I can find treasures in my dreams.

Mavina Islands.

More than half a century ago, this archipelago in the Southern Hemisphere, close to Antarctica, once became the focus of the Blue Planet.

The Blue Lion Kingdom and the Atinna Kingdom fought a fierce battle over ownership of the Mavina Islands.

Ultimately, Atinna's strength was insufficient, and it lost the war, as well as the Mavina Islands.

Subsequently.

History entered an era of natural disasters, and interesting things happened.

Since the Mavina Islands are more than 10,000 kilometers away from the Blue Lion Kingdom, and the Blue Lion Kingdom's strength has been severely weakened, it is already struggling to protect its own country, let alone care about the distant Mavina Islands.

then.

In the first year of the Age of Calamity, the Blue Lion army quietly withdrew from the Mavina Islands.

The Atinna army landed on the Mavina Islands in high spirits, and the whole country celebrated the "recapture" of the lost territory.

The Blue Lion Kingdom was defeated without actually being defeated.

Artina won without actually winning.

But the Atinna people's joy was short-lived, as one natural disaster after another struck: mosquito plagues, cold waves, frosts, and so on.

Because the Mavina Islands are far from the mainland, about 500 kilometers away as the crow flies, the Atinna people on the islands had difficulty obtaining enough supplies and lacked sufficient security, and were forced to evacuate from there.

This island, once contested by two countries, was completely deserted for a considerable period of time.

Not to mention people, there wasn't even a ghost in sight.

Essentially, this is mainly because the Blue Lion Kingdom and the Atinna Kingdom are too weak to defend their territories far from their homeland.

Nowadays.

Human figures have been spotted again in the Mavina Islands.

On the western main island of the archipelago, in the sea a dozen kilometers from the coastline, two heads suddenly emerged from the water.

Although global temperatures have recently plummeted, with average temperatures falling below freezing, most of the world's oceans have not frozen over.

The two people, a man and a woman, have typical Atinna features.

They were each wearing tight-fitting clothes, showcasing their robust and muscular, as well as their graceful and slender figures.

The seawater was so cold, yet the two seemed oblivious, which suggests they were likely superhumans.

Most surprisingly, they were suspended in the seawater, with a huge black shadow beneath their feet, stretching an astonishing thirty meters in length.

The shadowy figure twitched occasionally, clearly indicating that it was a living creature, leading to the speculation that it was a giant sea monster.

The man suddenly asked, "Gwyneth, why have the Great Xia people suddenly taken a liking to the Mavina Islands?"

The woman, Gwyneth, was quite beautiful. Upon hearing this, she said, "According to the information obtained by the creatures, the Great Xia people predict that global temperatures will not drop to the level of the cold wave disaster again."

"Although global temperatures will be very low in the future, most oceans will no longer freeze except for the North and South Poles, and ocean shipping will no longer need to use icebreakers."

"Therefore, the ambitious Great Xia people want to control the world's key maritime transport routes, and the geographical location of the Mavina Islands is extremely important, so the Great Xia people certainly do not want to miss out."

"The current Atinna government is a bunch of pathetic worms kneeling before the Great Xia, all they know is to lick the toes of the Great Xia people. When the Great Xia people want the Mavina Islands, they obediently hand them over with both hands."

Gwyneth's words implied a new agreement between Artina and Great Britain.

According to the agreement, Great Xia will acquire the "right to use" the Mavina Islands for the next 100 years at a cost of 5 million Xia yuan per year.

Atinna must not interfere with any of Bactria’s actions on the islands, and shall retain only nominal sovereignty.

From the perspective of the Atinna government, it was clear that the country was no longer able to control the Mavina Islands, so it was better to give them to the Great Xia in exchange for the Xia Yuan, which the country desperately needed.

Given the strength of the Eastern Dragon, even if it forcibly seized the Mavina Islands without giving them a single penny, Atinna could only protest a few times. The fact that Great Xia was willing to pay a huge sum of 5 million Xia Yuan every year was already quite generous.

In Gwyneth's view, this was no different from ceding the Mavina Islands, so it was absolutely a humiliating and treasonous agreement.

Calvin's face was equally grim: "The leader has given the order that when the Great Xia Navy conducts its exercises, we will lead the Pampas Sea Monster Legion to deliver a heavy blow to the Great Xia people and make them a laughing stock of the world."

Gwyneth nodded emphatically, her tone filled with immense confidence: "The oceans of the future will belong to mutated sea beasts. Whoever controls the powerful mutated sea beasts will control the vast oceans, and the Pampas Independence Army will surely become the masters of the seas!"

The two gazed at the island standing amidst the rolling waves for a while, then slowly sank into the water.

*
Six hours later.

A fleet flying the flag of the Great Xia Dynasty sailed through the waves toward the Mavina Islands.

The fleet is not large, consisting of only two destroyers, three frigates, and one replenishment ship.

Since the advent of the era of natural disasters, especially after the cold wave ravaged the world for more than a year, most of the sea surface has been frozen, and the navies of various countries have been largely abandoned.

With ships constantly moored in port and lacking proper maintenance, coupled with a shortage of funds and personnel, not many ships are able to go to sea.

Only the Great Xia Dynasty did not experience this situation; all its ships were maintained in good condition and were ready to go to sea whenever needed.

Moreover, taking advantage of the surge in cutting-edge technology, the Great Xia Navy carried out extensive modifications to most of its ships.

For example, the power system.

Previously, it was a "combined diesel and gas turbine" unit, which is a gas turbine plus a large diesel engine.

