Chapter 1313: Chapter 1313: Various New Discoveries
The temporary base that Taville built in two days was designed following the classic structure of a Pioneer Exploration Station: this kind of station uses a denser asteroid as its apex, constructs a frawork with superalloy, sets up nurous landing platforms and small ports at the frawork edges for engineering drones and various ships to dock, while the inner ring of the frawork distributes primary and secondary engineering nodes. These facilities are responsible for initially cutting and scanning the collected samples, discarding worthless mineral debris, and sending the valuable, rough-processed mineral samples to the material transfer station. The material transfer station uses superspace equipnt to send the mineral samples directly to the large central laboratory of the base. This simple and efficient system ensures that the entire station always operates at maximum efficiency. With the expansion of drones and engineering ships, it continuously extends into the surrounding space. When it reaches a certain level, the Pioneer Exploration Station can upgrade to a Space Fortress or Military Node; the modular Empire equipnt only needs slight modification to build a space city on those crisscrossing superalloy fraworks. In fact, the Kuiper Belt Base of the Capital World began in this way: its predecessor was just a Pioneer Exploration Station.
Using the basic Pioneer Station as a foundation, continuously upgrading the structure, and eventually evolving into barracks/space fortresses/colonial cities/military nodes, etc., is one of the common upgrade processes of Empire space facilities.
Of course, we currently have no plans to upgrade this Pioneer Exploration Station, although Sandora has considered bringing this remote world into the Empire’s territory, building it into a military and industrial core universe. However, the asteroid belt serving as a quarry itself holds little value for setting up a base; its only use to us is those rocks from the Hotown World.
The central large laboratory of the workstation has a hive structure, housing a large number of modular sample analysis rooms. The teorites collected by engineering drones are sorted and sent here for various tests to determine the ti they crossed the World Barrier and attempt to judge the current situation of the Hotown World from clues on these stones—of course, if we could find the coordinates of the Hotown World that would be even better, but this appears to be a slim hope. The space flash here ended over ten thousand years ago; even if this universe once brushed by the Hotown World, they have long drifted apart.
Taville brought us to her current workspace—strictly speaking, the workspace of her current mass projection, because we know that the asurent unit for the number of Taville now is calculated in basketball courts…
This is a spacious hexagonal hall, possibly using space expansion equipnt, making it very broad. In the hall, dozens of gravity-free platforms are neatly arranged, with unremarkable teorite fragnts hovering on half of them. Each gravity-free platform is about ten ters apart, and autonomous machines for scientific tasks shuttle swiftly among these gaps, checking each gravity-free platform’s working condition or assisting the cutting beams on the platforms in dissecting the teorite samples. Assistant technicians in white uniforms gather in small groups beside so platforms, analyzing data, engaging in heated discussions, or acting expressive: they must have made so significant discoveries. In the past two days, every scientist in this station has experienced nurous significant discoveries: discovering a new Hotown substance, verifying a footnote from Ancestor mory, learning a bit of new intelligence about the Hotown World enough to make them excited.
Empire scientists have never been a reserved and calm group; each one of them has a passionate heart…
“This is the largest sample analysis room, with each category of teorite required to be stored here,” Taville led us to the nearest gravity-free platform. “We have found thirty-seven substances from the Hotown World, both tallic and non-tallic. They entirely match the Hotown information recorded in the mory Core. Look at these things—”
Taville spoke, glancing around the entire hall: “These ancient things co from the Hotown… our Creator built the Ark with these things, and even in the Fifth Generation, created the first Original Body with these. I can hardly imagine we would have the chance to see these primitive minerals in person. The entire research team is now in a state of excitent; this is the second ti since discovering the Original Body we have been so stirred by things related to the Ancestors.”
Taville ntioned the Fifth Generation—I happen to know this; Sandora once introduced the history of the Xyrin Apostle to . They divide the entire Xyrin Civilization by “Generation,” from the first Xyrin Person standing upright to the establishnt of the New Empire up to now, all calculated by “Generation.” The most revered aspect of this chronology is that it’s not recorded from the perspective of any race, but rather from the perspective of the entire civilization. The First to Fourth Generations are the history of the Xyrin People, also the childhood years of Xyrin Civilization, docunting the years when Xyrin People ford tribes and explored the entire universe, realizing the world’s boundaries—now this period of history is long incomplete, only a bit of remnant snippets in the core mory of Xyrin Apostle can describe it.
And the Fifth Generation is a turning point for this civilization: in this generation, Xyrin Civilization encountered the Abyss, then jumped out of the world, the old Xyrin People perished, new Xyrin Apostles were born, the newborn race replaced the Creator, “Person” was replaced by “Envoy,” the Hotown World beca a historical term, and “Xyrin Civilization” was taken over by a young group, relentlessly stepping into the Endless Void—this is also why the number “Five” holds significant importance in Xyrin Civilization.
After the end of the Fifth Generation, the history of the Xyrin Empire began.
