Chapter 23: Titanium-Zirconium Mining Plan

Words : 1472 Updated : Sep 12th, 2025

With the Hope, a Village-Class fusion-powered spaceship, Xiao Yu could truly appreciate the convenience brought by technological advancement. The Hope was designed from the outset as a dual-purpose vessel capable of operating in both interstellar space and near-planetary environments. This made tasks such as satellite launches and interplanetary cargo transport dozens of times more efficient than before. Using the Hope to launch 18 Saturn-system satellites alone saved Xiao Yu an enormous amount of material resources that would have otherwise been consumed by building 18 rockets. Having decided to establish a complete signal network for the entire Saturn system, Xiao Yu ramped up satellite production. By this point, Xiao Yu had completed his foundational accumulation. Aside from the relative scarcity of titanium and zirconium, Titan’s 93 bases produced an inexhaustible supply of resources around the clock. With these abundant resources, Xiao Yu could focus on developing new technologies without concern. Countless robots worked tirelessly, never needing rest as long as energy was sufficient. Under their efficient labor, satellites were mass-produced, and the Hope was responsible for transporting them to their designated positions. The titanium-zirconium mining plan had officially commenced. These satellites, in addition to their basic communication functions, were also equipped with highly sensitive elemental analysis instruments for detecting titanium and zirconium. Xiao Yu believed that if these elements existed in the Saturn system, his satellites would find them. It took the Hope three full months to deliver nearly 80 satellites into orbit. Since there were no stable Lagrange points in the Saturn system, seven of the satellites were placed in orbits around Saturn’s moons, while the rest orbited Saturn itself. At this point, the entire Saturn system was covered by Xiao Yu’s signal network. As long as the Hope stayed within the Saturn system and didn’t enter a celestial body’s interior, it could maintain contact with Xiao Yu. The Saturn system is vast. Before Earth’s destruction, humanity had confirmed the existence of at least 62 moons orbiting Saturn. After settling on Titan, Xiao Yu discovered numerous additional rocks orbiting Saturn. However, these objects were too small to be considered moons and were classified as meteoroids. Among the 62 known moons, only seven had enough mass to achieve hydrostatic equilibrium, meaning they were spherical in shape. Hydrostatic equilibrium occurs when a celestial body’s mass generates enough gravity to balance its internal forces, leading to a roughly spherical form. This is why all large celestial bodies observed by humanity are spherical or nearly spherical, while smaller asteroids lack sufficient mass and often have irregular shapes. These seven spherical moons became Xiao Yu’s primary search targets. Seven satellites were specifically launched into orbits around these moons. For the smaller moons, Xiao Yu piloted the Hope through a winding course to visit each one individually. The results, however, were disappointing. It was as if some divine creator had deliberately excluded titanium and zirconium from the Saturn system. Despite an exhaustive search, Xiao Yu found no significant deposits of these two elements. Some traces were detected, but the quantities were so minuscule that they held no practical value. The low concentrations and high extraction difficulty rendered the discoveries effectively useless. After three months of fruitless searching, Xiao Yu wisely decided to abandon the effort. This left him with two choices. First, he could expand his operations to the inner planets, such as Mars or Earth’s former orbital region. Second, he could extend his search to the outer planets, specifically Uranus and Neptune. Weighing the pros and cons, Xiao Yu opted for the first option. The reasoning was simple: Neptune’s orbit lies 1.4 billion kilometers from Saturn, while Earth’s orbit is only 1.3 billion kilometers away. The distance difference was negligible, with Earth being slightly closer. Furthermore, Earth’s orbital region was known to contain abundant reserves of titanium and zirconium, as previously confirmed by human research. Neptune, on the other hand, would require additional exploration to determine whether these elements were present. “Alright,” Xiao Yu sighed, beginning to plan his return to Earth. However, the plan posed a major challenge: the vast distance involved. At such a distance, even signals traveling at the speed of light would take over 70 minutes to reach Earth’s orbit from Titan. This meant that any command Xiao Yu sent from Titan to the Hope in Earth’s orbit would take over 70 minutes to arrive. For someone who valued absolute control, this delay was