As of now, the land, sea, and air combat forces of the Tomorrow were as follows.
Land: Convoy One and Convoy Two, along with the Storm Infantry Vehicle.
Air: Six Black Hawk Helicopters and the Vanguard Armed Gunship.
Sea: Originally composed of four Tier 1 Speedboats forming Convoy One and Convoy Two, plus the newly expanded Tier 2 Speedboats and Tier 2 Mini Submarines.
Just assigning personnel to these land, sea, and air vehicles had already deployed a significant number of combat personnel.
Not only that, the combat personnel on the Tomorrow who operated the Cannons and Heavy Machine Guns, as well as those normally responsible for patrolling, maintaining order, and guarding the Armor Deck—this was another group entirely.
"So, our combat personnel now total 247."Lin Wu concluded.
Upon seeing this number, Li Ye couldn’t help but be a little surprised.
After all, there were only around 500 people in total on the Tomorrow, and nearly half were combat personnel.
It made the Tomorrow seem like a Predatory City."In any case, for the sake of future development, we absolutely must expand our population."Lin Wu stated.
"So how many people are we planning to recruit this time?"Li Ye asked.
"Preferably two thousand."Lin Wu replied.
Li Ye nodded.
There was no need to worry that such a large influx of people would throw the Tomorrow into chaos.
After all, the Tomorrow’s management system had gradually become more refined. It had the City Committee, a stable leadership team, and a strong combat force.
On the other hand, most survivors entering a Mobile City were simply looking to stay alive. Unless life became utterly unbearable, rebellion was unlikely.
Overall, the Tomorrow’s living resources were still adequate.
It had drinkable freshwater supplied by the Jieyuan City Purification System, and the Public Canteen provided vegetables, melons, poultry meat, eggs, and fish meat daily.
Ordinary people who came aboard did not become slaves, but started off as residents of Tier T7-3.
If they wanted to raise their rank, they could become combat personnel and instantly reach Tier T4-3.
The City Committee would issue them a Resident Card, allowing them to earn Contribution Points through work and purchase various supplies on ordinary days.
"By the way, can the Tomorrow’s living resources support an additional 2,000 people?"Li Ye asked.
"That’s nothing to worry about."Lin Wu answered,"The Tomorrow currently has ample farmland, and it harvests a batch of crops every one or two weeks. There's enough food."
"That’s good."
Several hours later, after fully organizing the naval combat force, the Tomorrow led its companions out to sea.
At the same time, the Peacemaker, originally on land, had completed its Waterborne Driving Modifications with assistance from the Engineer.
After a long journey, the Tomorrow Alliance arrived at a sea area rich in natural gas fields.
It was already morning.
Li Ye, having woken from sleep, climbed up to the Watchtower and picked up the Binoculars to scout the area.
This sea region was relatively remote and shouldn’t attract any troublemakers to interfere with the Tomorrow Alliance’s extraction work.
Just a few dozen nautical miles to the west lay land—the Plateau Zone.
Naturally, the natural gas field surveying was the responsibility of the Engineer.
However, at this point, this Engineer-type Mobile City found itself in an awkward position.
The main issue was that it lacked any engineering-type seaborne survey vessels.
Moreover, its Tier 2 Goblin Petroleum Survey Vehicle couldn’t operate in water.
Fortunately, Li Ye intervened in time to solve the problem.
He dispatched the six Black Hawk Helicopters from the deck to airlift the Goblin Petroleum Survey Vehicle and conduct surveys around the sea region.
The Goblin Petroleum Survey Vehicle was quite heavy, and it took two Black Hawk Helicopters working together to lift it.
Thus, they were divided into three groups, each heading in a different direction.
A dozen minutes later, all three groups had discovered natural gas fields.
"There are actually this many natural gas fields?"came Zhou Xing’s delighted voice through the Walkie-Talkie.
Yang Zheng and Fang Yong were also surprised.
Li Ye smiled faintly.
If the three of them knew that the number of natural gas fields in this sea region was about the same as the Sedimentary Basin, they would probably be shocked enough to have their jaws drop.
Several Mobile Cities then split up to begin the extraction operations.
Extracting the natural gas fields in the sea was actually not much different from doing it on land.
The base of the Mobile Cities opened a breach, extending Automated Drilling Rigs that slowly bored into the seafloor.
As the Hydraulic Drill Heads tore through the seabed rock layers and reached the natural gas fields, the continuous flow of natural gas was pumped through pipelines into the Storage Gas Tanks on the Mobile Cities.
Dozens of minutes later, Li Ye made a quick tally of the harvest.
The natural gas field he extracted was medium-sized, producing a total of 921 units of natural gas.
