With the support of a ninth-level civilization, do you want me to believe in electronic gods?

Chapter 467 Under the Pedestal (Two in One)

There are still 28 hours until the first batch of star scorpions arrive at the place of creation.

The mining of light stones and the collection of insect eggs are not simple tasks.

Especially after that earth-shattering battle.

The soft light of the stellar flares shone quietly in the deep space inside the incubation tower, trying to dispel the gloomy feeling as much as possible.

In the orange-yellow light, the full picture of the incubation tower base was clearly presented in the eyes of Chen Fan and the others.

The originally flat base of the hatching tower now had a lot of uneven areas, and was filled with cracks of varying sizes - the battle with the giant scorpion larvae had caused considerable damage to the flat light stone floor tiles.

Among them, the damage to the central area of ​​the base was the most serious!
Hundreds of high-quality light stone tiles quietly dissipated and turned into countless crystal sands that were dyed orange by stellar flares. The disturbing information contained within them naturally dissipated as well.

As for the area surrounding the base...

The polished stones also suffered considerable damage, with cracks of varying thickness scattered across the originally smooth polished stone floor tiles. At first glance, the cracks on the polished stones seemed to contain some kind of pattern, appearing extremely strange.

The closer to the center, the more cracks there are on the light stone tiles, and the less disturbing information contained inside the light stone.

vice versa.

Therefore, the mining of light stone can only be carried out on the edge of the base.

Although the quality of these bright stones is not very good and even contains some impurities, they are abundant in quantity.

A more crucial point.

For Wang Jing and the Academy of Sciences’ research work, the quality of the light stones is actually not important, because the final fate of these light stones is anyway to be shattered by high-intensity energy impacts.

But even so, it took a lot of effort to mine these light stones - because light stones are very sensitive to energy fluctuations, the energy intensity of light stone mining machinery is strictly limited.

otherwise……

Before they are successfully mined, these light stones will shatter under the energy stimulation of the mining equipment and release powerful information storms.

Fortunately, the Xinalo civilization has a fairly mature light stone mining technology. After communicating with Queen Ophelia, Chen Fan easily obtained this technology, and with the help of scientific research ships and factories equipped in the Gaia planetary fortress, he quickly manufactured several prototypes.

Inside the starship cockpit.

Chen Fan sat in the main driver's seat, looking at the specially made mining devices on the base, and then at the giant scorpion corpse and shriveled scorpion eggs being pulled in the air by several traction light stones.

"Once we have finished mining this piece of light stone, we will return to the research ship."

Chen Fan said softly, "Academician Wang, the first few experiments have been completed. The next experiment has very high requirements for information manipulation accuracy. I have to rush back as soon as possible."

Beside him, Hongshi nodded slightly.

"Don't worry, I will take over the work in the incubation tower, and there will be no mistakes."

Hearing Hongshi's affirmative voice, a faint smile suddenly appeared on Chen Fan's face.

Just as he was about to continue speaking, Isa's suppressed exclamation suddenly came from beside him: "Huh?"

"how so?!"

A great battle had just ended, and Chen Fan was naturally still tense as he was in an incubation tower filled with scorpion eggs.

after all……

Who knows if there will be a second premature baby in this huge incubation tower?
Therefore, the moment he heard Isa's words, Chen Fan's heart suddenly tightened, and he quickly turned his head and cast an inquiring look at Isa who was sitting in the passenger seat.

Not only Chen Fan, but Hongshi on the other side also looked nervously at Isa, whose face was mostly covered by the black hood.

"What happened?!"

Chen Fan asked urgently, and the atmosphere in the cockpit became tense again.

As for the person who started it all...

Isa's eyes were still on the porthole on the side of the starship, as if she saw something special outside the porthole.

"Chen Fan, look."

Under Chen Fan's gaze, Isa raised her hand and pointed outside the porthole, "There is still a small piece of light stone glowing normally."

Light stone?

I hope it’s not a giant scorpion larva.

Chen Fan was slightly stunned, and the uneasiness in his heart gradually dissipated.

He glanced in the direction of Isa's finger, and saw no flash of light stone except for the faint orange light of the stellar flare: "Perhaps it was affected by the automatic mining equipment."

Chen Fan said so.

"But……"

Isa stood up from her seat, walked to the porthole of the starship, and stared at a certain area outside the porthole: "There is no automatic mining equipment there."

Chen Fan frowned subconsciously.

Isn't it the automatic mining equipment that affects it?
Could it be... that it is the influence of the activated dark matter inside the incubation tower?
But the five main pipelines have been completely cut off, and the starship detection results also show that the activated dark matter production device inside the incubation tower has also fallen into a shutdown state. Logically speaking, this situation should not be possible!

