su Wei unzipped his down jacket.
He braced himself with one hand on the icy mud at the edge of the tunnel, and with a powerful leap, he nimbly jumped down to the bottom of the two-meter-deep pit.
The soles of the boots slammed into the icy mixture of snow and water, splashing up.
He waded through the mud and water and walked to the huge gray-white rock.
He took off his right hand glove and stuffed it into his outer pocket.
His bare five fingers were spread out, and his palms were pressed directly against the rough, cold rock wall.
Extremely low temperatures instantly strip away heat from the skin's surface.
But Su Wei's fingers did not tremble at all, pressing firmly onto the rock surface.
A pale golden curtain of light silently opened at the edge of the retina.
[ Crafting Module LV2 Derivation New Branch: Ecological Landscaping LV3 Operation.]
[Branch Skill: Substrate Analysis LV1 Unlocked.]
[Scan range locked, analysis command issued.]
As the subtitles changed, a faint blue light, visible only to Su Wei, silently cut into the hard rock layer from his palm.
The scanning progress bar slowly advances in the upper left corner of your field of vision.
5%...12%...
Feedback data began to flood in like a waterfall.
[Surface matrix analysis: moisture 2%, porosity 0.05%]
[Main extracted components: silica (68%), feldspar (22%), biotite (5%).]
[Conclusion: Granite-like dense structure, Mohs hardness 6.8.]
The data is normal.
It is indeed a standard, extremely hard granite parent rock.
But Su Wei's fingers did not move away.
The porosity reported by the system showed an extremely small, irregular fluctuation after penetrating 30 centimeters into the rock mass.
[Increasing resolution, expanding depth... 30cm... 50cm...]
Su Wei brought his index and middle fingers together.
Slowly move to the right along the grayish-white rock surface.
The rough, grainy texture feels like it's being rubbed against your fingertips.
In a depression covered by ice, he felt an extremely fine crack.
Those are not marks left by violent excavation.
That's a natural layered structure.
"This hardness is wrong."
Su Wei maintained the pressing posture.
Granite, as an igneous rock formed by the cooling of magma intrusions, should have a uniform and unlayered overall structure.
This continuous bedding line contradicts basic geological logic.
The brain rapidly retrieved data on the geological movements of Kodiak Island.
The collision zone between the Pacific Ocean Plate and the North America Plate has created a complex network of fault lines.
Intense hydrothermal activity once occurred here.
If hydrothermal fluids flow along the fault line and penetrate the parent granite rock, they will form fillings with a completely different composition.
The hardness of such filling material is often much higher than that of the surrounding rock mass.
This also explains why even tungsten carbide drill bits would break at that specific location.
" Matt."
Su Wei withdrew his hand and put his gloves back on.