player reload.

Chapter 497 Aliens (4K)

The pirate ship sailed through the high-altitude isolation layer. Reyes carefully turned the helm to control the altitude and avoid scraping against the pipes above.

Several players, including him, wore heavy protective suits, allowing them to breathe freely without relying on magic bubbles.

However, the journey was quite boring; the direction indicated by the navigation radar didn't move at all, and the scenery ahead remained unchanged. White Horse Tombstone brought two reinforced beach chairs for her and the unconscious astronaut to lie down and rest.

Claudia sat against the wall, flipping through a thick, heavy magic book.

As for Li Sheng and Hui Yu, after playing portable game consoles for two hours, they got bored again and started giving their critiques of the pirate ship.

"The boat is a good boat, with a 360° view, solid range, smooth power, and smooth shock absorption. The downsides are limited rear space, insufficient power and configuration details, noticeable sluggishness in power delivery, and mediocre sound insulation."

"Why doesn't your ship have a perforated carbon fiber engine cover?"

"The driver still has to manually control the vehicle the whole time, which feels inferior to HarmonyOS, XPeng XNGP, Xiaomi Pilot, and Tesla FSD."

As Reyes listened to the two men's sharp critiques, veins popped out on his forehead.

What does it mean for the driver to manually control the entire process? I can hand it over to the intelligent driving system, but the question is whether you would dare to ride in it?

If Reyes hadn't been afraid of losing, he would have turned hostile long ago.

Silently, the third-in-command of the Jalisco crime syndicate turned on the sound system inside his protective suit and used Spanish rap music to drown out the sharp comments.

In a daze, I was transported back to my student days, hiding in my bedroom and using music to mask the gunshots that echoed through the streets of Juarez (a city in northern Mexico) at night.

Fortunately, the frustrating time didn't last long. The walls on both sides began to shrink forward, and the rate of shrinkage gradually increased. About ten minutes later, the pirate ship finally reached the end of the wasteland.

The white horse tombstone straightened up and asked in astonishment, "What is this thing?"

Hui Yu said solemnly, "The Bronze Gate."

"The Grave Robbers' Chronicles, right?"

Claudia, already used to the erratic behavior of the ant-like master and servant, rolled her eyes and stood up, only to see a truly magnificent gate.

Its shape is quite unique; it is a rectangle containing two circles, one large and one small.

The rectangular gate is approximately 150 meters long and 90 meters high. The diameter of the large circle is the same as the height of the rectangle, and it is decorated with three different patterns.

Fifty rays of varying lengths radiate outwards from a single point in all directions;

A blue dot is followed by a ring, and in the center of the ring are three dots: one red and two green.
In a Cartesian coordinate system, there is a downward-sloping curve in the first quadrant, but without specific coordinates.

The three patterns left people completely bewildered. What was even more perplexing was that the small circle, located at the bottom of the large circle and about 5 meters in diameter, also contained some patterns.

These are an isosceles acute triangle, a rectangle with the same proportions as the large rectangle, an isosceles trapezoid, and a circle nested within a regular pentagon.

The door is not made of bronze, but of the same extraordinary building material as the dome pipes, which can withstand acid fumes.

On the ground in front of the gate, there was a small, tilted panel.

The players exchanged glances. Reyes spun the rudder and slowly descended to the ground. Claudia released bubble magic to temporarily shield them from the poisonous fog.

"If there are no surprises, this should be some kind of access control system."

Wearing protective clothing, Li Sheng jumped to the ground and quickly scanned the panel with his information integration glasses. There were no fingerprints or other biological genetic information on it.

The white horse tombstone inscription asked in bewilderment, "Who built it? The killing field security guards?"

“I’m inclined to think so,” Li Sheng said. “Construction workers, as security guards, would build structures of unknown function on their own. These range from sophisticated underground mining systems to massive structures thousands or even tens of thousands of meters in size.”

However, such clearly directional access control systems are rarely seen.

Gray Rain scratched his head. "If it's not security guards, it can't be some kind of guild, right?"

"impossible,"

Claudia crossed her arms in front of her, her brows furrowed. "There are cooperation agreements between the major guilds. When members explore the killing field, they have the responsibility and obligation to draw maps and upload them to the sharing platform."

The better-equipped squads also need to install pulse transmitters at intervals as beacons to guide others.

This was built by a major guild, so there will definitely be other obvious signs around it. The gate won't use those symbols; instead, it will simply say, "Private territory of [Guild Name], no unauthorized personnel allowed, violators will be fined 725.8."

Upon hearing this, the others turned to look at Claudia. Reyes asked in confusion, "Why are there odd numbers?"

