Star Empire

In the material testing station that was used to create materials compatible with crystal energy, which was the same as the Honeycomb Gnaku, Cavenriel started a new wave of element screening.

The practice of "blinding" crystal energy fusion materials based on the composition of the human body has indeed been successful, but in this approach, the gain of inert crystal energy to the overall material is like fine sand seeping into a mixed material composed of large particles. , although the properties of the overall material have shown good variation, the crystal energy itself has also been dispersed and disappeared in the overall alloy. Such properties are contrary to the requirements of storage and reuse. Therefore, Cavernrel had to be selected in the audition. Start all over again.

Of course, this attempt obviously failed.

The longer the material can maintain its own properties in the face of crystal energy, or remain stable in the end, this property is the design idea of ​​the crystal energy charging alloy, not the storage material. During the experiment, Cavinrel discovered his research The result started to veer in the same old direction.

However, this test also had some results: the elemental test was initially carried out by directly using highly contaminated direct materials, or using crystal energy materials extracted from Eskett, so that the tested materials were placed very close to the crystal energy metal. Conduct direct irradiation experiments in foggy places, but now, a relatively more scientific method is to make the material into a hollow spherical shell, and then conduct secondary observations in the same way - each of the quantitative indicators present in it is Quite plain.

For these simple indicators, Cavinrel has always been a bit worried: why did the previous testing methods produce huge errors? Why didn't anyone point out these problems during the trial? It is impossible to quantify the details of the equipment, and many necessary details are directly ignored. The two processes are different. It can be said that from my current perspective, there are too many processes that can be optimized in the past.

"Could it be that what we once thought was advanced..."

"Maybe, the tools are not suitable, and the tasks that tools used to perform for people in the past... I'm afraid it would be much more difficult for people to pick them up even if they think about it."

When a person needs to obtain flame, according to the custom of the Federation, he will choose to use an arc lighter, a portable plasma igniter or even a single fusion thermonuclear reactor and understand their full set of manufacturing, use and safety precautions, but They don't know how to drill wood to make fire.

The advancement of the times has not only broadened knowledge, but also limited some knowledge to a certain extent. Although this knowledge now seems to only occupy memory, when everything starts from the beginning, some original knowledge may show unexpected things. However, in this era, the part of knowledge that is used as a "stepping stone" has been almost forgotten.

"This is...what does this involve..."

"Although it is strange, these contents...may just show something: the inexplicable explosion of the crystal energy vortex and all the events it involves have exceeded the original scope of this universe, including...us in the past everything of."

No one can estimate the remaining applicability of all inherent rules and regulations in this newly emerged field. The crystal energy vortex was the first to show its ability to ignore the speed of light and to jump through "radiation" and other connecting nodes. The nature of contamination makes it difficult to deal with conventional means.

The three-person federal council finally decided to build a huge warped long wall, using highly curved time and space to seal the scope of the abnormal state and stop the flow of matter. However, as a necessary exchange of information, Cavinriel and Kalost were conducting The physical relay information transmission method used in the initial research actually weakened the influence of crystal energy.

In the closed area filled with the light of golden crystal energy, no one knows whether there will be new dangers that cannot be detected by the current federal search methods. And those old preventive measures, let alone whether they can filter out new loopholes, will Within the exposure range of crystal energy radiation, even if the crystal energy interference is so weak that it does not produce changes that could cause alarm, can it be 100% sure of safety?

After carefully thinking about this, these people almost felt a sense of fear in their hearts. Fortunately, the harm of crystal energy is relatively not great, as the confirmed results suggest. At least for now, crystal energy decay is fairly stable.

If it were a more dangerous equivalent existence, the federal civilization might have been wiped out.

After the synthetic direction failed, Cavinrel thought over and over again and decided to change his mind and go to nature to find feasible materials. After all, the natural environment, an existence that will increase with the development of civilization, will always have some parts that are not fully understood. ——Even if the Federation occupies the entire universe, the remaining parts are still far behind.

