Chapter 300 2 Anchor Lock Star

Outside the porthole, the massive metal mountain of the Peregrine-07, with its cold silence and physical mass of six thousand tons, continued to glide into deep space.

The ninety-second landing and pile driving nearly drained the true essence of the six Golden Core cultivators inside the Po Jun cabin, but for the entire [Meteorite Capture Project], the most magnificent engineering struggle had just begun.

"Main platform in position. Buffer support array starting at full power!"

Inside the temporary control room of the high-orbit main platform, two hundred kilometers away, Lin Feng stared intently at the main control screen. On the virtual panel in front of him, all twelve data bars representing the titanium crystal anchor chain launch ports were lit up with a scarlet, ready-to-go glow.

On the ground, in the Kyoto Joint Control Room.

Wang Mingyuan braced his hands on the control panel, his gaze sharp as he watched the real-time transmitted 3D orbital topology map. The escape countdown for Peregrine-07 was ticking wildly.

"Connect the networks according to the predetermined sequence!" Wang Mingyuan issued the command, enunciating each word clearly.

boom--!

The four heavy mechanical launch pads on the outer side of the main platform emitted a blinding aura of spiritual pressure. Four incredibly thick superconducting titanium crystal anchor chains shot out silently in the vacuum, precisely locking the four towing anchor points on the front of the Peregrine-07.

"Frontal engagement confirmed! Po Jun, guide the dorsal side!"

"Roger!" Qin Lie gripped the control stick with both hands, activating the Po Jun's attitude engine to maximum. The escort vessel, acting as a relay node, quickly corrected the launch angle, guiding the remaining eight titanium crystal anchor chains to deflect towards the side and bottom of the meteorite.

Click! Click! Click!

As the last few physical locks snapped shut, a dull thud traveled back to the control room along the anchor chain.

"All twelve array positions synchronized and connected! All arrays connected!" Lin Feng roared. "Activate the twelve-level delay array network!"

Capturing a 6,000-ton meteorite traveling at several kilometers per second cannot be achieved by simply pulling and dragging it from the main platform. The true deceleration logic lies in utilizing the speed difference and, through the perfect interlocking of array formations and machinery, gradually releasing the drag force.

Following Lin Feng's command, the twelve towing anchors on the surface of the Peregrine-07 suddenly lit up.

The base, reinforced by the "bone-forging" effect of stellar energy, perfectly withstood the extreme spiritual pressure infusion. A layer of eerie blue spiritual light rippled rapidly between the twelve anchor points on the meteorite's surface.

This is a high-level array application with strong characteristics of cultivation civilization. Twelve anchors, pre-driven into extremely deep rock layers, are connected by stellar source energy and transformed into a giant force-dissipating barrier covering half of the meteorite. Through spiritual energy resonance, it is gradually changing the spatial resistance coefficient around the meteorite.

"Prepare for the impact of residual kinetic energy, deploy the line, and engage the damping array in level one!"

Even though the delaying array has already taken effect, the enormous inertia of a 6,000-ton mass should not be underestimated.

The twelve titanium crystal anchor chains were not stretched to their maximum tension instantly. Instead, under Lin Feng's precise control, they acted like extremely resilient giant springs. While slowly releasing their length in line with the Peregrine-07's gliding trajectory, they gradually increased their resistance to tension through the main platform's damping array.

Crunch-!

Along the outer edge of the main platform, the three-meter-thick titanium crystal main load-bearing truss emitted a dull, teeth-grinding friction sound.

"The main truss is experiencing a surge in stress, with an instantaneous overload of 80%! It is within the engineering redundancy safety line!" Green and yellow lights flashed alternately on the screen in front of Lin Feng, but no red alarm for a collapse appeared.

"Stabilize the damping array and decelerate the force layer by layer through the star-collecting station nodes," Wang Mingyuan commanded from the ground.

