In a certain area of water about 10 kilometers away from the Crystal Palace, a B-2 dish-shaped submersible was hovering there.
Lu Xuejiang was observing the seabed outside through the electronic screen, while on a seat next to him, Yu Xin was preparing to change into a diving suit.
"Thank you so much for being willing to send me to such a far place for seabed exploration." Yu Xin said with a smile, expressing his gratitude while doing a final check on his scuba suit.
"You're welcome, I'm just along for the ride." Lu Xuejiang waved his hand carelessly, "Our patrol team originally needed to inspect nearby waters to check for potential dangers... and I happen to be in charge here."
He didn't mention it. In fact, he changed positions with his colleagues, which led to the "succession".
Yu Xin began to change clothes next to him - taking off his long pants and long sleeves, putting on a stretchy diving suit that fit the body, and putting on flippers, etc.
Although he was still wearing tank tops and shorts during the whole process, Lu Xuejiang stared at the screen, looking for words: "This seabed doesn't look dangerous, there is no magma, and there are no undercurrents... But having said that, your exploration team really only uses Can the naked eye tell what mineral deposits there are on the seabed? I have always found it amazing."
"Not all of them can be identified," Yu Xin said with a smile. "Only the most common mineral deposits, such as rutile, manganese nodules, etc., can be identified at a glance. Others still need to collect samples and analyze them with instruments."
"I don't know anything about what you're talking about." Lu Xuejiang scratched his head.
"Here, let me point it out to you." Yu Xin came closer and pointed at the electronic screen, "This one looks like red agate, which is the rutile I just mentioned. It can be used to refine titanium... You know titanium, titanium The alloy has high hardness, is light in weight, and has excellent performance. Your B-2 submersible probably uses a lot of titanium alloy.
"Treading on the Stars"
"These are like black coal briquettes scattered all over the seabed. They are cobalt-rich manganese crusts. The manganese needed for steelmaking comes from here. This is also a mineral that the Crystal Palace needs very much..."
"Hey, there is actually monazite?" Yu Xin said, and he was also surprised, "Look, those rhombic columnar crystals, like a bouquet of colored diamonds, are monazite! Rich in rare earth elements, glass , ceramics and circuit boards are all used in the production... I didn’t expect that the mineral resources on this seabed are so rich!”
"It seems that you can successfully complete the task this time." Lu Xuejiang secretly glanced at Yu Xin, who had unknowingly squeezed into his side, and laughed in a low voice.
"Yes, it's a pity that it's not an energy vein! But these discoveries are also very good. I will mark them all on the mineral map." Yu Xin's face turned red with excitement, and he accelerated the progress of putting on the diving suit.
In the brief silence, Lu Xuejiang said again: "How did you memorize so much knowledge... I can do well in exercising, but looking at these theoretical things gives me a headache!"
"I don't know either." Yu Xin shrugged, "It is said that we all lost our memory when we arrived at the Crystal Palace and can't remember anything from before, but I always have a vague feeling that this knowledge seems familiar? Anyway, I learned it quite quickly. ."
"That must be because you are smart." Lu Xuejiang shook his head, "Have you forgotten how we were dressed at that time? And since we were treated as tributes in the gift ceremony, we must have been poor people who were struggling for food and clothing... Even if you have the past It’s impossible for me to have such high-level knowledge even if I have a limited memory.”
"That's right." Yu Xin put on the diving suit and smiled at Lu Xuejiang, "Brother Lu, let's talk later. I'll go down first."
"Well, well, you go." Lu Xuejiang said hurriedly, "But don't go too far, I will patrol around here and come back to pick you up in about an hour!"
At the same time, the dish-shaped submersible is controlled to flip 180 degrees, belly facing up.
The small round door that was originally at the top was now at the foot.
Yu Xin nodded, quickly opened the small metal round door at his feet, and got out.
————
"It should be this way."
Lupine swam anxiously in the water.
