On the morning of the 11th day, everyone was woken up on time by the alarm clock.
Outside the porthole, a pure white nebula appeared, shaped like starfish scattered on the beach, exactly like the scene in the original materials—— They finally reached the destination of this mission.
Yue Xingwen came to the command room to meet his teammates, Major General Karen had a serious face, pointed to the nebula and said, “In front is the β-71 Nebula, there is a very small planet in the place where the nebula is blocked, and the unmanned scouts that we have sent out have taken images of the entire planet’s surface.”
With a slight swipe of his right hand, a huge virtual screen appeared in front of him, and the scene of the planet’s surface began to play on the screen.
Major General Karen whispered, “There are a lot of precious ores distributed on this planet. The drone has not found any signs of animal survival for the time being, and the specific environment needs to be investigated by yourselves.” He looked back at Yue Xingwen. “The purpose of your voyage is to collect ore samples and bring them back to the base for testing, and to conduct a detailed mapping of the distribution of ore veins on the entire planet. The environment on the planet is harsh, and you can command for help when necessary.”
Yue Xingwen nodded and said, “Understood.”
At this moment, the door was pushed open, and a female adjutant, with several soldiers, brought 12 fully loaded backpacks, saying respectfully, “The supplies you ordered have been prepared.”
Karen looked at these supplies and said, “The backpack is full of water and food, which can ensure your survival needs for a month. We wish you all a triumphant return!”
The NPC helped prepare the supplies, and Yue Xingwen was not polite. He asked his teammates to quickly take over the backpack.
At 8 o’clock in the morning, the spaceship carrier stopped near the β-71 Nebula, and six small reconnaissance vehicles took off from the mothership’s tarmac, and 12 people from the Action Team 183, divided into groups of two, landed quickly by aircraft.
The landing went very smoothly this time, and the group didn’t scatter as before. In just 10 minutes, the six aircrafts landed steadily on the planet according to the set path.
Yue Xingwen walked out of the hatch and looked around——
As they had just seen on the holographic screen, the surface of the planet was full of mountains. Unlike the lush mountains of the Earth, which were covered with greenery, the mountains here were bare, with no signs of vegetation in sight, and the soil was brownish-black in color, as if it had been burned.
Xiao Tu quickly reported the monitoring data: “The ambient temperature is 38 degrees Celsius, the humidity is 20%, and the oxygen content is 10%.”
Hearing this, Zhuo Feng couldn’t help frowning. “The oxygen content in the air on the Earth is about 21%, and the oxygen content here is only 10%… Fortunately, we have Xin Yan, so the source of oxygen is not a problem.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Ke Shaobin said, “If you are playing an online game, this kind of collection quest is definitely the fastest to split up. But now, the environment on the planet is harsh, and if you encounter the same kind of monster again, it will be dangerous for us to split up. There’s strength in numbers, and I think it’s more reliable to have everyone together?”
Yue Xingwen thought the same thing. Since everyone thought it was better to act together, he simply said, “Then 12 people should act together, safety is more important.” He paused, turned around and asked Ke Shaobin, “Can Xiao Tu detect the coordinates of the ore?”
Ke Shaobin turned on Xiao Tu’s range scouting function and said, “We can scout, but,” he pointed to the densely packed dots in the screen, “There’s too much ores around here, and Xiao Tu can’t accurately lock the mission target we need! It can only detect whether the target is an animal or an inanimate substance, and can’t distinguish the type and color of the ore.”
Yue Xingwen was silent for a moment, “It seems that we can only go to find it in person.”
Jiang Pingce made a suggestion. “The area of this planet is not large, we use Plate Movement and coordinate system to speed up the journey, and in 19 days, we can scout the entire planet. In order to avoid going back again, it’s better to divide the planet into regions and mark them.”
There was no such thing as day and night like on Earth, and they couldn’t locate East, West, South, North, so it was easy to walk around and get lost. Therefore, it was very necessary to mark the places they had been to avoid repeating them back and forth.
Yue Xingwen looked at Jiang Pingce and asked, “Do you want to divide the area according to the coordinate system?”
Jiang Pingce nodded. “Since it’s difficult to draw East, West, North and South, according to the mathematical algorithm, this planet is defined as a sphere, the center is the origin, divided into four quadrants, and the surface of the planet is four equal areas.”
Ke Shaobin asked, “When dividing into four areas, isn’t it necessary to calculate the size of the planet first?”
Jiang Pingce said, “En. I’ll start by accelerating around the planet using the formula for motion to figure out the circumference and radius.”
Calculating the surface area of a sphere, which was high school math knowledge, was very simple for Jiang Pingce. What Yue Xingwen was worried about was what if Jiang Pingce was in danger as he went around the circle alone?
Sensing Yue Xingwen’s concern, Jiang Pingce looked at him and said, “Don’t worry, I’m flying alone from a high altitude, and the speed is very fast. Even if there are monsters on the surface of the planet, they won’t hurt me.”