Or is there some special device in this incubation tower that is continuously operating?

Chen Fan's heart moved, he stood up and walked to Isa's side, looking in the direction of Isa's finger again.

Nothing was gained.

Apart from the orange-yellow light of the stellar flares and the almost imperceptible faint fluorescence emitted by some light stones due to the operation of mining equipment, Chen Fan did not see any luminous objects.

"This... there are no normal glowing light stones?"

Chen Fan frowned, a look of confusion appearing on his face.

He glanced at Isa beside him and saw the mechanical prosthetic eye that was flashing blue light under the black hood.

Chen Fan suddenly had some enlightenment in his mind.

"One, stop all automatic mining equipment, extinguish the stellar flares, and activate the visual assistance system!"

Without any hesitation, he gave the order directly to the smart terminal on his right.

Swish!
Yi quickly carried out many of Chen Fan's orders.

As the orange light of the stellar flares gradually disappeared, the mining equipment on the base also stopped operating, and the entire world fell into deep darkness again.

Inside the starship cockpit, apart from a few signal indicator lights flashing faintly, the only light left was the blue fluorescence in Isa's mechanical eyes.

Chen Fan's pupils dilated rapidly, and after a short wait, he gradually adapted to the pitch-dark environment.

He looked out the porthole again.

In this extremely dark environment, any light would be extremely obvious.

He squinted his eyes and strained his eyesight, and finally saw a very vague light in the direction of Isa's finger.

The light is dim, but very steady.

It's like a beacon of light in the endless darkness.

Almost at the same time, a deep blue holographic interface automatically unfolded beside him.

The visual assistance system has started working and has successfully captured a faint glow at the end of the vision - it is a piece of light stone floor tile that is emitting a pale yellow light in the dark.

Different from the intermittent strong light previously emitted by various energy stimulations, the light emitted by this batch of light stones is extremely soft and stable.

Looking at the scene in front of him, Chen Fan couldn't help but feel a chill in his heart.

There is no other reason.

Lightstone is highly sensitive to escaped energy, even exceeding the detection accuracy of starships.

Therefore, this almost means that there is a low-intensity but continuously operating energy source in that area!

Being inside the incubation tower, this abnormal situation instantly aroused Chen Fan's vigilance.

"Yi, how far is that piece of light stone from us?" He asked in a low voice with a slightly gloomy face.

Yi responded quickly: "The target area is 1500 kilometers away from the starship."

Although he had expected this, Chen Fan still showed a look of surprise when he heard this number.

"1500 kilometers... This should be the outermost area of ​​the incubation tower base, right?"

Yi affirmed Chen Fan's statement.

The next second, the architectural diagram of the incubation tower base appeared in the azure holographic projection.

A flashing red dot appeared on the edge of the incubation tower base. This was the exact coordinate of the abnormal light stone.

"...Let's get the automatic mining equipment moving again, and we'll take a look at it while we can."

After a moment's silence, Chen Fan turned around and sat back in the driver's seat: "Since we regard this star system as the last defense area, we have to eliminate any possible dangers for the sake of safety."

No one had any objections.

The starship slowly changed direction and flew silently towards the faint, dim fluorescence.

Along the way, stimulated by the energy fluctuations of the starship, the light stones on the base emitted star-like fluorescent lights one after another, forming an intermittent route map in the dark incubation tower.

……

The edge area of ​​the base.

The wall, covered with dark purple armor and made of unknown materials, extends downward, forming a perfect connecting arc with the smooth base.

A few scattered glossy floor tiles were laid in this area - this was the corner of the base, and the huge information circuit was almost ineffective here, so the laying of the glossy floor tiles seemed a bit random and messy.

Correspondingly, the purity of these light stones is also quite touching.

It can be said to be real scraps.

Even Wang Jing, who treated them as experimental supplies, looked down on these miscellaneous light stones.

As a khaki starship descended from the sky, these mottled, dim light stones flickered slightly like damaged fluorescent tubes.

Unlike other light stones, the light emitted by these mixed light stones is also different.

Since these light stones contain a considerable amount of impurities, the light they emit is also tainted with colors other than bright white.

——The dim yellow light means that it contains a considerable amount of iron oxide impurities.

When the starship successfully landed and its internal engines completely stopped working, these barely flickering light stone tiles fell into darkness again.

Only the piece of light stone floor tile at the very edge still emitted an extremely stable dim yellow light.

Swish! !

In the distance, the hatch of the starship slowly opened. Chen Fan and three others, wrapped in mechanical exoskeletons, walked out of the hatch one by one and headed straight towards the light stone that was flashing a dim yellow glow.