Claudia pouted and said, "The Witch Alliance, the Clock Tower, the Evil Science Alliance, and several other guilds related to magic and arcane arts held a seminar before. A friend of mine was secretly smoking on the balcony and ended up burning the antique carpet in the Clock Tower."

"My lighter is gone, I have to pay compensation, and the guild also deducted over 700 from my account."

Okay then.

The players turned back to study the gate, while Gray Rain took out an e-cigarette and said earnestly, "What era are we living in? Still smoking traditional cigarettes? Tell your friends that e-cigarettes are the real trend."

After saying that, he used an electronic cigarette to perform fancy pen spinning and blowing smoke rings.

Li Sheng scanned the area with his information glasses, and after confirming there were no traps, he exchanged a glance with Reyes and the White Horse Tombstone, then reached out and pressed the small panel.

Nourishes—

A faint, rhythmic sound rang out from behind the gate, and a beam of light lit up on the surface of the small circle, extending from the center to the outer edge.

As Li Sheng's fingertips moved, the light also rotated around the center.

"It's a touchscreen?"

Li Sheng pondered for a moment, then pressed the button several times, discovering that each press added an extra ray of light to the small circle. A maximum of four rays could exist at a time; any more would reset the circle and the display would revert to its previous state.

"So, this is a four-digit roulette wheel password."

As a mid-to-high-level player, Reyes had also experienced the puzzle-solving aspects of scripted missions, and his brain immediately started working at lightning speed. "Wait, the riddle isn't these shapes, is it?"

The more riddles there are, the more complex the potential answers become. The key is that there are no markings on the wheel, and the possible permutations and combinations of four-digit numbers could be astronomical.

"In short, try the regular password first, treating the circles as a 12-minute clock: 0000, 1234, 1314, 0369."

Li Sheng repeatedly swiped the panel, but the door remained motionless; only the noise behind the door fluctuated.

He converted the rectangle's length and width into numbers and entered them into the panel, but there was still no response.

Since that's the case, we have no choice but to think about it seriously. Li Sheng took two steps back, carefully observing the various patterns on the door, and casually asked, "Have you noticed any patterns?"

“Uh,” White Horse Tombstone honestly said, “I dropped out of high school.” Gray Rain pointed to the ray diagram and said, “This looks a bit like an animal chrysanthemum.”

"I can see it."

Claudia was still expending magic to maintain the bubble spell. She pointed to the four geometric shapes around the small circle and said, "The acute angle of the first isosceles triangle is 36°, and the base angle is 72°."

The third pattern is an isosceles trapezoid whose upper base is equal to the length of its legs, and whose base angle is also 72°.

As for the fourth pattern, a regular pentagon is nested within a circle. Connecting the angles of the pentagons yields 20 triangles as shown in Figure 1 and 5 trapezoids as shown in Figure 3.

Gray Rain, unashamed, asked, "And then?"

The golden ratio.

Li Sheng's eyes lit up, and he quickly said, "In layman's terms, divide a line segment AB into two parts, AM and MB, such that the ratio of the longer line segment AM to AB is equal to the ratio of the shorter line segment MB to AM."

This division is called the golden ratio, and the ratio is called the golden number. Its value is (√5-1)/2, which is approximately 0.618. It is usually represented by the Greek letter Ф.

An isosceles triangle with a vertex angle of 36° has a base-to-leg ratio of Ф.

The isosceles trapezoid in Figure 3 has the same upper base as the legs, and the ratio of the upper base to the lower base is also Ф.

The combined graphic in Figure 4 also embodies the golden ratio.

"Got it, the password is 0618."

Reyes breathed a sigh of relief, stepped forward, and swiped on the panel, directing the four light pointers in four directions. However, there was no response.

"Huh?!" Reyes refused to believe it and re-entered the numbers in reverse order, but still got nothing.

"It's not the golden ratio, but it's definitely related to the golden ratio."

Claudia was constantly expending her magic power, so naturally she was more anxious than others. She forced herself to calm down, "The golden ratio is famous mainly because of its artistry and harmony, conforming to the aesthetic sense of human intuition."

Examples include the Parthenon, the Great Pyramid of Giza, and the statue of Venus. The reason for this is that the number 0.618 itself conforms to the natural laws of the universe. For example, plants have evolved spirally distributed leaves and petals in order to pursue the most efficient light and ventilation.

The interatomic spacing ratio within some crystals is also 1:0.618.

Claudia's mutterings caught Li Sheng's eye. He took two steps back and observed the rectangular gate, which was 149.35 meters long and 92.3 meters high.

