Martin arrived quickly, too. The Ancestral Gods from his cosmos couldn't come, but it seemed that the Marvel Universe also had Ancestral Gods. He set up an altar outside and after half a day of summoning, he actually managed to call forth one.
Currently, there were no students of Mexican descent at the Karmatige Magic Academy, so no one had summoned a god from the Aztec Deity System yet—Martin was the first.
The magical rules in this universe were much clearer than those in DC, not as obscure and abstruse. Ancestral Gods like the Egyptian Gods and Aztec Deity System didn't have high demands; they didn't require one's inner organs or soul to grant power—most of them simply asked for offerings.
"The deity system here is much better preserved than the one over there," Martin said. "The Feathered Serpent God is very interested in this place, so I signed a contract with him first, but according to him, it seems I can also make contracts with other Gods. However, one is enough for now."
Soon, someone who wasn't within Stark's expectations, yet wasn't surprising, arrived—Xu Shang-Chi.
He looked travel-worn and exhausted, resembling a college student who had been rushing project deadlines for several days straight.
"How's the space station cooperation project going?" Shiller asked.
"Not too bad, but those Indians are really tough. I don't understand their English," Xu Shang-Chi obviously had plenty of complaints but swallowed them down and said, "The technology collaboration between China and the US is going smoothly, though there are still a few challenging patents that we haven't agreed on, but we've already made breakthroughs in over a dozen projects."
"Is he a magician too?" Pamela asked.
"Oh, hello Miss, I am not," Xu Shang-Chi responded very humbly and politely, saying, "You could think of me as a cultivator, belonging to the Eastern power system."
"Have you visited Kunlun already?"
"Yes, I've also been to Qingcheng Mountain and Shaolin Temple," Xu Shang-Chi said after some thought, "They said I could visit The Heavenly Court and Mount Ling, but I really don't have the time; that will have to wait for another day."
"How is the Great Saint?"
"Busy, they are all very busy," Xu Shang-Chi said with a wave of his hand, "He told me he hasn't been this busy since he hopped out of the stone. But more than being busy, I think he is annoyed. Those Indian gods are not much capable, yet they put on huge airs; he's frustrated to death."
Shiller could clearly see he had grown a lot, no longer the freshly transmigrated kid overwhelmed by panic, but someone who had devoted himself wholeheartedly to his new career.
Currently, Xu Shang-Chi's main role was to mediate in the Stella Core Space Station's technical collaboration between China and the US, responsible for all kinds of reception work. It was like going back to his old trade in civil engineering.
At the same time, since Xu Shang-Chi himself practiced the Eastern system, he also had a good relationship with the Magic Side here, and had even dealt with some of the big names.
The first was Monkey, followed by Kunlun, then Dragon Tiger Mountain, Wudang, Qingcheng Mountain, Shaolin Temple, Fahua Temple, among other sects.
However, Shiller had called him over this time for something that was more in line with his old profession. He handed Xu Shang-Chi a set of blueprints and said, "We're going to build a plant cultivation and experimental base here. This is the blueprint for the first phase of the project."
Xu Shang-Chi let out a wail but still carefully started to look over the blueprints. After a while, he said, "The design is very good, combining aesthetics and functionality, and there are no issues with safety. The only problem is, how do you plan to construct such a large complex of buildings?"
The others gathered around to look at the blueprint he was holding, and saw that the design wasn't for just one or two buildings; it resembled a layout for an entire residential district.
The three villages of Shambhala were arranged at varying altitudes, with the lowest at approximately 5,500 meters above sea level, and the highest reaching over 7,000 meters, a vertical drop of two thousand meters between them. The blueprints made full use of this altitude difference by spirally arranging five greenhouses on the essential path through the three villages.
Two of them were large greenhouses, while the other three were small specialty greenhouses. In addition to the greenhouse structures, there were also open-air farmlands, medicinal fields, spiritual springs, among other facilities, along with several phases of landscaping plans.
It was evident that the design philosophy wasn't solely focused on practicality, but considering the need to make Shambhala's medicinal herbs famous, making sure visitors got a glimpse of mysterious Shambhala was inevitable, thus creating wonders was unavoidable.
Besides, there were structures like Sky Islands and floating walkways, seemingly meant for visitors to enjoy the view, along with supporting facilities like oxygen supply stations, power stations, and network signal bases. It was overwhelming to take in.
"If I may speak frankly, even the roads are not connected yet, and it's a struggle to build ordinary houses for the villagers, so such a massive project really is far-fetched."
Everyone could hear that Xu Shang-Chi was being very diplomatic.
They were currently in the lowest village for the visit and could clearly tell that the pillar industry here was handicrafts, whether it was for buildings or crops, all bearing distinct marks of manual work.
Take the houses, for example, most were built in-situ from felled trees, with people carrying the timber on their shoulders to construct cabins. Their stone crafting skills were inferior to those of the Middle Ages, mostly used for decoration purposes.
There were no heavy construction machines here; even the roads were narrow pathways. Although there was a significant cliff near the south side of the village, offering ample space for building, expecting the current stage of engineering civilization here to erect large structures was wishful thinking.
