Cataclysmic Era: I can unlock the tech tree

the other side.

Lü Yongchang and Mao Zhengzhi were watching the holographic projection in front of them intently.

The holographic image shows footage from inside the [Taotie] supply depot located in a synchronous orbit around an ice giant.

Under Zero's control, two robots are carefully lifting a specially made container into a specially designed high-pressure laboratory.

The container naturally contains skin samples from the amino giant fish.

While the high-pressure laboratory cannot match the living environment of the liquid ammonia giant fish, it can still simulate the environment of the shallow waters of the ocean.

Once all preparations were complete, the robot opened the specially made container.

A dark brown skin sample, its surface covered with various impact and scratch marks, was displayed in front of the camera.

Unlike the images captured by the exploration vessel, under the ample light in the laboratory, the giant fish's skin even showed a slight metallic sheen.

This sight left Lü Yongchang somewhat puzzled.

"This... doesn't seem like biological tissue?" Mao Zhengzhi, standing to the side, voiced Lü Yongchang's thoughts.

Lu Yongchang nodded slightly, but did not offer any opinion. Instead, he frowned and said, "Let's observe it under a microscope first."

As soon as he finished speaking, Zero immediately controlled the robot to begin sampling and observation.

have to say.

The skin on the giant fish's surface is indeed extremely tough. Although it has not been tested, Lü Yongchang believes that its strength is no less than that of the strongest material currently available to humankind.

After a long wait, the images observed under the microscope were finally presented to Lü Yongchang and Mao Zhengzhi.

"this?!"

"How is this possible?!" Mao Zhengzhi and Lü Yongchang exclaimed in surprise in the laboratory.

"This is absolutely not biological tissue!" Mao Zhengzhi said firmly.

"That's right." Lü Yongchang said with a solemn expression and a certain tone, "It looks like some kind of metal, no, or rather, some kind of alloy."

Mao Zhengzhi frowned deeply, muttering to himself, "This... how is this possible?"

"Logically speaking, their basic body structure should be cells."

Lu Yongchang did not reply, but silently watched the images in the holographic projection.

Academician Mao Zhengzhi is right.

Since these liquid ammonia giants like cesium chloride and rubidium chloride, they must be cellular organisms.

Only amino-based organisms with cellular structures require these salts to regulate the electrical potential of their cell membranes.

But the alloy skin, or rather, the alloy armor, before him completely shook Lü Yongchang's beliefs.

Can cellular organisms grow alloy skin?

Stop joking!

Thinking back to the fusion reactor in the belly of the liquid ammonia giant fish, an astonishing guess came to Lü Yongchang's mind.

"Could it be..." Lü Yongchang's lips moved slightly, and he said in an extremely deep voice, "These giant fish are man-made?"

Based on the various clues discovered so far, perhaps only this answer can explain the origin of the alloy skin.

"No, that's not right." Lü Yongchang shook his head repeatedly, rejecting his own idea once again.

"If the giant fish is a mechanical being, why would it feel pain when it's being burned by high-temperature ammonia bubbles?"

As the cockpit escaped, everyone could clearly see a giant fish rush into the ammonia bubbles and struggle.

This is not a reaction that can be produced by mechanical energy!

One question after another arose in Lü Yongchang's mind.

"Professor, Researcher Meng Lu is looking for you." Zero's voice rang out at just the right moment, interrupting Lü Yongchang and Mao Zhengzhi's thoughts.

"Meng Lu?" Lu Yongchang frowned and subconsciously said, "Tell her to wait a bit."

"Professor, she said she has deciphered the giant fish's language system," Zero reminded her again.

"Then let her wait... wait, what did you say?" Lü Yongchang abruptly stopped his right hand, which was about to turn off the holographic projection. "She cracked the giant fish's language system?"

"Yes, Professor."

"Hiss..." Lu Yongchang gasped softly, turned to look at Mao Zhengzhi beside him, and said in a deep voice, "Zero, proceed with the sample testing as planned."

"Old Mao, come with me to Meng Lu's place first."

While complaining, Lü Yongchang exclaimed to Mao Zhengzhi, "Wow, Mao, where did you find such talent...?"

In response to Lü Yongchang's sigh, Mao Zhengzhi shrugged.

"A post I saw on the Chinese Academy of Sciences forum a while ago."

"According to those researchers, that researcher Meng Lu should be the most knowledgeable ancient language scholar in the Federation of Chinese Associations."

Lü Yongchang: "..."

……

As soon as Lü Yongchang entered Meng Lu's laboratory, he was amazed by the huge holographic projection in front of him.

In the projection, the sound spectrum of more than 100,000 parts was organized into hundreds of blocks, and each block contained more than 1000 ultrasonic segments.

At a glance, Lü Yongchang discovered the principle behind the classification.

"Similar duration?"

Meng Lu, who was organizing and summarizing in front of the holographic projection, quickly turned around.

Upon seeing Lü Yongchang and Mao Zhengzhi, Meng Lu instinctively turned to greet them: "Professor Lü, Academician Mao..."

"Enough with the small talk, let's get started." Lü Yongchang waved his hand, interrupting the unimportant formalities. "Why categorize by duration?"

"These ultrasound fragments within these categories don't seem to have any similarities, do they?"

Meng Lu straightened her expression and nodded, saying, "Yes, there is indeed no similarity between the ultrasound fragments alone."

"However, we have fallen into a misconception."

"These giant fish do not communicate like we do, relying on simple syllables."

Upon hearing this, Lü Yongchang was slightly taken aback: "Not communicating by syllables?"

"Simply put, their shouts are completely meaningless," Meng Lu shrugged. "In a sense, they've been making a lot of noise all along."

Mao Zhengzhi's expression changed slightly, and he immediately retorted, "That's impossible. Based on our observations, these giant fish definitely communicate using ultrasound!"

"Academician Mao, please let me finish." When it came to her profession, Meng Lu's aura instantly became stronger. "Indeed, they communicate using ultrasound."

"But ultrasound is just a carrier."

"The real information is hidden in the rapidly changing frequencies of these ultrasound waves!"

"Zero, switch images."

The holographic projection image changes instantly.

"Professor, look, this is a graph showing the frequency variation of ultrasound waves of similar durations." Meng Lu pointed to the fluctuating curves in the holographic projection. "It looks messy, but if we do a simple processing..."

As she spoke, Meng Lu waved her right hand: "The sampling interval is 0.1 seconds, and then all samples will be compared..."

The curves in the holographic image were quickly broken down into countless small fragments.

With the help of Zero's powerful computing capabilities, these small fragments moved rapidly, and identical fragments overlapped with each other, eventually forming 52 different fragments.

"Then we can discover that these ultrasound fragments all share the same frequency variation band!"

"And these frequency variation bands can even be found in all sound samples."

"To date, I have discovered a total of 52 frequency variation bands."

"Therefore, I made a judgment."

"These 52 frequency variation bands are the unique phonemes in their languages."