Rebirth of the Super Battleship

Chapter 471: Urgent Mission

At the same time that this student-run interest group discovered the black stone, it happened to be the busiest period in the development of the Divine Ark Civilization under Xiao Yu. An uncountable number of construction sites, all kinds of transport ships, construction robots, and so on were working busily, and the entire star system had changed its appearance.

Even under such circumstances, Xiao Yu still did not relax his monitoring of every facet of the Divine Ark Civilization. In fact, this monitoring had always been ongoing and had never stopped. It was just that, with the development of computational science, Xiao Yu increasingly handed over the data generated by this monitoring to automated programs for processing, and only data with certain characteristics would reach Xiao Yu for him to handle personally.

This monitoring penetrated every aspect of intelligent beings’ society. When an intelligent being walked into a supermarket and bought a bottle of beverage, that data would be aggregated into the automated program through the financial system’s data streams and, combined with this individual’s previous actions, would be comprehensively analyzed. When two intelligent beings came to a square shrouded in night and embraced each other, there might well be a concealed camera nearby monitoring them.

These students who went out for scientific fieldwork naturally could not escape Xiao Yu’s monitoring either. Xiao Yu had installed dedicated monitoring instruments on their communication devices and personal life-support devices, collecting data at every moment. When this student saw the black stone, Xiao Yu’s monitoring equipment saw it as well.

This segment of data, like usual, was sent to the information processing center for analysis. The program discovered some abnormal points within this segment of data, so this message was not ignored like the others; instead, it was specially preserved and sent to the next-level processing center.

Xiao Yu defined the second-level processing center as ‘specifically for handling messages with certain abnormal features.’ The data load at the second-level data processing center was much lower, which meant Xiao Yu could set more detection conditions here. Messages that had certain abnormal features but simultaneously possessed one other particular feature would be deemed safe and ignored here; if they simultaneously possessed yet another particular feature, they would be singled out for emphasis and sent up to the next-level data processing center for handling.

Logically, such data processing centers were divided into five layers in total. If all five layers of data processing centers determined the data to be abnormal, the message would be submitted directly to Xiao Yu for him to handle personally.

By this means, while Xiao Yu was conducting extremely comprehensive monitoring of intelligent beings’ society, he also saved a large amount of computational power.

This message went through precisely such a process. Supported by advanced hardware, the program processed data extremely quickly. Essentially, at the very moment the student saw the black stone, the message had already been processed by the five layers of logical processing units and ultimately presented before Xiao Yu.

A black stone was not, in itself, anything strange. Such things were everywhere in this star system, and Xiao Yu could find as many as he wanted. But this black stone was different. It was roughly an irregular ellipsoid, entirely jet-black, yet within the blackness there seemed to be a faint radiance emanating. This glimmer was fleeting. When viewed head-on, it would vanish; when glimpsed from the corner of one’s eye, it would reappear.If that were all, the stone still would not have been enough to attract Xiao Yu’s attention. But when Xiao Yu, through the optical monitoring instrument installed on this student’s personal life-support device, saw the black stone, waves surged instantly within his heart.

Xiao Yu was very familiar with this thing, extremely familiar. Back on Earth, Xiao Yu had once possessed such a stone and had studied it for years. After gradually grasping its properties, he even used the stone’s help to separate his soul from body and merge it with a computer.

That stone is still being kept by Xiao Yu. After every technological breakthrough, Xiao Yu would take this stone out and try to unravel the mysteries contained upon it. But strangely, after Xiao Yu used this black stone to separate his soul, the stone lost all of its bizarre traits. No faint light radiated from it anymore, and no matter what instruments were used, none of the strange emissions could be detected from it. He had not even been able to analyze what substance it was made of in the past, but after it lost all its traits, using the technology of the human era, Xiao Yu easily analyzed its composition. It was silicon dioxide, a very ordinary substance.

