Chapter 545 - 343: Star Sand on the Fingertips, Heaven and Earth in the Palm: Li Sheng’s Helium-3 Revolution and the Extraordinary Fire Seed
Chapter 545: Chapter 343: Star Sand on the Fingertips, Heaven and Earth in the Palm: Li Sheng’s Helium-3 Revolution and the Extraordinary Fire Seed
Jiang Cai’Er had returned to Tsinghua Garden to continue her studies and research, managing to balance both without issue.
Her twin sons had gone with her, and Jiang Jianguo and his wife were there helping to take care of them.
As a Tier Sixteen Extraordinary Being, Jiang Cai’Er’s milk supply was ample. She nursed the babies three times a day, and they drank prepared formula the rest of the time.
During the day, she would find time to pump and store some milk in the refrigerator. Specialized, electric mother-and-baby equipment for this purpose was available on the market, complete with sterile storage bags, making it very convenient. This was because she sometimes got so busy that she didn’t have time to go home and nurse the children.
Every day, the grandparents would push the babies in their stroller around the picturesque Tsinghua Garden, enjoying the scenery. They had already visited the kindergarten affiliated with Tsinghua University and decided their grandsons would attend school there in the future. ’This school is really nice!’
The affiliated kindergarten, elementary school, and middle school offered an all-in-one service. However, they would probably only get to attend the kindergarten.
After all, once the Apocalypse arrived, Jiang Cai’Er would definitely take her whole family back to the underground base in Li Family Village.
...
The 72 Hive Underground City clusters each contained 12 satellite cities. Among these satellite cities, some were purely industrial, relying heavily on robots and mechanical arms, and thus had very small residential populations.
Among them, approximately 36 satellite cities were used to stockpile nuclear fuel rods.
These were all enriched nuclear fission fuel rods, stockpiled for future use.
As a core member of the project, Li Xiang naturally knew their distribution. The 36 sites were located in different Hive Underground City clusters, and due to the radiation, the protective measures were extremely strict.
The rods were encapsulated in stainless steel or copper-iron composite canisters, which were filled with an inert gas like argon. The canisters had to pass helium leak tests to ensure their seals met long-term storage requirements.
The exterior of the canisters was also wrapped in lead or high-density concrete, combined with a borated steel interlayer, to shield against neutron and gamma radiation and reduce external radiation risks.
In addition to these measures, there were various monitoring and environmental control systems. Every five years, canisters were opened for random inspections of the fuel pellets to assess their oxidation levels and mechanical properties.
If Helium-3 could be successfully implemented, these traditional nuclear fuel rods, with all their drawbacks, could be phased out.
But Li Xiang had only just returned from collecting it, and many challenges still needed to be overcome before large-scale application was possible. For now, these traditional nuclear fission fuel rods still held immense strategic value.
’It was best to be prepared on two fronts.’
The Li Family Village Underground City also had a nuclear fuel rod warehouse, located about twenty kilometers from Li Family Village itself. Li Xiang had personally inspected it.
Not only was the storage of nuclear fuel rods extremely complex, but after use, they became "spent fuel" that still required intricate processing procedures with exceptionally high standards. This only further highlighted the value of Helium-3.
The nation had undertaken this plan as a contingency. In the event that nuclear enrichment plants were destroyed and humanity lacked the capability or personnel to rebuild them later, the stored nuclear fuel could last for several hundred years. This buffer of several centuries would provide enough time to re-establish the nuclear facilities.
Of course, if civilization suffered a devastating blow, it might never be possible to rebuild them. In that case, the fuel supply would simply be finite, dwindling with each use.
In short, the nation was preparing for the worst-case scenario.
This was also related to Li Xiang’s "repeated emphasis." Although he was a Saint Tier with a speed of Mach 40, 700,000 jin of Giant Power, and a formidable Earth Ability—hailed as the strongest expert on Earth—there were far more powerful beings among the Space Exotic Beasts. Some could reach speeds of several hundred Mach, or even thousands or tens of thousands of Mach. With bodies hundreds of kilometers long, they were simply not something Li Xiang could handle.
Furthermore, although he had never seen one, he couldn’t rule out the possibility of planet-sized Exotic Beasts.
Li Xiang couldn’t guarantee that he could protect everyone. He was only one person. If several powerful Space Exotic Beasts attacked at the same time, he would be tied down, unable to rescue other locations.
In short, he had to state the ugly truth upfront, lest everyone adopt a relaxed attitude simply because he was around.
Moreover, Li Xiang repeatedly emphasized his appeal to all nations: do not use nuclear weapons unless it is absolutely the last resort. While nuclear weapons were powerful, they could only kill Exotic Beasts below Tier Eighteen. They couldn’t even severely injure the truly powerful ones. Instead, their use would fill the surface environment with radiation, contaminate water resources, and even if humanity managed to retake the surface later, it was unknown how many years it would take to recover.
The Black Mist Star Realm was exceptionally vast, and powerful Exotic Beasts were countless. Even if all nuclear bombs were used, leaving Earth riddled with craters, it wouldn’t fundamentally harm the Exotic Beasts.
The Exotic Beasts’ lairs were in space; those that came to Earth were merely a small fraction.
And if the Exotic Beasts absorbed nuclear radiation, they would undergo more unpredictable mutations and grow even stronger.
Another point was that nuclear weapons were a Pandora’s box. Once their use began, nations would start launching them at each other. With a mentality of "if I can’t survive, neither can you" and "if my life is miserable, I’ll make sure yours is too," they would launch nukes everywhere under the pretext of fighting Exotic Beasts. ’I’ll secretly send a few your way, and you’ll never even know who did it.’
Mutual suspicion would mount, with each side feeling that more nukes were landing on their territory, compelling them to launch more at the other.
’It was just like that in his past life.’
This led to one of Li Xiang’s major initiatives.
He issued a declaration titled: "Convention on the Restriction of Nuclear Weapons in Terrestrial Security Emergencies."
It was bilingual, in both Chinese and English.
The wording was also very precise. The word "Restriction" reflected the core stance of "prohibited unless absolutely necessary," which was not an outright ban but a strict constraint on the conditions of use.
And the phrase "Terrestrial Security Emergencies" emphasized that exceptions were only permitted when the very survival of humanity was threatened.