Chapter 43: Dreamscape: The Vanishing Cube

Du Qiu remembered clearly the scene he had witnessed in his dream the previous night. The spot in his field of vision was supposed to hold a series of gigantic, multi-storied cubes.

He recalled that each of these multi-level cubes should have had twelve layers. At the time, he assumed they were like other cubic structures without any markings, so he hadn’t focused on them closely.

Unexpectedly, the cubes had now disappeared. How had they been moved?

There was not a single trace on the dark, aquamarine metallic surface they rested upon; no tracks on the square, planetary crust around them either.

Was it possible that aliens had hoisted the cubes away through the air?

Considering the level of alien technology, it didn’t seem like a difficult task.

As Du Qiu pondered, he cast his gaze around and noticed a multi-story cubic structure not too far away.

On closer inspection, he realized it was different from the missing cubes.

Using the visible light perception subsystem for closer observation, he saw that the thin line between the layers of this structure was much finer compared to the line in his memory of the missing cubes.

Now it seemed as if the fine line was merely drawn on the outer walls of the building.

However, in his memory, the missing cubes had thicker lines with a regular pattern of peaks and troughs.

This led Du Qiu to deduce that the missing cubes must have been stacks of individual cubes.

Remembering this, he recalled the vanished multi-tier cubes, each layer exceedingly large. Imagine, Du Qiu thought, if these were elongated into rectangular prisms and then shrunk by 8-10 times, they would somewhat resemble the sea shipping containers on Blue Star.

Hey, could these actually be the shipping containers of an alien civilization?

Du Qiu had a sudden brainstorm—if these indeed were containers, it would explain why they had vanished: they would have been transported away by aliens.

If that were the case, could this site be a loading dock?

The thought of this steel jungle possibly being a production base for an alien civilization crossed his mind; whatever was produced would certainly need to be transported away.

Just earlier, he was contemplating how the items may have been air-lifted by the aliens.

Leaving no trace behind was indeed astonishing.

With this in mind, Du Qiu realized the super machine and the steel jungle, separated by a mere 3-kilometer distance, had no connecting road in-between. It was as if the two had nothing to do with each other, which had initially puzzled Du Qiu.

Now, Du Qiu entertained the guess that the alien civilization probably traveled by air, and, if the vast empty space was indeed a loading area, then would the surrounding buildings possibly be analogous to Earth’s airport dispatch and docking facilities?

The more he thought about it, the more excited Du Qiu became, and he started to observe the buildings surrounding the empty lot more carefully.

Sadly, he couldn’t spot any sign of an airport-like facility in any of the structures, such as a communication tower or an extended airport corridor…

Nothing of the sort.

And all the buildings nearby were cubic structures with no markings.

Perhaps the mode of cargo transport by the alien civilization was beyond his imagination; they probably didn’t need anything as complicated as an airport or seaport like on Blue Star.

Du Qiu wasn’t sure about this planet’s gravity, but the lack of an atmosphere, at the very least, should allow spaceships to land easily on the ground.

With alien technology, vertical takeoff and landing would be no issue, but Du Qiu was confident that the aliens didn’t use the same technique as the United States, which rotates engine nozzles downward to counteract gravity during landing.

If they did, there would certainly be traces of engine exhaust scorching the ground.

Unless, of course, the dark aquamarine metal used by the aliens possessed an extremely high resistance to heat, leaving not even a trace.

With thoughts of this metallic material, Du Qiu decided to not pursue the matter of the missing cubes any further, choosing instead to devote his limited dream time to researching materials.

Unless one day he could utterly fool the super machine’s perception system into recording this area, to review upon re-entering his dream, he would put these concerns aside.

It would be marvelous if he could observe an alien spaceship or even a battleship.

Gaining technology to build a spaceship would be wonderful.

Are there men who don’t like space battleships?

Moreover, only then could he truly hold some initiative; otherwise, always on the defensive, it would only be a matter of time before being discovered by aliens.

With that, Du Qiu ceased his observation of the steel jungle.

He returned his attention to the super machine itself. He needed to review the eight catalysts he had recorded, as well as their application methods in various material purification processes.

He had previously recorded this information hastily, and many details were missed.

Du Qiu then took a closer look at the high-speed separator, memorizing all the control programs thoroughly.

This was a critical segue to the new material production process.

A matter of potential success or failure in real-world replication, he could not fully rely on dream recollections and felt compelled to reinforce his memory of the details.

As he studied these programs, Du Qiu was impressed by their clever designs, which showcased the beauty of machine control.

The intelligent control programs could accurately manage these machines, apparently interlinked with various perception systems.

To fully replicate the super machine’s atomic-level high-speed separator seemed a distant goal.

Knowing he couldn’t outdo himself in one go, Du Qiu planned to replicate the separator first, then transplant and modify the corresponding control programs based on Blue Star’s chipset architecture, while using real-world sensors to replicate the perception system.

At this rate, achieving atomic-level separation was out of reach, but molecule-level should be manageable.

At this moment, Du Qiu understood that for intelligent machinery to have powerful functions, the perception system, and core intelligent control system are of utmost importance.

Clearly, his initial choice to focus on machine perception for his doctoral research was highly prescient.

However, the design of the alien perception system startled him. Temperature, humidity, evenness, softness, ultrasonic, magnetism, laser, and various unknown sensors could be used separately or in combination.

Such a design could only be possible if the sensor materials and corresponding chip materials were of high quality, or else it would be difficult to acquire precise values within a small space.

Without such perception systems, precise machine control is impossible.

What frustrated Du Qiu somewhat was his inability to determine the materials comprising these sensors from the production programs.

Yet, Du Qiu remembered the super machine was used for the purification of hundreds of elements and the manufacturing of thousands of binary materials.

The characteristics of these materials were noted in the production programs, and Du Qiu believed he should be able to find materials with the required properties to create corresponding sensors.

This re-emphasized to Du Qiu the significance of materials.

He decided to spend the upcoming dreamtime delving into the super machine’s material production processes.

Starting with elements available on Blue Star, mastering all related purification and manufacturing processes.

Then, conducting extensive experiments in reality to find new materials that could be mass-produced.

Du Qiu immersed himself in the various material purification and production processes, memorizing details like the ratios of catalysts, molecular replacement agents, and the conditions for specific application points.

Time quickly passed.

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