"One, conduct a deep scan of the area."

Chen Fan squatted down, stretched out his hand and gently brushed the mottled light stones under his feet that were flashing with a dim yellow light, and gave an order to Yi.

At the same time, he slowly closed his eyes and controlled his consciousness to slightly detach from his body - the image seen by the naked eye was still too limited. From the perspective of his consciousness, the surface of this patchy light stone was rippling with almost imperceptible information ripples. Compared with the light stone in the center of the base, this information fluctuation was almost negligible.

"It seems that the glow of these light stones is not caused by the energy pathways inside the incubation tower."

Chen Fan looked at the scene in front of him and murmured softly.

the reason is simple.

The function of the energy pathway inside the incubation tower is very simple - either to provide energy to the scorpion eggs, or to stimulate the light stone to prompt it to release information disturbances stably.

Therefore, as long as the energy pathway inside the incubation tower is still running, the light stone will continue to release information disturbances of considerable intensity.

but now……

The information disturbance intensity on the surface of this batch of light stones is not even as strong as that of some high-purity natural light stones!
After all, even without external stimulation, natural light stones will spontaneously release information disturbances of a certain intensity.

at the same time.

As bright white scanning beams swept across the base in front of him, the model image in the holographic interface gradually became clearer.

The energy pathways that had long stopped operating under these ten-meter-diameter light stone tiles were gradually revealed in this model.

"No abnormal energy fluctuation area has been found yet."

An electronic synthesized voice sounded on the communication channel: "It has been confirmed that the energy pathway of the hatchery tower is at a standstill."

"hiss……"

Hearing Yi's report, Hongshi, who had been following Chen Fan, couldn't help but take a deep breath: "This is strange, what kind of energy is inducing these light stones to glow?"

"One, continue scanning downwards."

Chen Fan, who had a high-dimensional perspective, moved his eyes slightly. He adjusted his gaze and looked towards the bottom of the light stone floor tiles.

Whether it was the dark purple surface armor, the peculiar material of the base, or the thick rock under the base, in Chen Fan's eyes they were all like a thin piece of translucent paper.

With just one glance, he could see every detail.

Go deeper, go deeper, go deeper…

Like Chen Fan's gaze, the scanning power of the smart terminal increased again, and the scanning screen that was almost stagnant began to move.

Layers of rock formations flashed quickly in Chen Fan's eyes.

Behind the base, except for a few unknown structures still covered in dark purple, most of the area is filled with rock strata from Xinalo's home planet.

As time passed, Chen Fan's gaze gradually went deeper into the ground.

Looking at the scene in front of him, he frowned subconsciously: "Strange..."

Logically speaking, after going deeper into the rock layer, the dark purple structure of the hatching tower should account for a rapidly decreasing proportion in the field of vision. After all, at the other end of the hatching tower is half of the still "alive" mother planet of Xinalo.

But as his gaze continued to deepen, the scene before him changed a little beyond his expectations.

The dark purple complex structure gradually expanded, as if... there was still a very large unknown structure under the base of the incubation tower and inside half of the Xinalo mother planet!
Not only that, Chen Fan always had an inexplicable sense of familiarity with this dark purple unknown structure.

seem……

He had seen this strange structure somewhere.

Chen Fan thought about it carefully, but he couldn't remember the source of this familiar feeling.

Helplessly, he could only narrow his eyes slightly and try his best to look into deeper areas.

But... eyesight has its limits.

Although he has a high-dimensional perspective, he still cannot avoid the perspective law that things are bigger when they are closer and smaller when they are farther away.

As the depth increased, the images he could see became increasingly blurry - conventional visual aids were unable to work on his conscious body.

Just as Chen Fan was about to leave his body and go deeper into the ground to find out what was going on, a unique cavity structure located in the fractured rock layer appeared before his eyes.

This is a secret room buried deep underground in the home planet of Xinalo and tightly wrapped with a large amount of high-strength materials!

When the disaster struck Xinalo's home planet, the planet's structure must have undergone considerable changes, and the outer shell of the secret room was also deformed to a considerable extent.

But even so, this secret room still withstood the terrifying pressure of the rock strata and maintained its basic structure.

As for the space inside the secret room...

Although there is a little deformation, it is still in normal condition.

Due to the far distance, Chen Fan could only barely see the objects clearly.

There were triangular prism-shaped instruments with faint white light flashing on their surfaces, and next to the instruments was a small antimatter reactor in operation.

Judging from its overall structure and construction style, there is a high probability that the builder of this secret room was the Xinalo civilization!

