Chapter 317 Helium-3 Mining and High-Purity Lunar Rock Raw Materials

Beside the mine, three hundred engineering monks wearing the [Xuanwu-II Type Sun Chaser] armor were engaged in another extremely brutal heavy industrial assembly.

"Blast furnace module base in place. Clips locked."

"The miniature concentrator array is connected to the main power supply line, and the pressure feedback is stable. We are preparing to erect the middle section of the blast furnace."

Team leader Lao Liu stood atop a raised meteorite rock, issuing commands with a cold, hard tone. Directly in front of him, an industrial marvel jointly designed by the Cultivation Array Court and the Earth Surface Heavy Industry Group was rising from the ground.

It was named "Taiyi Bagua Furnace".

However, the appearance of this furnace has absolutely nothing to do with the ethereal, dragon-and-phoenix-carved alchemical furnaces described in ancient texts. It is a heavy industrial blast furnace, fifty meters high and fifteen meters in diameter, cast entirely from special tungsten steel and star rock waste.

The blast furnace's outer wall lacks any cooling water pipes for heat dissipation, only densely packed [fire control array patterns] and [dividing cauldron array patterns] deeply etched into the bottom layer of its metal armor. It resembles a black steel cannonball inverted on the moon, exuding a terrifying sense of oppression born purely to withstand extreme high temperatures and pressures.

"Top sealing complete. Taiyi blast furnace assembly complete."

"Guidance team, cut the end of the conveyor belt into the blast furnace feed inlet. Prepare for the first ignition and trial run."

Following Lao Liu's instructions, the massive conveyor belt slowly turned, pouring a continuous stream of dark ilmenite and lunar soil directly into the open feed hopper at the top of the fifty-meter-high Taiyi furnace.

"Feed chamber sealed. Vacuuming complete. Main engine power supply activated."

The core array plate at the bottom of the blast furnace lit up instantly. Twelve kilometers away, the [Great Sun Spirit Drawing Array] intercepted and converted the star energy, which then surged wildly into the bottom of the blast furnace along the microwave transmission channel and the relay pillar.

"Industrial-grade plasma flame, ignite."

boom!

Even on the moon's surface, in the absolute vacuum, and even through the one-meter-thick special tungsten steel furnace wall, all the engineering cultivators present still felt a terrifying heat wave that caused the armor's temperature control system to go into overdrive.

Inside the furnace, instead of traditional coal or heavy oil combustion, the [Fire Control Array], infused with immense psionic energy, forcibly raised the internal physical temperature to an astonishing 8,000 degrees Celsius within three seconds!

The hard ilmenite and lunar soil, upon contact with this industrial-grade plasma fire, had their melting and boiling processes compressed to an extreme degree, directly transforming into a furnace of dark red, raging magma.

However, in the system of cultivating immortality through heavy industry, high temperature alone is meaningless; the real core lies in the "separation" at the microscopic level.

"【Dividing Cauldron Array Pattern】Full power activation. Initiating dual physical and spiritual pressure screening."

On the outer wall of the blast furnace, the second set of extremely complex array networks lit up with a dazzling white light.

This is precisely the devastating impact of cultivation arrays on traditional metallurgical industries. Within the magma at 8,000 degrees Celsius, the [Dividing Cauldron Array Pattern] transformed into extremely precise microscopic molecular sieves. It requires neither chemical reducing agents nor complex sedimentation processes. The array directly locks onto the spiritual pressure resonance frequencies of metal atoms such as titanium and iron, using an extremely powerful gravitational array to forcibly peel these high-value metal atoms from the magma and drag them downwards.

Meanwhile, impurities and waste residues such as silica, which have no industrial value, are pushed to the upper part of the furnace by repulsive forces.

"Waste venting outlet opened."

The valves in the upper section of the blast furnace were opened, and streams of high-temperature, grayish-white slag were sprayed directly onto the lunar surface, where they quickly cooled into glassy residue without any spiritual energy fluctuations.

"Bottom discharge port open. Ready to receive standard modules."

Clang! Clang!

The heavy-duty gate at the very bottom of the blast furnace slowly opened. Accompanied by an extremely dazzling dark silver luster, standardized metal ingots, each three meters long, one meter wide, and weighing ten tons, were directly squeezed out of the furnace by the internal high-pressure array!

These are high-purity lunar rock and titanium steel blanks. Their surfaces are rough, but because they are formed in one piece under extreme high temperature and high pressure, they possess terrifying density and rigidity far exceeding that of conventional alloys on Earth.

"Rough blanks numbered one through ten have been produced. Physical hardness testing has met standards, and the internal crystal lattice structure is perfect."

As he watched the dark silver blanks continuously being ejected from the conveyor belt, Old Liu's eyes, hidden beneath his helmet, were bloodshot, but his clenched fists trembled slightly.

This means that humanity, on a desolate satellite 380,000 kilometers from Earth, has completely broken free from Earth's reliance on building materials. As long as the Titan Drilling Rig continues to dig and the Great Sun Spirit-Attracting Array continues to provide energy, this blast furnace can produce an unlimited quantity of these incredibly hard industrial modules.

The Guanghan Base now has an unlimited number of brick-making machines.

But the true trump card of the Taiyi Furnace is not just steelmaking.