That is, the diesel engine runs only during low-speed cruising, while the gas turbine drives the engine during medium- and high-speed navigation. Under the highest operating conditions, the diesel engine and the gas turbine work together to achieve the maximum speed.

The gas turbine and diesel engine have now been removed.

Instead, there are supercrystal batteries weighing hundreds of tons and super marine electric motors that are only one-tenth the size of gas turbines but can output ten times the power of the former.

In addition, two sets of shipborne ultra-high-efficiency generators are used to charge the supercrystal batteries at any time.

Simply put, it's a range-extended electric vehicle (REEV). This powertrain, once used in new energy vehicles, has now become the new standard for the Great Xia Navy.

Compared to fuel oil, electricity is much cheaper, especially now that Daxia's power generation technology is becoming more and more advanced and the cost is getting lower and lower, so the Navy is happy to see this happen.

Because the energy consumption that used to take 10,000 kilometers to travel is now enough to travel 100,000 kilometers.

Besides the power system, other systems have also undergone tremendous changes.

However, the Great Xia Navy has never disclosed this information to the public, so the outside world is completely unaware of it.

at this time.

The commander of the task force, General Ma Shaokang, heard the report from his subordinates.

"Report! The supernatural spectrum detection radar on board the warship has detected supernatural diffraction features at a distance of thirty kilometers."

"Traditional underwater radar cannot detect their presence, which indicates that they have mastered electromagnetic stealth techniques."

"Judging from the supernatural diffraction characteristics, they are suspected to be a group of large sea monsters, with a body length of at least 20 meters."

The soldier reporting the news sounded visibly surprised, clearly astonished by the sudden appearance of the sea monster.

After all, the submarine force of the Great Xia Navy has frequent operations all over the world, but has never witnessed a large sea monster. At most, they have only seen some small mutated marine creatures, which are no match for the warships.

General Ma remained unmoved: "Understood!"

Because he already knew that the fleet's exercise was just a pretext, and the real target was the sea monster army controlled by the Pampas Independent Army.

The adjutant couldn't help but ask, "Do we need to deploy drones and unmanned boats?"

General Ma smiled and said, "Let's pretend they don't exist for now."

The commander glanced at the holographic chart a few times, pondered for a few seconds, and then ordered, "All personnel, turn around and sail southwest toward 'Salar Island'!"

"Yes!"

soon.

One after another, enormous steel behemoths nimbly changed direction and headed southwest.

This exercise includes a live-fire exercise, for which the fleet had not previously identified the target.

Just now, General Ma selected Salar Island as the target for live-fire target practice.

In addition to the two main islands, the Mavina Islands also have more than 300 smaller islands, with Salar being just one of them.

The island of Sara, the task force, and the sea monster legion together form an equilateral triangle.

A few seconds passed.

The soldier reported again: "Report! The sea monsters are starting to follow us; they're after us."

General Ma remained calm: "Continue forward!"

He stared at the large screen, but his mind was filled with the "Comprehensive Revitalization Plan for Science and Technology" formulated by the higher authorities.

This is a massive plan aimed at comprehensively increasing investment in science and technology in order to better meet the challenges of the next century.

Since Daxia has basically built a smart industrial system that is far ahead of the rest of the world, in the future, factory assembly lines will hardly need many workers, and construction sites will also need very few workers, greatly reducing the demand for labor.

In light of this situation, after discussion, the top leadership of Daxia decided to comprehensively strengthen education and invest more funds in research and development, striving to make 10% of the domestic population into researchers or engineers.

Based on the current population of Great Xia, there are as many as 2 million researchers and engineers.

The sole purpose of doing this is to consolidate and strengthen the technological dominance of the Great Xia.

To be honest, General Ma was initially quite shocked when he heard about the plan; he thought it was simply too outrageous.

Witnessing the sea monster legion willingly walk into the fleet's trap, the general suddenly felt that in order to ensure the technological supremacy of Great Xia, it was indeed necessary to implement a comprehensive technological revitalization plan.

Even if it costs money to support many researchers who never produce a single result in their lifetime, as long as there is a large enough base, some genius scientists will always emerge and create groundbreaking achievements.

What we are seeing now is an excellent example.

A young PhD student at the Great Xia Supernatural Abilities Research Institute had a flash of genius and created the Supernatural Spectrum Scanning Radar.

These Atinna people, thinking they possessed immense power, had no idea how advanced the Great Xia's black technology was, and foolishly charged headlong into it.

*
Thirty kilometers away.

Nearly 100 meters below the sea surface.

Huge, dark shadows were slowly swimming forward.

These are the sea monster legions controlled by the Independent Army.

Around each sea creature, the seawater seemed to have turned into a gel, clinging tightly to the creature's body.

An independent soldier with superpowers was perched on the head of the sea monster. A crimson tube, which looked like a blood vessel, was strangely extending from the back of the superpowered person's head and inserted into the sea monster's head.

This is undoubtedly the method by which the Independent Army controls the sea monsters.

Gwyneth and Calvin were the commander and deputy commander of this sea monster legion, respectively.

Gwyneth closed her eyes and sensed for a moment, then suddenly opened them and laughed excitedly: "It seems the Great Xia people haven't discovered us!"

Calvin was equally excited: "The water control technique can deal with traditional radar. The technology that the Great Xia people are so proud of is outdated. We are sure to win this battle!"

Gwyneth decisively issued an order: "Full speed ahead! Attack as soon as you get close to the Great Xia Navy!"

Calvin roared, "Sink the Great Xia warships and slaughter every Great Xia person!" (End of Chapter)