Chapter 714: The Black Market Opens

However, although he had guessed that Israel was merely a pathfinding stone thrown out by the Americans, the Americans still had many good things in their pockets.

After all, having established global hegemony since the end of World War II, the mines and wells controlled by the United States across the globe, even if not the best, were definitely not bad.

Although Sun Cheng had been an opponent of the Americans for longer, if the other party was willing to empty their coffers, he truly wouldn't mind selling them some castrated goods.

He had no Cybertronian black technology prepared to sell here at the Black Market, but he did have various types of equipment that were several or even a dozen years ahead of the current world.

It was just that for Moscow and Beidu, Sun Cheng would still quietly sell things better than the products at the Black Market.

It wasn't that he was obsessed with finding fault with the Americans, but rather that resources on Earth were limited; since the Americans had failed to seize the opportunity to use their past hegemony to become a spacefaring civilization, naturally, someone would step forward to replace them.

The main purpose for which Sun Cheng had established this Black Market earlier was to temporarily attract all the eyes searching the world for them, these aliens, to Trindade Island.

But now, his goal had changed!

It took Sprint and the others more than half a year to finally find that Cybertronian Spaceship that had once crashed in South America.

Although the New World Explorer spaceship that had crashed at the bottom of Lake Titicaca no longer had any possibility of being reused, Sun Cheng was still quite satisfied with the overall result.

The Central Main Control Intelligence of the New World Explorer was fine; he had obtained the data for a ship truly capable of interstellar travel, which he had dreamed of.

Although Base No. 2 would likely need a period of time to digest it before it could successfully build an Explorer-class spaceship.

But as long as he could build one and send Sun Cheng along with a batch of Engineers and robots to Mars, he was confident that within at most half a year, he could establish a new base on Mars far larger than Base No. 2.

Although Mars was much smaller than Earth and the climate was extremely harsh, making it unsuitable for humans to live.

However, according to the continuous satellite exploration conducted by humans over the past few decades, various mineral resources should still exist on Mars; the only thing that might be lacking was water resources.

For the Cybertronians, these were not unsolvable; using temperature differences to produce fresh water was a Mars Project that humans had proposed a long time ago.

It was just that, limited by technology, many could only remain in the conceptual stage, while Sun Cheng and the Decepticons under his command could truly manufacture temperature-difference equipment to mass-produce water resources to meet industrial needs.

Finding its Central Main Control Intelligence—Explorer 203—from the New World Explorer, this harvest directly changed his vision for the Black Market on Trindade Island.

Just now, on the way back to Trindade Island, Sun Cheng had already almost completely overturned his original plan.

Now he decided to play the merchant again for a while; he wanted to use the Black Market to squeeze as many resources as possible from the various human nations on Earth to accelerate the spaceship construction speed of Base No. 2.

"Within two years, I must extract enough resources from the pockets of various countries to build two spaceships... No, within one year I must earn enough resources to build three spaceships, plus Base No. 3 on Mars..."

On a spaceship of the spacefaring civilization era, heavy, low-grade alloys like steel had already been eliminated.

Replacing them were lighter, more corrosion-resistant, high-temperature-resistant, and non-flammable Tai Lu Meng Hejin, Tie Lu Hejin, tungsten-iron alloys, chromium alloys, and dozens of other different materials.

This required a large amount of rare metals and rare earths, so the material cost alone for a seemingly unremarkable Explorer-class medium Transport Spaceship could likely reach 60 to 70 billion US dollars, and many things could not be obtained just by having money.

To build this behemoth, which was even more complex and bulky than an aircraft carrier on Earth.

Sun Cheng conservatively estimated that Base No. 2 needed to add tens of thousands of various types of robots to operate twenty-four hours a day in order to fulfill his ambition of building three spaceships simultaneously within the next year without affecting the expansion of Base No. 2.

Of course, these were currently just a fantasy in his head.

But whether this fantasy could be realized depended on whether the Black Market on Trindade Island could go as smoothly as he thought.

Thinking of this, Sun Cheng began to look forward more and more to those national forces about to visit this island.

The contact between Pioneer and the Israelis soon had results.

Having stayed by Sun Cheng's side for a long time, Pioneer was more accustomed to getting straight to the point when contacting and negotiating with humans.

Thus, although the Israelis might not be used to Sun Cheng-style negotiations, it only took Pioneer a little over four hours to strike a deal with this first national force to visit.

The Israelis had previously come from Saint Helena on a large private yacht.

One had to admit that the stealth capability of this private yacht was excellent.

So much so that when this private yacht stopped in the waters near Trindade Island and launched a hovercraft to head toward the small island, Pioneer and the others thought that the group preparing to land were just a bunch of human tourists.

After finishing the negotiations, the Israelis left again on the same hovercraft they had used to land on the island.

After sending the Israelis away, Pioneer hurried over to report the results of the contact to Sun Cheng.

"Oh? Israel is willing to use mineral resources that meet our requirements to buy the forty-plus pieces of machinery and equipment we manufactured across nineteen categories?"

Sun Cheng was indeed a bit surprised.

Although the Black Market had not yet been fully built, he had already pre-screened the goods he planned to trade with various countries in the future.

Sun Cheng wouldn't dare say it covered every industry on Earth, but having dealt with Moscow and Beidu for over a year, everything he listed was restricted equipment in the military and high-tech fields, and after being redesigned and improved by the Decepticon Engineers under his command, every single one was one to two generations ahead of similar products on Earth.

Because of this, the prices he set were relatively high; the cheapest cost tens of millions of dollars, and those exceeding one hundred million were everywhere.

He had originally thought that Israel was just a pathfinding stone thrown out by the Americans to test the waters and make contact with him, but he hadn't expected these Israelis to actually be willing to spend the money.

"Does Israel have industry? Or are they buying for the Americans?"

With curiosity, Sun Cheng connected to the internet to investigate; after this check, he, who hadn't paid much attention to this country, was truly a bit surprised.

He really hadn't expected that Israel, which he had assumed relied entirely on buying for its military and donations for its economy, not only possessed industry but also seemed to have quite good industry.

PS:

I stayed up until past eight in the morning and managed to write five chapters.

I am now dizzy as hell and feel a bit like retching.

I can't hold on anymore; I have to go to sleep. I probably won't have time to touch the computer this afternoon, all day on the 25th, or during the day on the 26th. I'll see if I have time to write a chapter on the night of the 26th.

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