Chapter 363 The Positioning of the Plan

Nepal Branch.

Kathmandu.

Ever since Homo Sapiens Company established a fully authorized branch in the region, the pace of development here had been astonishingly fast.

It took only about half a year for the local residents to go from their initial confusion and resistance to fervent support.

The more impoverished and remote the area, the less they could resist the high-welfare offensive from Homo Sapiens Company.

The mountain folk, who had lived in poverty their entire lives, had long since lost their enthusiasm for all sorts of extravagant ideologies. After all, everyone has their own way of judging things.

Those other factions that made grand appearances could boast about how great they were, but when the mountain folk returned home to their few barren plots of land and the same old life, it would be a miracle if they believed them.

Perhaps some had believed at first, but after so many years of harsh reality, the mountain folk had become pragmatic and apathetic.

This was also why the locals showed distrust and resistance when Homo Sapiens Company first entered Nepal.

Only when their lives began to change at a visible pace did the mountain folk let down their guard and begin to actively embrace the arrival of Homo Sapiens Company.

With a population of only about 29 million, and 90% of its territory being high-altitude mountainous terrain, Nepal had little agricultural potential, but its hydropower potential was significant.

After opening the major underground railway connecting the Assam Region and Nepal, Homo Sapiens Company began importing vast quantities of daily necessities and construction materials.

This included the construction of 30 medium-sized hydroelectric power stations and three nuclear power plants.

At the same time, a full-scale mineral resource exploration of the Nepal Region was launched.

Weng Xuehai and his team, who had previously been conducting geological surveys in Zuyu, had already completed the preliminary exploration of strata down to 5,000 meters underground within Zuyu's borders. Now, they were moving into Nepal to continue their survey.

In the Gandaki District, to the west of Kathmandu.

There were many mountain peaks here, three to four thousand meters above sea level.

Led by a local guide, Weng Xuehai's team set up camp in a nearby river valley. As it was winter in the Northern Hemisphere, the higher altitude areas were already covered in a blanket of white snow.

"Whew..." Taking a sip of hot tea, Weng Xuehai exhaled a cloud of white mist. "If it weren't for the exoskeletons, I wouldn't dare enter the mountains in this season."

Just then, his satellite phone rang. He quickly put down his teacup and answered, "Hello...?"

"Dr. Weng, please get ready. There is an urgent mission that requires your cooperation. A Thunder Dragon ground effect ship will be there to pick you up shortly..."

Hearing this, Weng Xuehai replied without a second thought, "I understand."

After hanging up, he immediately called over his deputy and had him take temporary charge of the team. He and his assistant then quickly packed their personal belongings.

Forty-six minutes later.

A Small Thunder Dragon Ground Effect Ship sped in from the sky, then slowly came to a halt on the snow-covered ground not far from the camp.

The cabin door opened, and several security officers in combat exoskeletons jumped out.

"Doctor, here are our employee IDs, and this is the temporary requisition order..."

Weng Xuehai gave the documents a cursory glance and nodded. "Let's go!"

"This way, please."

Boarding the Small Thunder Dragon Ground Effect Ship, Weng Xuehai and his assistant waved to their colleagues who had come to see them off outside.

WHIRRR... The turbojet engines lifted the Small Thunder Dragon Ground Effect Ship off the ground, and it sped eastward toward Kathmandu.

Since they were in friendly territory, the Small Thunder Dragon Ground Effect Ship didn't need to fly close to the ground. Coupled with technological upgrades that incorporated some technology from the Golden Roc Transporter, its cruising speed could reach about 600 kilometers per hour.

Soon, the Small Thunder Dragon Ground Effect Ship was near Kathmandu, and it landed at an airport inside the plateau west of the city.

Weng Xuehai was taken deep underground into the base, then boarded a subway to Lower Kathmandu—the city's underground counterpart.

Lower Kathmandu was located deep beneath the northern mountains of Kathmandu.

Weng Xuehai was very familiar with this place, as his temporary dormitory was located here.

Inside the base commander's office in the underground city.

Weng Xuehai met a middle-aged man in the uniform of the Internal Affairs Division. The man had rare heterochromia—one of his eyes was brown, the other green.

"Hello, Doctor. I am Moses, head of the Crisis Response Office for the Internal Affairs Division. Please, have a seat."

After taking a seat, Weng Xuehai dispensed with the pleasantries and asked directly, "What is the mission, exactly?"

"The Internal Affairs Division needs to construct several ultra-deep shelters. I need your help, Doctor, in selecting a few suitable locations," Moses said, getting straight to the point.

Weng Xuehai was taken aback for a moment. "Shelters? How deep do they need to be?"

"The deeper, the better. Preferably with granite strata and mountain ranges above them."

"Is that so?" Weng Xuehai activated his tablet's holographic projection system, displaying a holographic map of the Nepal Region. He then pointed to the northeastern part of the Gelena District:

"This area is all above four thousand meters in altitude, with extensive ice caps and significant granite strata below. It should meet the requirements."

Then he added, "There are also two large iron ore deposits underneath, discovered a while ago. I'm not familiar with the technical limits of the underground engineering department, but if they can withstand the subterranean high temperatures, pressures, and corrosion, you can build as deep as you want."

Moses gave him a brief overview of their underground engineering capabilities. "Right now, we can build secure underground cities at a depth of around 5,000 meters. Due to their special nature, the shelters can be built even deeper. And when I say depth, I mean depth below sea level, not counting the height of the mountains or plateau."

"I understand." Weng Xuehai recalculated and quickly found more than a dozen locations.

Without exception, these were all areas with altitudes over 5,000 meters, ice caps above, granite strata below, and relatively stable geology.

Weng Xuehai then took the initiative to present the specific details of these locations to Moses.

Moses quickly selected seven of them as candidates. Then, he continued, "Doctor, you also conducted the geological surveys for Zuyu and the Jomongxiong Region. Please select a few suitable locations there as well."

"No problem."

Weng Xuehai brought up the geological holographic maps for Zuyu and the Jomongxiong Region and, in a short while, marked six candidate sites.

From those, Moses chose another three candidates.

That made a total of ten candidate sites.

This was just a preliminary selection. Further in-depth exploration would be needed to determine the final locations.

In the future, these ultra-deep underground shelters would become part of the Netherworld Project.

Of course, the Netherworld Project was not just about ultra-deep shelters; its core was actually a special database.

To be precise, these shelters were not designed for people, but for the memory backups and gene samples of all New Human employees.

Even Li Qingye's memories and gene samples would be stored within.

Inside these ultra-deep shelters, there were only Life Support Pods, Cloning Pods, and various kinds of equipment for restarting civilization. There would be no New Human administrators present; everything would be managed by a supercomputer's artificial intelligence.

Their passages to the outside world would be sealed after construction, leaving only a single fiber-optic cable for data transmission, allowing New Human employees to update the memory database.

The requirement for these ultra-deep shelters was that, in a sealed state, they could operate continuously in low-power mode for about 100 years.

This was another backup plan prepared by Homo Sapiens Company.

The Ancient Land Project was prepared for the evacuation of large-scale personnel; the Ice Domain and Abyss Projects were special shelters for small-scale personnel; and the Netherworld Project was the memory and genetic shelter for Homo sapiens.

Finally, there was the Gui Palace Project. This was for the most extreme scenario: if Earth became uninhabitable, the flame of Homo Sapiens Company's civilization could use the Moon Base as a temporary transit station to escape to other planets.