In fact, looking at the current situation, the types of materials that nature can provide are much more than those commonly used by the Federation, and even the number that a scientist can think of for the first time. And from the perspective of the grand unified theory of information, such a huge number The number also represents a wide variety of information arrangement and combination methods. It is very likely that among these combination methods, there is one that can store a large amount of crystal energy while being compatible rather than integrating it with crystal energy.

It's just that...the relevant plan is not so pleasant during the implementation process. If you want to classify every substance that is slightly unique in nature as "a" and sample it for testing, especially if it cannot be used. In the case of computer simulation, the number of such experiments can be measured in astronomical numbers.

However... in the current situation, which is still vague but pregnant with some unimaginable drastic changes, even though the difficulties are huge, those scientific workers still do it meticulously.

…

If this deformed honeycomb-like research facility was a large element storage box before, now it seems like it is beginning to look like a grocery store, with various materials from all over the universe, including all kinds of The soil, rocks, atmosphere, and even some unknown things in the core of stars were carefully encapsulated, and then plastically tested in a small compartment. This looked very funny, but it was not No one neglects this repetitive and trivial task.

With the help of the infrastructure provided by the fleet brought by Vidoville, the expanded manpower and new facilities greatly accelerated the progress of Cavinriel's research. In a relatively short period of time, Cavinriel initially locked in A substance:

crystal.

Crystal is a substance that widely exists in solid celestial bodies. It belongs to the quartz family. Quartz crystals are mainly composed of silicon dioxide. In addition, there are also a small amount of metal elements. For things like crystal, there is really no one here. You may find it unfamiliar. The high-performance transparent materials now manufactured using atomic stacking technology are also improved from crystal glass. In previous wars, the method of directly burning the entire planet into a piece of quartz glass with an annihilation bomb was used everywhere in the universe. .

After further refinement and screening, an ideal substance was finally determined: citrine, and the one with a ratio of bound water to free water inside that is close to 1:1 has the best storage effect.

Coincidentally, the color of citrine itself is similar to crystal energy. At the same time, the reason why citrine produces such color is the iron ions present inside the crystal. Iron is one of the most abundant metal elements in the human body, and the iron contained in water A large amount of hydrogen is the substance that remains stable for the longest time in the face of crystal energy radiation.

The strange correspondence between these surface properties and information properties deeply touched Cavinriel's world view, and also made him extremely envious of Zhai Cahir's ability to have the Eye of True Seeing, but arcane energy is scarce The existence and strange disturbance methods make the fusion of arcane directions completely unattainable. Cavernril has no way to do this. This is not something that can be solved by the existing resource stack.

After determining the composition of natural substances, or the way information is arranged and combined, powerful technology should come in handy. The element accumulation technology at the molecular, atomic, hadron, and perturbative color core levels allows the federal technology to create The purity of stacked materials can reach 100%.

In the three-dimensional printing of the interference force field and particle spray gun, a block has a standard total amount of materials for testing, leaving a hollow inner cavity. Silica, ferric ions, bound water and free water are all based on the values ​​obtained in previous experiments. The best data were combined, piled up, and the result was this crystal clear yellow gem.

In a test compartment, the crystal clear yellow crystal ball was firmly fixed on the support, and a preset small cone was gently removed from the crystal ball by a manipulator. There were more than any previous single test. Many crystal energy samples were also sent to the laboratory.

In the silver corridor outside the compartment, Torres and Eskett were already on standby, but Eskett's mental state was obviously not very good. When Cavinrel saw him in the first order, he even doubted whether he was What kind of mental shock had he endured, because he only had two activities while standing there, one was his eyes that moved occasionally, and his eyes were so dull that they could not reveal any valuable emotional information, and the other was his mouth that kept chanting: "Crystal energy...extraction...encapsulation...crystal energy..."

"Asket, wake up, are you okay?" Cavernriel silently floated behind Eskett and patted him hard on the shoulder.