Yue Xingwen: “What if there are flying monsters?”
Jiang Pingce looked at him helplessly, and his eyes seemed to say, can you stop the crow’s mouth?
Yue Xingwen coughed lightly and said seriously, “I’m not a crow’s mouth, I just can’t let you take the risks alone. Either everyone goes together, or use another way to measure the distance. I don’t agree if you go alone to explore the way.”
Jiang Pingce was silent for a moment, and then simply nodded. “Yes. Then let’s go together, I’ll control the collective movement of 12 people, and we can also collect ore along the way and scout the environment.”
Yue Xingwen smiled. “This is the best.”
Everyone gathered immediately. Jiang Pingce raised his right hand, skillfully drew the coordinate system and led everyone to take off collectively and fly forward in a fixed direction.
It didn’t take long for them to fly over the mountains nearby.
Yue Xingwen looked down—— The mountain range that meandered like a river was strewn with a large number of rocks of various shapes, all of which emitted a reddish-brown glow and looked similar to the precious ores they had seen in the information.
Ke Shaobin adjusted his glasses with a puzzled look and looked at his feet, “No way? There are more than 100 ores on this mountain range alone. The mission requires us to collect 100 ores, so let’s go down and pick them up, won’t we have enough?”
Xin Yan said lightly, “It’s definitely not that simple. Many natural ores look similar in color on the surface, but the elements contained in them are fundamentally different.”
Ke Shaobin pondered. “You mean to say that among these thousands of similar-looking stones, there may only be a few of them that are truly the target of our mission? The others are all interference items?”
Xin Yan said, “Just try it and you’ll know.”
Jiang Pingce manipulated everyone to descend to the top of the mountain, and Liu Zhaoqing was worried that the surface of the stone was poisonous, so he quickly made a few pairs of temporary gloves out of gauze and handed them to everyone.
Jiang Pingce put on his gloves and leaned over to pick up a stone, and the mission progress could be displayed in the hover box in front of him. At this time, a line of words was displayed in the hover frame: Ore Collection 0/100.
Jiang Pingce shook his head at everyone. “This is not the target of the mission.”
Liu Zhaoqing also leaned over to pick up a piece, but the ore collection remained the same.
Ke Shaobin complained, “Sure enough, it’s all interference! Do we have to slowly find one by one among thousands of stones? This is too much of a pit!”
Suddenly, a flash of inspiration flashed in Zhuo Feng’s mind, he stretched out his right hand to summon a magnet, and magnified the magnet to the size of a helicopter, and began to fly slowly along the mountain range.
When the magnet was flying at the beginning, the ore on the ground did not respond.
However, when the magnet flew out a few meters, suddenly two fist-sized stones were attached to the magnet, making a ‘clang’ sound. At the same time, the progress of the mission in the hover box in front of everyone’s eyes had finally changed—— Ore Collection 2/100.
Yue Xingwen’s eyes lit up. “We actually need to use senior brother Zhuo’s magnet to find the target?!”
Zhuo Feng laughed. “I guessed right. The mineral resource we are looking for this time should be laterite nickel ore, which is brown in appearance and contains a large amount of nickel. Nickel is a hard, corrosion-resistant, abrasion-resistant metal, and most importantly, it can be attracted to magnets!”
Xin Yan said, “I remember that there are atoms such as iron, cobalt, and nickel in the magnet.”
Zhuo Feng nodded. “That’s right, the atoms that make up the magnet have a magnetic moment, which will produce a magnetic field to attract metals containing iron, cobalt, and nickel. Although the ores here all look similar, the ores that actually contain nickel will be attracted by magnets, so that we can quickly filter out the mission target.”
Ke Shaobin suddenly realized. “Sure enough, it’s a course in the Faculty of Physics, and we actually have to use a magnet to find the target! If we can’t think of this, and we look for them piece by piece, all these stones are similar in appearance, let alone in 19 days, if we are given 99 days, we won’t be able to find them all!”
Liu Zhaoqing couldn’t help but complain, “If among the team that go into this course, the Physics students don’t have the magnet skill, won’t it be the end of the game?”
Zhuo Feng said, “The Faculty of Physics is already a course on the 11th floor. The team that comes this far has enough points, so there shouldn’t be anyone stupid enough not to change the Magnet skill, right?”
Liu Zhaoqing nodded. “Yes! It’s like a roll of gauze in our Faculty of Medicine.”
As Zhuo Feng’s giant magnet flew back and forth around the mountain range, the ores collection in the hover box in front of him also increased rapidly, and finally stopped: Ore Collection 10/100.
Screening the target with a magnet greatly saved them time in eliminating interference.
Yue Xingwen thought that if the process went well, maybe they would be able to complete the mission in 19 days!
Oh Xingwen. You’re thinking too beautifully. Will the library really make it that easy for you? 😆
Ngl I even forgot this was a physics exam until now
Extra points
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