Few civilizations have a history like this: it’s a universal history of civilization, but in the middle of the history, the “protagonist” changed, the race of the first half of history was entirely replaced, but the history of this civilization didn’t change its na, still continues to be inherited. The Xyrin People handed their civilization to the race they created, disappearing cleanly into the void depths, the Xyrin Apostle took up this civilization from the ancestors, swore to inherit it, even nearly by all ans to turn it into an unprecedentedly powerful empire. Absolute dedication, absolute loyalty, moving towards the goal regardless of consequence—this is the gene ingrained in the soul’s depths of every individual nad “Xyrin,” obsessive and frightening.
It is also due to this chronology, the Xyrin Apostles also directly refer to the Xyrin People’s Mother Star Era as “our Mother Star Era,” even though at that ti, envoys hadn’t been born yet, not even a blueprint. But they still consider that as the beginning of their history.
I only suddenly thought of these when Taville suddenly ntioned the Fifth Generation, and obviously, Sandora thought even more things and more specifically. She frowned at the floating teorite samples on the gravity-free platforms and then turned to Taville: “Are all discovered substances natural minerals?”
“Yes, natural minerals,” Taville’s expression seed a bit regretful, “These substances should co from a broken rocky planet in the Hotown Universe, composition analysis shows their age of formation is similar, so the probability of coming from the sa celestial body is very high. No artificial objects have been seen in the already discovered material samples; perhaps the place of leakage from the Hotown World happens to be far from where the Ancestors were active. Of course, it’s also possible that we haven’t found those artificial objects yet, after all, the engineering team hasn’t completed searching this area, and it’s possible so Hotown materials were dragged into the orbit near the Sun by gravitational perturbations within the star system. Theoretically, that is.”
“Do your best,” Sandora nodded, “But don’t get your hopes up too high. The universe is vast, it’s normal that the Creators couldn’t leave their traces on every celestial body, finding no relics of theirs is also normal.”
Under Taville’s guidance, we saw various types of mineral samples; during this period, two new valuable samples were brought in again. After cutting, Taville obtained two pieces of complex composition compounds. But unfortunately, these compounds still weren’t man-made products. I know she and Sandora both hope to find “relics” the Creators left among these Hotown materials, but the likelihood in this situation is indeed too low, estimated probabilistically not greater than winning twenty consecutive periods of lottery and ultimately not being wiped out…
But the intelligence currently grasped is already satisfying: now Taville can basically confirm that the Hotown World is still alive, and it was at least in an unusually active state twenty thousand years ago. Based on the data she collected from the samples, all paraters of the Hotown materials can be precisely asured, which holds great significance: if a substance can be precisely asured, aning it possesses a unique asurable physical property macroscopically, then it must co from a stable universe. Because when a universe is on the brink of a “Mathematical Doomsday,” naly laws in chaos leading to universe collapse, everything would fall into a “asurent uncertainty state,” this uncertainty is sowhat different from that in quantum chanics, it indicates that everything in the universe loses “properties” macroscopically, an object would lack mass or be indefinitely heavy, it might be solid but might also suddenly flow, it might transform into anything in your sight or vanish magically, this is the state of matter within a universe severely infected by the Abyss before its destruction—and the teorite samples collected in the asteroid belt are not like that, they appear very normal.
“Even in the worst-case scenario, twenty thousand years is not enough ti for such a highly stable universe to be destroyed.”
Taville finally concluded by pointing to a piece of light gray mineral sample.
“Wait, I just thought of a question,” Sandora pondered for a mont, then suddenly raised her eyes, “How old are these minerals’ histories? I an not their age since arriving in this universe, but their history after forming in the Hotown World.”
“Your Majesty, this is the most perplexing aspect,” Taville imdiately grasped Sandora’s idea, “We perford an elental analysis on all our samples, determining that even the oldest elents ford 12 billion years ago.”
I pondered for a mont, still not understanding, so I tugged on Sandora’s sleeve, “What does that an exactly?”
“The Abyss has been destroying the Hotown World up until now… I don’t know the precise age by now, but it certainly has been over tens of millions of years,” Sandora sighed, “yet the material samples we’ve found are too young. If we go by Taville’s data analysis, these material fragnts evolved naturally post-Abyss corruption of the Hotown World – that the Hotown World has survived until today is a miracle, and that it’s still undergoing normal universal evolution post-Abyss corruption is almost impossible!”
“Not only that,” Taville chid in alongside, “none of the samples we’ve found have any traces of the Abyss remains, as if they originated from a normal universe.”
“Are you sure?!” Sandora suddenly lifted her head, looking at Taville in disbelief.
