A device capable of generating nuclear fuel out of thin air!
Chu Guang's shock in this moment was beyond words.
"Incredible... This is simply incredible!" Yin Fang rubbed his nose, his eyes fixed on the device called the perforator, those words seemingly the only ones left in his vocabulary.
Lyu Bei wore a similar expression, just as overwhelmed by the scene before them.
He didn't understand much of the complex physics involved, but he knew very well that helium-3 was precisely the strategic resource the Alliance needed most, and one that was virtually non-renewable in the short term!
At the thought, Lyu Bei couldn't help muttering under his breath.
"...Doesn't this mean we've unlocked... infinite energy?!"
As long as they continuously extracted the energy from the fuel canister and plugged it back into the perforator to "recharge" it, they could endlessly "borrow" light from another world and shape it into whatever form they needed!
Hearing this, Yin Fang snapped out of his daze and cut Lyu Bei off without hesitation.
"Out of the question!"
A startled Lyu Bei cast a bewildered look at Yin Fang, just as Chu Guang placed a hand on his shoulder.
"It sounds like an easy bargain. But in my experience, an easy bargain usually conceals a hidden cost we know nothing about—one we most likely cannot afford."
Stepping around Lyu Bei, Chu Guang walked up to the perforator and studied it for a long while.
The mottled rust made it hard to believe the machine could still function, yet the reality he had witnessed with his own eyes couldn't be denied—they truly had borrowed light from another universe.
And from the Creator's universe, no less.
"You are right. There are far too many things here that we don't understand, and ignorance itself is the greatest threat," Yin Fang said, picking up the thread and speaking rapidly. "Do you remember Its warning?"
Chu Guang nodded.
"Do not attempt to break the Fourth Wall."
These words were what Ye Shi had heard in Alpha Centauri, which had subsequently been posted in an update on the official forum.
Yin Fang snapped his fingers and continued excitedly.
"Exactly that! I wonder if you've noticed—beyond that wall... there very likely exists something even It feared."
An existence feared even by a civilization that had shattered the void to depart this universe...
It was truly hard to imagine what such a thing looked like.
Then again, looked at from another angle, this perforator could serve as an effective deterrent.
If someday in the future, they truly encountered other surviving interstellar civilizations in this universe...
At that moment, Heya, who had been standing with her arms crossed without uttering a word, suddenly spoke up.
"Sorry, but what I care more about is something else. So... are we all created... uh, characters?"
She wasn't sure if that was the right word, but it felt like the most accurate one.
Yin Fang nodded, then shook his head.
"You could put it that way, but agonizing over it is pointless. According to the clues left behind by the Progenitor, not only were we created, but our Creator was likewise created by another Creator... Every universe is like this, iterating layer upon layer, without end."
Perhaps there was an end.
Yet that ventured into the realm of agnosticism.
Heya fell into deep thought, pursing her lips, and didn't speak again for a long time.
Delving too deeply into the spiritual realm was rarely beneficial; some things served no purpose even if understood.
Chu Guang, for instance, cared very little about what lay behind the Fourth Wall.
Every decision he made came from his own heart; on that point, there was no doubt.
Whether a Creator existed or not would not alter his judgment.
In fact, he was more inclined to believe this was just like "psionics."
His existence did not bend to anyone's subjective will. Someone in another world had merely made a casual stroke on a wall, and that stroke had happened to sketch out the trajectory of his life.
If that stroke had gone crooked, it would simply mean it depicted someone else in another universe, even if that person shared his name.
Based on this theory, he and his Creator were, to each other, merely one possibility in hundreds of millions.
Regardless of whether a Creator existed, his fate was decided by no one else, and had always belonged solely to him.
Just then, after maintaining silence for quite some time, Heya spoke up again.
"...What we just tested was the perforator's reverse operation. What happens if we run it forward while inserting a canister filled with helium-3 fuel?"
Yin Fang immediately replied.
"That would mean crossing over to the other world... Just like Dr. Qiu Shiye, traveling through the cracks of the Fourth Wall in the form of electromagnetic waves to reach the Creator's universe."
Everyone fell silent, and the cavernous warehouse grew deathly quiet.
That sounded no different from suicide.
At least from a materialist perspective, that was unquestionably what it amounted to...
Chu Guang gave a soft cough, cutting short their wild speculations.
"All right, that's enough experimentation for today... We truly did obtain something remarkable from Alpha Centauri."
