Chapter 58: Dreamscape: The Crystal Chip?

In the western hemisphere of Blue Star, in the United States, within a secret base.

“Dr. Hitz, is the experimental preparation complete? Shall we begin the experiment?”

A tall, white-haired Caucasian man silently observed the huge display screen in front of him, not immediately responding to his assistant’s question.

This room resembled a command center, furnished with not only the central massive screen but also many smaller tablet displays.

On the giant screen, the graphical representation of a human brain rotated continually.

“Hitz, are you scared?”

Another voice, laced with a tinge of mockery, came from behind the white-haired man.

“Shut up, Gilt!” Dr. Hitz turned around and glared at the young blonde man sitting in a chair behind him.

The young man lounged casually, holding a can of potato chips and occasionally tossing one into his mouth.

“Don’t you realize? We may be making history, or we might be opening Pandora’s Box!”

“Isn’t that exactly what you wanted?” Gilt said dismissively.

“Gilt, are you sure your encryption algorithm won’t be cracked by it?” Dr. Hitz stared intently at Gilt.

Gilt shrugged nonchalantly, “My algorithm, like your chaos mechanism, is subject to fate. It may or may not be cracked. In any case, you’ve gone mad, and the experiment might be your cure, so let’s see what fate has in store, shall we?”

“Gilt, don’t you feel we are about to create history?”

“I just want to finish the experiment and get out for some fun. I’m practically molding in this godforsaken place.”

Dr. Hitz ignored Gilt and turned back to the screen, watching the brain image and decisively ordering his assistant, “Begin the 46th chaos trial!”

Following Dr. Hitz’s command, the screen suddenly turned pitch black.

After over ten minutes, just as Dr. Hitz was becoming restless, a bright spot suddenly appeared at the center of the screen!

The spot erupted, sending countless rays in every direction, and at the center, a ball of light swelled.

Then, the orb shattered, its fragments spinning and colliding, scattering in all directions.

Meanwhile, the smaller screens displayed countless cascading codes.

“Wow, Hitz, I must say the visuals this time are stunning. What made you think of simulating the Big Bang?”

Gilt laughed heartily, his laughter still carrying a mocking undertone.

Unseen by him, Dr. Hitz’s face was a mix of shock, ecstasy, and agony, all melding together.

Then, Dr. Hitz slowly collapsed to the floor.

“Doctor! Doctor, what’s wrong?” the assistant cried out, trying to help him.

“Damn it!” Gilt dashed over. “Don’t touch him! Quickly find some nitroglycerine! He’s having a heart attack.”

Gilt sat on the floor, gently lifting Dr. Hitz’s head to rest on his lap.

“Hey, old pal, you can’t check out on us now. You dragged me to this hellhole, and we haven’t settled the score.”

Dr. Hitz saw Gilt’s face and murmured, “That image wasn’t…” but he never finished the sentence; his head tilted to one side, lifeless.

Gilt felt a jolt in his heart, checked for a pulse and breath, and found none.

“Sigh…” With a long sigh, Gilt slowly laid Dr. Hitz’s head down and closed his eyelids.

“Old friend, how inconsiderate of you. The experiment has just begun, and the outcome is unknown. You said it would be historic for humanity, yet, you won’t see it.”

“Dr. Gilt, the emergency kit is here…” The assistant’s words trailed off as he caught Gilt’s expression and realized the situation. The emergency kit fell to the floor.

At this moment, neither noticed on the big screen, amidst the myriad of light fragments, two luminous points seemed to fall from the top of the screen to the bottom—like two glistening teardrops.

At precisely ten o’clock at night, Du Qiu went to sleep on his crystal pillow on time.

Once more, he traversed the boundless cosmic starry sky and passed through the vast void until a white vortex appeared, and Du Qiu focused his attention.

This time, he was intent on hearing the sentence from the depths of his consciousness in its entirety.

“Consciousness upload successful!”

Ah, it was both joyous and worrying; he still hadn’t heard the full message, but there was some progress; this time, he caught two more words.

These words seemed to offer Du Qiu a clue.

A successful consciousness upload meant that his crystal pillow connected to an alien civilization’s supercomputer allowed his consciousness to transfer there.

Just as he realized this, Du Qiu was overwhelmed by the monumental technology akin to a miracle from the alien civilization.

On Blue Star, there are several methods to classify cosmic intelligent civilizations.

Nonetheless, civilizations capable of ultra-long-distance consciousness transmission are undoubtedly regarded as godlike.

Legend has it that such civilizations can reset the entire universe.

After the excitement, Du Qiu became perplexed. Based on what he saw through the supercomputer, the steel jungle didn’t seem to convey the level of a godlike civilization.

Although it was certain that this alien civilization was above level four, it hardly seemed godlike.

Of course, Du Qiu didn’t know what a godlike civilization looked like, but he intuitively felt it wasn’t represented by the steel jungle he observed.

Once his emotions settled, two research subjects awaited Du Qiu in his dream that night: the crystal material and the white vortex.

Du Qiu decided to study the crystal material first, as the appearance of the “Wolf’s Kiss” required him to quickly address the concerns about his crystal pillow.

If he could replicate it himself, the original crystal pillow could be disposed of as he wished.

But before disposal, he would ensure to remove the pattern of the six white dots.

Du Qiu repeatedly reviewed the process—from the initial refinement of the crystal material to its final shaping—confirming the six catalysts and three molecular transmutators all correct.

He also committed every detail of the refinement and synthesis process to memory.

Then he began to search for the crystal material using the sensory system in the supercomputer.

Du Qiu believed the crystal material might actually be the chip of the alien civilization.

Consider that on Blue Star, chips are silicon-based, which indicates an inherent connection between silicon and computer chips.

It’s plausible that, although the alien civilization is more advanced than those on Blue Star, the computer chips might also be made from silicon, just crystallized.

Crystal material could likely offer better performance than pure silicon chips.

With this hypothesis, Du Qiu felt certain the sensory system could detect the location of the chip housing the intelligent core within the supercomputer.

The moment a particular scene came back through the sensory system, Du Qiu knew he had found the crystal material.