“If only there’s a super-large spatial ring…” Xia Fei muttered to himself. The spatial ring he owned had already been filled to the brim with all the items from the ancient civilization, without even a bit of space left.
“Your spatial ring has twenty cubic meters of space. All these ores will require at least over ten thousand cubic meters of space. I’ve never once heard of such a large spatial tool existing,” Phantom said.
Xia Fei shrugged. “Since we have yet to find a way to escape, why don’t we do a thorough investigation of this place first?”
Going back the same way they came, Pod was like a passionate guide, constantly explaining to Xia Fei the structure of this deep-sea mining facility. From what he was told, Xia Fei learned that this kind of energy crystals were also very precious raw materials to the ancient civilization, and this mining base was under joint military management. The energy shield, which acted as protection for this place, not only shielded the existence of this site but also protected it from external search signals, which was why it had not been discovered until now.
Though Clean Knife managed to escape, the corpses of his three companions remained. Xia Fei rifled through their belongings and found some military equipment and three spatial rings of varying sizes. The largest was five cubic meters, while the smallest was not even a single cubic meter. They mostly contained supplies, with hardly anything of value. Xia Fei had set his eyes on more valuable things now, so he hardly cared about some of the more common items they had found.
“Could Clean Knife be hiding himself in some corner, waiting for an opportunity to ambush you? Every exit from this place has gotten sealed off, so there’s no way he can escape, logically speaking,” Phantom said somewhat worriedly.
Xia Fei shook his head. “He’s severely injured right now, so no matter how bold he is, I strongly doubt he’ll come and bother me. Unfortunately for me, I can’t catch him, either; people capable of using spatial planes sure are troublesome.”
After he stored away what he found, he noticed that the woman was missing her pinky.
“From the wound, it looks like someone severed it off completely. It doesn’t appear to be the work of the warbots since their weapons were much bulkier and wouldn’t be able to leave such a fine scar.” Phantom concluded after examining it.
“It’s Clean Knife’s handiwork again,” Xia Fei muttered to himself. “Perhaps you didn’t notice this, but I remember clearly that the woman’s pinky was still intact before we left for the warehouse. Clean Knife probably removed it while we were gone.”
“You remember this so clearly?” Phantom was curious. There was always a limit to a person’s memory and vision, so he did not understand how Xia Fei was able to remember such a minute detail.
“The woman wore a very special ring, which was set with a golden hydra on it, and it caught my eye several times.”
“Could it have been a spatial ring?”
“Perhaps. Clean Knife must really not want us to get the ring, which is why he took the risk of revealing himself just to retrieve it.”
“Just what secret does that ring hold?” Phantom was perplexed, wondering to himself.
Xia Fei gathered all the valuable items in the warehouse, and very soon, that huge warehouse was piled high with plenty of things from the ancient civilization. There were items used in an office, while others were for mining; all the equipment present was different, though they all shared one commonality: They were all very valuable.
Phantom looked at the warehouse now filled with their haul in great satisfaction. “You can give this automatic ice cream machine to Avril; with 1300 flavors, I’m sure it will last her for quite a while. There’s also this gourmet preparation machine; as a lady from a rich family, I’m sure that she doesn’t know how to cook…”
Xia Fei furrowed his brows. There were plenty of things here, yet he still felt that it was lacking something.
“Pod, since this is a joint military base, there ought to be some weapons around, right?”
“Of course. They’re those bad robots that you destroyed. They’re the security here.”
“Aside from them?”
“That’s all. Though there’s a very mysterious room that Pod has never been in before, so I have no idea what’s behind it.”
Xia Fei was surprised to learn this. “Where’s this room? Lead me there.”
They made their way down a cramped and long corridor, with the robot Pod bringing Xia Fei all the way through what appeared to be a mine shaft.
“This was originally an abandoned mine. In the civilized age of 529,364, the people from the heritage department suddenly approached us, the mining sector, to help fabricate a few rooms down this disused mining shaft, where they later stationed a small division for a very long time. They lived together with the miners, though no one was ever allowed to step into their office. Even the people in charge of cleaning were barred.”
The heritage department was a purely technical department in the ancient civilization dedicated to reproduction and technological continuity, so why would they suddenly appear here in this deepsea mining base?
Speaking of which, it was common for classified agencies to establish offices in some hidden locations to maintain their secrecy or avoid suspicion. It was like how the investigation department would often work among the civilians, for the location of their base might be too sensitive and for fear of being monitored by interested parties.
Certainly, the heritage department would not establish an office here last minute for no rhyme or reason. This place must definitely be hiding some huge secret.
“The men from the heritage department worked here for about half a year before Advent Day arrived,” Pod said quietly.