Natural gas, like petroleum, could serve as fuel for Mobile Cities, so the price was similar. In terms of Crystal Coins, it was equivalent to more than 9,000 Crystal Coins.
In addition, natural gas could also be used for heating, cooking with gas stoves, and so on — though few Tier 2 Mobile Cities would be so extravagant.
During this time, new natural gas fields kept being discovered, and the four Mobile Cities were completely overwhelmed.
"My god, this time we’re really going to strike it rich!"Fang Yong’s delighted voice came from the Walkie-Talkie.
As the Lord of the defensive-type city Iron Whale, his favorite thing was fuel.
As long as there was fuel, the Iron Whale would have abundant power.
On Zhou Xing’s side, there was a big move.
He had discovered two adjacent large natural gas fields.
At the current drilling scale of a Mobile City, it would take a very long time to finish extracting them.
Therefore, the Engineer needed to construct a Drilling Platform at sea.
As a collection-obsessed engineering type, Zhou Xing had gathered the Tier 1 Blueprint for a Maritime Drilling Platform.
Building one required 900 units of Tier 1 Iron Ore — rather expensive.
But the Tomorrow Alliance had acquired a five-digit quantity of Tier 1 Iron Ore in the Valley Zone, allowing Zhou Xing to go all out this time.
With a thunderous roar, this Tier 2 Engineer-type Mobile City began operations. The Mechanical Arms, Work Claws, and Cranes on the deck activated in sequence.
The Mechanical Arms began driving the hollow Steel Columns, crafted in the Production Workshop, into their designated positions.
On the deck, the Cranes successively lowered the octagonal Float Boxes into the water. As these giant floaters hit the water, they deployed their Hydraulic Supports, blooming like mechanical water lilies on the sea surface.
The Work Claws then began securing them.
As the lower hull of the Drilling Platform — that is, the Floating Structure — was completed,
The Engineer used its Cranes to hoist the Drilling Deck, Power Compartment, Derrick, Anchor Winch, Anchor Chains, and Drill, all built in the Production Workshop, onto the lower hull and started the assembly.
During this, the Mechanics and Apprentices on the Engineer used the Elevator Platforms to reach the deck and began welding and riveting.
It had to be said, the engineering capability of a Tier 2 Mobile City was quite astonishing. Within a few hours, the Drilling Platform had taken shape.
Driven by the crew of the Engineer, the Drilling Platform officially began operations.
It stabilized itself on the floating sea surface with the Anchor Chain Array, activated high-strength Drill Heads to pierce the seabed rock layers, and inserted Casing Pipes after each segment to prevent high-pressure gas from breaking through the rock.
When the Drill Head reached the gas-bearing layer, natural gas continuously flowed upward through the pipelines.
This Drilling Platform operated multiple pipelines simultaneously, extracting from two large natural gas fields.
If Li Ye had been there, he would have discovered that the Engineer was far more professional than he had imagined.
The extracted natural gas on the Drilling Platform was piped into the Engineer, where a custom-built device performed three-stage gas-liquid separation.
The first stage separated free water and solid impurities from the natural gas.
The second stage removed the condensate oil.
The third stage finely filtered out tiny particles.
The Engineer also had a Tier 1 Simple Separation Compressor Project, which had already been completed.
This machine would liquefy the extracted natural gas and store it in the Storage Gas Tank.
Compared to land-based platforms, a Maritime Drilling Platform had a unique advantage.
That was its floating structure — it was not fixed to the seabed.
After the surrounding gas fields were exhausted, it could be towed by a Mobile City to another gas field to continue extraction.
After a full day, Li Ye made another quick tally of the gains.
A total of 12,521 units of natural gas — equivalent to 100,000 Crystal Coins.
The most absurd part was — this was just the beginning.
Feeling satisfied, Li Ye rubbed his chin and began to think about a problem.
With so much natural gas, he needed to find a way to sell it and realize its value.
Last time in the Sedimentary Basin, the Tomorrow Alliance had everything going for them — perfect timing, location, and manpower.
They had abundant oil fields, hired thugs from recruited Mobile Cities, and the support of the Western Wasteland Continent City Auction House.
They had practically mined and monetized everything with ease.
But this time, it wouldn’t be so simple.
"Maybe we should transport this batch of natural gas to Storm Island, as mentioned by the Lord of the Silver Courier, and sell it there."he thought.
However, the next day, Li Ye changed his mind.
Because a piece of Legendary Intelligence had refreshed.
And its contents were actually related to Wormholes.
