Chapter 330: Sands of Time, the Lost Dawn Empire (12)

Ten-thousand-meter depth, hot water cavern.

Luosen wasn't in a hurry to investigate the secrets inside the hot water cavern.

After making preparations to flee at any moment, he proactively contacted the soul aura of Pioneer Dilaikes and began sending soul messages to it.

"Pioneer Dilaikes, attempt to restart."

As a result, he received a strange reply: "Please send ￥@！@￥%！@".

The reply was strange: the first half was Elvish, while the second half was a completely unfamiliar language.

This situation was rather odd.

"How could this happen?"

Luosen thought it over carefully and formed a hypothesis.

"This intelligent puppet should have language-learning ability."

"Because the elves kept praying, it gradually learned some, but not all."

Due to the isolation of the ten-thousand-meter soil layer, the pioneer's received prayer messages were necessarily limited, so naturally it learned very slowly.

So, to enable smooth communication between the two, the first step is to teach it to speak.

Thinking this, Luosen immediately began to act.

He continuously sent soul messages to it, part of which were text, and another part were various images corresponding to the text.

After sending for a while, he felt it was both troublesome and slow.

After thinking, he came up with a new method.

He opened Laifu's database, extracted various scenes from memory, edited them into subtitled 'movies,' and then sent them over.

He did it for a while, got annoyed, and then handed it over to Laifu to do.

To avoid any mishaps, Luosen also raised his own defenses to the maximum, ready to flee at any moment if something went wrong.

Time passed bit by bit; this so-called Pioneer Dilaikes remained silent most of the time, occasionally giving a response.

At first, the response content was completely unfamiliar; gradually, it became somewhat familiar.

As changes appeared, the response frequency also increased.

Luosen's motivation greatly increased; he allocated more computing power from Laifu, dedicating it specifically to this task.

After ten hours passed like this, Pioneer Dilaikes sent a message.

"I have learned the new language; I am finishing adjusting the output language."

"Unknown visitor, please state your intentions."

The voice was soft, gender-neutral, resembling electronic synthesized speech.

Considering that the other party possessed intelligence, Luosen conversed with it using normal logic.

"Pioneer Dilaikes, I am Explorer Luosen from the explorers; I unintentionally discovered your existence. I want to know your specific identity."

"Explorer Luosen, I am the Planet Pioneer of the Dawn Empire; my mission is to transform planetary environments to make them suitable for life."

"Dawn Empire?"

"Planet Transformer? This one is quite formidable."

Luosen thought for a moment and asked: "Can I know the location of the Dawn Empire's homeworld?"

"The seventh planet of the Sun, Dawn Planet."

Upon hearing this, Luosen's heart stirred, for this was exactly the location of the lost advanced civilization, which had been destroyed at least ten thousand years ago.

Thus he tried saying: "Dilaikes, the Dawn Empire no longer exists. I believe you need a new manager."

He soon received a reply.

"Since the manager last exercised administrative authority over a billion seconds ago, far exceeding that, it complies with the First Dawn Law, allowing a manager change."

"According to the Second Dawn Law, the new manager must possess high-energy arcane power."

"Please present any high-energy arcane artifact to prove you have the ability to manage such artifacts."

Luosen felt great joy inside.

He immediately took out the newly crafted Natural Scepter, infused it with power, condensed a large amount of verdant life force, and shot this force toward the fluctuating golden light source ahead.

About five seconds later, he received a reply.

"Observer's Rod detected; the Second Dawn Law is satisfied, initiating the manager replacement procedure."

"Please enter your soul's true name."

"Luosen."

"True name received; please enter the administrative key."

"The key must satisfy the following rules."

Luosen immediately received a long string of information, which turned out to be the key rules.

He then devised a key according to the rules.

"Administrative key recorded."

"Manager reset completed."

"Manager Luosen, welcome."

Luosen had a dreamlike feeling, yet he still dared not let his guard down.

After collecting his thoughts, he tried saying: "Open the management panel."

The Pioneer immediately responded.

Luosen then felt his vision brighten slightly, and a highly complex virtual window appeared, filled with various parameters.

Such as "planetary energy level, atmospheric composition, elemental law ring strength," etc. —there were hundreds of them, all closely related to the planet.

Besides that, there was also a functional summary.

Open it and see, there are two options.

One is the pioneer's background information.

'Pioneer, Dawn Empire, Divine Light Manufacturing Bureau production, used to transform barren planets, construct planetary law rings.'

'The "Dilaikes" is the latest pioneer model, containing the empire's highest arcane crystal, put into use on the 9th planet in Dawn 7621, and completed the first-phase transformation in Dawn 8938.'

The other is Dilaikes' work log.

Open it and see, the content is very much, overall showing a pattern of front-heavy then light.

Before 1317, it was detailed records of planetary transformation, huge data volume.

But after 1317, it's almost a blank log, content just one: waiting for administrator authorization to start second-phase transformation.

On average every five minutes, the pioneer sends an authorization request, totaling nearly 1.2 billion requests!

Converted, that's eleven thousand four hundred-odd years.

Truly over ten thousand years! The length of Earth civilization is only six or seven thousand years, while this Dawn Empire's creation lies buried deep beneath ten thousand meters of earth, day after day, year after year awaiting administrator authorization. Yet the civilization where the administrator resides has already been destroyed.

From the log it can be seen that the number of pioneers invested in this planet is large, 34,698, all deployed in the earth depths ten thousand meters below ground, working in unified coordination.

In the span of 1300 years, they transformed the planet into a habitable world.

But with the administrator's disappearance and the erosion of long ages, one pioneer after another lost contact.

Until now, only three latest-model pioneers remain working.

