Chapter 505 - 331: Saint Tier! "Void Divine Travel: Celestial Star Orbit
Chapter 505: Chapter 331: Saint Tier! "Void Divine Travel: Celestial Star Orbit
The chill of early spring lingered, a fickle warmth that came and went. The Northeast, in particular, remained a world of ice and snow.
The Songhua River.
Spring ice dams had blocked the river, causing an ice flood. In the Hacheng section, this year’s ice dam was exceptionally high, breaking historical records to reach an alarming 15 meters.
Fortunately, Luo Feifei and her Water-Inference Ice Element were on site.
Li Xiang constructed a "magma channel" in the Jiamusi section of the riverbed, drawing upon an "Earth Vein Furnace" from deep within the earth. It released billowing heat to melt the ice sheet, while Luo Feifei used her Ice Superpower to precisely control the timing of the ice shelf’s fracture.
Next, Li Xiang used his Earth Superpower to widen the Qiqihar-Tongjiang section of the river from 300 meters to 600 meters. He also optimized the gradient to 0.8‰, accelerating the flow of the floating ice downstream.
This series of masterful moves completely eliminated the threat of the ice flood, extended the winter ice tourism season by forty days, and the cold water resources helped establish Asia’s largest cold chain logistics base along the banks.
...
The Tarim River, the Sea of Death.
The challenge here was that its middle and lower reaches had been dry for over thirty years, and its terminal lake, Taitama Lake, had dried up, causing vast swathes of poplar trees to die off.
Using his Otherworldly Warehouse, Li Xiang transferred 20 billion cubic meters of water from Southern Tibet into the riverbed, while simultaneously constructing an "Underground Crystal Vein Reservoir" at the Aksu section to store water.
Zhao Xueqing, meanwhile, activated the "Ancient Gene" within the poplar seeds, allowing their root systems to delve 200 meters underground to draw water. Jiang Cai’Er’s plan included a "Smart Drip Irrigation Grid" that could achieve 95% water conservation efficiency.
The "Sandhill Solidification" was particularly noteworthy.
Li Xiang used Star Meteor Flowing Sand to compress the shifting sand dunes into sandstone platforms. Of course, this was just simple compression to make the dunes more solid and compact, not to the level of creating hundred-ton grains of Star Sand. That would have been too time-consuming and impractical.
Then, he transported the silt dredged from other water systems and "shook" it out onto the sandstone platforms, forming a soil layer three to five meters thick. Zhao Xueqing then led the ecological restoration task force in planting various types of vegetation, creating oases.
Previously, Li Xiang had stored 100,000 tons of sand from the Yellow River to condense into "Star Sand," but for convenience, he had dumped the rest into the depths of the Pacific Ocean. This was because the sand from the Yellow River was too fine and smooth to be of much use. However, the silt from other water systems—like the Yangtze River, Qiantang River, Fuchun River, Gan River, Pearl River, Heilongjiang River, Huangpu River, Tai Lake, Dongting Lake, and Poyang Lake—was almost all rich in organic matter, making it exceptionally fertile soil. It would have been a terrible waste to throw it all away. So, after an expert proposed the idea and it was discussed by the group, they decided to transport it to the great northwest for sand stabilization.
Turning desert into an oasis was nothing short of a miracle.
After these operations, the waters of Taitama Lake were restored to their 1970s levels, an additional 300,000-plus square kilometers of oases were created, and the Taklamakan Desert vanished completely.
Eight other deserts vanished as well, such as the Gurbantünggüt Desert, the Badain Jaran Desert, the Tengger Desert, and the Kumtag Desert.
...
Dust clouds blotted out the sky between the gullies of the Loess Plateau. Li Xiang’s Giant Whale Saint Armor refracted a cold, blue light under the harsh sun.
An earth-yellow ripple spread out, radiating from him in all directions. On the distant horizon, a continuous, ring-shaped mountain range suddenly rose. The rumbling sound startled herds of wild camels, sending them fleeing in panic.
In the middle, a massive reservoir had formed, about a hundred meters deep at the center, with shallow areas (<5 meters) at the edges, and a diameter of over eighty kilometers. Its preliminary estimated capacity was around 120 billion cubic meters.
For now, the reservoir was completely empty—just an enormous, bowl-shaped crater.
But there was no rush. With a flicker of movement, Li Xiang brought Luo Feifei to Lake Baikal.
Lake Baikal has a total volume of 23.6 trillion cubic meters, equivalent to one-fifth of the world’s freshwater resources. It is not only the world’s deepest lake but also a massive treasure trove of global freshwater. Located in Southern Siberia, it is not far from China, and at Li Xiang’s speed, the trip was a matter of minutes.
The two of them leaped into the lake. Li Xiang opened the entrance to his Otherworldly Warehouse, while an azure ripple emanated from Luo Feifei’s body.
She spread her arms like a swan stretching its neck, and endless streams of clear lake water, guided by her fingertips, rushed into the Otherworldly Warehouse.
Afterward, the two returned to the great reservoir and poured the water from Lake Baikal into it, a torrential cascade from the heavens. The water crashed against the Crystal Vein Filtering Layer at the bottom, creating a rainbow-hued halo.
Engineer Old Wang, who was setting up monitoring equipment, felt his hand tremble, nearly dropping his total station into the reservoir. He stared at the display showing the rapidly rising water level and capacity, muttering, ’It’s only been ten minutes... That’s equivalent to how many years of our water diversion efforts? I’m getting old, my brain’s not what it used to be. I really need to sit down and calculate this.’
This was not the only reservoir; there were eighteen in total. This was the "Star Sea" plan.
After all the water systems had been dredged, Li Xiang used his Earth Superpower in the designated locations within the water-scarce provinces of the Northwest, Huabei, and other regions to establish eighteen massive reservoirs. Each had a storage capacity of over 120 billion cubic meters, bringing the total capacity to over 2.16 trillion cubic meters.
With Luo Feifei’s assistance, he used the Otherworldly Warehouse to transport vast amounts of freshwater from Lake Baikal to fill these reservoirs. This plan was a brilliant parallel to the Hongqi River Project, achieving a similar grand outcome through different means.
These eighteen massive reservoirs not only solved the current problems of drinking and general water use but also secured a water source for the Apocalypse.
This was because during the Apocalypse, the surface of the land freezes over, and so does the surface of the sea. It still snows for the first year or so, but then the snow stops, and the water cycle ceases. Areas like the Northwest and Huabei have always been short on water, and this becomes even more severe during the Apocalypse.
An area like the one near Li Xiang’s home would certainly have no need to worry. There was abundant groundwater, and the Yangtze River was nearby. While the Yangtze River would certainly freeze, they could always take ice from the river and melt it for water.