He has suddenly transformed into the form of a wise dolphin and can swim very fast! However, due to the need to search carefully, he was traveling in a general direction while weaving back and forth horizontally like threading a needle, so the overall progress was not fast.
Lu Ping was in the Crystal Palace. After contacting his mother Yu Xin to no avail, he contacted his father Lu Xuejiang on the spot.
But the latter also did not respond.
However, after many inquiries, Lu Ping finally found an insider in the patrol team! The man said that Lu Xuejiang changed posts with him, took over from him, and went to patrol in the direction of 20 degrees north by east.
Lu Ping followed this only clue and found it directly.
Although the Crystal Palace was urgently closed, Lu Ping was worried about the safety of the two of them at this time, so he would not care about such a dead rule... Anyway, the Crystal Palace has no walls, only a virtual barrier, and his fish-man form is close to the top of the captain level. No one can stop you from rushing out of the Crystal Palace.
As for whether he will be held accountable after coming back... that will be a matter later.
Lu Ping searched quickly all the way.
On the other side, after Yu Xin left the dish-shaped submersible, he sank to the bottom of the sea and began to carefully observe various ores.
She held a small tool with a sharp end and a blunt end in her hand, tapping and chiseling here and there. Occasionally, she put some stone specimens into a sealed bag and put them in her backpack.
She circled the seafloor in a clockwise direction, gradually expanding the radius of the exploration to ensure that nothing was missed.
At a certain moment, a bottomless crack suddenly appeared in front of us!
Yu Xin couldn't help but stop curiously.
She soon discovered that there were many sulfur-containing mineral rocks nearby, as well as traces of various minerals such as zinc, uranium, odor, tin, etc... These traces seemed to be more dense in the depths of the cracks.
"Sulfur-containing mineral rocks are usually formed by the cooling of seafloor magma, and magma may indeed bring out many minerals in the mantle... Then this gap is likely to be a seafloor volcanic crack many years ago." Yu Xin thought judge.
From the various traces nearby, Yu Xin couldn't see any signs of recent eruptions, so he decided to go down and have a look.
He tied a safety rope to the largest rock nearby and tied the other end around his waist. Yu Xin began to sink along the crack, and his figure was gradually swallowed by darkness.
However, her diving mask also had lighting equipment, and she quickly turned on the spotlights, illuminating everything nearby.
Yu Xin was stunned by this illumination.
Because deep in the cave... there are densely packed white spheres.
They look like super-large pearls, each one at least as big as a human head.
These pearls were even slightly translucent. Yu Xin looked closely and saw that in the center of each pearl, there was a small fish or shrimp, or other marine life, solidified.
A large number of pearls are attached to the rock wall, like a weird aquarium exhibit.
"Pearls are actually stones in the body of shellfish, but such a big pearl...how big a shellfish must be to form it?" Yu Xin's thoughts quickly turned, "And why are there so many giant pearls here...could it be said that this seabed crack Is it a place where a large group of giant shellfish lives?"
"Uh, what is that?" Yu Xin suddenly shrank.
She slowly approached it, and when she saw the thing clearly, her hands and feet suddenly became cold.
Those are actually some human skulls!
White and round, they cling to the rock wall like pearls. At first glance, they look similar, but upon closer inspection, I realize something is wrong.
"No, we have to go." Yu Xin was covered in hair and hurriedly pulled on the safety rope and swam upward.
But when she swam out of the crack in the seabed, her body froze and she almost forgot to breathe.
Next to the seafloor crack, on a relatively flat seabed...
The giant body, which is ten meters high, is lying there leisurely on its side, one hand picking at his feet in boredom, and the other hand supporting his chin... But his head is not a human head, but a huge closed shell. Look. The hand that seems to be supporting the chin is actually supporting the bottom of the shell.
"Has anyone ever told you that it is rude to go in without permission when others are not at home?" The shell giant made no move, but his voice seemed to ring in Yu Xin's heart.
