The Kingdom of Billiver signed mining contracts with both Wilkesa and Fetani. These weren’t official mining contracts for the entire Haiyang star cluster, but rather the equivalent of a trial contract. They would see if that country could do what they promised, and then a new formal mining contract would be signed later.

Fetani’s mining equipment came ready-made. After they signed the contract, they directly shipped the equipment from the Fetani capital star and set it up to start mining.

Wilkesa’s mining equipment was still being manufactured. The reason it was so slow was because after signing the contract, Jing Yang first let people go conduct a very detailed investigation of the deep sea circumstances and then made some corresponding changes to the design of the equipment. Only then did they speed up and hasten to manufacture the equipment.

Fetani’s mining equipment had already arrived at the Haiyang star cluster and was currently being rapidly assembled. It was much harder to construct in the sea than on land, so it took a little longer. It would take several days to build a sea command center and storage building.

“Big brother.” Avery walked into John’s office on the ship. “The buildings on the sea are all done. We can go down.”

“En.” John said. “Today is the first day of mining, so the King of Billiver will come and watch. Make sure that nothing will go wrong today.”

“Don’t worry, brother. I have spent a lot of thought to transform this equipment. Back on Fetani, we have already been able to successfully mine with it, and there was no pollution of the marine environment. There won’t be any problems here.” Avery said very confidently.

“It’s been hard on you.” John patted Avery on the shoulder. “Let’s go, Mudatis is coming. Let’s meet him and then we can go to the sea command center.”

“Brother, what’s going on with Wilkesa?” Avery asked as they walked out. He had been busy monitoring the construction of the mining equipment these days, and hadn’t investigated Wilkesa’s situation.

“They still haven’t had any movement yet. I hear that their equipment isn’t ready yet.” John said.

“Hu.” Avery scoffed coldly. “They haven’t even manufactured the equipment and still dare to fight with us over the mining rights. They really don’t know their own strength. I think they might not even be done with their equipment by the time we finish mining everything.”

“Who let them be rich now?” John sarcastically said. “Even if they can’t mine it out, they can still afford to compensate them.”

Whenever they mentioned Wilkesa having a lot of money now, Avery would immediately feel very depressed. Those precious metals should have all belonged to him. If it really was Skien who helped them extract the precious metals, he must think of a way to torture him and vent his anger. Even if he couldn’t torture him he had to kill him.

“Right, how come the men sent by brother haven’t acted yet?” Avery asked.

“There hasn’t been any opportunity.” John said with his expression dark. “Denanfry protects him so tightly that none of our men can even get close.”

“How on earth did he manage to hook up with Denanfry? And why does Denanfry protect him so carefully? Could it be that he really helped Wilkesa mine the precious metals?” Avery frowned.

“I haven’t been able to investigate any of this. All of the information I have about them right now comes from Billiver’s side. Denanfry’s side is like a metal safe. His guard is very tight, and no news can be found at all.” John saw that Avery’s expression wasn’t very good and he comforted him: “We’ll put these things aside for now. Let’s focus on the mining matter and pay them back for what happened. Later we will definitely find a chance to deal with them.”

The king of Billiver, Mudatis, was a middle-aged man with a big beard. He inherited the throne at his age because it had been inherited from his brother, who had no children, so he became king. Mudatis was a strong man and more far-sighted than his brother, so he resisted pressure from almost the entire country to insist on the extraction of energy from the Haiyang star cluster.

John and Avery greeted Mudatis. The group of people entered the sea command center, ready to watch the formal extraction of energy from the sea floor.

John and Mudatis sat in the back at the viewing table. Behind them there were several rows of people standing together, some from John’s side and some from Mudatis’s side.

Avery sat in the commander chair in the middle. After the technicians finished their report, he ordered, “Begin mining!”

“Received, mining equipment has started.” The operator reported.

All the people in the command center were watching the screen carefully. The equipment in contact with the sea floor in the ocean had already started moving. Right now they just had to wait to see if the liquid energy could be mined, and whether during the mining process there would be any leakage of liquid energy to pollute the sea water.

“The extraction has been successful, and the liquid energy has entered the storage facility.” The operator reported.

Avery looked at the screen and revealed a proud smile.

John also looked satisfied. He reached out a hand toward Mudatis, saying, “Hope that we will have a happy cooperation.”

Mudatis didn’t answer him directly, just nodding in satisfaction and shaking his hand.