One is underground in Atlarsen, one underground in the Goth Province of the Radiant Empire, and one beneath the sea surface in the middle of the Golden Ocean.

Seeing this, Luosen couldn't help but feel a sense of insignificance.

"From the pioneer's arcane level, this civilization has gone very far in arcane, far beyond my Natural Empire, and its glory far surpasses my Natural Empire."

This great civilization possesses the great power to reshape planets, and spent a full 1300 years advancing this, showing tenacious will and extraordinary foresight.

"The life tree branch, platinum disc, annihilation spear, and many other divine artifacts in my hand are also creations of this great civilization."

"But now this great civilization has perished in the river of time, also vanished from the memory of the vast majority of life, as if they never existed."

Luosen couldn't help but think: "My Natural Empire, how high can it rise? How long can it endure in the river of time?"

I don't know, there is no answer.

After a long silence, Luosen shook his head, pulling his thoughts out of the void of the river of time, returning to the present situation.

'Viewed from a perspective of billions of years, everything of mortals is meaningless, but for mortals, meaning lies in the present!'

Taking a deep breath, Luosen began to check the pioneer's various parameters.

Finally, his gaze settled on 'Remaining Energy', showing a progress bar indicating only about 11%.

Providing the energy is something called 'Solar Essence'.

Luosen felt curious, trying to ask: "Dilaikes, what is Solar Essence?"

"Solar Essence, a high-energy elemental construct, synthesized by the Imperial Energy Bureau, each kilogram can release 300,000 Grills of power."

Grill is the power unit of the Dawn Empire.

Converted to electricity, that's equivalent to 100 billion degrees per kilogram, over a thousand times more than deuterium fusion! Luosen's curiosity soared.

At this point, he had completely relaxed.

He then swam out from his hiding place, heading straight toward the distant golden light source.

Soon he saw the pioneer's main body at the center of the golden light.

It is a strange object composed of multiple layers of cross-ring runes; the outermost cross-ring diameter is about 50 meters, the next layer 49 meters, and so on, continually shrinking.

One can see that each rune on each ring emits light while flowing, thus producing an indeterminate golden glow.

Feeling Luosen's approach, Dilaikes' voice sounded in his mind.

"Welcome again, Administrator."

Luosen asked: "I want to know about Solar Essence; can you show me Solar Essence?"

Soon after the words fell, the cross-element patterns around the pioneer changed their flow pattern.

After several seconds, a blinding golden light point slowly flew out from one of the runes.

Soon after flying out, the light point quickly dimmed, finally becoming a sparkling five-colored crystal ball the size of a baby's fist.

"This is a 100-gram sample of Solar Essence, very stable at room temperature, but when activated by a specific method it can produce 30,000 Grills of power."

"Related synthesis data has been transmitted."

With that, Luosen's mind received a thick arcane document.

He briefly flipped through it, then exclaimed: "Heh heh heh~~~ truly impressive!"

From the document, synthesizing Solar Essence is very difficult; with the Natural Empire's current capability, only small-scale, cost-no-object synthesis can be done in high-energy labs.

Wanting large-scale low-cost synthesis of Solar Essence still has a long way to go.

Luosen also deeply felt the might of the Dawn Empire.

Because evaluating a civilization's height, the most intuitive standard is to see what it burns.

If it burns firewood, it is destined to be only an agrarian civilization.

Burning Black Stone, at most it is merely an industrial civilization trapped on a planet.

When it begins burning deuterium, then it has the qualification to leave the planet.

Yet this lost third Dawn Empire has synthesized a substance over a thousand times stronger than deuterium fusion, with far greater controllability—Solar Essence.

Hence it is no wonder it possesses the ability to transform planetary environments.

If such a civilization still existed today, dealing with the Natural Empire would be no harder than a human crushing ants.

Luosen immediately recalled the existing super-civilization entity 'Abyss', and also recalled the witch's words about the Gate of the Abyss, his heart gave a slight jolt, and he truly took this to heart.

'Since the Dawn Empire is so terrifying, the Abyss civilization is naturally astonishingly strong; once the Abyss is fully opened, it truly would be the doom of all mortal realms.'

Luosen looked again at the pioneer Dilaikes: "Dilaikes, I need all the arcane data you possess."

Data is being transmitted.

Luosen received a large amount of information, quickly skimmed through it, and it was all related technical data for constructing Dilaiks.

It is extremely abstruse; relying on him alone, it would probably take ages to absorb.

He is not alone.

Immediately transmit the data back to the various major laboratories of the Natural Empire, and hand it over to the mages for research and verification.

He again asked Dilaiks: "Are the other pioneers damaged, or have they run out of energy and gone dormant?"

"It is highly likely they have entered a dormant state, but we cannot rule out accidental damage; however, the probability of damage is less than 1%."

Luosen felt delighted; this meant that as long as he could provide sufficient solar essence, he could directly activate these pioneers to carry out a second-phase transformation of the current plane.

Of course, that is not possible now, because the Natural Empire still cannot produce enough solar essence.

Thus he ordered: "Dilaiks, enter dormancy."

"Entering dormancy."

With those words, this strange multi-layered cross-rune construct immediately ceased its flow, its light gradually dimming and shrinking bit by bit, until it became a perfect metal sphere.

It hovered silently in the water cavern, motionless, like a condensed spacetime anchor.

Luosen then took a sample of solar essence, retreated from the ten-thousand-meter-deep underground, and along the passage all the way up, he sealed the passage behind him.

Soon, he returned to the underground secret chamber.

First, transmit to the High-energy Magic Method Laboratory, sending the solar essence sample over for research.

Then return to the underground secret chamber of Atlasen.

Next, what to do? Of course, continue supporting the Wild Hare Society's revolution.

(End of chapter)