【7. Within the coming week, a large number of Wormholes will appear in the Western Wasteland Continent. One will appear in the Valley Zone in one hour. Start from the coast of the Valley Zone, travel forward 25 kilometers, then head southeast for 15 kilometers to locate the Wormhole. (Intelligence Value: Legendary).】
【Current Number of Wormholes: 301】
【Below is the location and distribution map of all Wormhole destinations (the map will be available for one week).】
When Li Ye skeptically clicked, a full map of the Western Wasteland Continent suddenly popped up in front of him. The map detailed the location of each Wormhole, its destination, and how long it would remain open.
Some Wormholes were one-way transfers, others were two-way transfers.
Li Ye couldn’t help but rub his eyes, filled with wonder.
It had to be said, this time the value of the Legendary Intelligence was unexpectedly decent.
Thus, an idea immediately formed in Li Ye’s mind.
The Tomorrow would jump through Wormholes, using them to teleport to other regions of the Western Wasteland Continent and sell natural gas.
By doing this, it could even leap to the northern part of the Western Wasteland Continent in a very short time to conduct Exploration.
The Intelligence had mentioned before that the Red Ridge Zone was the starting point for the Human Forces to build the Sky Road.
With so many Mobile Cities opening up roads, there would surely be massive energy demand.
As long as the Tomorrow could reach the Red Ridge Zone, selling natural gas would be no issue.
In the meantime, he could also look for the resources needed to promote to a Level 3 City, investigate the whereabouts of the Tier 2 City Crystal, and obtain some Level 3 Blueprints.
After all, the Tomorrow had a Level 3 Mobile City Resource Transmission Device on board.
This device worked in pairs.
One was on the Tomorrow, and the other had been entrusted to an ally.
After verification and binding through the Lord’s Wristband, the two Mobile Cities could transmit resources to each other.
In other words, even if the Tomorrow teleported to another region of the Western Wasteland Continent through a Wormhole, the Engineer could use the other device to continuously transmit the extracted natural gas over.
Without hesitation, Li Ye immediately gave the order for the Tomorrow to return to the Valley Zone.
Before that, he specifically dispatched the Black Hawk Helicopters to bring the three Lords aboard the Tomorrow’s deck and gave a series of instructions.
Zhou Xing and the other two listened to Li Ye’s words, one astonished moment after another.
In their eyes, Li Ye seemed to be blessed by the heavens, succeeding in everything he did.
But for them as companions, this wasn’t a bad thing.
"The natural gas we extracted really needs to be sold somehow,"Zhou Xing nodded."And while exploring other regions through the Wormholes, you can also purchase the resources needed to promote to a Level 3 City and try to buy some Level 3 Blueprints while you’re at it."
Although the departure had already been decided, Li Ye still had some concerns.
The Tomorrow was the main combat force in the Alliance. If it wasn’t present, it would be hard to respond to any emergencies his companions might face in time.
To address this, he decided to leave the newly built Convoy One and Convoy Two to his companions.
That way, their defensive strength in this sea region would increase significantly.
After settling all matters, the Tomorrow, fully loaded with over ten thousand units of freshly extracted natural gas, set off back to the Valley Zone.
Several hours later.
"Why did you suddenly come back?"
On the coast of the Valley Zone, Mick widened his eyes in surprise.
Gailas, lying on the ground, flicked its tail in greeting to the Tomorrow.
The Tomorrow then began its Land-driving Mode conversion.
Since the Land-driving Modifications would take several hours to complete, Li Ye simply chatted with Mick.
During this, he noticed that Gailas, lying on the coast, had recovered considerably.
This Emperor Beast could even sit up now.
The Medical Clamps on its left paw had also been removed.
It had to be said—the vitality and recovery ability of an Emperor Beast were truly formidable.
Now, Gailas was already capable of hunting at sea.
It was just that the wound on its abdomen hadn’t completely healed, so it moved a bit slowly.
As the two of them chatted on the deck, Gailas slowly straightened up and looked toward the Tomorrow.
From the look in its eyes, it seemed it wasn’t looking at the Mobile City itself, but rather at Li Ye.
"Don’t be surprised, it’s looking at you,"Mick explained."Gailas knows you are the Lord of this Mobile City."
Li Ye took a deep breath.
After these days of interaction, he had come to understand the Emperor Beast somewhat.
These colossal creatures were absolutely top-tier stat monsters—and surprisingly intelligent.
Thankfully, their numbers were limited, or else this planet would be under their rule.
Just then, Gailas let out a low Hissing Roar.
Using the Universal Monster Translator in his hand, Mick relayed Gailas’ message to Li Ye.
"It’s very grateful for the help from you and your companions these past days. If you ever need anything, just let it know."