The twelve anchor chains were taut in the vacuum, and the massive mass of the main platform served as a stable control base station. In conjunction with the hysteresis barrier of the traction anchor, the kinetic energy of the Peregrine-07 was gradually dissipated.

The meteorite's escape trajectory began to deflect slightly, and the deceleration was taking effect smoothly.

"Lin, there's a slight fluctuation in the bottom resonance at anchor point number seven," an observer reported. "The stress surface is tilting by a very small amount."

Lin Feng glanced at the rock density map that had been returned. The piece of starry tungsten gold that Chu Qing had smashed when he drove in the seventh anchor had caused a slight obstruction in the transmission of spiritual energy near the anchor point.

But this is not a fatal crisis. The positions of the twelve traction anchors have been repeatedly simulated using supercomputers, and the fault tolerance rate is extremely high.

"It won't affect the overall situation." Lin Feng tapped his hands lightly on the control panel, calmly making fine adjustments. "The supercomputer will adjust the thrust ratio, the spiritual pressure at array position seven will be reduced by five percent, and array positions three and nine will receive vector compensation."

The instruction has been issued.

The dodecagonal traction net covering the surface of the Peregrine-07 swayed slightly, and with a ripple of light, it quickly regained its perfect force balance.

Now that the twelve traction anchors have been precisely driven into their designated positions, this engineering system, which combines the highest computing power with top-tier cultivation formations, will not easily malfunction. There will be no dramatic collapse or loss of control, only extremely rigorous parameter calibration and a cold struggle between the laws of physics.

The next twenty minutes or so turned into a long and tedious industrial tug-of-war.

With the continuous unloading of the twelve traction anchors and the methodical tightening of the main platform's damping array, the Peregrine-07's violent kinetic energy was smoothly eliminated. Its trajectory was scientifically and slowly lowered and bent, and the massive metal mountain obediently changed direction in the vacuum.

Two kilometers.

800 meters.

Three hundred meters.

"Target relative velocity has been brought under control! Hysteresis array enters standby mode; temporary escort trajectory lock complete!"

The moment Lin Feng reported this data, both the high-orbit main platform and the ground joint control room, two hundred kilometers below, fell into a deathly silence that lasted for half a minute.

Looking through the porthole of the Po Jun, Qin Lie saw that the six Golden Core cultivators who were recuperating in the rear cabin had also opened their eyes.

The metal-rich meteorite, 45 meters in diameter and weighing 6,000 tons, had now been properly towed into the escort orbit outside the main platform. It no longer drifted into deep space along its original trajectory, but was instead securely anchored at the entrance of the human industrial system by twelve shimmering titanium crystal chains.

What a breathtaking spectacle of heavy industry!

In the ground control room, Wang Mingyuan slowly took off his fogged-up glasses and exhaled a long breath.

"We did it."

Looking at the dot of light on the radar screen, so close to the main platform, Old Chen, an old-school scholar who had dealt with cold data for years, felt his hands trembling slightly.

The trusses of the main platform, groaning with metallic fatigue, and the energy-consuming buffer arrays, silently testify to the immense scale and weight of this colossal project. This was an engineering victory achieved through extreme rationality and precision.

Everyone knows that this is only the first step in this grand plan.

Next, how to establish a mining array in a weightless environment? How to laser-cut this 6,000-ton iron mountain? How to refine these natural cosmic materials and load them into a heavy-duty transport capsule to be transported back to the home planet? Behind these challenges are hundreds and thousands of obstacles that need to be overcome.

But that's enough.

"From this moment on, the Peregrine Falcon-07 is no longer a meteorite passing by Earth, but the first mine that humanity has built at the door of high orbit."

Wang Mingyuan put his glasses back on, his eyes flashing with an unprecedented sharpness—the ambition for civilization's outward expansion. He looked at the celestial body firmly anchored on the screen and said softly:

"For the first time, humanity did not wait for the starlight to fall."

"We reached up ourselves and tore off a piece."