This analytical result has never changed. Whether Xiao Yu analyzed it with the technology of the human era or with the technology of a Level 5 Civilization now, the result was the same. Xiao Yu even analyzed it in detail at the atomic level, grasping the characteristics of every atomic nucleus inside it, yet he still could not find how it differed from other ordinary materials.

This matter is the greatest enigma in Xiao Yu’s heart. Its appearance was far too coincidental. It happened to appear on the eve of Earth’s destruction and happened to possess such special properties. Xiao Yu did not believe for a moment that there was no scheme behind this.

It can be said that the key that opened Xiao Yu’s tragic and magnificent journey under the starry sky was this black stone.

Precisely because this black stone was too important to Xiao Yu, the very moment he saw it through the monitoring equipment, waves surged in his heart.

“This stone cannot be touched by any intelligent being. It must be in my hands.” Xiao Yu immediately made up his mind.

However, Xiao Yu quickly discovered a difficulty. In the area where this interest group was exploring and discovered this black stone, Xiao Yu had no forces he could command. The nearest spaceship was tens of thousands of kilometers away in space, and this moon had a dense atmosphere. For that ship to arrive here would take at least three minutes. The nearest research base was three hundred kilometers away. Even riding a vehicle specially developed for near-space travel, it would take robots at least ten minutes to reach the site.

Xiao Yu had only been monitoring these students, but he had not reserved dedicated software and hardware in their personal life-support devices. In other words, Xiao Yu could not remotely control the personal life-support devices to stop the students from approaching. Moreover, because a different communication system was being used, even to warn the student directly via a message would take at least one and a half minutes.

“I do not know what consequences will occur if these intelligent beings touch this black stone, but I am unwilling to take the risk. I do not want any lifeform to come into contact with this thing. Then this is what we will do.” Xiao Yu made his decision in an instant.

The communication channel link began immediately, and in space three Village-Class spaceships carrying at least one hundred combat robots rapidly began closing in. Just at this moment, the student had already bent down and directly picked up the black stone with his hand, holding it before his eyes to examine it.

“Come look, this thing is so strange. How can a stone emit light? It is not like a fluorescent stone or anything like that.”

Hearing the student’s call, several people beside him hurried over, talking all at once: “Yes, this thing is really strange. Mm, I think we should bring it back and hand it over to the teacher for study.”

“Alright, who knows, we might make a major discovery.” As he spoke, the student casually put the stone into his backpack and, following the larger group, continued walking forward.

Obviously, while the stone was a bit odd, it did not attract too much attention from this interest group conducting the field study. After all, even in the era of Earth, a stone that could glow would not draw much attention, let alone from intelligent beings living under the social system of a Level 5 Civilization.

Only Xiao Yu knew what value this thing truly possessed. The engines of the three Village-Class spaceships were pushed to the limit, and their speed almost instantly climbed to tens of thousands of kilometers per second. After a brief period of travel, their speed had to be reduced again, because the atmosphere of this moon lay ahead. At a velocity of tens of thousands of kilometers per second, the moon’s atmosphere was no different from steel plate. Crashing into it directly at such speed would result in the ships being destroyed.

The three ships plunged into the atmosphere at a high speed of five hundred kilometers per second. Friction with the gases did not change the hulls, but the energy consumption of the protective shields reached a terrifying level.

The ships’ speed continued to drop rapidly. Advancing through the atmosphere at five hundred kilometers per second, the wind they kicked up alone could blast a big crater into the ground. This might cause abnormal damage to the stone, something Xiao Yu did not wish to see happen.

The communication channel link was finally connected. The student then heard Xiao Yu’s voice.

“I am Xiao Yu,” Xiao Yu’s voice remained steady. “There is an urgent mission that you must carry out. I now order you to stand where you are at once, put everything except your life-support devices on the ground, squat down, and do not move.”

The expressions of several students stiffened at the same time. After a moment, one student turned his head and asked another student, “Did you, did you hear that?”

“It seems, it seems the Master is speaking to us personally…”