The whole process sounds long, but for Chen Fan, it is just a scene that can be seen in the blink of an eye.

He temporarily put aside his curiosity about the abnormal underground structure and controlled his consciousness to return to his body.

Yi's deep scan is still going on, and the squeezed, deformed and fractured rock layers are clearly presented in the holographic interface.

"Move the scanning direction a little to the left."

Chen Fan suddenly started giving orders.

Hongshi and Isa turned their heads and looked at Chen Fan in surprise.

Soon, both of them realized Chen Fan's intention and focused their attention on the holographic interface in front of them.

"Did... you find something?" Isa blinked and asked softly while staring at the holographic interface.

Chen Fan looked solemn, nodded and continued to direct: "Yes, this is the direction. Abandon scanning all other areas and scan directly in this direction..."

Before he finished speaking, a buzzer beeped and the image in the holographic interface changed instantly.

A huge rock fault suddenly appeared, and a huge spherical shadow appeared on the screen.

"found it!"

Chen Fan breathed a sigh of relief: "First, lock its specific coordinates, and at the same time conduct a modeling analysis of it and the surrounding geological environment."

"This is……"

On the other side, Hongshi's pupils slightly dilated, and he couldn't help but let out a low exclamation: "Man-made facilities?!"

"Yes, a secret room left behind by the Xinalo civilization."

Chen Fan looked at the many parameters that were quickly displayed on the holographic interface and began to explain: "The antimatter reactor inside is still operating normally. In addition, there are some devices inside whose functions are unclear."

He shook his head in annoyance: "I don't know what this thing is used for."

"In short, these light stones should be glowing because of this energy source."

As soon as the words fell, the detailed parameters and 3D modeling of this spherical structure suddenly appeared in the holographic interface.

Deep scanning cannot penetrate the outer wall of this spherical structure, so Yi can only perfect its shell model as much as possible.

The shell is bumpy and slightly deformed.

Various broken metal debris and cables.

And the sharp rock faults around it.

It is not difficult to imagine what it suffered underground.

"maybe……"

Isa took over Chen Fan's words: "Is it the refuge of the Xinalo civilization?"

"The facility is 19.17 kilometers away from the base. The detection results show that its diameter is 217 meters. The internal structure is currently unknown..."

Yi's electronic synthesized voice rang out from the communication channel, reporting the precise results of the investigation to everyone present.

A shelter with a diameter of 200 meters?

Isn’t this a bit too small?
"Wait a minute."

Chen Fan raised his hand to interrupt Yi's words: "Yi, help me contact Queen Ophelia."

"I want to ask her what's in it."

As he spoke, a thought flashed through his mind, and a number of triangular prism-shaped precision instruments appeared on the holographic interface in front of him.

……

A few minutes later.

[Master Star Envoy?! ]

In the communication interface, Ophelia suddenly stood up from her seat, and the white light on her body continued to flash: [Where did you find this device? ! ]

Seeing Ophelia's excited expression, Chen Fan's heart moved and he quickly explained: "Why? Is this device important?"

[Very important! ]

Ophelia's full chest rose and fell slightly, and a blush appeared on both sides of her cheeks due to excitement.

She took a few deep breaths, calmed her inner excitement, sat back in her chair, and looked at Chen Fan with an extremely complicated expression.

【This is……】

She hesitated for a moment, and finally gave the answer: [The main brain array of the Xinaluo civilization. ]

[In the Mother Planet era, this triangular prism-shaped main brain array is our most advanced technology, usually only used in some important key facilities. ]

【For example... the Imperial Palace. 】

At this point, Ophelia paused, her thin curved eyebrows knitted tightly, as if she was worried about something: [However, from your description, the scale of this main brain array is not large. ]

[Besides, I don't know why it appeared underground on the home planet of Xinaluo, and so deep underground! ]

“This is weird!” she said emphatically.

Chen Fan glanced at the holographic interface beside him.

According to Yi's simulation calculation results, if the Xinalo mother planet had not suffered such a blow, the location of this spherical facility should be thirty kilometers underground.

It's definitely not a normal position.

Ophelia's voice continued: [...I remember that in order to protect the mineral resources of the mother planet, the royal family issued a ban on surface excavation on the mother planet a long time ago. Not to mention thirty kilometers, excavation work deeper than one thousand meters needs to be reported and approved.]

Chen Fan's mind moved, and an idea suddenly arose in his mind.

He raised his head again and looked at the somewhat flustered Ophelia calmly: "Unless..."

"This facility was excavated and built by the Xinalo royal family themselves."

Chen Fan said word by word.

ps: Today is also two chapters combined into one.

(End of this chapter)