Chapter 670: That's a 'Living' Land!

Chapter 670: That Was a "Living" Land!

Among the Alliance's numerous organizations, the funding for the Scientific Expedition Team was definitively at the very forefront.

This was not merely because the organization undertook over thirty percent of the players' missions, but even more so because every single time good things were scavenged and brought back from the ruins of pre-war civilizations, the resulting elevation of the Alliance's hard power was visible to the naked eye.

Inside Shelter 404, in the browsing room on Level B4.

Yin Fang was currently describing to Chu Guang, with an expression full of excitement, the treasures he had salvaged from the massive pile of junk dragged back by the Numas.

"It was a fragment only the size of a palm! When our researchers discovered it, it happened to be wedged inside a piece of carbon nanotube material from a space elevator, and we almost missed it entirely."

"If my deduction is correct, this thing should be a structural material from some kind of small or medium-sized spacecraft. What is certain is that even during the Era of Prosperity, that object would have been considerably advanced. It is a pity that only such a tiny piece remained..."

"Since there were no reference materials available, I took the liberty of naming it myself. What do you think of the term Ceramic Steel? As of now, our laboratory has already analyzed its molecular configuration and material structure, and we are currently capable of replicating it under laboratory conditions, though industrial mass production might still present some difficulties."

As he spoke, Yin Fang used the light beam projected from his holographic computer pen to display the form of the material and the data he had just collected to Chu Guang.

As if anticipating that Chu Guang would definitely not understand it, Yin Fang had specially used the armor steel currently produced in the greatest quantities by the Alliance, along with Type-A3 aviation aluminum, as points of comparison.

With these reference objects, the characteristics of the material became glaringly obvious at a single glance.

Its weight fell somewhere between that of armor steel and Type-A3 aviation aluminum, yet its hardness exceeded both. At the same time, it possessed a thermal resistance and oxidation resistance that neither of the other two possessed. Most incredible of all was that its performance in terms of toughness and resistance to mechanical impact actually surpassed that of standard alloys!

If this had been placed in the 21st century, it would likely have been treated as something fallen from an alien spaceship.

After all, the chemical bond properties and crystalline structure of ceramics dictated that they inherently lacked independent slip systems, making them incapable of resisting deformation in the way metals did.

Yet this material, named Ceramic Steel, managed to exhibit metal-like characteristics while retaining the hardness of ceramics.

For the material sciences of the 21st century, let alone the manufacturing processes, even the most fundamental theoretical principles constituted an unestablished singularity.

Even in the Era of Prosperity, which was capable of manipulating gravity, spacecraft that utilized this material were rare. It was precisely because of this that Yin Fang was so thoroughly exhilarated.

Chu Guang did not expect himself to understand the underlying principles of this material, nor was there any necessity to do so.

Matters of technology were naturally the responsibility of professionals; he only needed to know the utility, performance, and production cost of this material, and that would be sufficient.

After briefly grasping the performance of the material, Chu Guang immediately looked toward Yin Fang and asked.

"What about using the processing center on Level B7? Can it produce this thing?"

Yin Fang coughed softly.

"When I mentioned laboratory preparation, I meant that we utilized that very processing center... Otherwise, the furthest we could have gone would be the step of analyzing the material properties."

Chu Guang smiled with a hint of embarrassment.

"So that's how it is... Then if we use the equipment of the processing center for production, roughly how high can the output reach? Is there any hope of applying it to our power armor or tanks?"

Seeming to have anticipated that Chu Guang would ask this, Yin Fang made a helpless expression and said.

"For small-scale deployment, I think it shouldn't be much of a problem. Although this thing was designed for spacecraft, no one said it can only be used on spacecraft. As long as you can accept its cost, let alone power armor and tanks, installing it onto exoskeletons would be perfectly fine."

Hearing Yin Fang's reply, Chu Guang said with a smile.

"As long as it performs well, cost is not an issue."

The Alliance currently lacked neither electricity nor mineral ores; no matter how expensive the cost was, how high could it truly go?

Furthermore, this portion of the cost could also be transferred onto the shoulders of the players.

For instance, turning the upgrade to Ceramic Steel armor into paid premium content!

Taking the Alliance's self-developed and self-produced Twilight Power Armor as an example, the unit price for a single suit of "Twilight" was one million silver coins. If a player was willing to shell out an additional 500,000 silver coins for an optional configuration, they could upgrade their armor steel cuirass to a Ceramic Steel cuirass, increasing both damage resistance and durability by 50% each!

Of course, the exact extent of the increase would have to be tested at the weapon firing range, but the general line of thinking was along those lines.

Watching Chu Guang, who had already begun planning how to apply the archeological fruits to the Alliance's army, Yin Fang gave a soft cough and spoke.

"Ceramic Steel armor is merely one of the technologies we recovered from the Southern Sea region. We are currently pondering how to design a more economical production process for it. You actually do not need to be in such a hurry; the technologies we discovered extend far beyond just Ceramic Steel alone. According to my empirical estimates, we can recover at least ten D-rank technologies that we do not currently possess from this batch of 'rubbish,' and that is at the bare minimum!"