“Fibonacci sequence.” Li Sheng snapped his fingers and began swiping on the panel.

Gray Rain blinked. "What the heck?"

“由数学家莱昂纳多·斐波那契提出的一种数列，0、1、1、2、3、5、8、13、21、34、55、89、144、377
In short, starting from the third term, each term is equal to the sum of the first two terms.

Its relationship with the golden ratio is that the larger the Fibonacci number, the closer the ratio of the first term to the second term is to 0.618.

The length and height of this rectangular door, according to the human definition of length, are not Fibonacci integers, but their proportion is Ф.

This in itself is conveying a message, namely,
The patterns on the gate are written for extraterrestrials. They use the standard language of the Milky Way—mathematics.

Li Sheng spoke while swiping the panel.

360连续乘以0.618四次，得到数字分别为222.48。137.49。84.97。52.5。

Li Sheng adjusted the direction of the light beams, not focusing on precision, but rather making a rough rotation. As the four beams were in place, the frequency noise behind the door instantly disappeared.

The large and small circular patterns rotate to both sides, and the entire door splits in the middle, shrinks into the wall, and reveals a vast abyss behind it.

The abyss is bottomless, the temperature is cold, and the air convection with the wasteland creates fierce winds.

The group quickly boarded the pirate ship and, with the aid of the levitation engine, descended along the abyss wall, following the direction of the navigation radar.

Once the wind subsided slightly, the White Horse Tombstone scratched his head and asked, "I still don't understand how Fibonacci numbers are related to aliens."

"It's very simple, because the concept of 'meter' is only defined by us humans. Initially, it was one ten-millionth of the distance from the Earth's equator to the North Pole along the Paris meridian, and later it was defined by the speed of light and the frequency of cesium. It doesn't have any special meaning in itself."

If Qin Shi Huang had been able to sweep across the earth after unifying the six kingdoms, then the modern definition of a meter would be equivalent to the length of his arm or leg.

Li Sheng shrugged and said, "In contrast to units of length, mathematical language is universal in the Milky Way."

Intelligent civilizations, regardless of whether they use a base-6, base-8, base-12, or base-20 system, can understand the mathematical patterns of geometric designs.

They were able to derive pi and the Fibonacci sequence in their own language versions.

That's why the entire door has no text descriptions; it's represented entirely by images.

The deck fell silent. After Claudia used an air scanner to confirm that the abyssal air was non-toxic, she withdrew the bubble magic and left the air circulation to be maintained by the pirate ship's own magic circle.

"I understand. That's why there are no 360° markings on the small circle. No matter what size markings are used, as long as aliens can understand geometry and mathematics, they can still rotate light into a four-digit code."

Bai Ma Tombstone seemed thoughtful. She hadn't gone to university, but her intelligence was quite high, and she quickly understood what Li Sheng meant: "The length and width of the rectangular gate match the definition of the integer 'meter' in the builder's civilization. They are aliens."

"There is also a slight possibility that the British system, which has to be compared with the global system, is the only option."

Li Sheng smiled and said, "One pound is 16 ounces, one ounce is 437.5 grains. One gallon is 8 pints, one foot is equal to 12 inches, one yard is equal to 3 feet, and one mile is equal to 1760 yards."

It highlights something that defies nature and humanity.

Reyes' eye twitched, a clear meaning flashing in his eyes. 'Got it, the British are all aliens.'

Claudia gave him a look. "Don't worry, some units of measurement aren't used in Britain anymore; only the Americans still use them."

"In addition, there are a few other details. The panel is touch-sensitive, rather than requiring force to rotate—some aliens may have very little strength and be unable to rotate even an object like the hands of a clock."

A regular hissing sound emanated from behind the door, fluctuating as the light shifted. It wasn't the noise of a mechanism in operation, but rather a sonic indication—some aliens might lack visual organs and instead use ultrasound for navigation.

If I'm not mistaken, emitting a sound at a specific frequency could activate the panel, rotate the light, and unlock the code. Like this.

After saying that, he unfastened his protective mask, put his hand to his mouth, made an "ah" sound, and quickly pressed his lips together.

"Ugh ah ugh ah ugh ah ugh ah."

"Is that so?" The white horse tombstone mimicked Li Sheng's mannerisms, "Hey hey hey hey hey hey hey."

Upon hearing the sound, Gray Rain joined in the accompaniment, "boo-poo-poo-poo-poo."

Three voices intertwined and echoed in the empty abyss. Claudia slapped her forehead, vaguely feeling a phantom limb pain called testicular pain.

(End of this chapter)