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Chapter 420: Underground Pyramid II
🕑 Added 2023-08-08 15:38:55 +0000 UTCTransformers Begin : Table of Content/Chapter List
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Lake Titicaca, known as the "Pearl of the Plateau," is located on the Kayao Plateau, at the border of Bolivia and Peru. It is the highest and largest freshwater lake in South America and the highest navigable lake in the world, allowing large ships to sail on its waters.
Sun Cheng quickly arrived over Lake Titicaca.
After circling the sizable lake a couple of times, he deactivated the electromagnetic detection system, as he already had a clear understanding of the lake's surface and what lay beneath.
The lake sits at an altitude of 3,821 meters, covering an area of approximately 8,300 square kilometers, with an average depth of 140-180 meters and a maximum depth of 280 meters.
The Tiwanaku city, located on the southern shore of the lake within Bolivia's borders, is the main focus of their attention. However, this "Pearl of the Plateau" is not limited to just this one ancient site.
In fact, the entire Lake Titicaca was considered a sacred place during the Inca era.
There are 52 islands in the lake, and most of them have Inca-era architectural remains. Even many of the island's residents are of indigenous descent, making it difficult to determine whether they are descendants of Inca-era worshippers or guardians.
The largest island in the lake, Titicaca, also houses significant remnants of Inca temples and palaces. However, the Forerunners had previously explored the island and found nothing noteworthy.
Of course, Sun Cheng didn't fully trust their judgment.
After landing on a high point on the island, he released a terrain scanner and thoroughly inspected the entire island. He even personally circled the lake's bottom. Apart from a few gold sacrificial offerings from the Inca era, there was nothing suspicious.
"The lake seems fine. It must be over there!"
After lingering at the lake bottom for a while and noting down several concentrated burial sites of gold offerings, he planned to send underwater robots in the future to retrieve them and sell them to China and Russia. He then returned to the shore and flew towards the Tiwanaku city ruins.
Accel and Mora didn't keep Sun Cheng waiting. When he arrived at the Tiwanaku city ruins, Accel had already arrived early and was controlling the newly deployed second-generation combat robots on guard duty.
Mora, on the other hand, was with a group of people who appeared human, arrogantly discussing something.
Before Sun Cheng deactivated his optical stealth device, Accel had clearly sensed his presence. However, he waited until Sun Cheng landed and deactivated the device before respectfully bowing and saying, "Master, everything is ready. We can excavate the underground ruins at any time!"
Mora also noticed their arrival. After whispering a few words to the startled humans, she hurriedly ran over and saluted.
"Master, I have ordered the security perimeter to be expanded from the original ten kilometers to twice that distance. The internal security has expelled all the people in the vicinity, and we will soon install electromagnetic interference devices to prevent surveillance from above!"
"Good job!"
Sun Cheng nodded in satisfaction. "I just circled the lake bottom and found several places with a considerable number of ancient human sacrificial gold offerings, conservatively estimated to be close to a ton in total. I have marked the locations, and you can arrange for people to retrieve the gold from the lake later!"
South America is rich in mineral resources, with gold, silver, and other precious metals that make people envious. The Inca Empire, which once flourished in South America, was known as the "Golden Kingdom" for this reason.
During the Age of Discovery, just one continent of South America supported several generations of European rulers.
Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, England, and even France rose to power either by colonizing South America or by plundering Spanish and Portuguese transport and merchant fleets.
However, while gold is undoubtedly a precious metal for humans, it is not as attractive to mechanical life forms as a pile of steel. Even in the space age, steel remains an indispensable basic metal material.
Compared to the application of gold in manufacturing, steel has a much wider range of uses. Sun Cheng had once been obsessed with gold, and his "Spherical Space" still contained two standard alloy storage boxes. Each box appeared small, but it contained 500 kilograms of China's standard national reserve gold bricks. He had obtained them in exchange for a set of sophisticated equipment during a transaction with China and had kept them in the "Spherical Space" to bring back to the real world later.
However, with the excavation of several underground gold mines by his forces after controlling Bolivia, they could now provide him with over 20 kilograms of pure gold every day. This was still due to the fact that more mining robots had been assigned to excavate other minerals.
Having seen so much and with his knowledge constantly growing, Sun Cheng's perspective had changed.
What humans considered to be precious, such as gold and jewelry, had become just a common commodity for him to use in trade. In contrast, advanced military and civilian technology from this world, as well as more technology and equipment from Cybertron, were more attractive to him.
Mora's eyes lit up. "Master, please rest assured and leave it to me!"
He was the Minister of the Interior of Bolivia, and the Ministry of the Interior had great power in this country, second only to the president.
But power also meant responsibility. In order to better control Bolivia for the base, Mora not only needed to rebuild the country's police system, rescue and disaster relief system, and public facilities, but also to legally operate some of the minerals within the base's circle in Bolivia under the name of the Ministry of the Interior.
To maintain these operations required a lot of funds, which the current government finances, which had just experienced a coup and was still using a temporary name, could not afford.
Therefore, although Mora was not human, he knew that this gold was enough to do many things for himself.
After consulting with Sun Cheng, he walked over to the humans who were clearly under Yuri's command.
Mora's temporary departure would not affect Sun Cheng's next actions!
Accel looked at Sun Cheng and, after receiving his command, his eyes glowed red. The next moment, six excavator robots and six transport robots, arranged neatly on one side of the two, trembled in unison, and laser-like scanning beams continuously shot out. After the Core in their heads processed the terrain data just detected and made the most suitable work plan, they began to work.
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Next Chapter >>Chapter 421: Underground Pyramid III