"Not only that, the investigation into the coastal city ruins around the Baiyue Province also helps us reconstruct the lifestyles, production methods, and other non-engineering experiences and knowledge of the people from the Era of Prosperity. Therein lies much that is worthy of our emulation, all of which requires a sufficient amount of time to become manifest."

"...What I wish to say is that establishing an outpost at the Baiyue Strait was truly a stroke of genius, but merely remaining as we are now is not enough. We ought to intensify our development efforts toward the Southern Sea region; there must still be quite a few undiscovered treasures hidden there."

Pausing for a moment, Yin Fang looked at Chu Guang and continued.

"In order to support the relic excavation work, I hope you can permit our Scientific Expedition Team to establish an observation station at Fries Port, making it convenient for us to perform direct screening of the salvaged items and relic materials collected locally... This would also spare us from wasting precious transport capacity to bring back a vast mountain of junk, only to have to slowly pan for gold amidst the garbage."

"That is a good idea," Chu Guang nodded with approval, "It just so happens that my shelter residents proposed the exact same thing; they hope the Scientific Expedition Team can set up a branch institution at Fries Port to provide technical support for the local relic exploration teams and salvage vessels."

For example, having the experts of the Scientific Expedition Team screen targets worthy of exploration, creating a search priority list for those targets, and eliminating targets from the list that clearly possessed no search value.

Previously, the local players' method of exploring ruins was to grab everything indiscriminately, relying purely on experience to select certain landmarks deemed worthy of exploration for their searches, and bringing back whatever they found first, regardless of whether it was useful or not.

If some highly professional researchers could be dispatched to the local area to assist the players in their exploration efforts, it would undoubtedly enhance the players' efficiency in searching the ruins and reduce their workload.

At the very least, it would prevent situations where a toilet seat was brought back under the assumption that it was a welding ring.

After listening to Chu Guang's words, Yin Fang immediately nodded and said.

"No problem, I will select some personnel, and when the time comes, I will trouble you to send them over."

Chu Guang said with a laugh.

"Rest assured on that front! Although we don't have the conditions to procure a research vessel identical to the Academy's for you, procuring a research airship is still not a problem at all! You can set out whenever you are ready—"

"By the way, bring our people along too!"

Before the sound of Chu Guang's voice could even fade, it was hurriedly interrupted by a voice drifting in from the doorway.

One could see the silver-haired Heya, appearing like a gust of wind, sweeping through the open swinging door and blowing into the browsing room from the corridor outside.

Looking toward the direction of the entrance, Yin Fang noticed the excited expression upon Heya's face; without even guessing, he knew that this person had in all probability discovered some monumental clue as well.

Chu Guang raised an eyebrow with great interest. Just as he was intending to open his mouth to ask her what exactly had occurred, she sat down upon the sofa beside him, staring at him with eyes shining brightly, and spoke with irrepressible urgency.

"A major discovery! Based on the strain samples brought back by your shelter residents from the northern shore of the Baiyue Strait, when we conducted genetic comparisons against the samples collected from Jinchuan Province, we discovered 173 points of overlap, as well as 677 points of similarity... However, none of that is the main point. The main point is that we compared several key genes responsible for expressing traits, and we can now essentially confirm that Baiyue Province is the birthplace of the Naga Fruit!"

Hearing these words, Yin Fang suddenly stared at her in astonishment, immediately followed by a furrowing of his brows as he spoke.

"Baiyue Province is the birthplace of the Naga Fruit? Are you certain?"

Although Yin Fang was not adept in the field of biological research, the situation in Jinchuan Province did not require a particularly rich store of biological knowledge to understand clearly.

The wildly growing Naga Fruit would assimilate all organic entities into its own puppets, forming a terrifying fungal domain akin to a plague over a vast territory.

In numerous aspects, it manifested characteristics identical to those of the mutant slime mold of Qingquan City, such as releasing spores, and the indiscriminate erosion of organic bodies.

If the Naga Fruit had truly originated in Baiyue Province, that place should have degenerated into a breeding ground for the Naga Fruit long ago. How could the Alliance possibly establish outposts and even settlements there?

And most crucially of all, he had not discovered any mycelium of the Naga Fruit upon those scraps of junk recovered from Baiyue Province either?!

Looking at the deeply skeptical Yin Fang, Heya took a deep breath, nodded with gravity, and said.

"I am almost one hundred percent certain... I know what is puzzling you, and we are equally puzzled as to why the Naga Fruit, which expands without restraint in Jinchuan Province, conversely performs so unremarkably in Baiyue Province where the climatic conditions are even more suitable. Yet the reality is just that astonishing! And what is even more astonishing comes afterward; while studying the genome of the primordial strain, we subsequently discovered that the primordial strain of the Naga Fruit is itself a species formed by the crossbreeding of Gaia slime mold and Earth fungi under natural conditions!"

"Formed under natural conditions?" Yin Fang's brows knitted tightly together, and he fell into deep thought while pinching his chin.

Heya nodded seriously and continued.