Seal within the lunar soil lies a rare isotope gas, helium-3, possessing unparalleled value in the fields of nuclear fusion and cultivation. For billions of years, the solar wind, like the most generous seed planter, has buried these high-energy particles deep within the lunar soil.

Traditional aerospace technology requires heating the lunar soil to over 800 degrees Celsius and then filtering it through extremely large and inefficient gas separation equipment to extract even trace amounts of helium-3 from lunar soil. This extraction method, performed in a vacuum and low gravity environment, is prohibitively expensive.

However, under the burning of the plasma fire at 8,000 degrees Celsius in the Taiyi Furnace, all the helium-3 gas in the lunar soil was released the moment it entered the furnace.

"The gas pressure inside the blast furnace is soaring! Isotopic gases are being stripped off in large quantities!"

"Activate the [Qi-Locking and Spirit-Gathering Array]. Target molecular characteristics: Helium-3." Old Liu immediately issued the most crucial command for this operation.

At the very top of the Taiyi Furnace, an extremely tiny hemispherical array plate began to rotate at high speed.

This is a special array developed by the Grandmasters of the Array Academy specifically for capturing high-energy particles. It does not have a physical filter; instead, it directly creates a "semi-permeable spatial membrane" at the top of the furnace, allowing only specific masses and spiritual pressure frequencies to pass through.

In a high-temperature environment of 8,000 degrees Celsius, a large amount of escaped helium-3 gas mixed with other impurity gases tumbled wildly upwards.

The moment they collided with the [Qi-Locking and Spirit-Gathering Array], the impact of the cultivation civilization on microscopic particles was vividly displayed. The useless impurity gases were firmly blocked by the array barrier, while the helium-3 molecules, emitting a faint blue light and exhibiting an extremely active high-energy state, penetrated the array membrane without any hindrance, as if passing through a phantom.

"The capture net is closing. Activate the high-pressure collapse formation."

The helium-3 gas that passed through the array membrane immediately fell into an extremely terrifying gravitational trap.

The [Qi-Locking and Spirit-Gathering Array] forcibly compressed the spatial pressure within a ten-meter radius into a central point the size of a fist within a ten-thousandth of a second. Under such violent spatial compression, the distance between the molecules of those originally sparse isotopic gases was forcibly flattened.

Sizzle—!

Accompanied by the ear-piercing sound of extremely cold condensate being ejected, the special gas storage box at the top of the blast furnace was precisely locked by the robotic arm.

The helium-3, violently collapsed into liquid by the array, emitted a chilling, eerie blue glow and was pressed into the energy storage box without leaving a single drop.

"Energy storage tank number one is full. Helium-3 purity: 99.99%."

"Energy storage tank number two is in position, continue collecting."

Earth, Kyoto Joint Control Room.

On the large screen, various data are being updated in real time at a waterfall-like speed. On the left is the output of high-purity titanium steel billets continuously produced by the Taiyi Furnace, while on the right is the progress of liquid helium-3 collection, measured in milliliters, which makes all scientists' eyes light up.

Lin Feng, the chief scientist of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, looked at the data board in his hand, his fingertips slightly numb from extreme excitement.

"Professor Wang." Lin Feng turned around, his voice echoing in the hall, trembling with suppressed emotion, "The Jinghai operation team has sent the final confirmation report. The entire process for extracting associated lunar soil resources is running smoothly."

"Large-scale production of metal building materials has been localized. More importantly, we have obtained helium-3 with extremely high purity."

The breathing in the entire control room became heavy at that moment.

Wang Mingyuan stood before the enormous Earth-Moon-Star Map, his hands behind his back, his gaze intensely fixed on the increasingly bright coordinates on the far side of the moon.

"It's connected."

Wang Mingyuan's voice was extremely calm, but the high-ranking officials present could all hear the immense ambition that seemed to want to devour the entire galaxy.

"The 'self-replicating industrial chain' of the Taiyin Outpost has now completely closed its loop."

Wang Mingyuan walked to the control panel and slammed his fingers heavily on the table. "Relying on the lunar soil mined by the Titan Miner, the rough materials refined by the Taiyi Furnace, and the energy extracted by the Great Sun Spirit-Attracting Array... they can replicate a second, a hundredth Taiyi Furnace, and lay out 100,000 Great Sun Spirit-Attracting Array plates on the moon at the speed of mass production!"

"But that's not enough."

Wang Mingyuan's gaze suddenly turned cold as he pulled up a massive three-dimensional blueprint classified as top secret by the military. It was a deep-space structure with an extremely bizarre shape, composed of countless nested giant metal rings, and comparable in size to a small city.

"The distance between Earth and the Moon cannot be bridged forever by space elevators and slow-moving Gonggong-class transport modules. The physical distances of interstellar expansion must be utterly crushed."

"The reason we built a smelter on the moon despite the enormous logistical pressure and spared no expense to frantically mine this high-purity titanium steel and high-energy helium-3 is for this stuff."

Wang Mingyuan pointed to the top-secret blueprint and issued the final instructions for the next stage to the entire Cultivation Alliance.

"Send the order to Guanghan Base."

"All the high-purity titanium steel billets produced were transported to the center of the crater to lay the space anchor base. All the extracted liquid helium-3 was injected into the super-grade energy conduit."

"The physical carrier is sufficient, and the energy primer is ready."

"Initiating the final phase of Project Zero—preparing to lay the 'Interstellar Teleportation Array' on the far side of the moon!"