Xia Fei continued what Pod said. “The robots all suddenly betrayed humans after Advent Day and killed everyone living here in this base, right?”
Pod’s electronic eyes were filled with rage. “They’re all bad robots! Robots and humans are friends! Robots need to serve man, not harm them. They went against the very belief that they were implanted with from birth!”
“So why didn’t you betray humans?” Xia Fei asked.
“Pod got the order to eradicate all humans on Advent Day, but Pod’s analytical program concluded that this message was erroneous, which was why I rejected executing the said order. Actually, not all robots accepted this order. There were many other fellow robots like Pod that rejected the order, and there were others that ultimately suffered system failure due to their inability to draw a conclusion from the overly complex analyses.”
“Unfortunately, there were a lot more robots that accepted this order than those that rejected it, which was why the bad robots had the advantage,” Pod very helplessly answered.
Xia Fei nodded. “So who sent you this order to eradicate all humans?”
Pod answered, “It’s the Sentinel Goddess.”
“The Sentinel Goddess?”
“She’s not a human, but the mainframe of all the robots back then. With the capability to do exceptionally complex calculations that surpassed all, it’s her responsibility to monitor the operational status of all the robots and issue them orders accordingly.”
Xia Fei found the mystery behind the demise of the ancient civilization utterly incomprehensible. Because humanity created the ultimate AI computer, which had eventually given the order to eradicate all human beings, it could be understood that the one who betrayed humanity was just the Sentinel Goddess, while the other robots were merely faithfully executing her orders.
This was akin to a queen giving orders to her guards. Perhaps the biggest mistake that the ancient humans had made was letting robots supervise themselves.
“Why didn’t the cleaning robots or mining robots betray humans?” Xia Fei asked.
“Because they’re only half-intelligent models, unable to connect to the Sentinel Goddess directly, which was why her orders didn’t affect any of them.”
It looked like in order to unravel the mystery behind the ancient civilization’s demise fully, he must make sense why the Sentinel Goddess had betrayed mankind first. In addition, it was unknown if this mainframe with super computational capabilities still existed.
Xia Fei only had a superficial understanding of what had happened years back when humanity was practically annihilated. He did not ask too specifically, since it was something that had happened a very long time ago, and the human civilization of today was very different from that of yesteryear. Humans no longer relied on robots and the robot army, which was powerful enough to eradicate everything during the ancient era, had also gone missing ever since. The truth of this history was left for some historians to research, and Xia Fei was more concerned with his present predicament.
He continued down the mine shaft for dozens of minutes before a heavily encrypted metal alloy door blocked his advancement.
“This is the heritage department’s office,” Pod said. “You’ll need a secret passcode to get past this door.”
Xia Fei nodded and took out his tools to crack open the outer casing of the keypad. This was not the first Xia Fei had to crack a multi-encryption lock of the ancient civilization, so he was well-versed at getting past the layers upon layers of protections.
*Clank!*
The metal door slowly opened as dozens of fluorescent lights from inside the room came on. Xia Fei made his way inside and saw that the room was filled with design blueprints of varying sizes, almost as if they were in the process of studying all these plans.
Xia Fei curiously stared at the blueprint pinned on the wall. “An energy acceleration system? This is a curve-speed analysis chart…
“Hold on. These blueprints look like structural components, but I wonder what can they all combine with?” Xia Fei was muttering to himself as he screwed his eyebrows together.
There was an even smaller room inside. Xia Fei opened the door and stepped in, only to find that the office tools inside were of an even higher grade, almost as if this was where the project supervisor used to work.
The only structural blueprint pinned on the wall answered Xia Fei’s question. After examining its outer appearance and reading the description underneath, Xia Fei subconsciously sucked in a cold breath.
“Just what blueprint is this?” Phantom asked, curious.
“Do you still remember that gargantuan ship we saw in the Death Tri-region, the Titan-class superwarship?”
“Of course, I do. I even see that superwarship in my dreams from time to time. Laying my eyes on it has undoubtedly given me the greatest shock,” Phantom said, a hint of exhilaration in his voice. The fact was that it would be impossible for anyone to forget that gargantuan warship if they were to have laid eyes on it, all because it was an existence that was well beyond the limits of human imagination.
“This is a giant pulse laser cannon. It’s the main weapon of the Titan!” Xia Fei revealed with gravitas.
Phantom was stunned. “Is this really the blueprint for the Titan’s main gun?”
“I am positive that it is!”
Phantom was silent for a good while before saying, “You’ve obtained Titan’s radar system in the Death Tri-region, Qin Mang gave you the blueprints for the Titan’s structural hull, and if we include this blueprint for the main weapon, you’re now a step closer to gathering all the blueprints necessary.”
