Chapter 1628: Meeting Reinhardt Again
The mine of Hiddell Mining Company.
Lu Zhou followed Ling along the abandoned rails, down the path that was in his memory, and towards the depths of the mine.
Because of its abandonment, this mine looked quite dilapidated, as if it could collapse at any time.
Lu Zhou’s gaze wandered inside the mine. When they were halfway through their expedition, he suddenly stopped and knelt down. He reached out his index finger and wiped it on the ground.
He looked at the dust on his carbon-fiber gloves.
Lu Zhou whispered to himself as he rubbed his fingers together, “Someone was here.”
This cave was a dead end, and the wind and sand from outside couldn’t blow into here, but the footprints on the ground were all erased.
Obviously, after he left, someone came here and investigated the situation.
Lu Zhou remembered that Li Guangya mentioned that when the Pan-Asian Cooperation helped him notarize his ident.i.ty, Li Guangya handed this matter to the Security Bureau.
Thus, these traces should belong to Captain Xing and their colleagues.
“I hope they didn’t find that s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p…”
Ling was walking in front when he cast an inquiring look back at Lu Zhou. Lu Zhou wiped the dust off his gloves and got up from the ground.
“Let’s continue ahead… By the way, did you bring the thing?”
“Yes.”
“Very well.” Lu Zhou flashed his torch forward. “It’s up to you soon.”
The so-called thing was actually just a few pieces of mining explosives.
After the mine was dug through, in order to prevent the secrets about General Reinhardt and the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p from leaking, Lu Zhou blasted the entrance to The Gates of h.e.l.l.
If he wanted to go back again, the most direct way was of course to blow it up again.
“The explosives have been set up, please leave the explosion range.”
“Okay.”
Since Ling had finished placing the explosives, Lu Zhou nodded and started to move backward.
After he retreated to a safe distance, Ling turned his head and started the blasting procedure.
A loud noise came from under the ground as the ruins piled in front of the two of them exploded into pieces.
Lu Zhou reached out his hand to wipe the dust off his helmet before patting away the dust that filled the surrounding area. He then stepped over the rubble on the ground, stepping into this relic left by Martian aliens from billions of years ago.
As soon as he stepped into the ruins, a faint sigh came from the communication channel.
“You are finally back.”
Lu Zhou looked at the garbled text that appeared on the communication channel, and he smiled a little embarra.s.sedly.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“It’s okay, it’s just a year. Compared to the time I have experienced, it’s only a drop in the bucket. In fact, I thought that it would be ten or even twenty years. You came back in a blink of an eye. I was quite surprised, to be honest.”
Standing next to Lu Zhou, Ling was looking around nervously. The scarlet light in his pupils became stronger and stronger, and his whole body was on high alert.
It seemed that Reinhardt had noticed the robot standing next to Lu Zhou. His voice in the communication channel had a hint of interest as he asked, “A private robot? It is… Where did you get this thing?”
Lu Zhou almost didn’t react when he first heard the word private.
It wasn’t until his eyes fell on Ling that he suddenly remembered that when he came here to rescue him last time, Ling’s body was still an old-fas.h.i.+oned mining robot.
But now, the body he controlled was a “sample” awarded to him by the system. The full name was a “Private-1” intelligent human guard. It was produced by the Calan Empire and installed in the aeros.p.a.ce paratroopers. It was often used to eliminate dangerous creatures in the colony and various purposes of orbital airborne operations.
Although in terms of tactical positioning, this Private-1 was a ma.s.s-produced attack robot controlled by a central processing unit, but due to the difference in technology, it was invincible when placed on Earth.
“Those people gave it to me…”
“The Observer?”
Lu Zhou nodded.
“Yeah.”
As if hearing something interesting, the voice in the communication channel was obviously more excited than before.
“I see, I wondered how this thing got into your hands. Let me see, um, the Kill Core core has been replaced, no wonder it looks dull… Did you install a general-purpose AI for it? Was the original AI not easy to use?”
A light blue light beam shot from the depths of the cave, s.h.i.+ning back and forth on Ling’s body.
This was the first time Lu Zhou saw an expression of anxiety on Ling’s face.
“Enough.”
The light blue beam of light immediately died down.
A slightly apologetic cough came from the communication channel.
