Rebirth: Starting from Lighting Up the Tech Tree

Chapter 253, Second Relic

The downward passage was at least twice as long as that in the Taklamakan. We walked for nearly twenty minutes, each step leading downwards. The passage walls weren't natural rock, but a familiar alloy material, a silvery-gray with a faint metallic sheen. But unlike the Taklamakan, the alloy surface here had patterns. Not engravings, not writing, but more like some kind of circuit structure.

Moreover, the circuit was still faintly glowing.

Zhao Wenbo attached the scanner to the wall of the passage. The data the instrument read left him stunned for a few seconds. The density of the patterns reached the nanometer level; each pattern was an independent optical fiber with a core diameter of about one micrometer, arranged in an array with atomic-level precision. With current human manufacturing technology, it was impossible to create an optical fiber network of this density.

At the end of the passage was a circular hall, about fifty meters in diameter, nearly twice the size of the Taklamakan Caves. The dome was over twenty meters high, its surface not metal but a translucent material, projecting a dynamic three-dimensional star map. The stars rotated slowly, like a clock measured in billions of years.

There was no platform in the center of the hall. Instead, there was a circular recess three meters in diameter, with a transparent bottom. Through the transparent layer, one could see a dense network of fiber-like structures extending vertically downwards, seemingly without end. The tips of the fibers converged at the bottom of the recess, arranged in a concentric ring, and each fiber had a light-emitting node smaller than a pinhead at its end.

Yu Ying squatted beside the groove and conducted a preliminary analysis using a scanner. Her conclusion was that the individual optical fibers were approximately one micrometer in diameter, with an arrangement precision reaching the atomic level, and that they were transmitting not visible light but some form of energy she could not identify. The scanner's spectral analysis module did not have a preset identification scheme for that type of energy.

Zuo Cheng walked to the center of the hall and looked up at the star map on the dome. He recognized several stars. One was a red dwarf star, and the other was a planet orbiting it with a surface of liquid ammonia. This was the same primordial planet from the Taklamakan Cave civilization's perception map.

Zhao Wenbo found an alloy box at the edge of the hall. The box had no markings or lock, but the lid slid open automatically when he touched it. Inside were seven neatly stacked field survey logs, each labeled with the year: 2013 to 2019. The pages were yellowed, but the handwriting was clear and well-preserved.

Zhao Wenbo opened the first book with trembling hands. He stopped when he turned to the title page. There was only one line on the title page: Whoever finds this box, whether it's Zuo Cheng or someone else, don't rush to look at me. First, carefully examine this ruin. After you've seen it, when you read what I've written, you'll find that the two things are about the same thing.

He closed the journal. He'd look at the remains first.

Yu Ying spent an hour walking through the entire hall, taking seventeen samples. Her core conclusion was that the Taklamakan and Sahara relics were different functional modules of the same system. The Taklamakan was a seed bank, preserving the original form and activation mechanism of the technology tree seeds, essentially a storage device. The Sahara was an interface station, used to establish two-way communication connections with the seeded civilization, essentially a communication device. Their underlying technologies were completely identical—alloy composition, fiber optic structure, and energy frequency were all matched. However, their functions were entirely different.

She also discovered something that sent chills down her spine. In a corner of the star map, there was an inconspicuous dark red star, darker than the surrounding stars, almost blending into the background. After zooming in with the scanner, she discovered a countdown timer beneath the star. The number was slowly decreasing. Converted to Earth time, there were approximately four years left. She didn't dare immediately interpret the meaning of the countdown, but she memorized it.

She found a control panel at the bottom of the recess. There were no buttons on the panel, only a set of recessed handprints, perfectly matching the size of a human's five fingers. She called Zuo Cheng over. Zuo Cheng placed his hand on the handprint, and it automatically detected it. The fiber optic network at the bottom of the recess glowed faintly, as if the system was confirming his identity.

Zhao Wenbo found the architectural plans left by Chen Xinghe in his sketchbook. Three hand-drawn maps, labeled with the Taklamakan, the Sahara, and an unlabeled third location. On the Sahara map, Chen Xinghe had written a sentence: "The first relic is the receiver, the second relic is the transmitter. When a civilization reaches level seven or higher, the transmitter will automatically activate, sending a signal towards the origin." This isn't a one-way seeding, but a two-way waiting. They are waiting for our reply.

As Zhao Wenbo was interpreting the sentence, Zuo Cheng walked to the edge of the groove. The moment his foot touched the edge, the civilization perception interface on the system panel suddenly switched to holographic projection mode. It wasn't something he actively activated. The force field of the ruins forcibly activated the civilization perception. His consciousness was pulled into a panoramic view.

He saw over two hundred points of light illuminate the Earth across the globe. Each point of light was an ancient relic, like the Sahara and the Taklamakan, scattered across corners of the seven continents: the Rocky Mountains of America, the Great Rift Valley of East Africa, the heart of the European Alps, the Tibetan Plateau of Asia, and the deserts of central Oceania. Most of the points of light were in a dormant, gray state. Only the Taklamakan and the Sahara were lit.

The system displayed a message: Origin Network, 217 Earth-level origin nodes have been discovered. Two nodes are currently active. The remaining nodes are dormant due to insufficient civilization level.

Zuo Cheng opened his eyes. The holographic projection was still suspended above the groove, as if the system had projected the consciousness image from just now into physical space, making it visible to everyone.

Yu Ying gazed at the global network of light points, her scanner drooping. Two hundred and seventeen points of light, like two hundred and seventeen seeds buried in every corner of the blue planet. Each seed awaited the same moment: the level of civilization required for its awakening. The Sahara and Taklamakan were the two lights that had just been lit in the world's understanding; two hundred and fifteen more lay silently waiting in the darkness. Yang Hong leaned against the corridor wall, his lips moving silently. Zhao Wenbo sat beside the alloy box, Chen Xinghe's sketchbook spread out on his lap, the architectural diagrams and the star map on the dome unfolding on the same plane.

Zuo Cheng turned to Yang Hong and asked a question.

"Old Chen said this is an interface station that can be used to communicate with the origin. Does he know how to use it?"

Yang Hong pointed to the bottom of the groove.

"He said the key to the interface isn't in the machine," he said, pointing to his temple. "It's in the human brain."

He paused for a moment.

"Thirty-two channels, standard configuration for the NX-30. The digitization of consciousness isn't for immortality. It's about becoming the key."