Of course, China is not devoid of ancient wonders; in fact, this country is the only civilization that managed to continue building grand ancient spectacles until today.
But now, after all, it is not a feudal society, and Kamar-Taj is not any kind of slave master, even if he were, with just a few hundred people in the village, they couldn't even dig much dirt, let alone build the Great Wall.
Some might say there's magic, but magic is energy. So far, human mages don't have the technology to turn the intangible into tangible, meaning they can't create things out of thin air with magic energy. Even if they could create, what they create would be materialized energy, not real matter.
Therefore, at most, they can only do some destructive work like mining and quarrying, or some heavy lifting, but the massive processing of stone and timber, data measurement, structural integration and component docking are all very real problems. Nobody here knows how to do these things.
Xu Shang-Chi kept shaking his head and sighing while Stark said, "It would be great if I could bring an engineering queen hive here, but unfortunately, Pepper won't let me into the lab."
"An intelligent engineering queen hive wouldn't work either," Shiller said. "They're used to working with synthetic materials. If you want to build without ruining the village's aesthetic, you can only work with raw materials. Handling raw materials requires learning time, and more importantly, waste of materials, and there aren't too many of those around here."
Pamela's expression grew graver as she said, "I just checked; the root system of the underground plants is not very dense, so we cannot cut them down in large quantities. As for stones, I'm not very knowledgeable, but I do know that since most ancient Eastern constructions were made of wood, it shows that stone resources here are not abundant."
"Mainly, it's difficult to mine," added Xu Shang-Chi, something he learned from his college courses. "Europe has so many magnificent stone churches mainly because they have abundant stone mines, many open-air quarries, and the Mediterranean sea, a natural transportation hub for shipping."
By contrast, the stone in ancient China was mostly underground and nowhere near as accessible as timber, which is why most ancient buildings were wooden. Although suitable at the time, they are difficult to preserve."
"What about transporting from outside?" Stark asked. "Sichuan is nearby; don't they have enough stone there?"
"That's exactly the problem," Shiller said. "Stephen wants to show his sincerity, but transporting materials from within China is essentially like asking the examiner for answers, right? He still wants to be self-reliant."
"This is going to be tricky," said Pamela. "I think I need to go back and ask Bruce for some data. When he was working on the Gotham renovation project, he managed to minimize the use of materials while still ensuring safety and comfort, and he did not use any very advanced synthetic materials; it was mostly all raw materials."
"Raw materials? Reinforced concrete?"
"If we really could use reinforced concrete as a skeleton, that wouldn't be out of the question," Xu Shang-Chi said. "We only need the exterior to look retro. We could just apply veneers at worst. Steel reinforced structures are indeed the most cost-effective and sturdy."
"As for this?" Xu Shang-Chi glanced at the blueprint in his hand, "It's entirely retro construction methods written on it. Wooden structures use the mortise and tenon joint system, and stone uses medieval support structures. It's artful and of architectural aesthetic value but not very practical."
"But we don't even have materials for reinforced concrete, do we?" Stark pointed out, "Don't tell me there's somewhere around here that produces ready-made steel rods and cement."
"Indeed, we don't have those, but we have alternatives," Helen suddenly said. "Don't forget, as long as we reach the strength of reinforced concrete, what does it matter what materials you use?"
"What do you mean?"
"Do you all remember Sandman?"
"You mean the guy who always had problems with Peter?" After recalling for a moment, Stark said, "The last time Peter came back he still mentioned how that guy seemed to always have an issue with him, not forgetting to argue with him on his way home from work."
"Wasn't he involved in the construction of the space station? Where is he working now?" Shiller asked.
Stark took out his phone and sent Nick a message. He got a reply quickly and said, "This guy is now working on the Moon. Remember the Far Side of the Moon transformation project?"
"Oh, you mean the Moon Battleship project?"
"Can we stop using that ridiculous name?" Stark said somewhat helplessly, "Every nation is debunking that rumor. We're only making limited modifications to the Moon, not turning it into some kind of vehicle! Why do the Chinese people like to make planets move?!"
"Let's stick to the matter at hand," Helen brought the conversation back on track and said, "I heard that he can compress sand to the utmost, forming a new kind of building material, that is well-insulated and breathable, with excellent adhesive properties."
"But there's no sand here, right?" Pamela pointed out.
"He can produce sand himself, or, in other words, he is made of sand and can mold himself into various shapes. Recently, he has developed the ability to compress his molecular structure, becoming even stronger," Stark summarized, looking at the data sent by Nick.
"Sounds powerful. Doesn't he have any weaknesses?" Barry asked.
"He's a bit afraid of water, which slows him down. But theoretically, he shouldn't have this weakness; it might be a psychological issue," Shiller said. "I've only met him once, never really dealt with him. We'll ask him when he arrives."
Suddenly, Stark's phone rang. He answered it and, after a few words with the person on the other end, hung up and said.
"There's a problem," Stark announced. "Beck resigned about a week ago. He wrote nothing on the resignation letter, and now his former colleagues and friends can't reach him."