Cataclysmic Era: I can unlock the tech tree

He Bilin followed closely in Academician Tao Yuda's footsteps, rushing towards the command center.

Along the way, he saw countless familiar faces.

There are predecessors from Earth, and contemporaries from Proxima Centauri b.

Like him, all his peers from Proxima Centauri b followed their seniors like shadows.

Even the expressions on everyone's faces were remarkably similar.

Anxiety, unease, fear, and... a little excitement.

As for those predecessors who had experienced the Battle of Proxima Centauri, their faces were filled with solemnity and pain.

The situation was urgent, and without saying goodbye, everyone rushed to the command center.

As he passed a porthole, He Bilin curiously glanced outside.

That one glance left him frozen in place.

Outside the porthole, battleships began to turn around.

Meanwhile, the supply ships, homeships, and engineering ships headed away from Ross 154.

At the same time, pale blue arcs of electricity slowly condensed at the muzzle of the battleship's cannons.

This is a sign that the plasma weapon has completed its charging process.

Next, with just a command, a barrage of projectiles made of high-temperature plasma will hurtle straight toward Ross 154!

Besides plasma weapons, He Bilin clearly saw that the Type II coilguns on the belly of the nearest Golden Crow battleship had begun to turn their muzzles.

The direction the gun was aimed at was naturally the distant Ross 154!

He Bilin's faint sense of excitement vanished completely.

He suddenly realized that war seemed to break out at any moment.

"How close are we!"

Tao Yuda's voice rang out: "What are you standing there for?"

"Hurry up and keep up!"

He Bilin quickly averted his gaze and jogged a few steps to catch up with Tao Yuda.

At this moment, the expression on his face became somewhat similar to that on Tao Yuda's face.

……

Ross II.

Central City.

Lu Yongchang stared intently at the holographic projection in front of him.

"Zero, try and see if you can crack the contents of the signal."

Before the words were even finished, the holographic projection had already changed.

A line of Chinese characters appeared in front of him.

"Professor, there's no need to crack it," Zero said calmly. "This message uses our public communication code."

"It even uses our language."

Lu Yongchang didn't speak, but just stared blankly at the line of text in front of him.

Hello, esteemed technological civilization!

The message was very short, only eleven characters including punctuation.

But those eleven words sent a chill down Lü Yongchang's spine!

On the other side, there is definitely a highly advanced civilization with a technological level far surpassing that of humans!

Putting aside other things.

To secretly acquire the communication codes and language used by humans without their knowledge is something that a Level 2 civilization could not accomplish!

Lu Yongchang swallowed hard.

What should he do at this point?

Should we just open fire without any regard for the consequences?

Are you kidding me!

Facing an advanced civilization whose true nature is unknown.

Especially after the other party shows a willingness to communicate.

To rashly open fire and provoke a war is like lighting a lantern in a latrine—asking for trouble!

only……

What should he do now?

Lu Yongchang's eyes were full of confusion.

According to the Dark Forest Theory he deduced while on Earth, this unknown advanced civilization should have directly taken action to exterminate the weak human civilization.

After all, in his view, both the solar system and the Proxima Centauri system were attacked by the Dark Forest of advanced civilizations after their coordinates were exposed.

only……

So far, the actions of this advanced civilization seem to be completely inconsistent with its own rules of cosmic survival.

Before he could figure it out, Zero's voice rang out again.

"Professor, Ross 154 has sent a second message."

Lü Yongchang was stunned.

So fast?

While he was still in a daze, Zero had already projected the information onto the holographic interface.

Don't be nervous, little ones, I mean no harm.

Lu Yongchang took a deep breath as he looked at the short sentence.

"What...what exactly does this advanced civilization want?"

After a brief moment of thought, he turned and walked out of the office.

"Zero, notify all researchers in the central city to proceed to the port immediately."

"We're heading back to the ship."

As he walked out of the office, Lü Yongchang secretly felt fortunate.

Fortunately, only one city has been built so far, and the number of people relocated is not very large.

If this information had come out a decade or two later, humanity's situation would have been even more precarious!

As a research area, the construction of the central city was the most difficult, but it still took only two years.

In comparison, the construction difficulty of residential areas has decreased many times over.

A decade or so is enough time to build a city complex on Ross 2 that can accommodate all of humanity!

At that time, almost all of humanity lived on Ross 2.

Faced with an enemy so close at hand, they didn't even have time to retreat!

……

The next day.

24 hours have passed since the first message was sent.

During those 24 hours, the advanced civilization on the other side made no move.

Not only did they not show their whereabouts, they also did not send a single message.

It looks like...

It's as if they're waiting for a response from human civilization.

Although it sounded a bit outrageous, the thought popped into Lü Yongchang's mind.

……

Inside the command center of the Earth.

"Everyone, that concludes the explanation of the situation."

Lu Yongchang glanced around and said in a deep voice, "Now, we need to do a simple analysis of this advanced civilization."

Upon hearing this, almost all the researchers present showed a conflicted expression.

There is no other reason.

To analyze an advanced civilization using only two sentences, a total of 27 characters including punctuation...

Isn't this level of difficulty a bit too exaggerated?

Inside the command center, there was a deathly silence.

Lü Yongchang shrugged: "Let me start."

"First of all, in the very first sentence, it refers to us as the respected technological civilization."

"In other words, from their perspective, we belong to a technological civilization."

As he spoke, Lü Yongchang chuckled lightly, "Perhaps that sounds a bit like stating the obvious."

"But its underlying implication is that, besides technological civilizations, there are other kinds of civilizations in the universe."

"For example, biological civilization? Like the insectoid race in the movies."

As he spoke, Lü Yongchang shrugged: "Forgive my limited imagination; I can't think of any other kinds of civilizations for the time being."

With Lü Yongchang's example, the eyes of the people present gradually became more active.

Tao Yuda spoke first.

"Professor, let's stick to the first sentence."

"The other party used the word 'respectful'."

"While we can't rule out the possibility that it was just polite language, is it possible that, from their perspective, we're also someone they don't want to mess with?"