"Previously, we surmised that the Naga Fruit was a variety derived from the Church of the Torch utilizing the gene pool obtained from the Qingquan City broodmother to modify native fungi. It now appears that our conclusion was incomplete. The most primordial Naga Fruit strain was itself a combination of mutant slime mold and Earth fungi; they merely performed artificial replacement on a portion of its genes!"

This sounded somewhat convoluted. Chu Guang, who had been listening to the discussion between the two the entire time, attempted to comprehend it in his own manner.

To put it simply, the initial Naga Fruit was the "child" of Gaia and Earth; within its body, it possessed both Gene A coming from beyond Earth, and Gene B provided by a certain fungus upon Earth.

After discovering the Naga Fruit, the Church of the Torch found that this thing happened to be capable of helping them complete the Kingdom of Heaven project, and thus they proceeded to modify it.

For instance, through artificial cultivation, the A1 gene obtained from the Mother Nest of Qingquan City was inserted into the original Naguo strain A-B.

Now the strains rampant in Haiya Province and southern Jinchuan Province are the highly aggressive A-A1-B type, or simply the A1-B type.

But...

What difference does it make?

Chu Guang frowned slightly, about to voice the confusion in his mind. Yet just as he was about to speak, a flash of insight suddenly exploded in his brain.

The A gene!

Where did the original A gene come from?!

Seizing on that detail, Chu Guang almost blurted out instinctively.

“There’s a Mother Nest in Baiyue Province?!”

Or was there one before?!

The moment his words fell, two pairs of eyes snapped toward him.

“Baiyue Province... had a Mother Nest before?” Yin Fang was momentarily dazed, but recovered in an instant, frowning as he muttered to himself, “So that’s it...”

“Exactly! That’s the first inference we drew from that specimen! There might be a Mother Nest of mutant slime mold in Baiyue Province! And that could very well be the reason the local survivors vanished from that province!” Heya stared at Chu Guang in disbelief, marveling with an incredulous tone, “Unbelievable—you guessed it!”

Chu Guang rolled his eyes and leaned back on the sofa.

“Do I look that stupid? Just get to the point—where do you think this Mother Nest might be?”

“Right here!”

As she spoke, Heya pulled a test tube filled with dark green liquid from her pocket and shook it before their eyes.

Yin Fang was startled by her gesture and shot up from the sofa.

Chu Guang wasn’t frightened by her move, but he was taken aback when he saw the test tube in her hand, pausing for two seconds before speaking.

“Right here... what does that mean?”

“It means this thing in my hand! The extract of the original Naguo strain! This is the Mother Nest of Baiyue Province!” Heya curled her lips smugly, her bright eyes brimming with incredulity and fervor, “Those guys are absolute geniuses!”

Trying to make sense of her rambling, Chu Guang rubbed his temples in exasperation.

“Wait... who are ‘those guys’ you’re referring to?”

“The slime molds, of course!” Heya said excitedly, “Remember? No matter which type of mutant slime mold we’ve seen before, most are like the one in central Qingquan City or Xiaoyu. They all share one trait: a Mother Nest and a swarm of fruiting bodies, with all individuals sharing a single consciousness!”

Yin Fang swallowed.

“I know... and then?”

Heya continued at a rapid pace.

“The Mother Nest in Baiyue Province is an exception! It chose neither parasitism, nor symbiosis, nor assimilation—it became them!”

“...Became them?” Sensing vaguely what she meant, Chu Guang’s pupils widened slightly.

Mutant slime molds possess an extraordinary ability to adapt to their environment; they can not only flexibly alter themselves to suit their surroundings but are also adept at learning from Earth’s native organisms.

Take the Mother Nest of Qingquan City, for instance.

That creature accumulated vast combat experience through battles with humans and learned to use biomass to power human armor.

Not only that—

It also imitated powerful mutants of the wasteland, like the Yao Guai and Deathclaws, hatching formidable special fruiting bodies.

In truth, this is easy to understand.

The objects of imitation for mutant slime molds have never been limited to humans or human civilization; what they truly mimic is the ecosystem itself.

And humans, along with their civilization, are merely a part of that system.

In most cases, humans wielding the tools of civilization can prevail in natural selection, even if the wasteland harbors some absurdly powerful mutants.

Thus, in most scenarios, mutant slime molds tend to imitate human behavior more frequently, even infiltrating society and civilization itself.

But Baiyue Province was an exception.

For whatever reason, the local survivors had all but vanished, replaced by a rich diversity of species and fiercer natural selection.

So it was almost obvious—

What the “colonizing” mutant slime molds would choose as their primary target of imitation.

“Exactly!”

Heya fixed her gaze on Chu Guang, nodding to affirm his unspoken guess.

“Not just the Naguo, but the grass there, the trees there, and the mutants in the forests... every living thing in all of Baiyue Province is an extension of that Mother Nest! They all carry genes from the planet Gaia!”

“I can’t yet confirm whether the Mother Nest in Baiyue Province has a unified consciousness like those in other regions, but its children can no longer be called fruiting bodies—they are independent species with their own awareness!”

“It has completely become them—that is a ‘living’ land!”