Chapter 29: Dreamscape: I’m Back

“The fourth night!”

At ten o’clock in the evening, the alarm set by Du Qiu went off.

During the day, Du Qiu and Li Qiang assembled the first set of alarm network components that were sold, taught Li Qiang how to deploy and adjust the system, and then let him go to set it up.

After lunch, Du Qiu modified an electronic watch to create an alarm device, planning to have Zhang Mingliu and the other two wear it later on.

With this gadget, they could immediately alert the police in case of an emergency.

Simultaneously, Du Qiu could receive the alarm signal and if the police did not respond in time, he could initiate a rescue operation himself.

Having completed this work, Du Qiu continued to perfect the numerical control software and repeatedly verified the accompanying hardware’s transformative design program.

The first pot of gold must be secured; it was related to whether he would have money to carry out subsequent research on Dreamscape Technology.

Hearing the alarm, Du Qiu put down his work, washed up, took out the crystal, cleaned it, and placed it on the bed.

Carrying a bit of hope, he fell asleep with his head resting on the crystal.

In the past few nights, generally, Du Qiu would fully fall into sleep within five minutes after his head touched the crystal pillow.

Tonight, five minutes after lying down, he quickly fell asleep again.

This time, he had another dream.

In the dream, it was still the seemingly infinite constellation of stars, and the endless dark void.

At this moment in the dream, Du Qiu was very excited; he knew he had successfully entered that peculiar dreamscape again.

He just didn’t know whether this time, like when he first got the crystal pillow, it would take many days of cosmic roaming to enter that super machine?

The answer was quickly revealed.

That familiar white vortex appeared before his eyes once more, and in the next second, he was submerged in it.

“… Upload successful!”

In the depths of his consciousness, that half-sentence still echoed.

Du Qiu looked at the familiar constellation of stars in an excited state and turned his head to look in the opposite direction, where dozens of other vortices still existed.

【I’m back!】

Du Qiu shouted internally with a sense of regaining something lost, a feeling that joyfully surged through his mind.

His gaze wandered in this unique space, not missing any corner, as if it were his domain.

For the past two days, he had been constantly recalling those control programs – not only the control programs for each functional module but also the underlying program, perception program, connection program of the whole machine…

At this time, Du Qiu realized, with an insight as his eyes roamed over it, that he should be in the intelligence core of this super machine. That constellation should be similar to the combination of a computer’s CPU+GPU+memory+hard disk on Blue Star.

Suddenly, he fixated on a corner he had never paid attention to before, where a blue light had just flickered.

As Du Qiu focused, a scene suddenly unfolded before his eyes.

“System energy module restart complete!”

Du Qiu became somewhat excited. He had never paid attention to this corner before, perhaps he was too attracted by that constellation of stars, and hence had neglected these dark corners.

If it weren’t for that blue light, who would have thought that you could see the energy module of the super machine here?

Was what he had initially thought to resemble a Blue Star computer’s various components now to include the power source as well?

Indeed, this should be the source of energy for the super machine.

“Restart complete”? Does that mean that the dream interface was shut down because the super machine was powered off?

Du Qiu’s focus returned to the scene with some confoundment.

What was that glistening golden substance? Why was the blue light flowing non-stop within it?

The scene continued to unfold, quickly transitioning to another, which Du Qiu understood even less.

However, the object in the center that resembled the sun made Du Qiu realize something, prompting him to continue observing to discern what it was.

As his thoughts dwelled on it, the scene altered.

He saw something resembling a tree branch, with a fiery orb burning in the middle.

Just by observing, Du Qiu felt as if he could sense the intense heat.

However, the ‘tree branch’ remained unchanged through the searing temperature.

As he watched the branch, countless codes flew past on one side of the scene and Du Qiu instinctively tried to discern them.

“External programs, cannot be viewed!”

Du Qiu was taken aback; this was the first time he encountered an inability to view codes.

It seemed that within the system’s energy module, only the method of acquiring energy could be displayed, but the codes for these methods did not belong to the super machine itself.

Feeling helpless, Du Qiu once again cautiously observed the fiery orb, but nothing happened.

Based on the scene at hand, Du Qiu developed a theory.

But that ‘tree branch’ was so peculiar that he was somewhat uncertain.

In fact, from the moment he saw that burning orb, Du Qiu suspected that it might represent humanity’s long-sought source of infinite energy on Blue Star – nuclear fusion reaction!

Nuclear fusion is the cleanest and most valuable source of energy discovered by humans because that is how the sun burns.

The sun can scatter light and warmth to a solar system precisely because it undergoes continuous fusion reactions.

If humans could achieve a technological breakthrough and successfully ignite a fusion reaction, mankind would have access to inexhaustible clean energy.

But with temperatures in the sun’s core reaching 15 million degrees and the enormous pressure from its mass, the fusion reactions proceed normally.

How can such immense pressure be achieved on Blue Star?

Without a means to generate such pressure, the only option is to raise the temperature substantially, requiring temperatures of over a billion degrees where no solid material can exist.

Only through the confinement of a strong magnetic field, known as magnetic confinement fusion, can such a reaction be completed.

Yet, the scene Du Qiu was observing contained that strange ‘branch’, and what could it possibly be that would coexist with the orb?

If the orb was indeed the fire of a fusion reaction, under such temperatures, no other solid material should exist.

This was the scene that subverted Du Qiu’s understanding, preventing him from confirming that it was indeed a controllable nuclear fusion reaction.

However, since this scene appeared in the energy module, it must represent a form of energy. What else could produce such a scene besides nuclear fusion?

Unable to comprehend, Du Qiu decided to refocus on the first scene he witnessed – the flow of blue light within the golden radiance.

Upon revisiting this scene, no matter how focused Du Qiu was, he could only determine that the sparkling gold substance must be some solid material, but certainly not gold.

The blue light probably represented something like an electric current existing within the golden substance – could it be that this material was a type of energy storage?

Suddenly, Du Qiu remembered having seen the energy management module running scenes within the constellation with imagery of gleaming golden blocks – at that time, he wondered if those were the fabled energy blocks.

So, could the current scene showcase the insides of the energy blocks?

It was visible that the golden substance was segmented and the blue light flowed through, perhaps not energy blocks but some kind of solid-state battery instead.

Thinking so, Du Qiu felt somewhat relieved.

This super machine truly seemed to be of extraterrestrial origin; its energy technology appeared so advanced, way beyond Blue Star’s capabilities.

Unfortunately, without understanding these two forms of energy technology, he would have made a fortune otherwise.

Du Qiu reflected on the night when he had been forcibly ejected from the dream interface because he altered the machine’s original program, until tonight when he re-entered.

A sense of caution flooded him.

If the super machine was indeed an alien civilization’s device and an anomaly had occurred, the aliens might have powered it down and conducted a comprehensive check.

Thus, within the intelligence core, certain measures must have been set to prevent further program anomalies.

Looking at the constellation the size of an egg, Du Qiu hesitated for a moment.