Just when they thought everything was going well and the rest could just be left to the technicians and operators, a liquid energy leak suddenly appeared on the screen.

There was a sudden silence in the command room. The operator knew that the king of Billiver was there and was afraid to report the leak.

Avery’s heart tightened. He turned to John and motioned for him to bring Mudatis away first. They could cover it up while the leak wasn’t obvious yet and then he could find a way to deal with it later.

“Your Majesty, let’s go to the lounge first. We can leave this to them to continue mining.” John stood up.

Mudatis’s face had sunk. He ignored John, sitting there motionless and continuing to look at the screen.

Watching the leak get worse, the operator had to report, “Leak alert, currently testing the cause of the leak.”

Mudatis suddenly stood up and looked at John very unhappily, “You promised that you could mine without polluting the sea water, and that was written very clearly on the contract. It was precisely because you said that you absolutely would not pollute the sea water that I would agree to sign a contract with you. So now do you plan to compensate us according to the contract, or something else?”

John’s expression was also very bad. He had been advancing very smoothly these years. Even the Fetani Empire’s emperor would be afraid to go against him, but right now he actually had to be careful around the king of a backward country.

Avery quickly walked up and said, “It’s normal for these kinds of situations to occur when we first start mining. We all have to go through debugging and processing before we can remove the problem of leaks. Such a little leak will not cause serious pollution of the seawater. Please rest assured that we will soon solve the problem.”

“Our country might be relatively backward in science, technology, and machinery. But as for energy mining, our people also have a lot of understanding. Don’t think about casually deceiving me like this.” Mudatis squinted.

“Fetani has machinery that is far ahead of those of any other country. As for the information leaked, the circumstances that you and any other country understands will definitely not match ours. In short, this leak will be dealt with immediately, and you can just wait to see the results.” Avery was very anxious and didn’t completely have a bottom in his heart, but at this time, he could only try to pretend to be very confident.

Mudatis looked back and forth between Avery and John. “Then I will give you ten days. If you don’t solve the leak in ten days, you will have to stop mining immediately and pay compensation in accordance with the terms of the contract.”

This time, Mudatis had insisted on mining the energy of the Haiyang star cluster while shouldering pressure from most of his people, all in order to revitalize the economy of the Kingdom of Billiver. This time, he had signed a contract with the two most mechanically advanced countries in the universe. Even if they failed, they would receive a large amount of compensation, but compared to compensation, he still hoped to not pollute the ocean, or else he really would not be able to give his people an explanation.

Avery promised to fix the leak within ten days. If not, they would stop drilling immediately.

John sent Mudatis away and quickly returned to the command room, asking Avery, “What the hell is going on? When we used the equipment before, wasn’t it completely without leaks?”

Avery looked through the newly obtained test report and said, “The geology of the seafloor here is very different from what we’ve mined before. Our equipment can mine it, but there’s no way to control the pollution.”

“Why didn’t you know about this before?!” John tried to suppress his anger and keep his mind calm.

Avery hit the table hard, saying angrily, “The men from the Kingdom of Billiver simply didn’t describe this in the information they gave us. The information given in their files was not much different from general marine geology. This is absolutely their own responsibility!”

“First forget that, quickly find a way to solve the leaks.” John said urgently.

“The equipment needs to be changed, for the transformation plus the test time, ten days is simply not enough. You need to find a way to extend the time.” Avery’s forehead was already covered in sweat. If he failed, he felt like he wouldn’t be able to stand it, because this time his opponent was Skien. Even though he felt that the other person’s chances of success would be small, at this time, he must not lose face.

John impatiently grabbed at his hair. “You put all your efforts in solving the equipment problem. I will try to drag down Mudatis. You must solve the energy leakage problem!”

Even though Avery was a reborn soul from the future, he was still very different from Jing Yang, who had the system. There were a lot of things where he knew the theory but couldn’t actually implement them in practice.

Even though Avery worked hard to solve the leak and John had been trying to help him delay the deadline, he still hadn’t succeeded in solving the problem. And because he was trying to fix the leak while mining at the same time, the pollution of the water was much worse than just normal mining.

Mudatis, facing public criticism, finally got angry. He commanded Fetani to stop mining immediately and pay compensation under the terms of the contract, or else he would go the federal courts to appeal against them.

———

[1] – 穆達提斯, pinyin mu da ti si