Chapter 17 Wasteland Pioneers

In the empty square, Li Tianran tilted his head, watching Lan Ning, whose eyes were bloodshot and listless. He crossed his arms over his chest, a perfect arc tugging at the corner of his mouth, revealing a smile that was not quite a smile, and he let out a soft "Tch."

Whether it was his expression or his movements, he had taken contempt and disdain to the extreme.

Professor Nan stood beside him, holding a thermos the size of a warm water bottle, taking a sip of hot water, looking up and down at the dejected Lan Ning, without saying a word, just silently shaking his head and sighing.

Although Li Tianran and Professor Nan didn't say a word, they had already put a great deal of psychological pressure on Lan Ning.

Especially Professor Nan's sighs of disappointment, like blades of critical strike, made Lan Ning's head, which had been held high yesterday, lower and lower, until it was buried in the dirt…

"I admit, I spoke a little loud yesterday..." Lan Ning squeezed out a few words through his teeth, "I admit I'm weak."

Lan Ning was mentally collapsing. If he couldn't beat Li Tianran, so be it. After all, an evolver was no longer human, but a monster. But he was actually inferior to a worn-out old man, which was really unacceptable to him.

He began to doubt himself.

"There's always someone better, I give up," Lan Ning said through gritted teeth.

Li Tianran suppressed his laughter, patted Lan Ning on the shoulder, said nothing, and left straight away with Professor Nan.

After this incident, Lan Ning really became much more low-key, and he no longer went around talking about being a workaholic or trying to stir up the team's enthusiasm.

Li Tianran was also quite satisfied with his response.

Overall, Lan Ning was already very dedicated and enthusiastic about his work. Now that he had corrected this minor flaw, he was almost perfect.

Ambitious, with aspirations, hardworking, without bad habits, isolated from the opposite sex…

This was almost the kind of employee that all bosses liked the most.

On the other side, Qin Yiming had completed the assembly of the mechanical shell and mechanical detonation device of the nuclear warhead, and was now conducting a detonation test, of course, only a simple test of whether the detonation device could operate normally, without filling it with nuclear medicine and detonating explosives.

The detonation device is the most critical hardware for detonating a nuclear weapon. When casting it, Qin Yiming used the expensive alloy that Li Tianran had exchanged from the mall. This alloy has stable elements and will not cause metal ions and electrons to be disturbed by external elements. It is also very tough, and its hardness is extremely high, even exceeding the alloy steel knives used by the EU evolver team.

The experimental method is very simple: power the device, transmit the signal, and then the detonation device ignites the detonating explosive.

A total of three steps, but these three steps need to be repeated at least five hundred thousand times!

The reason for such a large number of experiments is that this thing is too important. It bears all the factors that determine whether a nuclear weapon can be detonated correctly.

And what is the allowable failure rate in the 500,000 experiments?

Zero!

That's right, it's zero!

In the 500,000 experiments, the detonation device must not have a single jam, short circuit, or fluctuating ignition temperature!

Because any failure means that the nuclear bomb cannot be detonated normally.

A one-in-five-hundred-thousand chance, although very small, is definitely not equal to zero.

Someone said that even the smallest probability can happen.

Li Tianran didn't want a situation where, in the future, when the situation on Kuangxi Island became so dangerous that nuclear weapons were needed to solve the predicament, the nuclear weapons would malfunction…

That would be completely screwed up.

Although a nuclear explosion only happens once and is the sharpest sword in the world, in order to ensure that this sword can create the greatest lethality, Qin Yiming needs to sharpen it five hundred thousand times to ensure that it has no flaws.

...

"How is the training going?"

At lunch, Li Tianran asked Lu Chi.

It had been three days since these survivors arrived on Kuangxi Island, and training had been going on for some time. Lu Chi had been living and eating with the survivors, and he only returned to the castle at noon today because of the formal welcome for Lan Ning.

"Most people can adapt to the intensity of the training, but there are also a small number of people whose physical strength is too weak due to some special reasons, such as age, gender, and other innate factors, and they can't keep up with the progress of the training. But I can see that their enthusiasm for training is still very high, but some are...willing but unable, which can't be changed by hard work and persistence." Lu Chi said, "I let these people withdraw from the training and arranged them in logistics, cooking, cleaning, carrying, and doing some auxiliary work."

Li Tianran nodded. Some of these survivors were over fifty years old, and their physical strength was simply impossible to compare with young people. Moreover, with age, their various perceptual abilities would also begin to decline. Even if they became evolvers, they would be slightly weaker than young people innately.

"A unit cannot only have elite troops that can fight, it also needs a logistics department as a guarantee. The main combatants I selected are young adults between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five, and children under the age of fifteen are arranged to observe and learn, while most of those over thirty-five are arranged in logistics." Lu Chi said, continuing, "There are a total of ninety main combat personnel, seventeen in the logistics department...and some children who are underage. This is the current size of our Kuangxi Island force."

A force of just over a hundred people seemed a little ridiculous.

But any towering tree grows from a small sapling, and a towering pagoda is also solidified from grains of sand.

"Boss, elite troops in other countries have names, such as the Flying Tigers and the Navy SEALs. In ancient times, there were also the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry and the Divine Machine Battalion. We should also give our army a name," Qin Yiming said, stroking his chin.

Li Tianran nodded. Although Qin Yiming was not very reliable in other matters, this proposal was indeed necessary.

An army needs a name, a flag, an emblem, and a core spirit, which is what people have always called "military soul."

These things are not just nice to say or look at, they are truly capable of spreading and passing on something!

"I propose...call it the Black Sky Legion, super domineering!" Qin Yiming said first.

"So childish, it sounds like a junior high school student's game organization..." Tang Su unceremoniously denied.

"Then call it the Temple of Heaven!"

"Uh...don't you think that name is too, too arrogant? And it has a strong urban novel style..."

"Survey Corps?"

"Do you think this is a Japanese manga?"

The discussion was incredibly intense. In the end, they turned their attention to Li Tianran.

"Let's call them...the Wasteland Pioneers."

Li Tianran said softly, "Under the catastrophe, the world will eventually turn into a wasteland. We will step on piles of white bones and pioneer a new era on this wasteland."

"As for the core doctrine of the legion..."

"In the darkness, if there is no torch after this, we will be the only light."

Li Tianran smiled softly, "A famous quote from Mr. Lu Xun, quite good."