"Using it just to produce helium-3 is a complete waste of its potential. That meager amount of energy is a drop in the bucket for us. We'd be better off using this machine for something meaningful."
Heya tilted her head.
"Such as?"
"Studying the void!" Yin Fang's eyes gleamed brightly, his gaze as sharp as a lion sighting its prey. "Compared to a tiny amount of helium-3, which we don't lack in the solar system anyway... I'm far more eager to see what we can learn from it!"
That fanatical look sent chills down one's spine, prompting even several of Yin Fang's researchers present to shrink their necks.
It was hard to say whether this was a good idea.
Chu Guang, however, felt that rather than fear of the unknown, ignorance was far more terrifying.
A bold hypothesis.
Perhaps long before them, someone had already begun studying this thing.
They were unlikely to be the first nascent civilization to touch the relics of the Progenitor civilization, nor were they likely to be the last.
Looking at the expectant Yin Fang, Chu Guang nodded in agreement with his proposal.
"At the very least, we need to understand what we're holding in our hands."
...
While the Alliance's scientific community was marveling at the astonishing discoveries from Alpha Centauri, a massive steel submarine was cutting through the waves toward the Baiyue Strait across the rolling blue waters of the Southern Sea.
The reception of the "Doma envoy" from Planet Gaia was entrusted to the Alliance Academy of Social Sciences.
According to the route mapped out by Ms. Han Mingyue, they would board the cargo submarine Dolphin from the base of the space elevator, pass all the way through the Baiyue Strait to reach Golden Gallon Port, and then head to Silver Moon Bay to transfer onto a train bound for Dawn City.
Without a doubt, this was the longest possible route to Dawn City.
Yet according to Ms. Han Mingyue, this journey would better represent the real wasteland and help Dora understand the world where the Ancestors lived.
After all, if they came ashore at the Death Coast, the scenery along the entire way would be virtually identical...
The enormous alloy hull was submerged beneath the rolling waves, leaving only the U-shaped conning tower exposed.
Watching the waves crash against the curved panoramic windows, Dora stood in the bridge, her eyes wide with excitement.
"Is this... the sea?!"
"Haha! Exactly! All of this! The people of the South Sea Alliance have lived right here, and for over two whole centuries!"
Standing before the control console, Captain Chen Jianhong let out a hearty laugh and waved to a crewman beside him.
Catching the captain's gesture, the crewman promptly adjusted the rudder, causing the massive hull to rise from beneath the churning waves and lifting the bridge even higher.
The view ahead opened up in an instant!
An endless, boundless azure met the horizon, blending seamlessly with the blue sky and white clouds!
A faint ribbon of emerald and gold shimmered at the distant edge of the sky, like a necklace bestowed upon the sea by the heavens.
Vessels of all sizes floated across the water's surface.
Among them were container freighters, as well as salvage ships cruising about.
Ever since the gravity well had been activated, vast quantities of space debris had plummeted into the expansive Southern Sea, and scavengers from across the wasteland had swarmed in like sharks scenting blood.
Thanks to this, this stretch of sea, once isolated on the fringes of the wasteland, had become thoroughly bustling!
Dora clenched her fists in excitement, standing on tiptoe as if she wanted to jump up just to see a little farther.
Watching her thrilled reaction, a proud smile crept onto Captain Chen Jianhong's face.
Though he had joined the Alliance long ago, he had always regarded this sea as his home.
That had never changed.
"Incredible..." Dora murmured, finally letting her excitement settle down.
Seeing her wide-eyed amazement, Ye Shi couldn't resist chiming in with a dry remark.
"It's not really that incredible. Hydrogen-oxygen compounds are quite common in the universe."
Dora looked at him curiously and asked eagerly,
"Hydrogen-oxygen compounds?"
Ye Shi coughed and explained,
"It just means water."
"Incredible..."
"I already said it's nothing incredible."
Ye Shi tried to explain between laughter and tears, only to find the little stars glittering in the girl's eyes shining even brighter.
Beside them, Little Koala looked up at the ceiling, clanking sounds rattling out from beneath its round metal belly.
"I don't like it here very much. The damp air makes my whole body feel awful."
Especially when that humid air condensed into droplets of water on its steel plates.
Standing nearby, Professor Sun Wenze stared at it for a long while, muttering to himself,
"Unbelievable, that a machine could possess a soul... So what is your soul called? A machine spirit?"
