116: Chapter 116 Fuel Collection

"Brother Wu, if possible, please invite her over. I want to see if she's worth me asking that senior to step in once." Only the hope of avenging Yan Qingcheng could attract her to meet him. By saying this, Cao Xiao knew Wu Feng would use this reason to convince Yan Qingcheng to come, and he would hold the initiative.

"I'll contact her in a bit." Wu Feng looked delighted and agreed excitedly.

"By the way, Brother Wu, how do you know her? Logically, you shouldn't have served in the same unit. Do you have some kind of relationship with her?" Seeing how much Wu Feng cared about Yan Qingcheng, Cao Xiao was curious if there was a connection.

Wu Feng sighed and said, "Uh, there's no direct relationship, but Yan Qingcheng is very famous among all special Forces. There aren't many people who can be called a Soldier King, and she's a woman on top of that. The two units we were in performed several missions together, and that's when I met her. She saved my life. Since she's much younger than me, I treat her like a younger sister. After her incident, the leaders were all worried about her. I've also been following her movements and contacted her a few times. I originally wanted to help her after I retired, but she refused. She said we weren't suited for that kind of work and that it would bring shame to the country."

Cao Xiao felt a surge of respect. She carried a deep grudge but hadn't lost her mind; even after retiring, she stayed true to her original intentions. "Sigh! She's quite a stubborn woman. I'll see her when she gets here. If these years of mercenary life haven't made her lose herself, I'll swallow my pride and ask that senior to help once."

"Thank you, Mr. Cao!" Wu Feng thanked him with surprise and gratitude.

"Don't thank me. You guys risk your lives following me, so I must ensure you have no worries. Alright, go and rest! Brother Duan, Brother Li, please help me take my aunt's family to the hotel." Cao Xiao waved his hand and said.

"Okay." Duan Hong and the other man responded and went to start the cars.

After seeing off Ren Keyong's family, Cao Xiao began browsing metal smelting technologies in the intellectual brain. Excluding the two superalloy technologies, there were over a thousand other raw material processing technologies. Most were obtained by scanning and analyzing the batch of home appliances and electronic products he got last time and then optimizing them. They involved processing and synthesis technologies in fields like polymers, semiconductors, ceramics, and engineering plastics. However, some were just improved formulas without adding new materials or processes, with performance about 10% to 30% higher than the original products. Of course, this was only relative to the civilian sector. The material level of these appliances and electronics wasn't the best among existing similar products, but it was enough for civilian use. Cao Xiao selected those that Hongdu's subsidiaries could produce without needing to upgrade existing machinery, requiring only minor changes in production processes and material formulas.

After filtering for a long while, he only found twenty-four items suitable for selling to Hongdu. These new technologies did not overlap with other similar patents in the world. Products manufactured with these new technologies performed about 20% better than Hongdu's existing products, and production costs were significantly reduced to about 90% of the original. Once Hongdu digested these technologies, each one could make Hongdu Group's products leaders in their respective domestic fields and comparable to any similar civilian products internationally. With improved performance and lower costs—down by about 10%—profits would increase significantly, and market competitiveness would be even greater.

Referring to transfer fees for similar technology patents found online, he roughly estimated the value of these technologies, only to sadly discover that based on online examples, these twenty-four patents could at most sell for several hundred million—and that was in huaxia currency. Yet, for some enterprises, each of these twenty-four patents was a highly sought-after advanced scientific research achievement, providing immense help and serving as the lifeblood of corporate development—something that couldn't be bought even with massive amounts of capital.

This valuation method severely underestimated the value of these technologies. He would need to hire industry experts or a specialized appraisal team to get a more accurate result. But that would take a lot of time, and since he currently had no idea how much they were worth, he felt uncertain. Moreover, even if he estimated the actual value and sold the technology to Hongdu, the price might be slashed in half. They were almost family now; a 50% discount would be lucky if they didn't expect him to give it for free. If he was unlucky, he might just get some more stocks instead of seeing any actual cash.

It seemed that selling technology for cash wasn't viable; he had worked for nothing. However, the technologies in the intellectual brain should be sold as soon as possible to realize their value. They didn't necessarily have to be sold to Hongdu Group. He could sell them to domestic enterprises in the form of patent licensing, and not just to a single company. He could consider licensing each technology to one to three companies. If he was afraid of not getting a good price, he could use an auction to gather companies for bidding. After returning home, he would start preparing for the second Tianxing Auction.