“Absolutely, my Majesty,” Taville nodded emphatically, then pushed up the glasses on his nose. “Upon confirming that these materials ca from the Hotown Universe, we began noticing discrepancies between them and the ‘Ancestor mory.’ This is what I ntioned before, the ‘mysterious’ nature of these Hotown materials. Firstly, they are very young, indicating that the Hotown World is still undergoing normal evolution; secondly, there’s no Abyss reaction on any of the material samples, even though theoretically the Hotown World should have been completely infused with the Abyss by now; lastly, unrelated to the samples, is the anomaly of the Hotown World itself: the lifespan of a universe shouldn’t be this long. Even without Abyss pollution, a healthy, normal universe shouldn’t have such a longevity!”
I recalled sothing Father God said: every natural world has a beginning and an end; a universe born in the Void will eventually return to the Void. ‘Zeroing is the eternal truth in the Void. Currently, apart from worlds artificially created by the two Divine Races and the Xyrin Empire, all universes have finite lifespans. There might be so unusually robust worlds with super-long lifespans, but clearly, the Hotown Universe of the Xyrin Apostle has already far exceeded its theoretically possible survival ti.
Even without Abyss corrosion, that universe should have t its demise historically — that’s the biggest puzzle Sandora and Taville face.
“The Hotown World is definitely a natural universe; it’s not created by God. In the past, the Creators didn’t have techniques to control the lifespan of a universe,” Sandora said resolutely. Before this, she, like other Xyrin Apostles, was imrsed in the joy of discovering news about her holand, unconsciously overlooking this aspect of the detail, and now that she has cald down, the various anomalies in the Hotown World start to beco suspicious to her.
I took a few minutes to sort through Sandora and Taville’s high-level conjectures, identifying the crux of the matter, and then engaged my limited brain cells to research how to explain this phenonon, but soon I gave up: I’m clearly not as imaginative as Qianqian; my capacity for filling gaps doesn’t even co close to hers…
“Presently, there are only two possibilities,” Taville suddenly said slowly, “First, after the ancestors left, sothing earthshaking happened in the Hotown Universe; perhaps the Abyss polluting the entire world was purified, and then the whole universe was altered by so external force, which is why the Hotown Universe has survived until now, and all this occurred after the ancestors left, remaining unknown to this day. Second, the Ancestor mory of the Xyrin Apostle… might have problems. In theory, that is.”
“I don’t think there’s a problem with the Ancestor mory,” Sandora shook her head imdiately, “and the second conjecture also doesn’t explain the lifespan problem of the Hotown Universe. Personally, I lean towards your first hypothesis. No matter what, we must find a way to locate the Hotown, and only by visiting there in person can we explain everything.”
What Sandora proposed is absolutely a challenging goal to achieve. Without knowing the world coordinates, pinpointing a specific universe from the vast Void could give the Divine Race a headache. True, the Empire has a super Void radar like the Leaving World Garden, but its search range compared to the entire Void is still a drop in the ocean. Previously when we searched for a New World, we had at least a general range, either roughly knowing which Quadrant the target world was in or being able to determine that the target world wasn’t far from the Capital Universe, but the “Hotown World” of the Xyrin Apostle doesn’t fit any of these scenarios. Although we have material samples from the Hotown, these samples left their origin world over 20,000 years ago, and the information they carry for locating the Hotown can no longer be accurately read.
This feels like asking an eighty-year-old blind man to find his estranged father from two billion people, without being allowed to make inquiries…
“Ah Jun, what are you daydreaming about again?”
Sandora’s voice suddenly pulled back from my drifting thoughts, as I awkwardly scratched my head, not feeling comfortable sharing my associations about the estranged father. I know that daydreaming on such serious occasions is inappropriate, but the high-level topics of Sandora and Taville are a bit overwhelming, and as such high-level discussions progress, my daydreaming ability seems to strengthen exponentially with ti — see, just two sentences and I’m zoning out again.
“What do you think we could do now?” I thought for a mont and posed a very practical question, “The coordinates of the Hotown World can’t be found in a short ti, and analyzing that armor fragnt takes ti as well. Should we send soone to check the World Barrier more thoroughly? Since there has been a spatial flash, it suggests that historically, the two worlds might have been pretty close, perhaps the World Barrier bears so collision traces or sothing like that.”
This was the only plan I could propose with my limited knowledge. I know it still equates to asking that old blind man to find his father; the only difference is we’ve eliminated the won for him…
“That’s all we can do,” Sandora nodded helplessly, “but even though 20,000 years have passed, with the World Barrier’s self-repair ability, if there were collision traces, the remnants would hardly be substantial.”
No matter how effective this plan may be, an engineering team still sets off for the World Barrier, conducting a needle-in-a-haystack scan. As for what we could do next, it seems to have ended — at least what I can help with is over — alright, from the start, there wasn’t much I could help with, are you satisfied with that!?
Anyhow, the experts have begun their work in their professional fields, leaving , as in most cases, with nothing to do at this point. After wandering around the base for half a day, I suddenly rembered Qianqian seed to be outside with the little ones, so I decided to go see what they were up to. (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, feel free to visit Qidian (qidian) to vote for recomndations and monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please visit m.qidian for reading.)
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