Little Koala replied helplessly,
"I don't know. Don't ask me about such things."
The submarine slowly glided into the Baiyue Strait and docked at Port French Fries.
The group stepped onto the pier.
Due to strict confidentiality regarding the itinerary, the survivors at Port French Fries had no idea that this guest from Alpha Centauri would be disembarking here.
Consequently, the moment Dora stepped onto the pier, pairs of curious eyes drifted toward her.
Emerald-green skin.
On the wasteland, only mutants possessed such a complexion.
Yet that jade-like green was distinctly different from the emerald hue on her body, which radiated the vitality of life.
Even setting aside the color itself, the people on the docks could easily distinguish her from a mutant.
One difference was her hair.
Another was her female features.
Mutants had no hair, and female mutants did not exist.
While the crowd on the docks cast astonished and curious glances toward the pier, Dora, standing upon it, widened her eyes in equal amazement, looking at the people ashore with breathless excitement.
Sunshades were pitched across the sun-drenched beach, and beyond them lay a tree-lined street.
A crowd flickered along the avenue, coming and going beneath colorful signboards and rustling boughs.
It was a scene Dora had never witnessed before.
In her tribe, people lived in the trees, eating and sleeping in hollowed trunks.
Even the Qiu people living in the Forbidden Forest Valley, who knew how to build houses of stone, could never build dwellings so magnificent, let alone pave roads with smooth stone slabs... In her understanding, such a concept as a "road" did not even exist.
The scenery before her eyes was dazzling, leaving Dora unsure where to direct her gaze.
The legends about the Ancestors had actually been too modest.
This didn't feel like paradise; it felt like a paradise above paradise.
"So many people..." she murmured in awe as she watched the throng moving along the coastal path.
Just the people walking along the shore already outnumbered her entire tribe back home!
It was more than all the people living in the entire forest combined!
Seeing her marvel over every little thing, Ye Shi smiled and said,
"This isn't even the most crowded place. Wait until we pass through Golden Gallon Port, then you'll see what a real crowd looks like."
Apart from Ideal City, that was probably the most populous survivor settlement in the entire wasteland.
As for Port French Fries, it didn't even rank in terms of population; it was merely a scenic resort harbor.
Dora looked at Ye Shi in wonder.
She could tell he wasn't joking, yet she couldn't imagine what a place with even more people would look like.
Would they be stacked on top of one another?
Smiling at Dora's wide-eyed wonder, Han Mingyue slipped on the sunglasses tucked into her collar and asked casually in an amused tone,
"By the way, have you sensed anything unusual? From the air here... or from anywhere else?"
Dora paused slightly, snapping out of her initial shock. She closed her bright eyes, her expression returning to its serene, devout composure.
Han Mingyue studied her face with keen interest, as if appraising a work of art.
They didn't have to wait long.
Dora opened her eyes again, and a look of wonder blossomed within them.
"I sense a very familiar presence... It feels very much like our forest!"
Surprise flickered across the faces of everyone standing nearby, including the player Ye Shi.
Only then did he suddenly recall that this forest seemed to be alive!
Not only that.
It was also a child of Gaia!
Just like the broodmother from Qingquan City had been!
Come to think of it, the quest to locate the broodmother issued by the Alliance Biological Research Institute several versions ago seemed to remain uncompleted even now...
Seeing that Dora had discovered something, the interest in Han Mingyue's eyes grew even keener.
She pressed further,
"Can you communicate with it? Or rather... does it possess self-awareness?"
Dora nodded enthusiastically.
"Yes! It's greeting me. Its voice sounds very much like the Tree of Ein Sof, though not entirely identical. It feels like... it's Its child."
It was indeed Its child.
Just like the Gaian people on Planet Gaia, they shared the same parents.
The only difference was that this entity had been a strategic weapon designed by radicals of the Human Alliance under the premise of "destruction."
Dora, on the other hand, was a new lifeform nurtured by the Tree of Ein Sof—or rather, the ecological maintenance system left behind by the Progenitor civilization—for the purpose of "saving endangered species."
Han Mingyue looked at Dora excitedly.
"Did it say anything?"
Dora nodded quickly once more.
Only this time, her expression turned slightly awkward, losing some of its earlier composure.
"It's complaining, saying you're very noisy."
"It also said it would be nice if you could all quiet down..."
Chapter 1025