My sampan can be upgraded

Regarding Ling Qi's speculation about the disappearance of the bug, Chu Hong also joined in the fun and expressed his own opinion: "There is also a possibility that the bug has hidden deep in the floating island. The detection wave of this kind of prospecting radar can only penetrate more than ten kilometers deep. The formation is normal, so it’s normal that it can’t be found.”

"Come on, Old Chu, bugs will eat up all organic matter. If they still existed on this floating island, would they allow so many plants to grow?" Ling Qi denied his statement and was sure that there would be no bugs on the floating island.

Xiaorou analyzed from the perspective of natural evolution: "We may have encountered natural enemies, but I can't imagine any natural enemies for the Zerg!"

While they were discussing on the maintenance spacecraft, the spacecraft in the valley had already cleared a large mountainous area, and then stretched out another mechanical arm with a shield facility on the top, and started digging a hole at a certain location.

At this time, the team exploring other areas successively detected two places where mother worm mucus crystals were suspected to be present. Guan Tong couldn't hide his excitement and said several good words in the fleet channel, thinking that this exploration would yield good results.

The excavation in the valley suddenly stopped. Ling Qi paid attention to the progress report and learned that they had dug through the original cave inside the mountain.

Immediately afterwards, he saw a hundred soldiers flying out of the battleship in individual combat aircraft. This type of individual combat aircraft is like a closed motorboat, even smaller in size. It is equipped with automatic energy guns and energy cannons, uses energy blocks to provide energy, and is driven by force fields and ion thrusters. It is very flexible.

These soldiers drove the aircraft into the hole. They were divided into ten teams. The team leader's vision was shared with the entire fleet, allowing the rear to grasp the situation on the front line at any time.

Ling Qi saw through their field of vision that ten teams passed through the entrance and entered a cave more than 20 meters wide, winding into the depths of the mountain. On the way, they saw some forks leading to other directions, but they did not disperse. They just placed a monitor at the intersection of these forks and continued to move to the deepest point.

About six kilometers deep, ten exploring teams entered a huge underground space. The inner diameter of this space is more than one kilometer, and it is irregularly shaped. There are a large number of caves around it, one of which is more than 200 meters wide.

Under the illumination of the searchlight, bright light was reflected from tens of meters in the middle of the ground, part of the cave wall, and the inside of the largest cave entrance. One look at this pattern, and without further confirmation, it is certain that these light-reflecting crystals are the mucus crystals of the female worm. They are like adhesives that penetrate into the soil of the cave wall and solidify into a mixture that is countless times stronger than reinforced concrete.

On the ground, a thick layer of mucus provides the female worms with a comfortable breeding environment.

"When it is developed, it is at least a level 6 mother worm. Just a layer of high-purity crystals on the ground alone contains at least thousands of tons!" A sound of swallowing saliva came from the fleet channel, and I didn't know which team member it was.

Ling Qi was a little disappointed when he heard this. If it was only level six, it would be of no use to him. His vehicle does not need to strengthen the hull and does not need these catalyst-level crystals. What he needs is enough ninth-level or even god-level female insect mucus crystals to fully strengthen all the matrices on the vehicle.

"Now that it has been confirmed, this place will be designated as the No. 1 crystal mine, and we will seize the time to develop it immediately. The largest hole should be in the direction where the mother insect leaves. Two teams are divided to explore its exit to facilitate the entry and exit of the collection spacecraft. The remaining teams are on guard in place. ." Guan Tong regained his composure and issued such an order on the fleet channel.

"Copy that!" The two teams flew into the largest hole, and a few minutes later passed out of an even larger valley two kilometers away. If the previously detected location was here, it would be much easier!

The spaceships and battleships in another valley rose up, crossed the main body of the four ridges, and moved to the location of the largest cave entrance. Four small mining spacecraft and twenty transport speedboats flew out of the spaceship, and flew into the cave one after another. They first came to the underground space to mine the crystals with the highest purity. A mechanical splitter was extended from the mining spacecraft, and the crystals were cut into pieces with a plasma knife, and then transported to the transport speedboat.

On a planet, conveyor belts would be set up during mining like this, but obviously there is no such time on a floating island. Moreover, there are generally not many female mucus crystals in each insect hole, and they are relatively concentrated. By the time the conveyor belt is set up, they have already been mined and transported.

Just like now, at this speed, it only takes them two hours at most to mine the No. 1 mine.

At this time, two other insect caves were also confirmed, one of which was level three and the other level five.

The mining work was carried out in an orderly manner, and new insect holes were discovered one after another. The total number reached more than eighty, with varying levels of content. The highest level was level eight, which was only one level away from what Ling Qi needed, which made him feel like a cat scratching his head. .

After seven days, a total of nearly 300 crystals were mined, mainly concentrated in the outer two-thirds area. The spacecraft responsible for monitoring issued a warning. The floating island was thrown up by the waves and reached its peak. It began to fall back under the influence of gravitational balance and entered the "spring tide" stage. At this stage, the impact of the sea water will become greater and greater, and the height of the tide will become higher and higher. When it falls back to its lowest point, the seawater can submerge most of the floating island, leaving only a small amount or even none at all above the sea.

The fleet seizes the time to exploit the peripheral tidal areas. Five days later, the total number of mining sites reached more than 500, and large areas of the outer area were submerged. The area of ​​floating islands exposed to the sea was less than 10,000 kilometers, and it continued to shrink. However, the rate of shrinkage dropped.

The fleet began to explore the middle area of ​​the floating island. "There should be a level nine insect hole in the middle area!" Ling Qi thought, full of expectations, and began to think about how to sneak into the frontline team.

It wasn't until another day passed that Ling Qi found an opportunity. The mining ship of one of the mining teams broke down. The maintenance engineer of the battleship entered the scene and tried to repair it, but found that the most troublesome matrix damage was beyond his ability.

Just when Guan Tong ordered the mining ship to be dragged out and handed over to William, Ling Qi took the initiative and said: "Let me go and have a look. If it can be repaired on site, there is no need to drag it out."

"It still needs to be dragged out. Repairing it in the wormhole will affect the operation." Chen Fan, the leading expert of the exploration team, said.

"Okay, tell them to drag it out first, and I'll go down now." After Ling Qi finished speaking, he piloted the maintenance spacecraft to land from an altitude of 100,000 meters. Neither Guan Tong nor William spoke out to stop it, and acquiesced in leaving the job to him.

This insect cave has only level five and is located in a relatively flat area. However, the cave environment is very complicated, with straight up and down twists and turns, and Ling Qi doesn't want to get into it. When he landed on the ground, the damaged mining ship was also towed out by a transport speedboat.