Cataclysmic Era: I can unlock the tech tree

Swish!

The laboratory doors swung open with a bang, attracting the attention of the academicians inside.

A faint buzzing sound came from afar.

The academicians were no strangers to this humming sound—it was the sound of a robot's electromagnetically attached tracks moving on the deck of a starship.

But this time, the tone of the buzzing sound was undoubtedly much higher than normal.

This means extremely high driving speeds.

Under normal circumstances, for the safety of personnel, the speed at which robots move inside the starship is greatly limited—at least, it does not produce such a noticeable buzzing sound as the Doppler effect.

It's heading towards the laboratory!

The idea had barely formed in the minds of the academicians when a robotic arm equipped with electromagnetically adsorbed tracks appeared at the entrance of the laboratory.

Chirp!

The sudden braking produced a slightly sharp friction sound.

The academicians in the laboratory were all stunned and stood there dumbfounded.

They stared blankly at the scene at the laboratory entrance, their expressions gradually becoming strange.

"this……"

"Professor Lü?!"

"Holy crap?!"

They've seen plenty of robotic arms; even large robots, often hundreds of meters long, don't surprise these academicians, let alone small ones.

They saw Lü Yongchang every day, so it didn't surprise them.

But the combination of the two brought an unprecedented sense of shock to the group of academicians—in front of them, Lü Yongchang was standing on the back deck of the robotic arm-type robot and gave them a "gentle" smile.

"Zero, put me down." Lu Yongchang gently patted the mechanical arm in front of him that was temporarily acting as a seatbelt and said softly.

The next moment, to everyone's astonishment, the mechanical arm slowly released itself and helped Lü Yongchang off its back deck.

Lu Yongchang walked into the laboratory, clapped his hands with a relaxed expression, and let out a heartfelt sigh.

"I hadn't noticed before, but I didn't expect this thing to be so fast. It's much more convenient than walking."

The academicians: "...???"

Lu Yongchang ignored the academicians' "strange" looks and turned to look around.

"How can we compare ourselves to our neighbors?"

He randomly selected a lucky academician and asked him a question.

"Academician He...he hasn't arrived yet; today is his day off."

"Tsk..." Lu Yongchang clicked his tongue softly, "His speed is too slow."

"...Professor, has something serious happened?" the academician asked curiously.

"Big news?" Lü Yongchang chuckled. "It can be considered big news. The second set of data from the black hole detector has been successfully transmitted."

The moment the words were spoken, a soft murmur of discussion erupted in the laboratory.

"Really?!" In the distance, an academician exclaimed excitedly, his face slightly flushed. "After waiting for so many years, we've finally got this data!"

"Professor, what do you think caused these abnormal data?"

Lu Yongchang smiled and shook his head: "I'm not a god. I can't make accurate inferences before I see those data."

Just as the academicians were having a heated discussion, a series of hurried footsteps approached from outside the laboratory.

A few seconds later, a panting He Bilin appeared in front of the laboratory door.

"Xiao He, you're too slow."

Lu Yongchang said cheerfully, "I'll recommend something to you, you can..."

"A robotic arm, right?" He Bilin, still catching his breath, interrupted Lü Yongchang with a strange expression. "Professor, I called you from behind, you didn't hear me, did you?"

Lü Yongchang: "..."

"Is that so?"

It seems... while I was "racing the robot," I actually heard a faint shout?

Thinking of this, the smile on his face froze.

"Ahem!" Lü Yongchang coughed forcefully, ignoring the strange looks from the crowd, and immediately changed the subject, "Zero, is the data decompression complete?"

"Release all abnormal observation data!"

The moment the words were spoken, a dense array of complex data appeared on the giant holographic projection directly in front of the laboratory.

"zero?"

Upon seeing this massive amount of data, Lü Yongchang was taken aback and asked, "Have you confirmed that it has been filtered?"

"The data screening process has been completed," a synthesized voice announced. "The amount of abnormal observation data is quite large, accounting for approximately 10%."

Lü Yongchang's expression immediately turned serious.

A 10% share is already a fairly large data sample!

He stopped talking and turned his gaze directly to the holographic projection in front of him.

……

More than an hour later.

Lü Yongchang let out a long sigh of relief.

The massive data sample largely confirmed his vague suspicions.

He turned to look at He Bilin beside him, and met He Bilin's gaze.

"Professor, we can now basically determine the reason behind these abnormal data."

He took a deep breath, remained silent for a moment, and then solemnly began to speak:

"Antigraviton!" *2

Under the watchful eyes of all the academicians, Lü Yongchang and He Bilin spoke in unison.

He Bilin paused, then looked at Lü Yongchang with some surprise: "Professor, you thought of that too?"

"Of course." Lü Yongchang smiled and nodded slightly. "It has a very high degree of similarity to gravitons, with only a few parameters being different."

"It's hard not to speculate that this is related to antigravitons."

"What an amazing universe." After a moment of silence, He Bilin exclaimed from the bottom of his heart, "When the graviton was first discovered, we all agreed that the antiparticle of the graviton should be itself."

"Just like a photon."

"This discovery has completely overturned our previous understanding."

"That's why I didn't dare to make a judgment back then."

Lu Yongchang slowly shook his head and said in a low voice, "Don't speak too soon."

"I still believe that, under normal circumstances, the antiparticle of the graviton is itself."

"Otherwise, many phenomena in the universe would be difficult to explain."

"As for these abnormal data now..."

At this point, Lü Yongchang fell silent again.

After a long silence, he managed to utter a few words with great difficulty: "Perhaps, this has something to do with the nature of black holes."

He Bilin's eyes flickered, and he quickly understood the meaning behind Lü Yongchang's words.

"Professor, you mean..."

"Does the existence of black holes cause gravitons to temporarily exhibit the opposite properties?"

His eyes looked somewhat lost.

At that moment, he once again deeply felt his own ignorance.

"I...I don't know."

"Perhaps it's due to the black hole, or perhaps it's some other influence..."

Lu Yongchang's lips moved slightly as he murmured softly.

On the eve of becoming a Type V civilization, a faint dark cloud once again appeared on the horizon of the human scientific world.