unacceptable. Additionally, without the Hope in the Saturn system, routine tasks like satellite launches and repairs would come to a standstill. Conversely, if Xiao Yu left the main base on Titan to accompany the Hope to Earth’s orbit, all construction on Titan would halt without his supervision—a situation Xiao Yu was equally unwilling to accept. “Real-time communication... I don’t know when I’ll ever be able to develop that,” Xiao Yu muttered wistfully. He desperately longed for faster-than-light communication technology. Real-time communication, as the name implies, would allow instantaneous communication regardless of distance. The most promising avenue for its development on Earth had been quantum entanglement-based communication, rooted in quantum mechanics. However, this technology was still theoretical, far from being tested in laboratories, let alone applied in reality. Xiao Yu had no way to achieve it either. Nevertheless, he planned to construct a massive particle collider around Proxima Centauri after arriving there to advance his foundational physics research, which might eventually enable real-time communication. In truth, humanity’s scientific progress had stalled for decades before Earth’s destruction. Developments were limited to refinements within the frameworks of relativity and quantum theory, with no groundbreaking theoretical advancements. Humanity’s apparent technological prosperity had merely been a facade masking the stagnation of fundamental scientific breakthroughs. Real-time communication, without a doubt, could not be achieved within the current framework of physics. Shaking off these thoughts, Xiao Yu turned his focus to solving his immediate problems with existing technology. “I’ll have to rely on programming. Over a distance of 1.3 billion kilometers, I can only maintain basic control over the Hope. For detailed operations, I’ll need pre-written programs to guide it autonomously. Also, with the Hope leaving, I’ll need another spacecraft to handle interplanetary transportation in the Saturn system,” Xiao Yu contemplated. “Specimen One doesn’t have enough radiation strength left to build another spacecraft, so I’ll have to use the Hope to capture more Jovian Phantoms first. But Jupiter is 700 million kilometers away, and even signals take 40 minutes to travel one way. Relying on preprogrammed instructions to face those dangerous creatures makes me uneasy,” Xiao Yu sighed, continuing his calculations. “At the Hope’s speed, it would take a month to reach Jupiter, plus time for capturing the phantoms. The round trip would take about two and a half months. Fine, I’ll leave the main base for now and make a trip to Jupiter. Meanwhile, I’ll program the Hope to autonomously handle mining in Earth’s orbit. I can’t afford to delay any longer.” Gradually, Xiao Yu formulated a detailed plan. Once the framework was in place, Xiao Yu refined the details, focusing on how to maximize output with limited resources and time. “If I’m heading to Jupiter, I might as well pave the way for the Earth mission. Let’s place a high-powered communication satellite at the Sun-Saturn Lagrange point and another at the Sun-Jupiter Lagrange point. That should largely solve the communication problem.” With this decision made, Xiao Yu immediately began constructing the two satellites. Leveraging his prior experience building nearly a hundred satellites, the process was efficient, taking only a month to complete. After finalizing preparations, Xiao Yu loaded the satellites onto the Hope. He also ensured proper management of the 93 bases on Titan, shutting down unnecessary machines, pausing mining operations, and programming robots to handle routine maintenance tasks. With everything arranged, Xiao Yu transferred his consciousness to the photon computer aboard the Hope. While the Hope’s main computer was also a photon computer, its computational capacity was vastly inferior to the one at the main base. However, Xiao Yu didn’t plan to conduct any large-scale calculations on it and considered it a temporary respite. Piloting the Hope, Xiao Yu departed Titan, first heading to the Sun-Saturn Lagrange point. After placing a satellite there, he accelerated the Hope further. Within three minutes, the spacecraft reached a speed of 350 kilometers per second, swiftly exiting the Saturn system and speeding toward Jupiter. The journey to Jupiter took a month. As Xiao Yu once again gazed upon Jupiter’s familiar visage, he couldn’t help but feel a surge of excitement. “I said I’d be back! With the new materials enhanced by the Black Bug carcasses, let’s see how you deal with me this time! Surrender peacefully and become my construction materials!” Reaching a 100,000-kilometer orbit around Jupiter, Xiao Yu let out a defiant cheer.

Chapter 23: Titanium-Zirconium Mining Plan

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