Cataclysmic Era: I can unlock the tech tree

The cockpit was completely silent.

"Professor, are you serious?"

Zhao Zijie asked with difficulty.

In the video, Lü Yongchang nodded solemnly.

"certainly."

"There's a simple laboratory inside the Luan Bird Starship. I want to see what's attracting these jellyfish."

"You probably don't want to live with them all the time, right?"

Zhao Zijie: "..."

"Okay, I'll think of something."

His eyes twitched slightly as he agreed to Lü Yongchang's request.

"I had Zero inspect the starship," Lü Yongchang said solemnly. "The hatches should still be able to open normally."

"For safety reasons, I suggest you use robots to capture jellyfish."

"Zero can provide remote assistance at that time."

……

Kraken-Marehai.

Hurricanes and torrential rains, along with towering waves, relentlessly crashed against the shore, pounding against the Luan Bird Starship, half of which was submerged in the sea.

In the sea of ​​methane, disc-shaped pale yellow jellyfish rise and fall with the waves.

Suddenly, a bright light shone from the top of the starship.

A cloud of white mist instantly rose from the light bulb.

That was liquid methane vaporized by the temperature of the light bulb.

A few seconds later, countless pale yellow jellyfish that had been lying quietly on the surface of the Luan Bird Starship rushed towards the light bulb on top of the starship as if in a frenzy.

Due to their body structure, they can only sprint at a snail's pace.

The hatch on the side of the phoenix suddenly opened.

The pop-open hatch threw a large number of sluggish jellyfish back into the methane sea.

Two robots slowly emerged from it.

Under Zero's real-time control, the robot walked straight toward the nearest pale yellow jellyfish.

……

"What's going on?"

Why are all these jellyfish heading towards the searchlight?

Looking at the first-person perspective of the "fishing team," Zhao Zijie raised a question.

Lu Yongchang, who was on Mars, naturally also witnessed this peculiar scene.

"Phototaxis?"

He said, frowning.

"Never mind that for now."

"Zero, hurry up and grab one first."

Upon receiving the order, Zero controlled the robot to quickly walk towards the jellyfish to the side.

Then something even more surprising happened.

The backward jellyfish seemed to have sensed the presence of the robots and quickly turned around to pounce on the two robots!

"zero!"

Upon witnessing this scene, Lü Yongchang's breath caught in his throat, and he whispered, "They're moving fast! They might be intelligent!"

The robot's movements quickened instantly, and it crouched down to grab the jellyfish beside it.

The fishing attempt failed.

"Zero, what's going on?"

Lu Yongchang frowned and asked in a deep voice.

"Professor, it's slime," Zero replied quickly. "These creatures are slippery."

As soon as the words were spoken, the jellyfish that had escaped capture by using the mucus on its body "leaped" and hung half of its body on the first robot!

"zero……"

Before Lü Yongchang could give a second order, one after another, pale yellow jellyfish unleashed their special skills and pounced on the robot.

"Warning: Low power."

The holographic projection interface in front of me turned red instantly, and Zero's warning sounded.

Seeing that the first robot was about to be destroyed by the "jellyfish army", Zero did not wait for Lü Yongchang's instructions and directly manipulated another robot to crouch down and drag the fallen robot into the starship.

The hatch slammed shut the next moment, cutting off the jellyfish's movements.

The whole process took less than a second.

Lu Yongchang let out a long sigh of relief, calming his violently pounding heart.

"Well done, Zero."

……

To maintain the biological activity of these jellyfish, the area leading to the hatch was completely sealed off and kept in harmony with Titan's surface environment.

I retract my previous judgment.

Lu Yongchang stared at the surveillance screen and said softly, "These native creatures probably don't have intelligence."

In the scene, several jellyfish that were dragged in along with the robot are clinging to its surface with apparent delight, completely unaware of where they have ended up.

"Professor, so what is attracting them?" Gao Yang asked in a low voice.

These two robots don't have searchlights.

This rules out the previous speculation about phototaxis.

Lu Yongchang raised an eyebrow: "I think I have a guess."

"However, we need to conduct a small experiment first."

……

Inside the laboratory.

A pale yellow jellyfish lay quietly on the cold ground.

Perhaps because it had been away from the methane sea for a long time, it appeared somewhat "listless".

But as soon as one of the instruments started up, it perked up immediately!

The jellyfish "quickly" crawled toward the activated instrument.

As the instrument's position slowly changed, the jellyfish's trajectory also changed accordingly.

"It's basically confirmed."

Lü Yongchang clapped his hands and wrote a line on the paper with his pen: "Similar to phototaxis, however, they are thermotaxis."

"That instrument is just a heater."

"Compared to the ambient temperature, it's probably about ten degrees Celsius higher."

"Zero, next experiment, start adjusting the heater temperature."

After dozens of experiments.

Lu Yongchang stared in amazement at the jellyfish on the surveillance screen.

"incredible."

"It's so sensitive to temperature!"

According to the experimental results, these jellyfish can keenly detect objects tens of meters away that are 0.1 degrees Celsius above the ambient temperature.

This explains why they adhere to the surface of the starship.

To these jellyfish, the Luan Bird Starship and extraction device in operation are as conspicuous as a furnace in the freezing cold!

And a solution to this problem came to Lü Yongchang's mind.

All you need is something hotter to attract their attention.

After telling Zhao Zijie the solution, Lü Yongchang once again immersed himself in the research on alien life.

……

The hurricane slowly subsided.

The tide gradually receded.

On the slightly damp beach, only the Luan Bird Starship covered in jellyfish and its extraction device remained.

"Zijie, are you sure what we're doing is okay?"

Sitting in the driver's seat, Gao Yang looked at Zhao Zijie with a nervous expression and asked him repeatedly.

Zhao Zijie shrugged: "Do you have any other methods?"

Gao Yang's face fell.

Well, he admitted, this seemed to be the only option for the Luan Bird Starship, which wasn't equipped with weapon systems.

A hint of helplessness flashed in Zhao Zijie's eyes as he pressed a button on the control panel.

A thin wisp of pale blue light appeared at the base of the phoenix.

The Hall thrusters were activated.

Although the power was small, the plasma wake, reaching hundreds of millions of degrees, still dried up the ground in an instant, and incidentally attracted the attention of all the jellyfish.

The result can be imagined.

The excessively high ambient temperature vaporized the liquid methane inside the jellyfish.

The jellyfish instantly swelled up and burst like balloons, leaving behind only sticky liquid on the ground.