Chapter 707 - 686 Black Stone

Perhaps repeated failures had changed Karst’s strategy, for upon the success of this mission, it provided a considerable wealth of technology, essentially spoon-feeding guidance for the subsequent manned orbital flight missions.

After that came the logical progression of demands: build a space station, launch lunar probes, land on the Moon, and so on. Over sixty years after its discovery, Karst finally began to flex its muscles.

It wasn’t until after the completion of the unmanned lunar exploration mission that Karst requested a trip to Mars, but this time it provided a specific coordinate: Zero Plain.

This led to the hurried Departing Fire project, the inexplicably rapid rise of Xinyuan Company, and those miraculous ternary electronic technologies.

Starting with an American Chinese influenced by the environment and the era, the efforts of two generations of Chinese descendants over nearly ten-year cycles of development had finally begun to draw from the sweet advanced technologies of Karst.

The alien artifact had lain dormant for nearly half a century, but in the mere three to four years since it last awoke, it had brought unimaginable and vast changes to the world.

Zhong Cheng only felt that he witnessed an epic; an ancient relic that had existed on Earth since time immemorial, which could have been discovered before, but before the radio era, no one knew what was inside; combined with America’s brief history of civilization, it maintained its mystery for over ten thousand years.

It guided humanity step by step forward, generously providing various advanced technologies, yet never deigned to communicate, instead unfolding temptations step by step...

Both Lin Ju and Xiao Okada observed the dazed Zhong Cheng closely, then exchanged looks that conveyed a sense of reassurance.

Of course, Guo Xiao was real, merely an obscure figure in history, one among thousands of Chinese tech workers who fled the chaos of war, whose ordinary background was impossible to confirm with all one’s might.

Nevertheless, since Guo Shen existed, and Black Stone organization could exist, then Karst was also here, which was enough to gain sufficient trust.

Of course, the most important thing was the advanced technologies; just revealing a bit was enough to prove the veracity of this lie, especially since the story was half-true, half-false, making it especially difficult to expose.

Zhong Cheng took a good fifteen minutes to digest this vast amount of information and felt dizzy from standing so long, nearly collapsing to the ground.

He didn’t know how much time had passed when he finally accepted this bizarre tale and looked up. The room was now filled with many people—all the main scientists and engineers from the base.

"You all..."

"We all come from Black Stone. But it has effectively disbanded. The main members are now here, as part of the Xinyuan Company," they replied.

Ye Changsi displayed his characteristic composure, his words carrying a reassuring and convincing power.

Zhong Cheng still felt like his brain was swollen. Shaking his head, he remarked,

"This feels... like a dream, or some enormous joke."

"No, it’s not. Come and look at these."

Ye Changsi led him to a laptop near Karst and began to explain as he navigated,

"We’ve acquired a good deal of technical material, but much of it is beyond the scope of current technological capabilities. However, I believe you can judge their authenticity.

These are all kept on a separate server with access rights exclusive to this place."

The base had meticulously selected certain technologies, either too advanced to even consider, or just a little ahead of the current world, and modified them for display.

What Zhong Cheng saw was an extensive data library covering various fields. Selecting those within his expertise, he quickly confirmed nearly ten kinds of absolutely advanced technologies, all ahead of their time and unlikely to have appeared with no fanfare.

In other categories, he also saw detailed information about the A100 nuclear engine, the 50N super-thrust Hall Thruster, and the NPAE engine, and many of the annotation methods and standards were unlike anything he’d seen before.

By this time, he had essentially been able to verify everything Lin Ju had said—at least these technologies were definitely not from humans; no secret organization on Earth could advance so many scientific fields so systematically ahead of everyone else.

However, he still felt a ridiculous sense of absurdity, as though his entire worldview had been completely shattered.

"Ternary electronic technology was given by Karst, and so were your advanced rocket engines, the heat-resistant materials for spaceplanes, robotic technologies, even biotech—An Shenduo, all alien technologies?!"

"Most of it is, and I even suspect that Karst may adjust it based on our feedback. We’ve been continuously feeding it more data; the more it learns, the easier it is for us to understand the technologies it provides."

"This is treason... no... a betrayal of humanity. Do you realize what you’re doing?!"

Zhong Cheng roared, appalled at the idea of continuously transmitting data to an alien civilization’s artifact. In this age when AI was beginning to flourish, he knew all too well the dire consequences this could bring.

Everyone silently endured his rage until he calmed down slightly, and then Ye Changsi finally said,

"It’s too late."

"Too late?"

"Much too late. By the time we realized what was happening, it was already too late.

You should remember, Karst can actively send and receive signals, and Earth has long been blanketed by countless radio signals, which were too sparse before for Karst to decode.

After Guo Xiao helped it learn, Karst has been able to actively understand the human world through omnipresent satellites and broadcast signals, especially since the advent of the mobile internet era.

By 2002, the heyday of internet, we realized this, so we kept it in a Faraday cage to cut off all incoming radio signals, much like here.

But the information before 2002 is probably enough, and I don’t doubt that Karst can now control all connected devices worldwide, it just hasn’t done so for some reason.

In fact, we’re already making every effort to avoid these scenarios, but I’m afraid it’s too late."

Ye Changsi’s serenity diffused Zhong Cheng’s anger, leaving him feeling deflated.

Indeed, for so many years, not even the unfathomable AI of an alien civilization, take Xiaomi’s Xiao Ai assistant back to the 80s, might change history.

Unbeknownst to us, the world had already been changing under Karst’s guidance, but humans were completely unaware of its traces, powerless to resist.

Even if its main body was here, there were surely—definitely—other AIs it had created, silently observing humanity.

These terrifying speculations made his skin crawl with the realization that the entire human civilization had become like ants under a magnifying glass, completely oblivious to any impending danger.