Unwilling to give up, he checked the items in his space again. When he saw those hundreds of tons of gold, he suddenly slapped his head, cursing himself for being stupid and inflexible. These things were very valuable but hard to sell openly, yet they could be used as collateral for bank loans! He hadn't considered bank loans before because he didn't have enough high-value collateral. But the first things he thought of were real estate and company stocks. Real estate was out of the question; mortgaging both villas wouldn't yield much. Tianxing and Dizang Company weren't much better; mortgaging them entirely would only net a billion huaxia currency at most, a drop in the bucket. Using half of Tiandu Company's shares as collateral would be enough, but doing so would involve Hongdu Group's headquarters, and Yueyou's parents would definitely find out immediately, which would lead to trouble.

But this gold would work! He didn't even need much; thirty tons would be enough to solve the problem. One ton of gold is worth about 250 million huaxia currency, so thirty tons would be 7.5 billion huaxia currency, equivalent to 1.15 billion us dollars. Mortgaging it for a loan would definitely involve a discount, but gold is a value-preserving precious metal. As long as the loan amount didn't exceed 90% of the gold's actual value, the bank would try to lend him as much as possible. If he couldn't repay the loan, the bank would make a huge profit.

However, he wouldn't take a loan from a South African bank; he had to consider Dapu's feelings to some extent. Once things here were settled, it wouldn't be too late to return home and get a loan from a domestic bank. According to his estimation, he wouldn't need this money for at least half a month.

Having found a solution for the funds, his mood improved. Before it got dark, he began practicing his boxing forms in the courtyard. Perhaps because of his good mood, while practicing, he actually found a sensation of Force. He was instantly overjoyed. In just a few days, he had actually touched upon the sense of Force. As long as he practiced more with this feeling, he could master Force and meet Hou Jingsheng's entry requirements. But Cao Xiao had high ambitions. Since he had perceived the essence of Force so early, mastering it wouldn't take long. He wanted to fully master the Force throughout his body within a month, thereby adjusting his internal and external energy through standing post and breathing methods to reach the Obvious Power realm in one go. He was already far behind others. Knowing that those legendary extraordinary people truly existed gave him a sense of urgency. The spatial ability of the industrial mother machine wasn't omnipotent. No one knew what magical abilities those people had—silent poisoning, cursing enemies from thousands of miles away, or mental control. If these methods truly existed, they could ignore his spatial measures and plot against him. Better to be prepared; that world was too dangerous, and he would eventually come into contact with it. Improving his own strength was never wrong.

Cao Xiao didn't stop until dark, even with Ren Keyong's family and the bodyguards watching. This session of boxing was hearty and refreshing, leaving his whole body feeling transparent, but his stomach was painfully hungry. After taking a pleasant hot bath, he took everyone to the best nearby hotel for a big meal, serving as a welcome for the bodyguards and his aunt's family. Cao Xiao's appetite was growing, and recently he was especially keen on eating beef. He alone finished several steaks, eating until his stomach was full and round.

...

The next morning, Cao Xiao asked Dapu to help rent a Bell 429 helicopter and handled the flight route permit. He took Duan Hong, Li Quanshuo, Cheng Xiaodao, and Niu Zhen and flew toward Johannesburg. The destination was Witwatersrand, south of Johannesburg. The straight-line distance from Cape Town to Johannesburg is over 1,300 kilometers. Taking a flight would involve waiting, and once in Johannesburg, they'd have to transfer to a car to reach Rand; he feared they wouldn't arrive before dark. That's why he had Dapu rent a helicopter to fly directly to Rand. The Bell 429 helicopter has an economic cruise speed of 255 km/h, an endurance of 3.8 hours at that speed, and a maximum takeoff weight of 3.2 tons. The five of them plus the pilot weighed less than a ton. By carrying some extra fuel on board, they could stop midway to refuel and reach Rand in five hours. After spending a few hours in Rand, they could rush back to Cape Town by night.