"Crystal energy...encapsulation...extraction...crystal...oh!" Being slapped so hard by Cavinriel, the sluggish Eskett suddenly woke up from his stupor, "Science officer, I'm really sorry, my I just couldn't concentrate..."

"...I know that you have been working very hard during this period, and I also know that maybe your knot has not been completely resolved..." Cavinriel also knows some of the details, and now, these are on a grand scale Almost all the direct crystal energy materials needed for his experiments were extracted by him. Although compared to most inductive experiments, there are still fewer parts that require direct use of decay materials, but for individual-level work, the intensity of work required to extract such a large amount of crystal energy decay materials is also high. It’s enough to tire these highly modified individuals——

Including myself, the experiment was directly led by these people.

However, the details of every part of the experiment are indispensable for the people who work with them. It can be as small as maintaining the operation of part of the energy circuit, as large as maintaining the space station, maintaining the delivery of various required resources, formulating plans, explaining details...

Although the Federation has layers of black box structures, perhaps it is also at each level that the individuals who make up the black boxes are working silently and invisibly to give us the simplest and most direct...result? But, if that is the case, then why do some people feel that the Federation is cold...even, including me...

...like a human? What is a person?

…

After a short period of silence, Cavinriel gently held Eskett's shoulder and patted it twice, "At present, we really don't have a good way to obtain crystal energy. What we can do is to use this method." There is an indirect way to obtain samples from the crystal energy vortex, and you are the only one who has the ability to re-extract crystal energy from crystalline materials. We have no better way, so we can only ask you to work harder for the time being until the experiment is successful. , your workload can be greatly reduced.”

"Plus, I'll convince you that everything has value."

"...Yes, Science Officer, thank you for your understanding."

"The current experimental task is to use your ability to introduce crystal energy samples into the test crystal. You...huh?"

"What's wrong, science officer?" Noticing the science officer's surprise towards her, Eskett instantly became nervous.

"Your hair and eyes... turned golden, and your characteristics changed?" Cavinriel asked strangely.

"Ah?! This - I really didn't pay attention -" Eskett was told by Cavinriel, and she quickly observed it, and then she noticed her changes.

At the beginning, when the team rescued the advance team back to the space station, all unnecessary attachments on their bodies were removed, including all clothing and all unnecessary tissues, so in fact Eskett and Torres were like this for a period of time Work is all about carrying out various tasks with a bald head that is comparable to a color-core armored shell/

Today's human individuals have been corrected to an almost perfect level at the cellular level. Their metabolism is extremely slow. Without external stimulation, there may not even be a new "cell" added for millions of years. In this case, naturally The body's own external attachments are also very slow to regenerate, but now Eskett's new hair has grown back faster than normal, but the difference is that the hair color is golden.

"... Maybe we have overlooked some effects that will appear in daily life... This should be some kind of effect of crystal energy." Thinking of Zhai Cahir's purple eyes, Cavinriel made a rough guess, information first It is entirely possible that the existence of a stable state in the soul will change the external properties of the body to a certain extent. He briefly comforted Eskett and let the two of them enter the isolation room.

Then, the experiment began.

Outside the room, Cavinrel activated a holographic information display and blocked the crystal energy display to save bandwidth, focusing all his energy on Torres and Eskett's experiments.

Under Eskett's order, the safe box containing the crystal energy sample was slowly and steadily delivered to the test stand holding the crystal ball. Torres opened the safe box and found a small group of crystals floating in the middle of the empty box. The clouds and mist exude yellow light, and some crystal energy contamination has appeared on the inner wall of the box. Some golden flashes have appeared on the inner wall of the box that should have been silver-gray.

"Up to now... we still can't understand why crystal energy can be transported like this..." The chief scientific officer shook his head, "Esket, let's get started."