General Reinhardt said embarra.s.sedly, “Sorry, I was just a little excited to see the things from my hometown… You should know the feeling. My world was clearly destroyed, but the things that belonged to that world appeared in front of me again. By the way, that was the scanning beam on the s.p.a.cecraft, which may have a certain impact on the stability of electromagnetic waves… But trust me, it is harmless.”
“I understand and believe you. As for your previous question, it was not because it was difficult to use. It was because it was too powerful that I couldn’t use the extra combat power at all.” Lu Zhou shrugged. ” After all, I live in a peaceful civilization… At least relatively peaceful.”
“We were once peaceful too, at least for a while.”
General Reinhardt went silent for a while, as if thinking of something. He then suddenly said to himself, “It seems that my previous speculation is correct.”
Lu Zhou: “What speculation?”
“Those omnipotent observers can not only bring things from the old universe into the Void, but they can also create things that don’t exist out of thin air based on a memory… For example, this Private-1, I don’t remember taking this thing to the center of the universe.”
Create something that doesn’t exist out of thin air?
To be honest, Lu Zhou didn’t feel too surprised by this.
After all, from what General Reinhardt said, The Observer in the Void was a civilization far stronger than the Calan Empire. Whether it was the quark stars flying in the universe or the mysterious technology of escaping from the real universe into the Void to avoid natural disasters, they had surpa.s.sed the Calan civilization.
“Enough about this.” There was a trace of sadness in his tone, as if he was recalling the things in his hometown. General Reinhardt continued, “It seems that you didn’t come here to take me away. Then, tell me what you came for. I don’t think it’s because you miss me.”
“Your guess is accurate. I have thought of you no more than ten times in this year and a half.” After a pause, Lu Zhou continued in a serious tone, “I’ve sorted out the warp speed technology.”
The voice in the communication channel had a hint of surprise.
“Oh, really?”
Lu Zhou: “By using the disturbance of the gravitational field when high-dimensional particles fall into low-dimensional s.p.a.ce, it affects the curvature of s.p.a.cetime and opens a hypers.p.a.ce channel. In short, we have successfully achieved the first faster than lightspeed navigation… ”
“This is really surprising…” General Reinhardt continued in disbelief, “I thought that after seeing you leave, I would have to wait for Mars to orbit around the Sun for at least 100 cycles before you master the mystery of surpa.s.sing the speed of light. Yet you only took about 50 weeks.”
The time for Mars to make one revolution was 687 days, so it took about two centuries to make 100 revolutions. In other words, in the eyes of this Calan man, faster than light technology was undoubtedly an advanced technology for Earth civilization.
In fact, that was the case.
If it were not for the coincidences that discovered the existence of the Z particle, even knowing that faster than light travel was achievable, it would not be an easy task to make it a reality.
“Obviously, you have underestimated us.”
General Reinhardt laughed.
“Underestimate you guys? How? I think, at most, I underestimate you.”
“Anyway, back to the main point.” Lu Zhou continued while looking at the string of garbled ID belonging to General Reinhardt on the communication interface, “I remember that there is something similar to a portal in the Calan Empire.”
“You mean stargates?”
“Sure… I want to know how you maintain a stable hypers.p.a.ce channel, allowing matter and information to move quickly and efficiently in the channel without congestion? How exactly is this done?”
There was a long silence in the communication channel.
About a minute later, General Reinhardt spoke again.
“I’m not a scientist. Even if you ask me, I don’t understand the specific principles of it. Including the high-dimensional particles you mentioned, I’m not sure whether the warp drive produces high-dimensional particles. I only know that when I pressed the switch, the hypers.p.a.ce channel appeared in front of me, and the gravitational line pulled us through like a rope.”
Hearing this worthless answer, Lu Zhou couldn’t help but show a disappointed expression on his face.
However, he also understood Reinhardt’s explanation.
After all, the more advanced science was, the more diverse the subdivided fields would become. Even if an expert who studied hypers.p.a.ce channels encountered a problem in an esoteric research direction, they might not be able to give a satisfactory answer.
It seemed like his trip was worthless.
However, just as he was about to say thank you and leave with Ling, General Reinhardt’s next words brought his mood back to life.
“Although I really can’t give you a suitable suggestion, the wreckage of the warp drive is actually in the mine leading to the center of the planet.
“If you are really interested…
“Why don’t you tinker with it yourself?”