Chapter 45: Allspark (Begging for recommendations, follows, and tips)

To speak of Black Canyon near Nevada and Arizona, it is neither large nor small.

Before coming, Sun Cheng had already investigated; the area around Black Canyon encompasses several hundred square kilometers, but since most of the vicinity is dry desert terrain, it was easy to rule out under such desolate conditions.

After arriving at Black Canyon and wandering for only half a day, Sun Cheng discovered that the trail had gone completely cold, so he could only helplessly turn his gaze toward the most famous site here: Hoover Dam.

"Since I'm already here, I might as well go take a look; it won't cost me a hair anyway!"

Although he suspected that the Black Canyon mentioned by Professor Brewster, who once worked at the University of Arizona, was indeed this place, he did not think much about Hoover Dam itself.

After all, according to the clues he had investigated, the mysterious meteorite discovered in Barringer Crater was transported away around 1912, while construction on Hoover Dam only began twenty years later during the United States economic crisis; the two were separated by nearly twenty years in time alone, and no matter how he stretched his imagination, he could not connect the two events.

"Could it be that I thought wrong? Is the Black Canyon mentioned by Professor Brewster not this place at all?"

Taking advantage of the pitch-black night, Sun Cheng quietly approached Hoover Dam, though he could not help but mutter to himself in his heart.

In the past few hours, relying on the high mobility of his New Body, he had already run through all the places he suspected nearby, but he had failed to discover any suspicious areas, which made him feel somewhat disappointed.

Just as he entered within two kilometers of Hoover Dam in the dark, he suddenly felt his internal Spy Template capture surveillance equipment, and being cautious, he stopped immediately.

After hesitating for a moment, Sun Cheng released two sets of Insect Scouts to fly toward Hoover Dam.

Now, he could not even easily go to that Base he had raided, which he had originally thought he could use as a semi-supply station for the time being.

Having lost his supply point, aside from being able to sneak into the ubiquitous weapon shops in the United States to get some bullets, his other major reliance—the Insect Scouts—were being used up one by one; these things were essentially disposable, and although their functions were powerful, they could not overcome the fact that their range was only ten kilometers and their battery life was too short, with almost no possibility of recovery.

The two sets of Insect Scouts dutifully approached Hoover Dam bit by bit and transmitted the captured images back one by one.

"Huh, so many surveillance devices installed near Hoover Dam..."

Not far from Hoover Dam, at the peak of a steep cliff on one side of the Canyon, Sun Cheng used the deployed Insect Scouts to carefully scout Hoover Dam, and he began to hesitate in his heart about whether to conduct a night reconnaissance of Hoover Dam.

After reviewing the data received by the Insect Scouts, he was surprised to find that within two kilometers of Hoover Dam, the Insect Scouts had successively captured two or three hundred sets of surveillance equipment, which was even denser than the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base he had previously infiltrated.

It must be said that Hoover Dam is worthy of being a vital water conservancy hub on the Colorado River; besides the dense surveillance equipment nearby, the Insect Scouts also discovered that as many as a hundred security personnel were stationed around the dam.

Judging from the images captured by the Insect Scouts, the security personnel near the dam were not only equipped with a large number of light and heavy weapons, but he even captured Anti-aircraft missiles.

"It truly is an important water conservancy hub of the United States!"

Such defenses were worthy of Hoover Dam. Seeing that the energy of the two sets of Insect Scouts he had released was almost exhausted, Sun Cheng thought for a moment, and since he was already here, he simply gave them the order to continue scouting, directly letting them enter the interior of the dam through elevator shafts and ventilation pipes to investigate.

Like most countries, Hoover Dam allows tourists to visit; I heard the tickets are very cheap, and it is open to the public seven days a week.

It is just that in Sun Cheng's current appearance, he would likely be met with shouts and attacks if anyone saw him.

"Not of my kind, capture and dissect"—this is likely the common reaction of all countries on Earth upon seeing a lone extraterrestrial life form, especially when the other party is a robot.

One set of Insect Scouts that went down into the dam's interior along an elevator did not manage to discover anything more; the images of the dam's interior captured were basically things that could be found on the internet, which Sun Cheng had already seen.

He had the intention to direct it to turn into some areas forbidden to tourists, but who knew its energy had already been exhausted, and it was unknown which corner it had fallen into.

The other set of Insect Scouts, however, passed through a ventilation pipe and actually entered directly into a restricted area inside the dam, resulting in the transmission of quite a few images.

What surprised Sun Cheng even more was that it transmitted back a set of images just before its energy was exhausted, which gave him a start.

"... Wait, there are several tunnels hidden within the mountain next to Hoover Dam?"

The discovery by the Insect Scouts immediately gave Sun Cheng a start. According to his investigation, the mountains near Hoover Dam are mostly hard andesite and breccia. Opening tunnels in such a place—and there were tunnels of various sizes; the small ones were clearly for human office access, but several of the huge tunnels had steel rails laid down, which were clearly used for transporting large machinery. This discovery immediately piqued his interest.

"Strange, are these facilities really needed for a water conservancy project? How do they look more like a large military base? Could it be..."

Suddenly realizing that he might have reconnected with the trail, Sun Cheng suppressed the excitement in his heart, quietly dodged one monitoring device after another, made his way down from the cliff, and soon arrived at a flood discharge pipe below the dam.

The flood discharge outlet can lead to the interior of Hoover Dam, but there are three floodgates in the middle to prevent water from backflowing into the dam during discharge.

However, this could not stump Sun Cheng, because it was currently April or May, the flood season of the Colorado River, and Hoover Dam would perform small-scale flood discharge almost every night, which gave him an opportunity to quietly sneak into the interior from the flood discharge outlet.

No sooner said than done. Although the water column gushing out from the flood discharge channel made his scalp tingle, after using his Core to calculate the impact force and concluding that he would not be washed away if he charged with all his might, he leaped into the flood discharge channel.

"Snap!"

The first time, because of insufficient preparation, he was washed out of the flood discharge channel by the water column spraying toward him and fell below.

After hurriedly climbing out, having learned his lesson this time, he quickly changed back to his beast form, aimed at the position, jumped in again, and the moment he entered the flood discharge channel, he slammed his front claws into the wall.

"Boom..."

Being hit hard by the rushing water head-on, his body swayed, but this time Sun Cheng was well-prepared and was not washed out again.

At that moment, he braced himself and moved forward step by step, and the short hundred-meter flood discharge channel consumed three or four points of his energy before he finally reached the end.

"Splash..."

After passing through the first floodgate via the discharge channel, Sun Cheng entered a huge water tank; this was the transfer reservoir of the dam, and although it was tightly sealed, there were still several pipes through which one could leave.

After judging the direction of the water flow for a while, Sun Cheng entered one of the pipes, crawled forward for several hundred meters, experienced more than a dozen climbs and turns, and finally entered a much smaller reservoir. Then, after fumbling around for a while, Sun Cheng quickly forced open the locked exit above the reservoir and finally entered the interior of the dam.

PS:

1. Thanks to the reader 'Little Chrysanthemum Vine' for the tip.

2. Regarding the feedback from some readers that they are not used to units like feet in the book, I will make adjustments later, but I will not change the previous parts.