Eskett raised his spirits and felt the connection between the crystal energy deep in his soul and the small group of pale golden clouds in front of him. The connection was originally very weak, but as Eskett skillfully focused all his perceptions and mental attention on it, When this weak connection was made, the resonance began to become stronger, and the crystal energy began to slowly float according to Eskett's will, and slowly drifted towards the hole of the crystal ball shell.

As the crystal energy got closer to the crystal ball, Eskett gradually became nervous. Although he knew that the samples in front of him were resettable, he very much hoped that he could succeed this time.

Otherwise, he will have to work for an unknown amount of time.

The crystal energy cloud was smoothly sent into the spherical shell. Torres immediately put the pre-cut part back to its original position, while Eskett tried his best to maintain the connection between his soul and the crystal energy. To observe how the crystal energy flows in the crystal ball shell.

In Eskett's perception, these crystal energies flowed slowly within the spherical shell, and did not merge with the material in a certain place. During the slow change, these crystal energies gradually merged with the free substances in the crystal spherical shell. The water molecules came into contact and immediately began to stabilize, and those free water molecules were also fixed.

"Asket, report the results of the first crystal energy injection experiment." Above Eskett's head, Calvin Riel's voice was broadcast losslessly throughout the isolation cabin, waking up the two people who were confused. After understanding what the changes in front of him meant, excitement instantly squeezed out all his emotions - this was the result of his hands!

Regardless of any etiquette or process terminology, he answered loudly and excitedly, "Science officer, crystal energy can be stored in this material! After the crystal energy is integrated into the material, it will eventually attach to the free water molecules in the crystal, and the water The molecules are also fixed in a way that I can't explain at the moment."

"Very good, continue to repeat and test the upper limit of the crystal energy that this material can store."

"Understood!" In Eskett's excited work, one crystal energy sample after another was guided into this small crystal ball. The energy storage capacity of hydrated citrine gradually increased in Eskett's repeated actions. Attracting everyone's attention, Eskett could only report apologetically: "The crystal energy sample has been used up."

"Understood. Outside the isolation gate, Cavinriel has carefully recorded all this. I will report and communicate these situations to the two consuls and other scientists responsible for the unified information as soon as possible. Thank you for your hard work. Please wait a moment. We will conduct other tests later, so please rest first.”

After Eskett determined that the citrine crystal ball did not release enough crystal energy radiation to cause infection, the outer isolation door slid open silently under the traction of the mechanism. Eskett looked at everything around her and felt a kind of The long-lost sense of intimacy, "It seems that it is really worthwhile to repeat the work so many times before. I will check the laboratory environment again and then manually open the inner isolation door. I... hmm? The crystal in the crystal ball How could it be leaked? Oh no! It was leaked!"

Eskett ran to a handle painted with a red and yellow logo in an instant and pushed the handle upward as fast as possible. The originally open outer isolation door closed tightly in an instant as if it ignored inertia without causing any problems. Vibration or sound.

"What?" Torres was startled by Eskett's sudden surprise.

"The crystal energy stored in the citrine ball began to leak. In my perception, it was like water vapor rising slowly from the top of the ball...Torres, what are you doing?" Eskett turned around and saw Torres. He didn't know when he put his hand on the top of the crystal ball. From his hand, some faint golden clouds were slowly rising, like dense mist.

"What's the temperature of your palm?" Eskett stared at Torres who was a little confused and asked.

"One hundred and twelve degrees."

"Then let's put down the carbon-based regulations first - our core composition no longer knows what kind of material it is, the human body is just a decoration... these conditions... are worth thinking about..."

"Above one hundred degrees, water vapor, the same range of crystal energy induction..." Eskett frowned and thought about the situation, "Well... if we look at it in terms of old, matter or energy-rich storage materials In this case... both the difficulty of depositing and stripping can be said to be quite small - the application range of the material is very gentle, almost similar to the life activity range of the human body we have now... the materials also have similarities, from these aspects See, this material can be used with the appropriate constraints, but...ah, yes, it's pretty good!"

".This is very good material!" Eskett suddenly thought of something.