Cao Xiao's main purpose for coming to Africa was to collect fuel for the atomic energy reactor. The atomic energy reactor can not only collect energy through nuclear fission of radioactive elements but also perform nuclear fusion reactions. However, the fuel for nuclear fusion comes from seawater, and collecting it takes too much time. Therefore, he chose uranium metal as fuel. Compared to other radioactive metals that can be used for nuclear fission, uranium not only has large reserves but also relatively low mining costs.

The global distribution of uranium resources is extremely limited, with Australia, Canada, Kazakhstan, and South Africa accounting for over 80% of the world's uranium reserves. South Africa's low-cost uranium resources amount to 341,000 tons, accounting for 8% of the world's reserves. The Witwatersrand paleo-conglomerate gold-uranium deposit, located south of Johannesburg, South Africa, is the world's largest gold deposit. 98% of South Africa's gold is distributed in the Rand Triangle of Transvaal Province and Orange Free State. South Africa's uranium deposits are mainly concentrated in the gold-uranium conglomerates of the Witwatersrand Basin, which are conglomerate-type gold-uranium deposits with large reserves and low grades, where uranium is recovered as a byproduct. There are more than 20 industrial uranium ore layers in the conglomerate, extending from several kilometers to dozens of kilometers. They are divided into seven gold fields with a total of more than 100 gold deposits. The ten largest gold deposits in the Rand Basin have each produced more than 90 tons of gold.

At two o'clock in the afternoon, the helicopter Cao Xiao was on reached the Rand Basin. He didn't plan to go to those active gold mining areas; taking minerals from owned mines without permission would easily lead to discovery. The four main gold-bearing conglomerate layers in the Rand Basin cover an area of about 300 by 150 kilometers, with the ore layers extending 290 kilometers along the strike and having a thickness of over 3,000 meters. One could say there were minerals everywhere underground; there were bound to be some undiscovered ones. Even a small deposit would be enough for him. He just needed to find an unclaimed spot to go underground and look around; with some time, he would eventually find something.

So Cao Xiao had the helicopter land in an open area where there were no mining zones within a ten-kilometer radius. He sent the pilot and bodyguards to have a picnic on the spot while he disappeared into the jungle under the pretext of meeting someone. Duan Hong and the others weren't suspicious; Wu Feng had already told them that Cao Xiao was in contact with a mysterious expert, so traveling this far to pay a visit made sense. With that expert around, they weren't worried about Cao Xiao's safety. After Cao Xiao disappeared, they and the pilot leisurely began grilling with the ingredients they had brought.

Cao Xiao found a low-lying spot and dug a hole into the ground. He didn't start digging horizontal tunnels until he reached a depth of a hundred meters. He took out the motorcycle he had bought in Changhua from his space, moved quickly through the tunnel, and began detecting the geological structure within a two-hundred-meter radius. Based on the analysis of changes in the metal content of the rocks, he inferred the possible direction of the uranium-gold ore layers. After circling in a one-kilometer diameter round tunnel, he followed the instructions of the industrial mother machine based on his inferences, continuously heading down diagonally until he stopped three kilometers away at a depth of two thousand meters underground. He changed into a suit of clothes that covered him completely without a single gap; this was something he had specially made for radiation protection.

The conglomerate layer at the end of the tunnel was gold conglomerate, with a thickness of three meters. It was composed of 70% gravel and 30% cement; gold and uranium were concentrated in the cement. The ore-bearing conglomerate layer contained a large amount of minerals such as gold, silver, uranium, osmium, iridium, and pyrite. Within a hundred-meter range, the average gold content of the ore was 110 grams per ton, and the uranium content reached 0.05%, making it a rare enriched ore layer.

The exact reserves were still unclear, but they were definitely not small because he also found an ore layer eighty meters below, and new layers might appear even deeper. He didn't have much time and couldn't be gone for too long, so he couldn't afford to slowly ascertain the reserves. He immediately rode the motorcycle along the ore layer to collect the ore, while simultaneously starting the smelting process in his space. Except for the useful metals, the other impurities were melted into magma and filled back into the ore layer. After busy working for more than ten minutes, he finished collecting the ore from this layer and then moved on to the next. An hour and a half later, all five ore layers had been collected. After all the ore was smelted and the impurities were filled back into the layers, he returned the way he came.