bioinnovel Chapter 413 Antarctica!
Chapter 413 Antarctica!
three days later.
The military icebreaker is anchored at the eastern edge of the Antarctic ice sheet.
Zhang Yan stood on the deck, where the wind speed was 32 meters per second and the perceived temperature was minus 57 degrees Celsius.
The supplies coordinated by Qin Changfeng for the polar station have arrived.
From the docking point to the target coordinates, it is 1,200 kilometers, and there are no traces of human activity in the last 80 kilometers.
Zhang Yan said "Arrived" into the communicator, and Nie Qingcheng replied with a single word: "Mm".
She worked for seventy-two consecutive hours.
The acquisition offer has been formally submitted.
The Helios board of directors is in a meeting.
Zhang Yan put away the communicator and jumped onto the Black Scorpion.
Military transport vehicles delivered him above the target area.
After cross-confirmation of GPS positioning and system coordinates, Zhang Yan marked the drilling points.
The ice layer is over 2400 meters thick.
The Black Scorpion activated, its drill cutting into the ice cap.
The ice structure for the first kilometer was relatively normal.
As the temperature continued to drop, to minus sixty, minus seventy, and at a depth of eight hundred meters, the black scorpion's exoskeleton began to frost over.
1200 meters, minus 81 degrees Celsius.
1,500 meters.
The geomagnetic interference signal suddenly intensified.
The left-side sensor array of the black scorpion exhibited code skipping.
Zhang Yan manually shut down the array and switched to pure mechanical feedback mode.
1,800 meters.
The black scorpion stopped.
It's not stuck.
It was a widespread malfunction of the electronic systems.
The navigation module, balancing system, and temperature control system crashed one after another.
Only the power core is still running, but the transmission delay of control commands exceeds three seconds.
Zhang Yan abandoned the scorpion at a depth of 1,800 meters.
He set the Black Scorpion to standby mode with minimum power consumption and heat preservation.
Then he crawled out of the cockpit and stood in the ice cave.
-87 degrees Celsius.
The thousand arms unfolded, hugging the torso to maintain core body temperature.
A faint warmth emanated from my chest, a feeling of divine craftsmanship.
It's not about functional output—it's about resonance.
It's on the door below the sensor.
Zhang Yan climbed down the ice hole drilled out by the black scorpion. The ice wall was hard and smooth, and the grappling hooks of the Thousand Machine Arm were embedded in the ice layer. He had to carve out a foothold for each step.
Two kilometers.
His fingers began to lose sensation. The metal joints of the Thousand-Machine Arm became sluggish in the extremely low temperature. Zhang Yan reduced unnecessary movements and descended at a steady pace.
Two thousand two hundred meters.
He stopped.
The color of the ice has changed.
Previously, it was pure white to translucent ice. From this depth onwards, there are things embedded in the ice.
Black, thread-like, extremely fine, finer than a hair, densely frozen in ice.
It's like someone wove a giant spider web inside a layer of ice that has stood for millennia, and then froze it completely.
Zhang Yan's first reaction was—the energy threads of the Ruins.
But no, the color is darker, almost pure black.
The energy threads of the Ruins are dark purple.
He used his ingenuity to scan the ice wall closely.
Data feedback.
"Sample condition: Dead. No residual active energy. Carbon-14 dating: >100000 years. Error range ±8000 years."
"Energy characteristics: 89% spectral overlap with the unknown high-dimensional existence detected outside the gate."
"Conclusion: Not a product of 'ruins'. Suspected remnants of historical infiltration existing outside the gate."
One hundred thousand years ago.
Zhang Yan stared at the number.
One hundred thousand years ago, the seven doors should have been intact. The shielding efficiency was close to 100%.
Even in that state, it still attempted to infiltrate.
It failed. The filaments were severed by the shielding force field of the door and froze to death in the ice.
Zhang Yan didn't linger. He continued downwards.
Two thousand three hundred meters. The density of the filaments is increasing. From scattered filaments to clumps of netting. All dead. All frozen. Black lines crisscross and extend through the ice, ending in the same direction—directly downwards.
They tried to squeeze towards the door.
2,400 meters.
The ice layer has stopped.
A cavity appeared beneath Zhang Yan's feet. A spherical space, similar to Shennongjia, but a third smaller.
Runes cover the inner wall. The density is much higher than that of Shennongjia. Every inch of the surface is engraved with luminous patterns.
A fifth door floats in the center of the space.
A black sphere. Liquid metal slowly flows across its surface. Smaller than the first door, but the runes on it are more complex.
A surge of inspiration, like the work of nature, burned intensely in my chest. A resonance.
Zhang Yan landed at the bottom of the spherical space. His body temperature had dropped to thirty-four degrees Celsius. The Thousand Arms were continuously heating the space, but it couldn't counteract the cold at this depth.
He didn't have time to wait.
The locksmith needs a seven-day recovery period before he can use the collaborative mode again. We can't wait.
Zhang Yan took out the Heart of Heavenly Craftsmanship and attached it to the surface of the door.
Independent repair. Inefficient, but it can be done.
Repair initiated. Golden light spread from the point of contact. The runes on the door's surface were relit segment by segment.
The progress bar has started running.
3%. 5%. 8%.
It's almost twice as slow as when a locksmith is involved. But it's stable.
12%. 15%.
Zhang Yan's heart rate rose to 140. His body temperature barely recovered to 35 degrees Celsius thanks to the energy feedback from the Heavenly Craftsman's Heart. The Thousand Machine Arms operated at full power to maintain his body temperature.
18%. 20%.
22%.
Zhang Yan noticed something unusual out of the corner of his eye.
Ice layer.
Above the spherical space, within the ice layer surrounding the cavity walls, those black, filamentous things—
It is glowing.
Extremely faint. Dark gray light.
Starting with the filaments closest to the door, one by one they lit up.
They are not activated. The system indicates they are still in a dead state. There is no active energy.
It is memory.
The energy fluctuations released by the repair process seeped into the ice layer, awakening residual information frozen in the dead tissue.
It's like playing a record from 100,000 years ago.
Signals began to be emitted from the filamentous light. Extremely faint. Intermittent.
System capture. Parsing. Translation.
A word popped up on the screen.
"I'm back."
Zhang Yan's hand stopped on the surface of the door.
The golden light continues to spread. The restoration progress is slowly increasing.
Within the ice, thousands upon thousands of black, thread-like structures glowed silently. Dead objects from a hundred thousand years ago. Conveying signals from a hundred thousand years ago.
"I'm back."
Zhang Yan's back felt cold. It wasn't just the temperature.
It came here 100,000 years ago.
Failed.
But it remembers the way.